Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works

by Charlotte Smith

  ‘Ah! Orlando, how dreary now seemed my own room, to which when you were here, I used to retire with so much delight from all the discomforts of my lot! It was a lovely moonlight night, and yet early when I went to the turret. From the window I looked into the park, with sensations how different from those I used to feel when I expected to see you cross it! I was restless and wretched, and knew I could not sleep if I went to bed; or, if I did, I feared I should dream of Sir John Belgrave’s pursuing me. I wished for some book I never had read, for you have often told me that nothing so soon quieted the mind, and led the troubled spirit away from its own sad reflections, as some amusing or instructive author; but I had none in my room but those books of your own that you gave me, which I had read over and over again; and since this Mr Roker has occasionally been in possession of your apartment next the study, and I once met him as I was going thither, I have never had the courage to venture down after the books as I used to do. Some of the poems however, Orlando, that you gave me, I am never, never weary of reading, though I can say them almost by heart; and therefore, when I was tired of looking at the moon, I took up that little volume of Gray, and read that beautiful ode to Adversity which you have so often bade me admire; and indeed I thought, Orlando that we, though suffering under its ‘iron scourge and torturing hour, ‘were yet in a situation more really happy than the prosperous worthless Sir John Belgrave, who was able to enjoy every luxury of life, while you were wandering about the world in danger and in sorrow. Alas! these thoughts, however consoling at first, brought on a train of others, and fears, the most terrible fears for your precious life assailed me. My fancy conjured up a thousand horrid visions, and dwelt on a thousand terrible possibilities, till at length I found myself unable to bear the wretchedness I had thus created for myself, and I determined to attempt at least to lose it in sleep and was, from mere fatigue of spirits, beginning to doze, when I was startled by a rap at the door at the back of the bed. I believed it to be a dream, too well recollecting that you were not there. When I listened a moment, and the noise was repeated, never, among all the terrors I have suffered, did I feel any alarm like this – I had not courage to speak, nor to move: my first idea was to run into my aunt’s room; but then I must have discovered to her what we have so anxiously concealed; and of which, I believe, she never had the least notion; for whatever might be her suspicions of our meeting, she never seemed to guess how. While I deliberated in the most fearful agitation what it would be best to do, the noise was made a third time, louder than before; and a voice called, in a half whisper, Miss! Miss!

  ‘For God’s sake, who is there?’ cried I, hastening to dress myself. ‘You cannot have any business there, whoever you are, and I will call my aunt and the servants.’

  ‘No, no, Miss!’ cried a man’s voice aloud; ‘don’t do that, for you will only betray yourself; I mean you no harm, but, on the contrary, good. – Lord, Miss, ’tis only me; and I would not have frighted you so at this time o’night if I could have met you by day. I have got a letter for you.’

  ‘I now knew, by the voice, that it was Jacob, the under game-keeper; and though I trembled still with fear, it was mixed with a sensation of joy, for I hoped the letter was from you. ‘A letter!’ said I. ‘Oh, pray give it me instantly.’ Yet I recollected, as instantly, that it was foolish to open the door. The man said, eagerly, ‘But make haste then, Miss, and take it.’ – ‘No,’ answered I; ‘leave it at the door, or put it under it; I cannot open the door, for it is nailed up.’ – ‘Ah! Miss, Miss!’ cried the man; ‘it did not used to be nailed up when I know who was here.’ This speech, though I know not why, increased again the terror which had a little subsided; and his manner of speaking of you gave me a confused idea that the letter was not from you. ‘Where did you get the letter, Jacob?’ said I; ‘and who is it from?’ – ‘Never mind that,’ replied he, ‘it is a letter that will please you, I can tell you.’ – ‘I will not receive it,’ answered I, ‘unless I know whom it is from.’ – ‘Pooh pooh! what a to-do here!’ said the man, in a very impertinent manner – ‘Well then, if you are so squeamish all of a sudden, I’ll leave the letter, and come to-morrow up the stairs the same way for an answer.’

  ‘Jacob then seemed to go down; and I thought I heard him shut the door of the lower turret room after him; but, for the world, I could not have opened that of my room. Oh, Orlando! consider what I must have suffered, from supposing there might be a letter lying without it; and that only a few pieces of half-decayed board were between me and the first intelligence I had received of you! Yet it was also possible that it might be from some other person, though I could not conjecture who should write to me: but there was something of impertinent assurance in the manner of the game-keeper that shocked me; and I well recollected that you once thought of our corresponding through his means, yet afterwards determined not to hazard it, and seemed sorry that you had entrusted him so far. I will not attempt to describe the state of mind in which I passed the night. It was not, luckily for me, very long; but the sun had risen some time before I could acquire courage enough to open the door, and even then I trembled. But my hopes vanished, or rather were exchanged for the most alarming fears; the moment I saw that if the letter contained any news of you it was not from yourself. I know not how I opened it, for I expected now nothing but tidings of despair; when, casting my eyes on the name that concluded it, for I could not read the contents at that moment, I saw that of Sir John Berkely Belgrave; and though I instantly comprehended the insult it contained, I was relieved find that it was not written by some friend of yours, to tell me what you were unable to write yourself.

  ‘I will not, Orlando, copy this ridiculous billet; but as I determined neither to answer it, nor to give the officious Jacob excuse to come up the stairs to my room, I thought, after some consideration, that the best thing I could do would be to speak to this letter-carrier, though nothing could be more disagreeable to me, unless it was his coming for an answer. As soon as breakfast was over, I summoned all the courage I could, and went out to the stable yard, where I knew it was most likely I should meet him. As soon as he saw me, he came eagerly towards me; and none of the other men being within hearing, he said, ‘I hope you have got an answer for Sir John to give me, Miss?’

  ‘No,’ I answered; ‘I neither have an answer, nor ever intend to give one to so impertinent a letter; and I beg you, Mr Jacob, not to disturb me any more with messages so very improper; for, if you do, it will oblige me to complain to Mrs Lennard.’

  ‘The fellow had the impertinence to say, that if I would not give him an answer, Sir John would come for one himself; but I hope and believe I shall hear no more of it, as it is now Thursday, and I have had no more visits. I have fastened the door as well as I am able, and would secure that below if I knew how: but it is not possible for me to do it myself; and were I to ask any other person, it would put whoever it was in possession of the secret which we have so much reason to regret was ever divulged.

  ‘But do not, ever dear Orlando, be uneasy – I am persuaded Sir John is satisfied with his frolic, and that I shall hear no more of it; indeed I believe he has left the country; but I own I am uncomfortable at being so much in the power of such a man as this game-keeper – However, I now leave half open the door into the passage that leads to my aunt’s room; and, upon the least alarm, I would fly to her, and rather own the truth, than subject myself to a repetition of such visits, either from this worthless servant or his employer. Do not therefore, I again entreat you, my dear friend, be uneasy.

  ‘What a letter have I written, Orlando! and how little pleasure will any one sentence in it give to you! I, who would die to procure you the smallest satisfaction, am destined to be the cause of your unhappiness. Sometimes I am so wretched when I think of this, that I wish we had never met, or resisted, in its beginning, an attachment likely to make all your days uneasy; yet I feel that were I without this tender affection my life would be a blank, and my existence not worth having.

 
‘I will not conjure you to remember your poor Monimia! I must indeed end a letter which I have made so very long, that I am afraid Selina will not be able to send it in her packet. Oh! how hard it is to say adieu! yet my tears fall so fast that it is quite time – God bless you, my dear, dear friend!’

  Orlando, during the perusal of this letter, was so entirely occupied by it, that he forgot where he was. The Hall and all its inhabitants were present to him; and he started up to demand instant satisfaction of Sir John Belgrave, and to chastise the mercenary and insolent servant, when he found himself, by the distance of many thousand miles, deprived of all power of protecting his Monimia, under marching orders to remove he knew not whither, and cut off from all communications with her. He stamped about the tent in a turbulence of mind little short of phrensy – cursed with ineffectual vengeance the objects of his indignation, whom he could not reach; and was awakened from this dreadful state, only by a message from his Colonel that he must that moment attend him. – Hardly knowing what he did or said, he followed the serjeant who brought these orders; and was directed, instead of preparing to go with the camp, to make himself ready, with another officer, the negro Perseus, and three rank and file, for an expedition to New York, where it was hoped so small a party might arrive unobserved; and as the men were chosen who were the fittest for so perilous an exploit, Orlando was named, from the experience his commanding officer had in his first march of his patience, prudence, and resolution. Orlando cared not whither he went or what became of him – he obeyed, as soon as possible, the orders he had received; and that night, at eleven o’clock, began his excursion with his five companions, and crossed Hudson’s River.

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE small party dispatched on this hazardous adventure, having crossed the river, penetrated a wood near it, where they rested till the light of the morning should afford them assistance to pass through it. One of the soldiers, who had a knowledge of the country, made light of the difficulties of their undertaking; and the whole party were in some degree cheerful, except Orlando, who, far from attending to the perils that surrounded himself, was lost in thinking of those to which Monimia was exposed; and in meditating schemes of vengeance against her persecutors, which he forgot that it was impossible for him to accomplish. In the midst of an immense American forest, surrounded with almost every species of danger, and suffering, if not actual hunger, a great deficiency of nourishment (for the whole army had been some days on short allowance), he felt nothing but that Monimia was liable to the insults of Sir John Belgrave; perhaps already the victim of his infamous designs – an idea that stung him almost to madness. The painful news he had heard from his father’s house added to the anguish of his spirit; and perhaps never was a mind more distracted with a variety of tormenting apprehensions, not one of which he had the means of alleviating. As soon as it was light the party renewed their journey, but had not proceeded half a quarter of a mile towards the thickest part of the wood before the war-whoop burst forth; and a shower of bullets fell among them, wounding some, and killing one of their small party. The Indians rushed forward the moment the English had at random fired among the trees, and Orlando saw no more; a violent blow on the head deprived him of his senses, and to all appearance of his life.

  When he recovered his recollection, he found himself lying on the ground in one of those temporary huts which the Indians erect in their hunting parties. It was night, and he heard them in loud conversation near him – He found he was their prisoner, and concluded he was reserved for those horrid tortures of which he had heard so many terrific descriptions. Death appeared to him most desirable; and his great hope was that he should by death escape them – for the pain from the wound in his head was so excessive, that he doubted not but that his scull was fractured, and of course his dissolution near.

  He attempted to rise; not with any hope of escape, for that was impossible, but with a sort of confused desire to accelerate his fate; when an Indian entered the hut with a light, in whom Orlando discovered his former acquaintance the Wolf-hunter.

  This young savage approached and spoke kindly to him, telling him, that though his brothers had killed and scalped the rest of the party, he had saved him, and that the chief had promised him his life.

  Orlando in a faint voice thanked him for his kindness, which he said was too late, as he felt the wound in his head to be mortal. He then enquired why the Indian warriors had fallen upon a party of their allies and brethren, the soldiers of the king of England?

  The Wolf-hunter replied, that the English had not dealt fairly with them – that they were promised provisions, rum, and plunder, instead of which they got nothing in the English camp, but had lost some of their best men in defending the lines; and that, the English having thus deceived them, they were no longer their allies, but were going home to their own lands, determined to plunder the stragglers of whatever party they might meet in their way, to make themselves amends for the loss of time, and the heavier loss of brave warriors that had perished by believing the promises of the great English captain.

  Orlando’s generous heart bled for his comrades thus inhumanly sacrificed; and he lamented that they, as well as himself, had not fallen like his friend Fleming in the field. He asked if all the men who were with him had perished. His Indian friend answered, All but two – a white man and a negro – who had escaped while they were plundering the rest.

  Orlando heard this with a sigh of deeper concern; for he knew that, unless these unfortunate men could again cross the river and regain the camp, they would probably die in the woods of hunger and fatigue. The Wolf-hunter then enquired of Orlando, if he thought he could march with them in the morning? – To which he answered, he hoped so; but at the same time imagined that he should long before that time be released from all his sufferings. He knew, however, that to complain would not only be fruitless, but injure him in the opinion of his host, who made light of the wound he had received; and telling Orlando he would cure it, he cut off the hair, washed it with rum, and then laid on it a pledget of chewed leaves. An Indian blanket was thrown over him, for his own clothes were taken away; and the young savage giving him a drink, such as they had themselves been merry over, of rum, water and honey, desired him to sleep, and in a few moments set him the example.

  Giddy and disturbed as was the unhappy Orlando from the effects of the blow, he now began to awaken to a sense of his condition; and in believing that the injury he had received was not of so fatal a nature as he had on the first sensation of pain imagined, he felt infinitely more miserable in supposing that he should live in such insupportable anguish as his fears for Monimia and his family would inflict upon him – condemned probably as long as his life lasted, to drag on a wretched existence among the savage tribes of the American wilderness, and cut off from all communication with his country.

  In such reflections on his own wretchedness he passed this miserable night, his Indian protector soundly sleeping in the same hut. Before the dawn of the day they began to move; as the chief, or leader of the party, was anxious to escape, with the plunder they had already got, to the Iroquois country, from which they came. Orlando, contrary to his expectations, found he could walk; and his friend the Wolf-hunter, pleased with the resolution he exerted, sometimes assisted him when he appeared on the point of failing in this rapid and difficult march, through a country known and accessible only to Indians. His shoes and stockings had been taken from him, and his feet bled at every step: but he went on in a sort of desperation, hoping that the more severe his sufferings were, the sooner they would end; nor was it the least of these, that, on the first dawn of morning, he saw the scalps of his unfortunate comrades triumphantly carried by the chief of the party, whose title was the Wild Elk.

  New scenes of horror awaited him on his way. As plunder was now the avowed purpose of this party of Iroquois, which consisted of near forty men, they attacked the defenceless villages of the English Americans, whose men were out with the army; and destroyed the women and
children, or led them away to captivity infinitely worse than death. Some few the Wolf-hunter, who was the second in power, was influenced by the entreaties of Orlando to spare; but even these were, he feared, reserved only for a more lingering and deplorable fate; and in fact many hundreds of the unhappy people, thus driven from their dwellings in the course of the war, perished by famine in the woods and gullies.