James Fenimore Cooper's Five Novels

by James Fenimore Cooper

  Her words were interrupted by Ralph, who appeared again in the room, with that noiseless step, which, in conjunction with his great age and attenuated frame, sometimes gave to his movements and aspect the character of a being superior to the attributes of humanity. On his arm he bore an over-coat and a hat, both of which Cecil recognized, at a glance, as the property of the unknown man who had attended her person throughout all the vicissitudes of that eventful night.

  “See!” said Ralph, exhibiting his spoils with a ghastly, but meaning smile, “see in how many forms Liberty appears to aid her votaries! Here is the guise in which she will now be courted! Wear them, young man, and be free!”

  “Believe him not—listen not,” whispered Cecil, while she shrunk from his approach in undisguised terror—“nay, do listen, but act with caution!”

  “Dost thou delay to receive the blessed boon of freedom, when offered?” demanded Ralph; “wouldst thou remain, and brave the angry justice of the American chief, and make thy wife, of a day, a widow for an age!”

  “In what manner am I to profit by this dress?” said Lionel—“to submit to the degradation of a disguise, success should be certain.”

  “Turn thy haughty eyes, young man, on the picture of innocence and terror, at thy side. For the sake of her whose fate is wrapped in thine, if not for your own, consult thy safety, and fly—another minute may be too late.”

  “Oh! hesitate not a moment longer, Lincoln,” cried Cecil, with a change of purpose as sudden as the impulse was powerful—“fly, leave me; my sex and station will be”—

  “Never,” said Lionel, casting the garment from him, in cool disdain.—“Once, when Death was busy, did I abandon thee; but, ere I do it again, his blow must fall on me!”

  “I will follow—I will rejoin you.”

  “You shall not part,” said Ralph, once more raising the rejected coat, and lending his aid to envelop the form of Lionel, who stood passive under the united efforts of his bride and her aged assistant—“Remain here,” the latter added, when their brief task was ended, “and await the summons to freedom. And thou, sweet flower of innocence and love, follow, and share in the honour of liberating him who has enslaved thee!”

  Cecil blushed with virgin shame, at the strength of his expressions, but bowed her head in acquiescence to his will. Proceeding to the door, he beckoned her to approach, indicating, by an expressive gesture to Lionel, that he was to remain stationary. When Cecil had complied, and they were in the narrow passage of the building, Ralph, instead of betraying any apprehension of the sentinel who paced its length, fearlessly approached, and addressed him with the confidence of a known friend—

  “See!” he said, removing the calash from before the pale features of his companion, “how terror for the fate of her husband has caused the good child to weep! She quits him now, friend, with one of her attendants, while the other tarries to administer to his master’s wants. Look at her; is’t not a sweet, though mourning partner, to smooth the path of a soldier’s life!”

  The man seemed awkwardly sensible of the unusual charms that Ralph so unceremoniously exhibited to his view, and while he stood in admiring embarrassment, ashamed to gaze, and yet unwilling to retire, Cecil traced the light footsteps of the old man, entering the room occupied by Meriton and the stranger. She was still in the act of veiling her features from the eyes of the sentinel, when Ralph re-appeared, attended by a figure muffled in the well-known over-coat. Notwithstanding the flopped hat, and studied concealment of his gait, the keen eyes of the wife penetrated the disguise of her husband, and recollecting, at the same instant, the door of communication between the two apartments, the whole artifice was at once revealed. With trembling eagerness she glided past the sentinel, and pressed to the side of Lionel, with a dependence that might have betrayed the deception to one more accustomed to the forms of life, than was the honest countryman who had, so recently, thrown aside the flail to carry a musket.

  Ralph allowed the sentinel no time to deliberate, but waving his hand in token of adieu, he led the way into the street, with his accustomed activity. Here they found themselves in the presence of the other soldier, who moved along the alloted ground in front of the building, rendering the watchfulness by which they were environed, doubly embarrassing. Following the example of their aged conductor, Lionel and his trembling companion walked with apparent indifference towards this man, who, as it proved, was better deserving of his trust than his fellow, within doors. Dropping his musket across their path, in a manner which announced an intention to inquire into their movements, before he suffered them to proceed, he roughly demanded—

  “How’s this, old gentleman! you come out of the prisoners’ rooms by squads! one, two, three; our English gallant might be among you, and there would still be two left! Come, come, old father, render some account of yourself, and of your command. For, to be plain with you, there are those who think you are no better than a spy of Howe’s, notwithstanding you are left to run up and down the camp, as you please. In plain Yankee dialect, and that’s intelligible English, you have been caught in bad company of late, and there has been hard talk about shutting you up, as well as your comrade!”

  “Hear ye that!” said Ralph, calmly smiling, and addressing himself to his companions, instead of the man whose interrogatories he was expected to answer—“think you the hirelings of the crown are thus alert! Would not the slaves be sleeping the moment the eyes of their tyrants are turned on their own lawless pleasures! Thus it is with Liberty! The sacred spirit hallows its meanest votaries, and elevates the private to the virtues of the proudest captain!”

  “Come, come,” returned the flattered sentinel, throwing his musket back to his shoulder again, “I believe a man gains nothing by battling you with words! I should have spent a year or two inside yonder colleges to dive at all your meaning. Though I can guess you are more than half-right in one thing; for if a poor fellow who loves his country, and the good cause, finds it so hard to keep his eyes open on post, what must it be to a half-starved devil on six-pence a-day! Go along, go along, old father; there is one less of you than went in, and if there was any thing wrong, the man in the house should know it!”

  As he concluded, the sentinel continued his walk, humming a verse of Yankee-doodle, in excellent favour with himself and all mankind, with the sweeping exception of his country’s enemies. To say that this was not the first instance of well-meaning integrity being cajoled by the jargon of liberty, might be an assertion too hazardous; but that it has not been the last, we conscientiously believe, though no immediate example may present itself to quote in support of so heretical credulity.

  Ralph appeared, however, perfectly innocent of intending to utter more than the spirit of the times justified; for, when left to his own pleasure, he pursued his way, muttering rapidly to himself, and with an earnestness that attested his sincerity. When they had turned a corner, at a little distance from any pressing danger, he relaxed in his movements, and suffering his eager companions to approach, he stole to the side of Lionel, and clenching his hand fiercely, he whispered in a voice half choked by inward exultation—

  “I have him now! he is no longer dangerous! Ay—ay—I have him closely watched by the vigilance of three incorruptible patriots!”

  “Of whom speak you,” demanded Lionel—“what is his offence, and where is your captive?”

  “A dog! a man in form, but a tiger in heart! Ay! but I have him!” the old man continued, with a hollow laugh, that seemed to heave up from his inmost soul—“a dog; a veritable dog! I have him, and God grant that he may drink of the cup of slavery to its dregs!”

  “Old man,” said Lionel, firmly, “that I have followed you thus far on no unworthy errand, you best may testify—I have forgotten the oath which, at the altar, I had sworn to cherish this sweet and spotless being at my side, at your instigation, aided by the maddening circumstances of a moment; but the delusion has passed aw
ay! Here we part for ever, unless your solemn and often-repeated promises are, on the instant, redeemed.”

  The high exultation which had, so lately, rendered the emaciated countenance of Ralph hideously ghastly, disappeared like a passing shadow, and he listened to the words of Lionel with calm and settled attention. But when he would have answered, he was interrupted by Cecil, who uttered, in a voice nearly suppressed by her fears—

  “Oh! delay not a moment! Let us proceed; any where, or any-how! even now the pursuers may be on our track. I am strong, dearest Lionel, and will follow to the ends of the earth, so you but lead!”

  “Lionel Lincoln, I have not deceived thee!” said the old man, solemnly. “Providence has already led us on our way, and a few minutes will bring us to our goal—suffer, then, that gentle trembler to return into the village, and follow!”

  “Not an inch!” returned Lionel, pressing Cecil still closer to his side—“here we part, or your promises are fulfilled.”

  “Nay, go with him—go,” again whispered the being who clung to him in trembling dependence. “This very controversy may prove your ruin—did I not say I would accompany you, Lincoln?”

  “Lead on, then,” said her husband, motioning Ralph to proceed—“once again will I confide in you; but use the trust with discretion, for my guardian spirit is at hand, and remember, thou no longer leadest a lunatic!”

  The moon fell upon the wan features of the old man, and exhibited their contented smile, as he silently turned away, and resumed his progress with his wonted, rapid, and noiseless tread. Their route still lay towards the skirts of the village. While the buildings of the University were yet in the near view, and the loud laugh of the idlers about the inn, with the frequent challenges of the sentinels, were still distinctly audible, their conductor bent his way beneath the walls of a church, that rose in solemn solitude in the deceptive light of the evening. Pointing upward at its somewhat unusual, because regular architecture, Ralph muttered as he passed—

  “Here, at least, God possesses his own, without insult!”

  Lionel and Cecil slightly glanced their eyes at the silent walls, and followed into a small enclosure, through a gap in its humble and dilapidated fence. Here the former again paused.

  “I will go no further,” he said, unconsciously strengthening the declaration by placing his foot firmly on a mound of frozen earth, in an attitude of resistance—“’tis time to cease thinking of ’self, and to listen to the weakness of her whom I support!”

  “Think not of me, dearest Lincoln”—

  Cecil was interrupted by the voice of the old man, who raising his hat, and baring his gray locks to the mild rays of the planet, answered, with tremulous emotion—

  “Thy task is already ended! Thou hast reached the spot where moulder the bones of one who long supported thee. Unthinking boy, that sacrilegious foot treads on thy mother’s grave!”

  Chapter XXXII

  “Oh, age has weary days,

  And nights o’ sleepless pain!

  Thou golden time o’ youthful prime,

  Why com’st thou not again.”

  Burns.

  * * *

  THE STILLNESS that succeeded this unexpected annunciation was like the cold silence of those who slumbered on every side of them. Lionel recoiled, a pace, in horror; then imitating the action of the old man, he uncovered his head, in pious reverence of the parent, whose form floated dimly in his imagination, like the earliest recollections of infancy, or the imperfect fancies of some dream. When time was given for these feelings to subside, he turned to Ralph, and said—

  “And was it here that you would bring me, to listen to the sorrows of my family?”

  An expression of anguish crossed the features of the other, as he answered, in a voice subdued to softness—

  “Even here—here, in the presence of thy mother’s grave, shalt thou hear the tale!”

  “Then let it be here!” said Lionel, whose eye was already kindling with a wild and disordered meaning, that curdled the blood of the anxious Cecil, who watched its expression with intense solicitude.—“Here, on this hallowed spot, will I listen, and swear the vengeance that is due, if all thy previous intimations should be just”—

  “No, no, no—listen not—tarry not!” said Cecil, clinging to his side in undisguised alarm—“Lincoln, you are not equal to the scene!”

  “I am equal to any thing, in such a cause.”

  “Nay, Lionel, you overrate your powers!—Think only of your safety, now; at another, and happier moment you shall know all—yes—I—Cecil—thy bride, thy wife, promise that all shall be revealed”—

  “Thou!”

  “It is the descendant of the widow of John Lechmere who speaks, and thy ears will not refuse the sounds,” said Ralph, with a smile that acted like a taunt on the awakened impulses of the young man—“Go—thou art fitter for a bridal than a church-yard!”

  “I have told you that I am equal to any thing,” sternly answered Lionel; “here will I sit, on this humble tablet, to hear all that you can utter, though the rebel legions encircle me to my death!”

  “What! dar’st brave the averted eye of one so dear to thy heart!”

  “All, or any thing,” exclaimed the excited youth, “with so pious an object.”

  “Bravely answered! and thy reward is nigh—nay, look not on the syren, or thou wilt relent.”

  “My wife,” said Lionel, extending his hand, kindly, towards the shrinking form of Cecil.

  “Thy mother!” interrupted Ralph, pointing with his emaciated hand to the grave.

  Lionel sunk on the dilapidated grave-stone to which he had just alluded, and gathering his coat about him, he rested an arm upon his knee, while his hand supported his quivering chin, as if he were desperately bent on his gloomy purpose. The old man smiled with his usual ghastly expression, as he witnessed this proof of success, and he took a similar seat on the opposite side of the grave, which seemed the focus of their common interest. Here he dropped his face between his hands, and appeared to muse like one collecting his thoughts. During this short and impressive pause, Lionel felt the trembling form of Cecil drawing to his side, and before his aged companion spoke, her unveiled and pallid countenance was once more watching the changes of his own features, in submissive, but anxious attention.

  “Thou knowest already, Lionel Lincoln,” commenced Ralph, slowly raising his body to an upright attitude, “how, in past ages, thy family sought these colonies, to find religious quiet, and the peace of the just. And thou also knowest, for often did we beguile the long watches of the night in discoursing of these things, while the never-tiring ocean was rolling its waters around, how Death came into its elder branch, which still dwelt amid the luxury and corruption of the English Court, and left thy father the heir of its riches and honours.”

  “How much of this is unknown to the meanest gossip in the province of Massachusetts-Bay!” interrupted the impatient Lionel.

  “But they do not know, that for years before this accumulation of fortune actually occurred, it was deemed to be inevitable by the decrees of Providence; they do not know how much more value the orphan son of the unprovided soldier, found in the eyes of those even of his own blood, by the expectation; nor do they know how the worldly-minded Priscilla Lechmere, thy father’s aunt, would have compassed heaven and earth, to have seen that wealth, and those honours, to which it was her greatest boast to claim alliance, descend in the line of her own body.”

  “But ’twas impossible! she was of the female branch; neither had she a son!”

  “Nothing seems impossible to those on whose peace of mind the worm of ambition feeds—thou knowest well she left a grand-child; had not that child a mother!”

  Lionel felt a painful conviction of the connection, as the trembling object of these remarks sunk her head in shame on his bosom, keenly alive to the justice of the character
drawn of her deceased relative, by the mysterious being who had spoken.

  “God forbid that I, a Christian, and a gentleman,” continued the old man, a little proudly, “should utter a syllable to taint the spotless name of one so free from blemish as she of whom I speak. The sweet child who clings to thee, Lionel, was not more pure and innocent than she who bore her. And long before ambition had wove its toils for the miserable Priscilla, the heart of her daughter was the property of the gallant and honourable Englishman, to whom in later years she was wedded.”

  As Cecil heard this soothing commendation of her more immediate parents, she again raised her face into the light of the moon, and remained, where she was already kneeling, at the side of Lionel, no longer an uneasy, but a deeply interested listener to what followed.

  “As the wishes of my unhappy aunt were not realized,” said Major Lincoln, “in what manner could they affect the fortunes of my father?”

  “Thou shalt hear. In the same dwelling lived another, even fairer, and, to the eye, as pure as the daughter of Priscilla. She was the relative, the god-child, and the ward of that miserable woman. The beauty, and seeming virtues of this apparent angel in human form, caught the young eye of thy father, and in defiance of arts and schemes, before the long-expected title and fortune came, they were wedded, and thou wert born, Lionel, to render the boon of Fate doubly welcome.”

  “And then”—

  “And then thy father hastened to the land of his ancestors, to claim his own, and to prepare the way for the reception of yourself, and his beloved Priscilla—for then there were two Priscilla’s; and now both sleep with the dead! All having life and nature, can claim the quiet of the grave, but I,” continued the old man, glancing his hollow eye upward, with a look of hopeless misery—“I, who have seen ages pass since the blood of youth has been chilled, and generation after generation swept away, must still linger in the haunts of men! but ’tis to aid in the great work which commences here, but which shall not end until a continent be regenerate.”