CHAPTER XV. I found in my journey a talkative old woman. How mysterious is human existence! and how uncertain is everything connected with it! We look around and behold the earth thronged with multitudes of the human race-poor pageants of an hour!-all playing their parts in the great drama of life, until, at length, the curtain falls, and they are heard of no more. of man. Like a shadow, he Such is the history is seen for a moment, His name may linger and then vanishes for ever. for a while in the memory of a few fond friends; but they too are perishable, and, like himself, will finally go down to the tomb, all alike to be forgotten. But to my story. I taxed myself to conjecture what had become of the young lady who occupied so large a portion of my thoughts. I could only conclude that she was confined to her room by sickness; and already I had pictured to myself her faded cheek, her lustreless eye, and her debilitated frame. There was no pretext, or I would have introduced myself at the mansion, to ascertain if my fears were well-grounded; nevertheless, I was not to be baffled; some expedient I was resolved to adopt whereby my purpose could be accomplished; and if I was unsuccessful in one, there would be a double incentive for renewed exertions in another. Such is the nature of love. The greater the difficulties which it must encounter, the more untiring are its efforts to overcome them. It can neither be crushed nor subdued. It looks the sweetest in the midst of the greatest desolation: like the ivy, the more it is trampled upon the more it will flourish and grow. Let it once have root, and neither heat nor cold, summer nor winter, frost nor mildew, can blight a single flower or tendril of its growth. Heretofore I had seen no one about the mansion except the young lady already alluded to; to discover the other inmates was now my principal object. With this view I took my way along an unfrequented road, which passed within a hundred yards of its western extremity. Not a living creature was perceptible; and but for the perfect neatness and order everywhere prevailing-the orna VOL. I.-N mental trees, the gravel-walks, and delightful shrubbery, which gave evidence of a controling and systematic mind-I should have concluded that it was tenantless. His While making these observations, I espied a horseman pursuing his way at a considerable distance along the road I had just travelled. Meanwhile, I concealed myself among some rocks near at hand, that I might watch his movements. steed- -a noble and spirited animal-soon brought him opposite the house, over which I had become a voluntary sentinel. He was tall and athletic, with huge black whiskers, and a most forbidding aspect. He dismounted, walked up to the house familiarly, and entered as though he might have been an inmate. I watched for some time, but he did not afterward make his appearance; nor as long as I remained was there any other person perceptible. I left the place of my concealment, and struck into a path which led across a narrow strip of green meadow, and continued its circuitous way over a rugged and hilly extent of woodland. The ground at length gradually descended, and the tops of the trees, at no great distance, seemed almost beneath my feet. While surveying this prospect, my attention was arrested by a thin 1 volume of smoke, curling and wreathing itself in the still air immediately before me. I continued my way until I found myself looking down from a small eminence upon a log-dwelling, which stood alone, with its roof of moss, amid the silence and solitude of nature. It was literally embedded among the trees and rocks. In front, however, there was a small garden—the only thing to relieve the prospect-which had been cultivated with much taste, and ornamented with flowers and shrubbery. I approached the cottage. The barking of a dog brought a woman to the door, who, by her gray locks and withered countenance, was at least fifty years of age. "What do you want in this desolate place?" were the first words she spoke. "The foot of one like you has not printed the grass this many a long day." "I am rambling through the woods for amusement," I replied. She invited me into the cottage, which consisted of one room and a garret. It contained a rude bed, a table, and a few other simple articles of furniture. "How little," thought I, "do we know of the wants and distresses of the poor. One half the world dream away their time in idleness and luxury, and never for a moment think of the hard and suffering condition of the other." "It is very warm to-day, is it not?" familiarly asked the old woman. "Let me bring you a cup of water from the spring," she continued, moving towards the door of her hut; "it is near at hand, and, by the blessing of God, one of the purest in the world. You can see it, by the root of yonder tree, where the bucket is standing ;" and here she pointed in that direction. I interrupted her, and changed the subject to one which I considered of far greater moment. "Can you tell me," said I, "who lives in the stone house, standing near the road-side, just beyond the woods ?" "Do you mean the Florence mansion ?" she asked. "Very like who is its owner?" "A man of the same name-Richard Florence." "Who is Richard Florence ?" "An Englishman; he came to this country a year or two ago." "Has he a wife ?" "Not that I know of." "Children ?" "An only daughter." |