Chapter XL

"No voice hath breathed upon mine ear
Thy name since last we met;
No sound disturbed the silence drear,
Where sleep entombed from year to year,
Thy memory, my regret."

In her own elegantly appointed apartment sat Florence Howard, with her journal open upon the table.

"Beneath the old roof-tree of home once more," she wrote, "to find my mother's pale face yet paler than when I left her, and a sudden tremor and nervousness betrayed on the slightest unusual sound, which is exceeding painful to witness.

"Hannah's penchant for me seems to have decreased somewhat, since father waited on Col. Malcome and asked his consent to the delay of my proposed nuptials with Rufus, till some change should occur in mother's health. Dr. Potipher thinks she will hardly survive the trying weather of the approaching spring.

"Poor, dear mother! what shall I do without her? But I may not linger long behind.

"I used to think I was very miserable, when I pined in ignorance of Edgar's love, and grew jealous of his attentions to gentle Edith Malcome; but what were those petty griefs, compared with the agony of having known the sweet possession of his heart, and lost it,--lost it, too, through my own selfish folly and weakness? Truly, there's naught so bitter as self-reproach. Heaven only knows what I have suffered since that dreadful night, when I fled from his angry, reproachful looks, and locked myself in the solitude of my chamber. And that freezing, distant recognition on the following morning! O, what a shuddering horror will ever creep over me with the memory of Franconia Notch! And Mount Washington,--which was for aye to tower above all other scenes of grandeur earth's broadest extent could afford,--a thought of it unnerves my soul with grief. What short-sighted mortals are we!

"I think my father suspects my secret and reproaches himself for giving me so free access to Edgar's company. I would not wonder if the delay he has urged to my marriage were influenced as much by this sad knowledge as my mother's failing health. Col. Malcome gave a reluctant assent, at which I am surprised. When his sweet daughter is sinking slowly into the grave, 'tis strange he can think of any earthly interest.

"I have looked mournfully toward the cedar forest to-night, and thought of the poor lone hermit in his humble hut, and wished, O, how fervently wished! that I, like him, had a habitation afar from the world's hollow throngs, where I could sit and brood in solitude over my broken heart!

"Am I not a living, breathing, suffering example of the truth of Byron's eloquent words?

'The day drags on, though storms keep out the sun,
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.'"

Florence closed her journal, and approached the window.

As she was dropping the curtain to retire, a dark figure moving stealthily under the leafless branches of the lindens, which stood in rows on the least public side of the house, arrested her attention. The remembrance of a similar appearance she had once seen crossed her mind, and no ill having followed that, she dismissed her fears, and ere long sank to rest.

When the village clock pealed forth the hour of midnight, the dark figure she had observed, stood on the terrace below. The hall door swung noiselessly on its hinges, and Hannah Doliver stepped forth. "Here are the matches and kindling-wood," said she in a whisper, approaching the dusky form, and holding a small basket forward.

"Are they all asleep?" asked a hushed voice.

"Yes," answered she.

"See that you give the alarm in season," returned the muffled figure, as he took the basket from the woman's hand, and passed softly down the steps of the piazza.

Silently the destroying fires were lighted. But the midnight incendiary would have proceeded less deliberately with his work of destruction, had he marked the tall, lank figure in a long, dark overcoat, and slouching-brimmed hat, which slowly dogged closely his every footstep. Suddenly a bright flash leaped up from the fragments the wicked man sought to enkindle, and revealed his garb and features. A mingled expression of hatred and revenge glared from the sunken eyes of his follower, who stood in the shadow of a linden near by, as the pale, handsome features and light, curling locks of the incendiary met his gaze.

"Villain!" exclaimed he, springing forward, as the man turned with a hurried step from his work of destruction; "would you burn innocent people in their beds?"

With one fell blow the man dashed the lank form to the earth, and fled down the avenue of cedars, which led to the river, never heeding the startled looks of a thin woman, and tall, graceful youth, against whose sides he brushed in his guilty flight.

"Who could that flying figure have been?" asked the lad of the woman, when the man had rushed past.

"I don't know, indeed, Willie," answered she, "unless it was your friend, the hermit, gone wild. You say he has been more gloomy than usual for several days."

"O, no!" returned the youth; "it was not the hermit. I distinguished this man's features very plainly as he passed, and it was no one I ever saw before. He had no covering on his head, and his hair was light and curly. His face seemed glowing with rage and anger."

"It must have been some lunatic escaped from the asylum," said the woman.

"Well, I think you are right, mother," answered the boy. "I hope he has not harmed the poor hermit, whom I left sitting on a stone among the cedars, near Major Howard's mansion. He came thus far with me to-night, as it was so late, and the way long and gloomy."

"Ah! he was very kind," remarked the woman. "I began to fear you were not coming for me, Willie, and thought I should have to remain at Mr. Pimble's all night, or go home alone. Is the hermit's nephew still with him?"

"No, he went away this morning, and the poor old man is very lonely and sad. He said he wished I could be with him all the time."

"Strange being!" said the woman. "Why does he not leave the forest, and dwell among his fellow-men?"

"I think it is because he experienced some disappointment in his youth," answered the lad, "and has come to distrust all his species."

"It may be so," returned the woman. "I have heard of such instances. He is very kind to you, my boy, and but for his little bundles of sticks, I think we must have perished during your long illness through that piercing cold winter. Strange are the realities of life; stranger than fiction! When the rich Mr. Pimble drove me from his threshold, the poor hermit of the forest braved the bleak storms, and laid the charitable piles on my poverty-stricken threshold."

The mother and son had now reached their humble abode.

"Willie," said she, "I wish you would run down by the river and gather up the few pieces of linen I washed and spread out there yesterday. The wind is rising fast, and they will blow away before morning."

The boy hastened to perform her request, and in a few moments came rushing into the house, and exclaimed:

"Mother! mother! Major Howard's house is all on fire! I am going up there," and, flinging the pieces he held in his arms on the table, he flew off toward the burning mansion.

Mrs. Danforth followed him to the door and discovered his words were but too true. Long tongues of flame darted upward to the sky, and ran fiercely over the walls and terraces of the mansion. The church bell was pealing madly to rouse the slumbering people to the rescue; but the fire gained so rapidly in the sweeping wind, all efforts to quench it could not prove otherwise than futile. To save the lives of the inmates would be the utmost which could be done, and even this seemed a perilous undertaking.

Willie Danforth was rushing up the avenue of cedars, when, just as he was entering the grounds of the burning mansion, he stumbled over some large object which obstructed the path. It moved beneath, and, by the glare of the flames, he discovered the body of his friend, the hermit, lying at full length upon the frozen ground. The prostrate man opened his eyes and recognized Willie.

"O, my good boy, I am sadly hurt!" said he, feebly. "Will you help me to rise and get away from this place?"

Willie, who forgot everything, even the burning mansion before him, in care and pity for his friend, raised him to his feet, and half supporting the tall, thin form in his young, strong arms, drew him down the long avenue and along the river bank to his mother's dwelling.

And that night the insensible form of the Hermit of the Cedars lay stretched upon the low couch of Dilly Danforth's humble abode.