Ella Barnwell Part 7

As to Algernon, he seemed to take no delight in what was going forward; and though he partic.i.p.ated somewhat in the dance, yet it was evident to all observers that his mind went not with his body, and that what he did was done more with a design of concealing his real feelings, than for any amus.e.m.e.nt it afforded himself. When not occupied in this manner, or in conversation, he would steal away, seat himself where he was least likely to be observed, and fall into a gloomy, abstracted mood; from which, when suddenly roused by some loud peal of laughter, or by the touch and voice of some person near, he would sometimes start and look around as one just awakened from a frightful vision. This gloomy abstraction, too, appeared to grow upon him more and more, as the day settled into night and the night wore on, as though he felt some dreaded calamity had been hanging over, and was now about to fall upon him. So apparent was this toward the last, that even the most careless began to observe, and make remarks, and ask questions concerning him; and some even proceeded to inquire of him regarding the state of his health. His answers to all interrogatives now became so brief and abrupt, that but few ventured to address him the second time. Whatever the cause of his present gloomy state of mind, it was evidently not the ordinary one--at least not wholly that--for never before had Ella (who was in the habit, since their acquaintance, of observing him narrowly) seen him in such a mood as now. It was, perhaps, one of those strange mental foresights, peculiar to certain temperaments, whereby the individual is sometimes warned of impending danger, and feels oppressed by a weight of despondency impossible to shake off.

This serious change in the appearance of Algernon, was not without its effect upon Ella. Naturally of a tender, affectionate, and sympathetic disposition, she could not feel at ease when another was suffering, and particularly when that other was one standing so high in her estimation as Algernon Reynolds. Naturally, too, possessing light and buoyant spirits--fond of gaiety where all were gay--she exhibited on the present occasion the effect of two strong but counteracting pa.s.sions. Her features, if we may be allowed the comparison, were like the noon-day heavens, when filled with the broken clouds of a pa.s.sing storm. Now all would be bright and cheerful, and the sun of mirth would sparkle in her eyes; and anon some dark cloud of dejection would sweep along, shut out the merry light, and cast its shadow drearily over the whole countenance,--or, to use language without simile, she would one moment be merry and another sad. Toward the last, however, the latter feeling gained the ascendancy; she appeared to take no further share in the merriment of the dance; and had any watched her closely, they might have guessed the cause, from the manner in which she from time to time gazed at the pale face of Algernon.

Meantime the dance went bravely on, Black Betty circulated somewhat freely, and the mirth of the revelers grew more and more boisterous.

Taking advantage of a slight cessation in the general hilarity, about nine o'clock in the evening, and while the fiddler with some of the party were engaged in partaking of refreshment, Seth Stokes, encouraged doubtless by the inspiration he had received from the whiskey, stepped boldly into the middle of the apartment with the bottle in his hand, and said:

"Jest allow me, my jollies, to give a toast."

"Harken all! A toast--a toast--from the long man o' the bony frame!"

cried the voice of Sam Switcher. A laugh, and then silence followed.

"Here's to--to Isaac and Peggy Younker--two beauties!" continued Seth.

"May thar union be duly acknowledged by the rising generation o' old Kaintuck;" and the speaker gravely proceeded to drink.

"Bravo! bravo!" cried a dozen voices, with a merry shout, accompanied with great clapping of bands; while Isaac, who was sitting by his new wife, arose, blushed, bowed rather awkwardly, and then sat down again.

"Isaac! Isaac!--A toast from Isaac!" shouted a chorus of voices.

Isaac at first looked very much confused--scratched his head and twisted around in a very fidgetty manner,--but presently his countenance flushed, and a smile of triumph crossing his sharp features, announced that he had been suddenly favored with an idea apropos. This was instantly perceived by some of the wags standing near, one of whom exclaimed:

"I see it--it's coming!"

"He's got it!" said a second.

"I knew it--I'd ha' bet a bar-skin he'd fetch it," cried a third.

"Out with it, Ike, afore you forget it," shouted the fourth.

"Hold your jabbering tongues--!" cried Isaac, in vexation. "You're enough to bother a feller to death. I'd like to see some o' the rest on ye cramped up fur a toast, jest to see how _you'd_ feel with all on 'em hollering like." A hearty laugh at his expense was all the sympathy poor Isaac received.

"Give us the bottle!" resumed Isaac. "Now here goes," continued he, rising and holding Black Betty by the neck. "Here's to the gals o' old Kaintuck--Heaven bless 'em! May they bloom like clover heads, be plentier nor bar-skins, and follow the example o' Peggy, every mother's daughter on 'em!--hooray!" And having drank, the speaker resumed his seat, amid roars of laughter and three rounds of applause.

By the time this mirth had subsided, the fiddler struck up, and the dance again went on as before. Some two hours later the bridesmaid, with two or three others, managed to steal away the bride un.o.bserved; and proceeding to a ladder at one end of the apartment, ascended to the chamber above, and saw her safely lodged in bed. In the course of another half hour the same number of gentlemen performed a like service for Isaac--such being customary at all weddings of that period.

During the night Black Betty, in company with more substantial refreshment, was sent up to the newly married pair some two or three times; and always returned (Black Betty we mean) considerable lighter than she went; thus proving, that if lovers can live on air, the married ones do not always partake of things less spiritual. About three o'clock in the morning, Algernon and Ella took leave of the company and set out upon their return--he pleading illness as an apology for withdrawing thus early. The remainder of the party keep together until five, when they gradually began to separate; and by six the dancing had ceased, and the greater portion of them had taken their departure. Thus ended the wedding of Isaac Younker--a fair specimen, by the way, of a backwood's wedding in the early settlement of the west.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PRESENTIMENT.

Deep and gloomy were the meditations of Algernon Reynolds, as, in company with Ella Barnwell, he rode slowly along the narrow path which he had traversed, if not with buoyant, at least with far lighter spirits than now, the morning before. From some, latent cause, he felt oppressed with a weight of despondency, as previously mentioned, that served to prostrate in a measure both his mental powers and physical system. He felt, though he could give no reason why, that some calamity was about to befall himself and the fair being by his side; and he strove to arouse himself and shake off the gloomy thoughts; but if he succeeded, it was only momentary, and they would again rush back with an increased power. He had been subject, since his unfortunate quarrel with his cousin, to gloomy reveries and depressions of spirits--but never before had he felt exactly as now; and though in all former cases the event referred to had been the cause of his sad abstractions, yet in the present instance it scarcely held a place in his thoughts. Could it be a presentiment, he asked himself, sent to warn him of danger and prepare him to meet it? But the question he could not answer.

The night, or rather the morning, though clear overhead, was uncommonly dark; and the stars, what few could be discerned, shed only pale, faint gleams, as though their lights were about to be extinguished. For some time both Algernon and Ella continued their journey without exchanging a syllable--she too, as well as himself, being deeply absorbed in no very pleasant reflections. She thought of him, of his hard fate, to meet with so many bitter disappointments at an age so young; and at last, for no premeditated, no intentional crime, be forced to fly from home and friends, and all he held dear, to wander in a far off land, among strangers--or worse, among the solitudes of the wilderness--exposed to a thousand dangers from wild savage beasts, and wilder and more savage human beings; and perhaps, withal, be branded as a felon and fugitive from justice. She thought what must be his feelings, his sense of utter desolation, with none around to sympathize--no sweet being by his side to whisper a single word of encouragement and hope; or, should the worst prove true, to share his painful lot, and endeavor to render less burdensome his remorseful thoughts, by smiles of endearment and looks of love. She thought, too, that to-morrow--perhaps today--he would take his departure, peradventure never to behold her again; and this was the saddest of the train. Until she saw him, Ella had never known what it was to love--perchance she did not now--but at least she had experienced those fluttering sensations, those deep and strange emotions, those involuntary yearnings of the heart toward some object in his presence, that aching void in his absence, which the more experienced would doubtless put down to that cause, and which no other being had ever even for a moment awakened in her breast. For something like half an hour the two rode on together, buried in their own sad reflections, when Ella broke the silence, by saying, in a low, touching voice:

"You seem sad to-night, Algernon."

Algernon started, sighed heavily, and turning slightly on his saddle, said: "I am sad, Ella--very, very sad."

"May I ask the cause?" rejoined Ella, gently.

"Doubtless you will think it strange, Ella, but the cause I believe to have originated in a waking vision or presentiment."

"That does seem strange!" observed Ella, in return.

"Did it never strike you, dear Ella, that we are all strange beings, subject to strange influences, and destined, many of us, to strange ends?" inquired Reynolds, solemnly.

"Perhaps I do not understand you," replied Ella; "but with regard to destiny, I am inclined to think that we in a measure shape our own. As to our being strange, there are many things relating to us that we may not understand, and therefore look upon them in the light of which you speak."

"Are there any we do understand, Ella?" rejoined Algernon. "When I say understand, I mean the word to be used in its minutest and broadest sense. You say there are many things we may not understand concerning ourselves--what ones, I pray you, do we fully comprehend? We are here upon the earth--so much we know. We shall die and pa.s.s away--so much we know also. But how came we here, and why? How do we exist? How do we think, reason, speak, feel, move, see, hear, smell, taste? All these we do, we know; but yet not one--not a single one of them can we comprehend. You wish to raise your hand; and forthwith, by some extraordinary power--extraordinary because you cannot tell where it is, nor how it is--you raise it. Why cannot a dead person do the same?

Strange question you will say to yourself with a smile--but one easily answered! Why, because in such a person life is extinct--there is no vital principle--the heart is stopped--the blood has ceased to flow in its regular channels! Ay! but let me ask you _why_ that life is extinct?--why that breath has stopped?--and why that blood has ceased to flow? There was just the same amount of air when the person died as before! There were the same ingredients still left to stimulate that blood to action! Then wherefore should both cease?--and with them the power of thought, reason, speech, and all the other senses? It was not by a design of the individual himself; for he strove to his utmost to breathe longer; he was not ready to die--he did not want to quit this earth so soon; and yet with all his efforts to the contrary, reason fled, the breath stopped, the blood ceased, the limbs became palsied and cold, and corruption, decay and dust stood ready to follow. Now why was this? There is but one answer: 'G.o.d willed it!' If then one question resolves itself into one answer,--'the will of G.o.d'--so may all of the same species; and we come out, after a long train of a.n.a.lytical reasoning, exactly where we started--with this difference--that when we set out, we believed in being able to explain the wherefore; but when we came to the end, we could only a.s.sert it as a wonderful fact, whereof not a single iota could we understand."

Algernon spoke in a clear, distinct, earnest tone--in a manner that showed the subject was not new to his thoughts; and after a short pause, during which Ella made no reply, he again proceeded.

"In this grand organ of man--where all things are strange and incomprehensible--to me the combination of the physical and mental is strangest of all. The soul and the body are united and yet divided. Each is distinct from and acts without the other at times, and yet both act in concert with a wonderful power. The soul plans and the body executes.

The body exercises the soul--the soul the body. The one is visible--the other invisible; the one is mortal--the other immortal. Now why do they act together here? Why was not each placed in its separate sphere of action? Again: What is the soul? Men tell us it is a spirit. What is a spirit? An invisible something that never dies. Who can comprehend it?

None. Whither does it go when separated forever from the body? None can answer, save in language of Scripture: 'It returns to G.o.d who gave it.'"

"I have never heard the proposition advanced by another," continued Algernon, after another slight pause, "but I have sometimes thought myself, that the soul departs from the body, for a brief season, and wanders at will among scenes either near or remote, and returns with its impressions, either clouded or clear, to communicate them to the corporeal or not, as the case may be: hence dreams or visions, and strong impressions when we wake, that something bright and good has refreshed our sleep, or something dark and evil has made it troubled and feverish. Again I have sometimes thought that this soul--this invisible and immortal something within us--has power at times to look into the future, and see events about to transpire; which events being sometimes of a dark and terrible nature, leave upon it like impressions; and hence gloomy and melancholy forebodings. This may be all sophistry--as much of our better reasoning on things we know nothing about often is--but if it be true, then may I trust to account for my present sadness."

"Have you really, then, sad forebodings?" inquired Ella, quickly and earnestly.

"Against my will and sober reason, dear Ella, I must own I have.

Perchance, however, the feeling was only called up by a train of melancholy meditations. While sitting there to-night, gazing upon the many bounding forms--some full of beauty and grace, and some of strength--noting their joyous faces, and listening occasionally to the lightsome jest, and merry, ringing laugh--I could not avoid contrasting with the present the time when I was as happy and full full of mirth as they. I pictured to myself how they would stare and shudder and draw away from me, did they know my hand was stained with the blood of my own kin. Then I began, involuntarily as it were, to picture to myself the fate of each; and they came up before me in the form of a vision, (though if such, it was a waking one) but in regular order; and I saw them pa.s.s on one after another--some gliding smoothly down the stream of time to old age--some wretched and crippled, groping their way along over barren wastes, without water or food, though nearly dying for the want of both--some wading through streams of blood, with fierce and angry looks--and some with pale faces, red eyes, and hollow cheeks, roving amid coffins, sepulchres and bones; but of all, the very fewest number happy."

"Oh! it was an awful vision!" exclaimed Ella, with a shudder.

"It was awful enough," rejoined Algernon; "and despite of me, it made me more and more sad as I thought upon it. Could it indeed be a dream? But no! I was--seemingly at least--as wide awake and conscious as at the present moment. I saw the dance going on as ever--I saw the merry smiles, and heard the jest and laugh as before. Could it be some strange hallucination of the brain--some wild imagining--caused by my previous exercise and over heat? I pondered upon it long and seriously, but could not determine. Suddenly--I know not how nor why--that ill-looking stranger who lodged one night at your uncle's, and departed so mysteriously, came up in my mind; and almost at the same moment, I fancied myself riding with you, dear Ella, through a dark and lonely wood--when all of a sudden there came a fierce yell--several dark, hideous forms, with him among them, swam around me--I heard you shriek for aid--and then all became darkness and confusion; from which I was aroused by some one inquiring if I were ill? What I answered I know not; but the querist immediately took his leave."

"It all seems very strange, Algernon," observed Ella, thoughtfully; "but it was probably nothing more than a feverish dream, brought about by your exercise acting too suddenly and powerfully upon your nervous system, which doubtless has not as yet recovered from the prostration caused by your wound."

"So I tried to think, dear Ella," returned Algernon, with a sigh; "but I have not even yet been able to shake off the gloomy impression, that, whatever the cause, it was sent as a warning of danger. But I am foolish, perhaps, to think as I do; and so let us change the subject.

You spoke a few moments since of destiny. You said, if I mistake not, you believed each individual capable of shaping his own."

"I did," answered Ella; "with the exception, that I qualified it by saying in a measure. No person, I think, has the power of moulding himself to an end which is contrary to the law of nature and his own physical organization; but at the same time he has many ways, some good and some evil, left open for him to choose; else he were not a free agent."

"Ay," rejoined Algernon, "by-paths all to the same great end. I look upon every one here, Ella, as a traveler placed upon the great highway called destiny--with a secret power within that impels him forward, but allows no pause nor retrograde. Along this highway are flowers, and briars, and thistles, and weeds, and shady woods, and barren rocks, and sterile bluffs, and gla.s.sy plots; but proportioned differently to each, as the Maker of all designs his path to be pleasant or otherwise. Beside this highway are perhaps a dozen minor paths, all running a similar course, and all finally merging into it--either near or far, as the case may be--before its termination at the great gate of death. The free agency you speak of, is in choosing of these lesser paths--some of which are full of the snares of temptation, the chasms of ruin, and the pitfalls of destruction; and some of the flowers of peace, the bowers of plenty, and the green woods of contentment. But how to follow the proper one is the difficulty; for they run into one another--cross and recross in a thousand different ways--so that the best disposed as often hit the wrong as the right one, and are entrapped before they are aware of their dangerous course. Worldly wisdom is here put at fault, and the fool as often goes right as the wise man of lore--thus showing, notwithstanding our free agency, that circ.u.mstances govern us; and that what many put down as crime, is, in fact, oftentimes, neither more nor less than error of judgment."

"Then you consider free agency only a chance game, depending, as it were, upon the throw of a die?" observed Ella, inquiringly.

"I believe this much of free agency, that a train of circ.u.mstances often forces some to evil and others to good; and that we should look upon the former, in many cases--mind I do not say all--as unfortunate rather than criminal--with pity rather than scorn; and so endeavor to reclaim them.

Were this doctrine more practiced by Christians--by those whom the world terms good, (but whom circ.u.mstances alone have made better than their fellows,) there would be far less of sin, misery, and crime abounding for them to deplore. Let the creed of churches only be to ameliorate the condition of the poor, relieve the distressed, remove temptations from youth, encourage the virtuous, and endeavor, by gently means, to reclaim the erring--and the holy design of Him who died to save would n.o.bly progress, prisons would be turned into asylums, and scaffolds be things known only by tradition."

Algernon spoke with an easy, earnest eloquence, and a force of emphasis, that made each word tell with proper effect upon his fair hearer. To Ella the ideas he advanced were, many of them, entirely new; and she mused thoughtfully upon them, as they rode along, without reply; while he, becoming warm upon a subject that evidently occupied no inferior place in his mind, went on to speak of the wrongs and abuses which society in general heaped upon the unfortunate, as he termed them--contrasted the charity of professing Christians of the eighteenth century with that of Christ himself--and pointed out what he considered the most effectual means of remedy. To show that a train of circ.u.mstances would frequently force persons against their own will and reason to be what society terms criminal, he referred to himself, and his own so far eventful destiny; and Ella could not but admit to herself, that, in his case at least, his arguments were well grounded, and she shaped her replies accordingly.

Thus conversing, they continued upon their course, until they came to the brow of a steep descent, down which the path ran in a zigzag manner, through a dark, gloomy ravine, now rendered intensely so to our travelers, by the hour, their thoughts, the wildness of the scenery around, and the dense growth of cedars covering the hollow, whose untrimmed branches, growing even to the ground, overreached and partly obstructed their way. By this time only one or two stars were visible in the heavens; and they shone with pale, faint gleams; while in the east the beautiful gray and crimson tints of Aurora announced that day was already breaking on the slumbering world. Drawing rein, Algernon and Ella paused as if to contemplate the scene. Below and around them each object presented that misty, indistinct appearance, which leaves the imagination power to give it either a pleasing or hideous shape. In the immediate vicinity, the country was uneven; rocky, and covered with cedars; but far off to the right could be discerned the even surface of the cane-brake, previously mentioned, now stretching away in the distance like the unruffled bosom of some beautiful lake. A light breeze slightly rustled the leaves of the trees, among whose branches an occasional songster piped forth his morning lay of rejoicing.