The Pilot (21 page)

"We must trust to the will of God," said Cecilia; "if he ordain that
America is to be free only after protracted sufferings, I can aid her
but with my prayers; but you have an arm and an experience, Griffith,
that might do her better service; waste not your usefulness, then, in
visionary schemes for private happiness, but seize the moments as they
offer, and return to your ship, if indeed it is yet in safety, and
endeavor to forget this mad undertaking, and, for a time, the being who
has led you to the adventure."

"This is a reception that I had not anticipated," returned Griffith;
"for though accident, and not intention, has thrown me into your
presence this evening, I did hope that, when I again saw the frigate, it
would be in your company, Cecilia."

"You cannot justly reproach me, Mr. Griffith, with your disappointment;
for I have not uttered or authorized a syllable that could induce you or
any one to believe that I would consent to quit my uncle."

"Miss Howard will not think me presumptuous, if I remind her that there
was a time when she did not think me unworthy to be entrusted with her
person and happiness."

A rich bloom mantled on the face of Cecilia, as she replied:

"Nor do I now, Mr. Griffith; but you do well to remind me of my former
weakness, for the recollection of its folly and imprudence only adds to
my present strength."

"Nay," interrupted her eager lover, "if I intended a reproach, or
harbored a boastful thought, spurn me from you forever, as unworthy of
your favor."

"I acquit you of both much easier than I can acquit myself of the charge
of weakness and folly," continued Cecilia; "but there are many things
that have occurred, since we last met, to prevent a repetition of such
inconsiderate rashness on my part. One of them is," she added, smiling
sweetly, "that I have numbered twelve additional months to my age, and a
hundred to my experience. Another, and perhaps a more important one, is,
that my uncle then continued among the friends of his youth, surrounded
by those whose blood mingles with his own; but here he lives a stranger;
and, though he finds some consolation in dwelling in a building where
his ancestors have dwelt before him, yet he walks as an alien through
its gloomy passages, and would find the empty honor but a miserable
compensation for the kindness and affection of one whom he has loved and
cherished from her infancy."

"And yet he is opposed to you in your private wishes, Cecilia, unless my
besotted vanity has led me to believe what it would now be madness to
learn was false; and in your opinions of public things, you are quite as
widely separated. I should think there could be but little happiness
dependent on a connection where there is no one feeling entertained in
common."

"There is, and an all-important one," said Miss Howard; "'tis our love.
He is my kind, my affectionate, and, unless thwarted by some evil cause,
my indulgent uncle and guardian,—and I am his brother Harry's child.
This tie is not easily to be severed, Mr. Griffith; though, as I do not
wish to see you crazed, I shall not add, that your besotted vanity has
played you false; but surely, Edward, it is possible to feel a double
tie, and so to act as to discharge our duties to both. I never, never
can or will consent to desert my uncle, a stranger as he is in the land
whose rule he upholds so blindly. You know not this England, Griffith;
she receives her children from the colonies with cold and haughty
distrust, like a jealous stepmother, who is wary of the favors that she
bestows on her fictitious offspring."

"I know her in peace, and I know her in war," said the young sailor,
proudly, "and can add, that she is a haughty friend, and a stubborn foe;
but she grapples now with those who ask no more of her than an open sea
and an enemy's favors. But this determination will be melancholy tidings
for me to convey to Barnstable."

"Nay," said Cecilia, smiling, "I cannot vouch for others who have no
uncles, and who have an extra quantity of ill humor and spleen against
this country, its people, and its laws, although profoundly ignorant of
them all."

"Is Miss Howard tired of seeing me under the tiles of St. Ruth?" asked
Katherine. "But hark! are there not footsteps approaching along the
gallery?"

They listened, in breathless silence, and soon heard distinctly the
approaching tread of more than one person. Voices were quite audible,
and before they had time to consult on what was best to be done, the
words of the speakers were distinctly heard at the door of their own
apartment.

"Ay! he has a military air about him, Peters, that will make him a
prize; come, open the door."

"This is not his room, your honor," said the alarmed soldier; "he
quarters in the last room in the gallery."

"How know you that, fellow? come, produce the key, and open the way for
me; I care not who sleeps here; there is no saying but I may enlist them
all three."

A single moment of dreadful incertitude succeeded, when the sentinel was
heard saying, in reply to this peremptory order:

"I thought your honor wanted to see the one with the black stock, and so
left the rest of the keys at the other end of the passage; but—"

"But nothing, you loon; a sentinel should always carry his keys about
him, like a jailer; follow, then, and let me see the lad who dresses so
well to the right."

As the heart of Katherine began to beat less vehemently, she said:

"'Tis Borroughcliffe, and too drunk to see that we have left the key in
the door; but what is to be done? we have but a moment for
consultation."

"As the day dawns," said Cecilia, quickly, I shall send here, under the
pretence of conveying you food, my own woman—"

"There is no need of risking anything for my safety," interrupted
Griffith; "I hardly think we shall be detained, and if we are,
Barnstable is at hand with a force that would scatter these recruits to
the four winds of heaven."

"Ah! that would lead to bloodshed, and scenes of horror!" exclaimed
Cecilia.

"Listen!" cried Katherine, "they approach again!"

A man now stopped, once more, at their door, which was opened softly,
and the face of the sentinel was thrust into the apartment.

"Captain Borroughcliffe is on his rounds, and for fifty of your guineas
I would not leave you here another minute."

"But one word more," said Cecilia.

"Not a syllable, my lady, for my life," returned the man; "the lady from
the next room waits for you, and in mercy to a poor fellow go back where
you came from."

The appeal was unanswerable, and they complied, Cecilia saying, as they
left the room:

"I shall send you food in the morning, young man, and directions how to
take the remedy necessary to your safety."

In the passage they found Alice Dunscombe, with her face concealed in
her mantle; and, it would seem, by the heavy sighs that escaped from
her, deeply agitated by the interview which she had just encountered.

But as the reader may have some curiosity to know what occurred to
distress this unoffending lady so sensibly, we shall detain the
narrative, to relate the substance of that which passed between her and
the individual whom she sought.

"As when a lion in his den,
Hath heard the hunters' cries,
And rushes forth to meet his foes,
So did the Douglas rise—"
Percy
.

Alice Dunscombe did not find the second of the prisoners buried, like
Griffith, in sleep, but he was seated on one of the old chairs that were
in the apartment, with his back to the door, and apparently looking
through the small window, on the dark and dreary scenery over which the
tempest was yet sweeping in its fury. Her approach was unheeded, until
the light from her lamp glared across his eyes, when he started from his
musing posture, and advanced to meet her. He was the first to speak.

"I expected this visit," he said, "when I found that you recognized my
voice; and I felt a deep assurance in my breast, that Alice Dunscombe
would never betray me."

His listener, though expecting this confirmation of her conjectures, was
unable to make an immediate reply, but she sank into the seat he had
abandoned, and waited a few moments, as if to recover her powers.

"It was, then, no mysterious warning! no airy voice that mocked my ear;
but a dread reality!" she at length said. "Why have you thus braved the
indignation of the laws of your country? On what errand of fell mischief
has your ruthless temper again urged you to embark?"

"This is strong and cruel language, coming from you to me, Alice
Dunscombe," returned the stranger, with cool asperity, "and the time has
been when I should have been greeted, after a shorter absence, with
milder terms."

"I deny it not; I cannot, if I would, conceal my infirmity from myself
or you; I hardly wish it to continue unknown to the world. If I have
once esteemed you, if I have plighted to you my troth, and in my
confiding folly forgot my higher duties, God has amply punished me for
the weakness in your own evil deeds."

"Nay, let not our meeting be embittered with useless and provoking
recriminations," said the other; "for we have much to say before you
communicate the errand of mercy on which you have come hither. I know
you too well, Alice, not to see that you perceive the peril in which I
am placed, and are willing to venture something for my safety. Your
mother—does she yet live?"

"She is gone in quest of my blessed father," said Alice, covering her
pale face with her hands; "they have left me alone, truly; for he, who
was to have been all to me, was first false to his faith, and has since
become unworthy of my confidence."

The stranger became singularly agitated, his usually quiet eye glancing
hastily from the floor to the countenance of his companion, as he paced
the room with hurried steps; at length he replied:

"There is much, perhaps, to be said in explanation, that you do not
know. I left the country, because I found in it nothing but oppression
and injustice, and I could not invite you to become the bride of a
wanderer, without either name or fortune. But I have now the opportunity
of proving my truth. You say you are alone; be so no longer, and try how
far you were mistaken in believing that I should one day supply the
place to you of both father and mother."

There is something soothing to a female ear in the offer of even
protracted justice, and Alice spoke with less of acrimony in her tones,
during the remainder of their conference, if not with less of severity
in her language.

"You talk not like a man whose very life hangs but on a thread that the
next minute may snap asunder. Whither would you lead me? Is it to the
Tower at London?"

"Think not that I have weakly exposed my person without a sufficient
protection," returned the stranger with cool indifference; "there are
many gallant men who only wait my signal, to crush the paltry force of
this officer like a worm beneath my feet."

"Then has the conjecture of Colonel Howard been true I and the manner in
which the enemy's vessels have passed the shoals is no longer a mystery!
you have been their pilot!"

"I have."

"What! would ye pervert the knowledge gained in the springtime of your
guileless youth to the foul purpose of bringing desolation to the doors
of those you once knew and respected! John! John! is the image of the
maiden whom in her morning of beauty and simplicity I believe you did
love, so faintly impressed, that it cannot soften your hard heart to the
misery of those among whom she has been born, and who compose her little
world?"

"Not a hair of theirs shall be touched, not a thatch shall blaze, nor
shall a sleepless night befall the vilest among them—and all for your
sake, Alice! England comes to this contest with a seared conscience, and
bloody hands, but all shall be forgotten for the present, when both
opportunity and power offer to make her feel our vengeance, even in her
vitals. I came on no such errand."

"What, then, has led you blindly into snares, where all your boasted aid
would avail you nothing? for, should I call aloud your name, even here,
in the dark and dreary passages of this obscure edifice, the cry would
echo through the country ere the morning, and a whole people would be
found in arms to punish your audacity."

"My name has been sounded, and that in no gentle strains," returned the
Pilot, scornfully, "when a whole people have quailed at it, the craven
cowardly wretches flying before the man they had wronged. I have lived
to bear the banners of the new republic proudly in sight of the three
kingdoms, when practised skill and equal arms have in vain struggled to
pluck it down. Ay! Alice, the echoes of my guns are still roaring among
your eastern hills, and would render my name more appalling than
inviting to your sleeping yeomen."

"Boast not of the momentary success that the arm of God has yielded to
your unhallowed efforts," said Alice; "for a day of severe and heavy
retribution must follow: nor flatter yourself with the idle hope that
your name, terrible as ye have rendered it to the virtuous, is
sufficient, of itself, to drive the thoughts of home, and country, and
kin, from all who hear it.—Nay, I know not that even now, in listening
to you, I am not forgetting a solemn duty, which would teach me to
proclaim your presence, that the land might know that her unnatural son
is a dangerous burden in her bosom."

The Pilot turned quickly in his short walk; and, after reading her
countenance, with the expression of one who felt his security, he said
in gentler tones:

"Would that be Alice Dunscombe? would that be like the mild, generous
girl whom I knew in my youth? But I repeat, the threat would fail to
intimidate, even if you were capable of executing it. I have said that
it is only to make the signal, to draw around me a force sufficient to
scatter these dogs of soldiers to the four winds of heaven."