CHAPTER XIX.

THE CHASE.

“Listening how the hounds and horn Cheerily rouse the slumbering morn, From the side of some hoar hill Through the high wood echoing shrill.” MILTON.

The forest rang with the cry of the hounds and the shout of the huntsmen. And now the sounds would die away and now peal out upon the air as the chase still kept up the winding course of the river towards its head. One foremost in the chase drew rein upon the brink of an awful chasm, a deep rocky gorge full of pointed crags, among which the torrent roared and whirled in an agony of haste to escape from the torture. It was Hagar, who, with wild heart, fierce eye, and crimsoned cheek, drew up upon the brink. Behind her thundered the steed of one, whom hearing, she looked behind, reined back her hunter on his haunches, and giving him a cheer and shout, cleared the chasm at a bound. It was an awful leap. The hoofs of the horse just grazed the edges of the rocks as he planted them firmly and struggled up the bank.

The other rider, who was no other than our friend, Gusty May, paused breathless on the rocky ledge and gazed at her. Her steed was dancing on the opposite bluff, her form was exultant, her eye flashing. Raising her riding cap above her head, she waved it in the air, and, with a joyous shout of defiance, shot down the ravine and disappeared.

“Devil fetch that girl!—God bless her!—she’ll break my heart or her own neck, or both, yet!—I know she will! Now what the deuce is to be done? My horse can never take that leap—never!—the attempt would be certain death to both. But then if I shirk it, she will say—I know she will—the little limb of Old Scratch!—that I was afraid.” Gusty was in a perfect puzzle. “If there were an _equal_ chance now of life and death one might venture, but as it is—pshaw!” And so muttering, he turned his horse’s head, and rode up the course of the stream to where the chasm was narrow, and over which a rude bridge had been constructed.

Hagar was the first in at the death—down in the dark ravine. Other hunters approached rapidly from other points, and last, upon account of his delay at the gorge, up rode Gusty May, just in time to see the hunters separate, and to attend Hagar to Heath Hall.

Seeing the intense mortification depicted in his countenance, she turned her wild eyes on him kindly, and said,

“You must get a better hunter, Gusty; I could not have spurred that steed to the leap.”

They rode on up the dark ravine until it emerged into the sunlight, then they ambled over the heath towards the Hall; many clumps of trees diversified the rolling surface of the heath, and as they emerged from these, Gusty suddenly laid his hand upon Hagar’s bridle and, growing very red in the face, dropped it again, sighing like a sough of wind in the main-sail. Surprised, Hagar looked at him, which look did not recompose his nerves at all. He stopped his horse. Hagar shot on before. He set spurs to his horse and bounded after her. With a sudden freak the wild girl gave rein to her horse and fled over the heath. Piqued, Gusty drew up and ambled along at dignified leisure. After racing to the end of her course, Hagar whirled about and came galloping back. Gusty awaited her, and then they paced on together in silence, until at length Gusty spoke out with the air of a youth who had made up his mind _to_ speak, let the consequences be what they might.

“Yes, I _will_ speak, Hagar! You _must_ hear; though you cut so many shines, it is very difficult to get the chance to say a word. Hem! Hagar!”

“Well, Master Gusty! I’m all attention.”

“Well, then, I like you!”

“Why, so I always flattered myself.”

“Well, but I’m not joking—I _do_—I _do indeed_. I be whipped if I don’t!”

“Really!”

“Yes—and—”

“Well!”

“I like you more and more!”

“’Pon honor, now?”

“Yes, I do, Hagar. Oh! don’t look at me, you wicked witch! I like you so—so much! God Almighty _knows_ I do! better than I like my ship!”

“Come!” said Hagar, seriously, almost sadly, “tell me what is there you like about me? liking is not to be lightly thrown away, if it be well based—come!”

“Well, there is a—a—an attraction—a something in your face that fascinates—that—that _draws_, that _pulls_, that _nails_, that _rivets_, as it were!”

The girl turned her sparkling face up to the sun, to hide the smile that was breaking through it, while she said,

“Come, say that over again! Let’s hear it again, Gusty!”

“Pshaw! Hagar, be serious—I love you—by my soul’s honor I do, Hagar!—truly, deeply, fervently! Look at me, Hagar; let me see your face. You are silent—you turn it quite away!” and he suddenly wheeled around and confronted her. “You are laughing, hard, hard girl! Kite’s-heart, you are laughing!”

And now she flashed the full light of her eyes in his face, as she said,

“I don’t know how it is that I always laugh when other people would cry. I believe I am a lineal descendant of the laughing philosopher. Now, Gusty, my childhood’s friend, I am laughing at your phantasy. You do _not_ love me; it is a mere illusion of the imagination. Your heart is cheating itself with the semblance of love, in default of the substance.”

“How do you know that, Hagar?”

“By my own heart. Love, _love_ is always mutual! and in my heart lives no love for you beyond the sisterly affection I must ever feel; but that, Gusty, is deeper and stronger than often sisters feel for brothers. But when you talk to me of other love, you shock and repulse me; and that, Gusty, teaches me that _you_ do not really love me, but are only self-deceived by ‘the strong necessity of loving,’ that ‘strong necessity of loving’ that leads so many impatient hearts to ruin. Listen, Gusty. Marriages are made in heaven, but most marriages are seldom consummated. God, who doeth all things well, places on earth the mutual instincts of attraction in such souls as are intended for each other. In the whirl and jostle of this world, it is often that these souls never meet, but it is oftener that the impatience of the heart to _love_ and to _be_ loved, leads it into the delusion that it _does_ love and _is_ loved. Wait, Gusty; do not add to the confusion by marrying when you only fancy you love. Wait, and your chance of meeting your own will be greater!”

“But, my heart, my heart!” said Gusty.

“Oh, your heart, your heart! _Still_ the wailing of the spoiled child if you can, but do not let it have the serpent it cries for—illusory love!”

“You, who know so much about love, whom do you love, Hagar?”

The color deepened to crimson on the girl’s dark cheek, and touching her horse, she rode forward. He followed, and again overtaking her, said,

“Hagar, you have talked a great deal of nonsense. You say that love is always mutual?”

“Yes.”

“And that a one-sided love is an illusion?”

“Yes.”

“How comes it, then, that this one-sided love, this illusion, is sometimes so strong as to drive its victim to madness or suicide?”

“In the first place, Gusty, all that _appears_ to be one-sided love, is _not so_. Love is often returned where it is not acknowledged—often proffered where it is not felt; there is so much false semblance in the world; and then again, Gusty, the fact of the one-sided love _being_ an illusion is the great cause of its eventuating in insanity. Moral illusions, mental illusions, are only other names for insanity.”

They rode on towards the Hall in silence; then suddenly out spoke Gusty with energy, and said

“Hagar, this is all phantasy of _yours_, not of mine. I love you—I wish to pass my life with you—now do not tell me that my case is hopeless. Hagar! do not—I will be so patient, although mother used to say that I was Gusty by name and Gusty by nature. Come, Hagar, let me hope, and I will be so—”

She wheeled her horse suddenly around, and, confronting him, said, very earnestly,

“Gusty, you must never think of me as a wife, for I can never love you as a wife.”

“Oh, Hagar, if you would only try to like me a little—”

“_Try!_” exclaimed the wild girl, and her laugh rang out upon the air, awaking the echoes, “_Try!_—there, I said you knew nothing about love—_Try!_”

“Then _you_ know something of it, you have given your heart to another. Come, Hagar, if you want to put me out of my misery by one stunning blow, say that! say that!”

But Hagar sprang from his side, and trotted quickly into the yard of the Hall, kissing her hand to him as she went. He looked after her, doubting whether to follow her in or not. Finally, he slowly turned aside, and slowly paced his horse off to his mother’s cottage.

* * * * *

Grove Cottage was lighted up, and the lights glimmered through the intervening trees, as he rode up the grape walk, towards the door. Dismounting, and giving his horse in charge of a boy, he passed through the parlor into his own room immediately, scarcely noticing by a bow the rector or his mother, who were seated there. But the eyes of his mother saw his disturbance. She arose and followed him into the room. Gusty was sitting down on the foot of his bed, holding his temples together between his two hands.

“What is the matter, Augustus, my dear? does your head ache?”

Gusty did not reply.

“_What_ is the matter, Gusty?” again she inquired, stooping down near him till the ends of her ringlets (for she still wore her hair in ringlets) brushed his cheek.

“A _coup-de-soleil, belle-mère, un coup-de-soleil_.”

“Gracious goodness! my dear, I never heard of such a thing at this season of the year! You must have your feet bathed, and ice on your head,” and she was hurrying off to get the requisites.

“Come back, _petite maman_, the _coup-de-soleil_ flashed from Hagar Churchill’s eyes of fire, and struck my heart; bring ice for my heart, dear mother, or rather _no_, she administered enough of that,” said he, in a lachrymose tone. Emily Buncombe had stopped, turned round and stood still to hear him. When he ceased, she set the candle down on his dressing-table, and sitting down by his side, she said,

“Indeed, I really was afraid of this—so you have lost your affections to Hagar?”

“Couldn’t help it, mother dear.”

“Gusty! you know I love you.” Gusty looked up inquiringly. “I am the best friend you have in the world, am I not?”

“My dear mother.”

“And I would not call upon you to make a sacrifice for _my_ sake, or for anything except duty, and your own happiness?”

“Mother!”

“Well, Gusty, I beg that you will give up all idea of Hagar.”

“Alas! mother, she has told me as much herself.”

“I am very glad of that.”

“Yes, mother, _that_ was the sun stroke.”

“You must not think of her any more, Gusty.”

“What is the use of telling me _that_, mother, when she has rejected me?”

“Oh!” said the mother, with maternal pique, “as to her _rejecting_ you, Gusty, _that_ was a girlish air—nine girls out of ten reject their lovers at first to try them—_you_ must resign her.”

But Gusty heard nothing but the first part of the speech—jumping up, he caught his mother around the neck and gave her a boisterous kiss, caught her up in his arms, ran around the room with her, set her down, exclaiming,

“Jupiter Tonnerre! mother, you have given me so much life, strength, force—what shall I do with it till to-morrow when I can carry it to Heath Hall and lay it at Hagar’s feet, say, mother! have you got a cord of wood to cut, a forest to fell—a—a—Lord! mother, if I could get hold of this earth I feel strong enough to hurl it through space!”

Now he was walking up and down with glowing cheeks and dancing eye, swinging his arms and bringing his hands together with a clap, and turning off impatiently where the walls of the short room arrested him, just as you have seen a wild beast chafe in his cell. And Emily walked up and down uneasily behind him. At last he threw himself heavily in a chair. Emily came to him.

“So, mother, girls mean ‘yes’ when they say ‘no,’ you can vouch for that by your own experience, hey, mother?”

Emily had seen her mistake in having suggested this, and it added to her uneasiness.

“Gusty,” she said, “whatever Hagar might have meant by her ‘no,’ that ‘no’ has fully exonerated you, if your rather emphatic attentions had raised hopes in her bosom. You must give up all attentions to her for many reasons.”

“And how coolly you say that! Great God! how coolly you say that! As if you had spoken of the mere bagatelle of giving up my _life_, of the mere trifle of losing my _soul_. _Hagar!_ Stop, mother, let me hold my head tightly—there! so! now perhaps it won’t divide through the top—now, mother, tell me why must I give up Hagar?”

“First and least, you are not rich, and Hagar is poor. Miss Churchill is the sole heiress of Heath Hall and the contiguous estate; that sounds very grandly, but just consider that Heath Hall is a ruin that daily threatens to topple down upon and entomb alive its proprietor, and that the Heath itself is now an irreclaimable desert.”

“Dearest mother, that is not like you—Hagar’s poverty! I wish—I wish she was nameless as well as penniless, and I wish I was commander-in-chief of the American army, so that I might have everything to give her, and she everything to receive from me.”

“But it is not so, you see, Gusty; for though she may have plenty of need, you have nothing to bestow, you also are poor!”

“Poor! _me_ poor! Mother, where am I poor at?” exclaimed Gusty, starting up and stretching himself—“_me poor!_ with all this strength to struggle, and the world to struggle against! Oh! for God’s sake, stand out of my way everybody! give me room! swing! sweep! lest I hurt some one unintentionally! I feel like Strong-back in the fairy tale, and I wish some one would commission me to take an island up out of the Atlantic and carry it across the American continent to the Pacific; or, mother, would you like an iceberg for a butter-cooler, or mother, say the word and I’ll bring you the North pole for a churning stick. And then, mother, I have so much faith. Hurrah! Hallelujah! haven’t I faith! God bless you, mother, I have ‘the faith to move mountains,’ for look you, mother, when I say to the mountain, ‘Be thou removed and be thou cast into the midst of the sea,’ I lay right hold of the mountain bodily and hurl it into the water myself, to put life into faith, for ‘faith without work is dead,’ and ‘God helps those who help themselves.’”

Emily looked at him gravely and said,

“That is from Hagar, that wild perverted spirit will ruin you! Oh you irreverend boy, what would your sainted father say if he could see you and hear you.”

“Don’t you suppose he _does_ see and hear me, mother? _I_ do.”

“I hope he watches over you. I hope his spirit will stand between you and that wild dark girl.”

“That Hagar of the lightning! That electric Hagar whose touch might kindle a statue to life! Talk of a galvanic battery! Why, mother, everything that passes from her hands to mine is galvanized! That magnetic Hagar! why, mother, everything of hers is magnetized so that it sticks to my fingers, and I am obliged to carry it off—her glove, her tiny shoe, the eagle feather she wore in her riding cap. I shall be taken up for petty larceny yet. Hagar the magnet! Hagar the North star, who draws me involuntarily, inevitably after her!”

“She did not draw you across Devil’s Gorge this afternoon,” said Emily, maliciously. Gusty wilted down all of a sudden.

“Mother, who told you _that_?”

“Why everybody, it is all over the neighborhood, how in _our_ woods the witch didn’t pursue Tam O’Shanter, but Tam O’Shanter the witch, and how she carried all his courage with her when she swept across the gorge. Come, Mr. Gusty, you have been talking very grandly, sublimely, about strength, and force, and impetuosity, and irresistibility, but I have heard very loud thunder before now that did very little damage!”

“So! but you never heard very loud thunder that did not do a great deal of _good_! Ha! I have you there, _maman_! but never mind, mother, next time I ride a hunt with Hagar I’ll follow her through fire and blood, now mind if I don’t. I’ll purchase a hunter, then see!”

“Then see you’ll break your neck; but I have a worse fear for you than that, Gusty, a far worse fear for you than that. This Hagar, she is the talk of the whole neighborhood; her eccentricity, her improprieties, expose her to severe animadversions.”

“Her originality you mean; her independence; her free, strong, glorious spirit! Oh! Hagar is a chamois! you cannot expect her to trot demurely to the music of her own grunting, from trough to straw, like any pig! Hagar is an eagle! you must not look to find her waddling lazily and feeding fatly with barnyard ducks and geese.”

“A pretty way to speak of your neighbors, Mr. May.”

“Well, then, let them let Hagar alone! Mother!” said Gusty, drawing in his breath _hard_ between his teeth, “the anger heats and swells in my heart like kindling fire in a bombshell, till it tears and splits and flashes, until I feel the fire and see the lightning, and some of these days it will explode and blow myself and some others up! when I hear these domestic animals sitting in sage judgment on my wild deer of the mountains! these barn-door poultry cackling their comments on my falcon sailing towards the sun! Pish! pshaw! tush! tut!” exclaimed Gusty, jumping up in a heat, and walking the floor.

“Pretty way to talk of your neighbors again, I say, Mr. May!”

“Well, then, let them let Hagar ALONE!” thundered Gusty, bringing his hand down on the table like a hammer on the anvil. “Beg your pardon, mother, I did not mean that _to_ you, but _of_ them; and if that old gander Gardiner Green don’t make his goose and gosling stop cackling about Hagar, he’ll get his neck twisted for him!”

Now Emily laughed—

“Poor Gardiner Green, it would be a sin and a shame to persecute him for what he has no hand in and can’t help. Don’t you know how he fears his wife?”

“Does—does he? very well, I’ll meet fear with fear; he shall fear something else worse than his wife!”

“Now, very seriously, Augustus, you will afflict me very much, if you commit any folly for the sake of Hagar Churchill.”

“But I love Hagar Churchill—love her! sympathize with her.”

“She has no pity for herself, why should others pity her?”

“_Pity! pity!_ did I say _pity_, mother? pity Hagar Churchill! _pity_ that proud, free, glad spirit!”

“Yes, _pity her_! that ‘proud, free, glad spirit’ is clothed with woman’s deep affections, prisoned in _woman’s_ fragile form, environed by woman’s circumstances, and chafes against them all—would break through them all! will break through them all! and then, high as that proud spirit soars, though her wings should glance in the atmosphere around the sun’s disk, she will be beaten back and down—_down!_ Glad as that high heart throbs, it will yet beat sobs that throw out tears for blood! Wide as that wild spirit wanders, it will yet cower, moaning upon the waste hearth of home.”

“Good God, mother, what makes you talk so? If I thought that, I would scale the eyrie of the eagle, and carry off Hagar to some sweet South sea summer isle, where she should reign another Queen Eve over another Eden.”

“Are we to have any supper to-night, Emily?” sang out Mr. Buncombe from the parlor.

“Yes! I’m coming—think no more of this Hagar.”

“But, mother,” interrupted Gusty, “_why_ do you have such dreadful forebodings for Hagar?”

“I judge her fate by herself, her future by her past and present, and I say that, unless Providence interposes to save her as by fire, Hagar’s fierce, strong spirit will break her own heart and destroy her own soul! Come to supper.”

“Destroy her own soul—come to supper—that’s a pretty brace of subjects to tie together, is it not now?” said Gusty.

It must not be supposed that Emily had any unfriendly feelings towards Hagar. She did not love Hagar less, but Gusty more. And acting like a sober, prudent mother, she did not choose to permit Gusty to marry a girl who was fully as much censured as admired in the neighborhood.

After supper she talked with him again, talked earnestly and for a long time, until Gusty rising, said,—

“Seriously, mother, you ask too much—too much of me; you, with your cool, temperate nature, cannot sympathize with my ardent heart. Alas! how should you?—you, who at eighteen could marry a man of sixty (no disrespect, mother—I venerate my sainted father’s memory—I talk reason, but not disrespect)—you, I say, who could at eighteen wed a man of sixty, and be happy with him—you who at twenty-five, in your young widowhood, could keep a young lover waiting ten years, until your son grew up—you with your cheerful, serene temperament, how can you conceive my sufferings if severed from Hagar? My love for Hagar, if die it must, will die hard—dreadful will be its death throes; but you, mother, how can your quiet heart conceive of this—sympathize with this?”

“A still heart is not always a _cold_ heart, Gusty, or even a _quiet_ heart. I have tamed my heart to the will of Providence—I have learned in His school, and thrown down in impatience no task that He has set me—rebelled against no discipline He has ordained for me; and my life has gone smoothly, pleasantly, happily. I have gained some calm wisdom; I am thirty-six years old, yet my face is as smooth, my eye as clear, my hair as black and moist as in girlhood. I have minded God for my father, and He has very gently led me up the steeps of life. Believe me, Gusty, it is our rebellion against Him that makes all our troubles. God’s will is paramount, absolute, its end is our good, and He will keep us in our path if it be by ‘a hedge of thorns;’ seek to escape God’s providence and in your struggle you break and bruise yourself, and lose your strength. If, in the words of Scripture, you ‘kick against the pricks,’ you will be wounded. It rests with us, Gusty, to go God’s way willingly and pleasantly, or to go in it rebelliously and painfully, for go God’s way we must. The further we stray from it the longer and more fearful will be the forced journey back to it and the more we wrestle against God’s laws and will, the more fatigued and bruised we will be, of course without the glory and the anguish of coming off victors. Now, Gusty, _my_ faith in God was only lip-acknowledged, before a slight circumstance made it heartfelt. It was this:—You were an infant of six weeks old. You had a tumor rising under your ear. It grew very large and painful. When I had to dress it it put you in an agony, and you would struggle violently and look up into my face with an imploring, reproachful expression, as though you would inquire _why I_ tortured you—_I_ whom you depended upon and whom you loved, and who loved you—why _I_, your mother, tortured you. That was your expression—I read it plainly in your countenance, Gusty, and I wept at your silent reproach. Your father was standing by me, and he said, ‘Emily, what is it?’ I replied, ‘I weep—I weep because this child cannot understand that I _must_ do this—that I _pain_ him to _cure_ him.’ But while I spoke, Gusty, darted down this truth into my heart-strings from Heaven. And so God, the pitiful father, wounds to heal His children, and would make them understand, but that they are querulous and still cry ‘why, why suffering? since God has power and love?’ Alas! we cannot understand, the dulness is ours, or we _must_ not understand, for the probation is ours, for some reason that will one day be revealed. It may be not from the deficiency of God’s power or will to reveal, but from a deficiency of our ability now to receive the revelation of the secret of suffering; and we wait or rebel—struggle against or reproach Providence for suffering, even as the tortured, writhing, and screaming child silently reproached its loving and grieving mother for her tender dressing of its tumor. God doeth all things well; that truth has calmed my heart, made my life serene and happy.”