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St. Elmo

A >> Augusta J. Evans >> St. Elmo



Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

ST. ELMO

BY

AUGUSTA J. EVANS

Author of "Beulah," "Macaria," "At the Mercy of Tiberius" "Infelice"
Etc., Etc.


"Ah! the true rule is--a true wife in her husband's house is his
servant; it is in his heart that she is queen. Whatever of the best
he can conceive, it is her part to be; whatever of the highest he
can hope, it is hers to promise; all that is dark in him she must
purge into purity, all that is failing in him she must strengthen
into truth; from her, through all the world's clamor, he must win
his praise; in her, through all the world's warfare, he must find
his peace."--JOHN RUSKIN.





TO

J. C. DERBY,

IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF MANY YEARS OF KIND AND FAITHFUL FRIENDSHIP,
THESE PAGES ARE

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.



"Ah! the true rule is--a true wife in her husband's house is his
servant; it is in his heart that she is queen. Whatever of the best
he can conceive, it is her part to be; whatever of the highest he
can hope, it is hers to promise; all that is dark in him she must
purge into purity; all that is failing in him she must strengthen
into truth; from her, through all the world's clamor, he must win
his praise; in her, through all the world's warfare, he must find
his peace."
--JOHN RUSKIN.






ST. ELMO.

CHAPTER I.


"He stood and measured the earth: and the everlasting mountains were
scattered, the perpetual hills did bow."

These words of the prophet upon Shigionoth were sung by a sweet,
happy, childish voice, and to a strange, wild, anomalous tune--
solemn as the Hebrew chant of Deborah, and fully as triumphant.

A slender girl of twelve years' growth steadied a pail of water on
her head, with both dimpled arms thrown up, in ancient classic
Caryatides attitude; and, pausing a moment beside the spring, stood
fronting the great golden dawn--watching for the first level ray of
the coming sun, and chanting the prayer of Habakkuk. Behind her in
silent grandeur towered the huge outline of Lookout Mountain,
shrouded at summit in gray mist; while centre and base showed dense
masses of foliage, dim and purplish in the distance--a stern cowled
monk of the Cumberland brotherhood. Low hills clustered on either
side, but immediately in front stretched a wooded plain, and across
this the child looked at the flushed sky, rapidly brightening into
fiery and blinding radiance. Until her wild song waked echoes among
the far-off rocks, the holy hush of early morning had rested like a
benediction upon the scene, as though nature laid her broad finger
over her great lips, and waited in reverent silence the advent of
the sun. Morning among the mountains possessed witchery and glories
which filled the heart of the girl with adoration, and called from
her lips rude but exultant anthems of praise. The young face, lifted
toward the cloudless east, might have served as a model for a
pictured Syriac priestess--one of Baalbec's vestals, ministering in
the olden time in that wondrous and grand temple at Heliopolis.

The large black eyes held a singular fascination in their mild,
sparkling depths, now full of tender, loving light and childish
gladness; and the flexible red lips curled in lines of orthodox
Greek perfection, showing remarkable versatility of expression;
while the broad, full, polished forehead with its prominent,
swelling brows, could not fail to recall, to even casual observers,
the calm, powerful face of Lorenzo de' Medicis, which, if once
looked on, fastens itself upon heart and brain, to be forgotten no
more. Her hair, black, straight, waveless as an Indian's, hung
around her shoulders, and glistened as the water from the dripping
bucket trickled through the wreath of purple morning-glories and
scarlet cypress, which she had twined about her head, ere lifting
the cedar pail to its resting-place. She wore a short-sleeved dress
of yellow striped homespun, which fell nearly to her ankles, and her
little bare feet gleamed pearly white on the green grass and rank
dewy creepers that clustered along the margin of the bubbling
spring. Her complexion was unusually transparent, and early exercise
and mountain air had rouged her cheeks till they matched the
brilliant hue of her scarlet crown. A few steps in advance of her
stood a large, fierce yellow dog, with black, scowling face, and
ears cut close to his head; a savage, repulsive creature, who looked
as if he rejoiced in an opportunity of making good his name, "Grip."
In the solemn beauty of that summer morning the girl seemed to have
forgotten the mission upon which she came; but as she loitered, the
sun flashed up, kindling diamond fringes on every dew-beaded
chestnut leaf and oak-bough, and silvering the misty mantle which
enveloped Lookout. A moment longer that pure-hearted Tennessee child
stood watching the gorgeous spectacle, drinking draughts of joy,
which mingled no drop of sin or selfishness in its crystal waves;
for she had grown up alone with nature--utterly ignorant of the roar
and strife, the burning hate and cunning intrigue of the great world
of men and women, where, "like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers,
each struggles to get its head above the other." To her, earth
seemed very lovely; life stretched before her like the sun's path in
that clear sky, and, as free from care or foreboding as the fair
June day, she walked on, preceded by her dog--and the chant burst
once more from her lips:

"He stood and measured the earth: and the everlasting mountains were
scattered, the perpetual hills--"

The sudden, almost simultaneous report of two pistol-shots rang out
sharply on the cool, calm air, and startled the child so violently
that she sprang forward and dropped the bucket. The sound of voices
reached her from the thick wood bordering the path, and, without
reflection, she followed the dog, who bounded off toward the point
whence it issued. Upon the verge of the forest she paused, and,
looking down a dewy green glade where the rising sun darted the
earliest arrowy rays, beheld a spectacle which burned itself
indelibly upon her memory. A group of five gentlemen stood beneath
the dripping chestnut and sweet-gum arches; one leaned against the
trunk of a tree, two were conversing eagerly in undertones, and two
faced each other fifteen paces apart, with pistols in their hands.
Ere she could comprehend the scene, the brief conference ended, the
seconds resumed their places to witness another fire, and like the
peal of a trumpet echoed the words:

"Fire! One!--two!--three!"

The flash and ringing report mingled with the command and one of the
principals threw up his arm and fell. When with horror in her wide-
strained eyes and pallor on her lips, the child staggered to the
spot, and looked on the prostrate form, he was dead. The hazel eyes
stared blankly at the sky, and the hue of life and exuberant health
still glowed on the full cheek; but the ball had entered the heart,
and the warm blood, bubbling from his breast, dripped on the
glistening grass. The surgeon who knelt beside him took the pistol
from his clenched fingers, and gently pressed the lids over his
glazing eyes. Not a word was uttered, but while the seconds sadly
regarded the stiffening form, the surviving principal coolly drew
out a cigar, lighted and placed it between his lips. The child's
eyes had wandered to the latter from the pool of blood, and now in a
shuddering cry she broke the silence:

"Murderer!"

The party looked around instantly, and for the first time perceived
her standing there in their midst, with loathing and horror in the
gaze she fixed on the perpetrator of the awful deed. In great
surprise he drew back a step or two, and asked gruffly:

"Who are you? What business have you here?"

"Oh! how dared you murder him? Do you think God will forgive you on
the gallows?"

He was a man probably twenty-seven years of age--singularly fair,
handsome, and hardened in iniquity, but he cowered before the
blanched and accusing face of the appalled child; and ere a reply
could be framed, his friend came close to him.

"Clinton, you had better be off; you have barely time to catch the
Knoxville train, which leaves Chattanooga in half an hour. I would
advise you to make a long stay in New York, for there will be
trouble when Dent's brother hears of this morning's work."

"Aye! Take my word for that, and put the Atlantic between you and
Dick Dent," added the surgeon, smiling grimly, as if the
anticipation of retributive justice afforded him pleasure.

"I will simply put this between us," replied the homicide, fitting
his pistol to the palm of his hand; and as he did so, a heavy
antique diamond ring flashed on his little finger.

"Come, Clinton, delay may cause you more trouble than we bargained
for," urged his second.

Without even glancing toward the body of his antagonist, Clinton
scowled at the child, and, turning away, was soon out of sight.

"Oh, sir! will you let him get away? will you let him go
unpunished?"

"He cannot be punished," answered the surgeon, looking at her with
mingled curiosity and admiration.

"I thought men were hung for murder."

"Yes--but this is not murder."

"Not murder? He shot him dead! What is it?"

"He killed him in a duel, which is considered quite right and
altogether proper."

"A duel?"

She had never heard the word before, and pondered an instant.

"To take a man's life is murder. Is there no law to punish 'a
duel'?"

"None strong enough to prohibit the practice. It is regarded as the
only method of honorable satisfaction open to gentlemen."

"Honorable satisfaction?" she repeated--weighing the new phraseology
as cautiously and fearfully as she would have handled the bloody
garments of the victim.

"What is your name?" asked the surgeon.

"Edna Earl."

"Do you live near this place?"

"Yes, sir, very near."

"Is your father at home?"

"I have no father, but grandpa has not gone to the shop yet."

"Will you show me the way to the house?"

"Do you wish to carry him there?" she asked, glancing at the corpse,
and shuddering violently.

"Yes, I want some assistance from your grandfather."

"I will show you the way, sir."

The surgeon spoke hurriedly to the two remaining gentlemen, and
followed his guide. Slowly she retraced her steps, refilled her
bucket at the spring, and walked on before the stranger. But the
glory of the morning had passed away; a bloody mantle hung between
the splendor of summer sunshine and the chilled heart of the awe-
struck girl. The forehead of the radiant, holy June day had been
suddenly red-branded like Cain, to be henceforth an occasion of
hideous reminiscences; and with a blanched face and trembling limbs
the child followed a narrow, beaten path, which soon terminated at
the gate of a rude, unwhitewashed paling. A low, comfortless looking
three-roomed house stood within, and on the steps sat an elderly
man, smoking a pipe, and busily engaged in mending a bridle. The
creaking of the gate attracted his attention, and he looked up
wonderingly at the advancing stranger.

"Oh, grandpa! there is a murdered man lying in the grass, under the
chestnut trees, down by the spring."

"Why! how do you know he was murdered?"

"Good morning, sir. Your granddaughter happened to witness a very
unfortunate and distressing affair. A duel was fought at sunrise, in
the edge of the woods yonder, and the challenged party, Mr. Dent, of
Georgia, was killed. I came to ask permission to bring the body
here, until arrangements can be made for its interment; and also to
beg your assistance in obtaining a coffin."

Edna passed on to the kitchen, and as she deposited the bucket on
the table, a tall, muscular, red-haired woman, who was stooping over
the fire, raised her flushed face, and exclaimed angrily:

"What upon earth have you been doing? I have been halfway to the
spring to call you, and hadn't a drop of water in the kitchen to
make coffee! A pretty time of day Aaron Hunt will get his breakfast!
What do you mean by such idleness?"

She advanced with threatening mien and gesture, but stopped
suddenly.

"Edna, what ails you? Have you got an ague? You are as white as that
pan of flour. Are you scared or sick?"

"There was a man killed this morning, and the body will be brought
here directly. If you want to hear about it, you had better go out
on the porch. One of the gentlemen is talking to grandpa."

Stunned by what she had seen, and indisposed to narrate the horrid
details, the girl went to her own room, and seating herself in the
window, tried to collect her thoughts. She was tempted to believe
the whole affair a hideous dream, which would pass away with
vigorous rubbing of her eyes; but the crushed purple and scarlet
flowers she took from her forehead, her dripping hair and damp feet
assured her of the vivid reality of the vision. Every fibre of her
frame had received a terrible shock, and when noisy, bustling Mrs.
Hunt ran from room to room, ejaculating her astonishment, and
calling on the child to assist in putting the house in order, the
latter obeyed silently, mechanically, as if in a state of
somnambulism.

Mr. Dent's body was brought up on a rude litter of boards, and
temporarily placed on Edna's bed, and toward evening when a coffin
arrived from Chattanooga, the remains were removed, and the coffin
rested on two chairs in the middle of the same room. The surgeon
insisted upon an immediate interment near the scene of combat; but
the gentleman who had officiated as second for the deceased
expressed his determination to carry the unfortunate man's body back
to his home and family, and the earliest train on the following day
was appointed as the time for their departure. Late in the afternoon
Edna cautiously opened the door of the room which she had hitherto
avoided, and with her apron full of lilies, while poppies and sprigs
of rosemary, approached the coffin, and looked at the rigid sleeper.
Judging from his appearance, not more than thirty years had gone
over his handsome head; his placid features were unusually regular,
and a soft, silky brown beard fell upon his pulseless breast.
Fearful lest she should touch the icy form, the girl timidly strewed
her flowers in the coffin, and tears gathered and dropped with the
blossoms, as she noticed a plain gold ring on the little finger, and
wondered if he were married--if his death would leave wailing
orphans in his home, and a broken-hearted widow at the desolate
hearthstone. Absorbed in her melancholy task, she heard neither the
sound of strange voices in the passage, nor the faint creak of the
door as it swung back on its rusty hinges; but a shrill scream, a
wild, despairing shriek terrified her, and her heart seemed to stand
still as she bounded away from the side of the coffin. The light of
the setting sun streamed through the window, and over the white,
convulsed face of a feeble but beautiful woman, who was supported on
the threshold by a venerable, gray-haired man, down whose furrowed
cheeks tears coursed rapidly. Struggling to free herself from his
restraining grasp, the stranger tottered into the middle of the
room.

"O Harry! My husband! my husband!" She threw up her wasted arms, and
fell forward senseless on the corpse.

They bore her into the adjoining apartment, where the surgeon
administered the usual restoratives, and though finally the pulses
stirred and throbbed feebly, no symptom of returning consciousness
greeted the anxious friends who bent over her. Hour after hour
passed, during which she lay as motionless as her husband's body,
and at length the physician sighed, and pressing his fingers to his
eyes, said sorrowfully to the grief-stricken old man beside her: "It
is paralysis, Mr. Dent, and there is no hope. She may linger twelve
or twenty-four hours, but her sorrows are ended; she and Harry will
soon be reunited. Knowing her constitution, I feared as much. You
should not have suffered her to come; you might have known that the
shock would kill her. For this reason I wished his body buried
here."

"I could not restrain her. Some meddling gossip told her that my
poor boy had gone to fight a duel, and she rose from her bed and
started to the railroad depot. I pleaded, I reasoned with her that
she could not bear the journey, but I might as well have talked to
the winds, I never knew her obstinate before, but she seemed to have
a presentiment of the truth. God pity her two sweet babes!"

The old man bowed his head upon her pillow, and sobbed aloud.

Throughout the night Edna crouched beside the bed, watching the wan
but lovely face of the young widow, and tenderly chafing the numb,
fair hands which lay so motionless on the coverlet. Children are
always sanguine, because of their ignorance of the stern, inexorable
realities of the untried future, and Edna could not believe that
death would snatch from the world one so beautiful and so necessary
to her prattling, fatherless infants. But morning showed no
encouraging symptoms, the stupor was unbroken, and at noon the
wife's spirit passed gently to the everlasting reunion.

Before sunrise on the ensuing day, a sad group clustered once more
under the dripping chestnuts, and where a pool of blood had dyed the
sod, a wide grave yawned. The coffins were lowered, the bodies of
Henry and Helen Dent rested side by side, and, as the mound rose
slowly above them, the solemn silence was broken by the faltering
voice of the surgeon, who read the burial service.

"Man, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is
full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he
fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. Yet, O
Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful
Saviour, deliver us not into the pains of eternal death!"

The melancholy rite ended, the party dispersed, the strangers took
their departure for their distant homes, and quiet reigned once more
in the small, dark cottage. But days and weeks brought to Edna no
oblivion of the tragic events which constituted the first great
epoch of her monotonous life. A nervous restlessness took possession
of her, she refused to occupy her old room, and insisted upon
sleeping on a pallet at the foot of her grandfather's bed. She
forsook her whilom haunts about the spring and forest, and started
up in terror at every sudden sound; while from each opening between
the chestnut trees the hazel eyes of the dead man, and the wan, thin
face of the golden-haired wife, looked out beseechingly at her.
Frequently, in the warm light of day, ere shadows stalked to and fro
in the thick woods, she would steal, with an apronful of wild
flowers, to the solitary grave, scatter her treasures in the rank
grass that waved above it, and hurry away with hushed breath and
quivering limbs. Summer waned, autumn passed, and winter came, but
the girl recovered in no degree from the shock which had cut short
her chant of praise on that bloody June day. In her morning visit to
the spring, she had stumbled upon a monster which custom had adopted
and petted--which the passions and sin fulness of men had adroitly
draped and fondled, and called Honorable Satisfaction; but her pure,
unperverted, Ithuriel nature pierced the conventional mask,
recognized the loathsome lineaments of crime, and recoiled in horror
and amazement, wondering at the wickedness of her race and the
forbearance of outraged Jehovah. Innocent childhood had for the
first time stood face to face with Sin and Death, and could not
forget the vision.

Edna Earl had lost both her parents before she was old enough to
remember either. Her mother was the only daughter of Aaron Hunt, the
village blacksmith, and her father, who was an intelligent,
promising young carpenter, accidentally fell from the roof of the
house which he was shingling, and died from the injuries sustained.
Thus Mr. Hunt, who had been a widower for nearly ten years, found
himself burdened with the care of an infant only six months old. His
daughter had never left him, and after her death the loneliness of
the house oppressed him painfully, and for the sake of his
grandchild he resolved to marry again. The middle-aged widow whom he
selected was a kind-hearted and generous woman, but indolent,
ignorant, and exceedingly high-tempered; and while she really loved
the little orphan committed to her care, she contrived to alienate
her affection, and to tighten the bonds of union between her husband
and the child. Possessing a remarkably amiable and equable
disposition, Edna rarely vexed Mrs. Hunt, who gradually left her
more and more to the indulgence of her own views and caprices, and
contented herself with exacting a certain amount of daily work,
after the accomplishment of which she allowed her to amuse herself
as childish whims dictated. There chanced to be no children of her
own age in the neighborhood, consequently she grew up without
companionship, save that furnished by her grandfather, who was
dotingly fond of her, and would have utterly spoiled her, had not
her temperament fortunately been one not easily injured by
unrestrained liberty of action. Before she was able to walk, he
would take her to the forge, and keep her for hours on a sheepskin
in one corner, whence she watched, with infantile delight, the blast
of the furnace, and the shower of sparks that fell from the anvil,
and where she often slept, lulled by the monotonous chorus of trip
and sledge. As she grew older, the mystery of bellows and slack-tub
engaged her attention, and at one end of the shop, on a pile of
shavings, she collected a mass of curiously shaped bits of iron and
steel, and blocks of wood, from which a miniature shop threatened to
rise in rivalry; and finally, when strong enough to grasp the
handles of the bellows, her greatest pleasure consisted in rendering
the feeble assistance which her grandfather was always so proud to
accept at her hands. Although ignorant and uncultivated, Mr. Hunt
was a man of warm, tender feelings, and rare nobility of soul. He
regretted the absence of early advantages which poverty had denied
him; and in teaching Edna to read and to write, and to cipher, he
never failed to impress upon her the vast superiority which a
thorough education confers. Whether his exhortations first kindled
her ambition, or whether her aspiration for knowledge was
spontaneous and irrepressible, he knew not; but she manifested very
early a fondness for study and thirst for learning which he
gratified to the fullest extent of his limited ability. The
blacksmith's library consisted of the family Bible, Pilgrim's
Progress, a copy of Irving's Sermons on Parables, Guy Mannering, a
few tracts, and two books which had belonged to an itinerant
minister who preached occasionally in the neighborhood, and who,
having died rather suddenly at Mr. Hunt's house, left the volumes in
his saddle-bags, which were never claimed by his family, residing in
a distant State. Those books were Plutarch's Lives and a worn school
copy of Anthon's Classical Dictionary; and to Edna they proved a
literary Ophir of inestimable value and exhaustless interest.
Plutarch especially was a Pisgah of letters, whence the vast domain
of learning, the Canaan of human wisdom, stretched alluringly before
her; and as often as she climbed this height, and viewed the
wondrous scene beyond, it seemed, indeed,

...... "an arch where through
Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades
Forever and forever when we move."

In after years she sometimes questioned if this mount of observation
was also that of temptation, to which ambition had led her spirit,
and there bargained for and bought her future. Love of nature, love
of books, an earnest piety and deep religious enthusiasm were the
characteristics of a noble young soul, left to stray through the
devious, checkered paths of life without other guidance than that
which she received from communion with Greek sages and Hebrew
prophets. An utter stranger to fashionable conventionality and
latitudinarian ethics, it was no marvel that the child stared and
shivered when she saw the laws of God vetoed, and was blandly
introduced to murder as Honorable Satisfaction.




CHAPTER II.


Nearly a mile from the small, straggling village of Chattanooga
stood Aaron Hunt's shop, shaded by a grove of oak and chestnut
trees, which grew upon the knoll, where two roads intersected. Like
the majority of blacksmith's shops at country cross-roads, it was a
low, narrow shed, filled with dust and rubbish, with old wheels and
new single-trees, broken plows and dilapidated wagons awaiting
repairs, and at the rear of the shop stood a smaller shed, where an
old gray horse quietly ate his corn and fodder, waiting to carry the
master to his home, two miles distant, as soon as the sun had set
beyond the neighboring mountain. Early in winter, having an unusual
amount of work on hand, Mr. Hunt hurried away from home one morning,
neglecting to take the bucket which contained his dinner, and Edna
was sent to repair the oversight. Accustomed to ramble about the
woods without companionship, she walked leisurely along the rocky
road, swinging the tin bucket in one hand, and pausing now and then
to watch the shy red-birds that flitted like flame-jets in and out
of the trees as she passed. The unbroken repose of earth and sky,
the cold, still atmosphere and peaceful sunshine, touched her heart
with a sense of quiet but pure happiness, and half unconsciously she
began a hymn which her grandfather often sang over his anvil:

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