home!—his house in ruins, his wife and child a heap of ashes in the midst. No wonder his whole nature should have been poisoned for ever. Oh! when I think of it even now, my brain seems on fire. It seems so hard that she who was so tender to every living being should have suffered such a dreadful death.”
Though the tenderest sympathy spoke in Helen’s looks and the tones of her voice, she could only say timidly and softly:
“Her sufferings are all over—she is happy in Heaven now.”
“I believe it,” said Keefe, earnestly; “if I had not believed it, what might I not have been now?”
His lip quivered, and the tears gathered in his eyes; but dashing them hastily away he quickly regained his composure. Afterwards they talked of Helen’s father, and of the circumstances which had brought them to Long Arrow. His pride, which had been long centred in his mercantile fame, had been deeply wounded by his failure, though no bankrupt had ever failed with a more unblemished reputation; he felt a morbid aversion to everything connected with his old pursuits, and his strongest wish was to remove, far from the scenes which had witnessed his prosperity, and where all the fruits of a life of anxiety and exertion had been torn from his grasp. He felt a longing to go forth into the woods, and there cast off his old life “as the snake his slough,” to apply the balsams and anodynes Nature bears in her bosom for the relief of all her unhappy children, and to seek a new happiness in a life of harmony with her dictates, in a free intercourse and communion with her beauties, and in a more pure and unselfish human interest. Helen had been left a legacy of some few hundred pounds by a relation who had died when she was a child, and with part of this sum Mr. Lennox made arrangements for purchasing a lot of land at Long Arrow, having heard very favourable accounts of the fertility of the land and the beauty of its situation, and finding in its distance from his old residence and connections a still stronger recommendation. After the sum necessary for this purchase, he still possessed funds sufficient to build a small log-house when he should reach his new home, to furnish it on an economical scale, and to buy such agricultural implements and stock as would be indispensable to a farmer. Yet in spite of his new hopes, and Helen’s affectionate efforts to cheer him, his spirits and health seemed to grow worse every hour from the day he left Quebec, till at last the wreck of the schooner, and the loss of everything he possessed in the world, brought his sufferings to a climax, and his broken frame and shattered energies could endure no more. The first part of her story Helen told calmly enough, but when she spoke of her father’s illness and the wreck of the schooner she could not, in spite of all her efforts, restrain her tears. She related young Bennett’s brave and generous conduct with sad yet eloquent enthusiasm, and when she alluded to the agony of pity, admiration, and grief with which she had watched the struggles, a pang of jealousy smote Keefe’s heart, and he almost envied the gallant young sailor the fate which had won for him such grateful and compassionate sympathy; but when, soon after, she spoke of himself, and the gratitude and admiration that filled her heart, too full for words, beamed in her earnest eyes, and coloured her glowing cheek, he envied no one.
Helen now grew rapidly better, and no day passed that Keefe did not spend part of it by her side. His spear drew the finest fish from the lake, his gun brought down for her the best game in the forest, he brought her rare fruits and flowers, and day after day he saw with delight a brighter beam in her eye, a deeper rose tint on her cheek, and beheld her form regaining its strength and roundness. She was soon able to walk with him along the lake shore amidst the lovely lights and soft tints of the summer eves, and what enchanted evenings they were to them! He described to her the wild scenes in which he had mingled; related anecdotes of Indian and forest life, their sports and occupations, with a fresh, vivid eloquence which increased their interest. He told her legends of his native land, which, heard in early childhood, still held tenacious place in his memory; tales of the fairy folk dancing round some old rath or ruined castle in the dewy summer twilights to the sound of unearthly music, whose spell drew all that heard it within their magic circle; or riding through lovely glens clad in robes of emerald colour and sheen on milk-white steeds, sometimes bearing off unchristened babes into fairyland, and leaving in their stead strange, unhallowed changelings; of the ominous Banshee, tall, lily-fair, with long golden locks, coming to the dwellings of men in the dead of the night, in pallid moonshine, through the tempests of rain and wind, or amidst frozen snowdrifts, and in a wild, wailing melody, preternaturally beautiful, but burdened with woe and death, giving warning that some member of the family is about to pass away from earth; of the Leprechaun, keeping watch over hidden treasures in some desolate spot; of demon sprites lurking in caverns and in the beds of mountain rivers, bearing the form of animal or bird, but betraying in their fiendish eyes the evil spirit lurking within, and watching to lure some belated traveller to his doom.
But Keefe was not the only speaker. Helen had many things to describe to him about which he knew nothing, but which had often excited his curiosity. Though she had been brought up in a very quiet manner, still she knew more than he did of cities and their inhabitants; she had mixed occasionally with men of large information and wide experience, and with her father she had enjoyed the companionship of an enlightened and cultivated mind; she had enriched her thought and imagination by reading; she had seen beautiful works of art which she had learned to appreciate, and when she met with any one in whose sympathy she confided, she could talk so pleasantly that, even if he had not loved her as he did, Keefe might well have found pleasure in listening to her. As it was, he hung upon her words as if he found in them a voice that answered to all the secret longing his heart and soul had ever known. His own fancy kindled at the flash of
