A NEW-ENGLAND TALE. CHAPTER I.
Oh, ye! who sunk in beds of down,
Feel not a want but what yourselves create,
Think for a moment on his wretched fate.
Whom friends and fortune quite disown.
—Burns.
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Mr. Elton was formerly a flourishing trader,
or, in country phrase, a merchant, in the village
of—. In the early part of his life he had
been successful in business; and having a due portion
of that mean pride which is gratified by pecuniary
superiority, he was careful to appear quite
as rich as he was. When he was at the top of
fortune's wheel, some of his prying neighbours
shrewdly suspected, that the show of his wealth
was quite out of proportion to the reality; and
their side glances and prophetic whispers betrayed
their contempt of the offensive airs of the
purse-proud man.
The people in the village of—were simple
in their habits, and economical in their modes
of life; and Mr. Elton's occasional indulgence in
a showy piece of furniture, or an expensive article
of dress for himself or for his wife, attracted notice,
and, we fear, sometimes provoked envy, even
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from those who were wiser and much better than
he was. So inconsistent are men—and women
too—that they often envy a display of which they
really despise, and loudly condemn the motive.
Mrs. Elton neither deserved nor shared the dislike
her husband received in full measure. On
the contrary, she had the good-will of her neighbours.
She never seemed elated by prosperity;
and, though she occasionally appeared in
an expensive Leghorn hat, a merino shawl, or a
fine lace, the gentleness and humility of her manners,
and the uniform benevolence of her conduct,
averted the censure that would otherwise
have fallen on her. She had married Mr. Elton
when very young, without much consideration, and
after a short acquaintance. She had to learn, in
the bitter way of experience, that there was no
sympathy between them; their hands were indissolubly
joined, but their hearts were not related;
he was `of the earth, earthy'—she `of the heavens,
heavenly.' She had that passiveness which,
we believe, is exclusively a feminine virtue, (if
virtue it may be called,) and she acquiesced silently
and patiently in her unhappy fate, though
there was a certain abstractedness in her manner,
a secret feeling of indifference and separation from
the world, of which she, perhaps, never investigated,
certainly never exposed the cause.
Mr. Elton's success in business had been rather
owing to accidental circumstances, than to his skill
or prudence; but his vanity appropriated to himself
all the merit of it. He adventured rashly in
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one speculation after another, and, failing in them
all, his losses were more rapid than his acquisitions
had been. Few persons have virtue enough to
retrench their expenses, as their income diminishes;
and no virtue, of difficult growth, could
be expected from a character where no good seed
had ever taken root.
The morale, like the physique, needs use and exercise
to give it strength. Mrs. Elton's had never
been thus invigorated. She could not oppose a
strong current. She had not energy to avert an
evil, though she would have borne any that could
have been laid on her, patiently. She knew her
husband's affairs were embarrassed; she saw him
constantly incurring debts, which she knew they
had no means of paying; she perceived he was
gradually sinking into a vice, which, while it lulls
the sense of misery, annihilates the capacity of
escaping from it—and yet she silently, and without
an effort, acquiesced in his faults. They lived
on, as they had lived, keeping an expensive table,
and three or four servants, and dressing as
usual.
This conduct, in Mrs. Elton, was the result of
habitual passiveness; in Mr. Elton, it was prompted
by a vain hope of concealing from his neighbours
a truth, that, in spite of his bustling, ostentatious
ways, they had known for many months.
This is a common delusion. We all know that,
from the habits of our people in a country town,
it is utterly impossible for the most watchful and
skilful manœuvrer, to keep his pecuniary affairs
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secret from the keen and quick observation of his
neighbours. The expedients practised for concealment
are much like that of a little child, who shuts
his own eyes, and fancies he has closed those of the
spectators; or, in their effect upon existing circumstances,
may be compared to the customary
action of a frightened woman, who turns her back
in a carriage when the horses are leaping over a
precipice.
It may seem strange, perhaps incredible, that
Mrs. Elton, possessing the virtues we have attributed
to her, and being a religious woman, should
be accessary to such deception, and (for we will
call “things by their right names”) dishonesty.
But the wonder will cease if we look around upon
the circle of our acquaintance, and observe how
few there are among those whom we believe to be
Christians, who govern their daily conduct by
Christian principles, and regulate their temporal
duties by the strict Christian rule. Truly, narrow
is the way of perfect integrity, and few there are
that walk therein.
There are too many who forget that our religion
is not like that of the ancients, something set
apart from the ordinary concerns of life; the consecrated,
not the “daily bread;” a service for the
temple and the grove, having its separate class of
duties and pleasures; but is “the leaven that
leaveneth the whole lump,” a spirit to be infused
into the common affairs of life. We fear Mrs. Elton
was not quite guiltless of this fault. She believed
all the Bible teaches. She had long been a
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member of the church in the town where she lived.
She daily read the scriptures, and daily offered
sincere prayers. Certainly, the waters of the
fountain from whence she drank had a salutary influence,
though they failed to heal all her diseases.
She was kind, gentle, and uncomplaining, and sustained,
with admirable patience, the growing infirmities
and irritating faults of her husband. To
her child, she performed her duties wisely, and
with an anxious zeal; the result, in part, of uncommon
maternal tenderness, and, in part, of a
painful consciousness of the faults of her own character;
and, perhaps, of a secret feeling she had
left much undone that she ought to do.
Mr. Elton, after his pecuniary embarrassments
were beyond the hope of extrication, maintained
by stratagem the appearance of prosperity for
some months, when a violent fever ended his
struggle with the tide of fortune that had set
against him, and consigned him to that place where
there is `no more work nor device.' His wife
was left quite destitute with her child, then an interesting
little girl, a little more than twelve years
old. A more energetic mind than Mrs. Elton's
might have been discouraged at the troubles which
were now set before her in all their extent, and
with tenfold aggravation; and she, irresolute, spiritless,
and despondent, sunk under them. She
had, from nature, a slender constitution; her
health declined, and, after lingering for some
months, she died with resignation, but not
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without a heart-rending pang at the thought of leaving
her child, poor, helpless, and friendless.
Little Jane had nursed her mother with fidelity
and tenderness, and performed services for her,
that her years seemed hardly adequate to, with an
efficiency and exactness that surprised all who
were prepared to find her a delicately bred and indulged
child. She seemed to have inherited nothing
from her father but his active mind; from
her mother she had derived a pure and gentle spirit,
but this would have been quite insufficient to
produce the result of such a character as hers,
without the aid of her mother's vigilant, and, for
the most part, judicious training. In the formation
of her child's character, she had been essentially
aided by a faithful domestic, who had lived
with her for many years, and nursed Jane in her
infancy.
We know it is common to rail at our domestics.
Their independence is certainly often inconvenient
to their employers; but, as it is the result of
the prosperous condition of all classes in our happy
country, it is not right nor wise to complain of
it. We believe there are many instances of intelligent
and affectionate service, that are rarely
equalled, where ignorance and servility mark the
lower classes. Mary Hull was endowed with a
mind of uncommon strength, and an affectionate
heart. These were her jewels. She had been
brought up by a pious mother, and early and zealously
embraced the faith of the Methodists. She
had the virtues of her station in an eminent
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degree: practical good sense, industrious, efficient
habits, and handy ways. She never presumed formally
to offer her advice to Mrs. Elton; her instincts
seemed to define the line of propriety to
her; but she had a way of suggesting hints, of
which Mrs. Elton learnt the value by experience.
This good woman had been called to a distant
place, to attend her dying mother, just before the
death of Mrs. Elton; and thus Jane was deprived
of an able assistant, and most tender friend, and
left to pass through the dismal scene of death,
without any other than occasional assistance from
her compassionate neighbours.
On the day of Mrs. Elton's interment, a concourse
of people assembled to listen to the funeral
sermon, and to follow to the grave one who
had been the object of the envy of some, and of
the respect and love of many. Three sisters of
Mr. Elton were assembled with families.
Mrs. Elton had come from a distant part of the
country, and had no relatives in—.
Jane's relations wore the decent gravity that
became the occasion; but they were of a hard race,
and neither the wreck their brother had made, nor
the deep grief of the solitary little creature, awakened
their pity. They even seemed to shun
manifesting towards her the kindness of common
sympathy, lest it should be construed into an intention
of taking charge of the orphan.
Jane, lost in the depths of her sufferings, seemed
insensible to all external things. Her countenance
was of a death-like paleness, and her
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features immoveable; and when, during the sermon,
an address was made to her personally by
the clergyman, she was utterly unable to rise, one
of her aunts, shocked at the omission of what she
considered an essential decorum, took her by the
arm, and almost lifted her from her seat. She
stood like a statue, her senses seeming to take no
cognizance of any thing. Not a tear escaped, nor
a sigh burst from her breaking heart. The sorrow
of childhood is usually noisy; and this mute
and motionless grief, in a creature so young, and
one that had been so happy, touched every heart.
When the services were over, the clergyman
supported the trembling frame of the poor child to
the place of interment. The coffin was slowly
let down into the house appointed for all. Every
one who has followed a dear friend to the grave,
remembers with shuddering the hollow sound of
the first clods that are thrown on the coffin. As
they fell heavily, poor Jane shrieked, “oh, mother!”
and springing forward, bent over the grave,
which, to her, seemed to contain all the world.
The sexton, used as he was to pursue his trade
amidst the wailings of mourners, saw something peculiar
in the misery of the lone child. He dropped
the spade, and hastily brushing away the tears
that blinded him with the sleeve of his coat, “Why
does not some one,” he said, “take away the
child? This is no place for such a heart-broken
thing.” There was a general bustle in the crowd,
and two young ladies, more considerate, or perhaps
more tender-hearted, than the rest, kindly
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passed their arms around her, and led her to her
home.
The clergyman of—was one of those, who
are more zealous for sound doctrine, than benevolent
practice; he had chosen on that occasion for
his text, “The wages of sin is death,” and had
preached a long sermon in the vain endeavour of
elucidating the doctrine of original sin. Clergymen
who lose such opportunities of instructing
their people in the operations of providence, and
the claims of humanity, ought not to wonder if
they grow languid, and selfish, and careless of
their most obvious duties. Had this gentleman
improved this occasion of illustrating the
duty of sympathy, by dwelling on the tenderness
of our blessed Lord, when he wept with
the bereaved sisters at the grave of Lazarus:
had he distilled the essence of those texts, and
diffused their gracious influence into his sermon—
“Bear ye one another's burthens;” “Weep with
those who weep;” “Inasmuch as ye have done
it unto one of these, ye have done it unto me;”—
had his preaching usually been in conformity to
the teaching of our Saviour, could the scene have
followed, which it is our business to relate?
We fear there are many who think there is merit
in believing certain doctrines; who, mistaking the
true import of that text, “by grace are ye saved,”
quiet themselves with having once in their lives
passed through what they deemed conviction and
conversion, and from thence believe their salvation
is secure. They are like the barren fig-tree;
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and unless they are brought to true repentance,
to showing their “faith by their works,” we fear
they will experience its just fate.
The house, furniture, and other property of Mr.
Elton had lain under an attachment for some time
previous to Mrs. Elton's death, but the sale had
been delayed in consideration of her approaching
dissolution. It was now appointed for the next
week; and it therefore became necessary that
some arrangement should be immediately made
for the destitute orphan.
The day after the funeral, Jane was sitting in
her mother's room, which, in her eyes, was consecrated
by her sickness and death; the three
aunts met at Mr. Elton's house; she heard the
ladies approaching through the adjoining apartment,
and hastily taking up her Bible, which she
had been trying to read, she drew her little bench
behind the curtain of her mother's bed. There
is an instinct in childhood, that discerns affection
wherever it exists, and shrinks from the coldness
of calculating selfishness. In all their adversity,
neither Jane, nor her mother, had ever been
cheered by a glimmering of kindness from these
relatives. Mrs. Elton had founded no expectations
on them for her child, but with her usual irresolution
she had shrunk from preparing Jane's mind
for the shocks that awaited her.
The three sisters were led in by a young woman
who had offered to stay with Jane till some arrangement
was made for her. In reply to their
asking where she was, the girl pointed to the bed.
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“There,” she said, “taking on despotly.—
A body would think,” added she, “that she had lost
her uncles and aunts as well as her father and mother.
And she might as well,” (she continued,
in a tone low enough not to be heard,) for any
good they will do her.”
The eldest sister began the conference by saying,
“That she trusted it was not expected she
should take Jane upon her hands—that she
was not so well off as either of her sisters—
that to be sure she had no children; but then Mr.
Daggett and herself calculated to do a great deal
for the Foreign Missionary Society; that no longer
ago than that morning, Mr. D. and she had agreed
to pay the expense of one of the young Cherokees
at the School at—; that there was a great
work going on in the world, and as long as they had
the heart given them to help it, they could not feel
it their duty to withdraw any aid for a mere worldly
purpose!”
Mrs. Convers (the second sister) said that she
had not any religion, and she did not mean to pretend
to any; that she had ways enough to spend
her money without sending it to Owyhee or the
Foreign School; that she and her husband had
worked hard, and saved all for their children; and
now they meant they should make as good a figure
as any body's children in the country. It took a
great deal of money, she said, to pay the dancing-master,
and the drawing-master, and the music-master;
it was quite impossible for her sisters to
think how much it took to dress a family of girls
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genteelly. It was not now, as it used to be when
they were girls: now-a-days, girls must have merino
shawls, and their winter hats, and summer
hats, and prunella shoes, and silk stockings;—it
was quite impossible to be decent without them.
Besides, she added, as she did not live in the same
place with Jane, it was not natural she should feel
for her. It was her decided opinion, that Jane
had better be put out at once, at some place where
she could do light work till she was a little used to
it; and she would advise too, to her changing her
name, the child was so young she could not care
about a name, and she should be much mortified
to have it known, in the town of—, that her
daughters had a cousin that was a hired girl.
There was something in this harsh counsel which
touched Mrs. Wilson's (the younger sister's) pride,
though it failed to awaken a sentiment of humanity.
She said she desired to be thankful that she had
been kept from any such sinful courses as sending
her children to a dancing-school; nobody could
say she had not done her duty by them; the minister's
family was not kept more strict than hers.
“No,” said Mrs. Convers, “and by all accounts
is not more disorderly.”
“Well, that is not our fault, Mrs. Convers, if
we plant and water, we cannot give the increase.”
Mrs. Wilson should have remembered that God
does give the increase to those that rightly plast,
and faithfully water. But Mrs. W.'s tongue was
familiar with many texts, that had never entered
her understanding, or influenced her heart.
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Mrs. Wilson continued—“Sister Convers, I feel
it to be my duty to warn you—you, the daughter
and granddaughter of worthy divines who abhorred
all such sinful practices, that you should own that
you send your children to dancing-school, astonishes
and grieves my spirit. Do you know
that Mr. C—, in reporting the awakening in his
parish, mentions that not one of the girls that attended
dancing-school were among the converts,
whereas two, who had engaged to attend it, but
had received a remarkable warning in a dream,
were among the first and brightest?”
“I would as soon,” she continued, “follow one
of my children to the grave, as to see her in that
broad road to destruction, which leads through a
ball-room.”
“It is easy enough,” replied Mrs. Convers, (adjusting
her smart mourning cap at the glass) “to
run down sins we have no fancy for.”
Mrs. Wilson's ready answer was prevented by
the entrance of Jane's humble friend, who asked,
if the ladies had determined what was to be done
with the little girl.
Mrs. Wilson in her vehemence had quite forgotten
the object of their meeting, but now brought
back to it, and instigated by a feeling of superiority
to Mrs. Convers, and a little nettled by the excuses
of Mrs. Daggett, which she thought were meant as a
boast of superior piety, she said, that as she had no
dancing-masters to pay, and had not “that morning
agreed” to adopt a Cherokee—she could afford
to take Jane for a little while. The child, she said,
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must not think of depending upon her for life, for
though she was a widow, and could do what she
was a mind to her with her own, she could not justify
herself in taking the children's meat”—and she
would have added—“ throw it to the dogs,”—but
she was interrupted by a person who, unregarded
by the ladies, had taken her seat among them.
This was a middle aged woman, whose mind
had been unsettled in her youth by misfortunes.
Having no mischievous propensities, she was allowed
to indulge her vagrant inclinations, in wandering
from house to house, and town to town,
her stimulated imagination furnishing continual
amusement to the curious by her sagacious observations,
and unfailing mirth to the young and vulgar,
by the fanciful medley in which she arrayed
her person. There were some who noticed in her
a quickness of feeling that indicated original sensibility,
which, perhaps, had been the cause of her
sufferings. The dogs of a surly master would
sometimes bark at her, because her dress resembled
the obnoxious livery of the beggar—a class
they had been taught to chase with pharisaical antipathy.
But except when her timid nature was
alarmed by the sortie of dogs, which she always
called the devil's servants, crazy Bet found a welcome
wherever she went.
It is common for persons in her unfortunate circumstances
to seek every scene of excitement.
The sober, sedate manners of the New-England
people, and the unvaried tenor of their lives, afford
but few of these. Wherever there was an
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awakening, or a camp-meeting, crazy Bet was
sure to be found; she was often seen by moonlight
wandering in the church-yard, plucking the
nettles from the graves, and wreathing the monuments
with ground-pine. She would watch for
whole nights by the side of a grave in her native
village, where twenty years before were deposited
the remains of her lover, who was drowned on the
day before they were to have been married. She
would range the woods, and climb to the very
mountain's-top, to get sweet flowers, to scatter
over the mound of earth that marked his grave.
She would plant rose bushes and lilies there, and
when they bloomed, pluck them up, because she
said their purity and brightness mocked the decay
below.
She has been seen, when the sun came rejoicing
over the eastern mountain's brow, and shot its first
clear brilliant ray on the grave, to clap her hands,
and heard to shout, “I see an angel in the sun,
and he saith `Blessed and holy is he that hath
part in the first resurrection: on such, the second
death hath no power; but they shall be priests of
God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a
thousand years.' ”
Poor Bet was sure to follow in every funeral
procession, and sometimes she would thrust herself
amidst the mourners, and say, “the dead
could not rest in their graves, if they were not
followed there by one true mourner.” She has
been seen to spring forward when the men were
carelessly placing the coffin in the grave with the
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head to the east, and exclaim, “are ye heathens,
that ye serve the dead thus? Know ye not the
`Lord cometh in the east.' ” She always lingered
behind after the crowd had dispersed, and busily
moved and removed the sods; and many a time
has she fallen asleep, with her head resting on the
new-made grave, for, she said, there was no sleep
so quiet as `where the wicked did not trouble.'
The quick eye of crazy Bet detected, through
their thin guise, the pride and hypocrisy and selfishness
of the sisters. She interrupted Mrs. Wilson
as she was concluding her most inappropriate quotation,
`Throw it to the dogs;' said she, `It is more
like taking the prey from the wolf.' She then
rose, singing in an under voice,
“Oh! be the law of love fulfilled
In every act and thought,
Each angry passion far removed,
Each selfish view forgot.”
She approached the bed, and withdrawing the
curtain, exposed the little sufferer to view. She
had lain the open Bible on the pillow, where she
had often rested beside her mother, and laying her
cheek on it had fallen asleep. It was open at the
5th chapter of John, which she had so often read
to her mother, that she had turned instinctively
to it. The page was blistered with her tears.
Careless of the future, which to her seemed to
admit no light, her exhausted nature had found relief
in sleep, at the very moment her aunts were
so unfeelingly deciding her fate. Her pale cheek
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still wet with her tears, and the deep sadness of a
face of uncommon sweetness, would have warmed
with compassion any breast that had not been
steeled by selfishness.
“Shame, shame, upon you!” said the maniac;
“has pride turned your hearts to stone, that ye cannot
shelter this poor little ewe-lamb in your fold?
Ah! ye may spread your branches, like the green
bay tree, but the tempest will come, and those
who look for you shall not find you; but this little
frost-bitten bud shall bloom in the paradise of God
for ever and ever.”
Untying a piece of crape which she had wound
around her throat, (for she was never without
some badge of mourning,) she stooped and gently
wiped the tears from Jane's cheek, saying, in
a low tone, “Bottles full of odours, which are
the tears of saints;” then rising, she carefully
closed the curtains, and busied herself for some
minutes in pinning them together. She then softly,
and on tiptoe, returned to her seat; and taking
some ivy from her broken straw bonnet, began
twisting it with the crape. “This,” said she, “is
a weed for Elder Carrol's hat; he lost his wife
yesterday, and I have been to the very top of
Tauconnick to get him a weed, that shall last fresh
as long as his grief. See,” added she, and she
held it up, laughing, “it has begun to wilt already;
it is a true token.”
She then rose from her seat, and with a quick
step, between running and walking, left the room;
but returning as suddenly, she said slowly and
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emphatically, “Offend not this little one; for her
angel does stand before my Father. It were better
that a mill-stone were hanged about your
neck.” Then, courtseying to the ground, she
left them.
Bet's solemn and slow manner of pronouncing
this warning, was so different from her usually
hurried utterance, that it struck a momentary chill
to the hearts of the sisters. Mrs. Daggett was
the first to break the silence.
“What does she mean?” said she. “Has Jane
experienced religion?”
“Experienced religion!—no,” replied Mrs.
Wilson. “How should she? She has not been
to a meeting since her mother was first taken
sick; and no longer ago than the day after her
mother's death, when I talked to her of her corrupt
state by nature, and the opposition of her
heart, (for I felt it to be my duty, at this peculiar
season, to open to her the great truths of
religion, and I was faithful to her soul, and did
not scruple to declare the whole counsel,) she
looked at me as if she was in a dumb stupor. I
told her the judgments of an offended God were
made manifest towards her in a remarkable manner;
and then I put it to her conscience, whether if
she was sure her mother had gone where the worm
dieth not and the fire is not quenched, she should
be reconciled to the character of God, and be
willing herself to promote his glory, by suffering
that just condemnation. She did not reply one
word, or give the least symptom of a gracious
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understanding. But when Mrs. Hervey entered,
just as I was concluding, and passed her arm
around Jane, and said to her, `My child, God does
not willingly grieve nor afflict you,' the child sobbed
out, `Oh no! Mrs. Hervey, so my mother told
me, and I am sure of it.'
“No, no,” she added, after a moment's hesitation;
“this does not look as if Jane had a hope.
But, sister Daggett, I wonder you should mind any
thing crazy Bet says. She is possessed with as
many devils as were sent out of Mary Magdalen.”
“I don't mind her, Mrs. Wilson; but I know
some very good people who say, that many a
thing she has foretold has come to pass; and especially
in seasons of affliction, they say, she is
very busy with the devil.”
“I don't know how that may be,” replied Mrs.
Wilson, “but as I mean to do my duty by this
child, I don't feel myself touched by Bet's crazy
ranting.”
Mrs. Daggett, nettled by her sister's hint, rose
and said, “that, as she was going in the afternoon to
attend a meeting in a distant part of the town,
(for,” said she, “no one can say that distance or
weather ever keeps me from my duties,) she had
no more time to waste.”
Mrs. Convers' husband drove to the door in a
smart gig, and she took leave of her sisters, observing,
she was glad the child was going to be so
well provided for. As she drove away, crazy
Bet, who was standing by the gate, apparently intently
reading the destiny of a young girl, in the
palm of her hand, fixed her eyes for a moment on
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Mrs. Convers, and whispered to the girl, “all the
good seed that fell on that ground was choked by
thorns long ago.”
Mrs. Wilson told Jane's attendant, Sally, to inform
her, she might come to her house the next
day, and stay there for the present.
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CHAPTER II.
Or haply prest with cares and woes,
Too soon thou hast began
To wander forth.
—Burns.
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Jane received the intelligence of her destination
without the slightest emotion. The world
was “all before her,” and she cared not whither
led her “mournful way.”
Happily for her, the humble friend mentioned
in the beginning of her history, Mary Hull, returned
on that day, after having performed the last
act of filial duty. Jane poured all her sorrows
into Mary's bosom, and felt already a degree of
relief that she had not believed her condition admitted.
Such is the elastic nature of childhood; its
moral, like its physical constitution, is subject
to the most sudden changes.
Mary having assuaged the wounds of her youthful
friend with the balm of tender sympathy and
just consolation, undertook the painful, but necessary,
task of exposing to Jane, the evils before
her, that she might fortify her against them; that,
as she said, being “fore-warned, she might be
fore-armed.”
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She did not soften the trials of dependance upon
a sordid and harsh nature. She told her what
demands she would have on her integrity, her patience,
and her humility.
“But, my child,” said she, “do not be down-hearted.
There has One `taken you up who will
not leave you, nor forsake you.' `The fires may
be about you, but they will not kindle on you.'
Make the Bible your counsellor; you will always
find some good word there, that will be a bright
light to you in the darkest night: and do not forget
the daily sacrifice of prayer; for, as the
priests under the old covenant were nourished by
a part of that which they offered, so, when the sacrifice
of praise is sent upward by the broken and
contrite heart, there is a strength cometh back
upon our own souls: blessed be his name, it is
what the world cannot give.”
Mary's advice fell upon a good and honest heart,
and we shall see that it brought forth much fruit.
The evening was spent in packing Jane's wardrobe,
which had been well stocked by her profuse
and indulgent parents. Mary had been told,
too, that the creditors of Mr. Elton would not
touch the wearing apparel of his wife. This was,
therefore, carefully packed and prepared for removal;
and Mary, who with her stock of heavenly
wisdom had some worldly prudence, hinted to
Jane, that she had better keep her things out of
the sight of her craving cousins.
Jane took up her mother's Bible, and asked
Mary, with a trembling voice, if she thought she
might be permitted to take that.
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“Certainly,” replied Mary, “no one will dispute
your right to it; it is not like worldly goods,
we will not touch the spoils, though we were
tempted by more than the `goodly Babylonish
garment, the two hundred shekels of silver, and
the wedge of gold' that made Achan to sin.”
In obedience to the strictest dictates of honesty,
Mary forbore from permitting her zeal for Jane's
interests to violate the letter of the law. She was
so scrupulous, that she would not use a family
trunk, but took a large cedar chest of her own to
pack the clothes in.
While they were busily occupied with these
preparations, Jane received a note from her aunt,
saying, that she advised her to secure some small
articles which would never be missed: some of
“the spoons, table-linen, her mother's ivory work-box,”
&c. &c. The note concluded—“As I have
undertaken the charge of you for the present, it is
but right you should take my advice. There is
no doubt my brother's creditors have cheated him
a hundred fold the amount of these things, for,
poor man! with all his faults, he was so generous,
any body could take him in; besides, though these
things might help to pay the expense I must be at
in keeping you, they will be a mere nothing divided
among so many creditors—the dust on the
balance.”
“Poor woman!” said Mary, to whom Jane had
handed the note, “I am afraid she will load the
balance with so much of this vile dust, that when
she is weighed her scale will be “found wanting.”
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No, Jane, let us keep clean hands, and then we
shall have light hearts.”
The next morning arrived, and Mary arose before
the dawn, in order to remove Jane early, and
save her the pain of witnessing the preparations
for the vendue. Jane understood her kind friend's
design, and silently acquiesced in it, for she had
too much good sense to expose herself to any unnecessary
suffering. But when every thing was in
readiness, and the moment of departure arrived,
she shrunk back from Mary's offered arm, and
sinking into a chair, yielded involuntarily to the
torrent of her feelings. She looked around upon
the room and its furniture as if they were her
friends.
It has been said by one, who well understands
the mysteries of feeling, that objects which are
silent every where else, have a voice in the home
of our childhood. Jane looked for the last time
at the bed, where she had often sported about her
mother, and rejoiced in her tender caresses—at
the curtains, stamped with illustrations of the
Jewish history, which had often employed and
wearied her ingenuity in comprehending their similitudes—
at the footstool on which she had sat
beside her mother; and the old family clock,
“Whose stroke 'twas heaven to hear,
When soft it spoke a promised pleasure near.”
Her eye turned to the glass, which now sent
back her wo-begone image, and she thought of the
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time, but a little while past, when elated with gratified
vanity, or joyful anticipation, she had there
surveyed her form arrayed in finery—now, the
rainbow tints had faded into the dark cloud.
She rose, and walked to the open window, about
which she had trained a beautiful honey-suckle.
The sun had just risen, and the dew-drops on its
leaves sparkled in his rays.
“Oh, Mary!” said she, “even my honey-suckle
seems to weep for me.”
A robin had built its nest on the vine; and often
as she sat watching her sleeping mother, she had
been cheered with its sprightly note, and maternal
care of its young. She looked to the nest—the
birds had flown;—“They too,” she exclaimed,
“have deserted this house of sorrow.”
“No, Jane;” replied Mary, “they have been
provided with another home, and He who careth
for them, will care much more for you.”
Mary might have quoted (but she was not addicted
to any profane works,) the beautiful language
of a native poet—
“He who from zone to zone
Guides through the boundless sky their certain flight,
In the long way that you must trace alone
Will guide your steps aright.”
“We shall not,” she said, “be at your aunt's
in time for breakfast; here, tie on your hat, you
will need all your strength and courage, and you
must not waste any on flowers and birds.”
Jane obeyed the wise admonition of her friend;
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and with faltering steps, and without allowing herself
time to look again at any thing, hastily passed
through the little court yard in front of their
house.
The morning was clear and bright; and stimulated
by the pure air, and nerved by the counsels
Mary suggested as they walked along, Jane entered
her new home with a composed, timid manner.
Perhaps her timidity appealing to Mrs. Wilson's
love of authority, produced a softer feeling than
she had before shown to Jane; or perhaps, (for
scarcely any nature is quite hardened,) the forlornness
of the child awakened a transient sentiment
of compassion,—she gave her her hand, and
told her she was welcome. The children stared
at her, as if they had never seen her before, but
Jane's down-cast eye, a little clouded by the gathering
tears, saved her from feeling the gaze of
their vulgar curiosity.
Jane, in entering the family of Mrs. Wilson, was
introduced to as new a scene as if she had been
transported to a foreign country.
Mrs. Wilson's character might have been originally
cast in the same mould with Mr. Elton's, but
circumstances had given it a different modification.
She had married early in life a man, who, not
having energy enough for the exercise of authority,
was weak and vain, tenacious of the semblance,
and easily cozened by the shadow, when his wife
retained the substance. Mrs. Wilson, without
having the pride of her nature at all subdued, became
artful and trickish; she was sordid and
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ostentatious, a careful fellow-worker with her husband
in the acquisition of their property, she secured
to herself all the praise in the expending it.
Whenever a contribution was levied for an Education
or Tract Society, for Foreign Missions,
the Cherokees, or Osages,—Mrs. Wilson accompanied
her donation, which on the whole was quite
handsome, with a remark, that what she did give,
she gave with a willing heart; that, women could
not command much money, but it was the duty of
wives to submit themselves to their husbands.
After Mrs. Wilson became sole mistress of her
estate, the simple and credulous, who remembered
her professions, wondered her gifts were not enlarged
with her liberty. But Mrs. Wilson would
say, that the widow was the prey of the wicked,
and that her duty to her children prevented her
indulging her generous feelings towards those pious
objects which lay nearest her heart.
Mrs. Wilson had fancied herself one of the subjects
of an awakening at an early period of her life;
had passed through the ordeal of a church-examination
with great credit, having depicted in glowing
colours the opposition of her natural heart to
the decrees, and her subsequent joy in the doctrine
of election. She thus assumed the form of godliness,
without feeling its power. Are there not
many such: some who, in those times of excitement,
during which many pass from indifference to
holiness, and many are converted from sin to
righteousness, delude themselves and others with
vain forms of words, and professions of faith?
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Mrs. Wilson was often heard to denounce those
who insisted on the necessity of good works, as
Pharisees;—she was thankful, she said, that she
should not presume to appear before her Judge
with any of the `filthy rags of her own righteousness;
'—it would be easy getting to heaven if the
work in any way depended on ourselves;—any
body could `deal justly, love mercy, and walk
humbly.' How easy it is, we leave to those to
determine, who have sought to adjust their lives
by this divine rule.
Mrs. Wilson rejected the name of the Pharisee,
but the proud, oppressive, bitter spirit of the Jewish
bigot was manifest in the complacency with which
she regarded her own faith, and the illiberality she
cherished towards every person, of every denomination,
who did not believe what she believed,
and act according to her rule of right.
As might be expected, her family was regulated
according to `the letter,' but the `spirit that
giveth life' was not there. Religion was the ostensible
object of every domestic arrangement;
but you might look in vain for the peace and good
will which a voice from heaven proclaimed to be
the objects of the mission of our Lord.
Mrs. Wilson's children produced such fruits as
might be expected from her culture. The timid
among them had recourse to constant evasion, and
to the meanest artifices to hide the violation of
laws which they hated; and the bolder were engaged
in a continual conflict with the mother,
in which rebellion often trampled on authority.
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Jane had been gently led in the bands of love.
She had been taught even more by the example
than the precepts of her mother.
She had seen her mother bear with meekness
the asperity and unreasonableness of her father's
temper, and often turn away his wrath with a soft
answer.
The law of imitation is deeply impressed on our
nature. Jane had insensibly fallen into her mother's
ways, and had, thus early, acquired a habit
of self-command. Mrs. Elton, though, alas, negligent
of some of her duties, watched over the
expanding character of her child, with Christian
fidelity. “There she had garnered up her heart.”
She knew that amiable dispositions were not to
be trusted, and she sought to fortify her child's
mind with Christian principles. She sowed the
seed, and looked with undoubting faith for the
promised blessing.
“I must soon sleep,” she would say to Marry,
“but the seed is already springing up. I am sure
it will not lack the dews of Heaven; and you,
Mary, may live to see, though I shall not, `first
the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn
in the ear.”'
Mary had seconded Mrs. Elton's efforts. She
looked upon herself as an humble instrument; but
she was a most efficient one. She had a rare and
remarkable knack at applying rules, so that her
life might be called a commentary on the precepts
of the Gospel. Mary's practical religion had,
sometimes, conveyed a reproach (the only
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reproach a Christian may indulge in) to Mrs. Wilson,
who revenged herself by remarking, that
“Mary was indulging in that soul-destroying doctrine
of the Methodists—perfection;” and then
she would add, (jogging her foot, a motion that,
with her, always indicated a mental parallel, the
result of which was, `I am holier than thou,') there
is no error so fatal, as resting in the duties of the
second table.” Mrs. Wilson had not learned, that
the duties of the second table cannot be done, if
the others are left undone; the branches must be
sustained by the trunk; for he, from whose wisdom
there is no appeal, has said, “If ye love me;
ye will keep my commandments.”
Happily for our little friend, Mary was not to
be removed far from her; an agreeable situation
was, unexpectedly, offered to her grateful acceptance.
-- 035 --
CHAPTER III.
Now Spring returns, but not to me returns
The vernal year my better days have known;
Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns,
And all the joys of life with health are flown.
Bruce.
[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]
A few weeks before the death of Mrs. Elton,
a Mr. Lloyd, a Quaker, who was travelling with
his wife and infant child, for the benefit of Mrs.
Lloyd's health, had stopped at the inn in—.
Mrs. Lloyd was rapidly declining with a consumption.
On this day she had, as is not unfrequent in
the fluctuation of this disease, felt unusually well.
Her cough was lulled by the motion of the carriage,
and she had requested her husband to permit
her to ride further than his prudence would
have dictated.
The heat and unusual exertion, proved too much
for her. In the evening she was seized with a
hemorrhage, which reduced her so much as to
render it unsafe to move her. She faded away
quietly, and fell into the arms of death as gently
as a leaf falleth from its stem, resigning her spirit
in faith to him who gave it.
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An extraordinary attachment subsisted between
Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd, which had its foundation in
the similarity of their characters, education, views,
and pursuits; and had been nourished by the circumstances
that had drawn and kept them together.
The father of Mr. Lloyd was an Englishman;
he, with his wife, and only son Robert, then eight
years old, had emigrated to Philadelphia. Mrs.
Elwyn, the sister of Mrs. Lloyd, a widow, with an
only daughter, accompanied them. The severities
of a long and tempestuous voyage, operating
on a very timid spirit and delicate constitution,
completely undermined Mrs. Elwyn's health, and
she survived the voyage but a few days.
Before her death she gave her daughter to her
sister, saying to her, “Let her be thine own, dear
Anne. She is but one year younger than thy Robert;
and, if it please God so to incline their hearts, let
them be united, that, as we have not been divided
in life, our children may not be. Keep her from
the world and its vanities, and train her for Heaven,
dear sister.”
Mrs. Lloyd loved her sister so devotedly, that
she would, at any time, have yielded her wishes to
Mrs. Elwyn's; but that was unnecessary, for in
this plan they perfectly coincided.
The children were educated together, and were
so much alike in their characters, that one seemed
the soft reflection of the other. The habits of
the family were secluded and simple; formed on
the model of the excellent leader of their sect,
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William Penn, who, Mr. Lloyd used to say, it was
his aim to follow, in all that he followed Christ.
Benevolence was his business, and he went to it
as regularly as a merchant goes to his compting-house.
He finally fell a victim to his zeal, in the
service of his fellow-creatures; or rather, to use
one of his last expressions which had in it the sweet
savour of piety and resignation, “He was taken
from his Father's work to his Father's rest.”
During one of those seasons when Philadelphia
suffered most from the ravages of the yellow fever,
Mr. Lloyd sent the young people to lodgings on
the banks of the Schuylkill, while he and his wife
remained in the city to administer relief to the
poor sufferers, who were chained by poverty to the
scene of this dreadful plague. Constant fatigue
and watchfulness impaired the strength of this excellent
pair. They both took the fever and died.
They were mourned by their children, as such parents
should be, with deep, but not complaining
grief.
Robert was but sixteen at the time of his father's
death. At the age of twenty-one he married
Rebecca Elwyn. As Robert led his bride out
of the meeting, where, with the consent and hearty
approbation of their Society, they had been
united, the elders said, they were as goodly a pair
as their eyes ever rested on; and their younger
friends observed, they were sure their love was as
“fervent, mutual, and dear,” as William Penn
himself could have desired. Three years glided
on in uninterrupted felicity. Excepting when
-- 038 --
[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]
they were called to feel for others' woes, their
happiness was not darkened by a single shadow;
nor did it degenerate into selfish indulgence, but,
constantly enlarging its circle, embraced within its
compass all that could be benefited by their active
efforts and heavenly example. They lived
after the plain way of their sect; not indulging in
costly dress or furniture, but regulating all their
expenses by a just and careful economy, they seldom
were obliged to stint themselves in the indulgence
of their benevolent propensities.
Three years after their marriage Mrs. Lloyd
gave birth to a girl. This event filled up the measure
of their joy. A few weeks after its birth, as
Mr. Lloyd took the infant from its mother's bosom
and pressed it fondly to his own, he said,
“Rebecca, the promise is to us and our children;
the Lord grant that we may train His gift in His
nurture and admonition.”
“Thou mayest, dear Robert; God grant it,”
Rebecca mournfully replied; “but the way is
closed up to me. Do not shudder thus, but prepare
thy mind for the `will of the Lord.' I could
have wished to have lived, for thy sake, and my little
one; but I will not rebel, for I know all is
right.”
Mr. Lloyd hoped his wife was needlessly alarmed;
but he found from her physician, that immediately
after the birth of the child, some alarming
symptoms had appeared, which indicated a hectic.
Mrs. Lloyd had begged they might be concealed
from her husband, from the generous purpose of
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[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]
saving him, as long as possible, useless anxiety.
The disease, however, had taken certain hold, and
that morning, after a conversation with her physician,
during which her courage had surprised
him, she had resolved to begin the difficult task of
fortifying her husband for the approaching calamity.
Spring came on, and its sweet influences penetrated
to the sick room of Rebecca. Her health
seemed amended, and her spirits refreshed; and
when Mr. Lloyd proposed that they should travel,
she cheerfully consented. But she cautioned her
husband not to be flattered by an apparent amendment,
for, said she, “though my wayward disease
may be coaxed into a little clemency, it will not
spare me.”
As she prophesied, her sufferings were mitigated,
but it was but too manifest that no permanent
amendment was to be expected. The disease
made very slow progress; one would have thought
it shrunk from marring so young and so fair a
work. Her spirit, too, enjoyed the freedom and
beauty of the country. As they passed up the
fertile shores of the Connecticut, Rebecca's benevolent
heart glowed with gratitude to the Father of
all, at the spectacle of so many of her fellow-creature's
enjoying the rich treasures of Providence;
cast into a state of society the happiest for their
moral improvement, where they had neither the
miseries of poverty, nor the temptations of riches.
She would raise her eyes to the clear Heaven,
would look on the “misty mountain's top,” and
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[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]
then on the rich meadows through which they
were passing, and which were now teeming with
the summer's fluness, and would say, “Dear Robert,
is there any heart so cold, that it does not
melt in this vision of the power and the bounty of
the Lord of heaven and earth? Do not sorrow for
me, when I am going to a more perfect communion
with Him, for I shall see him as he is.”
From the Connecticut they passed by the romantic
road that leads through the plains of West
Springfield, Westfield, &c. There is no part
our country, abundant as it is in the charms
of nature, more lavishly adorned with romantic
scenery. The carriage slowly traced its
way on the side of a mountain, from which
the imprisoned road had with difficulty been
won;—a noisy stream dashed impetuously along
at their left, and as they ascended the mountain,
they still heard it before them leaping from rock
to rock, now almost losing itself in the deep pathway
it had made, and then rushing with increased
violence over its stony bed.
“This young stream,” said Mr. Lloyd, “reminds
one of the turbulence of headstrong childhood;
I can hardly believe it to be the same we
admired, so leisurely winding its peaceful way into
the bosom of the Connecticut.”
“Thou likest the sobriety of maturity,” replied
Rebecca, “but I confess that there is something
delightful to my imagination in the elastic bound
of this infant stream; it reminds me of the joy of
untamed spirits, and undiminished strength.”
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The travellers' attention was withdrawn from
the wild scene before them to the appearance of
the heavens, by their coachman, who observed,
that “never in his days had he seen clouds make
so fast; it was not,” he said, “five minutes since
the first speck rose above the hill before them,
and now there was not enough blue sky for a man
to swear by:—but,” added he, looking with a
lengthening visage to what he thought an interminable
hill before them, “the lightning will be
saved the trouble of coming down to us, for if my
poor beasts ever get us to the top, we may reach
up and take it.”
Having reached the summit of the next acclivity,
they perceived by the road's side, a log hut; over
the door was a slab, with a rude and mysterious
painting, (which had been meant for a foaming
can and a plate of gingerbread,) explained under-neath
by “cake and beer for sale.” This did not
look very inviting, but it promised a better shelter
from the rain, for the invalid, than the carriage
could afford. Mr. Lloyd opened the door, and
lifted his wife over a rivulet, which actually ran
between the sill of the house and the floor-planks
that had not originally been long enough for the dimensions
of the apartment.
The mistress of the mansion, a fat middle-aged
woman, who sat with a baby in her arms at a round
table, at which there were four other children eating
from a pewter dish in the middle of the table,
rose, and having ejected the eldest boy from a
chair by a very unceremonious slap, offered it to
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[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]
Mrs. Lloyd and resumed her seat; quietly finishing
her meal. Her husband, a ruddy, good-natured,
hardy looking mountaineer, had had the misfortune,
by some accident in his childhood, to lose the use
of both his legs, which were now ingeniously folded
into the same chair on which he sat. He
turned to the coachman, who, having secured
his horses, had just entered, and smiling at his consternation,
said, “Why, friend, you look scare't,
pretty pokerish weather, to be sure, but then we
don't mind it up here;” then turning to the child
next him, who, in gazing at the strangers, had
dropped half the food she was conveying to her
mouth, he said,—“Desdemony, don't scatter the
'tatoes so.”—“But last week,” he continued, resuming
his address to the coachman, “there was
the most tedious spell of weather I have seen sen
the week before last thanksgiving, when my wife
and I went down into the lower part of Becket, to
hear Deacon Hollister's funeral sarmont—Don't
you remember, Tempy, that musical fellow that
was there?—`I don't see,' says he, `the use of
the minister preaching up so much about hell-fire,'
says he, `it is a very good doctrine,' says he, `to
preach down on Connecticut River, but,' says he,
`I should not think it would frighten any body in
such a cold place as Becket.' ”
A bright flash, that seemed to fire the heavens,
succeeded by a tremendous clap of thunder, which
made the hovel tremble, terrified all the groupe,
excepting the fearless speaker—
“A pretty smart flash to be sure; but, as I was
-- 043 --
[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]
saying, it is nothing to that storm we had last
week.—Velorus, pull that hat out of the window,
so the gentleman can see.—There, sir,” said he,
“just look at that big maple tree, that was blown
down, if it had come one yard nearer my house,
it would have crushed it to atoms. Ah, this is a
nice place as you will find any where,” he continued,
(for he saw Mr. Lloyd was listening attentively
to him,) “to bring up boys; it makes them
hardy and spirited, to live here with the wind roaring
about them, and the thunder rattling right over
their heads: why they don't mind it any more
than my woman's spinning-wheel, which, to be
sure, makes a dumb noise sometimes.”
Our travellers were not a little amused with
the humour of this man, who had a natural philosophy
that a stoic might have envied. “Friend,”
said Mr. Lloyd, “you have a singular fancy about
names; what may be the name of that chubby
little girl who is playing with my wife's fan?”
“Yes, sir, I am a little notional about names;
that girl, sir, I call Octavy, and that lazy little dog
that stands by her, is Rodolphus.”
“And this baby,” said Mr. Lloyd, kindly giving
the astonished little fellow his watch-chain to play
with, “this must be Vespasian or Agricola.”
“No, sir, no; I met with a disappointment
about that boy's name—what you may call a slip
between the cup and the lip—when he was born,
the women asked me what I meant to call him?
I told them, I did not mean to be in any hurry;
for you must know, sir, the way I get my names,
-- 044 --
[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]
I buy a book of one of those pedlers that are going
over the mountain with tin-ware and brooms, and
books and pamphlets, and one notion and another;
that is, I don't buy out and out, but we make a
swap; they take some of my wooden dishes, and
let me have the vally in books; for you must know
I am a great reader, and mean all my children
shall have larning too, though it is pretty tough
scratching for it. Well, Sir, as I was saying about
this boy, I found a name just to hit my fancy, for
I can pretty generally suit myself; the name was
Sophronius; but just about that time, as the deuce
would have it, my wife's father died, and the gin'ral
had been a very gin'rous man to us, and so to
compliment the old gentleman, I concluded to call
him Solomon Wheeler.”
Mr. Lloyd smiled, and throwing a dollar into
the baby's lap, said, “There is something, my little
fellow, to make up for your loss.” The sight and
the gift of a silver dollar produced a considerable
sensation among the mountaineers. The children
gathered round the baby to examine the splendid
favour. The mother said, “The child was not
old enough to make its manners to the gentleman,
but he was as much beholden to him as if he could.”
The father only seemed insensible, and contented
himself with remarking, with his usual happy nonchalance,
that he “guessed it was easier getting
money down country, than it was up on the
hills.”
“Very true, my friend,” replied Mr. Lloyd,
“and I should like to know how you support your
-- 045 --
[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]
family here. You do not appear to have any
farm.”
“No, Sir,” replied the man, laughing, “it
would puzzle me, with my legs, to take care of a
farm; but then I always say, that as long as a man
has his wits, he has something to work with. This
is a pretty cold sappy soil up here, but we make
out to raise all our sauce, and enough besides to
fat a couple of pigs on; then, Sir, as you see, my
woman and I keep a stock of cake and beer, and
tansy bitters—a nice trade for a cold stomach;
there is considerable travel on the road, and people
get considerable dry by the time they get up
here, and we find it a good business; and then I
turn wooden bowls and dishes, and go out peddling
once or twice ayear; and there is not an old wife,
or a young one either for the matter of that, but
I can coax them to buy a dish or two; I take my
pay in provisions or clothing; all the cash I get,
is by the beer and cake: and now, Sir, though I
say it, that may be should not say it, there is not a
more independent man in the town of Becket than
I am, though there is them that's more forehanded;
but I pay my minister's tax, and my school
tax, as reg'lar as any of them.”
Mr. Lloyd admired the ingenuity and contentment
of this man, his enjoyment of the privilege,
the “glorious privilege,” of every New-England
man, of “being independent.” But his pleasure
was somewhat abated by an appearance of a want
of neatness and order, which would have contributed
so much to the comfort of the family, and
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which, being a Quaker, he deemed essential to it.
He looked at the little stream of water we have
mentioned, and which the rain had already swollen
so much that it seemed to threaten an inundation
of the house; and observing, that neither the complexion
of the floor nor of the children seemed to
have been benefited by its proximity, he remarked
to the man, that he “should think a person of his ingenuity
would have contrived some mode of turning
the stream.”
“Why, yes, Sir,” said the man, “I suppose I
might, for I have got a book that treats upon hydrostatics
and them things; but I'm calculating to
build in the fall, and so I think we may as well
musquash along till then.”
“To build! Do explain to me how that is to
be done?”
“Why, Sir,” said he, taking a box from the
shelf behind him, which had a hole in the centre
of the top, through which the money was passed
in, but afforded no facility for withdrawing it, “my
woman and I agreed to save all the cash we could
get for two years, and I should not be afraid to
venture, there is thirty dollars there, Sir. The
neighbours in these parts are very kind to a poor
man; one will draw the timber, and another will
saw the boards, and they will all come to raising,
and bring their own spirits into the bargain. Oh,
Sir, it must be a poor shack that can't make a turn
to get a house over his head.”
Mr. Lloyd took ten dollars-from his pocket-book,
and slipping it into the gap, said, “There is
-- 047 --
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a small sum, my friend, and I wish it may be so
expended as to give to thy new dwelling such conveniences
as will enable thy wife to keep it neat.
It will help on the trade too; for depend upon it,
there is nothing makes a house look so inviting to
a traveller as a cleanly air.”
Our mountaineer's indifference was vanquished
by so valuable a donation. “You are the most
gin'rous man, Sir,” said he, “that ever journeyed
this way; and if I don't remember your advice,
you may say there is no such thing as gratitude
upon earth.”
By this time the rain had subsided, the clouds
were rolling over, the merry notes of the birds
sallying from their shelters, welcomed the returning
rays of the sun, and the deep unclouded azure in
the west promised a delightful afternoon.
The travellers took a kind leave of the grateful
cottagers, and as they drove away—“Tempy,”
said the husband, “if the days of miracles weren't
quite entirely gone by, I should think we had `entertained
angles unawares.' ”
“I think you might better say,” replied the good
woman, “that the angels have entertained us;
any how, that sick lady will be an angel before
long; she looks as good, and as beautiful, as one
now.”
It was on the evening of this day, that Mr. and
Mrs. Lloyd arrived at the inn in the village of—,
which, as we have before stated, was the
scene where her excellent and innocent life closed.
She expressed a desire, that she might not be
-- 048 --
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removed; she wished not to have the peace of her
mind interrupted by any unnecessary agitation.
Whenever she felt herself a little better, she would
pass a part of the day in riding. Never did any
one, in the full flush of health, enjoy more than
she, from communion with her Heavenly Father,
through the visible creation. She read with
understanding the revelations of his goodness, in
the varied expressions of nature's beautiful face.
“Do you know,” said she to her husband,
“that I prefer the narrow vales of the Housatonick,
to the broader lands of the Connecticut? It certainly
matters little where our dust is laid, if it be
consecrated by Him who is the `resurrection and
the life;' but I derive a pleasure which I could
not have conceived of, from the expectation of
having my body repose in this still valley, under
the shadow of that beautiful hill.”
“I, too, prefer this scenery,” said Mr. Lloyd,
seeking to turn the conversation, for he could not
yet but contemplate with dread, what his courageous
wife spoke of with a tone of cheerfulness. “I
prefer it, because it has a more domestic aspect.
There is, too, a more perfect and intimate union
of the sublime and beautiful. These mountains
that surround us, and are so near to us on every
side, seem to me like natural barriers, by which
the Father has secured for His children the gardens
He has planted for them by the river's side.”
“Yes,” said Rebecca, “and methinks they enclose
a sanctuary, a temple, from which the brightness
of His presence is never withdrawn. Look,”
-- 049 --
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said she, as the carriage passed over a hill that
rose above the valley, and was a crown of beauty
to it; “look, how gracefully and modestly that
beautiful stream winds along under the broad shadows
of those trees and clustering vines, as if it
sought to hide the beauty that sparkles so brightly
whenever a beam of light touches it. Oh! my
Rebecca,” said she, turning fondly to her child,
“I could wish thy path led along these still waters,
far from the stormy waves of the rude world—
far from its `vanities and vexation of spirit.' ”
“If that is thy wish, my love,” said her husband,
looking earnestly at her, “it shall be a law
to me.”
Mrs. Lloyd's tranquillity had been swept away
for a moment, by the rush of thought that was produced
by casting her mind forward to the destiny
of her child; but it was only for a moment. Her's
was the trust of a mind long and thoroughly disciplined
by Christian principles. Her face resumed
its wonted repose, as she said, “Dear Robert, I
have no wish but to leave all to thy discretion, under
the guidance of the Lord.”
It cannot be deemed strange that Mr. Lloyd
should have felt a particular interest in scenes for
which his wife had expressed such a partiality.
He looked upon them with much the same feeling
that the sight of a person awakens who has been
loved by a departed friend. They seemed to have
a sympathy for him; and he lingered at—
without forming any plan for the future, till he
was roused from his inactivity by hearing the sale
-- 050 --
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of Mr. Elton's property spoken of. He had passed
the place with Rebecca, and they had together
admired its secluded and picturesque situation.
The house stood at a little distance from the road,
more than half hid by two patriarchal elms. Behind
the house, the grounds descended gradually
to the Housatonick, whose nourishing dews kept
them arrayed in beautiful verdure. On the opposite
side of the river, and from its very margin,
rose a precipitous mountain, with its rich garniture
of beach, maple, and linden; tree surmounting
tree, and the images of all sent back by the clear
mirror below; for the current there was so gentle,
that, in the days of fable, a poet might have
fancied the Genius of the stream had paused to
woo the Nymphs of the wood.
Mr. Lloyd had no family ties to Philadelphia.
He preferred a country life; not supinely to dream
away existence, but he hoped there to cultivate
and employ a “talent for doing good;” that talent
which a noble adventurer declared he most
valued, and which, though there is a field for its
exercise, wherever any members of the human family
are, he compassed sea and land to find new
worlds in which to expend it.
Mr. Lloyd purchased the place and furniture,
precisely as it had been left on the morning of the
sale by Jane and her friend Mary.
-- 051 --
CHAPTER IV.
She, half an angel in her own account,
Doubts not hereafter with the saints to mount,
Tho' not a grace appears on strictest search,
But that she fasts, and item, goes to church.
Cowper.
[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]
The excellent character of Mary Hull had been
spoken of to Mr. Lloyd by his landlady, and he
was convinced that she was precisely the person
to whom he should be satisfied to commit the superintendence
of his family. Accordingly, on the
evening of the sale, he sent a messenger to Mrs.
Wilson's with the following note:—
“Robert Lloyd, having purchased the place of
the late Mr. Elton, would be glad to engage Mary
Hull to take charge of his family. Wages, and all
other matters, shall be arranged to her satisfaction.
He takes the liberty to send by the messenger,
for Jane Elton, a work-box, dressing-glass,
and a few other small articles, for which he has
no use, and which, he hopes, she will do him the
favour to retain, on account of the value they
must have in her eyes.”
Mrs. Wilson had no notion that any right could
be prior to hers in her house. She took the note
-- 052 --
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from the servant, and, notwithstanding he ventured
to say he believed it was not meant for her, she
read it first with no very satisfied air, and then
turning to one of the children, she told her to call
Mary Hull to her. The servant placed the things
on the table, and left the room.
“So,” said she to Jane, who was looking at her
for some explanation of the sudden apparition of
the work-box, &c.—“So, Miss, you have seen fit
to disobey the first order I took the trouble to give
you. I should like to know how you dared to
leave these things after my positive orders.”
“I did not understand your note, Ma'am, to contain
positive orders; and Mary and I did not think
it was quite right to take the things.”
“Right! pretty judges of right to be sure. She
a hired a girl, and a Methodist into the bargain. I
don't know how she dares to judge over my head;
and you, Miss, I tell you once for all, I allow no
child in my house to know right from wrong;
children have no reason, and they ought to be
very thankful, when they fall into the hands of
those that are capable of judging for them. Here,”
said she to Mary, who now entered in obedience
to her summons; “here is a proposal of a place
for you, from that Quaker that buried his wife last
week. I suppose you call yourself your own mistress,
and you can do as you like about it; but as
you are yet a young woman, Mary Hull, and this
man is a Quaker widower, and nobody knows
who, I should think it a great risk for you to live
with him; for, if nothing worse comes of it, you may
-- 053 --
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be sure there is not a person in this town that
won't think you are trying to get him for a husband.
Mary was highly gratified with the thought of
returning to the place where she had passed a
large and happy portion of her life, and she did
not hesitate to say, that “she should not stand so
much in her own light as to refuse so excellent a
place; that from all she had heard said of Mr.
Lloyd, he was a gentleman far above her condition
in life; and therefore she thought no person would
be silly enough to suppose she took the place from
so foolish a design as Mrs. Wilson suggested; and
she should take care that her conduct should give
no occasion for reproach.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Wilson, chagrined that her
counsel was not compulsory, “it does amaze me
to see how some people strain at a gnat, and swallow
a camel.”
Mary did not condescend to notice this remark,
but proceeded quietly to remove the articles Mr.
Lloyd had sent, which she succeeded in doing,
without any further remark from Mrs. Wilson,
who prudently restrained the exercise of her authority
while there was one present independent
enough to oppose its current.
“Oh, Mary,” said Jane, when they were alone,
how glad I am you are going to live with such a
good man; how happy you must be!” “And I
too, Mary;” and she hastily brushed away a tear,
“I am; at least I should be very happy when I
have such a kind friend as you are so near to me.”
-- 054 --
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“Yes, yes, dear Jane, try to be happy, this
foolish aunt of yours will try you like the fire, but
I look to see you come out of it as gold from the
furnace: keep up a good heart, my child, it is a
long lane that never turns.”
The friends separated, but not till Mary had
with her usual caution carefully packed away
Jane's new treasures, saying, as she did it, “that
it was best to put temptation out of sight.”
Mary's plain and neat appearance, and her ingenuous
sensible countenance, commended her at
once to Mr. Lloyd's favour, and she entered immediately
upon the duties of her new and responsible
situation.
We must now introduce those who are willing to
go further with us in the history of Jane Elton, to
the family of Mrs. Wilson, where they will see she
had a school for the discipline of christian character.
“Jane,” said Mrs. Wilson to her on the morning
after Mary's departure, “you know, child, the
trouble and expense of taking you upon my hands
is very great, but it did not seem suitable that
being my brother's daughter you should be put
out at present: you must remember, child, that I
am at liberty to turn you away at any time, whereas,
as you will always be in debt to me, you can
never be at liberty to go when you choose. It is
a great trial to me to take you, but the consciousness
of doing my duty and more than my duty to
you, supports me under it. Now as to what I expect
from you:—in the first place, my word must
-- 055 --
[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]
be your law; you must not hesitate to do any
thing that I require of you; never think of asking
a reason for what I command—it is very troublesome
and unreasonable to do so. Visiting, you
must give up entirely; I allow my children to
waste none of their time in company: meetings I
shall wish you to attend when you have not work
to do at home; for I do not wish you to neglect
the means of grace, though I am sensible that your
heart must be changed before they can do you any
good. You must help Martha do the ironing, and
assist Elvira with the clear starching and other
matters; Nancy will want your aid about the beds;
Sally is but young, and requires more care than I
can give her, for my time is at present chiefly
spent in instructing the young converts; and therefore
I shall look to you to take the charge of Sally;
and I expect you to take the charge of mending
and making for David when he comes home;
the other boys will want now and then a stitch or
two; and, in short, Miss, (and she increased the
asperity of her tone, for she thought Jane's growing
gravity indicated incipient rebellion,) you will
be ready to do every thing that is wanted of you.”
Jane was summoning resolution to reply, when
both her and her aunt's attention was called to
a rustling at the window, and crazy Bet thrust her
head in—
“Go on,” said she, and fill up the measure of
your iniquities, load her with burthens heavy and
grievous to be borne, and do not touch them with
one of your fingers.—There, Jane,” said she,
-- 056 --
[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]
throwing her a bunch of carnations, “I have just
come from the quarterly meeting, and I stopped as
I came past your house, and picked these, for I
thought their bright colours would be a temptation
to the Quaker. And I thought too,” said she,
laughing, “there should be something to send up
a sweet smelling savour from the altar where there
are no deeds of mercy laid.”
“Out of my yard instantly, you dirty beggar!”
said Mrs. Wilson.
Bet turned, but not quickening her step, and
went away, singing, “Glory, glory, hallelujah.”
“Aunt,” said Jane, “do not mind the poor
creature. She does not mean to offend you. I
believe she feels for me; for she has been sheltered
many a time from the cold and the storms in
our house.”
“Don't give yourself the least uneasiness, Miss.
I am not to be disturbed by a crazy woman; but I
do not see what occasion there is for her feeling
for you. You have not yet answered me.”
“I have no answer to make, Ma'am,” replied
Jane, meekly, “but that I shall do my best to content
you. I am very young, and not much used
to work, and I may have been too kindly dealt
with; but that is all over now.”
“Do you mean, Miss, to say, that I shan't treat
you kindly?”
“No, aunt, but I meant—excuse me, if I
meant any thing wrong.”
“I did expect, Miss, to hear some thankfulness
expressed.”
-- 057 --
[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]
“I do, Ma'am, feel grateful, that I have a shelter
over my head; what more I have to be grateful
for, time must determine.”
There was a dignity in Jane's manner, that, with
the spirit of the reply, taught Mrs. Wilson, that
she had, in her niece, a very different subject to
deal with from her own wilful and trickish children.
“Well, Miss Jane, I shall expect no haughty airs
in my house, and you will please now to go and
tell the girls to be ready to go with me to the afternoon
conference, and prepare yourself to go
also. One more thing I have to say to you, you
must never look to me for any clothing; that cunning
Mary has packed away enough to last you
fifty years. With all her methodism, I will trust
her to feather your nest, and her own too.”
Alas! thought Jane, as she went to execute her
aunt's commission, what good does it do my poor
aunt to go to conference? Perhaps this question
would not have occurred to many girls of thirteen,
but Jane had been accustomed to scan the motives
of her conduct, and to watch for the fruit.
The aid extended to our helpless orphan by her
pharisaical aunt, reminds us of the “right of asylum”
afforded, by the ancients to the offenders
who were allowed to take shelter in the temples of
their gods, and allowed to perish there.
She found the girls very much indisposed to the
afternoon meeting. Martha said, she “would not
go to hear Deacon Barton's everlasting prayers;
she had heard so many of them, she knew them
all by heart.”
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Elvira had just got possession, by stealth, of a
new novel; that species of reading being absolutely
prohibited in Mrs. Wilson's house, she had
crept up to the garret, and was promising herself
a long afternoon of stolen pleasure. “Oh, Jane,”
said she, “why can't you go down and tell Mother
you can't find me. Just tell her, you guess
I have gone down to Miss Bancker's, to inquire
whether the tracts have come; that's a good
thought; that will quiet her;” and she was resuming
her book, when seeing Jane did not move, she
added, “I'll do as much for you any time.”
“I shall never wish you to do as much for me,
Elvira.”
“I do not think it is so very much, just to go
down stairs; besides, Jane,” she added, imperiously,
“Mother says, you must do whatever we
ask you to.”
Elvira was so habituated to deceit, that it never
occurred to her, that the falsehood was the difficult
part of the errand to Jane; and when Jane
said, “Cousin Elvira, I will do whatever is reasonable
for you, and no more; any thing that is
true, I will tell your Mother for you;” she laughed
in derision.
“Pooh, Jane, you have brought your deaconish
nonsense to a poor market. It was easy enough
to get along with the truth with your mother, because
she would let you have your own way on
all occasions; but I can tell you, disguises are the
only wear in our camp!”
-- 059 --
[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]
“I shall not use them, Elvira. I should dread
their being stripped off.”
“Oh, not at all. Mother seldom takes the
trouble to inquire into it; and if she does, now
and then, by accident, detect it, the storm soon
blows over. She has caught me in many a white lie,
and black one too, and she has not been half so
angry as when I have torn my frock, or lost a
glove. Why, child, if you are going to fight your
battles with Mother with plain truth, you will find
yourself without shield or buckler.”
“Ah, Elvira!” replied Jane, smiling,
“That's no battle, ev'ry body knows,
Where one side only gives the blows.”
“That's true enough, Jane. Well, if you will not
help me off from the conference, I must go.—
Sweet Vivaldi,” said she, kissing her book, and
carefully hiding it in a dark corner of the garret,
“must I part with thee?”
“One would think,” said Jane, “you was parting
with your lover.”
“I am, my dear. I always fancy, when I read
a novel, that I am the heroine, and the hero is one
of my favourites; and then I realize it all, and it
appears so natural.”
Elvira was not, at heart, an ill-natured girl;
but having a weak understanding, and rather a
a fearful unresisting temper, she had been driven
by her Mother's mode of treatment into the practice
of deceit; and she being the weaker party,
-- 060 --
[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]
used in her warfare, as many arts as a savage practises
towards a civilized enemy. A small stock of
original invention may be worked up into a vast
deal of cunning. Elvira had been sent one quarter
to a distant boarding-school, where her name
had attracted a young lady, whose head had been
turned by love-stories. They had formed a league
of eternal friendship, which might have a six
months' duration; and Elvira had returned to her
home, at the age of sixteen, with a farrago of
romance superadded to her home-bred duplicity.
Martha was two years older than her sister, and
more like her mother: violent and self-willed, she
openly resisted her Mother's authority, whenever
it opposed her wishes. From such companions,
Jane soon found she had nothing to expect of improvement
or pleasure; but, though it may seem
quite incredible to some, she was not unhappy.
The very labour her aunt imposed on her was
converted into a blessing, for it occupied her mind,
and saved her from brooding on the happy past,
or the unhappy present. She now found exercise
for the domestic talents Mary had so skilfully
cultivated. Even the unrelenting Mrs. Wilson
was once heard to say, with some apparent pleasure,
that “Jane was gifted at all sorts of work.”
Her dexterous hand was often put in requisition
by her idle and slatternly cousins, and their favour
was sometimes won by her kind offices. But more
than all, and above all, as a source of contentment
and cheerfulness—better far than ever was
-- 061 --
[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]
boasted of perennial springs, or “Amreeta cups
of immortality”—was Jane's unfailing habit of regulating
her daily life by the sacred rules of our
blessed Lord. She would steal from her bed at
the dawn of day, when the songs of the birds
were interpreting the stillness of nature, and
beauty and fragrance breathing incense to the
Maker, and join her devotions to the choral
praise. At this hour she studied the word of truth
and life, and a holy beam of light fell from it on
her path through the day. Her pleasures at this
social period of her life were almost all solitary,
except when she was indulged in a visit to Mary,
whose eye was continually watching over her
with maternal kindness. The gayety of her
childhood had been so sadly checked by the
change of her fortunes, that her countenance had
taken rather a serious and reserved cast. Mr.
Lloyd's benevolent feelings were awakened by
her appearance; and Mary, whose chief delight
was in expatiating on the character of her favourite,
took care to confirm his favourable impressions
by setting in the broadest light her
former felicity, her present trials, and her patience
in tribulation.
Mary had orders to leave the furniture in a little
room that had formerly been assigned to Jane,
precisely as she left it, and to tell Jane that it was
still called, and should be considered, her room.
“And that beautiful honeysuckle, Jane,” said
Mr. Lloyd to her, “which thy tasteful hand has
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[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]
so carefully trained about the window, is still
thine.”
These, and many other instances of delicate attention
from Mr. Lloyd, saved her from the feeling
of forlornness that she might otherwise have suffered.
-- 063 --
CHAPTER V.
“I am for other, than for dancing measures.”
As You Like It.
[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]
A few months after Jane entered her aunt's family,
an unusual commotion had been produced in
the village of—by an event of rare occurrence.
This was no less than the arrival of a
dancing-master, and the issuing of proposals for a
dancing-school.
This was regarded by some very zealous persons
as a ruse de guerre of the old Adversary, which, if
not successfully opposed, would end in the establishment
of his kingdom.
The plan of the disciple of Vestris, was to establish
a chain of dancing-schools from one extremity
of the county to the other; and this was looked
upon as a mine which would be sprung to the certain
destruction of every thing that was `virtuous
and of good report.' Some clergymen denounced
the impending sin from their pulpits. One said
that he had searched the Bible from Genesis to
Revelation, and he could not find a text that expressly
treated of that enormity, but that was manifestly
because it was a sin too heinous to be spoken
of in holy writ; he said that dancing was one
-- 064 --
[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]
of the most offensive of all the rites of those savage
nations that were under the immediate and visible
government of the prince of this world; and,
finally, he referred them to the church documents,
those precious records of the piety, and wisdom,
and purity of their ancestors; and they would
there find a rule which prohibited any church-member
from frequenting, or being present at,
a ball, or dance, or frolic, or any such assembly
of Satan; and they would moreover find that such
transgressions had been repeatedly punished by
expulsion from the church, and exclusion from all
christian ordinances. Some of this gentleman's
brethren contented themselves by using their influence
in private advice and remonstrance; and
a few said they could not see the sin nor the danger
of the young people's indulging, with moderation,
in the healthful exercise and innocent recreation
adapted to their season of life; that what
the moral and pious Locke had strenuously advocated,
and the excellent Watts approved, it did
not become them to frown upon; but they should
use their efforts in restraining the young people
within the bounds of moderation.
The result was that our dancing-master obtained
a few schools, and one in the village which enjoyed
the privilege of such a light as Mrs. Wilson.
She, filled with alarm, `lifted up her voice and
spared not.' Some of her warmest admirers
thought her clamour had more of valour in it than
discretion.
-- 065 --
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Notwithstanding the violence of the opposition,
and perhaps aided by it, the dancing-school was at
length fairly established, and some of the elderly
matrons of the village, who had considered dances
as the orgies of Satan, were heard to confess that
when properly regulated, they might furnish an
amusement not altogether unsuited to youth, and
that they did not, in point of propriety, suffer by
a comparison with the romps, forfeits, and cushion-dances
of their younger days.
At Mrs. Wilson's instance, two new weekly meetings
were appointed, on the same evenings with the
dancing-school; the one to be a conference in the
presence of the young people, and the other a catechetical
lecture for them. These her daughters
were compelled to attend, in spite of the bold and
turbulent opposition of Martha, and the well-concerted
artifices of Elvira.
Elvira expressed her surprise at Jane's patience
under the new dispensation. “To be sure, Jane,”
she said, “you have not the trial that I have,
about the dancing-school, for a poor girl can't
expect such accomplishments.—I do so long to
dance! It was in the mazy dance Edward Montreville
first fell in love with Selina;—but then these
odious—these hateful meetings! Oh, I have certainly
a natural antipathy to them; you do not
always have to attend them; mother is ready
enough to let you off, when there is any hard job
to be done in the family;—well, much as I hate
work, I had rather work than go to meeting.
Tell me honestly, Jane, would not you like to
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[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]
learn to dance, if you was not obliged to wear
deep mourning, and could afford to pay for it?”
Jane, all used as she was to the coarseness of
her cousins, would sometimes feel the colour come
unbidden to her cheeks, and she felt them glow as
she replied, “I learned to dance, Elvira, during
the year I spent at Mrs. B.'s boarding school.”
“La, is it possible? I never heard you say a
word about it.”
“No,” said Jane; “many things have happened
to me that you never heard me say a word
about.”
“Oh! I dare say, Miss Jane. Every body
knows your cold, reserved disposition. My sensibility
would destroy me, if I did not permit it to
flow out into a sympathizing bosom.”
“But now, Jane,” said she, shutting the door,
and lowering her voice, “I have hit upon a capital
plan to cheat mother. There is to be a little
ball to-night, after the school; and I have promised
Edward Erskine to go with him to it. For
once, Jane, be generous, and lend me a helping-hand.
In the first place, to get rid of the meeting,
I am going to put a flannel round my throat,
to tell my mother it is very sore, and I have a
head-ach; and then I shall go to bed; but as
soon as she is well out of the house, I shall get up
and dress me, and wind that pretty wreath of yours,
which I'm sure you will lend me, around my head,
and meet Erskine just at the pear-tree, at the end
of the garden. Then, as to the return, you know
you told mother you could not go to meeting, because
you was going to stay with old Phillis, and I
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just heard the Doctor say, he did not believe she
would live the night through. This is clear luck,
what mother would call providential. At any rate,
you know, if she should not be any worse, you can
sit up till 12 o'clock, and I will just tap at Phillis's
bed-room window, and you won't refuse, Jane, to
slip the bolt of the outside door for me.”
Jane told her she could not take part in her projects;
but, Elvira trusting to the impulse of her
cousin's good-nature, adhered to her plan.
Mrs. Wilson was not, on this occasion, so keen-eyed
as usual. She had, that very day, received
proposals of marriage from a broken merchant,
and though she had no idea of jeopardizing her
estates and liberty, she was a good deal fluttered
with what she would fain have believed to be a
compliment to her personal charms. Every thing
succeeded to Elvira's most sanguine expectations.
Her mother went to the conference. Elvira, arrayed
in all the finery her own wardrobe supplied, and
crowned with Jane's wreath, went off to her expecting
gallant, leaving Jane by the bedside of
Phillis; and there the sweet girl kindly watched
alone, till after the return of the family from the
conference, till after the bell had summoned the
household to the evening prayer, and till after the
last lingering sound of fastening doors, windows,
&c. died away.
The poor old invalid was really in the last extremity;
her breathing grew shorter and more interrupted;
her eyes assumed a fearful stare and
glassiness. Jane's fortitude forsook her, and she
ventured to call her aunt, who had but just
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entered the room, when the poor creature expired.
In the last struggle she grasped Jane's hand,
and as her fingers released their hold, and the arm
fell beside her, Jane raised it up, and gently laying
it across her body, and retaining the hand for
a moment in her own, she said, “Poor Phillis! how
much hard work you have done with this hand,
and how many kindnesses for me. Your troubles
are all over, now.”
“You take upon you to say a great deal, Jane,”
replied her aunt. “Phillis did not give me satisfying
evidence of a saving faith.”
“But,” said Jane, as if she did not quite comprehend
the import of her aunt's remark, “Phillis
was very faithful over her little.”
“That's nothing to the purpose, Jane,” answered
Mrs. Wilson.
Jane made no reply, unless the tear she dropped
on her old friend might be deemed one, and
Mrs. Wilson added,
“Now, child, you must get the things together,
to lay her out.” Then saying, that Phillis's sickness
had been a bill of cost to her, and quite overlooking
her long life of patient and profitable service,
she gave the most sordid directions as to the
selection of provisions for the last wants of the
poor menial. Jane went out of the room to execute
her orders.
She had scarcely gone, when Mrs. Wilson heard
the window carefully raised, and some one said,
“Here I am, Jane; go softly and slip the bolt of
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the west door, and don't for the world wake the
old lady.” By any brighter light than the dim
night lamp that was burning on the hearth, Elvira
could not have mistaken her dark harsh visaged
mother for her fair cousin. A single glance revealed
the truth to Mrs. Wilson. The moon-beams
were playing on the wreath of flowers, and
Edward Erskine, who was known as the ring-leader
of the ball-faction, stood beside Elvira.
She smothered her rage for a few moments, and
creeping softly to the passage, opened the door,
and admitted the rebel, who followed her to Phillis's
room, saying, “Oh, Jane, you are a dear good
soul for once. I have had an ecstatic time. Never
try to persuade me not to trick the old woman.”
By this time they had arrived at Phillis's room,
where Jane had just entered with a candle in her
hand.
Mrs. Wilson turned to her child, who stood confounded
with the sudden detection, “I have caught
you,” said she, almost bursting with rage; “caught
you both!” Then seizing the wreath of flowers,
which she seemed to look upon as the hoisted flag
of successful rebellion, she threw it on the floor;
and crushing it with her foot, she grasped the terrified
girl, and pushed her so violently that she fell
on the cold body of the lifeless woman: “and
you, viper!” continued the furious creature, turning
to Jane, “is this my reward for warming you
in my bosom? You, with your smooth hypocritical
face, teaching my child to deceive and abuse
me. But you shall have your reward. You shall
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see whether I am to be browbeaten by a dependant
child, in my own house.”
Jane had often seen her aunt angry, but she
had never witnessed such passion as this, and she
was for a moment confounded; but like a delicate
plant that bends to the ground before a sudden
gust of wind, and then is firm and erect as ever,
she turned to Mrs. Wilson, and said, “Ma'am, I
have never deceived or aided others to deceive
you.”
“I verily believe you lie!” replied her aunt, in
a tone of undiminished fury.
Jane looked to her cousin, who had recoiled
from the cold body of Phillis, and sat in sullen silence
on a trunk at the foot of the bed,—“Elvira,”
said she, “you will do me the justice to tell your
mother I had no part in your deception.” But
Elvira, well pleased to have any portion of the
storm averted from her own head, had not generosity
enough to interpose the truth. She therefore
compromised with her conscience, and merely
said,—“Jane knew I was going.”
“I was sure of it,—I was sure of it; I always
knew she was an artful jade; `still waters run
deep;' but she shall be exposed, the mask shall
be stripped from the hypocrite.”
“Aunt,” said Jane, in a voice so sweet, so composed,
that it sounded like the breath of music
following the howlings of an enraged animal,
“Aunt, we are in the chamber of death; and in a
little time you, and I, and all of us, shall be as this
poor creature; as you will then wish your soul to
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be lightened of all injustice—spare the innocent
now; you know I never deceived you; Elvira
knows it; I am willing to bear any thing it pleases
God to lay upon me, but I cannot have my good
name taken, it is all that remains to me.”
This appeal checked Mrs. Wilson for a moment,
she would have replied, but she was interrupted
by two coloured women, whom she had sent
for, to perform the last offices for Phillis. She
restrained her passion, gave them the necessary
directions, and withdrew to her own room: where,
we doubt not, she was followed by the rebukes of
her conscience; for however neglected and stifled,
its `still small voice' will be heard in darkness
and solitude.
It may seem strange, that Mrs. Wilson should
have manifested such anxiety to throw the blame
of this affair on Jane; but however a parent may
seek by every flattering unction vanity can devise,
to evade the truth, the misconduct of a child will
convey a reproach, and reflect dishonour on the
author of its existence.
Jane and Elvira crept to their beds without exchanging
a single word. Elvira felt some shame
at her own meanness; but levity and selfishness always
prevailed in her mind, and she soon lost all
consciousness of realities, and visions of dances
and music and moonlight floated in her brain;
sometimes `a change came o'er the spirit of her
dream,' and she shrunk from a violent grasp, and
she felt the icy touch of death; and wherever she
turned, a ray from her cousin's mild blue eye fell
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upon her, and she could not escape from its silent,
beautiful reproach. The mother and the daughter
might both have envied the repose of the solitary
abused orphan, who possessed `a peace they could
not trouble.' She soon lost all memory of her
aunt's rage and her cousin's injustice, and sunk
into quiet slumbers. In her dream she saw her
mother tenderly smiling on her; and heard again
and again the last words of the old woman: “the
Lord bless you, Miss Jane! the Lord will bless
you, for your kindness to old Phillis.”
If Mrs. Wilson had not been blinded by self-love,
she might have learnt an invaluable lesson from
the melancholy results of her own mal-government.
But she preferred incurring every evil, to
the relinquishment of one of the prerogatives of
power. Her children, denied the appropriate
pleasures of youth, were driven to sins of a much
deeper die, than those which Mrs. Wilson sought
to avoid could have had even in her eyes; for surely
the very worst effects that ever were attributed to
dancing, or to romance-reading, cannot equal the
secret dislike of a parent's authority, the risings
of the heart against a parent's tyranny, and the
falsehood and meanness that weakness always will
employ in the evasion of power; and than which
nothing will more certainly taint every thing that
is pure in the character.
The cool reflection of the morning pointed out
to Mrs. Wilson, as the most discreet, the very line
of conduct justice would have dictated. She
knew she could not accuse Jane, without exposing
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Elvira, and besides she did not care to have it
known that her sagacity had been outwitted by
these children. Therefore, though she appeared
at breakfast more sulky and unreasonable than
usual, she took no notice of the transactions of the
preceding night, and they remained secret to all
but the actors in them; except that we have reason
to believe, from Mr. Lloyd's increased attention
to Jane, shortly after, that they had been
faithfully transmitted to him by Mary Hull, the
balm of whose sympathy it cannot be deemed wonderful
our little solitary should seek.
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CHAPTER VI.
These are fine feathers, but what bird were they plucked from?
Esop.
[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]
There is nothing in New-England so eagerly
sought for, or so highly prized by all classes of
people, as the advantages of education. A farmer
and his wife will deny themselves all other benefits
that might result from the gains that have accrued
to them from a summer of self-denial and toil, to
give their children the privilege of a grammar-school
during the winter. The public, or as they
are called the town-schools, are open to the child
of the poorest labourer. As knowledge is one of
the best helps and most certain securities to virtue,
we doubtless owe a great portion of the morality
of this blessed region, where there are no dark
corners of ignorance, to these wise institutions of
our pious ancestors.
In the fall subsequent to the events we have recorded,
a school had been opened in the village of—,
of a higher and more expensive order,
than is common in a country town. Every mouth
was filled with praises of the new teacher, and with
promises and expectations of the knowledge to be
derived from this newly opened fountain; all was
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bustle and preparation among the young companions
of Martha and Elvira for the school; for
Martha, though beyond the usual school-going
age, was to complete her education at the new
seminary.
The dancing school had passed without a sigh of
regret from Jane; but now she felt severely her
privation. Her watchful friend, Mary Hull, remarked
the melancholy look that was unheeded at
her aunt's; and she inquired of Jane, “Why she
was so downcast?”
“Ah, Mary!” she replied, “it is a long time
since I have felt the merry spirit which the wise
man says, is `medicine to the heart.”'
“That's true, Jane; but then there's nobody,
that is, there's nobody that has so little reason for
it as you have, that has a more cheerful look.”
“I have great reason to be cheerful, Mary, in
token of gratitude for my kind friends here; and,”
added she, taking Mr.Lloyd's infant, who playfully
extended her arms to her, “you and I are too
young, Rebecca, to be very sad.” The child felt
the tear that dewed the cheek to which she was
pressed, and looking into Jane's face, with instinctive
sympathy, burst into tears. Mr. Lloyd entered
at this moment, and Jane hastily replacing
the child in Mary Hull's lap, and tying on her hat,
bade them farewell.
Mr. Lloyd asked for some explanation. Mary
believed nothing particular had happened. “But,”
she said, “the poor girl's spirit wearies with the
life she leads, and its no wonder; it is a great
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change from a home and mother, to such a work-house
and such a task-woman.”
Mr. Lloyd had often regretted, that it was so
little in his power to benefit Jane. The school
occurred to him, and as nothing was more improbable
than that Mrs. Wilson would, herself, incur
the expense of Jane's attendance, he consulted with
Mary as to the best mode of doing it himself, without
provoking Mrs. Wilson's opposition, or offending
her pride. A few days after, when the
agent for the school presented the subscription list
to Mrs. Wilson for her signature, she saw there,
to her utter astonishment, Jane Elton's name.
The agent handed her an explanatory note from
Mr. Lloyd, in which he said, “that as it had been
customary to send one person from the house he
now occupied to the `subscription school,' he had
taken the liberty to continue the custom. He
hoped the measure would meet with Mrs. Wilson's
approbation, without which it could not go
into effect.”
Mrs. Wilson, at first, said, it was impossible;
she could not spare Jane; but afterwards, she
consented to take it into consideration. The moment
the man had shut the door, she turned to
Jane, and misunderstanding the flush of pleasure
that brightened her usually pale face, she exclaimed,
“And so, Miss, this is one of your plans to slip
your neck out of the yoke of duty.”
Jane said, she had nothing to do with the plan,
but she trusted her aunt would not oblige her to
lose such a golden opportunity of advantage. Mrs.
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Wilson made various objections, and Jane skilfully
obviated them all. At last she said, “There
would be a piece of linen to make up for David,
and that put it quite out of the question, for,” said
she, “I shall not take the girls from their studies;
and even you, Miss Jane, will probably have the
grace to think my time more precious than
yours.”
“Well, aunt,” said Jane, with a smile so sweet
that even Mrs. Wilson could not entirely resist its
influence, “if I will get the linen made by witch
or fairy, may I go?”
“Why, yes,” replied her aunt; “as you cannot
get it made without witches or fairies, I may
safely say you may.”
Jane's reliance was on kindness more potent
than any modern magic; and that very evening,
with the light-bounding step of hope, she went to
her friend Mary's, where, after having made her
acknowledgments to Mr. Lloyd with the grace
of earnestness and sincerity, she revealed to Mary
the only obstacle that now opposed her wishes.
Mary at once, as Jane expected, offered to make
the linen for her; and Jane, affectionately thanking
her, said, she was sure her aunt would be
satisfied, for she had often heard her say,
“Mary Hull was the best needle woman in the
county.”
Mrs. Wilson had seen Jane so uniformly flexible
and submissive to her wilful administration,
and in matters she deemed of vastly more consequence
than six months schooling, that she
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was all astonishment to behold her now so persevering
in her resolution to accomplish her purpose.
But Jane's and Mrs. Wilson's estimate of
the importance of any given object was very different.
The same fortitude that enabled Jane to
bear, silently and patiently, the “oppressor's
wrong,” nerved her courage in the attainment of
a good end.
Mrs. Wilson had no longer any pretence to oppose
Jane's wishes; and the following day she took
her place, with her cousins, at Mr. Evertson's
school. Her education had been very much advanced
for her years; so that, though four years
younger than Martha Wilson, she was, after a very
careful examination by the teacher, classed with
her. This was a severe mortification to Martha's
pride; she seemed to feel her cousin's equality
an insult to herself, and when she reported the circumstance
to her mother, she said, she believed it
was all owing to Jane's soft answers and pretty
face; or “may be the Quaker, who takes such a
mighty fancy to Jane, has bribed Mr. Evertson.”
“Very likely, very likely,” answered her mother.
“It seems as if every body took that child's
part against us.”
Jane, once more placed on even ground with
her companions, was like a spring relieved from a
pressure. She entered on her new pursuits with
a vigour that baffled the mean attempts of the family
at home to impede or hinder her course. She
was not a genius, but she had that eager assiduity,
that “patient attention,” to which the greatest of
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philosophers attributed the success which has been
the envy and admiration of the world. There was
a perpetual sunshine in her face, that delighted her
patron. He had thought nothing could be more
interesting than Jane's pensive dejected expression;
but he now felt, that it was beautiful as well
as natural for the young plant to expand its leaves
to the bright rays of the sun, and to rejoice in his
beams. Mary Hull was heard to say, quite as often
as the beauty of the expression would justify,
the Lord be thanked, our dear young lady once
more wears the “cheerfulness of countenance that
betokens a heart in prosperity.”
Double duties were laid on Jane at home, but
she won her way through them. The strict rule
of her aunt's house did not allow her to “watch
with the constellations,” but she “made acqaintance
with the gray dawn,” and learnt by “employing
them well,” (the mode recommended by
Elizabeth Smith,) the value of minutes as well as
hours. The bad envied her progress, the stupid
were amazed at it, and the generous delighted
with it. She went, rejoicing on her way, far before
her cousins, who, stung by her manifest superiority,
made unwonted exertions; and Martha
might have fairly competed with her for the
prizes that were to be given, had she not often
been confused and obstructed by the perversities
of her temper.
The winter and the spring winged their rapid
flight. The end of the term, which was to close
with an exhibition, approached. The note of
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busy preparation was heard in every dwelling in
the village of—. We doubt if the expectation
of the tournament at Ashby de la Zouche excited
a greater sensation among knights-templars,
Norman lords, and wandering chevaliers, than
the anticipation of the exhibition produced upon
the young people of—. Labour and skill
were employed and exhausted in preparations
for the event. One day was allotted for the examination
of the scholars, and the distribution
of prizes; and another for the exhibition, during
which the young men and boys were to
display those powers that were developing for the
pulpit, and the bar, and the political harangue.
The young ladies were with obvious and singular
propriety excluded from any part in the exhibition,
except that on the first drawing aside, (for they
did not know enough of the scenic art to draw up
the curtain,) the prize composition was to be read
by the writer of it.
The old and the young seemed alike interested
in promoting the glories of the day. The part of
a king, from one of Miss More's Sacred Dramas,
was to be enacted, and there was a general assembly
of the girls of the village to fit his royal trappings.
A purple shawl was converted by a little
girl of ready invention into a royal robe of Tyrian
dye. The crown blazed with jewelry, which
to too curious scrutiny appeared to be not diamonds,
but paste; not gold, but gold-leaf, and
gold beads; of which fashionable New-England
necklace, as tradition goes, there were not less
-- 081 --
[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]
than sixty strings, lent for the occasion by the kind
`auld wives' of the village. An antiquated belle
who had once flourished in the capital, completed
the decoration of the crown by four nodding ostrich
plumes, whose `bend did certainly awe the world'
of—. There might have been some want
of congruity in the regalia, but this was not marked
by the critics of—, as not one of the republican
audience had ever seen a real crown.
A meeting was called of the trustees of the
school, and the meeting-house (for thus in the
land of the Puritans the churches are still named,)
was assigned as the place of exhibition. In order
not to invade the seriousness of the sanctuary, the
pieces to be spoken were all to be of a moral or
religious character. Instrumental music, notwithstanding
the celebrations of Independence in the
same holy place were pleaded as a precedent,
was rigorously forbidden. The arrangements were
made according to these decrees, from which there
was no appeal, and neither, as usually happens
with inevitable evils, was there much dissatisfaction.
One of the boys remarked, that he wondered
the deacons (three of the trustees were deacons,)
did not stop the birds from singing, and the
sun from shining, and all such gay sounds and
sights. Oh that those, who throw a pall over the
innocent pleasures of life, and give, in the eye of
the young, to religion a dark and gloomy aspect,
would learn some lessons of theology from the
joyous light of the sun, and the merry carol of the
birds!
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A floor was laid over the tops of the pews, which
was covered by a carpet lent by the kind Mr.
Lloyd. A chair, a present from Queen Anne to
the first missionary to the Housatonick Indians,
and which, like some other royal gifts, had cost
more than it came to, in its journey from the coast
to the mountainous interior, furnished a very respectable
throne, less mutable than some that
have been filled by real kings, for it remained a
fixture in the middle of the stage, while kings were
deposed and kingdoms overthrown. Curtains, of
divers colours and figures, were drawn in a cunningly
devised manner, from one end of the
church to the other.
The day of examination came, and our deserving
young heroine was crowned with honours,
which she merited so well, and bore so meekly,
that she had the sympathy of the whole school—
except that (for the truth must be told.) of her
envious cousins. When the prizes for arithmetic,
grammer, geography, history, and philosophy,
were one after another, in obedience to the award
of the examiners, delivered to Jane, by her gratified
master, Martha Wilson burst into tears of spite
and mortification, and Elvira whispered to the
young lady next her, “She may have her triumph
now, but I will have one worth a hundred prizes
to-morrow, for, I am sure that my composition
will be preferred to hers.”
To add the zest of curiosity and surprise to the
exhibition, it had been determined that the writer
of the successful piece should not be known till the
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[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]
withdrawing of the curtain disclosed the secret.
The long expected day arrived. One would have
thought, from the waggons and chaises that poured
in from the neighbouring towns, that a cattle show,
or a hanging, or some such `merry-making matter,'
was going on in the village of—. The church
was filled at an early hour, and pews, aisles, and
galleries crowded as we have seen a less holy
place at the first appearance of a foreign actor.
The teacher and the clergyman were in the pulpit;
the scholars ranged on benches at the opposite extremities
of the stage; the crowd was hushed
into reverent stillness while the clergyman commenced
the exercises of the day by an appropriate
prayer. The curtains were hardly closed, before
they were again withdrawn, and the eager eyes of
the assembly fell on Elvira. A shadow of disappointment
might have been seen flitting across
Mr. Lloyd's face at this moment, while Mary Hull,
who sat in a corner of the gallery, half rose from
her seat, sat down again, tied and untied her bonnet,
and, in short, manifested indubitable signs of
a vexed spirit; signs, that in more charitable eyes
than Mrs. Wilson's certainly would have gone
against the obnoxious doctrine of `perfection.'
Elvira was seated on the throne, ambitiously arrayed
in a bright scarlet Canton crape frock, a
white sarsenet scarf, fantastically thrown over her
shoulders. Her hair, in imitation of some favourite
heroine, flowed in ringlets over her neck,
excepting a single braid, with which, as she fancied,
`à la grecque,' she had encompassed her
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[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]
brow, and, to add to this confusion of the classical
and the pastoral orders, instead of the crescent of
Diana in the model, she had bound her braid with
blue glass beads.
“Who is that? who is that?” was whispered
from one to another.
“The rich widow Wilson's daughter,” the strangers
were answered.
Mrs. Wilson, whose maternal pride (for maternal
tenderness she had not) was swollen by the
consciousness of triumph over Jane, nodded and
whispered to all within her hearing, “My daughter,
sir”—“my daughter, ma'am; you see, by the
bill, the prize composition is to be spoken by the
writer of it.”
Elvira rose and advanced. She had requested
that she might speak instead of reading her piece,
and she spouted it with all the airs and graces of a
sentimentalist of the beau monde. When she
dropped her courtesy, and returned to her companions,
her usually high colour was heightened
by the pride of success and the pleasure of display.
Some were heard to say, “She is a beauty;”
while others shook their heads, and observed,
“The young lady must have great talents to
write such a piece, but she looked too bold to
please them.”
Before the busy hum of comment had died
away, an old man, with a bald head, a keen eye,
and a very good-humoured face, rose and said
“he would make bold to speak a word; bashfulness
was suitable to youth, but was not necessary
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[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]
to gray hairs: he was kinder-loath to spoil a young
body's pleasure, but he must own he did not like
to see so much flourish in borrowed plumes; that,
if he read the notice right, the young woman was
to speak a piece of her own framing; he had no
fault to find with the speaking; she spoke as smart
as a lawyer; but he knew them words as well as
the catechism, and if the school-master or the minister
would please to walk to his house, which
was hard by, they might read them out of an old
Boston newspaper, that his woman, who had been
dead ten years come independence, had pasted
up by the side of his bed, to keep off the rheumatis.”
The old man sat down; and Mr. Evertson, who
had all along been a little suspicious of foul play,
begged the patience of the audience, while he
himself could make the necessary comparison.
Mrs. Wilson, conscious of the possession of a file
of old Boston papers, and well knowing the artifice
was but too probable, fidgetted from one side of
the pew to the other; and the conscience-stricken
girl, on the pretence of being seized with a violent
tooth-ach, left the church.
The teacher soon returned, and was very sorry
to be obliged to say, that the result of the investigation
had been unfavourable to the young lady's
integrity, as the piece had, undoubtedly, been copied,
verbatim, from the original essay in the Boston
paper.
“He hoped his school would suffer no discredit
from the fault of an individual. He should
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now, though the young lady had remonstrated
against being brought forward under such circumstances,
insist on the composition being read, which
had been pronounced next best to Miss Wilson's;
and which, he could assure the audience, was, unquestionably,
original.”
The curtain was once more withdrawn, and discovered
Jane seated on the throne, looking like
the “meek usurper,” reluctant to receive the
honour that was forced upon her. She presented
a striking contrast to the deposed sovereign. She
was dressed in a plain black silk frock, and a neatly
plaited muslin vandyke; her rich light brown hair
was parted on her forehead, and put up behind in
a handsome comb, around which one of her young
friends had twisted an “od'rous chaplet of sweet
summer buds.” She advanced with so embarrassed
an air, that even Mary Hull thought her
triumph cost more than it was worth. As she unrolled
the scroll she held in her hand, she ventured
once to raise her eyes; she saw but one face
among all the multitude—the approving, encouraging
smile of her kind patron met her timid
glance, and emboldened her to proceed, which
she did, in a low and faltering voice, that certainly
lent no grace, but the grace of modesty, to the
composition. The subject was gratitude, and the
remarks, made on the virtue, were such as could
only come from one whose heart was warmed by
its glow. Mr. Lloyd felt the delicate praise. Mrs.
Wilson affected to appropriate it to herself. She
whispered to her next neighbour, “It is easy to
-- 087 --
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write about gratitude; but I am sure her conduct
is evil and unthankful enough.”
As Jane returned to her seat, her face brightened
with the relief of having got through. Edward
Erskine exclaimed to the young man next him,
“By Jove, it is the most elegant composition I
ever heard from a girl. Jane Elton has certainly
grown very handsome.”
“Yes,” replied his friend; “I always thought
her pretty, but you prefer her cousin.”
“I did prefer her cousin,” answered Erskine;
“but I never noticed Jane much before; she is
but a child, and she has always looked so pale and
so sad since the change in her family. You know
I have no fancy for solemn looks. Elvira is certainly
handsome—very handsome; she is a cheating
little devil; but, for all that, she is gay, and
spirited, and amusing. It is enough to make any
body deceitful to live with such a stern, churlish
woman, as Mrs. Wilson. The girl has infinite ingenuity
in cheating her mother, and her pretty
face covers a multitude of faults.”
“So I should think,” replied his friend, “from
the character you have given her. You will hardly
applaud the deceits that have led to the disgrace
of this morning.”
“Oh, no!” answered Erskine; “but I am sorry
for her mortification.”
The exhibition proceeded; but as our heroine
had no further concern with it, neither have we;
except to say, that it was equally honourable to
the preceptor and pupils. The paraphernalia of
-- 088 --
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the king was exceedingly admired, and some were
heard to observe, (very pertinently,) that they
did not believe Solomon, in all his glory, was arrayed
like him.
Jane's situation, at her aunt's, was rendered
more painful than ever, from the events of the
school and the exhibition. Mrs. Wilson treated her
with every species of vexatious unkindness. In
vain Jane tried, by her usefulness to her aunt, to
win her favour, and by the most patient obedience
to her unreasonable commands, by silent uncomplaining
submission, to sooth her into kindness.
It was all in vain; her aunt was more oppressive
than ever; Martha more rude, and Elvira more
tormenting. It was not hearing her called “the
just,” that provoked their hatred; but it was the
keen and most disagreeable feeling of self-reproach
that stung them, when the light of her goodness
fell upon their evil deeds; it was the “daily
beauty of her life that made them ugly.”
-- 089 --
CHAPTER VII.
Poise the cause in justice's equal scales,
Whose beam stands sure.
2 Henry VI.
[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]
Jane hoped for some favourable change in her
condition, or some slight alleviation of it, from the
visit of David Wilson, who had just arrived from
college, to pass a six-weeks vacation with his family.
At first, he seemed to admire his cousin;
and partly to gratify a passing fancy, and partly
from opposition to his mother and sisters, he treated
her with particular attention. Jane was grateful,
and returned his kindness with frankness and
affection. But she was soon obliged, by the freedom
of his manners to treat him with reserve.
His pride was wounded, and he joined the family
league against her. He was a headstrong youth
of seventeen; his passions had been curbed by
the authority of his mother, but never tamed; and
now that he was beyond her reach, he was continually
falling into some excess; almost always in
disgrace at college, and never in favour.
Mr. Lloyd was made acquainted with all the
embarrassments in Jane's condition, by Mary
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Hull. He would have rejoiced to have offered
Jane a home, but he had no right to interfere; he
was a stranger, and he well knew, that Mrs. Wilson
would not consent to any arrangement that
would deprive her of Jane's ill-requited services,—
such services as money could not purchase.
It was, too, about this period, that Mr. Lloyd went,
for the first time, to visit Philadelphia. Jane had
passed a day of unusual exertion, and just at the
close of it she obtained her aunt's reluctant leave
to pay a visit to Mary Hull. It was a soft summer
evening; the valley reposed in deep shadow;
the sun was sinking behind the western mountains,
tinging the light clouds with a smiling farewell ray,
and his last beams lingering on the summits of the
eastern mountain, as if “parting were sweet sorrow.”
Jane's spirits rose elastic, as she breathed
the open air; she felt like one who has just issued
from a close, pent-up, sick room, and inspires the
fresh pure breath of morning; she was gayly tripping
along, sending an involuntary response to the
last notes of the birds that were loitering on “bush
and brake,” when Edward Erskine joined her;
she had often seen him at her aunt's, but, regarding
him as the companion of her cousins, she had
scarcely noticed him, or had been noticed by him.
He joined her, saying, “It is almost too late to be
abroad without a companion.”
“I am used,” replied Jane, “to be without a
companion, and I do not need one.”
“But, I hope you do not object to one? It
would be one of the miseries of human life, to see
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such a girl as Jane Elton walking alone, and not
be permitted to join her.”
“Sir?” said Jane, confounded by Edward's unexpected
gallantry.
Abashed by her simplicity, he replied, “that he
was going to walk, and should be very happy to
attend her.”
Jane felt kindness, though she knew not how to
receive gallantry. She thanked him, and they
walked on together. When Edward parted from
her, he wondered he had never noticed before how
very interesting she was, “and what a sweet expression
she has when she smiles; and, oh!” added
he, with a rapture quite excusable in a young
man of twenty, “her eye is in itself a soul.”
“Jane,” said Mary Hull to her, as she entered
her room, “you look as bright as a May morning,
and I have that to tell you, that will make you yet
brighter. Mr. Evertson has been here, inquiring
for Mr. Lloyd. I had my surmises, that it was
something about you, and though Mr. Lloyd was
gone, I was determined to find out; and so I made
bold to break the ice, and say something about the
exhibition, and how much Mr. Lloyd was pleased
with the school, &c. &c.—and then he said, he was
quite disappointed to find Mr. Lloyd gone; he
wanted to consult him about a matter of great importance
to himself and to you. Mr. Lloyd was
so kind, he said, and had shown such an interest in
the school, that he did not like to take any important
step without consulting him; and then he
spoke very handsomely of those elegant globes that
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[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]
Mr. Lloyd presented to the school. He said, his
subscription was so much enlarged, that he must
engage an assistant; but, as he wished to purchase
some maps, he must get one who could furnish, at
least, one hundred dollars. His sick wife and
large family, he said, consumed nearly all his profits;
and last, and best of all, Jane, he said, that
you was the person he should prefer of all others
for an assistant.”
“Me!” exclaimed Jane.
“Yes, my dear child, you. I told him, you was
not quite fifteen; but he said, you knew more than
most young women of twenty, and almost all the
school loved and respected you.”
“But, Mary, Mary,” and the bright flush of
pleasure died away as she spoke, “where am I to
get a hundred dollars?”
“Mr. Lloyd,” answered Mary, “I know would
furnish it.”
“No, Mary,” replied Jane, after a few moments
consideration, “I never can consent to that.”
“But why?” said Mary. “Mr. Lloyd spends
all his money in doing good.”
Jane could not tell why, but she felt that it was
not delicate to incur such an obligation. She
merely said, “Mr. Lloyd's means are well employed.
If any man does, he certainly will, hear
those blessed words, `I was hungry and ye fed me,
naked and ye clothed me, sick and in prison and
ye visited me.' ”
“I do not eat the bread of idleness, Mary; I
think I earn all my aunt gives me; and I am not
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very unhappy there; indeed, I am seldom unhappy.
I cannot tell how it is, but I am used to their
ways. I am always busy, and have not time to
dwell on their unkindness; it passes me like the
tempest from which I am sheltered; and when I
feel my temper rising, I remember who it is that
has placed me in the fiery furnace, and I feel, Mary,
strengthened and peaceful as if an angel were
really walking beside me.”
“Surely,” said Mary, as if but thinking aloud,
“The kingdom is come in this dear child's
heart.”
Both were silent for a few moments. Jane was
making a strong mental effort to subdue that longing
after liberty, that lurks in every heart. Habitual
discipline had rendered it comparatively
easy for her to restrain her wishes. After a short
struggle, she said, with a smile, “I am sure of one
thing, my dear, kind Mary, I shall never lose an
opportunity of advantage, while I have such a
watchful sentinel as you are, on the look-out for
me. Oh! how much have I to be grateful for!
I had no reason to expect such favour from Mr.
Evertson. Every one, out of my aunt's family, is
kind to me; I have no right to repine at the trials
I have there; they are, no doubt, necessary to me.
Mary, I sometimes feel the rising of a pride in my
heart, that I am sure needs all these lessons of humility;
and sometimes I feel, that I might be easily
tempted to do wrong—to indulge an indolent
disposition, for which you often reproved me; but
I am compelled to exertion, by necessity as well
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[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]
as a sense of duty. It is good for me to bear this
yoke in my youth.”
“No doubt, no doubt, my dear child; but then
you know if there is a way of escape opened to
you, it would be but a tempting of Providence not
to avail yourself of it. It is right to endure necessary
evils with patience, but I know no rule
that forbids your getting rid of them, if you can.”
Mary Hull was not a woman to leave any stone
unturned, when she had a certain benefit in view
for her favourite. “Now, dear Jane,” said she,
“I have one more plan to propose to you, and
though it will cost you some pain, I think you will
finally see it in the same light that I do. I always
thought it was not for nothing Providence moved
the hearts of the creditors to spare you all your
dear mother's clothes, seeing she had a good many
that could not be called necessary; nor was it
a blind chance that raised you up such a friend as
Mr. Lloyd in a stranger. Now, if you will consent
to it, I will undertake to dispose of the articles
Mr. Lloyd sent to you, and your mother's
lace and shawls, and all the little nick-nacks she
left; it shall go hard but I will raise a hundred
dollars.”
“But, Mary,” said Jane, wishing, perhaps, to
conceal from herself even the involuntary reluctance
she felt to the proposal, “aunt Wilson will
never consent to it.”
“The consent that is not asked,” replied Mary,
“cannot be refused. It is but speaking to Mr.
Evertson, and he will keep our counsel, for he is
-- 095 --
[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]
not a talking body, and when all is ready, it will
be time enough, not to ask Mrs. Wilson's leave,
but to tell her your plans; you owe her nothing,
my child, unless it be for keeping the furnace hot
that purifies the gold. I would not make you discontented
with your situation, but I cannot bear
to see your mind as well as your body in slavery.”
Mary's long harangue had given Jane a moment
for reflection, and she now saw the obvious benefits
to result from the adoption of her judicious
friend's plan. The real sorrows that had shaded
her short life, had taught her not to waste her
sensibility on trifles. She doubtless felt it to be
very painful to part with any memorials of her
mother, but the moment she was convinced it was
right and best she should do so, she consented,
and cheerfully, to the arrangement. Mary entered
immediately upon the execution of her plan.
Those who have been accustomed to use, and
to waste, thousands, will smile with contempt at
the difficulty of raising a hundred dollars. But
let those persons be reduced to want so mean a
sum, and they will cease to laugh at the obstacles
in the way of getting it. Certain it is, that Mary,
anxious and assiduous, spent four weeks in industrious
application to those whom she thought most
likely to be purchasers in the confined market of—.
The necessity of secrecy increased the
difficulty of the transaction; but finally, zeal and
perseverance mastered every obstacle, and Mary,
with sparkling eyes, and a face that smiled all over
in spite of its habitual sobriety, put Jane in
-- 096 --
[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]
possession of the hundred dollars. “This is indeed
manna in the wilderness,” said Jane, as she received
it, “but, dear Mary, I am not the less
thankful to you for your exertions for me.”
“My child, you are right,” replied Mary,
“thanks should first ascend to heaven, and then
they are very apt to descend in heavenly grace
upon the feeble instrument. But something seems
to trouble you.”
“I am troubled,” answered Jane, “I fear,
Mary, this sum cannot all have come from the articles
you sold; you have added some of your
earnings.”
“No, my dear child; some, and all of my earnings,
would I gladly give to you, but you know my
poor blind sister takes all I can earn; while God
blesses me with health she shall never want.
The town has offered to take her off my hands, as
they call it, but this would be a crying shame to
me; and besides,” she added, smiling, “I can't
spare her, for it is more pleasant working for her
than for myself. Thanks to Mr. Lloyd, she is now
placed in a better situation than I could afford for
her. No, Jane, the money is all yours; I have
told Mr. Evertson, and you are to enter the school
on Monday, and I have engaged a place for you
at Mrs. Hervey's, who will be as kind as a mother
to you. Between now and Monday you will have
time to acquaint your aunt with the fortune you
have come to, and to shed all the tears that are
necessary on this woful occasion!”
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Jane had now nothing to do but to communicate
these arrangements; but so much did she dread
the tempest she knew the intelligence would produce,
that she suffered the day to wear away without
opening her lips on the subject. The next
day arrived; the time of emancipation was so
near, she felt her spirits rise equal to the disagreeable
task. The family were assembled in the
`dwelling room;' Mrs. Wilson was engaged in
casting up with her son David some of his college
accounts, a kind of business that never increased
her good humour. Martha and Elvira were seated
at a window, in a warm altercation about the
piece of work on which they were sewing; the
point in controversy seemed to be—to which the
mother had assigned the task of finishing it. The
two younger children were sitting on little chairs
near their mother, learning a long lesson in the
`Assembly's Catechism,' and every now and then
crying out—“ Please to speak to David, ma'am,
he is pinching me;”—“David pulled my hair,
ma'am.” The complainants either received no
notice, or an angry rebuke from the mother. Jane
was quietly sewing, and mentally resolving that
she would speak on the dreaded subject the moment
her aunt had finished the business at which
she was engaged. Mrs. Wilson's temper became
so much ruffled that she could not understand the
accounts; so shuffling the papers all together into
her desk, and turning the key, she said angrily to
her son, `her eldest hope,' “you will please to
bear in mind, sir, that all these extravagant bills
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[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]
are charged to you, and shall come out of your
portion—not a cent of them will I ever pay.”
This did not seem to be a very propitious moment
for Jane's communication, but she dreaded
it so much, that she felt impatient to have it off
her mind, and laying down her work, she was fearfully
beginning, when she was interrupted by a
gentle tap at the door. A mean looking woman
entered, who bore the marks of poverty, and sorrow,
and sickness. She had a pale, half-starved
infant in her arms, and two other little ragged
children with her, that she had very considerately
left at the outer door. She curtsied very humbly
to the lady of the house, `hoped no offence,' she
had a little business with Miss Wilson—she believed
Miss Wilson had forgotten her, it was no
wonder—she did not blame her, sickness and trouble
made great changes. Mrs. Wilson either did
not, or affected not to recognise her. She was
aware that old acquaintance might create a claim
upon her charity, and she did not seem well-pleased
when Jane, who sat near, pushed a chair
forward for the poor woman, into which she sunk,
as it appeared from utter inability to stand.
“Who do you say you are?” said Mrs. Wilson,
after embarrassing the woman by an unfeeling
stare.
“I did not say, ma'am, for I thought, may be,
when you looked at me so severe, you would
know me.”
“Let me take your baby, while you rest a little,”
said Jane.
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[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]
“Oh miss, he is not fit for you to take, he has
had a dreadful spell with the whooping-cough and
the measles, and they have left him kinder sore
and rickety; he has not looked so chirk as he
does to-day since we left Buffalo.” Jane persisted
in her kind offer, and the woman turned
again to Mrs. Wilson—“Can't you call to mind,
ma'am, Polly Harris, that lived five years at your
brother Squire Elton's?”
“Yes, yes, I recollect you now; but you married
and went away; and people should get their
victuals where they do their work.”
“I did not come to beg,” replied the woman.
“That may be,” said Mrs. Wilson, “but it is
a very poor calculation for the people that move
into the new countries to come back upon us as
soon as they meet with any trouble. I wonder
our Select Men don't take it in hand.”
“Ah, ma'am!” said the woman, “I guess you
was never among strangers; never knew what it
was to long to see your own people. Oh it is a
heart sickness, that seems to wear away life!”
“Whether I was, or was not, I don't know what
that signifies to you; I should be glad to know
what your business is with me, if you have any,
which I very much doubt.”
“I am afraid, ma'am, you will not see fit to
make it your business,” said the poor woman, and
she sighed deeply, and hesitated, as if she was discouraged
from proceeding, but the piteous condition
of her children stimulated her courage.
“Well, ma'am, to begin with the beginning of my
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[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]
troubles, as I was saying, I lived five years with
your brother.”
“Troubles!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilson, “you
had an easy life enough of it there; you was always
as plump as a partridge, and your cheeks as
red as a rose!”
“I had nothing to complain of but that I could
never get my pay when I wanted it. There never
was a nicer woman than Miss Elton. I believe
she saved my life once when I had the typus
fever; but then every body knew she never had
the use of much money; she never seemed to care
any thing about it—when she had any I could always
get it; I hope no offence, but every body
knows the Squire was always a scheming, and seldom
had the money ready to pay his just debts.—
I am afraid the child tires you, miss;” she continued,
turning to Jane who had walked to the window
to hide the emotion the woman's remarks produced.
“No,” replied Jane, “I had rather keep him;”
and the woman proceeded—
“It lacked but six weeks of the five years I
had lived at the Squire's, when I was married to
Rufus Winthrop. When Rufus came to a settlement
with the Squire, there was a hundred dollars
owing to me. We were expecting to move off to
a great distance, beyond the Genessee, and Rufus
pressed very hard for the payment; the Squire put
him off from time to time; Rufus was a peaceable
man, and did not want to go to law, and so the
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[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]
upshot of it was, that the Squire persuaded him to
take his note—
“That's a very likely story,” said Mrs. Wilson
impatiently interrupting the narrative—“I don't
believe one word of it.”
“Well, ma'am,” replied Mrs. Winthrop, “I
have that must convince you;” and she took from
an old pocket book a small piece of paper, and
handed it to Mrs. Wilson—“there is the identical
note, ma'am, you can satisfy yourself.”
Jane cast her eye on the slip of paper in her
aunt's hand; it was but too plainly written in her
father's large and singular character. Mrs. Wilson
coldly returned it, saying, in a moderated tone,
“It is as good to you now as a piece of white
paper.”
“Then I have nothing in this world,” said the
poor woman, bursting into tears, “but my poor,
sick, destitute children.”
“How came you in such a destitute condition?”
inquired Mrs. Wilson, who, now that she saw the
woman had no direct claim on her, was willing to
hear her story.
“Oh,” answered the poor creature, it seemed
as if every thing went cross-grained with us.
There was never a couple went into the new
countries with fairer prospects; Rufus had tugged
every way to save enough to buy him a small farm.
When we got to Buffalo, we struck down south,
and settled just on the edge of Lake Erie. We
had a yoke of oxen, but one of them was pretty
much beat out on the road, and died the very day
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[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]
after we got to our journey's end; there was a
distemper among the cattle the next winter, and
we lost the other ox and our cow. In the spring,
Rufus took the long ague, working out in the
swampy ground in wet weather, and that held him
fifteen months; but he had made some clearings,
and we worried through; and for three years we
seemed to be getting along ahead a little. Then
we both took the lake fever; we had neither doctor
nor nurse; our nighest neighbours were two
miles off; they were more fore-handed than we,
and despot kind, but it was not much they could
do, for they had a large sick family of their own.
The fever threw my poor husband into a slow consumption,
and he died, ma'am, the 20th of last
January, and that poor baby was born the next
week after he died. It seemed as if nothing could
kill me, though I have a weakness in my bones
'casioned by the fever, and distress of mind, that
I expect to carry to my grave with me. Sometimes
my children and I would almost starve to
death, but Providence always sent some relief.
Once there was a missionary put up with us; he
looked like a poor body, but he left me two dollars;
and once a Roman Catholic priest, that was
passing over into Canada, gave me a gold piece,
and that I saved, till I started on my journey.
While my husband was sick, he had great consarn
upon his mind about Squire Elton's note; we had
heard rumours like that he had broke; but Rufus
nor I could not believe but what there would be
enough to pay the note, out of all his grandeur,
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[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]
and so Rufus left it in strict charge with me to
come back as soon as I could after the spring
opened. And so, ma'am, as soon as the roads
were a little settled, I pulled up stakes and came
off. My good christian neighbours helped me up
to Buffalo. I have been nine weeks getting from
there, though I was favoured with a great many
rides”—
Here Mrs. Wilson interrupted the unfortunate
narrator, saying,—“I cannot see what occasion
there was for you to be nine weeks on the road;
I have known persons to go from Boston to the
Falls, and back again, in three weeks.”
“Ah, ma'am!” replied the woman, there is a
sight of difference between a gentleman riding
through the country for pleasure, with plenty of
money in his pocket, and a poor sickly creature,
begging a ride now and then of a few miles, and
then walking for miles with four little children, and
one a baby.”
“Four! your story grows—I thought you had
but three.”
“I have but three, ma'am; I buried my only
girl, the twin to the second boy, at Batavy. She
never was hearty, and the travelling quite overdid
her.” The afflicted woman wiped away the fast
gathering tears with a corner of her apron, and
went on. “At Batavy I believe I should have
gived out, but there was a tender-hearted gentleman
from the eastward, going on to see the Falls,
and he paid for my passage, and all my children's,
in a return stage, quite to Genevy. This was a
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[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]
great lift to my spirits, and easement to the children's
feet; and so after that, we came on pretty
well, and met with a great deal of kindness; but,
oh! ma'am, 'tis a wearisome journey.”
“And here you are,” said Mrs. Wilson; “and I
suppose the town must take care of you.”
“I did not mean to be a burden to the town,”
replied the woman. “If it pleased the Lord to
restore my health, and if I could have got the hundred
dollars, I would not have been a burden to
any body. I calculated to hire me a little place,
bought a loom, and turned my hand to weaving—I
am a master weaver, ma'am.”
“I am sorry for you, good woman,” said Mrs.
Wilson; “here,” said she, after rummaging her
pocket and taking out a reluctant ninepence;
“here is a `widow's mite' for you. I can't give
you the least encouragement about my brother's
debt. He left nothing but a destitute child that
I have had to support ever since his death.”
“Is that little Jane,” exclaimed the woman, for
the first time recalling to mind the features of our
heroine. “Well,” added she, surveying her delicate
person with a mingled expression of archness
and simplicity, “I think it can't have cost you
much to support her, ma'am. I wonder I did not
know you,” she continued, “when you took my
baby so kindly. It was just like you. I used to set
a great store by you. But you have grown so tall,
and so handsome; as to the matter of that, you
was always just like a Lon'on doll.”
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Jane replaced the child in the mother's lap, and
said to Mrs. Winthrop, “I recollect you perfectly,
Polly. You were very good to me.”
“I could not help it, for you was always as pleasant
as a little lamb, and as chipper as a bird; but,”
said she, observing the too evident traces of tears
on Jane's cheeks, “I am sorry if I have touched
your feelings about the money. I never mistrusted
that it was you.”
“Do not be uneasy on that account,” replied
Jane. “I am glad I have heard your story,
Polly.”
She had listened to the unfortunate woman's
history with the keenest anguish. There is no
feeling so near of kin to remorse as that which a
virtuous child suffers from the knowledge of a parent's
vices. The injustice of her father appeared
to Jane to have either caused or aggravated
every evil the poor woman had suffered. Each
particular was sharper than a serpent's tooth to
our unhappy orphan. She had not that convenient
moral sense, quick to discern and lament the faults
of others, but very dull in the perception of our
own duties. It was the work of an instant with
her to resolve to appropriate her newly acquired
treasure to the reparation of her father's injustice;
and with the hasty generosity of youth, she left the
room to execute her purpose. But, when she
took the pocket-book from its hiding-place, and
saw again that which she had looked upon with so
much joy, as the price of liberty and the means of
independence, her heart misgave her; she felt
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like a prisoner, the doors of whose prison-house
have been thrown open to him, who sees the inviting
world without, and who is called upon, in
the spirit of martyrdom, to close the door, and bar
himself from light and hope. Those who have
felt the difficulty of sacrificing natural and virtuous
wishes to strict justice, will pardon our heroine
a few moments' deliberation. She thought that,
as the money had been chiefly the avails of the
articles given her by Mr. Lloyd, it could not be
considered as derived from her father. She thought
how much Mary Hull had exerted herself, and
how disappointed she would be; the engagement
with Mr. Evertson occurred to her, and she was
not certain it would be quite right to break it;
and, last of all, she thought, that if her present
plans succeeded, it could not be very long before
she might earn enough to cancel the debt. Jane
had not been used to parleying with her duties, or
stifling the voice of conscience; and in a moment
the recollection of her father's dishonesty, and the
poor woman's perishing condition, swept away
every selfish consideration. “Oh, Lord!” she exclaimed,
“if I have not compassion on my fellow-servant,
how can I hope for thy pity.”
We would recommend to all persons, placed in
similar circumstances, to all who find almost as
many arguments for the wrong as for the right, to
bring to their aid the certain light of Scripture,
and we think they will be altogether persuaded
to be like our heroine, not `saving her bonds.'
Sure we are, that she was never more to be
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envied than when, at the sound of the closing of the
parlour door, she flew down stairs, joined Mrs.
Winthrop just as she was saying, half sobbing, to
her children, “Come, boys—I am poorer than
when I came, for my hope is all gone;” and walking
a little distance, till a sharp angle in the road
concealed them from the house, she said, “Polly,
here is a hundred dollars. I know the debt my
father owed you amounts to a good deal more now,
but this is all I have, take it. It is not probable
that I shall ever be able to pay the rest, but I shall
never forget that I owe it.”
Mrs. Winthrop was for a moment dumb with
surprise; then bursting into tears of gratitude and
joy, she would have overwhelmed Jane with
thanks, but she stopped her, saying, “No, Polly,
I have only done what was right. I have two favours
to beg of you—say nothing to any body in
the world, of your having received this money
from me; and,” added she, faltering, “do not,
again, tell the story of the—” injustice, she
would have said, but the word choked her. “I
mean, do not say, to any one, that my parents did
not pay you.”
“Oh! miss Jane,” replied the grateful creature,
“I'll mind every thing you tell me, just as much
as if it was spoken to me right out of Heaven.”
And we have reason to believe, she was quite as
faithful to her promise as could have been expected;
for she was never known to make any communication
on the subject, except that, when some
of her rustic neighbours expressed their surprise
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at the sudden and inexplicable change in her circumstances,
she would say, “She came by it honestly,
and by the honesty of some people too, who
she guessed, though they did it secretly, would be
rewarded openly.” And when she heard Jane
Elton's name mentioned, she would roll up her
eyes and say, “That if every body knew as much
as she did, they would think that girl was an angel
upon earth.” These oracular hints were, perhaps,
not quite so much heeded as Polly expected;
at any rate, she was never tempted to disclose the
grounds of her opinion.
Jane had a difficult task in reconciling her friend
Mary to her disappointment. While she felt a
secret delight in the tried rectitude of her favourite,
she could not deny herself the indulgence of
a little repining—“If you had but waited, Jane,
till Mr. Lloyd came home, he would have advanced
the money with all his heart.”
“Yes, but Mary, you must recollect Mr. Lloyd
is not to return these six weeks; and, in the mean
time, what was to become of the poor woman and
her starving children? No, Mary, we must deal
justly while we have it in our power. Is it not
your great Mr. Wesley who says, `It is safe to
defer our pleasures, but never to delay our
duties'?”
“It seems to me, Jane,” replied Mary, “you
pick fruit from every good tree, no matter whose
vineyard it grows in. Well, I believe you have
done right; but I shall tell the story to Mr. Evertson
and Mrs. Harvey with a heavy heart.”
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“Tell them nothing,” said Jane, “but that I
had an unexpected call for the money, and beg
them to mention nothing of the past, for I will not
unnecessarily provoke aunt Wilson.”
“Jane,” said Mary earnestly, “you must not
deny me the satisfaction of telling how you have
laid out the money.”
“No,” replied Jane, “you cannot have that
pleasure without telling why I was obliged thus to
lay it out.—Oh,” added she with more emotion
than she had yet shown, “I have never blamed
my father that he left me pennyless; had he left
me the inheritance of a good name, I would not
have exchanged it for all the world can give!”
Mary consoled her friend as well as she was
able, and then reluctantly parted from her, to
perform her disagreeable duty. Mr. Evertson
was exceedingly disappointed; he said he had already
had an offer of a very good assistant, who
could furnish more money than he expected from
Jane; he had preferred Jane Elton, for no sum
could outweigh her qualifications for the station
he wished her to fill. He was, however, obliged
to her for so promptly informing him of her determination,
as he had not yet sent a refusal to the
person who had solicited the place.
Mrs. Harvey, not content with deploring, which
she did sincerely, that she could not have Jane
for an inmate, wondered what upon earth she
could have done with a hundred dollars! and concluded
“that it would be just like Jane Elton,
though it would not be like any body else in the
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world, to pay one of her father's old debts with
it.” Will not our readers pardon Mary, if Mrs.
Harvey inferred from the smile of pleasure that
brightened her face, that she had sagaciously
guessed the truth. Let that be as it may; all parties
promised, and what is much more extraordinary,
preserved secrecy; and all that was left of
Jane's hopes and plans was the consciousness of
having acted right—from right motives. Could
any one have seen the peacefulness of her heart,
he would have pronounced that consciousness a
treasure that has no equivalent.
Thus our heroine, placed in circumstances which
would have made some desperate, and most discontented;
by `keeping her heart with all diligence,
' proved that `out of it are the issues of
life;' she was first resigned, and then happy. She
was on an eminence of virtue, to which the conflicts
and irritations of her aunt's family did not reach.
-- 111 --
CHAPTER VIII.
It may be said of him, that Cupid hath clap'd him o' the
shoulder, but I warrant him heart-whole.
As you like it.
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More than two years glided away without the
occurrence of any incident in the life of our heroine
that would be deemed worthy of record, by
any persons less interested in her history than
Mary Hull, or the writer of her simple annals.
The reader shall therefore be allowed to pass over
this interval, with merely a remark, that Jane had
improved in mortal and immortal graces; that the
developement of her character seemed to interest
and delight Mr. Lloyd almost as much as the progress
of his own child, and that her uniform patience
had acquired for her some influence over
the bad passions of her aunt, whose rough points
seemed to be a little worn by the continual dropping
of Jane's virtues.
In this interval, Martha Wilson had made a stolen
match with a tavern-keeper from a neighbouring
village, and had removed from her mother's
house, to display her character on a new stage,
and in a worse light.
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Elvira, at eighteen, was much the same as at
sixteen, except, that the gayety of her spirits was
somewhat checked by the apprehension (that
seemed to have grown of late) that Edward Erskine's
affections, which had been vacillating for
some time between her and her cousin, would
finally preponderate in Jane's favour. It may
appear singular, that the same person should admire
both the cousins; but it must be remembered,
that Edward Erskine was not (as our readers
are) admitted behind the scenes; and it must be
confessed, that he had not so nice a moral sense,
as we hope they possess. He neither estimated
the purity of Jane's character, as it deserved to be
estimated, nor felt for the faults of Elvira the dislike
they merited. Edward Erskine belonged to
one of the best families in the county of—.
His parents had lost several children in their infancy,
and this boy alone remained to them—to
become the sole object of their cares and fondness.
He was naturally what is called `good-hearted,'
which we believe means kind and generous. Flattery,
and unlimited indulgence made him vain,
selfish, and indolent. These qualities were, however,
somewhat modified, by a frank and easy
temper, and sheltered by an uncommonly handsome
exterior. Some of his college companions
thought him a genius, for, though he was seldom
caught in the act of studying, he passed through
college without disgrace; this (for he certainly
was neither a genius nor a necromancer,) might
be attributed in part to an aptness at learning, and
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an excellent memory; but chiefly to an extraordinary
facility at appropriating to himself the results
of the labours of others. He lounged through
the prescribed course of law studies, and entered
upon his professional career with considerable
éclat. He had a rich and powerful voice; and it
might be said of him, as of the chosen king of
Israel—that `from the shoulders upwards, he was
taller and fairer than any of his brethren.'
These are qualifications never slighted by the vulgar;
and which are said, but we hope not with
truth, to be sure passports to ladies' favour. He
had too, for we would do him ample justice, uncommon
talents, but not such as we think would
justify the remark often made of him, “that the
young squire was the smartest man in the county.”
In short, he belonged to that large class of persons
who are generous, but not just; affectionate, but
not constant; and often kind, though it would
puzzle a casuist to assign to their motives their just
proportions of vanity and benevolence. He had
recently, by the death of his parents, come into
possession of a handsome estate; and he was accounted
the first match in the county of—.
Mrs. Wilson could not be insensible to the advantages
that she believed might be grasped by
Elvira, and she determined to relax the strict rule
of her house, and to join her assiduities to her
daughter's arts, in order to secure the prize. She
was almost as much embarrassed in her manœuvres
as the famous transporter of the fox, the geese,
and the corn. If she opened her doors to young
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Erskine, to display her daughter, Jane must be
seen too; and though she was sufficiently ingenious
in contriving ways and means of employing
Jane, and securing a clear field for Elvira, Erskine,
with the impatience and perversity of a
spoiled child, set a double value on the pleasure
that was denied him.
The affairs of Mrs. Wilson's household were in
this train, when the following conversation occurred
between the cousins:—
“If there is a party made to-morrow, to escort
the bride, do you expect to join it, Jane?” said
Elvira to her cousin, with an expression of anxiety
that was quite as intelligible as her question.
“I should like to,” replied Jane.
“Ah, that of course,” answered Elvira; “but
I did not ask what you would like, but what you
expect.”
“You know, Elvira, I am not sure of obtaining
your mother's permission.”
“For once in your life, Jane, do be content to
speak less like an oracle, and tell me in plain
English, whether you expect to go, if you can obtain
mother's permission.”
“In plain English then, Elvira, yes,” replied
Jane, smiling.
“You seem very sure of an invitation,” answered
Elvira, pettishly. Jane's deep blush revealed
the truth to her suspicious cousin, which she did
not wish to confess or evade; and Elvira continued,
“I was sure I overheard Edward say something
to you, about the ride last night, when you
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parted on the steps.” She paused, and then added,
her eyes flashing fire, “Jane, Edward Erskine
preferred me once, and in spite of your arts,
he shall prefer me again. Remember, miss, the
fate of lady Euphrasia.”
Jane replied, good naturedly, “I do remember
her; but if her proud and artful character suits
me, the poverty and helplessness of my condition
bears a striking resemblance to the forlorn Amanda's.
I trust, however, that my fate will resemble
neither of your heroines, for you cannot expect me,
on account of the honour of being your rival, to be
dashed from a precipice, to point the moral of
your story; and I am very certain of not marrying
a lord.”
“Yes, for there is no lord in this vulgar country
to marry; but, with all your pretence of modesty,
you aspire to the highest station within your
reach.”
Jane made no reply, and Elvira poured out her
spleen in invectives, which neither abated her own
ill humour, nor disturbed her cousin's equanimity.
She was determined to compass her purposes, and
in order to do so, she imparted her conjectures to
her mother, who had become as faithful, as she
was a powerful auxiliary.
In the evening they were all assembled in the
parlour. Edward Erskine entered, and his entrance
produced a visible sensation in every
member of the little circle. Mrs. Wilson dropped
half a needle full of stitches on her knitting
work, and gave it to Jane to take them
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up. Jane seemed to find the task very difficult;
for a little girl, who sat by the working stand, observed,
“Miss Jane, I could take up the stitches
better than you do; you miss them half.”
“Give me my spectacles—I'll do it myself,”
said Mrs. Wilson. “Some people are very easily
discomposed.”
It was a warm evening in the latter part of September;
the window was open; Jane retreated
to it, and busied herself in pulling the leaves off a
rose-bush. Erskine brought matters to a crisis by
saying, “I called, Mrs. Wilson, to ask of you the
favour of Miss Elton's company to-morrow on the
bridal escort.”
“I am sorry,” replied Mrs. Wilson, “that any
young woman's manners, who is brought up in my
house, should authorize a gentleman to believe she
will, of course, ride with him if asked.”
“I beg your pardon, madam,” replied Edward
(for he, at least, had no fear of the redoubtable
Mrs. Wilson,) “I have been so happy as to obtain
Miss Elton's consent, subject to yours.”
“Is it possible!” answered Mrs. Wilson, sneeringly—
“ quite an unlooked-for deference from
Miss Elton; not unnecessary however, for she
probably recollected, that to-morrow is lecture-day;
and, indifferent as she is to the privilege of
going to meeting, she knows that no pleasures ever
prevent my going.”
“No, madam,” replied Erskine, “the pleasures
of others weigh very light against your
duties.”
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Before Mrs. Wilson had made up her mind whether
or not to resent the sarcasm, Erskine rose, and
joining Jane at the window, whispered to her,
“Rouse your spirit, for heaven's sake; do not submit
to such tyranny.”
Jane had recovered her self-possession, and she
replied, smiling, “It is my duty to subdue, not
rouse my spirit.”
“Duty!” exclaimed Erskine; “leave all that
ridiculous cant for your aunt: I abhor it. I have
your promise, and your promise to me is surely
as binding as your duty to your aunt.”
“That promise was conditional,” replied Jane,
“and it is no longer in my power to perform it.”
“Nor in your inclination, Miss Elton?”
Jane was not well pleased that Erskine should
persevere, at the risk of involving her with her
aunt; and to avoid his importunity, and her aunt's
displeasure, she left the room. “The girl wants
spirit,” said Erskine, mentally; “she is tame, very
tame. It is quite absurd for a girl of seventeen
to talk about duties.”
He was about to take leave, when Mrs. Wilson,
who knew none of the skilful tactics of accomplished
manœuverers, though her clumsy assaults
were often as irresistible, said, “Don't be in such
haste, Mr. Erskine. Elvira may go with you.”
Edward's first impulse was to decline the offer;
but he paused. Elvira was sitting by her mother,
and she turned upon him a look of appeal and admiration;
his vanity, which had been piqued by
Jane, was soothed by this tribute, and he said,
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“If Miss Wilson is inclined to the party, I will call
for her to-morrow.”
Miss Wilson confessed her inclination with a
glow of pleasure, that consoled him for his disappointment.
Elvira made the most of the advantage she had
gained. Mrs. Wilson had of late, though the effort
cost her many a groan, indulged Elvira's passion
for dress, in the hope that the glittering of the
bait would attract the prey. In this calculation
she was not mistaken; for, though Erskine affected
a contempt for the distinctions of dress, he had
been too much flattered for his personal charms,
to permit him to be insensible to them; and when
he handed Elvira into his gig, he noticed, with
pleasure, that she was the best dressed and most
stylish looking girl in the party. His vanity was
still further gratified, when he overheard his servant
say to one of his fellows, “By George, they
are a most noble looking pair!” Such is the cormorant
appetite of vanity, never satisfied with the
quantity, and never nice as to the quality of the
food it devours.
Elvira had penetration enough to detect the
weakest points in the fortress she had to assail;
and so skilfully and successfully did she ply her
arts, on this triumphant day, that Erskine scarcely
thought of Jane, and we fear not once with regret.
Poor Jane remained at home, mortified that
Edward went without her, and vexed with herself
that she was mortified. To avoid seeing the
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party on their return, she went out to walk, and was
deliberating whither to direct her steps, when she
met her friend Mr. Lloyd. “Ah, Jane,” said he,
“I just came on an errand from my saucy little
girl: she has succeeded for the first time to-day in
hitching words together, so as to make quite an intelligible
sentence; and she is so much elated, that
she had bid me tell thee she cannot go to sleep till
“dear Jane” has heard her read.”
Jane replied, she “should be glad to hear her;”
but with none of the animation with which she
usually entered into the pleasures of her little
friend. Mr. Lloyd was disappointed; but he
thought she had been suffering some domestic
vexation, and they walked on silently.
After a few moments he said, “Quaker as I am,
I do not like a silent meeting;—though I should
be used to it, for, except that I must answer the
questions of my Rebecca, and am expected by thy
friend Mary to reply to her praises of thee, I have
not much more occasion for the gift of speech,
than the brothers of La Trappe.”
“You forget,” replied Jane, who felt her silence
gently reproached, “that besides all the use you
have for that precious faculty, in persuading the
stupid and the obstinate to adopt your benevolent
plans of reform, you sometimes condescend to employ
it in behalf of a very humble young friend.”
“But that young friend must lay aside her humility
so far, as to flatter me with the appearance
of listening.”
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Jane was a little disconcerted, and Mr. Lloyd
did not seem quite free from embarassment; but
as he had roused her from her abstractedness, he
began to expatiate on the approach of evening,
the charms of that hour when the din of toil has
ceased, and no sound is heard but the sweet sounds
of twilight breathing the music of nature's evening
hymn; he turned his eye to the heavens, which,
in their `far blue arch,' disclosed star after star,
and then the constellations in their brightness.
He spoke of the power that formed, and the wisdom
that directed, them. Jane was affected by
his devotion; it was a promethean touch that infused
a soul into all nature. She listened with
delight, and before they reached the house, her
tranquillity was quite restored; and the child and
father were both entirely satisfied with the pleasure
she manifested in the improvement of her
little favourite. But her trials were not over:
after the lesson was past—“Dear Jane,” said
Rebecca, “why did not thee go with the party
to-day? I saw them all go past here, and Mr.
Erskine and Elvira were laughing, and I looked
out sharp for thee; would not any body take thee,
Jane?”
Jane did what of all other things she would
least have wished to have done—she burst into
tears.
The sweet child, whose directness had taken her
by surprise, crept up into her lap, and putting her
arms around her neck, said affectionately, “I am
sorry for thee, dear Jane; don't cry, father would
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have asked thee, if he had gone.” Poor Jane hid
her blushes and her tears on the bosom of her
kind, but unskilful comforter. She felt the necessity
of saying something; but confessions she could
not make, and pretences she never made.
Mr. Lloyd saw and pitied her confusion: he
rose, and tenderly placing his hand on her head,
he said, “My dear young friend, thou hast wisely
and safely guided thy little bark thus far down the
stream of life; be still vigilant and prudent, and
thou wilt glide unharmed through the dangers that
alarm thee.” He then relieved Jane from his
presence, saying, “I am going to my library, and
will send Mary to escort thee home.”
Jane could not have borne a plainer statement
of her case; and though it was very clear that Mr.
Lloyd had detected the lurking weakness of her
heart, she was soothed by his figurative mode of
insinuating his knowledge and his counsel. Persons
of genuine sensibility possess a certain tact,
that enables them to touch delicate subjects without
giving pain. This touch differs as much from
a rude and unfeeling grasp as does the management
of a fine instrument in the hands of a skilful
surgeon, from the mangling and hacking of a vulgar
operator.
Mr. Lloyd had heard the village gossip of Edward
Erskine's divided attentions to the cousins.
Nothing that concerned Jane was uninteresting to
him; and he had watched with eager anxiety the
character and conduct of Erskine. He had never
liked the young man; but he thought that he had
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probably done him injustice, and he had too fair a
mind to harbour a prejudice. `Perhaps,' he said
to himself, `I have judged him hardly; I am apt to
carry my strait-coat habits into every thing; the
young man's extravagant way of talking, his sacrifices
to popularity, and his indolence and love of
pleasure, may all have been exaggerated in my
eyes by their opposition to the strict, sober ways in
which I have been bred; at any rate, I will look
upon the bright side. Jane Elton, pure, excellent
as she is, cannot love such a man as Edward
Erskine appears to me to be; and she is too noble,
I am sure, to regard the advantages which excite
the cupidity of her vulgar aunt.'
The result of Mr. Lloyd's investigations was not
favourable to Erskine. Still his faults were so specious,
that they were often mistaken for virtues; and
virtues he had, though none unsullied. There was
nothing in his character or history, as far as Mr.
Lloyd could ascertain it, that would give him a
right to interfere with his advice to Jane; but still
he felt as if she was on the brink of a precipice,
and he had no right to warn her of her danger.
Perhaps this was a false delicacy, considering the
amount of the risk; but there are few persons
of principle and refinement who do not shrink
from meddling with affairs of the heart. Mr.
Lloyd hoped—believed that Jane would not marry
Edward Erskine; but he did not allow enough for
the inexperience of youth, for the liability of a
young lady of seventeen to fall in love; for the faith
that hopes all things, and believes all things—it
wishes to believe.
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The fall, the winter, and the spring wore away,
and, as yet, no certain indication appeared of the
issue of this, to our villagers, momentous affair.
Edward certainly preferred Jane, and yet he was
more at his ease with Elvira. He could not but
perceive the decided superiority of Jane; but Elvira
made him always think more and better of
himself; and this most agreeable effect of her
flatteries and servility reflected a charm on her.
Jane was never less satisfied with herself than
during this harassing period of her life. A new
set of feelings were springing up in her heart,
over which she felt that she had little control. At
times, her confidence in Edward was strong; and
then, suddenly, a hasty expression, or an unprepared
action, revealed a trait that deformed the
fair proportions of the hero of her imagination.
Elvira's continual projects, and busy rivalry, provoked,
at last, a spirit of competition; which was
certainly natural, though very wrong; but, alas!
our heroine had infirmities. Who is without
them?
In the beginning of the month of June, David
Wilson came from college, involved in debt and in
disgrace. His youthful follies had ripened into
vices, and his mother had no patience, no forbearance
for the faults, which she might have traced to
her own mismanagement, but for which she found
a source that relieved her from responsibility.
The following was the close of an altercation,
noisy and bitter, between this mother and son:—
“I am ruined, utterly ruined, if you refuse me the
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money. Elvira told me you received a large
sum yesterday; and 'tis but one hundred dollars
that I ask for.”
“And I wonder you can have the heart to ask,”
replied Mrs. Wilson, sobbing with passion, not
grief; “you have no feeling; you never had any
for my afflictions. It is but two months, yesterday,
since Martha died, and I have no reason to
hope for her. She died without repentance.”
“Ha!” replied David, “Elvira told me, that
she confessed, to her husband, her abuse of his
children, her love of the bottle, (which, by the
by, every body knew before,) and a parcel of
stuff that, for our sakes, I think she might have
kept to herself.”
“Yes, yes, she did die in a terrible uproar of
mind about some things of that kind; but she had
no feeling of her lost state by nature.”
“Oh, the devil!” grumbled the hopeful son and
brother; “if I had nothing to worry my conscience
but my state by nature, I might get one good night's
sleep, instead of lying from night till morning like
a toad under a harrow.”
This comment was either unheard or unheeded
by the mother, and she went on: “David, your
extravagance is more than I can bear. I have
been wonderfully supported under my other trials.
If my children, though they are my flesh and blood,
are not elected, the Lord is justified in their destruction,
and I am still. I have done my duty,
and I know not `why tarry His chariot wheels.' ”
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“It is an easy thing, ma'am,” said David, interrupting
his mother, “to be reconciled to everlasting
destruction; but if your mind is not equally
resigned to the temporal ruin of a child, you must
lend me the money.”
“Lend it! You have already spent more than
your portion in riotous living, and I cannot, in conscience,
give you any thing.”
Mrs. Wilson thus put a sudden conclusion to the
conversation, and retreated from the field, like a
skilful general, having exhausted all her ammunition.
As she closed the door, David muttered, “curses
on her conscience; it will never let her do what
she is not inclined to, and always finds a reason to
back her inclinations. The money I must have:
if fair means will not obtain it, foul must.”
-- 126 --
CHAPTER IX.
Thought, and affliction, passion, Hell itself,
She turns to favour, and to prettiness.
Hamlet.
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It was on the evening of the day on which the
conversation we have related, had occurred between
young Wilson and his mother, that Jane,
just as she had parted with Erskine, after an unusually
delightful walk, and was entering her aunt's
door, heard her name pronounced in a low voice.
She turned, and saw an old man emerging from behind
a projection of the house. He placed his
finger on his lips by way of an admonition to silence,
and said softly to Jane, “For the love of
Heaven, come to my house to-night; you may
save life; tell no one, and come after the family
is in bed.”
“But, John, I do not know the way to your
house,” replied Jane, amazed at the strange request.
“You shall have a guide, Miss. Don't be afraid;
'tis not like you to be afraid, when there is good to
be done; and I tell you, you may save life; and
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every one that knows me, knows I never tell a lie
for any body.”
“Well,” said Jane, after a moment's pause, “if
I go, how shall I find the way?”
“That's what I am afraid will frighten you most
of all; but it must be so. You know where Lucy
Willett's grave is, on the side of the hill, above
the river; there you will find crazy Bet waiting
for you. She is a poor cracked body, but there is
nobody I would sooner trust in any trouble; besides,
she is in the secret already, and there is no
help for it.”
“But,” said Jane, “may I not get some one else
to go with me?”
“Not for the wide world. Nothing will harm
you.”
Jane was about to make some further protestation,
when a sound from the house alarmed the
man, and he disappeared as suddenly as he had
made his entree.
John was an old man, who had been well known
to two or three successive generations in the village.
He had never had health or strength for
hard labour, but had gained a subsistence by making
baskets, weaving new seats into old chairs, collecting
herbs for spring beer, and digging medicinal
roots from the mountains: miscellaneous offices,
which are usually performed by one person,
where the great principle of a division of labour
is yet unknown and unnecessary. A disciple of
Gall might, perhaps, have detected in the conformation
of the old man's head, certain indications
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of a contemplative turn of mind, and a feeling
heart; but, as we are unlearned in that fashionable
science, we shall simply remark, that there
was, in the mild cast of his large but sunken eye,
and the deep-worn channels of his face, an expression
that would lead an observer to think he
had felt and suffered; that he possessed the wisdom
of reflection, as well as the experience of
age; and that he had been accustomed, in nature's
silent and solitary places, to commune with the
Author of Nature. He inhabited a tenement at
some distance from the village, but within the precincts
of the town. When the skill of the domestic
leeches was at fault, in the case of a sick
cow or a wormy child, he was called to a consultation,
and the efficacy of the simples he had
administered, had sometimes proved so great, as
to induce a suspicion of a mysterious charm. But
the superstitious belief in witches and magic has
vanished with the mists of other times; and the
awe of `John of the Mountain,' as he was called,
or for brevity's sake, `John Mountain,' never outlived
the period of childhood.
Jane knew John was honest and kind-hearted,
and particularly well disposed to her, for he had
occasionally brought her a pretty wild-flower, or a
basket of berries, and then he would say, “Ah,
Miss Jane, I grow old and forgetful, but the old
man can't forget the kindness that's been done to
him in days past; you as gay as a lark then.
My poor old bald head! it's almost as bare inside
as out; but I shall never forget the time—it was a
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sorrowful year, we had had a hard winter, the
snows drifted on the mountains, and for six weeks
I never saw the town, and poor Sarah lying sick
at home; and when I did get out, I came straight
to your mother's, for she had always a pitiful heart,
and an open and a full hand too, and she stocked
my alms basket full of provisions. Then you came
skipping out of the other room, with a flannel
gown in your hand, and your very eyes laughed
with pleasure, and when you gave it to me, you
said, “It is for your wife, and I sewed every
stitch of it, John;” and then you was not bigger
than a poppet, and could not speak plain yet.
When I got home, and told my old woman, she
shook her head, and said, you “was not long for
this world;” but I laughed at her foolishness, and
asked her, if the finest saplings did not live to
make the noblest trees? Thanks to Him that is
above, you are alive at this day, and many a wanderer
will yet find shelter in your branches.”
We trust our readers will pardon this digression,
and accept the gratitude of the old man, as a proof
that all men's good deeds are not `written in
sand.'
After John's departure, Jane remained for a
few moments where he had left her, ruminating
on his strange request, when her attention was
called to a noise in her aunt's sleeping apartment,
and she heard, as she thought, crazy Bet's voice
raised to its highest pitch. She passed hastily
through the passage, and on opening her aunt's
door, she beheld a scene of the greatest confusion.
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The bed-clothes had been hastily stripped from
the bed and strewed on the floor, and Bet stood
at the open window with the bed in her right
hand. She had, by a sudden exertion of her
strength, made an enormous rent in the well-wove
home-made tick, and was now quite leisurely
shaking out the few feathers that still adhered to
it. In her left hand she held a broom, which she
dexterously brandished, to defend herself from the
interference of Sukey, the coloured servant girl,
who stood panic-struck and motionless; her dread
of her mistress' vengeance impelling her forward,
and her fear of the moody maniac operating upon
her locomotive powers, like a gorgon influence.
Her conflicting fears had not entirely changed her
ethiopian skin, but they had subtracted her colour
in stripes, till she looked like Robin Hood's willow
wand.
“Why did you not stop her?” exclaimed Jane,
hastily passing the girl.
“Stop her, missy? the land's sake! I could
as easy stop a flash of lightning! missy must think
me a 'rac'lous creature, respecting me to hold
back such a harricane.”
At Jane's approach Bet dropped the broom,
and threw the empty bed-tick at poor Sukey, who
shook it off, not, however, till her woolly pate was
completely powdered with the lint. “Now,
Sukey,” screamed Bet with a wild peal of laughter,
“look in the glass, and you'll see how white
you'll be in heaven; the black stains will all be
washed out there!”
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“But, Bet,” said Jane, “where are the feathers?”
“Where? child,” she replied, smiling with the
most provoking indifference, “where are last
year's mourners? where is yesterday's sunshine,
or the morning's fog?”
“Why did you do this, Bet?”
“Do you ask a reason of me?” she replied,
with a tone in which sorrow and anger were equally
mingled, and then putting her finger to her
forehead, she added, “the light is quite out, there
is not a glimmering left.”
Jane felt that the poor woman was not a subject
for reproach; and turning away, she said, “Aunt
will be very angry.”
“Yes,” replied Bet, “she will weep and howl,
but she should thank me for silencing some of the
witnesses.”
“Witnesses, Bet?”
“Yes, child, witnesses; are not moth-eaten
garments and corrupted riches witnesses against
the rich, the hard-hearted, and close-handed? She
should not have denied a bed to my aching head
and weary body. She should not have told me,
that the bare ground and hard boards were soft
and easy enough for a “rantipole beggar.”
The recollection of the promise she had given
to John now occurred to Jane, and she was deliberating
whether or not to speak to Bet about it,
when Mrs. Wilson, who had been absent on a visit
to one of her neighbours, came in. In her passage
through the kitchen, Sukey had hinted to her
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her loss, and she hastened on to ascertain its extent.
Inquiries were superfluous; the empty
tick was lying where Sukey had left it, and the
feathers which had swelled it almost to bursting,
were not. Mrs. Wilson darted forwards towards
Bet, on whom she would have wreaked
her hasty vengeance, but Bet, aware of her intention,
sprang through the window, quick as
thought, and so rapid, and as it were, spiritual,
was her flight, that a minute had scarcely passed,
when the shrill tones of her voice were
heard rising in the distance, and they were just
able to distinguish the familiar words of her favourite
methodist hymn—
“Sinners stand a trembling,
Saints are rejoicing.”
Mrs. Wilson turned to Jane, and with that disposition
which such persons have when any evil
befals them, to lay the blame on somebody, she
would have vented her spite on her, but it was too
evident that the only part Jane had had in the
misfortune was an ineffectual effort to avert it, and
the good lady was deprived of even that alleviation
of her calamity. This scene, notwithstanding
the pecuniary loss sustained by Mrs. Wilson,
occasioned Jane a good deal of diversion. Still
it was not at all calculated to inspire her with
confidence in the guide, whose wild and fantastic
humours she knew it to be impossible for any one
to control. Her resolution was a little shaken;
but, after all, she thought, “It is possible I may
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find the house without her. I know the course I
should take. At any rate, I should be miserable
if any evil should come of my neglect of the old
man's request. There can be no real dangers,
and I will not imagine any.”
Still, after the family were all hushed in repose,
and Jane had stolen from her bed and dressed herself
for her secret expedition, she shrunk involuntarily
from the task before her. “I do not like this
mystery,” said she, mentally; “I wish I had told
my aunt, and asked David to go with me, or I
might have told Mary Hull. There could have
been no harm in that. But it is now too late.
John said, I might save life, and I will think of
nothing else.”
She rose from the bed, where she had seated
herself to ponder, for the last time, upon the difficulties
before her, crept softly down stairs, passed
her aunt's room, and got clear of the house unmolested,
except by a slight growl from Brutus,
the house-dog, whose dreams she had broken, but,
at her well-known kindly patting, and “Lie down
Brutus, lie down,” he quietly resumed his sleeping
posture. Her courage was stimulated by having
surmounted one obstacle. The waning moon
had risen, and shed its mild lustre over the peaceful
scene. “Now,” thought Jane, “that I have
stirred up my womanish thoughts with a manly
spirit, I wonder what I could have been afraid
of.”
Anxious to ascertain whether she was to have
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the doubtful aid of crazy Bet's conduct, or trust
solely to her own, she pressed onward. To shorten
her way to Lucy's grave, and to avoid the possibility
of observation, she soon left the public road,
and walked along under the shadow of a low-browed
hill, which had formerly been the bank of the
river, but from which it had receded and left an
interval of beautiful meadow between the hill and
its present bed. The deep verdure of the meadow
sparkled with myriads of fire-flies, that seemed,
in this hour of their dominion, to be keeping
their merry revels by the music of the passing
stream. The way was, as yet, perfectly familiar
to Jane. After walking some distance in a straight
line, she crossed the meadow by a direct path to
a large tree, which had been, in part, uprooted by
a freshet, and which now laid across the river, and
supplied a rude passage to the adventurous, the
tenacity of some of its roots still retaining it firmly
in the bank. Fortunately the stream was unusually
low, and when our heroine reached the
further extremity of the fallen trunk, she sprang
without difficulty over the few feet of water between
her and the dry sand of the shore.
“That's well done!” exclaimed crazy Bet, in
a voice that made the welkin ring, and starting
up from the mound. “Strong of heart, and light
of foot, you are a fit follower for one that hates
the broad and beaten road, and loves the narrow
straight way and the high rock. Sit down and
rest you,” she continued, for Jane was out of
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breath from ascending the steep bank where crazy
Bet stood; “sit down, child; you may sit quiet.
It is not time for her to rise yet.”
“Oh, Bet,” said Jane, “if you love me, take
those greens off your head; they make you look
so wild.”
A stouter heart than Jane's would have quailed
at Bet's appearance. She had taken off her old
bonnet and tied it on a branch of the tree that
shaded the grave, and twisted around her head a
full leaved vine, by which she had confined bunches
of wild flowers, that drooped around her pale brow
and haggard face; her long hair was streaming
over her shoulders; her little black mantle thrown
back, leaving her throat and neck bare. The excitement
of the scene, the purpose of the expedition,
and the moonlight, gave to her large black
eyes an unusual brightness.
To Jane's earnest entreaty she replied, “Child,
you know not what you ask. Take off these greens,
indeed! Every leaf of them has had a prayer said
over it. There is a charm in every one of them.
There is not an imp of the evil one that dares to
touch me while I wear them. The toad with his
glistening eye, springs far from me; and the big
scaly snake, that's coiled and ready to dart, glides
away from me.”
“But,” said Jane, in a tone of more timid expostulation,
“what have I to guard me, Bet?”
“You!” and as she spoke she stroked Jane's
hair back from her pure smooth brow; “have not
you innocence? and know you not that is `God's
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seal in the forehead' to keep you from all harm.
Foolish girl! sit down—I say, she will not rise
yet.”
Jane obeyed her command, and rallying her
spirits, replied, “No, Bet, I am not afraid she will
rise. I believe the dead lie very quiet in their
graves.”
“Yes, those may that die in their beds and are
buried by the tolling of the bell, and lie with a
merry company about them in the church yard;
but, I tell you, those that row themselves over the
dark river, never have a quiet night's rest in their
cold beds.”
“Come,” said Jane, impatiently rising, “for
mercy's sake, let us go.”
“I cannot stir from this spot,” replied Bet, “till
the moon gets above that tree; and so be quiet,
while I tell you Lucy's story. Why, child, I sit
here watching by her many a night, till her hour
comes, and then I always go away, for the dead
don't love to be seen rising from their beds.”
“Well, Bet, tell me Lucy's story, and then I
hope you will not keep me any longer here; and
you need not tell me much, for, you know, I have
heard it a thousand times.”
“Ah! but you did not see her as I did, when
Ashley's men went out, and she followed them, and
begged them on her knees, for the love of God,
not to fire upon the prisoners; for the story had
come, that Shay's men would cover their front
with the captives; and you did not see her when
he was brought to her shot through the heart, and
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dead as she is now. She did not speak a word—
she fell upon his neck, and she clasped her arms
round him; they thought to cut them off, it was
so hard to get them loose;—and when they took
her from him, (and the maniac laid her hand on
Jane's head) she was all gone here. The very
day they put him under the green sod, she drowned
herself in that deep place, under the mourning
willow, that the boys call Lucy's well. And they
buried her here, for the squires and the deacons
found it against law and gospel too, to give her
Christian burial.”
Bet told all these circumstances with an expression
and action that showed she was living the
scene over, while her mind dwelt on them. Jane
was deeply interested; and when Bet concluded,
she said, “Poor Lucy! I never felt so much for
her.”
“That's right, child; now we will go on—but
first let that tear-drop that glistens in the moonbeam,
fall on the grave, it helps to keep the grass
green—and the dead like to be cried for;” she
added mournfully.
They now proceeded; crazy Bet leading the
way, with long and hasty strides, in a diagonal
course still ascending the hill, till she plunged into
a deep wood, so richly clothed with foliage as to
be impervious to the moon-beams, and so choked
with underbrush, that Jane found it very difficult
to keep up with her pioneer. They soon, however,
emerged into an open space, completely
surrounded and enclosed by lofty trees. Crazy
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Bet had not spoken since they began their walk;
she now stopped, and turning abruptly to Jane,
“Do you know,” said she, “who are the worshippers
that meet in this temple? the spirits that
were `sometime disobedient,' but since He went
and preached to them, they come out from their
prison house, and worship in the open air, and
under the light of the blessed heavens.”
“It is a beautiful spot,” said Jane; “I should
think all obedient spirits would worship in this
sanctuary of nature.”
“Say you so;—then worship with me.” The
maniac fell on her knees—Jane knelt beside her:
she had caught a spark of her companion's enthusiasm.
The singularity of her situation, the beauty
of the night, the novelty of the place, on which
the moon now riding high in the heavens poured
a flood of silver light, all conspired to give a high
tone to her feelings. It is not strange she should
have thought she never heard any thing so sublime
as the prayer of her crazed conductor—who raised
her arms and poured out her soul in passages of
scripture the most sublime and striking, woven
together by her own glowing language. She concluded
suddenly, and springing on her feet, said
to Jane, “Now follow me: fear not, and falter not;
for you know what awaits the fearful and unbelieving.”
Jane assured her she had no fear but that of
being too late. “You need not think of that;
the spirit never flits till I come.”
They now turned into the wood by a narrow
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pathway, whose entrance laid under the shadow
of two young beech trees: crazy Bet paused—
“See ye these, child,” said she, pointing to the
trees, “I knew two, who grew up thus on the
same spot of earth;—so lovingly they grew,” and
she pointed to the interlacing of the branches—
“young and beautiful; but the axe was laid to the
root of one—and the other (and she pressed both
her hands on her head, and screamed wildly)
perished here.” A burst of tears afforded her a
sudden relief.
“Poor broken-hearted creature!” murmured
Jane.
“No, child; when she weeps, then the band is
loosened: for” added she, drawing closer to Jane
and whispering, “they put an iron band around
her head, and when she is in darkness, it presses
till she thinks she is in the place of the Tormentor;
by the light of the moon it sits lightly. Ye cannot
see it; but it is there—always there.”
Jane began now to be alarmed at the excitement
of Bet's imagination; and turning from her
abruptly, entered the path, which, after they had
proceeded a few yards, seemed to be leading them
into a wild trackless region. “Where are we
going Bet?” she exclaimed. “Through a pass,
child, that none knows but the wild bird and the
wild woman. Have you never heard of the “caves
of the mountain?”
“Yes,” replied Jane; “but I had rather not
go through them to-night. Cannot we go some
other way?”
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“Nay, there is no other way; follow me, and
fear not.”
Jane had often heard of the pass called the
`Mountain-Caves,' and she knew it had only been
penetrated by a few rash youths of daring and adventurous
spirit. She was appalled at the thought
of entering it in the dead of night, and with such
a conductor; she paused, but she could see no
way of escape, and summoning all her resolution
to her aid, she followed Bet, who took no note of
her scruples. They now entered a defile, which
had been made by some tremendous convulsion of
nature, that had rent the mountain asunder, and
piled rock on rock in the deep abyss. The
breadth of the passage, which was walled in by
the perpendicular sides of the mountain, was not in
any place more than twenty feet; and sometimes so
narrow, that Jane thought she might have extended
her arms quite across it. But she had no leisure
for critical accuracy; her wayward guide pressed
on, heedless of the difficulties of the way. She
would pass between huge rocks, that had rolled
so near together, as to leave but a very narrow
passage between them; then grasping the tangled
roots that projected from the side of the mountain,
and placing her feet in the fissures of the rocks, or
in the little channels that had been worn by the
continual dropping from the mountain rills, she
would glide over swiftly and safely, as if she had
been on the beaten highway. They were sometimes
compelled, in the depths of the caverns, to
prostrate themselves and creep through narrow
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apertures in the rocks, it was impossible to surmount;
and Jane felt that she was passing over
immense masses of ice, the accumulation perhaps
of a hundred winters. She was fleet and
agile, and inspired with almost supernatural courage;
she, `though a woman, naturally born to
fears,' followed on fearlessly; till they came to
an immense rock, whose conical and giant form
rested on broken masses below, that on every
side were propping this `mighty monarch of the
scene.'
For the first time, crazy Bet seemed to remember
she had a companion, and to give a thought to
her safety. “Jane,” said she, “go carefully over
this lower ledge, there is a narrow foot-hold there;
let not your foot slip on the wet leaves, or the soft
moss. I am in the spirit, and I must mount to
the summit.”
Jane obeyed her directions, and when, without
much trouble, she had attained the further side
of the rock, she looked back for crazy Bet, and
saw her standing between heaven and earth on
the very topmost point of the high rock: she
leant on the branch of a tree she had broken off
in her struggle to reach that lofty station. The
moon had declined a little from the meridian; her
oblique rays did not penetrate the depths where
Jane stood, but fell in their full brightness on the
face of her votress above. Her head, as we have
noticed, was fantastically dressed with vines and
flowers; her eyes were in a fine `frenzy, rolling
from earth to heaven, and heaven to earth;' she
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looked like the wild genius of the savage scene,
and she seemed to breathe its spirit, when, after
a moment's silence, she sang, with a powerful and
thrilling voice, which waked the sleeping echoes
of the mountain, the following stanza:
“Tell them `I AM,' Jehovah said
To Moses, while earth heard in dread,
And smitten to the heart;
At once above, beneath, around,
All nature, without voice or sound,
Replied, Oh Lord, Thou art!”
In vain Jane called upon her. In vain she entreated
her to descend. She seemed wrapt in
some heavenly vision; and she stood mute again
and motionless, till a bird, that had been scared
from its nest in a cleft of the rock, by the wild
sounds, fluttered over her and lit on the branch
she still held in her hand. “Oh!” exclaimed she,
“messenger of love, and omen of mercy, I am
content;” and she swiftly descended the sloping
side of the rock, which she hardly seemed to
touch.
“Now,” said Jane, soothingly, “you are rested,
let us go on.”
“Rested! yes, my body is rested, but my spirit
has been the way of the eagle in the air. You
cannot bear the revelation now, child. Come on,
and do your earthly work.”
They walked on for a few yards, when Bet, suddenly
turned to the left and ascended the mountain,
which was there less steep and rugged than
at any place they had passed. At a short distance
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before her Jane perceived, glimmering through
the trees, a faint light. “Heaven be praised!”
said she, “that must be John's cottage.”
As they came nearer the dog barked; and the
old man, coming out of the door, signed to Jane
to sit down on a log, which answered the purpose
of a rude door-step; and then speaking to crazy
Bet, in a voice of authority, which, to Jane's utter
surprise, she meekly obeyed—“Take off,”
said he, “you mad fool, those ginglements from
your head, and stroke your hair back like a decent
Christian woman; get into the house, but
mind you, say not a word to her.”
Crazy Bet entered the house, and John, turning
to Jane, said, “You are an angel of goodness for
coming here to-night, though I am afraid it will do
no good; but since you are here, you shall see
her.”
See her! See what, John?” interrupted Jane.
“That's what I must tell you, Miss; but it is a
piercing story to tell to one that looks like you.
It's telling the deeds of the pit to the angels above.”
He then went on to state, that a few days before he
had been searching the mountains for some medicinal
roots, when his attention was suddenly arrested
by a low moaning sound, and on going in
the direction from whence it came, he found a very
young looking creature, with a new-born infant,
wrapped in a shawl, and lying in her arms. He
spoke to the mother, but she made no reply, and
seemed quite unconscious of every thing, till he
attempted to take the child from her; she then
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grasped it so firmly, that he found it difficult to remove
it. He called his wife to his assistance, and
placed the infant in her arms. Pity for so young
a sufferer nerved the old man with unwonted
strength, and enabled him to bear the mother to
his hut. There he used the simple restoratives his
skill dictated; but nothing produced any effect till
the child, with whom the old woman had taken
unwearied pains, revived and cried. “The
sound,” he said, “seemed to waken life in a dead
body.” The mother extended her arms, as if to
feel for her child, and they gently laid it in them.
She felt the touch of its face, and burst into a flood
of tears, which seemed greatly to relieve her; for
after that she took a little nourishment, and fell
into a sweet sleep, from which she awoke in a
state to make some explanations to her curious
preservers. But as the account she gave of herself
was, of necessity, interrupted and imperfect,
we shall take the liberty to avail ourselves of our
knowledge of her history, and offer our readers a
slight sketch of it.
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CHAPTER X.
Death lies on her like an untimely frost,
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
Romeo and Juliet.
[figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]
The name of the stranger was Mary Oakley.
Her parents had gone out adventurers to the West
Indies, where, at the opening of flattering prospects,
they both died victims to the fever of the
climate, which seldom spares a northern constitution.
Mary, then in her infancy, had been sent
home to her grand-parents, who nursed this only
relict of their unfortunate children with doating
fondness. They were in humble life; and they
denied themselves every comfort, that they might
gratify every wish, reasonable and unreasonable,
of their darling child. She, affectionate and ardent
in her nature, grew up impetuous and volatile.
Instead of `rocking the cradle of reposing
age,' she made the lives of her old parents resemble
a fitful April day, sunshine and cloud, succeeding
each other in rapid alternation. She loved
the old people tenderly—passionately, when she
had just received a favour from them; but, like
other spoiled children, she never testified that love
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by deferring her will to theirs, or suffering their
wisdom to govern her childish inclinations. She
grew up
“Fair as the form that, wove in fancy's loom,
Floats in light vision round the poet's head.”
Most unhappily for her, there was a college in
the town where she lived, and she very early became
the favourite belle of the young collegians,
whose attentions she received with delight, in spite
of the remonstrances and entreaties of her guardians,
who were well aware that a young and beautiful
creature could not, with propriety or safety,
receive the civilities of her superiors in station,
attracted by her personal charms.
David Wilson, more artful, more unprincipled
than any of his companions, addressed her with
the most extravagant flattery, and lavished on her
costly favours. Giddy and credulous, poor Mary
was a victim to his libertinism. He soothed her
with hopes and promises, till in consequence of
the fear of detection in another transaction, where
detection would have been dangerous, he left—
and returned to his mother's, without giving Mary
the slightest intimation of his departure.
She took the desperate resolution of following
him. She felt certain she should not survive her
confinement, and hoped to secure the protection
of Wilson for her infant. Her tenderness, we
believe, more than her pride, induced her to conceal
her miseries from her only true friends. She
thought any thing would be easier for them to bear
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than a knowledge of her misconduct; and for the
few days she remained under their roof, and while
she was preparing a disguise for her perilous journey,
she affected slight sickness and derangement.
They were alarmed and anxious, and insisted on
making a bed for her in their room: this somewhat
embarrassed her proceedings; but, on the
night of her escape, she told them, with a determined
manner, that she could only sleep in her
own bed, and alone in her own room. They did
not resist her; they never had. Mary kissed them
when she bade them good-night with unusual tenderness.
They went sorrowing to their beds.
She wrote a few incoherent lines, addressed to
them, praying for their forgiveness; expressing
her gratitude and her love; and telling them, that
life before her seemed a long and a dark road, and
she did not wish to go any further in it, and begging
them not to search for her, for in one hour
the waves would roll over her. She placed the
scroll on her table, crept out of her window, and
left for ever the protecting roof of her kind old
parents.
When they awoke to a knowledge of their loss,
they were overwhelmed with grief. Their neighbours
flocked about them, to offer their assistance
and consolation; and though some of the most
penetrating among them, suspected the cause of
the poor girl's desperation, more forbearing and
kind than persons usually are, in such circumstances,
they spared the old people the light of
their conjectures.
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Poor Mary persevered in her fatiguing and
miserable journey, which was rendered much
longer by her fearfully shunning the public road.
She obtained a kind shelter at the farmers' houses
at night, where she always contrived to satisfy
their curiosity by some plausible account of herself.
At the end of a week she arrived wearied
and exhausted in the neighbourhood of Wilson.
She watched for him in the evening, near his mother's
house, and succeeded in obtaining an interview
with him. He was enraged that she had
followed him, and said that it was impossible for
him to do any thing for her. She told him, she
asked nothing for herself; but she entreated him
not to add to his guilt the crime of suffering their
unhappy offspring to die with neglect. Utterly
selfish and hard-hearted, the wretch turned from
her without one word of kindness: and then recollecting
that if she was discovered, he should be
involved in further troubles, he returned, and gave
her a direction, which he believed would enable
her to find John's cottage on the mountain. If
she gets there, thought he as he left her, whether
she lives or dies, she will be far out of the way for
the present—and the future must take care of
itself.
Mary with a faint heart followed his direction,
and the next day she was discovered by old John
in the situation we have mentioned. Perhaps
there are some who cannot believe that any being
should be so utterly depraved as David Wilson.
But let them remember, that he began with a
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nature more inclined to evil than to good, that his
mother's mismanagement had increased every
thing that was bad in him, and extinguished every
thing that was good—that the continual contradictions
of his mother's professions and life, had led
him to an entire disbelief of the truths of religion,
as well as a contempt of its restraints.
After the old man had finished Mary's story, or
rather so much of it as he had been able to gather
from her confessions, Jane asked him “Why she
had been sent for?”
“Why Miss,” he replied, “after the poor thing
had come to herself, all her trouble seemed to be
about her baby, and I did not know what to advise
her; my woman and I might have done for it
for the present, but our sun is almost set, and we
could do but a little while. I proposed to her to
go for Wilson, and I was sure the sight of her
might have softened a heart of flint; but she
shivered at the bare mention of it: she said “No,
no; I cannot see that cruel face upon my deathbed.”
And then I thought of you, and I told her
if there was any body could bring him to a sense
of right it was you, and that at any rate you might
think of some comfort for her; for I told her
every body in the village knew you for the wisest
and discreetest, and gentlest. At first she relucted,
and then the sight of her baby seemed to persuade
her, and she bade me go, but she gave me a strict
charge that no one should come with you; for she
said she wished her memory buried with her in
the grave. When I left her to go to you, I hoped
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you might speak some words of comfort to her
that would be better than medicine for her, and
heal the body as well as the mind; but when I
came back, there was a dreadful change—the poor
little one had gone into a fit, and she would take
it from my wife into her arms, and there it died
more than an hour ago; and she sits up in the bed
holding it yet, and she has not spoken a word, nor
turned her eyes from it; her cheeks look as if
there was a living fire consuming her. Oh, Miss
Jane, it is awful to look upon such a fallen star!
Now you are prepared—come in—may be the
sight of you will rouse her.”
Jane followed John into his little habitation.
The old couple had kindly resigned their only
bed to the sufferer. She was sitting as John had
described her, fixed as a statue. Her beautiful
black glossy curls, which had been so often admired
and envied, were in confusion, and clustered
in rich masses over her temples and neck.
A tear that had started from the fountain of feeling,
now sealed for ever, hung on the dark rich
eye-lash that fringed her downcast eye. Jane
wondered that any thing so wretched could look
so lovely. Crazy Bet was kneeling at the foot of
the bed, and apparently absorbed in prayer, for her
eyes were closed, and her lips moved, though they
emitted no sound. The old woman sat in the
corner of the fire-place, smoking a broken pipe,
to sooth the unusual agitation she felt.
Jane advanced towards the bed. “Speak to
her,” said John. Jane stooped, and laid her hand
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gently on Mary's. She raised her eyes for the
first time, and turned them on Jane with a look of
earnest inquiry, and then shaking her head, she
said in a low mournful voice—“No, no; we cannot
be parted; you mean to take her to heaven,
and you say I am guilty, and must not go. They
told me you were coming—you need not hide
your wings—I know you—there is none but an
angel would look upon me with such pity.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Jane in an agony, “can nothing
be done for her? at least let us take away
this dead child, it is growing cold in her arms.”
She attempted to take the child, and Mary relaxed
her hold; but as she did so, she uttered a faint
scream—became suddenly pale as `monumental
marble,'—and fell back on the pillow.
“Ah, she is gone!” exclaimed John.
Crazy Bet sprang on her feet, and raised her
hand—“Hush!” said she, “I heard a voice saying,
`Her sins are forgiven'—she is one `come
out of great tribulation.' ”
There were a few moments of as perfect stillness
as if they had all been made dumb and motionless
by the stroke of death. Jane was the first to
break silence—“Did she,” she inquired of the
old man, “express any penitence—any hope?”
John shook his head. “Them things did not
seem to lay on her mind; and I did not think it
worth while to disturb her about them. Ah, Miss,
the great thing is how we live, not how we die.”
Jane felt the anxiety, so natural, to obtain some
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religious expression, that should indicate preparation
in the mind of the departed.
“Surely,” said she, “it is never too late to
repent—to beg forgiveness.”
“No, Miss;” replied John, who seemed to have
religious notions of his own—“especially when
there has been such a short account as this poor
child had; but the work must be all between the
creature and the Creator, and for my part, I don't
place much dependance on what people say on a
death-bed. I have lived a long life, Miss Jane,
and many a one have I seen, and heard too, when
sickness and distress were heavy upon them, and
death staring them in the face, and they could not
sin any more—they would seem to repent, and
talk as beautiful as any saint; but if the Lord took
his hand from them, and they got well again, they
went right back into the old track. No, Miss
Jane, it is the life—it is the life, we must look to.
This child,” he added, going to the bed, and laying
his brown and shrivelled hand upon her fair
young brow, now `chill and changeless,' “this child
was but sixteen, she told me so. The Lord only
knows what temptations she has had; He it is,
Miss Jane, that has put that in our hearts that
makes us feel sorry for her now; and can you
think that He is less pitiful than we are? I think she
will be beaten with few stripes; but,” he concluded
solemnly, covering his face with his hands,—
“we are poor ignorant creatures; it is all a mystery
after this world; we know nothing about it.”
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“Yes,” said Jane, “we do know, John, that
all will be right.”
“True,” he replied; “and it is that should
make us lay our fingers on our mouths and be
still.”
Jane had been so much absorbed in the mournful
scene, that the necessity of her return before the
breaking of day had not occurred to her mind,
and would not, perhaps, if John had not, after a
few moments pause, reminded her of it, by saying,
“I am sorry Miss Jane, you have had such a walk
for nothing; but,” added he, “to the wise nothing
is vain, and you are of so teachable a make, that
you may have learned some good lessons here;
you may learn, at least, that there is nothing to be
much grieved for in this world but guilt; and some
people go through a long life without learning
that. You had better return now; I will go
round the hill with you, and show you the path
this crazy creature should have led you. She is
in one of her still fits now; there is nothing calms
her down like seeing death; she will not move
from here till after the burying.”
Jane looked for the last time on the beautiful
form before her, and with the ingenuous and keen
feeling of youth, wept aloud.
“It is indeed a sore sight,” said John; “it
makes my old eyes run over as they have not for
many a year. The Lord have mercy on her destroyer!
Oh, Miss! it is sad to see this beautiful
flower cut down in its prime; but who would
change her condition for his? He may go rioting
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on, but there is that gnawing at his heart's core that
will not be quieted.”
Jane told the kind old man that she was now
ready to go, and they left the hut together. He
led her by a narrow foot path around the base of
the mountain, till they came to a part of the way
that was known to Jane. She then parted from
her conductor, after inquiring of him if he could
inter the bodies secretly? He replied, that he
could without much difficulty; and he certainly
should, for he had given his promise to the young
creature, who seemed to dread nothing so much
as a discovery which might lead to her old parents
knowing her real fate.
Anxious to reach home in time to avoid the necessity
of any disclosures, Jane hastened forward,
and arrived at her aunt's before the east gave the
slightest notice of the approach of day. She entered
the house carefully, and turned into the parlour
to look for some refreshment in an adjoining
pantry. A long walk, and a good deal of emotion,
we believe, in real life, are very apt to make people,
even the most refined, hungry and thirsty.
Jane had entered the parlour, and closed the
door after her, before she perceived that she was
not the only person in it; but she started with
alarm, which certainly was not confined to herself,
when she saw standing at Mrs. Wilson's desk,
which was placed at one corner of the room, her
son David, with his mother's pocket-book in his
hand, from which he was in the act of subtracting
a precious roll of bank bills that had been
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deposited there the day before. Jane paused for a moment,
and but for a moment, for as the truth flashed
on her, she sprang forward, and seizing his arm,
exclaimed, “For heaven's sake, David, put back
that money! Do not load yourself with any more
sins.”
He shook her off, and hastily stuffing the money
in his pocket, said, that he must have it; that his
mother would not give him enough to save him
from destruction; that he had told her, ruin was
hanging over his head; that she had driven him to
help himself; and, “as to sin,” he added fiercely,
“I am in too deep already to be frightened by that
thought.”
It occurred to Jane that he might have been
driven to this mode of supplying himself, in order
to relieve the extreme need of Mary Oakley; and
she told him, in a hurried manner, the events of
the night. For a moment he felt the sting of conscience,
and, perhaps, a touch of human feeling;
for, he staggered back into a chair, and covering
his face with his hands, muttered, “dead! Mary
dead! Good God! Hell has no place bad enough
for me;” and then rousing himself, he said, with
a deep tone, “Jane Elton, I am a ruined, desperate
man. You thought too well of me, when you
imagined it was for that poor girl I was doing this
deed. No, no! her cries did not trouble me; but
there are those whose clamours must be hushed by
money—curse on them!”
“But,” said Jane, “is there no other way, David?
I will entreat your mother for you.”
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“You! yes, and she will heed you as much as
the vulture does the whining of his prey. I tell
you, I am desperate, Jane, and care not for the
consequences. But,” he added, “I will run no
risk of discovery,” and as he spoke, he drew a pistol
from beneath his surtout, and putting the muzzle
to his breast, said to Jane, “give me your
solemn promise, that you will never betray me,
or I will put myself beyond the reach of human
punishment.”
“Oh!” said Jane, “I will promise any thing.
Do not destroy your soul and body both.”
“Do you promise then?”
“I do, most solemnly.”
“Then,” said he, hastily replacing the pistol,
and locking the desk with the false key he had obtained;
“then all is as well as it can be. My
mother will suspect, but she will not dare to tell
whom; and your promise, Jane, makes me secure.”
Jane saw he was so determined, that any further
interposition would be useless, and she hurried
away to her own apartment, where she threw herself
upon her bed, sorrowing for the crimes and
miseries of others. Quite exhausted with the fatigues
of the night, she soon fell asleep.
She was too much distressed and terrified, to
reflect upon the bad effects that might result
from the exacted promise. She had, doubtless,
been unnecessarily alarmed by David's threat of
self-slaughter; for, confused and desperate as he
was, he would hardly have proceeded to such an
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outrage; and, besides, we have reason to believe
the pistol was neither primed nor loaded; but,
that he had provided himself with it for emergencies
which might occur in the desperate career in
which he had engaged. He had been concerned
with two ingenious villains in changing the denomination
of bank bills. His accomplices had been
detected and imprisoned, and they were now exacting
money from him by threatening to disclose
his agency in the transaction.
Always careless of involving himself in guilt,
and goaded on by the fear of the state-prison, he
resolved, without hesitation, on this robbery,
which would not only give him the means of present
relief, but would supply him with a store for
future demands, which he had every reason to expect
from the character of his comrades.
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CHAPTER XI.
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats;
For I am armed so strong in honesty,
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not.
Julius Cæsar.
[figure description] Page 158.[end figure description]
Jane, exhausted by the agitations of the night,
contrary to her usual custom, remained in bed
much longer than the other members of the family,
and did not awake from deep and unquiet
slumbers, till the bell called the household to
prayers.
Mrs. Wilson was scrupulous in exacting the attendance
of every member of her family at her
morning and evening devotions. With this requisition
Jane punctually and cheerfully complied,
as she did with all those that did not require a violation
of principle. But still she had often occasion
secretly to lament, that where there was so
much of the form of worship, there was so little
of its spirit and truth; and she sometimes felt an
involuntary self reproach, that her body should be
in the attitude of devotion, while her mind was
following her aunt through earth, sea, and skies,
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or pausing to wonder at the remarkable inadaptation
of her prayers to the condition and wants of
humanity, in general, and especially to their particular
modification in her own family.
Mrs. Wilson was fond of the bold and highly
figurative language of the prophets; and often
identified herself with the Psalmist, in his exultation
over his enemies, in his denunciations, and in
his appeals for vengeance.
We leave to theologians to decide, whether
these expressions from the king of Israel are meant
for the enemies of the church, or whether they are to
be imputed to the dim light which the best enjoyed
under the Jewish dispensation. At any rate, such
as come to us in `so questionable a shape,' ought
not to be employed as the medium of a Christian's
prayer.
When Jane entered the room, she found her
aunt had begun her devotions, which were evidently
more confused than usual; and when she
said (her voice wrought up to its highest pitch)
“Lo! thine enemies, O Lord! lo, thine enemies
shall perish; all the workers of iniquity shall be
scattered; but my horn shalt thou exalt like the
horn of a unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh
oil: mine eye also shall see my desire on my enemies,
and my ears shall hear my desire of the
wicked that rise up against me;” Jane perceived,
from her unusual emotion, that she
must allude to something that touched her own
affairs, and she conjectured that she had already
discovered the robbery. Her conjectures were
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strengthened when she observed, that, during the
breakfast, her aunt seemed very much agitated;
but she was at a loss to account for the look she
darted on her, when one of the children said,
“How your hair looks, Jane; this is the first time
I ever saw you come to breakfast without combing
it.”
Jane replied, that she had over-slept.
“You look more,” said Elvira, “as if you had
been watching all night, and crying too, I should
imagine, from the redness of your eyes—and now
I think of it,” she added, regardless of Jane's embarrassment,
“I am sure I heard your door shut
in the night, and you walking about your room.”
Jane was more confused by the expression of
her aunt's face, than by her cousin's observations.
What, thought she, can I have done to provoke
her? I certainly have done nothing; but there is
never a storm in the family, without my biding
some of its pitiless pelting.
After breakfast, the family dispersed, as usual,
excepting Mrs. Wilson, David, and Jane, who remained
to assist her aunt in removing the breakfast
apparatus. Mrs. Wilson, neither wishing nor
able any longer to restrain her wrath, went up to
her desk, and taking hold of a pocket handkerchief
which appeared to lie on the top of it, but which,
as she stretched it out, showed one end caught and
fastened in the desk—“Do you know this handkerchief,
Jane Elton?” she said in a voice choking
with passion.
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“Yes, ma'am,” replied Jane, turning pale—
“it is mine.” She ventured, as she spoke, to look
at David. His eyes were fixed on a newspaper
he seemed to be reading; not a muscle of his face
moved, nor was there the slightest trace of emotion.
“Yours,” said Mrs. Wilson; “that you could
not deny, for your name is at full length on it;
and when did you have it last?”
“Last night, ma'am.”
“And who has robbed me of five hundred dollars?
Can you answer to that?”
Jane made no reply. She saw, that her aunt's
suspicions rested on her, and she perceived, at
once, the cruel dilemma in which she had involved
herself by her promise to David.
“Answer me that,” repeated Mrs. Wilson, violently.
“That I cannot answer you, ma'am.”
“And you mean to deny that you have taken it
yourself?”
“Certainly I do, ma'am,” replied Jane, firmly,
for she had now recovered her self-possession.
“I am perfectly innocent; and I am sure that,
whatever appearances there may be against me,
you cannot believe me guilty—you do not.”
“And do you think to face me down in this way.
I have evidence enough to satisfy any court of
justice. Was not you heard up in the night—
your guilty face told the story, at breakfast, plainer
than words could tell it. David,” she continued
to her son, who had thrown down the paper
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and walked to the window, where he stood with
his back to his mother, affecting to whistle to a
dog without; “David, I call you to witness this
handkerchief, and what has now been said; and
remember, she does not deny that she left it
here.”
One honest feeling had a momentary ascendancy
in David's bosom; and he had risen from his seat
with the determination to disclose the truth, but
he was checked by the recollection that he should
have to restore the money, which he had not yet
disposed of. He thought, too, that his mother
knew, in her heart, who had taken the money;
that she would not dare to disclose her loss, and
if she did, it would be time enough for him to interpose
when Jane should be in danger of suffering
otherwise than in the opinion of his mother, whose
opinion, he thought, not worth caring for. Therefore,
when called upon by his mother, he made
no reply, but turning round and facing the accuser
and the accused, he looked as composed as any
uninterested spectator.
Mrs. Wilson proceeded, “Restore me my money,
or abide the consequences.”
“The consequences I must abide, and I do not
fear them, nor shrink from them, for I am innocent,
and God will protect me.”
At this moment they were interrupted by the
entrance of Edward Erskine; and our poor heroine,
though the instant before she had felt assured
and tranquil in her panoply divine, burst
into tears, and left the room. She could not endure
the thought of degradation in Erskine's
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esteem; and she was very sure that her aunt would
not lose such an opportunity of robbing her of his
good opinion. She did not mistake. Mrs. Wilson
closed the door after Jane; and seating herself,
all unused as she was to the melting mood, gave
way to a passion of tears and sobs, which were, as
we think, a sincere tribute to the loss she had experienced.
“For heaven's sake, tell me what is the matter!”
said Erskine to young Wilson; for his impatience
for an explanation became irrepressible, not on
account of the old woman's emotion, for she might
have wept till she was like Niobe, all tears, without
provoking an inquiry, but Jane's distress had
excited his anxiety.
“The Lord knows,” replied David; “there is
always a storm in this house;” and he flung out of
the room without vouchsafing a more explicit answer.
Erskine turned to Mrs. Wilson: “Can you tell
me, madam, what has disturbed Miss Elton?”
Mrs. Wilson was provoked that he did not ask
what had disturbed her, and she determined he
should not remain another moment without the
communication, which she had been turning over
in her mind to get it in the most efficient form.
“Oh! Mr. Erskine,” she said, with a whine that
has been used by all hypocrites from Oliver Cromwell's
time down; “oh! my trial is more than I
can endure. I could bear, they should devour me
and lay waste my dwelling place; I could be supported
under that; but it is a grief too heavy for
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me, to reveal to you the sin, and the disgrace, and
the abomination, of one that I have brought up as
my own—who has fed upon my children's bread.”
“Madam,” interrupted Erskine, “you may
spare yourself and me any more words. I ask for
the cause of all this uproar.”
Mrs. Wilson would have replied angrily to what
she thought Erskine's impertinence, but, remembering
that it was her business to conciliate not
offend him, she, after again almost exhausting his
patience by protestations of the hardship of being
obliged to uncover the crimes of her relation, of
the affliction she suffered in doing her duty, &c.&c.
told him, with every aggravation that emphasis and
insinuation could lend to them, the particulars of
her discovery.
With unusual self-command he heard her
through; and though he was unable to account for
the suspicious circumstances, he spurned instinctively
the conclusion Mrs. Wilson drew from
them.
Her astonishment, that he neither expressed
horror, nor indignation, nor resentment towards
the offender, was not at all abated when he only
replied by a request to speak alone with Miss
Elton.
Mrs. Wilson thought he might intend the gathering
storm should burst on Jane's head; or,
perhaps, he would advise her to fly; at any rate,
it was not her cue, to lay a straw in his way at
present. She even went herself and gave the request
to Jane, adding to it a remark, that as she
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[figure description] Page 165.[end figure description]
“was not very fond of keeping out of Erskine's
way, she could hardly refuse to come when
asked.”
“I have no wish to refuse;” replied Jane, who,
ashamed of having betrayed so much emotion, had
quite recovered her self-possession, and stood
calm in conscious integrity.—“But hear me,
ma'am,” said she to her aunt, who had turned
and was leaving the room—“all connexion between
us is dissolved for ever; I shall not remain
another night beneath a roof where I have received
little kindness, and where I now suffer the imputation
of a crime, of which I cannot think you
believe me guilty.”
Mrs. Wilson was for a moment daunted by the
power of unquestionable innocence.—“I know
not where I shall go, I know not whether your
persecutions will follow me; but I am not friendless—
nor fearful.”
She passed by her aunt, and descended to the
parlour. `No thought infirm altered her cheek;'
her countenance was very serious, but the peace
of virtue was there. Her voice did not falter in
the least, when she said to Edward, as he closed
the door on her entrance into the parlour—“Mr.
Erskine, you have no doubt requested to see me
in the expectation that I would contradict the
statement my aunt must have made to you. I
cannot, for it is all true.”
Edward interrupted her—“I do not wish it,
Jane; I believe you are perfectly innocent of
that and of every other crime; I do not wish you
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[figure description] Page 166.[end figure description]
even to deny it. It is all a devilish contrivance of
that wicked woman.”
“You are mistaken, Edward; it is not a contrivance;
the circumstances are as she has told
them to you.—Elvira did not mistake in supposing
she heard me up in the night; and my aunt did
find my handkerchief in her desk. No, Edward;
she is right in all but the conclusion she draws
from these unfortunate circumstances; perhaps,”
she added after a moment's pause, “a kinder
judgment would not absolve me.”
“A saint,” replied Edward cheeringly, “needs
no absolution. No one shall be permitted to accuse
you, or suspect you; you can surely explain
these accidental circumstances, so that even your
aunt, malicious—venemous as she is, will not dare
to breathe a poisonous insinuation against you, angel
as you are.”
“Ah,” replied Jane, with a sad smile, “there
are, and there ought to be, few believers in earthborn
angels. No, Mr. Erskine, I have no explanation
to make; I have nothing but assertions of
my innocence, and my general character to rely
upon. Those who reject this evidence must believe
me guilty.”
She rose to leave the room. Erskine gently
drew her back, and asked if it was possible she
included him among those who could be base
enough to distrust her; and before she could reply
he went on to a passionate declaration of his
affections, followed by such promises of eternal
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truth, love, and fidelity, as are usual on such occasions.
At another time, Jane would have paused to examine
her heart, before she accepted the professions
made by her lover, and she would have found
no tenderness there that might not be controlled
and subdued by reason. But now, driven out
from her natural protectors by suspicion and malignant
accusation, and touched by the confiding
affection that refused to suspect her; the generosity,
the magnanimity that were presented in
such striking contrast to the baseness of her relations—
she received Edward's declarations with
the most tender and ingenuous expressions of gratitude;
and Erskine did not doubt, nor did Jane
at that moment, that this gratitude was firmly rooted
in love.
Edward, ardent and impetuous, proposed an immediate
marriage: he argued, that it was the only,
and would be an effectual, way of protecting her
from the persecutions of her aunt.
Jane replied, that she had very little reason to
fear that her aunt would communicate to any other
person her suspicions. “She had a motive towards
you,” she added, “that overcame her prudence.
I have found a refuge in your heart,
and she cannot injure me while I have that asylum.
I have too much pride, Edward, to involve
you in the reproach I may have to sustain.
I had formed a plan this morning, before your
generosity translated me from despondency to
hope, which I must adhere to, for a few months at
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least. An application has been made to me to
teach some little girls who are not old enough for
Mr. Evertson's school: my aunt, as usual, put in
her veto; I had almost made up my mind to accept
the proposal in spite of it, when the events
of the morning came to my aid, and decided me at
once, and I have already announced to my aunt
my determination to leave her house. I trust
that in a few months something will occur, to put
me beyond the reach of suspicion, and reward as
well as justify your generous confidence.”
Edward entreated—protested—argued—but all
in vain; he was obliged at length to resign his
will to Jane's decision. Edward's next proposal
was to announce the engagement immediately.
On this he insisted so earnestly, and offered for it
so many good reasons, that Jane consented. Mrs.
Wilson was summoned to the parlour, and informed
of the issue of the conference, of which she had
expected so different a termination. She was
surprised—mortified—and most of all, wrathful—
that her impotent victim, as she deemed Jane,
should be rescued from her grasp. She began
the most violent threats and reproaches; Edward
interrupted her by telling her that she dare not
repeat the first, and from the last her niece would
soon be for ever removed; as he should require
they should in future be perfect strangers. Mrs.
Wilson felt like a wild animal just encaged; she
might lash herself to fury, but no one heeded her.
Edward left the room, saying, that he should
send his servant to convey Jane's baggage
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whereever she would order it to be sent. Jane went
quietly to her own apartment, to make the necessary
arrangements; there she soon overheard the
low growlings of Mrs. Wilson's angriest voice,
communicating, as she inferred from the loud responsive
exclamations and whimpering, her engagement
to Elvira. Mrs. Wilson's perturbed
spirit was not quieted even by this outpouring;
and after walking up and down, scolding at the
servants and the children, she put on her hat and
shawl, and sallied out to a shop, to pay a small
debt she owed there. No passion could exclude
from her mind for any length of time the memory
of so disagreeable a circumstance as the necessity
of paying out money. After she had discharged
the debt, and the master of the shop had given
her the change, he noticed her examining one of
the bills he had handed her with a look of scrutiny
and some agitation. He said, “I believe that is
a good bill, Mrs. Wilson; I was a little suspicious
of it too at first; I took it, this morning, from
your son David, in payment of a debt that has
been standing more than a year. I thought myself
so lucky to get any thing, that I was not very particular.”
Mrs. Wilson's particularity seemed to have a
sudden quietus, for she pushed the bill into the full
purse after the others, muttering something about
the folly of trusting boys being rightly punished by
the loss of the debt.
The fact was, that Mrs. Wilson recognised this
bill the moment she saw it, as one of the parcel she
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had received the day before, and which she had
marked, at the time, for she was eagle-eyed in the
detection of a spurious bill. There is nothing
more subtle, more inveterate than a habit of self-deception.
It was not to the world alone that
Mrs. Wilson played the hypocrite, but before the
tribunal of her own conscience she appeared with
hollow arguments and false pretences. From the
moment she had discovered her loss in the morning,
she had, at bottom, believed David guilty;
she recollected the threats of the preceding day,
and her first impulse was to charge him with the
theft, and to demand the money; but then, she
thought, he was violent and determined, and that,
without exposing him, (even Mrs. Wilson shrunk
from the consequences of exposure to her son)
she could not regain her money. She was at a loss
how to account for the appearance of Jane's handkerchief;
but neither that, nor Jane's subsequent
emotion at the breakfast table, nor her refusal to
make any explanation of the suspicious circumstances,
enabled Mrs. Wilson to believe that Jane
had borne any part in the dishonesty of the transaction.
Such was the involuntary tribute she paid
to the tried, steadfast virtue of this excellent being.
Still she could not restrain the whirlwind of
her passion; and it burst, as we have seen, upon
Jane. She was at a loss to account for Jane's refusal
to vindicate herself. It was impossible for
her to conceive of the reasons that controlled Jane,
which would have been no more to Mrs. Wilson, than
were to Sampson the new ropes he snapped
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asunder at the call of Delilah. She felt so fearful, at
first, that any investigation would lead to the discovery
of the real criminal, that she had not communicated
the fact of the handkerchief to any one,
even to Elvira, whose discretion, indeed, she
never trusted; but, after she found that Jane was
in a dilemma, from which she would not extricate
herself by any explanations, she thought herself
the mistress of her niece's fate; and the moment
she saw Erskine, she determined to extract good
out of the evil that had come upon her, to dim
the lustre of Jane's good name, that `more immediate
jewel of her soul,' and thus to secure for her
daughter the contested prize. But Mrs. Wilson,
it seems, was destined to experience, on this eventful
day, how very hard is the way of the transgressor.
Her niece's fortunes were suddenly placed
beyond her control or reach; and nothing remained
of all her tyranny and plots, but the pitiful and
malignant pleasure of believing, that Jane thought
herself in some measure in her power, though she
knew that she was not.
After the confirmation of her conjecture at the
shop, she saw that secrecy was absolutely necessary;
and she was too discreet to indulge herself with
telling Elvira of any of the particulars, about
which she had been so vociferous to the young
lovers.
Perhaps few ladies, old or young, were ever
less encumbered with baggage than Jane Elton,
and yet, so confused was she with the events of
the night and morning, that the labour of packing
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up, which at another time she would have des
patched in twenty minutes, seemed to have no
more tendency to a termination than such labours
usually have in dreams. In the midst of her
perplexities one of the children entered and
said Mr. Lloyd wished to speak to her. She was
on the point of sending him an excuse, for she
felt an involuntary disinclination to meet his penetrating
eye at this moment, when recollecting how
much she owed to his constant, tender friendship,
she subdued her reluctance, and obeyed his summons.
When she entered the room, “I am
come,” said he, “Jane, to ask thee to walk with
me. I am an idler and have nothing to do, and thou
art so industrious thou hast time to do every thing.
Come, get thy hat. It is `treason against nature'
sullenly to refuse to enjoy so beautiful a day as
this.” Jane made no reply. He saw she was
agitated, and leading her gently to a chair, said,
“I fear thou art not well, or, what is much worse,
not happy.”
Jane would have replied, “I am not;” but she
checked the words, for she felt as if the sentiment
they expressed, was a breach of fidelity to
Erskine; and instead of them she said, hesitatingly,
“I ought not to be perfectly happy till my
best (I should say one of my best) friends knows
and approves what I have done this morning.”
“What hast thou done, Jane?” exclaimed Mr.
Lloyd, anticipating from her extraordinary embarrassment
and awkwardness the communication she
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was about to make; “hast thou engaged thyself
to Erskine?”
She faltered out, “Yes.”
Mr. Lloyd made no reply; he rose and walked
up and down the room, agitated, and apparently
distressed. Jane was alarmed; she could not account
for his emotion; she feared he had some
ground for an ill opinion of Edward, that she was
ignorant of. “You do not like Edward?” said
she; “you think I have done wrong?”
The power of man is not limited in the moral
as in the natural world. Habitual discipline had
given Mr. Lloyd such dominion over his feelings,
that he was able now to say to their stormy wave,
`thus far shalt thou come, and no farther.' By a
strong and sudden effort he recovered himself, and
turning to Jane, he took her hand with a benignant
expression—“My dear Jane, thy own heart must
answer that question. Dost thou remember a favourite
stanza of thine?
“Nae treasures nor pleasures
Could make us happy lang;
The heart aye's the part aye
That makes us right or wrang.”
Jane imagined that Mr. Lloyd felt a distrust of
her motives. “Ah!” she replied, “the integrity of
my heart will fail to make me happy, if I have
fallen under your suspicion. If you knew the nobleness,
the disinterestedness of Erskine's conduct,
you would be more just to him, and to
me.”
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“It is not being very unjust to him, or to any
one, to think him unworthy of thee, Jane. But
since these particulars would raise him so much
in my opinion, why not tell them to me? May
not `one of your best friends' claim to know, that
which affects, so deeply, your happiness?”
Jane began a reply, but hesitated, and faltered
out something of its being impossible for her to
display to Mr. Lloyd, Erskine's generosity in the
light she saw it.
“Dost thou mean, Jane, that the light of truth
is less favourable to him than the light of imagination?”
“No,” answered Jane, “such virtues as Edward's
shine with a light of their own; imagination cannot
enhance their value.”
“Still,” said Mr. Lloyd, “they shine but on one
happy individual. Well, my dear Jane,” he continued,
after a few moments pause, “I will believe
without seeing. I will believe thou hast good
reasons for thy faith, though they are incommunicable.
If Erskine make thee happy, I shall be
resigned.”
Happily for both parties, this very unsatisfactory
conference was broken off by the entrance
of Erskine's servant, who came, as he said, for
Miss Elton's baggage. Jane explained, as concisely
as possible, to Mr. Lloyd, her plans for the
present, and then took advantage of this opportunity
to retreat to her own apartment, where she
had no sooner entered than she gave way to a
flood of tears, more bitter than any her aunt's
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injustice had cost her. She had, previous to her interview
with Mr. Lloyd, determined not to disclose
to him, or Mary Hull, the disagreeable affair of
the robbery. She wished to spare them the pain,
the knowledge of a perplexity from which they
could not extricate her, must give to them. She
was sure Mary, whose discernment was very quick,
and who knew David well, would, at once, suspect
him; and therefore, she thought, that in telling
the story, she should violate the spirit of her
promise; and, at bottom, she felt a lurking fearfulness
that Mr. Lloyd might think there was more
of gratitude than affection in her feelings to Erskine;
she thought it possible, too, he might not
estimate Edward's magnanimity quite as highly as
she did; for “though,” she said, “Mr. Lloyd has
the fairest mind in the world, I think he has never
liked Erskine. They are, certainly, very different”—
and she sighed as she concluded her deliberations.
Mr. Lloyd, after remaining for a few moments
in the posture Jane had left him, returned to his
own home, abstracted and sad. `The breath of
Heaven smelt as wooingly,' and the sun shone
as brightly as before, but there was now no feeling
of joy within to vibrate to the beauty without;
and he certainly could not be acquitted of
the `sullen neglect of nature,' that he had deemed
treason an hour before.
“I knew,” thought he, “she was fallible, and
why should I be surprised at her failure? It cannot
be Erskine, but the creature of her
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imagination, that she loves. She is too young to possess the
Ithuriel touch that dissolves false appearances:
she could not detect, under so specious a garb, the
vanity and selfishness that counterfeit manly pride
and benevolence. If he were but worthy of her,
I should be perfectly happy.”
Mr. Lloyd was mistaken; he would not, even
in that case, have been perfectly happy. He did
not, though he was very much of a self-examiner,
clearly define all his feelings on this trying occasion.
He had loved Jane first as a child, and then
as a sister; and of late he had thought if he could
love another woman, as a wife, it would be Jane
Elton. But his lost Rebecca was more present
to his imagination than any living being. He had
formed no project for himself in relation to Jane;
yet he would have felt disappointment at her appropriation
to any other person, though, certainly,
not the sorrow which her engagement to Erskine
occasioned him. Mr. Lloyd was really a disinterested
man. He had so long made it a rule to imitate
the Parent of the universe, in still educing
good from evil, that, in every trial of his life, it
was his first aim to ascertain his duty, and then
to perform it. He could weave the happiness of
others, even though no thread of his own was in
the fabric. In the present case, he resolved still
to watch over Jane; to win the friendship of Erskine,
to endeavour to rectify his principles, to exert
over him an insensible influence, and, if possible,
to render him more worthy of his enviable
destiny.
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In the course of the day, Mary Hull heard the
rumours that had already spread through the village,
of Jane's removal to Mrs. Harvey's, and her
engagement. She ran to the library door, and in
the fulness of her heart, forgetful of the decorum
of knocking, she entered and found Mr. Lloyd
sitting with his little girl on his knee. “Mary, I
am glad to see thee,” said the child; “I cannot
get a word from father; he is just as if he was
asleep, only his eyes are wide open.”
Mary, regardless of the child's prattle, announced
the news she had just heard. Mr. Lloyd coldly
replied, that he knew it already; and Mary left the
room, a little hurt that he had not condescended
to tell her, and wondering what made him so indifferent,
and then wondering whether it was indifference;
but as she could not relieve her mind,
she resolved to go immediately to Jane, with
whom the habits of their early lives, and her continued
kindness, had given and established the
right of free intercourse.
She found Jane alone, and not looking as happy
as she expected. “You have come to give me
joy, Mary,” she said, smiling mournfully as she
extended her hand to her friend.
“Yes,” replied Mary, “I came with that intention,
and you look as if joy was yet to be given.
Well,” she continued after a pause, “I always
thought you and Mr. Lloyd were different from
every body else in the world, but now you puzzle
me more than ever. I expected to see your aunt
Wilson look grum—that's natural to her, when
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any good befalls any one else; and Elvira, who
every body knows has been setting her cap every
way for Erskine, ever since she was old enough to
think of a husband; she has a right to have her
eyes as red as a ferret's. But there is Mr. Lloyd,
looking as sorrowful as if he had seen some great
trouble, and could not relieve it; and you, my
dear child, I have seen you pass through many a
dark passage of your life with a happier face than
you wear now, when you are going to have the
pride of the country for your husband, to be mistress
of the beautiful house on the hill, and have
every thing heart can desire.”
Jane made no explanation, nor reply, and after
a few moments consideration Mary proceeded—
“To be sure, I could wish Erskine was more like
Mr. Lloyd; but then he is six or eight years
younger than Mr. Lloyd, and in that time, with
your tutoring, you may make him a good deal like
Mr. Lloyd (Mr. Lloyd was Mary's beau-ideal of a
man); that is, if your endeavours are blessed. It
is true, I always thought you would not marry any
man that was not religious; not but what 'tis allowable,
for even professors do it; but then, Jane,
you are more particular and consistent than a great
many professors; and, I know, you think there is
nothing binds hearts together like religion—that
bond endures where there is neither marrying nor
giving in marriage.”
Poor Jane had listened to Mary's pros and cons
with considerable calmness; but now she laid her
head in her friend's lap, and gave vent to the
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feelings, she had been all day arguing down, by a flood
of tears. “Ah! my dear Jane, is it there the shoe
pinches? I an't sorry to find you have thought
of it though. If the `candle of the Lord' is lighted
up in the heart, we ought to look at every thing
by that light. But now you have decided, turn
to the bright side. I don't know much about Mr.
Erskine; he is called a nice young man, and who
knows what he may become, when he sees how
good and how beautiful it is to have the whole
heart and life ordered and governed by the christian
rule. I often think to myself, Jane, that your
life, and Mr. Lloyd's too, are better than preaching.
Don't take on so, my child,” she continued,
soothingly; “you have Scripture for you; for
the Bible says, `the believing wife may sanctify
the unbelieving husband;' and that must mean that
her counsel and example shall win him back to
the right way, and persuade him to walk in the
paths of holiness. Cheer up, my child, there is a
good ministry before you; and I feel as if you had
many happy days to come yet. Those that sow
in tears, shall reap with joy. It is a load off my
mind, at any rate, that you are away from your
aunt's, and under good Mrs. Harvey's roof. I
stopped at your aunt's on my way here, and she
raised a hue and cry about your leaving her house
so suddenly: she said, your grand fortune had
turned your head; `she was not disappointed, she
had never expected any gratitude from you! but
'twas not for worldly hire she did her duty!' Poor,
poor soul! I would not judge her uncharitably;
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but I do believe she has the `hope that will perish.'
I just took no notice of her, and came away. As I
was passing through the kitchen, Sukey says to
me, “Mrs. Wilson may look out for other help,
for now Miss Jane, the only righteous one, is gone
out from us, I sha'nt stay to hear nothing but disputings,
and scoldings, and prayers.” But, says I,
Sukey, you don't object to the prayers? Yes,
says she, I don't like lip-prayers—it is nothing but
a mockery.”
“Sukey has too much reason,” replied Jane.
“But now, Mary, you must not think from what
you have seen that I am not happy, for I have reason
to be grateful, and I ought to be very, very
happy.”
`Ought,' thought Mary, `she may be contented,
and resigned, and even cheerful, because she
ought—but happiness is not duty-work.' However,
she had discretion enough to suppress her
homely metaphysics; and patting Jane's head affectionately,
she replied, “Yes, my child, and if
you wish it, I will set these tears down for tears
of joy, not sorrow.” Jane smiled at her friend's
unwonted sophistry, and they parted: Mary, confirmed
in a favourite notion, that every allotment
of Providence is designed as a trial for the character;
that all will finally work together for good;
and that Jane was going on in the path to perfection,
which, though no methodist, she was not (in
her partial friend's opinion,) far from attaining.
Jane was very much relieved by Mary's wise suggestions
and sincere sympathy.
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A sagacious observer of human nature and fortunes
has said, that “if there were more knowledge,
there would be less envy.” The history of our
heroine is a striking exemplification of the truth of
this remark: when all was darkness without, she
had been looked upon by the compassionate as an
object of pity, for they could not see the sunshine
of the breast; and now that she was considered as
the chief favourite of the fickle goddess, there was
not one that would have envied her, if the internal
conflict she suffered—if that most unpleasant
of all feelings, disagreement with herself, had been
as visible, as her external fortunes were.
Erskine was in too good humour with himself, and
with Jane, to find fault with any thing: yet he certainly
was a little disappointed, that in spite of his
earnest persuasions to the contrary, she firmly persisted
in the plan of the school; and we fear he
was surprised, perhaps slightly mortified, that she
showed no more joy at having secured a station,
to which he knew so many had aspired.
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CHAPTER XII.
The world is still deceived with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil?
Merchant of Venice.
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Jane entered upon the duties of her new vocation
with more energy and interest than could
have been reasonably expected from a young lady
who had so recently entered into an engagement,
and one which opened upon her the most flattering
prospects. She already felt the benefits resulting
from the severe discipline she had suffered
in her aunt's family. She had a rare habit of putting
self aside: of deferring her own inclinations
to the will, and interests, and inclinations of
others. A superficial survey of the human mind
in all its diversity of conditions, will convince us
that it may be trained to any thing; else, how
shall we account for the proud exultation of a savage
amidst the cruellest tortures his triumphant
enemy can inflict; or for any of the wonderful
phenomena of enterprise, of fortitude, of patience,
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in beings whose physical natures are so constituted,
that they instinctively shrink from suffering?
Our fair young readers (if any of that class condescend
to read this unromantic tale) will smile at
the idea that Jane had any further occasion for
the virtues of adversity; but she was far from
being happy; she had not that firm confidence in
the character of her lover that could alone have
inspired the joy of hope, and secured a quiet spirit.
Since her engagement, and even before, and ever
since she had been interested in Erskine, she had
not dared to sound the depths of her heart.
Though quite a novice in the experience of love,
she would have been able to detect its subtleties;
she would have been able to ascertain the nature,
and amount of her affection for Erskine, had she
not been driven by his apparent magnanimity, and
the oppression of her relations, to a sudden decision.
We appeal then once more to our fair young
readers, and trust their justice will award to our
heroine some praise, for her spirited and patient
performance of her duties to her young pupils,
who were very far from imagining that their kind
and gentle teacher had any thing in the world to
trouble her, or to engage her mind, but their
wants and pursuits.
Her disquietude did not escape the quickened
vision of her vigilant friend Mr. Lloyd; he observed
the shadows of anxiety settling on her
usually bright and cheerful countenance, but even
he had no conception of the extent of her busy
apprehensions and secret misgivings.
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Week after week passed away, and there seemed
to be no prospect that any thing would occur
to free Jane from the very unpleasant situation in
which her aunt's accusations had placed her.
Erskine became restless and impatient, derided
all Jane's arguments in favour of delaying their
marriage, and finally affected to distrust her affection
for him. If the undefined, and undefinable
sentiment which was compounded in Jane's heart
of youthful preference and gratitude, was not love,
Jane believed it was, and she at last yielded a reluctant
consent, that the marriage should take
place at the end of three months, even though nothing
should occur to release her from her aunt's
power.
It was a few days after this promise had been
given, that as she was one day returning from her
school, Erskine jointed her.—“Your friend Robert
Lloyd,” said he, “has taken a mighty fancy to
me of late, I cannot conceive what is the reason
of it.”
Jane blushed, for she thought he might have
guessed the reason. “I am glad of it,” she replied,
“for he seems to have withdrawn his friendship
from me, and you are the only person, Edward,
to whom I should be resigned to have it
transferred.”
“Ah, Jane! you need not be alarmed; he and
I should never mix, any more than oil and
vinegar.”
“I am sorry for that; but which is the oil, and
which the vinegar?”
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“Oh, he is the oil, soft—neutralizing—rather
tasteless; while I, you know, have a character of
my own—am positive—am—but perhaps it
would not be quite modest for me to finish the parallel.
To confess the truth to you, Jane, I have always
had an aversion to Quakers; they are a very
hypocritical sect, depend upon it; pretending,
sly, cheating rogues.”
“That's a harsh judgment,” replied Jane, with
some warmth, “and a prejudice, I think; is not
Mr. Lloyd the only Quaker you know?”
“Why—ye—yes, the only one I know much
of.”
“And does he justify your opinion?”
“I don't know; it takes a great while to find
them out; and even if Lloyd should be what he
would seem, the exception only proves the rule.
I have always disliked Quakers. I remember a
story my father used to tell, when I was a child,
about his being over-reached in a most ingenious,
practised manner, by one of the scoundrels, as he
called the whole race. It was not an affair of any
great moment; but no man likes to be outwitted in
a bargain, and my father used to say it gave him
an antipathy to the very name of a Quaker.”
“I think your father was in fault,” replied
Jane, “so carelessly to implant a prejudice,
which, as it seems to have had very slight ground,
I trust has not taken such deep root that it cannot
be easily eradicated.”
“There is more reason in my judgment than
you give me credit for,” replied Edward pettishly.
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“If they are an upright, frank people, why is the
world kept in ignorance of their belief? The
Quakers have no creed; and though I have no
great faith in the professors of any sect, yet they
ought to let you know what they do think: it is
fair and above board. You may depend upon it,
Jane, the Quakers are a jesuitical people.”
“Have you ever read any of their books?” inquired
Jane.
“I read them!” he replied, laughing; “why,
my dear girl, do you take me for a theologian?
No—I never read the books of any sect; and
Quaker books, I believe there are not. Quaker
books!” he continued, still laughing, “no, no—
I shall never addict myself to divinity, till Anne
Ratcliffe writes sermons, and Tom Moore warbles
hymns.”
Jane did not join in his laugh; but replied,
“There is a book, Edward, that contains the creed
of the Quakers; a creed to which they have never
presumed to add any thing, nor have they taken
any thing from it; the only creed to which
they think it right to require the assent of man,
and from which no rational man can dissent—that
book is the Bible! and,” she continued, earnestly,
“their faith in this creed is shown by their works.
My dear Edward, examine their history for their
vindication.”
“That I shall not, while their cause has so fair
a champion.”
“Spare me your sarcasms, Edward, and let me
entreat you to look at the life of their wise and
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excellent Penn. See him patiently and firmly
enduring persecution, and calumny, and oppression
at home; giving up his time, his fortune, his
liberty, to the cause of suffering humanity, in every
mode of its appeal to his benevolence. Follow
him with his colony to the wilderness, and
see him the only one of all the colonial leaders (I
grieve that I cannot except our fathers, the pilgrims)
the only one who treated the natives of
the land with justice and mercy. Our fathers,
Edward, refused to acknowledge the image of
God in the poor Indian. They affected to believe
they were the children of the evil one, and
hunted them like beasts of prey, calling them
`worse than Scythian wolves;' while Penn, and
his peaceful people, won their confidence, their
devotion, by treating them with even-handed justice,
with brotherly kindness; and they had their
reward; they lived unharmed among them, without
forts, without a weapon of defence. Is it not
the Friends that have been foremost and most active
in efforts for the abolition of slavery? Among
what people do we find most reformers of the
prisons—guardians of the poor and the oppressed—
most of those who `remember the forgotten,
and attend to the neglected—who dive into the
depths of dungeons, and plunge into the infection
of hospitals'?”
There was a mingled expression of archness and
admiration in Edward's smile as he replied, “My
dear Jane, you are almost fit to speak in meeting.
All that your defence wants in justness, is made
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up by the eloquence of your eye and your glowing
cheek. I think friendship is a stronger feeling
in your heart than love, Jane,” he continued,
with a penetrating look that certainly did not abate
the carnation of her cheek. “If I, and all my
ancestors had gone on crusades and pilgrimages,
the spirit would not have moved you to such enthusiasm
in our cause, as you manifest for the
broad-brimmed, straight-coated brethern of friend
Lloyd.”
“Edward, have you yet to learn of me, that I
speak least of what I feel most?”
The gentleness of Jane's manner, and the tenderness
of her voice, soothed her lover; and he
replied, “Forgive me, dear Jane, a little jealousy;
you know jealousy argues love. To confess to
you the honest truth, I felt a little more ticklish
than usual, this evening, on the subject of quakerism.
I had just parted with Mr. Lloyd; and he
has been earnestly recommending to me, to undertake
a reform in our poor-laws, by which, he
thinks, that we should rid ourselves of the burden
of supporting many who are not necessarily dependant
on us, and improve the condition of those
who are. The plan seems to me to be good and
feasible.”
“And what then, Edward, provoked your displeasure?”
“Why, he wished me to take the whole conduct
of it. He preferred the plan should appear to
originate with me; that I should head a petition
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to the Legislature; and, if we succeeded, that I
should superintend the execution of the plan.”
“Still, dear Edward, I see any thing but offence
in all this.”
“Because your eye-sight is a little dimmed by
your partiality. Do you believe, Jane, that any
man would be willing to transfer to another all the
merit and praise of a scheme, which, if it succeeds,
will be a most important benefit to the community;
will be felt, and noticed, and applauded
by every body? No—there is some design lurking
under this specious garb of disinterestedness—
disinterestedness! it only exists in the visions of
poets, or the Utopian dreams of youth; or, perhaps,
embodied in the fine person of a hero of
romance.”
“Oh! my dear Edward, it does exist; it is the
principle, the spirit of the Christian!”
“Par exemple—of your aunt Wilson, and of
sundry other stanch professors I could mention,
who,
“If self the wavering balance shake,
It's never right adjusted.”
“Is it fair,” replied Jane, “to condemn a whole
class because some of its members are faithless and
disloyal? A commander does but decimate a mutinous
corps; and you exclude the whole from your
confidence, because a few are treacherous. I allow,”
continued Jane, “there are few, very few,
who are perfectly disinterested; but every Christian,
in proportion to his fidelity to the teachings
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and example of his Master, will be moved and governed
by this principle.”
Perhaps Edward felt a passing conviction of
the truth of Jane's assertions; at any rate, he
made no reply, and afterwards he shunned the
subject; and even Jane seemed to shrink from
it as one upon which they had no common feeling.
The day before entering on the duties of her
second school-term, Jane determined to indulge
herself in a solitary walk to the cottage of old John
of the Mountain. She had purchased some comforts
for the old people, with a part of her small
earnings, and she knew if she carried them herself
she should double their value. She found the
way without difficulty, for her night-walk had indelibly
impressed it on her memory. On her approach
to the cottage, and as she emerged from
the wood, she perceived just on its verge a slight
rising in the form of a grave; a wild rose-bush
grew beside it. Jane paused for a moment, and
plucking one of the flowers, she said, `fragrant and
transient, thou art a fit emblem of the blasted
flower below!' As she turned from the grave, she
perceived that a magical change had been wrought
upon John's hut. Instead of a scarcely habitable
dwelling, of decayed logs, filled in with mud, she
saw a neat little framed house, with a fence
around it, and a small garden annexed to it, enclosed
by the logs of the former building. Jane
hastened forward, and entered the cottage with
the light step of one who goes on an errand of
kindness.
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“Who would have thought,” said the good
dame, as she dusted a chair and offered it to Jane,
“of your coming all this way to see whether we
were above ground yet?”
“Ah,” said John, “there are some in this
world, a precious few, who remember those that
every body else forgets.”
“I could not forget you, my good friends,” replied
Jane, “though John does not come any
more to put me in mind of you.”
“Why, Miss Jane,” said John, “I grow old,
and I have been but twice to the village since that
mournful night you was here, and then I was in
such a worrying matter that I did not think even
of you.”
“What have you had to disturb you?” inquired
Jane. “I hoped from finding you in this nice new
house that all had gone well since I saw you.”
“Ah,” replied John, “I have been greatly favoured;
but the storm came before the calm.
Miss Jane, did you never hear of my law-suit?
the whole town was alive with it.”
Jane assured John that she had never heard a
word of it; that she had a little school to take
care of; and that she saw very few persons, and
heard little village news, even when it was so important
as his law-suit.
“Then, Miss Jane,” said John, “if you have
time and patience to hear an old man's story, I
will tell you mine.—It is fifty years since my old
woman and I settled down in these woods. Like
all our fellow-creatures, we have had our portion
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of storms and sunshine: it has pleased the Lord to
lop off all our branches, to cut down the little saplings
that grew up at our feet, and leave us two
lonely and bare trunks, to feel, and resist the
winds of heaven as we may: two old evergreens,”
he continued, with a melancholy smile, “that
flourish when every thing has faded about them.
Yes, fifty years I have seen the sun come over
that mountain every morning; and there is not a
tree in all these thick woods but it seems like an
old friend to me. Here my sons and daughters
have been born to me, and here I have buried
them, all but poor Jem, who you know was lost
at sea. They died when they were but little
children, and nobody remembers them but us; but
they are as fresh in our minds as if it was but yesterday
they were playing about us, with their
laughing eyes and rosy cheeks. This has not
much to do with my law-suit,” continued John,
after a pause, and clearing his voice, “only that
I shall want some excuse for loving the old rookery
so well before I get through with my story. I
hired this bit of land of a man that's been dead
twenty years, and it has changed hands many a
time since, but I have always been able to satisfy
for the rent; it was but a trifle, for no one but I
would fancy the place. Lately it's come into the
hands of the two young Woodhulls, by the death
of the Deacon their father. They are two hardfavoured,
hard-hearted, wild young chaps, Miss
Jane, that think all the world was made for them,
and their pleasure. If my memory serves me, it
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was just one week after you was here, that they
were hunting up in these woods with young Squire
Erskine. John, the oldest, took aim at a robin
that was singing on the tree just before my door:
it had built its nest there early in the summer;
we had fed it with crumbs from our table, and it
was as tame as a chicken. I told this to them, and
begged the little innocent's life so earnestly, that
the boys laughed, but Erskine said, “Let the old
fool have his way.” They said it was nonsense to
give up to my whims, and told me to take away
my hand, (for I had raised it up to protect the
nest) or they would fire through it. I did take it
away, and the nest with it, and brought it into the
house. They came swearing in, and demanded
the bird. I refused to give it up; they grew more
and more angry: may be Erskine might have
brought them to reason, but he had walked away.
They said it was their land, and their bird, and
they would not be thwarted by me; and they
called me, and my wife too, many a name that
was too bad for a decent person's ear. They
worked themselves up to a fury, and then warned
me off the ground. I made no reply; for I thought
when they got over their passion they'd forget it.
But they returned the next day with handspikes,
and threatened to pull the house down on our
heads, if we did not come out of it. I have had
a proud spirit in my day, Miss Jane, but old age
and weakness have tamed it. I begged them to
spare us our little dwelling, with tears in my eyes;
and my poor old woman prayed she might bring
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out the few goods we had; but oh! `a fool in his
folly is like a bear robbed of her whelps.' They
said they would dust our goods for us; and so we
came out and turned away our faces; but we heard
the old house that had sheltered us so long crumble
to pieces, as you'd crush an egg-shell in your
hand; yes, and we heard their loud deriding laugh;
but thank the Lord, we were too far off, to hear
the jokes they passed between every peal of
laughter. Ah, there is more hope of any thing
than of a hard heart in a young body.”
“Can it be possible,” interrupted Jane, “that
for so slight a cause the Woodhulls could do you
such an injury?”
“It is even so,” replied John; “youth is head-strong,
and will not bear crossing.”
“But where did you find a shelter?”
“I led my wife down the other side of the
mountain, to one Billy Downie's, a soft feeling
creature, who has more goodness in his heart than
wit in his head, and he made us kindly welcome.
I left my wife there, and the next day I came over
to the village, to see if the law would give me
justice of those that had no mercy. I should have
gone to Squire Erskine with my case, for I knew
he was called a fine pleader, though he is too wordy
to suit me—but he was a friend of the Woodhulls,
and so I applied to the stranger that's lately moved
in: he proved a raw hand. The trial was appointed
for the next Saturday. The day came; and all
the men in the village were collected at the
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tavern, for Erskine was to plead for the Woodhulls,
and every body likes to hear his silver tongue.”
“Erskine plead for the Woodhulls!” exclaimed
Jane.
“Oh yes, Miss Jane; for, as I told you, they
are very thick. My attorney was a kind of a 'prentice-workman
at the law; he was afraid of Erskine
too; and he stammered, and said one thing
and meant another, and made such a jingle of it,
I could not wonder the justice and the people did
not think I had a good claim for damages. But
still, the plain story was so much against the
Woodhulls, and the people of the village are so
friendly-like to me, that it is rather my belief, I
should have been righted if Erskine had not poured
out such a power of words, that he seemed to
take away people's senses. He started with what
he called a proverb of the law, and repeated it so
many times, I think I can never forget it, for it
seemed to be the hook he hung all his argufying
upon. It was `cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad cœlum,
(we have taken the liberty slightly to correct
the old man's quotation of the Latin); which, if
I rightly understood, it means, that whoever owns
the soil, owns all above it to the sky; and though
it stands to reason it can't be so, yet Erskine's fine
oration put reason quite out of the question; and
so the justice decided that the Woodhulls had a
right to do what seemed good in their own eyes
with my furniture; and then he gave me a bit of
an exhortation, and told me I should never make
out well in the world, if I did not know more of
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the laws of the land! and concluded with saying,
I ought to be very thankful I had so little to be
destroyed. I said nothing; but I thought it was
late in the day for me to study the laws of the
land; and my mite was as much to me as his abundance
to him. When the trial was over, Erskine
and the Woodhulls invited the justice and the
company into the bar-room to treat them; and
through the open door I heard Erskine propose a
bumper to those who knew how to maintain their
rights. “No,” Woodhull said, “it should be to
him who knew how to defend a friend”—right or
wrong, thought I. But,” said John, pausing, “my
story is too long for you, Miss Jane.”
Jane had turned away her head; she now assured
John, she was listening to every word he said,
and begged him to go on.
“Well, Miss, I thought I was alone in the room,
and I just let out my heart, as you know a body
will when he thinks there is no eye, but His that's
above, sees him. I saw nothing before Sarah and
I, but to go upon the town, and that's what I always
had a dread of; for, though I have been a
poor man all my life, Miss Jane, what I had was
my own. I have been but weakly since I was a
boy, but my woman and I have been sober and industrious.
We have always had a shelter for ourselves;
and sometimes, too, for a poor houseless
creature that had not a better; and we wanted
but little, and we were independent: and then
you know, what the town gives is neither given
nor taken with a good will. Well, as I said, I
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thought I was alone in the room; but I heard a
slight noise behind me, and there was one who
had not followed the multitude; he had a clear
open face, and that look—I can't justly describe
it, Miss Jane, but it seems as if it was
the light of good deeds sent back again; or,
may be, the seal the Lord puts upon his own
children—and pity and kindness seemed writ in
every line of his face. Do you know who I
mean?”
“Mr. Lloyd,” she replied, in a scarcely audible
voice.
“Yes, yes—any body that had ever seen
him would guess. He beckoned to me to shut
the door, and asked me if I had any particular
attachment to this spot; and I owned to him,
as I have to you, my childishness about it; and
he smiled, and said, he was afraid I was too
old to be cured of it; and then asked, if I believed
I could persuade the young men to sell as
much of the land as I should want. I was sure I
could, for I know they are wasteful and ravenous
for money, and besides they had had their
will, and the land was of no use to them. And
then he told me, Miss Jane, that he would give
me the money for the land, if I could make a
bargain with the Woodhulls, and enough besides
to build me a comfortable little house. I
could not thank him—I tried, but I could not; and
so he just squeezed my hand, and said, he understood
me—and charged me to keep it a secret
where I got help; and I have minded
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him till this day, but I could not keep it from
you.”
“You'd better stop now, John,” said the old
woman, “for the long walk, and the long story,
have quite overdone Miss Jane; she has had the
flushes this half hour.”
Jane was obliged to own she did not feel well;
but after drinking some water, she made an effort
to compose herself, and asked the old man, “What
reason he had to think the Woodhulls and Erskine
were intimate friends?”
“Why, did you never hear, Miss, that it was
Erskine that got John Woodhull clear when Betsy
Davis sued him for breach of promise? I was
summoned to court as a witness. It was a terrible
black business; but Erskine made it all smooth;
and after the trial was past, I overheard these
chaps flattering Erskine till they made him believe
he was more than mortal. At any rate, they put
such a mist before his eyes, that he could not see
to choose good from evil, else he never would
have chosen them for his companions; he never
would have been led to spend night after night with
them at the gambling club.”
“At the gambling club, John!—where—what
do you mean?” and poor Jane clasped her hands
together, and looked at him with an expression
of such wretchedness, that the old man turned his
eyes from her to his wife and back again to Jane,
as if he would, but dared not, inquire the reason
of her emotion.
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“I have done wrong,” he stammered out, “old
fool that I was. Erskine is your friend, Miss Jane.
The Lord forgive me,” he added, rising and
walking to the door. Jane had risen also, and
with a trembling hand was tying on her hat. “And
the Lord help thee, child,” he continued, turning
again towards her, “and keep thee from every
snare. Well, well!—I never should have
thought it.”
Jane felt humbled by the old man's sympathy;
and yet it was too sincere, too kindly felt, to
be repressed. She was hastening away, when
Sarah said, “You have forgotten your bundle,
Miss.”
“It is for you, my good friend,” she replied;
and, without awaiting their thanks, she bade them
farewell, and was soon out of sight of the old
man, whose eye followed her quick footsteps till
she was hid by the adjoining wood. He then
turned from the door, and raised his hands and
his faded eyes, glistening with the gathering
tears, to Heaven—“Oh Lord!” he exclaimed,
“have mercy on thy young servant. Suffer not
this child of light to be yoked to a child of darkness.”
We believe that, in all classes and conditions,
women are more inclined to look on the bright side
of matrimony than men. In this case Sarah, after
a little consideration, said, “I'm a thinking, John,
you take on too much; you are a borrowing trouble
for Miss Jane. She is a wise, discreet young
body, and she may cure Mr. Erskine of his faults.
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Besides, he may have his vagaries, and that's no
uncommon thing for a young man; but then he
is not wicked and hard-hearted like the Woodhulls.”
“No, no, Sarah, he an't so bad as the Woodhulls,
but he has been a wilful spoilt child from the
beginning: he is a comely man to look to, and he
has a glib tongue in his head; but he is all for self—
all for self, Sarah. You might as well undertake
to make the stiff branches of that old oak tender
and pliable as the sprouts of the sapling that grows
beside it, as to expect Miss Jane can alter Erskine.
No—he alone can do it with whom all
things are possible. We have no right to expect
a miracle. She has no call to walk upon the sea,
and we cannot hope a hand will be stretched out
to keep her from sinking. It is the girl's beauty
has caught him; and when that is gone, and it is a
quickly fading flower, she will have no hold whatever
on him.”
We know not how long the old man indulged in
his reflections, for he was not again interrupted by
Sarah, whose deference for her husband's superior
sagacity seems to have been more habitual than
even her namesake's of old.
Our unhappy heroine pursued her way home, her
mind filled with `thick-coming' and bitter fancies,
revolving over and over again the circumstances
of John's narrative. He had thrown a new light
on the character of her lover; and she blamed
herself, that faults had seemed so dim to her, which
were now so glaring. She was not far from
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coming to the result, which, we trust, our readers have
expected from the integrity and purity of her character.
“If I had remained ignorant of his faults,”
she thought, “I should have had some excuse; I
might then have hoped for assistance and blessing
in my attempts to reform him. It would be presumption
to trust, now, in any efforts I could
make; and what right have I, with my eyes open,
to rush into a situation where my own weak virtues
may be subdued by trials—must be assailed by
temptation? Oh! when I heard him speak lightly
of religion, how could I hope he would submit
to its requisitions and restraints? I started at the
first thought, that he was unprincipled; and yet I
have always known there was no immoveable basis
for principle, but religion. Selfish—vain—
how could I love him! And yet—and she looked
at the other side of the picture—his preference of
me was purely disinterested—an orphan—destitute—
almost an outcast—liable to degradation—
and he has exposed himself to all the obloquy I may
suffer—and does he not deserve the devotion of
my life?” A moment before, she would have answered
her self-interrogation in the negative; but
now she seemed losing herself in a labyrinth of
opposing duties. She thought that she ought not
to place implicit reliance in John's statements.
He might have exaggerated Erskine's faults. In
his situation, it was natural he should; but he had
such a calm, sober way with him, every word bore
the impress of truth. The story of the gambling
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club had turned the scale; but John might have
been misinformed.
Thus, after all her deliberations, Jane re-entered
her home, without having come to any decision.
Though we believe the opinion of a
great moralist is against us, we doubt if “decision
of character” belongs to the most scrupulously
virtuous.
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CHAPTER XIII.
It is religion that doth make vows kept,
But thou hast sworn against religion;
Therefore, thy latter vow against thy first
Is in thyself rebellion to thyself:
And better conquest never canst thou make
Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts
Against these busy loose suggestions.
King John.
[figure description] Page 203.[end figure description]
As Jane entered Mrs. Harvey's door she met
her kind hostess just returning from a walk, her
face flushed with recent pleasure. “Where upon
earth have you been?” she exclaimed. “Ah! if
you had gone with me, you would not have come
home with such a wo-begone face. Not a word!
Well—nothing for nothing is my rule, my dear;
and so you need not expect to hear where I have
been, and what superb papers have come from
New-York, for the front rooms; and beautiful
china, and chairs, and carpets, and a fine work-table,
for an industrious little lady, that shall be
nameless; all quite too grand for a sullen, silent,
deaf and dumb school-mistress.” She added, playfully,
“if our cousin Elvira had been out in such
a shower of gold, we should have been favoured
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with sweet smiles and sweet talk for one year at
least. But there comes he that will make the bird
sing, when it won't sing to any one else; and so,
my dear, to escape chilling a lover's atmosphere,
or being melted in it, I shall make my escape.”
Jane would gladly have followed her, but she
sat still, after hastily throwing aside her hat, and
seizing the first book that she could lay her hands
upon, to shelter her embarrassment. She sat with
her back to the door.
Edward entered, and walking up to her, looked
over her shoulder as if to see what book had so
riveted her attention. It chanced to be Penn's
“Fruits of Solitude.” “Curse on all quakers and
quakerism!” said he, seizing the book rudely and
throwing it across the room; “wherever I go, I
am crossed by them.”
He walked about, perturbed and angry. Jane
rose to leave him, for now, she thought, was not
the time to come to an explanation; but Erskine
was not in a humour to be opposed in any thing.
He placed his back against the door, and said,
“No, Jane, you shall not leave me now. I have
much to tell you. Forgive my violence. There
is a point beyond which no rational creature can
keep his temper. I have been urged to that point;
and, thank Heaven, I have not learnt that smooth-faced
hypocrisy that can seem what it is not.”
Jane trembled excessively. Erskine had touched
the `electric chain;' she sunk into a chair, and
burst into tears.
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“I was right,” he exclaimed, “it is by your
authority, and at your instigation, that I am dogged
from place to place by that impertinent fellow;
you have entered into a holy league; but know,
Miss Elton, there is a tradition in our family, that
no Erskine was ever ruled by his wife; and the
sooner the lady who is destined to be mine learns
not to interfere in my affairs, the more agreeable
it will be to me, and the more safe for herself.”
Jane's indignation was roused by this strange
attack; and resuming her composure, she said,
“If you mean that I shall understand you, you
must explain yourself, for I am ignorant and innocent
of any thing you may suspect me of.”
“Thank heaven!” replied Erskine, “I believe
you, Jane; you know in the worst of times I have
believed you; and it was natural to be offended
that you should distrust me. You shall know the
`head and front of my offending.' The sins that
have stirred up such a missionary zeal in that body
of quakerism; will weigh very light in the scales of
love.”
“Perhaps,” said Jane gravely, “I hold a more
impartial balance than you expect.”
“Then you do not love me, Jane, for love is,
and ought to be, blind; but I am willing to make
the trial, I will never have it repeated to me, that
`if you knew all, you would withdraw your affections
from me.' No one shall say that you have
not loved me, with all my youthful follies on my
head. I know you are a little puritanical; but
that is natural to one who has had so much to
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make her miserable: the unhappy are apt to affect
religion. But you are young and curable, if
you can be rescued from this quaker climate and
influence.”
Edward still rattled on, and seemed a little to
dread making the promised communication; but at
last, inferring from Jane's seriousness that she was
anxious, and impatient himself to have it over, he
went on to tell her—that from the beginning of
their engagement Mr. Lloyd had undertaken the
surveillance of his morals; that if he had not been
fortified by his antipathy to Quakers, he should
have surrendered his confidence to him.
“No gentleman,” he said, “no man of honourable
feeling—no man of proper sensibility—would
submit to the interference of a stranger—a man
not much older than himself—in matters that concerned
himself alone; it was an intolerable outrage.
If Jane was capable of a fair judgment,
she would allow that it was so.”
Jane mildly replied, that she could only judge
from the facts; as yet she had heard nothing but
accusations. Erskine said, he had imagined he
was stating his case in a court of love and not of
law; but he had no objection, since his judge was
as sternly just as an old Roman father, to state
facts. He could pardon Mr. Lloyd his eagerness
to make him adopt his plans of improvement in
the natural and moral world: to the first he might
have been led by his taste for agriculture, (which
he believed was unaffected) and to the second he
was pledged by the laws of holy quaker church.
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Still he said none but a Quaker would have thought
of meddling with the affairs of people who were
strangers to him—however, that might be pardoned:
as he said before, he supposed every Quaker
was bound to that officiousness, by an oath, or an
affirmation, for tender conscience' sake. “But my
sweet judge, you do not look propitious,” Erskine
continued after this misty preamble, from which
Jane could gather nothing but that his prejudices
and pride had thrown a dark shadow over all the
virtues of Mr. Lloyd.
“I cannot, Erskine, look propitious on your
sneers against the principles of my excellent
friend.”
“Perhaps,” replied Erskine tartly, “his practice
will be equally immaculate in your eyes.
And now, Jane, I beseech you for once to forget
that Mr. Lloyd is your excellent friend; a man
who bestowed some trifling favours on your childhood,
and remember the rights of one to whom
you at least owe your love—though he would neither
accept that, nor your gratitude, as a debt.”
Jane assured him she was ready to hear any
thing and every thing impartially that he would
tell her. He replied, that he detested stoical
impartiality; that he wished her to enter into his
loves and his hates, without expecting a reason in
their madness. But since you must have the reason,
I will not withhold it. As I told you, I submitted
to a thousand vexatious, little impertinences:
he is plausible and gentlemanly in his manners, so
there was nothing I could resent, till after a
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contemptible affair between John the old basket-maker
and the Woodhulls, in which I used my
humble professional skill to extricate my friends,
who had been perhaps a little hasty in revenging
the impertinence of the foolish old man. Lloyd
was present at the trial before the justice: I fancied
from the expression of his face that he wished my
friends to be foiled, and this quickened my faculties.
I succeeded in winning my cause in spite of
law and equity, for they were both against me;
and this you know is rather flattering to one's talents.
The Woodhulls overwhelmed me with
praises and gratitude. I felt sorry for the silly
old fool, whom they had very unceremoniously unhoused,
and I proposed a small subscription to
enable him to pay the bill of costs, &c. which was
his only receipt from the prosecution. I headed
it, and it was soon made up; but the old fellow
declined it with as much dignity as if he had been
a king in disguise. It was an affair of no moment,
and I should probably never have thought of it
again, if Lloyd had not the next day made it the
text upon which he preached as long a sermon as
I would hear, upon the characters of the Woodhulls;
he even went so far as to presume to remonstrate
with me upon my connexion with them,
painted their conduct on various occasions in the
blackest colours, spoke of their pulling down the
old hovel, which had in fact been a mere cumberer
of the ground for twenty years, as an act of
oppression and cruelty; said their habits were all
bad; their pursuits all either foolish or dangerous.
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I restrained myself as long as possible, and then
I told him, that I should not submit to hear any
calumnies against my friends; friends who were
devoted to me, who would go to perdition to serve
me. If they had foibles, they were those that
belonged to open, generous natures; they were
open-handed, and open-hearted, and had not
smothered their passions, till they were quite extinguished.
I told him, they were honourable
young men, not governed by the fear that `holds
the wretch in order.' He might have known that
I meant to tell him they were what he was not;
but he seemed quite unmoved, and I spoke more
plainly. I had never, I told him, been accustomed
to submit my conduct to the revision of any
one; that he had no right, and I knew not why he
presumed, to assume it, to haunt me like an external
conscience; that my `genius was not rebuked
by his,' neither would it be, if all the marvellous
light of all his brethren was concentrated in
his luminous mind.”
“Oh, Erskine, Erskine!” exclaimed Jane, “was
this your return for his friendly warning?”
“Hear me through, Jane, before you condemn
me. He provoked me more than I have told you.
He said that I was responsible to you for my virtue;
that I betrayed your trust by exposing myself
to be the companion, or the prey, of the vices
of others. Would you have had me borne this,
Jane? Would you thank me for allowing, that he
was more careful of your happiness than I am?”—
“Well,” added he, after a moment's pause, “as
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you do not reply, I presume you have not yet decided
that point. We separated, my indignation
roused to the highest pitch, and he cold and calm
as ever. When we next met, there was no difference
in his manners to me that a stranger would
have observed; but I perceived his words were all
weighed and measured, as if he would not venture
soon again to disturb a lion spirit.”
“Is this all?” asked Jane.
“Not half,” replied Erskine; and after a little
hesitation he continued, “I perceive that it is impossible
for you to see things in the light I do.
Your aunt with her everlasting cant, your methodist
friend with her old maid notions, and this precise
quaker, above all, have made you so rigid,
have so bound and stiffened every youthful indulgent
feeling, that I have as little hope of a favourable
judgment, as a heretic could have had in the
dark ages, from his triple-crowned tyrant.”
“Then,” said Jane, rising, “it is as unnecessary
as painful for me to hear the rest.”
“No, you shall not go,” he replied; “I expect
miracles from the touch of love. I think I have
an advocate in your heart, that will plead for me
against the whole `privileged order,' of professors—
of every cast. Do not be shocked, my dear
Jane; do not, for your own sake, make mountains
of mole-hills, when I tell you, that the young
men of the village instituted a club, three or four
months since, who meet once a week socially,
perhaps a little oftener, when we are all about
home: and”—he hesitated a moment, as one will
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when he comes to a ditch and is uncertain whether
to spring over, to retreat, or to find some
other way; but he had too much pride to conceal
the fact, and though he feared a little to announce
it, yet he was determined to justify it. Jane was
still mute, and he went on—“We play cards;
sometimes we have played later and higher perhaps
than we should if we had all been in the
leading-strings of prudence; all been bred quakers.
Our club are men of honour and spirit,
high-minded gentlemen; a few disputes, misunderstandings,
might arise now and then, as they
will among people who do not weigh every word,
lest they should chance to have an idle one to
account for; but, till the last evening, we have,
in the main, spent our time together as whole-souled
fellows should, in mirth and jollity. As I
said, last evening unfortunately—”
“Tell me nothing more, Mr. Erskine; I have
heard enough,” interrupted Jane.
“What! you will not listen to friend Lloyd's reproaches;
not listen to what most roused his holy
indignation?”
“I have no wish to hear any thing further,” replied
Jane. “I have heard enough to make my
path plain before me. I loved you, Edward; I
confessed to you that I did.”
“And you do not any longer?”
“I cannot; the illusion has vanished. Neither
do you love me.” Edward would have interrupted
her, but she begged him to hear her, with a
dignified composure, that convinced him this was
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no sudden burst of resentment, no girlish pique
that he might sooth with flattery and professions.
“A most generous impulse, Edward, led you to
protect an oppressed orphan; and I thought the
devotion of my heart and my life were a small
return to you. It is but a few months since. Is
not love an engrossing passions? But what sacrifices
have you made to it? Oh, Edward! if in
the youth and spring of your affection, I have not
had more power over you, what can I hope from
the future?”
“Hope!—believe every thing, Jane. I will be
as plastic as wax, in your hands. You shall mould
me as you will.”
“No, Edward; I have tried my power over
you, and found it wanting. Broken confidence
cannot be restored.”
“Jane, you are rash; you are giving up independence—
protection. If you reject me, who
will defend you from your aunt? Do you forget
that you are still in her power?”
“No,” replied Jane; “but I have the defence
of innocence, and I do not fear her. It was
not your protection, it was not independence I
sought, it was a refuge in your affection;—that
has failed me. Oh, Edward!” she continued, rising,
“examine your heart as I have examined mine,
and you will find the tie is dissolved that bound us;
there can be no enduring love without sympathy;
our feelings, our pursuits, our plans, our inclinations,
are all diverse.”
“You are unkind, ungrateful, Jane.”
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“I must bear that reproach as I can; but I do
not deserve it, Mr. Erskine.”
Erskine imagined he perceived some relenting
in the faltering of her voice, and he said, “Do not
be implacable, Jane; you are too young, too beautiful,
to treat the follies of youth as if they were incurable;
give me a few months probation, I will
do any thing you require; abandon the club, give
up my friends.”
Jane paused for a moment, but there was no
wavering in her resolution—“No, Mr. Erskine;
we must part now; if I loved you, I could not resist
the pleadings of my heart.”
Erskine entreated—promised every thing; till
convinced that Jane did not deceive him or herself,
his vanity and pride, mortified and wounded,
came to his relief, and changed his entreaties to
sarcasms. He said the rigour that would immolate
every human feeling, would fit her to be the Elect
Lady of a Shaker society; he assured her that he
would emulate her stoicism.
“I am no stoic,” replied Jane; and the tears
gushed from her eyes. “Oh, Erskine! I would
make any exertions, any sacrifices to render you
what I once thought you. I would watch and toil
to win you to virtue—to heaven. If I believed
you loved me, I could still hope, for I know that
affection is self-devoting, and may overcome all
things. Edward,” she continued, with a trembling
voice, “there is one subject, and that nearest to
my heart, on which I discovered soon after our engagement
we were at utter variance. When I
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first heard you trifle with the obligations of religion,
and express a distrust of its truths, I felt my
heart chill. I reproached myself bitterly for having
looked on your insensibility on this subject as
the common carelessness of a gay young man, to
be expected, and forgiven, and easily cured.
These few short months have taught me much;
have taught me, Erskine, not that religion is the only
sure foundation of virtue—that I knew before—
but they have taught me, that religion alone can
produce unity of spirit; alone can resist the cares,
the disappointments, the tempests of life; that it
is the only indissoluble bond—for when the silver
chord is loosed, this bond becomes immortal. I
have felt that my most sacred pleasures and hopes
must be solitary.” Erskine made no reply; he
felt the presence of a sanctified spirit. “You
now know all, Erskine. The circumstances you
have told me this evening, I partly knew before.”
“From Lloyd?” said Edward. “He then knew,
as he insinuated, why the `treasure of your cheek
had faded.' ”
“You do him wrong. He has never mentioned
your name since the morning I left my aunt's. I
heard them, by accident, from John.”
“It is, in truth, time we should part, when you
can give your ear to every idle rumour;” he snatched
his hat, and was going.
Jane laid her hand on his arm, “Yes, it is time,”
she said, “that we should part; but not in anger.
Let us exchange forgiveness, Edward.” Erskine
turned and wept bitterly. For a few gracious
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moments his pride, his self-love, all melted away, and
he felt the value, the surpassing excellence of the
blessing he had forfeited. He pressed the hand
Jane had given him, to his lips fervently, “Oh,
Jane,” he said, “you are an angel; forget my follies,
and think of me with kindness.”
“I shall remember nothing of the past,” she
said, with a look that had `less of earth in it than
heaven,' “but your goodness to me—God bless
you, Edward; God bless you,” she repeated, and
they separated—for ever!
For a few hours Erskine thought only of the irreparable
loss of Jane's affections. Every pure,
every virtuous feeling he possessed, joined in a
clamorous tribute to her excellence, and in a sentence
of self-condemnation that could not be silenced.
But Edward was habitually under the
dominion of self-love, and every other emotion
soon gave place to the dread of being looked upon
as a rejected man. He had not courage to risk
the laugh of his associates, or what would be much
more trying, their affected pity; and to escape it
all, he ordered his servant to pack his clothes,
and make the necessary preparations for leaving
the village in the morning, in the mail-stage for
New-York. He was urged to this step too, by
another motive, arising from a disagreeable affair
in which he had been engaged—the affair which
had induced Mr. Lloyd to make a second attempt
to withdraw him from his vicious associates. At
a recent meeting of the club, the younger Woodhull
had introduced a gentleman who pretended to
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be a Mr. Rivington, from Virginia. Woodhull
had met him at Saratoga Springs. They were kindred
spirits, and, forming a sudden friendship, Rivington
promised Woodhull that, after he had exhausted
the pleasures of the Springs, he would
come to—, and pass a few days with him
before his return to Virginia. Rivington was
a fit companion for his new friend; addicted to a
score of vices; gambling high, and out-drinking,
out-swearing, and out-bullying his comrades. Edward
was certainly far better than any other member
of this precious association. He was, from the
first, disgusted with the stranger, with his gross
manners, and with his manifest indisposition to
pay to him the deference he was accustomed to
receive from the rest of the company. The club
sat later than usual. Rivington's passions became
inflamed by the liquor he had drank. A dispute
arose about the play. Erskine and John Woodhull
were partners. Rivington accused Woodhull of unfair
play. Edward defended his partner. A violent
altercation ensued between them. The lie
was given and retorted in so direct a form as to
afford ample ground for an honourable adjustment
of the dispute.
Rivington said, “If he had to deal with a Virginian—
a man of honour—the quarrel might be
settled in a gentlemanly way; but a snivling cowardly
Yankee had no honour to defend. Edward
was provoked to challenge him; and arrangements
were made for the meeting at day-light in the
morning, in a neighbouring wood, which had
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never been disturbed by a harsher sound than a
sportman's gun. The brothers were to act as seconds.
The parties were all punctual to their appointment.
The morning of which they were going to
make so unhallowed a use, was a most beautiful
one. Nature was in a poetic mood; in a humour
to give her votaries an opportunity to diversify
her realities with the bright creations of their imaginations.
The vapour had diffused itself over
the valley, so that from the hill, which was the
place of rendezvous, it appeared like a placid
lake, that no `breeze was upon;' from whose bosom
rose the green spires of the poplar, rich masses
of maple foliage, and the graceful and widely
spreading boughs of the elm—
—“Jocund day
Stood tip-toe on the misty mountain's top,”
and sent her morning greetings to the white cliffs of
the southern mountain,—brightened the mist that
filled the deep indenting dells between the verdant
heights, resembling them to island hills, and sending
such a flood of light upon the western slopes, that
they shone as if there had been a thousand streams
there rejoicing in the sunbeams. But this appeal
of Nature was unheeded and unnoticed by
these rash young men. Her sacred volume is a
sealed book to those who are inflamed by passion,
or degraded by vice.
The ground was marked out, the usual distance
prescribed by the seconds, and the principals were
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just about to take their stations, when they were
interrupted by Mr. Lloyd, who, in returning from
his morning walk, passed through this wood, which
was within a short distance of his house. On
emerging from the thick wood, into the open
space selected by the young men, they were directly
before him, so that it was impossible for
him to mistake the design of their meeting.
“Confusion!” exclaimed Edward; mortified
that Mr. Lloyd, of all men living, should have
witnessed this scene; and then turning to him, for
Mr. Lloyd was approaching him, “To what, Sir,”
said he haughtily, “do we owe the favour of your
company?”
“Purely to accident, Mr. Erskine, or, I should
say, to Providence, if I may be so happy as to
prevent a rash violation of the laws of God and
man.”
“Stand off, Sir!” said Edward, determined now
to brave Mr. Lloyd's opposition, “and witness, if
you will, for you shall not prevent a brave encounter.”
Mr. Lloyd had interposed himself between Edward
and his adversary, and he did not move from
his station. “Brave encounter!” he replied,
pointing with a smile of contempt to Rivington,
who was shaking as if he had an ague; “that
young man's pale cheeks and trembling limbs do
not look like `impostors to true fear;' they do
not promise the merit of bravery to your encounter,
Mr. Erskine.”
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“The devil take the impertinent fellow!” exclaimed
the elder Woodhull, (Edward's second);
“proceed to your business, gentlemen.”
Erskine placed himself in an attitude to fire,
and raised his arm. Mr. Lloyd remained firm and
immoveable. “Do you mean to take my fire,
Sir?” asked Erskine. “If you continue to stand
there, the peril be upon yourself; the fault rests
with you.”
“I shall risk taking the fire, if you dare risk
giving it,” replied Mr. Lloyd, coolly.
“Curse him!” said Woodhull, “he thinks you
are afraid to fire.”
This speech had the intended effect upon Erskine.
“Give us the signal,” he said, hastily.
The signal was given, and Edward discharged
his pistol. The ball grazed Mr. Lloyd's arm, and
passed off without any other injury. “It was
bravely done,” said he, with a contemptuous coolness,
that increased, if any thing could increase the
shame Erskine felt, the moment he had vented his
passion by the rash and violent act. “We have
been singularly fortunate,” he continued, “considering
thou hadst all the firing to thyself, and two
fair marks. Poor fellow!” he added, turning to
Rivington, “so broad a shield as I furnished for
thee, I should have hoped would have saved some
of this fright.”
John Woodhull had perceived that his friend's
courage, which, the preceding evening, had been
stimulated by the liquor, had vanished with the fog
that clouded his reason; and ever since they came
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on the battle-ground, he had been vainly endeavouring
to screw him up to the sticking point, by
suggesting, in low whispers, such motives as he
thought might operate upon him; but all his efforts
were ineffectual. Rivington was, to use a
vulgar expression, literally `scared out of his
wits.' When the signal was given for firing, he
had essayed to raise his arm, but it was all unstrung
by fear, and he could not move it. The
sound of Erskine's pistol completed his dismay;
he sunk on his knees, dropped his pistol, said he
was willing to own he was no gentleman; he
would beg Mr. Erskine's pardon, and all the gentlemen's
pardon; he would do any thing almost
the gentlemen would say.
John Woodhull felt his own reputation implicated
by his principal's cowardice; and passionate
and reckless, he seized the pistol, and would have
discharged the contents at Rivington; but Mr.
Lloyd, seeing his intention, caught hold of his arm,
wrenched the pistol from him, fired it in the air,
and threw it from him. “Shame on thee, young
man!” he exclaimed, “does the spirit of murder
so possess thee, that it matters not whether thy
arm is raised against friend or foe?”
“He is no friend of mine,” replied Woodhull,
vainly endeavouring to extricate himself from Mr.
Lloyd's manly grasp; he is a coward, and by my
life and sacred honour!”—
“Oh, Mr. Woodhull! sir,” interrupted Rivington,
“I am your friend, sir, and all the gentlemen's
friend, sir. I am much obliged to you, sir,”
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turning to Mr. Lloyd, who could not help laughing at
the eagerness of his cowardice; “I am sorry for
the disturbance, gentlemen, and I wish you all a
good morning, gentlemen!” and so saying, he
walked off the ground as fast as his trembling
limbs could take him.
Mr. Lloyd now released young Woodhull from
his hold; and winding his handkerchief around his
arm, which was slightly bleeding, he said, “I perceive,
gentlemen, there is no further occasion for
my interposition. I think the experience of this
morning will not tempt you to repeat this singular
disturbance of the peace of this community.”
The party were all too thoroughly mortified to
attempt a reply, and they separated. Erskine
felt a most humiliating consciousness of his disgrace,
but he had not sufficient magnanimity to
confess it, nor even to express a regret that he had
wounded a man, who exposed his life to prevent
him from committing a crime. The Woodhulls
were deprived of the pitiful pleasure of sneering
at Mr. Lloyd's want of courage. The younger
brother's arm still ached from his experience of
Mr. Lloyd's physical strength; and they all felt
the inferiority of their boastful, passionate, and
reckless fool-hardiness, to the collected, disinterested
courage of a peaceful man, who had risked
his life in their quarrel.
To fill up the measure of their mortification,
Rivington had not left the village two hours, before
several persons arrived there in pursuit of him.
They informed his new friends, that he was not a
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Virginian, a name that passes among our northern
bloods as synonymous with gentility, high-mindedness,
noble-daring, and other youthful virtues, but
that he was a countryman of their own, a celebrated
swindler, who had lived by his wits, ascending
by regular gradations through the professions of
hostler, dancing-master, and itinerant actor; and
that having lately, by cleverness in managing the
arts of his vocation, possessed himself of a large
sum of money, he had made his debût as gentleman
at the Springs.
After the events of the morning, Mr. Lloyd felt
more anxiety than ever on Jane Elton's account;
and never weary in well-doing, he determined to
make one more effort to rescue Erskine from the
pernicious society and influence of the Woodhulls.
He solicited an interview with him; and without
alluding to the events of the morning, he remonstrated
warmly and kindly against an intimacy, of
which the degradation and the danger were too
evident to need pointing out. He trusted himself
to speak of Jane, of her innocence, her purity,
her trustful affection, her solitariness, her dependance.
At any other time, we cannot think Edward
would have been unmoved by the eloquence of
his appeal; but now he was exasperated by the
mortifications of the morning; and when Mr. Lloyd
said, “Erskine, if Jane Elton knew all, would she
not withdraw her affections from thee?” he replied,
angrily, “She shall know all. I have a right to
expect she will overlook a few foibles; such as
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belong to every man of spirit. She owes me, at
least, so much indulgence. She is bound to me
by ties that cannot be broken—that she certainly
cannot break.” He burst away from Mr. Lloyd,
and went precipitately to Mrs. Harvey's, where
the explanation we have related ensued, and
put a final termination to their unequal alliance.
The speculations of villagers are never at rest
till they know the wherefore of the slightest movements
of the prominent personages that figure on
their theatre. Happily for our heroine, who
was solicitous for a little while to be sheltered
from the scrutiny and remarks of her neighbours,
the affair of the duel soon became public, and sufficiently
accounted for Erskine's abrupt departure.
Jane would have communicated to Mary, her
kind, constant friend Mary Hull, the issue of her
engagement; but it so happened, that she was at
this time absent on a visit to her blind sister.
She felt it to be just, that she should acquaint Mr.
Lloyd with the result of an affair, in which he had
manifested so benevolent and vigilant a care for
her happiness. Perhaps she felt a natural wish,
that he should know his confidence in her had
not been misplaced. She could not speak to him
on the subject, for their intercourse had been suspended
of late; and besides, she was habitually
reserved about speaking of herself. She sat down
to address a note to him; and, after writing a dozen,
each of which offended her in some point—
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either betrayed a want of delicacy towards Erskine,
or a sentiment of self-complacency—either
expressed too much, or too little—she threw them
all into the fire, and determined to leave the communication
to accident.
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CHAPTER XIV.
Oh, wad some pow'r the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
And e'en devotion!
[figure description] Page 225.[end figure description]
A few days after Erskine's departure, Mrs.
Harvey entered Jane's room hastily,—“Our village,”
she exclaimed, “is the most extraordinary
place in the world; wonders cease to be wonderful
among us.”
“What has happened now?” inquired Jane,
“I know not from your face whether to expect
good or evil.”
“Oh evil, my dear, evil enough to grieve and
frighten you. Your wretched cousin David Wilson
has got himself into a scrape at last, from which
all the arts of all his family cannot extricate him.
You know,” she continued, “that we saw an account
in the New-York paper of last week, of a
robbery committed on the mail-stage: the robbers
have been detected and taken, and Wilson, who it
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seems had assumed a feigned name, is among
them.”
“And the punishment is death!” said Jane, in
a tone of sorrow and alarm.
“Yes; so Mr. Lloyd says, by the laws of the
United States, against which he has offended.
Mr. Lloyd has been here, to request that you,
dear Jane, will go to your aunt, and say to her
that he is ready to render her any services in his
power. You know he is acquainted in Philadelphia,
where David is imprisoned, and he may be
of essential use to him.”
“My poor aunt, and Elvira! what misery is
this for them!” said Jane, instinctively transfusing
her own feelings into their bosoms.
“For your aunt it may be,” replied Mrs. Harvey,
“for I think nothing can quite root out the
mother; but as for Elvira, I believe she is too
much absorbed in her own affairs to think of David's
body or soul.”
“I will go immediately to my aunt; but what
has happened to Elvira?”
“Why Elvira, it seems, during her visit to the
west, met with an itinerant french dancing-master,
who became violently enamoured of her, and who
did not sigh or hope in vain. She probably knew
his vocation would be an insuperable obstacle to
her seeing him at home; and so between them
they concerted a scheme to obviate that difficulty,
by introducing him to Mrs. Wilson as a french
physician, from Paris, who should volunteer his
services to cure her scrofula, which, it is said, has
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lately become more troublesome than ever. By
way of a decoy, he was to go upon the usual quack
practice of `no cure no pay.”'
“And this,” exclaimed Jane, “is the sick physician
we heard was at my aunt's?”
“Yes, poor fellow, and sick enough he has
been. He arrived just at twilight, last week on
Monday, and having tied his horse, he was tempted,
by seeing the door of the chaise-house half
open, to go in there to arrange his dress previous
to making his appearance before Miss Wilson.
He had hardly entered, before old Jacob coming
along, saw the door open, and giving the careless
boys (whom he supposed in fault) a reversed blessing,
he shut and fastened it. It was chilly weather,
you know, but there the poor fellow was obliged
to stay the live-long night, and till Jacob, sallying
forth to do his morning chores, discovered him
half-starved and half-frozen. But,” said Mrs.
Harvey, “you are prepared to go to your aunt,
and I am detaining you—you may ask the sequel
of Elvira.”
“Oh no, let me hear the rest of it; only be
short, dear Mrs. Harvey, for if any thing is to be
done for that wretched young man, not a moment
should be lost.”
“My dear, I will be as short as possible, but
my words will not all run out of my mouth at once,
as they melted out of Gulliver's horn. Well, this
poor french doctor, dancer, or whatever he is,
effected an interview with Elvira, before he was
seen by the mother; and though no doubt she was
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shocked by his unsentimental involuntary vigil,
she overlooked it, and succeeded in palming him
off on the old lady as a foreign physician, who had
performed sundry marvellous cures in his western
progress. Mrs. Wilson submitted her disease to
his prescription. In the meanwhile, he, poor
wretch, as if a judgment had come upon him
for his sins, has been really and seriously sick, in
consequence of the exposure to the dampness of
a September night, in his nankins; and Elvira has
been watching and nursing him according to the
best and most approved precedents to be found in
ballads and romances.”
“Is it possible,” asked Jane, “that aunt Wilson
should be imposed on for so long a time?
Elvira is ingenious, and ready, but she is not a
match for her quick-sighted mother.”
“No, so it has proved in this case. The doctor
became better, and the patient worse; his prescriptions
have had a dreadful effect upon the
scrofula; and as the pain increased, your aunt became
irritable and suspicious. Last evening, she
overheard a conversation between the hopeful
lovers, which revealed the whole truth to her.”
“And what has she done?”
“What could she do, my dear, but turn the
good for nothing fellow out of doors, and exhaust
her wrath upon Elvira. The dreadful news she
received from David late last evening, must have
driven even this provoking affair out of her troubled
mind. But,” said Mrs. Harvey, rising and
going to the window, “who is that coming through
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our gate? Elvira, as I live!—what can she be after
here?”
“Aunt has probably sent for me,” replied Jane;
and she hastened to open the door for her cousin,
who entered evidently in a flutter. “I was just
going to your mother's,” said Jane.
“Stay a moment,” said Elvira; “I must speak
with you. Come into your room,” and she hastened
forward to Jane's apartment. She paused
a moment on seeing Mrs. Harvey, and then begged
she would allow her to speak with her cousin
alone.
Mrs. Harvey left the apartment, and Elvira
turned to Jane, and was beginning with great eagerness
to say something, but she paused—unpinned
her shawl, took it off, and then put it on
again—and then asked Jane, if she had heard from
Erskine; and, without waiting a reply, which did
not seem to be very ready, she continued, “How
glad I was he fought that duel; it was so spirited.
I wish my lover would fight a duel. It would have
been delightful if he had only been wounded.”
Jane stared at her cousin, as if she had been
smitten with distraction. “Elvira,” she said, with
more displeasure than was often extorted from her,
“you are an incurable trifler! How is it possible,
that at this time you can waste a thought upon
Erskine or his duel?”
“Oh! my spirits run away with me, dear Jane;
but I do feel very miserable,” she replied, affecting
to wipe away the tears from her dry eyes.
Poor David!—I am wretched about him. He has
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disgraced us all. I suppose you have heard, too,
about Lavoisier. Every body has heard of mother's
cruelty to him and to me. Oh, Jane! he is
the sweetest creature—the most interesting being”—
“Elvira,” replied Jane, coldly, “I do not like
to reproach you in your present affliction; but you
strangely forget all that is due to your sex, by
keeping up such an intercourse with a stranger—
by ranting in this way about a wandering dancing-master—
a foreigner.”
“A foreigner, indeed! as if that was against
him. Why, my dear, foreigners are much more
genteel than Americans; and besides, Lavoisier is
a Count in disguise. Oh! if you could only hear
him speak French; it is as soft as an Eolian harp.
Now Jane, darling, don't be angry with me. I am
sure there never was any body so persecuted and
unfortunate as I am. Nobody feels for me.”
“It is impossible, Elvira, to feel for those who
have no feeling for themselves.”
“Oh, Jane! you are very cruel,” replied Elvira,
whimpering; “I have been crying ever since
I received poor David's letter, and it was about
that I came here; but you do not seem to have
any compassion for our sorrows, and I am afraid
to ask for what I came for.”
“I cannot afford to waste any compassion on
unnecessary or imaginary sorrows, Elvira. The
real and most horrible calamity that has fallen upon
you, requires all the exertions and feelings of
your friends.”
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“That's spoken like yourself, dear, blessed
Jane,” said Elvira, brightening; “now I am sure
you will not refuse me—you are always so generous
and kind.”
“I have small means to be generous,” replied
Jane; “but let me know, at once, what it is you
want, for I am in haste to go to your mother.”
“You are a darling, Jane—you always was.”
“What is it you wish, Elvira?” inquired Jane
again, aware that Elvira's endearments were always
to be interpreted as a prelude to the asking
of a favour.
“I wish, dear Jane,” she replied, summoning
all her resolution to her aid; “I wish you to lend
me twenty dollars. If you had seen David's piteous
letter to me, you could not refuse. It is
enough to make any body's heart ache; he is
down in a dark disagreeable dungeon, with nothing
to eat, from morning to night, but bread and water.
He petitions for a little money so earnestly,
it would make your heart bleed to read his letter.
Mother declares she will not send him a
dollar.”
“How do you intend sending the money to
him?” asked Jane, rising and going to her bureau.
“Oh!” replied Elvira, watching Jane's movements,
“you are a dear soul. It is easy enough
getting the money to him. I heard, this morning,
that Mr. Harris is going on to the south; he
starts this afternoon. I shall not mind walking to
his house, though it is four miles from here; I
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shall go immediately, and I shall charge him to
deliver the money himself. It will be such a relief
and comfort to my unfortunate brother.”
There seemed to be something in Elvira's eagerness
to serve her brother, and in her newly
awakened tenderness for him, that excited Jane's
suspicions; for she paused in the midst of counting
the money, turned round, and fixed a penetrating
look upon her cousin. Elvira, without appearing
to notice any thing peculiar in her expression,
said, (advancing towards her,) “Do be quick,
dear Jane; it is a great way to Mr. Harris's; I
am afraid I shall be late.”
Jane had finished counting the money.
“Twenty dollars, is it, dear?” said Elvira, hastily
and with a flutter of joy seizing it. “There
are five dollars more,” she continued, looking at a
single bill Jane had laid aside; “let me have that
too, dear; it will not be too much for David.”
“I cannot,” replied Jane; “that is all I have
in the world, and that I owe to Mrs. Harvey.”
“La, Jane! what matter is that; you can have
as much money as you want of Erskine; and besides,
you need not be afraid of losing it; I shall
soon be of age, and then I shall pay you, for mother
can't keep my portion from me one day after
that. Then I will have a cottage. Lavoisier says,
we can have no idea, in this country, how beautiful,
a cottage is, à la Française. Do, dearest, let me
have the other five.”
“No,” said Jane, disgusted with Elvira's importunity
and levity, and replacing the note in her
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drawer; “I have given you all I possess in the
world, and you must be contented with it.”
Elvira saw that she should obtain no more. She
hastily kissed Jane; and after saying, “Good bye,
my dear, go to mother's, and stay till I come,”
she flew out of the house, exulting that her false
pretences had won so much from her cousin. At
a short distance from Mrs. Harvey's she joined her
lover, according to a previous arrangement between
them.
Lavoisier had procured a chaise from a neighbouring
farmer, which was principally devoted to
the transportation of its worthy proprietor and the
partner of his joys to and from the meeting-house
on Sundays and lecture days, but was occasionally
hired out to oblige such persons as might stand in
need of such an accommodation, and could afford
to pay what was `consistent' for it.
“Allons—marche donc!” said the dancing philosopher
to his horse, after seating Elvira; and
turning to her, he pressed one of her hands to his
lips, saying, “Pardonnez-moi,”—adding, as he
dropt it, “tout nous sourit dans la nature.”
Elvira pointed out the road leading to the
dwelling of a justice of the peace, a few miles beyond
the line which divides the State of Massachusetts
from that of New-York. They arrived
at this temple of Hymen, and of petty litigation,
about eleven in the morning. The justice was at
work on his farm; a messenger was soon despatched
for him, with whom he returned in about thirty
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minutes, which seemed as many hours to our anxious
lovers.
“Dey say,” said Lavoisier, “l'amour fait passer
le temps, but in l'Amerique it is very differente.”
The justice took Lavoisier aside, and inquired
whether there were any objections to the marriage,
on the part of the lady's friends.
“Objections!” said Lavoisier, “it is the most
grande félicité to every body. You cannot conceive.”
On being further interrogated, Lavoisier confessed
that they came from Massachusetts; and
being asked why they were not married at the
place of the lady's residence, he said that “some
personnes without sensibilité may wait, but for
mademoiselle and me, it is impossible.”
Elvira being examined apart, in like manner,
declared that her intended husband's impatience
and her own dislike to the formality of a publishment,
had led them to avoid the usual mode and
forms of marriage.
The justice, who derived the chief profits of his
office from clandestine matches, and who had
made these inquiries more because it was a common
custom, than from any scruples of conscience,
or sense of official duty, was perfectly satisfied;
and after requiring from the bridegroom the usual
promise to love and cherish; and from the bride,
to love, cherish, and obey; pronounced them man
and wife, and recorded the marriage in a book
containing a record of similar official acts, and of
divers suits and the proceedings therein.
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The bride and bridegroom immediately set out
for the North River, intending to embark there for
New-York.
“These things do manage themselves better in
France,” said Lavoisier. “Les nôces qui se font
ici—the marriages you make here—are as solemn
que la sepulture—as to bury. Le Cupidon ici a
l'air bien sauvage; if de little god was paint here,
they would make him work as de justice. Eh
bien!” said he, after a pause, “chacun a son
métier; without some fermiers there should not
be some maîtres-de-danse, some professeurs of de
elegant arts: et sans les justices, you would not
be mon ange—you would not be Madame Lavoisier.”
Elvira was so occupied with the change in her
condition, and the prospect before her, that she
did not observe the direction in which they were
travelling; and by mistake they took the road
leading back through a cleft in the mountain towards
a village in the vicinity of the one they had
left.
As they ascended the top of a hill, their steed
began to prick his ears at the distant sound of a
drum and fife, which the fugitives soon perceived
to be part of the pride, pomp, and circumstance
of a militia training. The village tavern was in
full view, and within a short distance, and the
company was performing some marching evolutions
a little beyond. An election of captain had
just taken place; and the suffrages of the citizen
soldiers had fallen upon a popular favourite, who
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had taken his station as commanding officer, and
was showing his familiarity with the marches and
counter-marches of Eaton's Manual. He had
been just promoted from the rank of first lieutenant;
and previous to the dismissal of his men,
which was about to take place, he drew them up
in front of the village store, when, according to
custom, and with due regard to economy, which
made the store a more eligible place for his purposes
than the tavern, he testified his gratitude for
the honour which had been done him by copious
libations of cherry rum, and of St. Croix, which
was diluted or not, according to the taste of each
individual. The men soon began to grow merry;
and some of them swore that they would not scruple
to vote for the captain for major-general, if
they had the choosing of that officer. The venders
of gingerbread felt the influence of the
good fellowship and generosity which the captain
had set in motion. A market for a considerable
portion of their commodity was soon
furnished by the stimulated appetites of the
men, and a portion was distributed by the more
gallant among them, to some spectators of the
softer sex, who were collected upon the occasion.
The happy pair in the mean time had arrived
at the tavern. Elvira's attention had not been
sufficiently awakened by any thing but the conversation
of her husband, to notice where she
was, until she was called to a sense of her embarrassing
situation by the landlord's sign, as it was
gently swinging in the wind between two high
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posts, and exhibited a successful specimen of village
sign-painting, the distinguished name of the
host, and the age of his establishment.
Elvira directed the Frenchman to stop and turn
his horse, which he did immediately, without understanding
the object.
“Eh bien!” said he, his eyes still fixed on the
young soldiers; “Il me vient une idée. I shall
tell you.” He went on to signify that he would
immediately offer to teach the art of fencing and
of using the broad-sword; that he would instruct
them “dans l'art militaire, à la mode de Napoleon;”
and that, after giving a few lessons, he would make
a tournament, in which he would let them see,
among other things, how Bonaparte conquered
the world; how the cavalry could trample down
flying infantry; and how the infantry, in such
circumstances, could defend themselves; and
that he would, in this way, make himself “bien
riche.”
During all this time, Elvira was collecting her
wits to know what the emergency required; and
as soon as Lavoisier's volley ceased, she begged
him to turn again, thinking she might best avoid
observation by seeking shelter in the tavern till
dark.
They immediately alighted, and Lavoisier, after
showing his bride to her apartment, descended
to give some orders about his horse; when, to his
astonishment, he was accosted by the jolly landlord,
whose name was Thomas, “Ha, mounsheer,
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I guess you are the man who staid with me a fortnight
two years ago, when I kept house in York
state, and borried my chaise to go a jaunting, and
told me to take care of your trunk, that had nothing
but a big stone in it, till you came back. I
got my horse and chaise agin,” continued he, seizing
the astounded professor of the dancing and
military arts by the collar, “and now I'll take my
recknin out of your skin, if I can't get it any other
way.”
At this moment the new captain and a considerable
number of his merry men entered the house.
After they had learned the circumstances of the
case, from what passed between monsieur and the
landlord, one of them cried out, “ride him on a
rail—let him take his steps in the air!”
“He ought to dance on nothing, with a rope
round his neck,” said Thomas.
“No, no,” said a third, “he has taken steps
enough; that flashy jacket had better be swapped
for one of tar and feathers.”
“Messieurs, messieurs,” said Lavoisier, “je suis
bien malheureux. I am very sorry. H etoit mon
malheur—it was my misère to not pay monsieur
Thomas, and it was his malheur not to be paid. I
shall show you my honneur, when I shall get de
l'argent. Il faut se soumettre aux circonstances.
De honesty of every body depend upon what dey
can do. I am sure, every body is gentleman in
dis country. C'est un beau pays.”
By this time one of the corporals had set a skillet
of tar on the fire, and another, at the direction
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of the lieutenant, who seemed to take upon himself
the command of the party, had brought a pillow
from a bed in an adjoining room. The pillow
was very expeditiously uncased, and a sufficient
rent made in the ticking. The astonished
Français stood aghast, as his bewildered mind
caught a faint notion of the purpose of these preparations.
He changed his tones of supplication
to those of anger. “Vous êtes des sauvages!” he
exclaimed. “You are monstres, diables! You do
not merit to have some gentiman to teach la belle
danse in dis country.”
“He'll cackle like a blue jay,” said the corporal,
“by the time we get the feathers on
him.”
“They are hen's feathers,” said the lieutenant,
“but they'll do. Now ensign Sacket get on to the
table, and corporal you hand him the skillet of tar.
You Mr. Le Vosher, or whatever your name is,
stand alongside of the table.”
Monsieur believed his destiny to be fixed—“Oh,
mon Dieu!” he exclaimed; “le diable! qu'est
que c'est que ça? Vat you do—vat is dat?”
“Tar, tar, nothing but tar—stand up to the
table,” was the reply.
“Sacristie! put dat sur ma tête—on my head
et sur mes habits—my clothes; mes beaux habits
de noces—my fine clothes for de marriage! Oh,
messieurs, de grace, pardonnez moi; vous gaterez—
you will spoil all my clothes.”
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“Blast your clothes!” said the corporal; “pull
them off.”
“Je vous remercie, tank you gentlemen;” and
he very deliberately divested himself of a superfine
light blue broad-cloth coat, an embroidered
silk vest, a laced cravat, and an under cravat of
coarser fabric. He prolonged the operation as
much as possible, making continued efforts to conciliate
the compassion of his persecutors, which
only added to their merriment.
At last all pretences for delay were over; every
voice was hushed. The ensign began to uplift
the fatal skillet, when all composure of mind
forsook the affrighted bridegroom, and he uttered
a loud hysteric shriek. Favoured by the general
stillness, Elvira distinctly heard his voice, and
knew at once that it betokened the extremity of
distress. She rushed to the rescue, screaming for
mercy. The men fell back, leaving their trembling
victim in the centre of the room. “Ah! ma chère,
quels bêtes!” he exclaimed, with a grimace that
produced a peal of laughter. One of the men
threw him his coat, another his vest; while the
corporal set down the skillet, saying, “If it had
not been for his gal, I'd have given him a wedding
suit.”
But we rather think monsieur would have been
released without the interposition of his distressed
bride, for a yankey mob is proverbially good-natured,
and the merry men had enlisted in the landlord's
cause, for the sake of a joke, rather than
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with the intention of inflicting pain. After the
ludicrous adventure was over—ludicrous to the
jolly trainers, but sad enough to the fugitive pair—
Elvira deemed it expedient to press their retreat.
Monsieur brought the chaise to the door, and they
drove away, amidst the loud huzzas and merry
clappings of the jovial company.
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CHAPTER XV.
—Even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd
Chalice, to our own lips.
Macbeth.
[figure description] Page 242.[end figure description]
David Wilson, not long after the affair of the
robbery of his mother's desk, went to New-York,
in order to see his comrades, who were imprisoned
there, and, if possible, to abate their demands
on his purse. He succeeded in doing this; but
having fallen in (attracted doubtless by natural affinities)
with other companions as wicked, and
more desperate, he soon spent in that city, which
affords remarkable facilities for ridding men of
their money, all that remained of the five hundred
dollars. He preyed on others for a little time, as
he had been their prey; and, finally reduced to
extreme want, he joined two of his new associates
in the attempt on the southern mail, which ended
in his detection and commitment to jail in Philadelphia,
where he was now awaiting a capital trial.
A particular account of the whole affair, accompanied
with letters from her son, was transmitted
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to Mrs. Wilson, who seemed now to be visited on
every side with the natural and terrible retribution
of her maternal sins.
After Elvira's departure, with all the profits of
her little school, Jane did not delay another moment
to go to her aunt's, in order to communicate
to her Mr. Lloyd's kind offer of assistance, and
to extend to her any aid or consolation in her
own power.
She found Mrs. Wilson alone, but not in a frame
of mind that indicated any just feelings. She received
her niece coldly. After a silence of a few
moments, which Jane wished but knew not how to
break, she inquired of Mrs. Wilson, whether she
had any more information respecting David than
was public?
Her aunt replied, she had not. She understood
the particulars were all in the paper, even to his
name; she thought that might have been omitted;
but people always seemed to delight in publishing
every one's misfortunes.
Jane asked if the letters expressed any doubt
that David would be convicted?
“None,” Mrs. Wilson said. “To be sure,”
she added, “I have a letter from David, in which
he begs me to employ counsel for him; so I suppose
he thinks it possible that he might be cleared;
but a drowning man catches at straws.”
“Do you know,” inquired Jane, “the names
of the eminent lawyers in Philadelphia? Mr. Lloyd
will be best able to inform you whom to select
among them. I will go to him immediately.”
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“No, no, child; I have made up my mind upon
that subject. It would be a great expense. There
is no conscience in city lawyers; they would devour
all my substance, and do me no good after
all. No, no—I shall leave David entirely in the
hands of Providence.”
“And can you, aunt,” said Jane, “acquiesce in
your son's being cut off in the spring of life, without
an effort to save him—without an effort to
procure him a space for repentance and reformation?”
“Do not presume, Jane Elton,” replied Mrs.
Wilson, “to instruct me in my duties. A space
for repentance! A day—an hour—a moment is
as good as an eternity for the operations of the
Spirit. Many, at the foot of the gallows, have
repented, and have died exulting in their pardon
and new-born hope.”
“Yes,” replied Jane; “and there have been
many who have thus repented and rejoiced, and
then been reprieved; and have they then shown
the only unquestionable proof of genuine penitence—
a renewed spirit? Have they kept the
commandments, for by this shall ye know that
they are the disciples of Christ? No; they have
returned to their old sins, and been tenfold worse
than at first.”
“I tell you,” said Mrs. Wilson, impatiently,
“you are ignorant, child; you are still in the bond
of iniquity; you cannot spiritually discern. There
is more hope, and that is the opinion of some of
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[figure description] Page 245.[end figure description]
our greatest divines, of an open outrageous transgressor,
than of one of a moral life.”
“Then,” replied Jane, “there is more hope of
a harvest from a hard bound, neglected field, than
from that which the owner has carefully ploughed
and sowed, and prepared for the sun and the
rains of heaven.”
“The kingdom of grace is very different from
the kingdom of nature,” answered Mrs. Wilson.
“The natural man can do nothing towards his
own salvation. Every act he performs, and every
prayer he offers, but provokes more and more the
wrath of the Almighty.”
Jane made no reply; but she raised her hands
and eyes as if she deprecated so impious a doctrine,
and Mrs. Wilson went on: “Do not think
my children are worse than others; you, Jane,
are as much a child of wrath, and so is every son
and daughter of Adam, as he is—all totally depraved—
totally corrupt. You may have been under
more restraint, and not acted out yours sins;
but no thanks to you;” and she continued, fixing
her large gray eyes stedfastly on Jane, “there are
beside my son who would not seem better, if they
had not friends to keep their secrets for them.”
Mrs. Wilson had, for very good reasons, never before
alluded to the robbery of her desk, since the
morning it was committed; but she was now provoked
to foul means to support her argument, tottering
under the assault of facts.
Jane did not condescend to notice the insinuation;
she felt too sincere a pity for the miserable
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[figure description] Page 246.[end figure description]
self-deluded woman; but, still anxious that some
effort should be made for David, she said to Mrs.
Wilson, “Is there, then, nothing to be done for
your unhappy son?”
“Nothing, child, nothing; he has gone out from
me, and he is not of me; his blood be upon his
own head; I am clear of it. My `foot standeth
on an even place.' My case is not an uncommon
one,” she contined, as if she would by this vain
babbling, silence the voice within. “The saints of
old—David, and Samuel, and Eli, were afflicted
as I am, with rebellious children. I have planted
and I have watered, and if it is the Lord's will to
withhold the increase, I must submit.”
“Oh, aunt!” exclaimed Jane, interrupting and
advancing towards her, “do not—do not, for your
soul's sake, indulge any longer this horrible delusion.
You have more children,” she continued,
falling on her knees, and taking one of her aunt's
hands in both hers, and looking like a rebuking
messenger from Heaven, “be pitiful to them; be
merciful to your own soul. You deceive yourself.
You may deceive others; but God is not
mocked.”
Mrs. Wilson was conscience stricken. She sat
as motionless as a statue; and Jane went on with
the courage of an Apostle to depicture, in their
true colours, her character and conduct. She
made her realize, for a few moments at least, the
peril of her soul. She made her feel, that her
sound faith, her prayers, her pretences, her meeting-goings,
were nothing—far worse than nothing
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[figure description] Page 247.[end figure description]
in his sight, who cannot be deceived by the daring
hypocrisies, the self-delusions, the refuges of lies,
of his creatures. She described the spiritual disciple
of Jesus; and then presented to Mrs. Wilson
so true an image of her selfishness, her pride,
her domestic tyranny, and her love of money, that
she could not but see that it was her very self.
There was that in Jane's looks, and voice, and
words, that was not to be resisted by the wretched
woman; and like the guilty king, when he saw the
record on the wall, her “countenance was changed,
her thoughts were troubled, and her knees smote
one against the other.”
At this moment they were interrupted by the
entrance of Mr. Lloyd. Jane rose, embarrassed
for her aunt and herself, and walked to the window.
Mrs. Wilson attempted to speak, to rise;
she could do neither, and she sunk back on her
chair, convulsed with misery and passion. Mr.
Lloyd mistook her agitation for the natural wailings
of a mother, and with instinctive benevolence
he advanced to her, and kindly taking her hand,
said, “Be composed, I pray; I have intelligence
that will comfort thee.”
“What is it?” inquired Jane, eager to allay the
storm she had raised.
Mrs. Wilson was still unable to speak.
“Thy son has escaped, Mrs. Wilson, and is,
before this, beyond the reach of his country's
laws. Here is a letter addressed to thee, which
came enclosed in one to me.” Mr. Lloyd laid
the letter on Mrs. Wilson's lap, but she was unable
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to open it or even to hold it. Her eyes were
fixed, her hands firmly closed, and she continued
to shiver with uncontrollable emotion. “She is
quite unconscious,” he said, “she does not hear a
word I say to her.”
Jane flew to her assistance, spoke to her, entreated
her to answer, bathed her temples and
her hands—but all without effect. “Oh!” she
exclaimed, terrified and dismayed, “I have killed
her.”
“Do not be so alarmed,” said Mr. Lloyd, “there
is no occasion for it; the violence of her emotion
has overcome her, it is the voice of nature; let us
convey her to her bed.”
Jane called assistants, and they removed her to
her own room, and placed her on her bed.
“See,” whispered Mr. Lloyd to Jane, after a
few moments, “she is becoming composed already;
leave her for a little time with this domestic—
I have much to say to thee.”
Jane followed him to the parlour. He took
both her hands, and said, his face radiant with joy,
“Jane, many daughters have done virtuously, but
thou excellest them all. Nay, do not tremble,
unless it be for the sin of having kept from me so
long the blessed intelligence of this morning.”
Poor Jane tried to stammer out an apology for
her reserve, but Mr. Lloyd interrupted her by
saying playfully, “I understand it all; I am too
old, too rigid, too—quakerish, to be a young lady's
confidant.”
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“Oh, say not so,” exclaimed Jane, gathering
courage from his kindness; “you have been my
benefactor, my guardian, my kindest friend; forgive
my silence—I fell it all—I have always felt
it; perhaps most, when I seemed most insensible,
most reckless. Mr. Lloyd looked gratified beyond
expression; it cost him an effort to interrupt
her, for there is perhaps nothing more delightful
than the merited praises of those we love. But
he said, “Nay, my sweet friend, it will be my
turn next, if thou dost not stop, and we shall indeed
be, as the French name my brethren, a
house of Trembleurs. I have a great deal to tell
thee; our joys have clustered. What sayest thou
Jane, to another walk to old John's, with as
strange, and a more welcome guide, than your
fitful night wanderer? I have no time to lose in
enigmas; our despatches were brought by a sailor,
a fine good-natured, hardy looking fellow, who
came to my house this morning. I was wondering
what he could be doing so far from his element,
when Mary, who returned to us yesterday,
opened the door for him, and exclaimed, with a
ludicrous mixture of terror and joy, “The Lord
have mercy on us! is it you, or your ghost,
Jemmy?” The sailor gave her a truly professional,
and most unghostly, smack, and replied between
crying and laughing, “I am no ghost, Mary,
as you may see; but excuse me, Mary, (for Mary
had stepped back, a little embarrassed by the involuntary
freedom of her friend) I was so glad, I
could not help it. No, no, Mary, I am no ghost,
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but a prodigal that's come back, thanks to the
Lord! a little better than I went.” James, who
is indeed the long lost son of our good friend John
of the Mountain, went on to detail his experiences
to Mary, who by turns raised her hands and eyes
in wonder and devout thankfulness. The amount
of it is, for their joy overflowed all barriers of reserve,
he left here ten years ago in despair, because
Mary would not marry him, and sailed to
the Mediterranean; the poor fellow was taken by
the Algerines, and after suffering almost incredibly
for six years, he was so happy as to procure his
freedom along with some English captives. After
his release, he said he could not endure the thought
of coming to his father and mother quite destitute;
for, as he said to Mary, though he was a wild lad,
and had a fancy to follow the sea, her cruelty
would not have driven him to leave them, if he
had not hoped to get something to comfort their
old age with. He wrote them an account of his
sufferings, and of an engagement he had made to
go to Calcutta in the service of an English merchantman.
The letters it seems never reached
here. He went to India; many circumstances
occurred to advance him in the favour of his employer;
his integrity, which, he said, the tears
streaming from his eyes, was “all owing to the
teachings and examples of his good old parents,”
and his intelligence, “thanks to his country, which
took care to give the poor man learning,” occasioned
his being employed in the company's service,
and sent with some others into the interior of
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India on business of great hazard and importance,
the success of which his employers attributed to
him, and rewarded him most liberally. All these
facts came out inevitably in the course of his narrative,
for he spoke not boastfully, but with simplicity
and gratitude. He has returned with enough
to purchase a farm, and give to his parents all that
they want of this world; and, what our friend
Mary thinks best of all, he has come home a
Methodist, having been made one by a missionary
of that zealous sect in India. If I have not misinterpreted
Mary's glistening eye, this fact will
cost me my housekeeper.”
“Dear, dear Mary!” exclaimed Jane, brushing
away the tears of sympathy and joy that Mr.
Lloyd's narrative had brought to her eyes, “and
John, and old Sarah. Oh, it is as beautiful a conclusion
of their lives, as if it had been conjured up
by a poet.”
“Ah, Jane,” replied Mr. Lloyd, “there are
realities in the kind dispositions of Providence
more blessed than a poet can dream of; and there
are virtues in real life,” he continued, smiling,
“that might lend a persuasive grace to the page
of a moralist, it is of those I must now speak.”
“Not now,” said Jane, hastily rising, “I must
go to my aunt.”
“At least then, take these letters with thee,
the levity of one will give thee some pain; in the
other, the wretched Wilson has done thee late
justice. Now go, my blessed friend, to thy aunt;
would that thou couldst minister to her mind,
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distracted by these terrible events. Oh that
power might be given to thy voice to awaken her
conscience from its deep, oblivious, sleep!”
It was a remarkable proof of Mr. Lloyd's habitual
grace, that he did not forget, at this moment,
that Jane could not work miracles without
supernatural assistance.
There is not a happier moment of existence
than that which a benevolent being enjoys, when
he knows that the object of his solicitude and love
has passed safely through trial, is victorious over
temptation, and has overcome the world. This
was the joy that now a thousand fold requited Mr.
Lloyd for all his sufferings in the cause of our heroine.
Would Mr. Lloyd have been equally happy
in the proved virtue of his favourite, if hope
had not brightened his dim future with her sweetest
visions? Certainly not. He who hath wonderfully
made us, has, in wisdom, implanted the
principle of self-love in our bosoms; and let the
enthusiast rave as he will, it is neither the work
of grace nor of discipline to eradicate it; but it
may, and if we would be good, it must be modified,
controlled, and made subservient to the benefit
and happiness of others.
Mr. Lloyd had no very definite plans for the
future; but his horizon was brightening with a
coming day; and, without vanity or presumption,
he trusted all would be well.
Jane returned to her aunt's apartment, and
found her in a sullen stupor. She did not seem to
notice; at any rate, she made no reply to Jane's
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kind inquiries, and she, after drawing the curtains
and dismissing the attendant, sat down to the perusal
of the letters Mr. Lloyd had given to her.
The first she read was from Erskine to Mr. Lloyd,
and as it was not long, and was rather characteristic,
we shall take the liberty to transcribe it for
the benefit of our readers.
“Dear Sir,
“In returning to my lodgings, late last evening,
I was accosted by a man, muffled in a cloak. I
recognised his voice at once. It was our unfortunate
townsman, Wilson. He has succeeded à
merveille in an ingenious plan of escape from durance,
and sails in the morning for one of the West
India islands, where he will, no doubt, make his
debût as pirate, or in some other character for
which his training has equally qualified him. A
precious rascal he is indeed; but, allow me a
phrase of your fraternity, Sir, I had no light to
give him up to justice, after he had trusted to me;
and more than that, for he informs me, that he
had, since his confinement, written to the Woodhulls
to engage me as counsel, and through them
he learnt the fact of my being in this city. This
bound me, in some sort, to look upon the poor devil
as my client; and, as it would have been my
duty to get him out of the clutches of the law, it
would have been most ungracious to have put him
into them you know, since his own cleverness, instead
of mine, has extricated him. He has explained
to me, and he informs me has
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communicated to you, (for he says he cannot trust his mother
to make them public,) the particulars of the
sequestration of the old woman's money. I think
Miss Elton never imparted to you the event that
led to the sudden engagement, from which she
has chosen to absolve me; and you have yet to
learn, that there is generosity, disinterestedness in
the world, that may rival the virtue which reposes
under the shadow of the broad-brim. But, your
pardon. I have wiped out all scores. The reception
I have met with in this finest of cities, has
been such as to make me look upon the incidents
of an obscure village as mere bagatelles, not worthy
of a sigh from one who can bask in the broad
sunshine of ladies favour and fortune's gifts.
One word more, en passant, of Wilson's explanation.
I rejoice in it sincerely, on Miss Elton's
account. She deserved to have suffered a little
for her childishness in holding herself bound by an
exacted promise, for having put herself in a situation
in which her guilt would have seemed apparent
to any one but a poor dog whom love had
hood-winked—pro tempore. She is too young
and too beautiful a victim for the altar of conscience.
However, I forgive her, her scruples,
her fanaticism, and her cruelties; and wish her all
happiness in this world and the next, advising her
not to turn anchorite here, for the sake of advancement
there.
“I know not when I shall return to village life:
stale, flat, and unprofitable. This gay metropolis
has cured me of my rural tastes; and, as I flatter
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myself, fashion's cannie hand has quite effaced my
rusticity.
“By a lucky chance I met the son of your proteg
è, John, yesterday. The poor dog's `hair-breadth
'scapes' will make the villagers stare, all
unused as they are to the marvellous. I told him,
by way of a welcome to his country, I should pay
his expenses home. This I hope you, Sir, will
accept in expiation of all my sins against the old
basket-maker.
“With many wishes that you may find a new and
more pliant subject for your mentor genius, I remain,
Sir, your most obedient,
“humble servant,
“E. Erskine.
“N. B. My regards to Miss Elton. Tell her I
look at the windows of our print shops every day,
in the expectation of seeing, among their gay show,
her lovely figure chosen by one of the sons of Apollo,
to personate the stern lady, Justice, (whom
few seek and none love) poising her scales in solitary
dignity.”
“And is this the man,” thought Jane, as she
folded the letter, “that I have loved—that I fancied
loved me?”—and her heart rose in devout thankfulness
for the escape she had made from an utter
wreck of her happiness.
She next read Wilson's letter to Mr. Lloyd. It
began with the particulars of his late escape,
which seemed to possess his mind more than any
thing else. He then said, that being about to
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enter on a new voyage, he wished to lighten his soul
of as much of its present cargo of sin as possible.
He stated, and we believe with sincerity, that he
had intended, if it ever became necessary, to assert
Jane's innocence; but that, as long as no one
believed her guilty, he had thought it fair to slip
his neck out of the yoke; and now, that every
body might know how good she was, he wished
Mr. Lloyd to make known all the particulars of the
transaction. He then went on to
detaiil as much as
he knew of her visit to the mountain, which had
led to her subsequent involvement. He expressed
no remorse for the past, no hope of the future.
His wish to exculpate Jane had arisen from a deep
feeling of her excellence, and seemed to be the
last ray of just or kindly feeling that his dark,
guilty spirit emitted.
Jane had scarcely finished reading the letters,
when her attention was called to her aunt, who
had been thrown into a state of agitation almost
amounting to frenzy, by the perusal of her son's
farewell letter to herself, which Mr. Lloyd had
placed on the pillow beside her, believing that it
merely contained such account of David's escape
and plans, as would have a tendency to allay the
anguish of her mind, which he still supposed arose
solely from her apprehensions for her son's life.
But Mr. Lloyd was too good even to conceive of
the bitterness of a malignant exasperated spirit,
wrought to madness, as Wilson's was, by his mother's
absolute refusal to make any effort to save
his life.
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The letter was filled with execrations. “If I
have a soul,” he said, “eternity will be spent in
cursing her who has ruined it;” but he did not
fear the future—hell was a bugbear to frighten
children. “You,” he continued, “neither fear
it, nor believe it; for if you did, your religion
would be something besides a cloak to hide your
hard, cruel heart. Religion! what is it but a
dream, a pretence? I might have believed it, if I
had seen more like Jane Elton—whom you have
trodden on, wrongfully accused, when you knew
her innocent. Mother, mother! oh, that I must
call you so!—as I do it, I howl a curse with every
breath—you have destroyed me. You, it was,
that taught me, when I scarcely knew my right
hand from my left, that there was no difference between
doing right and doing wrong, in the sight of
the God you worship; you taught me, that I could
do nothing acceptable to him. If you taught me
truly, I have only acted out the nature totally
depraved, (your own words,) that he gave to me,
and I am not to blame for it. I could do nothing
to save my own soul; and according to your own
doctrine, I stand now a better chance than my moral
cousin, Jane. If you have taught me falsely; I
was not to blame; the peril be on your own soul.
My mind was a blank, and you put your own impressions
on it; God (if there be a God) reward
you according to your deeds!”
This horrible letter, of which we have given a
brief and comparatively mild specimen; and subtracted
from that the curses that pointed every
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sentence, seemed for a little while to swell the
clamours of Mrs. Wilson's newly awakened conscience.
But, alas! the impression was transient;
the chains of systematic delusion were too firmly
rivetted—the habits of self-deception too strong,
to be overcome.
Jane, fearful that the violence of her aunt's
passion would over destroy her reason, sought only,
for the remainder of the day and the following
night, to sooth and quiet her. She remained
by her bedside, and silently watched, and prayed.
Mrs. Wilson's sleep was disturbed, but she awoke
somewhat refreshed, and quite composed. Her
first action was to tear David's letter into a thousand
fragments. She was never known afterwards
to allude to its contents, nor to her conversation
with Jane. There was a restlessness through the
remainder of her life, which betrayed the secret
gnawings of conscience. Still it is believed, she
quelled her convictions as Cromwell is reported
to have done, when, as his historian says, he asked
Goodwin, one of his preachers, if the doctrine
were true, that the elect should never fall,
nor suffer a final reprobation?—“Nothing more
certain,” replied the preacher. “Then I am safe,”
said the protector; “for I am sure I was once in
a state of grace.”
Mrs. Wilson survived these events but a few
years. She was finally carried off by the scrofula, a
disease from which she had suffered all her life,
and which had probably increased the natural asperity
of her temper; as all evils, physical as well
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as moral, certainly make us worse, if they do not
make us better. Elvira was summoned to her
death-bed; but she arrived too late to receive either
the reproaches or forgiveness of her mother.
Jane faithfully attended her through her last illness,
and most kindly ministered to the diseases of
her body. Her mind no human comfort could
reach; no earthly skill touch its secret springs.
The disease was attended with delirium; and she
had no rational communication with any one from
the beginning of her illness. This Jane afterwards
sincerely deplored to Mr. Lloyd, who replied,
“I would not sit like the Egyptians in judgment
on the dead. Thy aunt has gone with her
record to Him who alone knows the secrets of the
heart, and therefore is alone qualified to judge
His creatures; but for our own benefit, Jane, and
for the sake of those whose probation is not past,
let us ever remember the wise saying of William
Penn, `a man cannot be the better for that religion
for which his neighbour is the worse.' I have
no doubt thy aunt has suffered some natural compunctions
for her gross failure in the performance
of her duties; but she felt safe in a sound faith.
It is reported, that one of the Popes said of himself,
that `as Eneas Sylvius he was a damnable
heretic, but as Pius II. an orthodox Pope.' ”
“Then you believe,” replied Jane, “that my
unhappy aunt deceived herself by her clamorous
profession?”
“Undoubtedly. Ought we to wonder that she
effected that imposition on herself, by the aid of
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self-love, (of all love the most blinding,) since we
have heard, in her funeral sermon, her religious
experiences detailed as the triumphs of a saint;
her strict attention on religious ordinances commended,
as if they were the end and not the means
of a religious life; since we (who cannot remember
a single gracious act of humility in her whole
life) have been told, as a proof of her gracious
state, that the last rational words she pronounced
were, that she `was of sinners the chief?” There
seems to be a curious spiritual alchymy in the utterance
of these words; for we cannot say, that
those who use them mean to `palter in a double
sense,' but they are too often spoken and received
as the evidence of a hopeful state. Professions
and declarations have crept in among the protestants,
to take the place of the mortifications and
penances of the ancient church; so prone are
men to find some easier way to heaven than the
toilsome path of obedience.”
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CHAPTER XVI.
God, the best maker of all marriages,
Combine your hearts in one.
Henry V.
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We have anticipated our story, tempted by a
natural desire to conclude the history of Mrs.
Wilson, that its deep shade might not interfere
with the bright lights that are falling on the destiny
of our heroine. After the dissolution of her
engagement with Erskine, Jane continued her
humble vocation of school-mistress for some
months. Rebecca Lloyd had from the beginning
been one of her pupils, and a favourite among
them; and so devotedly did the child love her instructress,
that Mr. Lloyd often thought impulse
was as sure a guide for her affections as reason for
his. Jane's care of his child furnished him occasion,
and excuse when he needed it, for frequent
intercourse with her; and, in this intercourse,
there were none of those mysterious embarrassments
(mysterious, because inexplicable to all but
the parties) that so often check the progress of
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affection. Jane, released from the thraldom in
which she had been bound to Erskine, was as happy
as a redeemed captive. Her tastes and her
views were similar to Mr. Lloyd's, and she found
in his society a delightful exchange and a rich
compensation for the solitude to which her mind
and affections had been condemned.
We are ignorant, perhaps Jane was, of the precise
moment when gratitude melted into love, and
friendship resigned the reigns to his more absolute
dominion. But it was not long after this, nor
quite `a year and a day' (the period of mourning
usually allotted to a faithful husband) after her separation
from Erskine, that, as she was sitting with
Mrs. Harvey in her little parlour, Mr. Lloyd entered
with his child. After the customary greetings,
Mrs. Harvey suddenly recollected that some
domestic duties demanded her presence, and saying
with an arch smile to Mr. Lloyd that she
`hoped he would overlook her absence,' she left
the room. Little Rebecca was sitting on her father's
knee; she took from his bosom a miniature
of her mother, which he always wore there, and
seemed intently studying the face which the artist
had delineated with masterly power. “Do the
angels look like my mother?” she asked.
“Why, my child?”
“I thought, father, they might look like her, she
looks so bright and so good.” She kissed the
picture, and after a moment's pause, added,
“Jane looks like mother, all but the cap; dost
not thee think, father, Jane would look pretty in
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a quaker cap?” Mr. Lloyd kissed his little girl,
and said nothing. Rebecca's eyes followed the
direction of her father's: “Oh, Jane!” she exclaimed,
“thou dost not look like mother now, thy
cheeks are as red as my new doll's.”
The child's observation of her treacherous
cheek had certainly no tendency to lessen poor
Jane's colour. She would have been glad to
hide her face any where, but it was broad daylight,
and there was now no escape from the declaration
which had been hovering on Mr. Lloyd's
lips for some weeks, and which was now made in
spite of Rebecca's presence. It cannot be denied,
in deference to the opinion of some very fastidious
ladies, that Jane was prepared for it; for though
the marks of love are not quite as obvious, as the
lively Rosalind describes them, yet we believe
that except in the case of very wary lovers—cautious
veterans—they are first observed by the objects
of the passion.
We are warned from attempting to describe the
scene to which our little pioneer had led the way,
by the fine remark of a sentimentalist, who compares
the language of lovers to the most delicate
fruits of a warm climate—very delicious where
they grow, but not capable of transportation.
Much is expressed and understood in a few sentences,
which would be quite unintelligible to
those whose faculties are not quickened by la
grande passion, and who therefore cannot be expected
to comprehend the mystics of love.
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The result of the interview was perfectly satisfactory
to both parties; and as this was one of the
occasions when all the sands of time are `diamond
sparks,' it is impossible to say when it would have
come to a conclusion, had it not been for little
Rebecca, who seemed to preside over the destinies
of that day.
Her father had interpreted his conversation
with Jane to his child, and had succeeded in rendering
the object and the result of it level to her
comprehension, and she had lavished her joy in
loud exclamations and tender caresses; till finding
she was no longer noticed, she had withdrawn
to a window, and was amusing herself with gazing
at the passengers in the street, when she suddenly
turned to Jane, and raising the window at the
same moment, she said, “Oh, there goes Mary to
lecture, may I call her and tell her?”
At this moment the sweet child might have asked
any thing without the chance of a refusal, and
a ready assent was no sooner granted, than she
screamed and beckoned to Mary, who immediately
obeyed her summons.
Mary entered, and Rebecca closing the door
after her, said, “I guess thee will not want to go
to lecture to-day, Mary, for I have a most beautiful
secret to tell thee, hold down thy ear, and promise
never to tell as long as thy name is Mary
Hull;” and then, unable any longer to subdue her
voice to a whisper, she jumped up and clapped
her hands, and shouted, “Joy, joy, joy! Mary,
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Jane Elton is coming to live with us all the days
of her life, and is going to be my own mother.”
Mary looked to Mr. Lloyd, and then to Jane,
and read in their faces the confirmation of the happy
tidings; and to Rebecca's utter amazement, the
tears streamed from her eyes. “Oh, Mary!” said
she, turning disappointed away, “now I am
ashamed of thee, I thought thee would be as glad
as I am.”
But Mr. Lloyd and Jane knew how to understand
this expression of her feelings; they advanced
to her and gave her their hands; she joined
them: “the Lord hath heard my prayer,” she
said, and she wept aloud.
“I thank thee, Mary,” replied Mr. Lloyd;
“God grant I may deserve thy confidence.”
“If she has prayed for it, what then does she
cry for?” said Rebecca, who stood beside her father,
watching Mary's inexplicable emotion, and
vainly trying to get some clue to it.
“Come with me, my child, and I will tell thee,”
replied her father, and he very discreetly led out
the child, and left Jane with her faithful friend.
The moment he had closed the door, Mary said
smiling through her tears of joy, “It has taken
me by surprise at last, but for all that I am not
quite so blind as you may think. Do you remember,
Jane, telling me one day when you laid your
book down to listen to Mr. Lloyd, who was talking
to Rebecca, that since your mother's voice
had been silent, you had never heard one so sweet
as Mr. Lloyd's? I thought to myself then you
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seemed to feel just as I do when I hear the sound
of James' voice; not that I mean to compare myself
to you, or James to Mr. Lloyd, but it is the
nature of the feeling—it is the same in the high and
the low, the rich and the poor.”
“Was that all the ground of your suspicion?”
asked Jane, smiling at her friend's boasted sagacity.
“No, not quite all; James has been very impatient
for our marriage; and from time to time I
have told Mr. Lloyd I wished he would look out
for some one to take charge of his house, and I
advised him not to get a very young person, for,
says I, they are apt to be flighty. I never saw
one that was not, but Jane Elton. He smiled and
blushed, and asked me what made me think that
you was so much above the rest of your sex, and
so I told him, and he never seemed to weary with
talking about you.”
“I am rejoiced,” replied Jane, “that your partiality
to me reconciles you to the disparity in our
ages.”
“Oh, that is nothing; that is, in your case it is
nothing. Let us see, eleven years. In most cases
it would be too much, to be sure; there is just
four years between James and I, that is just right,
I think; but then, dear Jane, you are so different
from other people, you need not go by common
rules.”
The overflowing of Mary's heart was checked
by the entrance of some company. As she parted
with Jane, she whispered, “I shall not think of
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leaving Mr. Lloyd till you are married, be it
sooner or later; when I see you in your own
home, it will be time enough to think of my affairs.”
There still remained a delicate point to adjust:
Mr. Lloyd had been brought up a Quaker, and he
had seen no reason to depart from the faith or
mode of worship which had come down to him
from his ancestors, and for which he felt on that
accoutn (as who does not?) an attachment and
veneration. He rarely, if ever, entered into discussions
upon religious subjects, and probably did
not feel much zeal for some of the peculiarities of
his sect. He was not disposed to question their
utility in their ordinary operation upon common
character. He knew how salutary were the restraints
of discipline upon the mass of men, and he
considered the discipline of habits and opinions infinitely
more salutary than the direct and coarse
interference of power. He perceived, or thought
he perceived, that as a body of men, the `Friends'
were upon the whole more happy and prosperous
than any other. No contentions ever came among
them. This circumstance Mr. Lloyd ascribed in
a considerable degree to the uniformity of their
opinions, habits, and lives, and to their custom of
restricting their family alliances within the limits
of their own sect. Mr. Lloyd regarded with complacency
most of the characteristics of his own religious
society; and those which he could not
wholly approve, he was yet disposed to regard in
the most favourable light; but he was no sectarian:
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his understanding was too much elevated, and his
affections were too diffusive to be confined within
the bounds of sect. Such ties could not bind such
a spirit. If any sectarian peculiarities had interfered
to restrain him in the exercise of his duty, or
while acting under the strong impulses of his generous
nature, he would have shaken them off
`like dew-drops from a lion's mane.' Exclusion
from the society would have been painful to him
for many reasons, but the fear of it could not occasion
a moment's hesitation in his offering his hand
to a woman whom he loved and valued, and whose
whole life he saw animated by the essential spirit
of Christianity. He determined now to inform his
society of his choice, and to submit to the censure
and exclusion from membership that must follow.
But Mr. Lloyd was saved the painful necessity of
breaking ties which were so strong that they might
be called natural bonds.
Jane had been early led to inquire into the particular
modification of religion professed by her
benefactor, and respect for him had probably lent
additional weight to every argument in its favour;
this was natural; and it was natural too, that after
her matured judgment sanctioned her early preference,
she should from motives of delicacy have
hesitated to declare it. If it cannot be denied
that this proselyte was won by the virtues of Mr.
Lloyd, it is to be presumed that no Christian will
deny the rightful power of such an argument.
If the reader is not disposed to allow that Jane's
choice of the religion of her friend was the result
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of the purity and simplicity of her character, the
preference she always gave to the spirit over the
letter, to the practice over the profession, she
must call to her aid the decision of the poet,
who says that
“Minds are for sects of various kinds decreed,
As different soils are formed for different seed.”
Not a word had passed between Mr. Lloyd and
Jane on the subject of the mental deliberations
and resolves of each, when a few days after their
engagement, Jane said to him, “I have a mind to
improve the fatal hint of my little mischievous
friend, and see how becoming I can make a “quaker
cap.”
“What dost thou mean, Jane?” inquired Mr.
Lloyd, who seemed a little puzzled by the gravity
of her face, which was not quite in keeping with
the playfulness of her words.
“Seriously,” she replied, with your consent and
approbation, “I mean to be a `member by request'
of your society of friends.”
“Shall my people be thy people?” exclaimed
Mr. Lloyd with great animation. This, indeed,
converts to pure gold the only circumstance that
alloyed my happiness; but do not imagine, dear
Jane, that I think it of the least consequence, by
what name the different members of the christian
family are called.”
“But you think it right and orderly,” she replied,
smiling, “that the wife should take the name
of the husband?”
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“I think it most happy, certainly.”
There remained now no reason for deferring the
marriage longer than was rendered necessary by
the delays attending the admission of a new member
into the friends' society.
It was a beautiful morning in the beginning of
May—the mist had rolled away from the valley,
and wreathed with silvery clouds the sides and
summits of the mountains—the air was sweet with
the `herald blossoms' of spring—and nature, rising
from her wintry bed, was throwing on her woods
and fields her drapery of tender green—when a
carriage, containing Mr. Lloyd, Mary Hull, and
little Rebecca, stopped at Mrs. Harvey's door;
Jane, arrayed for a journey, stood awaiting it on
the piazza; old John, the basket-maker, was beside
her, leaning on his cane, and good Mrs. Harvey
was giving Jane's baggage to James, who carried
it to the carriage. “Farewell, dear Jane,”
said Mrs. Harvey, affectionately kissing her;—
“now go, but do not forget there are other
`friends' in the world, beside quakers. Return
to us soon; we are all impatient to see you the
happy mistress of the house in which you was
born.”
John followed her to the carriage, and respectfully
taking her hand and Mr. Lloyd's—“You've
been my best friends,” said he; “take an old
man's blessing, whose sun, thanks to the Lord who
brought Jemmy back! is setting without a cloud.
God grant you both,” he added, joining their hands,
“a long and a happy day. Truly says the good
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book, `light is sown for the righteous, and joy for
the upright in heart.”'
James was the only person that did not seem to
have his portion of the common gladness. He had,
with a poor grace, consented to defer his nuptials
till Mary's return from Philadelphia. He did not
mind the time, he said, “five or six weeks would
not break his heart, though he had waited almost
as long as Jacob now; and he was not of a distrustful
make; but it was a long way to Philadelphia,
and the Lord only knew what might happen.”
But nothing did happen; at least, nothing to justify
our constant lover's forebodings.
Jane was received with cordiality into the
friends' society, and their hands were joined,
whose hearts were `knit together.'
The travellers returned, in a few weeks, to—,
happy in each other, and devoting themselves to
the good and happiness of the human family.
Their good works shone before men; and “they
seeing them, glorified their Father in heaven.”
We dare not presume upon the good nature of our
readers so far, as to give the detail of Mary's
wedding; at which, our little friend Rebecca, was
the happy mistress of ceremonies.
There yet remains something to be told of one
of the persons of our humble history, whom our
readers may have forgotten, but to whom Mr.
Lloyd extended his kind regards—the poor lunatic,
crazy Bet. He believed that her reason might
be restored by skilful management—by confinement
to one place, and one set of objects, and by the
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sedative influence of gentle manners, and regular
habits in her attendants. He induced Mary, in
whose judiciousness and zeal he placed implicit
confidence, to undertake the execution of his plan;
but after a faithful experiment of a few months,
they were obliged to relinquish all hope of restoring
the mind to its right balance. Mary said, when
the weather was dull, she was as quiet as any body;
but if the sun shone out suddenly, it seemed
as if its bright beams touched her brain. A thunder-storm,
or a clear moon-light, would throw her
back into her wild ways. “The poor thing,”
Mary added, “had such a tender heart, that there
seemed to be no way to harden it. If she sees a
lamb die, or hears a mournful note from a bird,
when she has her low feelings, she'll weep more
than some mothers at the loss of a child.”
No cure could be effected; but Mary's house
continued to be the favourite resort of the interesting
vagrant. Her visits there became more frequent
and longer protracted. Mary observed,
that the excitement of her mind was exhausting
her life, without Bet's seeming conscious of decay
of strength, or any species of suffering.
The last time Mary saw her, was a brilliant
night during the full harvest moon; she came to
her house late in the evening; the wildness of
her eye was tempered with an affecting softness;
her cheek was brightened with the hectic flush that
looks like `mockery of the tomb'—Mary observed
her to tremble, and perceived that there was
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an alarming fluttering in her pulse. “You are not
well,” said she.
“No, I am not well,” Bet replied, in a low plaintive
tone; “but I shall be soon—here,” said she,
placing Mary's hand on her heart—“do not you
feel it struggling to be free.”
Mary was startled—the beating was so irregular,
it seemed that every pulsation must be the
last. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “poor creature, let
me put you in bed; you are not fit to be sitting
here.”
“Oh, no!” Bet replied, in the same feeble,
mournful tone; “I cannot stay here. The spirits
of heaven are keeping a festival by the light of the
blessed moon. Hark! do you not bear them,
Mary?”—and she sung so low that her voice
sounded like distant music:
“Sister spirit, come away!”
“And do you not see their white robes?” she added,
pointing through the window to the vapour
that curled along the margin of the river, and
floated on the bosom of the meadow.
Mary called to her husband, and whispered,
“The poor thing is near death; let us get her on
the bed.”
Bet overheard her. “No, do not touch me,”
she exclaimed; “the spirit cannot soar here.”
She suddenly sprang on her feet, as if she had
caught a new inspiration, and darted towards the
door. Mary's infant, sleeping in the cradle,
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arrested her eye; she knelt for a moment beside it
and folded her hands on her breast. Then rising,
she said to Mary, “The prayer of the dying sanctifies.”
The door was open, and she passed
through it so suddenly that they hardly suspected
her intention before she was gone. The next
morning she was discovered in the church-yard,
her head resting on the grassy mound that covered
the remains of her lover. Her spirit had
passed to its eternal rest!
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NOTE TO PAGE 136.
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“For the news had come that Shays' men would cover their front
with the captives.”
The exhaustion occasioned in Massachusetts by her
struggles to support the revolutionary contest, in which her
efforts were, at least, equal to those of any other state, and
the taxes, which, at the close of the war, were necessarily
imposed upon the citizens by the state government, were
the principal causes of the disturbances in 1786-7, which
are now talked of by some of the older inhabitants, and
particularly in the western part of the commonwealth, as
the “Shays war.” It was so called from Daniel Shays, one
of the principal insurgents, and now (1822) a peaceable
citizen and revolutionary pensioner in the western part of
the state of New-York.
This rebellion is certainly a stain upon the character of
Massachusetts—almost the only one. It may, nevertheless,
serve to exhibit in a favourable light the humane and
orderly character of her inhabitants. If there were no wrongs
to be redressed, there were heavy sufferings and privations
to be borne. The stimulus of the revolutionary war had
not wholly subsided, and the vague and fanciful anticipations
of all the blessings to be conferred by “glorious liberty,”
had passed away. The people found that they had
liberty indeed, but it was not what they had painted to
their fancies. They enjoyed a republican government, but
with it came increased taxation, poverty, and toil. Their
means were rather straightened than enlarged. From the
embarrassment and confusion of the times, debts had multiplied
and accumulated; courts were established, and the
laws were enforced.
The organization of courts and the collection of debts,
formed one of the principal grounds of discontent. The
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court-houses were attacked, and their session sometimes
prevented. The party in favour of the state government,
and, of course, of the support of the laws, was commonly
called the court party. An Englishman might smile at such
an application of the term.
The insurrectionary spirit was very general throughout
the commonwealth: and it might be said that the western
counties were in the possession of the rebels against republicanism.
It endured, however, but for a few months, and
was chiefly put down by the voluntary and spirited exertions
of the peaceable inhabitants. While it lasted, there
was, of course, a considerable degree of license, and occasional
pilfering, for it could hardly be called plunder; but
there was little destruction of property, and no cruelty.
Sometimes a few individuals of the court party, and sometimes
a few Shaysites were made prisoners; and in such
cases they were shut up in rooms during the stay of the
conquering party, and occasionally marched off with them
on their retreat.
It is probable that about fifteen or twenty individuals
perished in battle during the Shays war. Not one suffered
by the sentence of a civil magistrate.
The most severe engagement which occurred during the
contest, took place in Sheffield, on the 27th of February,
1787. The government party was composed of militia
from Sheffield and Barrington; in number about eighty
men, and commanded by Colonel John Ashley, of Sheffield.
This party, hearing that the rebels had appeared in
force, in Stockbridge, where they had committed some depredations,
and taken several prisoners, pursued them for
some time without success, and did not fall in with them
until their return to Sheffield, to which place the rebels had
marched by a different route. The insurgents were more
numerous, but possessed less confidence than the government
party. This circumstance was every where observable
during the contest. Upon this occasion, as the most
effectual protection, they placed their prisoners in front of
their line, and between themselves and their assailants
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They probably expected a parley, and that the parties
would separate without bloodshed. This had sometimes
happened before, from the great reluctance which all felt
to proceed to extremities against their neighbours and acquaintances.
But Colonel Ashley was a man of determined
spirit, and fully convinced that energetic measures had
become necessary, he ordered his men to fire. They
knew their friends and remonstrated. The Colonel exclaimed,
“God have marcy on their souls, but pour in your
fire!” They did so, and after an engagement of about six
minutes, the rebels fled. Their loss was two men killed, and
about thirty, including their captain, wounded. The loss
of the government party was two men killed, and one
wounded. Of the former number, one was a prisoner who
had been forced into the front of the rebel line.
If the remembrance of this commotion had not been
preserved by the classical pen of Minot, its traditions would,
probably, expire in one or two generations.
This is the only civil war which has ever been waged
in our country, unless the war of the revolution can be so
called.
Back matter
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Sedgwick, Catharine Maria, 1789-1867 [1822], A New-England tale (E. Bliss & E. White, New York) [word count] [eaf335].
