CHAPTER I.
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Oh, how this tyrant doubt torments my breast!
My thoughts like birds, who, frightened from their nest,
Around the place where all was hushed before,
Flutter, and hardly nestle any more.
Otway.
Yes, let the eagle change its plume,
The leaf its hue, the flower its bloom,
But ties around that heart were spun,
Which could not, would not be undone.
Campbell.
Fragments of clouds, leaden and black and ashen,
ran under and over each other along the sky, now
totally and now only in part obscuring the half
moon, whose white and chilly rays might not penetrate
the rustic bower within which sat two persons,
conversing in low and earnest tones. But, notwithstanding
the faintness of the moonlight, enough of
their dresses and features were discernible to mark
them male and female, for the dull skirts of night
had now scarcely overswept the golden borders of
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twlight. The long and dense bar that lay across
the west, retained still some touch of its lately
crimson fires.
It was about the middle of autumn, and the stir
of the stiffening leaves, spotted, and dun, and yellow,
were like a sorrowful prophecy. How different
from the voice of the wind that shook loose the
sunny tresses of May, or the sigh that followed,
when the rosy bands were stripped from her arms,
and hidden beneath the ampler robe of summer.
But the dreary monotone did not hush the voices
within that quiet recess. I know not if it were that
which subdued them into such tender whispers—
whispers, seeming, indeed, like the utterances of
love.
“What business had they there at such a time?”
The retreat they had chosen was quite secure from
observation, not for its remoteness from men's habitations,
for at the distance of a mile, or a little less,
perhaps, to the north, the two or three slim spires
of a quiet village whitened against the sky, and just
across the meadow shone the light of a cottage
window, and about its low eaves, like a purple
wreath, curled the smoke of pine logs aglow on its
hearth; while along the opposite way ran a gray
streak of dust, winding in among steep hills on the
one side, and sloping upward to the village on the
other. From this highway the clatter of hoofs, or
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the rumble of wheels, was now and then heard, but
it was in the direction of the cottage that the girl
looked oftenest.
The field lying between the road and the house
was divided by a hollow, or trough, as it might very
properly be called, so narrow and deep was it, along
the bottom of which ran a small rivulet, in spring
and summer like a soft skein, catching the sunlight
in its silver tangles, now, however, shrunken and
dried almost away, here and there making a faint
ripple over the pink and white pebbles, or around
the dull, red sandstones, but settled mostly into
stagnant pools.
At some distance from where the deeply worn
path, leading from the cottage to the highway,
crossed the brook, the steep sides of the hollow had
been pushed back, as it were, forming as pretty a
basin as ever held blue violets, or yellow primroses,
or screened lovers from prying eyes. In this
little nook, or close against one edge of it, grew a
clump of dwarfish elms, with their pendulous boughs
almost touching the ground, so covered and weighed
down were they with the twining and intertwining
vines of the wild grape. A sylvan shelter was
thus formed, within which, as the reader will have
guessed, the two persons who have been referred to
were seated.
“Then I may certainly expect you?” said the
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girl, clasping close between her rosy fingers the pale
and slender ones of the man beside her.
“Yes, certainly,” he replied. But there was no
fervor in his tone; indeed, he seemed scarcely thinking
of what he said.
Perhaps the girl thought so, for after a moment's
silence she repeated the inquiry, adding, “I am
afraid, Nattie, I shall wait, and wait, until the
shadows grow heavy and still, and the star, that
used to mark your coming, sinks in the seawaves.”
“The foolish distrust of a woman,” he said, and
the arm which had encircled the delicate form sunk
carelessly away.
“But your last promise failed, and how can I
trust, as I used, when you always came before the
hour, and chid me for tardiness, though I was never
so little behind you?” As she spoke, she held
closely the hand he seemed intent on withdrawing
from hers, adding, as she finally released it, “Do
my fears offend you, dearest?”
“No, I only wanted to look at my watch,” replied
the lover, if lover he were, feeling that he owed her
some apology for his rudeness.
The moonlight glanced on the precious metal, but
not with sufficient strength to reveal the time; and
unlocking the case, as one not to be baffled by the
failure of ordinary means, he placed his fingers
delicately on the hands to ascertain by such means
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their position, saying: “It grows late, Elsie, and
your mother will miss you.”
He arose from the wooden bench on which they
had been sitting, and seemed only to wait the sanction
of his suggestion. But the girl moved not, and
saying, simply, she had staid later, pulled the wreath
of myrtle from her yellow curls, and drew them
between her fingers, till they lay in silken bands
against her cheek. But such trifling had no power
to soothe the turbulence of her thought, or quiet the
uneasy moanings of her gentle heart, and, one after
another, the tears, large and bright, came to her
blue eyes, and dropped silently into her bosom,
while her lips trembled with unspoken prayers.
God pity thee, poor maiden! if they were breathed
too late.
“This is foolish, Elsie,” said the young man, and
seating himself beside her, he drew her to his bosom
with some real or affected tenderness. The poor
child sobbed aloud as she murmured, “Then you
do love me, Nathan—you do love me a little, after
all.”
“Never doubt it again, dear,” said he; and, pushing
away the yellow bands, wet and heavy with
tears, he kissed her forehead, but calmly as a brother
would kiss a sister.
She seemed soothed and encouraged; for what a
little reed will woman lean her heart upon, and,
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even though she feels it breaking, rest satisfied and
happy till it fails.
Who can define the fascination whereby the dove
nestles itself in the very coil of the serpent?
The tears of Elsie dried in the sunshine of even
that faint assurance, and as she lifted her head from
its resting-place, a smile parted her lips, and something
of confidence was in her tone as she affirmed
what she would have asked, “You will come, I
know you will come.”
“I will come,” repeated the young man, rising,
“and now, Elsie, go home and employ your thoughts
with other things, and be happy till then.”
“Till then, and what then?”
“Do not vex yourself, nor me, any farther;” and
seeing her mournful look, he added, “we will devise
something then; but now we must not linger a moment;
I never saw a woman with so little caution.”
“Do not speak so,” replied the girl. “I will go
if you think it best. But if I am not cautious, it is
because my love overshadows every thing else.”
“Nonsense!” was the contemptuous reply.
“Oh, Nathan,” she cried, folding her arms on her
bosom, and stepping back from him, “I see it all: I
only wish I were dead.”
“What is it you would have?” asked the man;
“I have said that I love you, and that I will come.
Why do you torment us both?”
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“You have said that you would come. Yes, you
have said so,” replied the girl; “but not as you once
said it; not with a thousand kisses and entreaties
that I would not fail you; not with the impassioned
tenderness of a lover. Well, I might have known
that such would be the end.”
“If you think,” he exclaimed with harsh quickness,
“that I will stand here to listen to your reproaches,
you have mistaken my character.” He
was turning to leave her, but, pausing, said, “If
you are afraid, I will go with you a part of the
way.”
“Afraid!” she answered, sinking down on the
rude seat they had quitted, “what have I to be
afraid of?”
“Very well, have your pleasure;” and, hastily
passing down the hollow, and without once turning,
or speaking again, the young man struck into the
path leading to the main road, and was soon out of
sight.
And the girl—with hands fallen helplessly beside
her, her countenance pale as death, and her large,
melancholy eyes, tearless now—seemed as one who
had come to the edge of doom, and had neither will
nor power to struggle any more. The clouds which,
in the early evening had flown so swiftly, appearing
by their motion to make the steadfast stars quick
runners too, had settled into a dull, sober mass,
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quite shutting out the chilly light of the half moon,
and a drizzling rain began to fall on the shriveled
grape-leaves that were over her.
But what was the withdrawal of the moon, pale
huntress of shadows, and what the dismal fall of the
rain, or the wind, piteously moaning, as some good
angel above a ruined soul, to the maiden upon whose
heart there was a great burden, which, she might
have thought, nor time, nor eternity, might put
aside?
The lights were gone from the village windows,
save here and there, where some poor sewer, or sad
watcher with the sick, kept her weary place, when
the sound of a hurrying footstep stirred the silence,
and nothing more, for only by the attentive ear
would it have been remarked at all, so glidingly,
almost stealthily, it moved. Presently the lantern
illumining the broad face of the sign indicating the
principal inn, shone down upon a strange gentleman,
who had arrived in the evening coach, called for
lodging and supper, which the landlady said he
scarcely tasted, and then, having drank a glass of
wine, had gone out, stating that he should return
before midnight.
“Ah, parson,” remarked the good-natured landlord,
familiarly, as he entered the sitting-room, “you
are home betimes to-night.”
The stranger seemed not to relish the observation,
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but, without making any reply, or removing either
cloak or hat, he seated himself at some distance
from the talkative host, and having directed a fire
to be lighted in his own apartment, relapsed into
silence, only answering in monosyllables to the
questions of the host about the weather, the number
of passengers in the coach, &c. But, though
he seemed little inclined to talk, his voice was singularly
low and placid, and his whole manner that
of one accustomed to all the usages of polite society,
however much he might choose to neglect them.
On the other inmates of the room he bestowed not
a glance; indeed he seemed not aware of their presence,
although their conversation was in a high key,
and in part evidently intended for his benefit.
“Well, Fred, you give up beat, do you?” said the
elder of two persons, seated by a deal table, over
which were strewn some torn and soiled cards. “I
have beaten you ten games out of twelve, haven't I?”
“Yes, just about ten games out of twelve;” and,
lazily shuffling the cards, the man addressed as Fred
began the performance of some small trick, apparently
for his own special amusement.
“I wish I had a fresh hand,” continued the first
speaker, “I believe I could beat the wisest parson
in the country to-night.”
Here the landlord made a great shuffling with his
feet, glancing uneasily from the card-player to the
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gentleman in the cloak, touching his fore-finger to
the black string about his own neck, by way of reference
to the white neckcloth. But, as if not seeing
the sign so adroitly made, the player continued,
“Yes, I only wish I had one of the reverend clergy
opposite, and I'd rake down every thing he dared
to put on the board.”
“Ahem,” said the landlord, looking all confusion,
“what a terrible storm; bad night for religious
meetings, and some of my family out for devotional
exercises, too. You, sir, of the city, are not so annoyed
by a storm.”
The young man smiled maliciously, stroking his
beard silently with one hand, and as soon as the
landlord had ended his artful speech, went on to say
that he would even put up his best black setter
against the catechism; or he would go farther, and
risk his favorite hunter, Lightfoot, against the flim-siest
cloak that ever covered a hypocritical sinner.
“I think, my reverend friend, your room must
be comfortable,” said the host, trying to drown the
voice of the obtrusive braggart; and, taking a small
lamp from the top of the stove, about which the
leaking oil was smoking, he acted as chamberlain to
his cloaked visitor, whom he evidently thought a
person of consideration.
“Really, Arnold, you were a little too hard on
our clerical neighbor,” said the younger of the
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players, throwing down his cards, and stretching
lazily.
“No, I wasn't hard enough, for I am on the track
of a lame fox,” replied Arnold; “and if the scent
hold good, I shall have rare sport on being in at the
death. And so, you think I was hard?” A contemptuous
chuckle followed, upon which the young
man answered, dallying with the heavy links of
gold that crossed his vest: “After all, I believe you
were just about hard enough—just about hard
enough, Jo Arnold.”
“Devilish good night for a buffalo hunt. I should
like to be on the prairie, forty miles from human
habitation, with a mad bull or two at bay.”
“I guess one would do,” said Fred, laughing.
But Arnold drew himself up, and buttoning his
coat, as though about to go forth, rejoined, “No, I
say I should like just now to have two mad bulls
before my dogs.”
“You are right, Jo—two would just make good
sport before your dogs.” In a moment, he added,
“I wonder how Catharine does to-night?”
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CHAPTER II.
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A moment o'er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced—and then it faded as it came.
Byron.
Thy words have touched a chord of Momory's lyre
And waked the key-note of the saddest dirge
That Faney ever played to Melancholy.
Rufus Dawes.
Left alone in the little chamber to which he was
shown, the strange gentleman took up the lamp,
daintily, and elevating it somewhat, turned slowly
from side to side, until he had given the room a
careful survey. Of a simple and humble order was
the furniture, but there was enough of it for necessity,
and strict cleanliness was observable at a glance.
Nevertheless, the guest seemed doubtful still, and
folding down the snowy counterpane, he examined
the linen of the bed with a close scrutiny.
“The parlor of a country spinster!” he said,
speaking to himself; and violently ringing, he ordered
an additional ewer of water, and fresh sheets,
taking care to dust a chair with his pocket
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handwhile the servant was in waiting. On the
table beside the bed lay a small leathern-bound
volume, and glancing at the title, the young man
hastily put it down, and leaning his head against
the back of the high wooden rocking chair in which
he sat, leisurely untied his white neckcloth, and
carelessly dropped it on the floor beside him. He
then took from a pocket-book a letter, and unfolding
it to tear off part of the blank leaf, a long tress of
golden hair slid from its folds and fell on the floor,
where it remained until he had made some memoranda,
in pencil, when, taking it up, he held it over
the flame, smiling as it wreathed, curled aside, then
caught fire, and blazed, and fell in ashes.
Meantime the host rejoined the two persons whom
he had left at the card table, and who had by this
time drawn near the hearth. The younger was a
harmless slip of the moneyed aristocracy of the
commercial metropolis, resting his right foot upon
his left knee, and with eyes—blue and always full
of sleepy good humor—now nearly closed. He was
listening indolently to his companion, who, as the
hour grew later, became more voluble.
This person it would have been hard to describe
as belonging to any particular country, being a specimen
of a tribe found everywhere. He might have
been twenty-five years of age, and was of dark,
swarthy complexion, large dull hazel eyes, brown
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hair, thick and straight, parted on a forehead of
medium hight, and had the ends of his hair carefully
turned in against his neck, and to either
cheek. His beard, which was very heavy, and
worn full, was a mixture of grayish auburn and
black. His dress was half slovenly, half genteel,
and his bones seemed to have been made for some
other person, being a great deal too large for him,
especially in the joints. The hands and fingers
were covered thickly with black and sorrel hairs,
resembling his beard.
To be different from other persons he fancied was
to be superior to them, and in consequence he was
full of affectations.
He also delighted in a pompous sort of selfdisplay.
Herein perhaps was his forte, and he
never allowed a fit occasion to pass without an
exhibition of his abilities in this art of, what his
familiars called, showing off. His chief pride was
to be thought a famous hunter (Heaven knows
whether he had ever slain bird or beast more
formidable than pigeon or rabbit), and a man of
invincible courage; he knew nothing more charming
than a surprise, however disagreeable to his
victim, or to startle the feelings or shock the prejudices
of those with whom he chanced at any time
to be in conversation; and he had the inconvenient
infirmity of a great fondness for money, while
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poor, and without energy, or any definite aim in
life.
He was always associated with some person of
larger means and less wit than himself; and, just
now, the sufferer was Frederick Wurth. They had
casually met, and this man, whose name was Joseph
Arnold, fastened himself upon the young metropolitan,
as the ragged weed will cling to a fine
fleece; and he was gradually obtaining an influence
over him, of which Wurth was by no means aware;
but if he had been, all would have been the same;
and so long as he had five shillings, Arnold could
have had three of them; not that one was very
weak, or the other at all crafty; Wurth was constitutionally
easy, good-humored, and indolent; and
being an heir of wealth, and never having known
any suffering or misfortune, the angles of his character
were not sharpened and brought out, as they
might have been under other influences. And
Arnold had probably never marked out for himself
any line of conduct, for good or for evil; if chance
threw an advantage in his way he was not scrupulous
in availing himself of it; but he did not coolly,
and with intelligent forecast, devise the means by
which any advantage should be secured. His character,
however, and that of the other persons in
this history, will be sufficiently developed as we
proceed.
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On the entrance of the landlord, Arnold, who
had repeatedly said his best things to Wurth, and
cared not to waste words on an old listener, when
he could have a fresh one, making room for him by
the fire, asked if it were nearly breakfast time.
The good man looked puzzled, as no doubt he
really was, and taking from his trowsers pocket a
large silver watch, he said it was lacking thirteen
minutes of twelve o'clock, and in his hotel they
didn't breakfast at midnight.
Arnold opened his eyes, combed his beard with
his fingers, shook his head doubtfully, and remarked,
“I believe you are right; but I had
forgotten all about the time, and seeing you, supposed
you up for morning; but if it's only midnight
I must wake up. How is the weather—
clear and shining? I don't care much for such
nights; they do well enough for coons, and such
small game; but give me a dark, rainy night, for
a hunt.”
“Just the night for you, then,” said the host:
“it's as dark as Egypt. A man could not see his
hat three inches before his face; and hark, how the
rain beats against the window!”
“Sure enough,” replied Arnold, as if for the first
time aware of the storm. “It's just the sort of
night I like—first rate for a buffalo hunt. I should
like to be on the prairie to-night, forty, or fifty, or
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a hundred miles from a settlement, with my dogs
and rifle. I would not like better sport.”
After the astonishment of the landlord had sufficiently
subsided, the young Nimrod inquired what
business that gentleman of the cloth appeared to
have, in so obscure a village, adding that he should
not be surprised if some of the best horses were
missing in the morning.
But now that the parson was out of hearing, the
landlord readily joined in the laugh against him;
so the young man had no object in proceeding further
on that tack.
“Seriously,” he said—and for once he spoke as
he thought—“I don't like the looks of that man.
There is more in his cold gray eyes than may be
seen at a glance; and then his sweet, low tone, and
gliding step (did you notice how like a cat he walked?)
never belonged to an honest man.”
The host expressed some sort of acquiescence,
but in truth he had not noticed these peculiarities
at all; and Arnold continued, as if thinking aloud—
“I wonder what he is doing in these parts. I'll
wager my life it's—”
“I know,” said Gaius, who did not like to have
any one seem wiser than himself; “I know what he
comes for.”
“Well, what is it?”
“There is a consumptive lady in the south end
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of the town; these long autumn rains take off such
persons mighty fast, sir, and I shall not be surprised,
any day, to hear of her death. Just before you
arrived, sir, I saw a young man riding along with a
measure in his hand, and I thought it was for Mary's
coffin, poor girl; but it was for old grandfather
Mapes's, who has had the palsy these seven years;
and yet, it was a sudden death. He walked in the
garden yesterday and looked better than he had
done for months, and this morning he got up seeming
as well as usual, and ate venison for breakfast,
and it tasted better to him, he said, than any thing
had for a long while. About noon he complained
a little of drowsiness, but none of them thought any
thing of it; he had often been affected in that way;
and about two o'clock, as he was sitting and talking
with his sister, he put his hand up to his head, and
she thought he might be faint or something, and
started into the next room to get camphor, or water—
I don't know which—and before she got to the
door, sir, he just fell on the floor as dead as a hammer.”
A smile, that was half a sneer, came over the face
of Arnold, as he said, “Then this clergyman has
come to preach the funeral of grandfather Mapes,
you suppose?”
“No, sir, that was not my supposition, sir. The
funeral will be held in the old church, just above
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my stand, and the pastor will preach it; for the old
man was one of the communicants. He has gone
to the world of spirits, sir; gone to the world of
spirits; there is where old grandfather Mapes has
gone.” And the good man compressed his lips and
seemed to feel that a wise thing had been delivered
by him.
But other eyes than the poet's do glance from
earth to heaven, from heaven to earth, and coming
to his more habitual thought, he said, “If the roan
colt is put up at the vandue I will bid as high a
price as any man in the village.”
“Likely the colt will be up at the vendue,” replied
Arnold, as though the chattels of the dead man were
familiar to him, and to conceal his mirth he bent
down and caressed a huge brown dog, that sat erect,
though with closed eyes, at his knee. Looking up
however after a moment, he said, “You spoke of a
consumptive lady—this man in the white neckcloth
visits her, you think?”
“He has been to my house several times, pays
liberally for his fare, and asks no questions, so of
course I ask none; but he walks to the south somewhere,
and stays till a late hour sometimes, and I
don't know where he would be more likely to go—
but he will hardly come again. Mary is a doomed
girl, sir; a doomed girl. Her brother left home
yesterday,” he continued, “though she entreated him
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to stay, and I doubt if he ever sees her alive. It's
a dreadful thing for the well and strong to slight the
wishes or premonitions of the sick, sir.”
Drops of sweat broke over the white forehead of
the young man who had seemed asleep; he pushed
aside the brown glossy curls that had fallen over
his eyes, rose, uneasily, and going to the window
looked a moment on the storm, when, buttoning
his coat, he ordered his horse and carriage.
“Do you think, Fred,” said Arnold, affecting not
to notice his preparations for departure, “that this
clerical rascal we have seen here, comes to visit a
consumptive lady?”
The young man rejoined, indifferently, that he
didn't know, and his friend continued: “I'll be
hanged if I don't believe he comes to see some
pretty girl, hereabouts, that is not consumptive.
But what do you mean, Fred? Are you crazy, to
go out into the storm?”
“I ought to go,” he replied. “I am neglecting
business, and the rain will not hurt me. With
hard driving I may be at home by eight in the
morning. Don't forget me, Jo, when you come to
town.”
“Stop,” said Arnold, taking hold of his arm;
“stop, and hear reason. You see this rain would
be likely to wet you, Fred, if you should be in it
for three or four hours; besides, it will be lighter
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when the sun comes up. The short time can't
make much difference in your interests. Stop till
daylight. We will have some coffee, and something
a little stronger, if you like, and I will ride
down with you. Come, come, Fred, don't sail out
dead in the eye of the storm. You see the white
cravat will be in the morning coach, and I am
afraid of the cloth.”
The young man hesitated, ashamed to reveal his
real motive for departure, and aware that he could
not urge the validity of that stated, which indeed
was far less imperative than another, which should
have detained him at home, or made him hasten
to return, though opposed by flood or fire. The
vantage ground was improved, and Arnold countermanded
the order which his friend had given,
and had now too little force of character to have
executed, saying, to quiet his conscience, “I don't
know as we could see to drive—not well, certainly.”
“Well,” said Arnold, “I shouldn't think we
could see at all.”
“No, we couldn't see at all.” And, unbuttoning
his coat, the unquiet Wurth sat down by the fire.
Directions were given for an early breakfast,
Arnold incidentally remarking, to the gaping landlord,
that he would like a black snake served up
with vinegar, and that his friend would have a
chop and potatoes.
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“I like to scare such fellows,” he said, as the
host withdrew. “While you were asleep,” he continued,
“the old chap talked so like a simpleton
that he made my head ache; and I just told him
that I'd put him out of his own house, if he kept
on. I wouldn't give two cents for such a man.”
“Yes, just about two,” replied Wurth. “But
come, let's to bed.”
-- 035 -- p491-036
CHAPTER III.
[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
Shakspeare.
The helpless look of blooming infancy.
Byron.
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
Shakspeare.
Agreeably to his suggestion, Frederick Wurth
went to bed; and if in his heart there were any
uneasy sensations, they were soon lulled into quiet.
The rain beat against the windows, and the wind
dashed itself in stormy gusts against the roof, but
happily the snug warm chamber was very different
from the outer world, of which the fretful turbulence,
as he listened, became a lullaby that soothed him into sleep.
Against the windows of a lofty chamber, not
many miles away, the same storm was beating, but
the heavy sweep of the wind was broken by the
contiguity of massive walls, so that it was in baffled
and subdued moanings rather than in tempestuous
-- 036 --
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threats that it sounded above the roof. The shutters
were closed round, to soften as much as might
be the tumult of the elements, and the lamp was
so shaded that its light scarcely penetrated the gorgeous
folds of the curtains, that swept from glittering
and elaborate cornices, against the roses and
blue bells which were sunken in the soft costly
carpet, as in a fleece.
The profusion of pictures, and sculptures, illustrating
schools of contemporary art—luxurious
chairs, divans, and ottomans, of daintily carved
rose-wood, and cushioned with crimson velvet—
the bed's canopy of azure and gold, and heavily
sweeping silken draperies—all reflected in ample
mirrors that reached from the floor to the ceiling,
indicated the presence of wealth, and the most unhesitating
liberality in its use.
Before the glowing anthracite—guarded by statues,
of Parian whiteness, whose extended hands
were locked above the generous heat—a small table
was drawn—the foot, a lion couchant, of dark wood,
and the top of Egyptian marble, inlaid with lilies
of pearl—upon which were set in a stand of chased
gold half a dozen bottles of Bohemian glass, so
costly and beautiful as to be fit receptacles for the
most delicious wines that come from Italy or sunny
Teneriffe.
And besides liquors and confects there was on
-- 037 --
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the table a small basket, made of fairy-like shells, of
every hue and form ever brought by adventurous
sailor from shores of farthest seas, in which were
little skeins of scarlet, blue, and yellow worsted, a
needle-book with covers curiously wrought, a golden
thimble with a band of gems—perhaps but counterfeits—
and a spectacle-case of pearl, elaborately
inlaid—doubtless a souvenir of some recent service.
And in a low and easy chair with a high carved
back, beside this table, sat a little woman who had
heard the storms of at least half a century and was
no longer startled or disturbed by their wild music.
On both her cheeks, which were a little hollow and
of an even colorless tone, stood—for they did not
fall or wave—two or three stiff curls of yellowish
or sorrel hair, and over her white lace collar fell the
blue floats of as tasteful a cap as any gentlewoman
of her order need desire.
Her black satin gown was the very model of
precision, notwithstanding three narrow ruffles or
flounces at the bottom of the skirt, which was
shortened just sufficiently for a partial revealing of
the lace points of her petticoat. The bodice—setting
aside any nice punctilio—fitted closely over
a bust that would never serve for an artist's model,
however it might have done, relieved of the pressure
of thirty years or so. The brooch, fastening
the collar, was a miniature, perhaps of some
-- 038 --
[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]
longago lover, perhaps only of her lamented grandsire,
for the lineaments were not defined with sufficient
accuracy to make the age of the subject a matter
easily to be guessed. A heavy gilt buckle, of an
antique fashion, clasped the belt exactly over the
middle seam of the bodice, and if by chance (for
chance may disarrange the buckle of a spinster as
well as anything else) it slipped to the left or right,
even so much as the thickness of a rose-leaf, it was
immediately adjusted.
This lady was just now—that is, on the aforementioned
stormy night—concentrating her artistical
abilities for the insertion of two little black
dots at an accurately ascertained distance from one
little red dot—the black dots to constitute the eyes,
as did the red dot the lower extremity of the nose,
of a white poodle, wrought of the worsted contained
in the pretty shell basket, on a bit of canvas.
She held the work close to her eyes, and, whether
or not she saw clearly, wore no spectacles. It
would have seemed that her sight was failing, from
the fact that the dots had been several times picked
out with a fine needle, and carefully put in again:
and yet one was perceptibly farther than the other
from the red top of the poodle's nose.
An uneasy twitch of the muscles followed the
discovery of this awry business, and an involuntary
reaching toward the spectacles, but, instead of
-- 039 --
[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]
drawing forth the needful glasses, she deftly arranged
the skeins in such way as to quite conceal
their handsome case.
On the opposite side of the table rested a hand,
small and exceedingly delicate—its diminutive size
set off, to the best advantage by the frill of the
wristband. The taper fingers sparkled with rings—
some but plain bands, others glittering with diamonds,
and others containing polished stones, the
value of which remained to most beholders a mystery.
That hand was none of your vulgar hands; not
by any possibility could it have hewed a shaft or
laid an architrave or forged an iron chain or felled
so much as a green bole; but such a hand it was
as most ladies admire, and within which, in case of
courtesy or compulsion, they will not greatly shrink
from resting their own—provided the infliction be
of transient duration, and its owner be well entitled
to assume such custody. In the present instance
the hand was not too flattering a voucher, for its
master was certainly prepossessing, although asleep.
He was not less neat than the lady working at the
black dots, but he lacked something of her prim
formality.
His head rested against the high-cushioned back
of his easy chair. His eyes were closed, and his
lips, a little parted, disclosed a set of teeth
-- 040 --
[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]
remarkably white and sound. His right hand, in which
was muffled a snowy cambric handkerchief, smelling
rather of drugs than essences, was placed on his left
knee, and his slippered feet were half sunken in
the cushion on which they rested.
Suddenly, perhaps to case her sight, the lady
leaves off work, and diligently surveys the sleeper.
Her clear gray eyes open something wider than is
their wont. “Bless me!” she is saying to herself,
“how white his hair is! Yet—he can't be less than
sixty, fresh and fair as he looks!” Here she buried
the handsome spectacle case quite in the bottom of
the basket, and tipped off the pretty skeins with
the gold thimble, on which was engraven—Araminta
Crum.
This accomplished, she looked again at the sleeping
gentleman. The footstool had slipped forward,
and, with most kindly regard, she reädjusted it.
Her whitehaired companion half unclosed his blue
eyes—smiled graciously, as if to say, “Thank you,
Miss Crum,” and nestled again under the wing of
“Magic sleep, that comfortable bird.”
“Oh, pshaw!” said the lady, grieved that she
had disturbed his repose. It must have been so,
for she added, in a moment, “Beg pardon, Doctor,
I had really no intention of waking you out of that
sweet sleep.”
-- 041 --
[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]
“Ah, madam, no apology is required. My excessive
fatigue to-night would medicine a much
ruder jostling.” And the doctor threw the cambric
handkerchief over his head, turned from the lamp,
and from Miss Crum, and burying quite the jeweled
hand in his trowsers pocket, presently, as was
indicated by his even breathing, walked again in
the unsubstantial realm of dreams.
The eyes of Miss Crum's little dog were forgotten.
She grew restless. “I wish I only knew the
time,” she thought. “I wonder if I could take the
doctor's watch from his fob without annoying him.”
She drew it forth, and, having seen the time, opened
it just to brush off a speck of dust she saw on the
face, and clasped it, with a snap that she could not
have designed; there was however no evil consequence,
for the doctor slept on, even though she
replaced it without any special cautiousness.
“If I am so light fingered, he will think I am
trying to steal,” she thought, half audibly.
The room seemed very lonely. Death might be
near, too, for aught she knew; but, though she
looked toward the bed, she did not approach it to
see the condition of the pale, patient sufferer. She
would always rather be alone, than have any one
pretend to sit with her, and sleep all the time.
She stirred with her delicate hand the fire, and
then summoned a servant to add to it a scuttle of
-- 042 --
[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]
coal—but all the ancient kingdom of Night held
not so inveterate a sleeper.
All at once across the ruffled sea of her thought
fell the shadow of some sweet prophetic star, and,
taking up the lamp, she walked on tip-toe with it
to a mirror, and holding it first high, then low,
then just level with the golden buckle, she contemplated
her personal attractions.
A satisfied smile came over her face, which still
retained traces of fair looks, but an amendment
suggested itself, and she began to pull the stiff
curls into more graceful length; but, alas! the
string by which the false front was attached to the
gray knot behind, gave way, and down it came,
leaving her no alternative but to take off the lace
cap and blue floats, mend the string, and decently
compose the whole as soon as possible.
It would have been perhaps a frightful sight to
see, but to Miss Crum—and, for her care, only to
that lady—it was so familiar as to induce no terror,
nor even a recollection of the contrasting appearances
of that head, thirty, or twenty, or even a
dozen years before.
Now she was silent as a dream; her hair, “done
up in any simple knot,” but put a little higher, she
thought, would show the handsome comb to more
advantage, and also give the cap a prettier effect;
and in pursuance of the thought she proceeded.
-- 043 --
[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]
Both hands were in that ungraceful employment
of tying up the hair: one end of a yard of black
tape was held between her teeth, and the other
binding together the slim remnant of once auburn
tresses—thus making an unbecoming indenture
across one cheek—when suddenly an arm was
thrown around her, and a voice was heard—
“Good heavens! Miss Crum, what has happened?
no suicidal attempt, I trust!” and applying his
jeweled fingers to the disfigured cheek, the doctor
said more calmly, “The incision is not fatal, not
dangerous; allow me—” and he endeavored to support
her to a sofa.
“Work thou my busy brain, thou hast not failed me yet,”
has been written by some poet for an exigency
to task a hero's powers; and perhaps the line
flashed through the brain of the surprised Miss
Crum, for in affected fright she upset the lamp,
and before it could be relighted, she managed to
adjust, in some sort, the curls and the cap. It was
a terrible mishap, but thereby good might come;
by no other chance, it may be, could the doctor's
evidently gentle and tender mood have been induced.
Seating herself close beside him, she explained,
that noticing his silver locks awakened curiosity to
see if her own were fading, and she had taken off
-- 044 --
[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]
her cap for that purpose; the rest—whatever he
might fancy he had seen—must have been a shadow,
or haply shapes of dreams, that lingered in his
imperfect wakefulness.
“You see,” she said, coquettishly taking his
jeweled fingers in her own, “You see there is no
blood on your hand.”
“An optical illusion: I understand;” and the
doctor withdrew his hand as if to examine it
himself.
The lady looked as if offended, hitched her chair
to the other side of the table, and took up her
worsted dog, to add three stitches to the tail.
“What a beautiful little creature!” said the doctor,
taking the embroidery from her, and gazing
at it with seeming admiration.
“What is my work to you?” said Miss Crum,
with sentimental dryness.
“Why—this ingenious handiwork of yours has
given me pleasure—nothing more.”
“Selfish, selfish man,” replied Miss Crum, in a
reproachful tone.
“My dear madam,” replied the old gentleman—
but what he would have said we do not know, and
cannot tell.
A thin, white hand put aside the silken drapery
of the bed, and a tremulous low voice called.
-- 045 --
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In a moment both were bending over the pillow.
“It is all over,” said the doctor, laying the end
of a finger on the fluttering lids.
The nurse took the baby from the chilled bosom
and relaxing clasp; on the golden tide of a new
love, the pure spirit of the gentle wife and mother
had floated over the stormy midnight and across
the wild river of death, to rest in eternity. Her
heart was trusting and devotional in life, and in the
fond blindness of woman, her last prayer had been
for Frederick, and not for herself. Heaven sent its
softest answer.
-- -- p491-047
CHAPTER IV.
[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]
..... You would have heard
The beating of your pulses while he spoke.
Croly.
Two or three days had passed. The rain was
over, and the atmosphere was clear and cool. Here
and there a belt of cloud darkened the horizon, or
whitened among the towering treetops like a ragged
fleece; but for the most part the sky was purely
and coldly blue, as if the late storm had swept it
to its furthest depths. Bird cages were set in the
southern windows, but the ruffled inmates sat
sullenly on their perches, or made at best but now
and then a quick and restless chirp, or low and
mournful twitter. Vines, with their leaves reddening,
but scarcely yet falling away, clung close to
the walls, and under the southern windows, and in
sheltered dooryards, some of the hardier flowers
were still in bloom. People were moving busily
to and fro; dense crowds filled the great
-- 047 --
[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]
thoroughfares; carts, stages, and coaches, ladies in gay
attire, drawn forth by pleasure, and beggars in
their rags, to ask alms, and shivering barefooted
children, bearing great bundles, jostled aside by
the hurrying steps of the stout men of business.
Over the magnificent bay towered a forest of masts,
and traffic and her votaries blocked up the wharves.
But one great commercial city is very much like
another, and New York, at the time of which I
write, was not materially different from the New
York of to-day.
Before one of the most imposing residences of
the then fashionable quarter, were drawn up a long
row of mourning coaches. The closed blinds and
the open door of the hall, about which silently
hovered some half-dozen men with serious faces,
and the hearse, heavily draped with black cloth,
intimated to the careless passer his own mortality.
Within, the friends of the deceased were gathered
in silent decorum—not many, nor very sorrowful:
in truth, the melancholy pall threw its terrible
shadow only upon one heart—a heart that real
sorrow had touched for the first time—a heart
breaking with thoughts of the reproaches which
the white lips of the dead had never spoken. The
Catharine of whom the young man spoke in the
village tavern, she whose dying prayer was for
Frederick, lay beneath this customary solemn
-- 048 --
[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]
pageantry, and the mourner whose arm rested
heavily but fondly on the coffin, was tormented
with the most painful memories of wrongs or of
neglected duties.
“Oh! if I had loved her better—if I had done
more to please and gratify her—if I had but returned
to stand by her bedside, to take our child in
my arms!” But these reflections were all too late,
and about the widowed husband closed the fixed
reality which shut away the light: silence—perpetual,
torturing silence. At the further end of the
room, and opposite the dead and the bereaved,
white hands unclosed the golden clasp of a Bible,
and a voice unspeakably sweet and soothing read,
“Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be
afraid.”
Hastily the young man turned in the direction
of the speaker, and an expression of surprise came
over his countenance. The pastor of the church
of which his wife had been a member, and whom
he had never seen, had been sent for to perform
these last offices, and he was at once recognized as
the strange clergyman seen at midnight in the
village where we first encountered him.
A little distrustfully Frederick Wurth listened
at first, but when the fervent eloquence of the
minister's prayer fell on his heart, like oil on
troubled waves, prejudice was more and more
-- 049 --
[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]
subdued till it was gone; for when the heart is very
sorrowful we are not often casuists, nor in the
presence of death, and of immortality, apt to be
infidels of the love of God. The eyes of the
preacher were full of mild pity; tears moistened
them more than once, and more than once his thin
lips trembled as he spoke of the inevitable end
of human life, and the resurrection, and the judgment
to come. The power of a most fine intelligence
was in all he said, and his own spirit
seemed impressed with a melancholy regret at the
loss of a friend, and with solemn awe at the thought
that she was yet near, purified of all earthly ill; and
among his hearers, who had hearts, was felt an
awakening thrill as he described her gentleness and
grace, and obedience to the heavenly will—and
their utter desolation, into which no comfort can
come, who have parted from dear friends who have
gone into the dark without faith, or any assurance
of rest.
Leaning against a door which led from the hall
into a room wherein the service was being performed,
stood Joseph Arnold, his eyes downcast, and
his arms folded across his bosom. Sometimes he
looked inquiringly at the preacher, knitting his
brows, and biting his lips, as one puzzled with
doubt; and then—at some tenderer or more daring
flight of eloquence—the expression of a serious
-- 050 --
[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]
interest came over his face, and he stood as if bound
with a spell, in spite of his previously formed convictions
in regard to the preacher.
“A man of fine talents,” whispered a little plethoric
person to Arnold, fanning himself with his
hat as he withdrew from peering into the dim parlor.
“A man of fine talents: I know of no one
among us who gives greater promise of eminence.”
“Who is he?” asked the person addressed, calmly
raising his eyes, and surveying the satin vest of the
very rotund little communicative gentleman.
“Ah, sir! don't you know?” and the tone indicated,
in spite of the polite manner, that in his
opinion the inquirer was much behind the times, at
least in matters ecclesiastical.
“No, I don't know him,” replied Arnold; a half
smile stealing over his face, for he felt that he could
afford to smile, and also acknowledge ignorance;
and though he might have elevated himself in the
eyes of his new friend by adding that he was a
stranger in the city, he forebore to avail himself of
such an advantage, or to offer any further observation.
“Pardon me,” said the little man, somewhat disconcerted,
“I supposed every one had heard of the
famous preacher Mr. Warburton.”
“Nathan Warburton of the Blank street church?”
asked Arnold; “I have heard of him.”
-- 051 --
[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]
“Never seen him, then? Humph!”
“Yes, I have seen him before.”
“Very remarkable that having once seen you
should forget him; he is not a person to forget, sir,
I fancy.”
“You are quite correct; I think he is not a
person to forget;” and folding his arms, the young
man looked toward the preacher, seeming no way
inclined to continue the conversation. Having
learned his name, he turned to listen with a new
interest.
The slant rays of the sinking sun fell on the
coffin, as it was removed to the hearse; the stricken
husband was assisted into the first carriage, accompanied
by an elderly female relative, and his
friend Joseph Arnold; and men and women hastily
climbed into the remaining coaches; some from a
sense of duty, and some for the sake of a ride in
the country; while, folding his arms, and lowering
his hat above his brows, the young clergyman gazed
on the preparations for the procession, and without
lifting his eyes to the many who waited for the
pressure of his hand and his smile, at length, with
his habitual light and stealthy tread, entered the
beautiful but simple black phaeton in which he was
to leave the scene. In a few moments, with decent
solemnity, every one had departed.
Suddenly the window of an upper chamber was
-- 052 --
[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]
opened, the curtain drawn aside, and Araminta
Crum, holding the little orphan in her arms, looked
out.
“Poor thing!” she said, “she is better off, for this
is a world of trouble.” And in a moment she
added, “Poor Mrs. Wurth! if she had taken my
advice and procured another physician, she might
be alive and well. I never did like that doctor.
But, after all, he may be as good as any other doctor,
or any other man, for all I know—they are all
wicked tyrants.”
“Why, Miss Crum!” exclaimed Mrs. Goodell, in
a sort of sweet surprise, as she rummaged through
a bureau, and took thence every article belonging
to the late Mrs. Wurth.
Mrs. Goodell was the upper domestic, and on the
decease of her mistress she stepped at once into a
new position. The sound of the funeral carriages
was not yet still when she gave orders for the preparation
of supper, and bringing two huge trunks
from a dusty closet, began to dispose of the effects
of the departed.
“There is no knowing,” she said, “into whose
hands they may fall;” and she was determined to
secure for the baby, when she should be grown, one
good black silk dress, and certain other things
which she specified, including a portion of the
family silver that was in her keeping.
-- 053 --
[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]
“Really,” said Miss Crum, “I don't see how you
can feel such an interest in the welfare of this child;
likely enough she will have a stepmother that will
teach her to hate you.”
“Why, Miss Crum!” said the astonished Mrs.
Goodell, heaping up a column of napkins. “These
must be marked in the baby's name,” she said,
counting them by touching each one with the fore-finger
of her left hand. “I wonder what her name
will be?”
“I am sure I don't care whether she has any
name at all or not,” replied the nurse, rocking listlessly
to and fro.
“Why, Miss Crum! you want the baby to have
a pretty name, surely?”
But Miss Crum insisted that she cared not a fig
whether it had any name, ugly or beautiful, adding
that she was no less indifferent to any thing else or
to every body else; and in the conclusion of the
sentence there seemed a bitter meaning.
“Why, Miss Crum! I am afraid you are a going
to have a spell of sickness!” and the provident
Mrs. Goodell snapped the lock of the trunk she had
been filling, and the black silk dress was secured
for the baby.
“Oh dear me!” said the venerable maiden, hitching
her chair from a streak of sunshine, “the day
will never end; it is a good long hour to twilight.”
-- 054 --
[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]
“My dear child,” said the housekeeper, who, by
the way, was much younger than the nurse, “you
are certainly going to have a spell of sickness. One
hour is no longer than another: it all depends on
the mind. But you must drink a strong cup of tea,
and have a good night's rest, and to-morrow you
will feel like another person. A cup of tea is my
cure-all, Miss Crum.”
But the nurse insisted that tea would only make
her feel worse, and that in fact she did n't care if
she was a going to have a spell of sickness; she
would as soon be out of the world as in it. It was
a weary, dreary place at best, she said, and for her
it had no charms.
“Why, Miss Crum!” and the housekeeper pressed
her hand to her forehead for a moment, as if trying
to recall something; and leaving the open trunk
from which she had blown the dust, she slipped
away to her own room, whence she presently returned
with a dingy little pamphlet, the cover of
which was gone, and the leaves curled, indicating
long usage. Turning over page after page, she at
length paused, and bending her eyes close upon the
book, apparently read, with the deepest interest.
“I knew it,” she said directly, “I knew it.”
“What did you know?” asked the nurse, taking
both the baby's feet in one hand, and calling it a
“precious little toad.”
-- 055 --
[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]
“I knew you would be sick,” the housekeeper
replied; “I had such a strange dream last night.”
“What was it—about me?” and the nurse looked
frightened.
“No, not about you; it was about cows. And,”
continued the housekeeper, “I have known this
book to tell so many things that come out true!
This book,” she said, reopening it, “was formerly
the property of Bonaparte, was consulted by him
every day, and his success in life is said to have
been mainly caused by it. It can be neither given
away nor lent, but must be either bought or sold.”
“But the dream, the dream,” said the nurse, “and
my sickness; I think I feel a touch of vertigo.”
“Well, I dreamed of seeing a great many cows,”
said the housekeeper, seating herself on the carpet
in the midst of frocks, bonnets, shoes, perfumes,
gloves, thimbles, and cushions; “and the book says
to dream of cows, if they be milch cows, sleek and
fat, is a good sign, indicating that some relative
will shortly leave you money; but if they be poor
and lean—”
The return of the funeral carriages interrupted
her, and hastily going below, Miss Crum warded
off her approaching illness, and it may be even
death, with melancholy, pleasing reveries. It was
a bad world, it was—and men were growing more
and more heartless and absurd, and the
-- 056 --
[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]
apprecitation of excellence, in ladies, seemed to her
quite obsolete; nothing could please the men any
more but the unmeaning faces of young girls—
mere children; it was not so once—but now, she
had no doubt that that ridiculous and starched up
doctor — She paused, and a gentler emotion was
betrayed by a relaxing of the fixed expression of
her lips; there was at least one more widower in
the world! and widowers —
-- -- p491-058
CHAPTER V.
[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]
My head is like to rend, Willie,
My heart is like to break.
Motherwell.
It were all one, that I should love
A bright particular star, and think to wed it.
Shakspeare.
......... Although
The air of Paradise did fan the house,
And Angels officed all, I will be gone.
Shakspeare.
In a small and simply furnished chamber of a
cottage some fifty miles from New York, the cottage
mentioned in our first chapter, the young girl
whom we called Elsie, was ill, but rather from
mental excitement than any physical disorder.
Sometimes she lay quietly, her hands locked together,
and her eyes closed, wearing on her countenance
an expression of intense suffering; then she
would suddenly rise in her bed and gaze earnestly
forth, as though influenced by an absorbing but
always baffling expectation; and then, turning
away, she would bury her face in her hands, and
sigh so very mournfully that all the pathos ever
-- 058 --
[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]
shown in tenderest art could scarcely match her
sad display of feeling. And sometimes she would
rock to and fro, and strive to reassure her heart by
repeating fond words and promises, on which she
once relied with certainty; words and promises on
which, poor girl, she could rely no more; and with
this conviction ever suddenly obtruding, to check
bright dreams, her soul grew sick; and falling on her
knees, she would cry, “Have mercy, God! Thou
knowest my weakness and wickedness. Thou,
who fashioned my heart, and made it what it is,
crush me not that I yielded to the instincts of this
nature thou hast given; or if thou withdrawest
thyself, leave me the help of human comfort; in
the bright middle heavens darken not the sun of
love; on the fresh borders of existence wither not
the boughs of the tree of life, nor blacken all its
opening buds. I cry to thee, and thou art silent;
I reach out my arms toward thee till they fall back
aching and weary on a bosom without peace, empty
of hope, of every thing but the sense of thy displeasure
and my ruin. Are the dews of mercy
exhausted that they may not drop against my hot
forehead any more? is the hand of heavenly pity
paralyzed, that it will not unwind the flames which
coil and tighten about my heart! Break asunder,
All Merciful, at least the flaxlike thread of this
existence of agony, in the fires of thy wrath; push
-- 059 --
[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]
me utterly from being, and give me rest, rest—
eternal rest.”
Thus at times her spirit went wailing up to the
bosom of the Unseen; and again, in stolid silence
closing her lips, she put her human strength and
human weakness against retribution for broken
laws, saying, “I but fulfilled the destiny marked
for me from the beginning, and if the bastions of
heaven lift themselves against me, am I to blame?
or if the black walls of the pit shut me in, can my
weak hands break them down?”
One means of escape only seemed open; but the
way was steep and dark, and she could not willingly
go down alone. Yet hope—when does hope
desert us? not till mortality trembles in its extinction,
and the blessed light of love is lost in the
drowning waters of death.
“My dear child,” said her fond mother, approaching
the bed where Elsie lay, with one hand twisted
in her golden curls, and one so tightly shut that
the nails pressed into the palm: “My dear child,
what can I do to make you well?”
“Nothing! nothing!” answered the wretched
girl, burying her face in her pillow, and forcing
the groan which rose to her lips back into her
heart.
“But think of something I can do; you are so
kind, so good, and fear giving me trouble!” and
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stroking back her hair, she tenderly kissed the
cheek of the sufferer, seeing not, for her love, that
she shrank away.
Softly she arranged the pillow, and carefully
folded the counterpane; and telling Elsie to try to
sleep a little, went out for the preparation of some
cordial—such as she fancied—kind and unsuspicious
woman—would bring back the lost light of
health.
Alone, the young girl thrust the covering, so
carefully folded, away, and sitting upright, exclaimed,
“This is the bitterest of all! she called
me her dear, good girl! If she cast me out, and
disowned me, I could live, but this undeserved
kindness and confidence! I cannot bear it.”
The expression of her anguish was overheard;
the door again opened silently, and the same sweet
voice inquired if there was any new suffering.
“It is over now,” Elsie said, struggling to compose
herself, and leaving the bed, she passed to and
fro in the room, her lips moving, but her voice
inaudible. At length an expression of calmness
came over her face, and her eyes rested steadfastly
on the floor, as though some questionable and
agitated point had been decided in her mind. On
the appearance of her mother, with a salver of tea,
and the daintiest food, she betrayed no emotion,
but acknowledged the kindness with a smile, and
-- 061 --
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ate, as if there were no fires now in her brain, nor
shadows on her heart.
“You will sleep to-night,” said her affectionate
nurse, as she arranged the bed and smoothed the
pillow, “and in the morning feel almost well.”
“Yes, I shall be better to-morrow!” she answered,
but lifted not her eyes to those of her mother,
nor seemed inclined for further conversation; she
only rested her head on the table, by which she sat,
watching the embers—now sending up a flickering
and sudden flame, and now mouldering and dim—
studying prophecies in the fleeting pictures there,
which none but she could see.
But though the silence imported a willingness
to be alone, it was not understood. “What are
you thinking of, my daughter?” the mother asked,
playfully patting her colorless cheek, as she sat
down beside her.
“I was making the embers tell my fortune,” she
replied, “but it is very dark.” There was an earnestness
in her tone, indicative of the interest, if not
faith, felt in the test to which she thus silently
submitted the questions of her destiny.
Suddenly a little flame quivered upward, and
grew stronger, till the room was full of light.
“Thank God!” then she said, “the light will
come at last;” and for a moment a gleam of satisfaction
played on her features, which the mother
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saw, and smiled, saying, “I did not know, my
child, you had so much of my foolish superstition.
To-day the black cock perched himself on the dead
bough of the elm at the door, and crowed several
times. `If he crow again,' I thought, `Elsie will
get well, and we shall be so happy.' I knew it was
an idle fancy, a mere chance, and yet my work fell
from my hands, and I listened with a deeper
anxiousness, daughter dear, than I can make you
understand.”
“And did he crow as you hoped?” asked Elsie,
her voice trembling with eagerness and fearful apprehension.
“Oh, I forgot till this moment,” replied the mother,
unpinning and pinning again a small black
shawl she wore about her shoulders, and either not
hearing or affecting not to hear the question, “I
forgot to tell you, Elsie, that John Dale was here
again this afternoon to ask how you were—poor
fellow!”
Elsie moved uneasily, but said nothing, and the
mother continued, as she placed the embers in a
heap, and set aside the great brass andirons, for
which there was no use now: “He had been to
make the last payment on his farm, and seemed in
fine spirits.”
“Then the cock did not crow again!” and she
turned her face from the eyes of her mother and
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the blaze which had flashed more brightly, toward
the dark.
“Next summer he will build a beautiful cottage—
the cage before the bird, you know.”
“What if I let go the bird i' the hand, and found
none in the bush?” said Elsie, rather to herself
than to her mother.
“What, dear child?”
“Nothing; I was only repeating a line I have
read somewhere;” and she seemed absorbed in melancholy
musing a moment, and then added, “John
is a good young man, and I hope he will be very
happy.”
“But you will not help to make him so?” And
though the question was lightly asked, Elsie appeared
to think there was serious meaning in it,
and answered sorrowfully, that he had her prayers
and good wishes, but for anything beside it was
too late.
“Yes, he is a good young man, as you say, and
dear, he likes you as he does no one else;” and in
turn the mother spoke sadly. “What time is it,
my daughter?”
“I wish it were morning,” said Elsie—for the
wretched are apt to imagine another time and place
will be better. But it is hard to fly from ourselves:
“Still, still pursnes, where'er we be,
The blight of life, the demon thought.”
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“I wonder when you will be able to go to
town?” the mother asked; “in two or three days?”
“Oh yes, I am sure I shall be well enough,” and
for the first time that night there was a true earnestness
in what she said. A thousand undefined
hopes sprang into life at a thought of going to the
city. He to whom she was speaking, when first
we saw her, was there; she would see him, and
hold his hands in her own, and look into his eyes,
and call him dear Nattie; and what more could she
desire? She did not ask whether he would call
her “dear Elsie;” she did not care.
The matron continued her silent musing; but
her thoughts were not of “Nattie,” they were of
the new dress and bonnet which Elsie should wear
at Mary Crane's wedding, where she would be sure
to meet John Dale.
“Oh, yes, I should like so much to go to town—
it would make me well, I know!” and, almost
trembling, she awaited a reply, saying she felt
better that night.
“What a blest medicine of pain is a sweet hope!”
Little cared she for the new dress, though well
she knew what hopes and wishes were in her
mother's heart. She had as yet used no artifice to
deceive, and with this, but without any attempt at
undeceiving, she tried to quiet her conscience.
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With what shallow arguments we strive to build
our weakness into strength!
After the first little swerving from right, the
step into positive wrong is easy, and the next descent,
and the next, and the next, easier still, till
there rises between our sinking feet and the daylight
of beauty and innocence, a mountain of
darkness, as a curse, against which the soul has no
power to rise. Such conviction—fruit of the knowledge
of good and evil planted in every heart—
swept at times the consciousness of Elsie, darkening
away the light of peace, as the whirlwind
buries blossoms in dust, or a cloud covers the stars.
In vain she tried—there was no avenue of escape.
When her little brother climbed on her
knees, and kissed her, again and again, she smiled,
and would have answered his caresses as fondly,
yet her arms clasped themselves coldly and weakly
about his neck. She had never loved him more,
never so much, as now, but his innocent love was a
reproach, and she grew dumb before him.
They called her changed, and abstracted—softer
names for coldness and selfishness—but could they
have seen the bleeding heart, with its yearning
but repressed affections, over which the smile beamed
so faintly, and the silence brooded so coldly, the
harsh judgment must have been unspoken, and
reversed.
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When the boy left her she called him back, and
when he came she sent him from her, gazing on
him with looks intensely mournful, such as the
mother gives a child from whom death is pressing
her away. “Mother!” she called often, and when
her mother came, there was nothing she would
have, but sometimes she would hide her face, and
ask forgiveness for the trouble she had caused, and
again look on her with such beseeching earnestness
as cannot be described with any words. So the
days and the nights went by, and the lover came
not, nor sent any token of remembrance; but
forsaken and wretched as she was, Elsie grew
calmer and stronger. She had resolved on her
course.
No life is utterly joyless that is subject to a great
purpose. The Will has something of that power
the Master said belonged to Faith, to which it is
related so nearly as often to be distinguished from
it only with great difficulty. The schoolmen have
debated of it much, and many hold that it must
bend to other forces; but from all that I have
read in histories, or seen in life about me, Will is
sovereign over everything but God, whose own
most fit description is the Highest Will. Into
the heart and brain of Elsie came suddenly this
inspiration, and she looked bravely out on her
future, from the sight of which she before shrank
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appalled; and she saw the mountains moving, and
day again, brighter and fairer for the blackness and
terror of the receding night, blooming and shining,
far, far away, to where it mingled with the eternal
light.
-- -- p491-069
CHAPTER VI.
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If hearty sorrow
Be a sufficient ransom for offense,
I tender it here; I do as truly suffer
As I did o'er offend.
Shakspeare.
“Can my poor words and weak faith have
afforded any consolation or comfort?” said Nathan
Warburton, speaking to himself, as he sat in his
handsomely furnished apartment the evening after
the funeral. An expression of sad solemnity came
over his face, his eyes moistened, and he pulled the
leaves from a monthly rose that was on the table
by his side, and crushing them, one by one, dropped
them at his feet.
“What am I doing, and to what am I tending?”
he said. “Am I not proud, and self-willed, deficient
in religious feeling, and weak in every principle
and stay of virtue? To others I say `Be as
rocks, against temptation,' when myself am a very
reed. Men and women, infinitely better than I,
come around me and praise me for intellect and
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eloquence and goodness—have I either? If it be
true that I was made to influence men's characters
and lives, as sometimes I am half persuaded by
this applause, how terrible a responsibility! God,
my Father! how awful thine ultimate anger, or how
sweet thy dear approval! Before it is forever too
late, can I not subdue this rebellious heart, and
crush out its defying and damning pride?”
His flushed warm brow, in which the veins were
now distended till they seemed like chords that
lashed him to madness, was leaning in his palm, and
for a while he was silent; but his turbulent thought
again became coherent, and in a soft and melancholy
monotone he went on, with a sincerity possible
only, perhaps, in solitary self examination:
“I preach repentance to others, when all I have
ever felt needs to be repented of. When life is gay
about me, and the sunshine of prosperity is over
all, the questionings of conscience are less distinct;
but when the world dwarfs in this funeral silence,
and the joyous light, and the laughing wind, are
stayed back by the pall, Satan binds my hands, and
the demons torture me as they will.”
Again he paused, but in a little while he said,
“Prayer is a sharp weapon, before which they
cannot stand,” and, falling on his knees, he besought
that the arms of everlasting love might be
about him, and lift him above the low temptations
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of passion, into the serene comfort and confidence
of a religious life.
As he arose his countenance wore the expression
of one exhausted with some terrible conflict, of one
neither victorious nor yet wholly baffled. He
thrust away the hassock on which he had been
accustomed hitherto to kneel, as though sin were
in its use, and with a look in which there was
more of disdainful pride than of humility, stript off
from one of the fingers of his left hand two rings,
the glitter of which had long been pleasant to his
eyes, and cast them from him as one would shake
off a serpent. Passing the sumptuously cushioned
chair in which he usually read, he seated himself
in that which he least liked, and taking up a Book
of the Martyrs, was presently absorbed in its histories
of torment and triumph, of wrestling and
peace.
The wings of his faith expanded and grew strong
in the glow of old inspirations, as do those of a
young bird in the warmth and light of the sun;
and thought went upward with braver and braver
sweep and confidence, till the rack and the thong
lost their terror, and it seemed a little thing to die
for that religion for which he could not live.
What contradictions are in the best of us, what
blendings of weakness and strength, of timidity and
courage!
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“A gentleman is waiting below, sir,” and the
servant who made the announcement bowed deferentially,
as he paused for a reply.
“Show him up,” said the clergyman, without
raising his eyes; but the man hesitated, half believing
he must have misapprehended the words—
unaccustomed to receive so direct and simple a
reply to similar announcements; for, if no card
were sent, Mr. Warburton was usually particular in
his inquiries whether the person waiting were a
gentleman, or had a plebeian air; and no matter
who came, friend or stranger, unless he was in a
genial mood, which was not very frequently the
case, the servant had directions to say he was not
at home; therefore it was no marvel he felt some
surprise at an answer and a manner which seemed
to indicate a new humor in his master, or an unprecedented
caprice.
As the door reöpened, and the stranger, a young
man of shuffling gait and uncouth appearance, presented
himself, an habitual smile of cold disdain
was visible, and, half rising, without offering his
hand, the preacher waited with a sort of impatient
civility for the intruder to make known whatever
business had brought him there.
“I have the honor of speaking to Mr. Warburton?”
he said, advancing, with awkward embarrassment.
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A slight inclination of the head was the only
answer.
“My name is Arnold—Joseph Arnold.” The
preacher bowed again, and his smile, as he pointed
to a seat, was a little more placid.
But without accepting the proffered courtesy, the
young man said he had that day had the happiness
of listening to his wise counsel and moving eloquence,
such as could have come only from one
equally eminent in capacities and purity of heart,
and he had taken the liberty he supposed was
warranted by Mr. Warburton's profession, of seeking
an interview, the pleasures and advantages of
which would, of course, be his only. He trusted
to Mr. Warburton's goodness for such conversation
as would strengthen the resolutions induced by the
impressive beauty of the day's public discourse.
“You are quite too flattering,” the reässured and
now placable minister said, rising, and drawing the
easy chair near his own—for flattery seldom falls
on such stony ground as to be wholly choked out.
And as the stranger seated himself, he continued
to say that, if his poor ability had afforded a moment's
gratification or induced a single resolve of
duty, he had over-payment for all the suffering and
sorrow the day had cost him.
Arnold smiled, for if there were some truth in
the words, he could not but be aware of much
-- 073 --
[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]
exaggeration in them, and he said he had only
ability to appreciate what was fine in other men,
without power of originating anything himself; but
that, if he might venture an opinion, he would say
the pleasure of creating, even aside from the conviction
of the happiness it gave others, must be
infinitely superior to every other.
“Doubtless, you are in some sort correct. Genius
must be its own reward. But after all, it is
only a bright curse, which, as it dazzles, bewilders
and blinds. I, however,” he said in a subdued
tone, “am not a man of genius, but merely a simple
clergyman, whom few have heard of, and whose
highest praise is that he has some earnestness in
his vocation. For the goodness you attribute to
me—God help me! I am not good.”
“A sweet fountain sendeth not forth bitter waters,
nor a bitter fountain sweet waters,” said
Arnold; “and the good words as well as the good
acts of a life are fruit of the promptings of the
heart.”
“True: good thoughts must have preceded
good words, at some time; but they may rise, like
the delicious cream, spreading themselves on the
surface, and leaving the under current worthless,
at best. We cannot accurately judge of what is
hidden by what is seen. My theory is that, even
in the best natures, the stars stand still
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[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]
sometimes, in the horoscope of love, and the cold light
of intellect is mistaken for their radiance.”
“We must not expect perfection,” Arnold said,
“and, after all, it is not desirable, unless the whole
world were regenerated, for so soon as we attained
it our work here would be done. If you were
altogether good, for instance, how could you
soften your speech to the condition and necessities
of the bad; how could you reach the sinful or
suffering? How could you know their necessities,
if lifted, as it were, out of our common
humanity?”
“Our great example of perfection went about
doing good.”
“Yes; but he was divine, and yet subject to
the temptations of mortality, that he might minister
to mortal weakness, though, in his divinity,
strong enough to resist. The light given to
guide us must be broader and higher than that
within ourselves, else we had no need of it
at all.”
“But when, overcome by temptation, we seal
our doom, what motive have we to do good any
more?” And the preacher spoke as one might
who felt himself lost.
“There is none utterly lost—at least not here;
but a future, into which we may go through the
gate of repentance, where the past, however dark,
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[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]
may be fought down. Weak, sinful as we are, we
are still almost omnipotent.”
Warburton smiled.
Arnold continued: “There is more goodness in
the world, more religion in the world, than men
are apt to believe. Did you ever proclaim a lofty
sentiment without seeing the light of approval
kindled in every countenance before you? Trust
in ourselves, and in human nature, is what we
need.”
“Can the reed defy the storm?” said Warburton;
“or can he trust in himself, whose intellect
enables him to perceive that which his heart does
not feel?”
Arnold smiled in turn. There was really no
clashing in their theories, and each talked for the
sake of drawing out the other. The difference in
their natures was, perhaps, that Arnold did not
mark out a course, and say this conduct will make
me a friend, and the friend will help me to some
object near my heart, therefore I will pursue it;
but more readily than Warburton he was apt to
seize whatever advantage came in his way, because
of his lower pride, and his inferior care for the
opinions of the world. I say lower pride, because
he had pride of a certain sort—a pride in seeming
unlike other men, in despising gentlemanly behavior,
and in affecting indifference to wealth and
-- 076 --
[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]
social elevation—a very common and a very ignoble
pride, scarcely compatible with any genuine
bravery or virtue; while that of Warburton was
in all respects essentially different. In the ability
of other men to stand alone, to battle with circumstances
and warp them to their will, Arnold had
some confidence, though not all he affected; but in
his own powers he had little faith, and no energy to
push that little into action, but was always going
outside of himself, and indolently leaning on some
one, leaving the mind which he really possessed to
rust out unused.
Quick to recognize and appreciate talent, and
feeling, sometimes, conscious of equality with the
most brilliant persons into whose society he was
brought by chance or a momentary ambition, indolence,
ignorance, hopelessness, and diffidence, all
kept him down. He could feel what he could not
say—as Warburton could say what he could not
feel.
Never, perhaps, in his life, had he acted out his
nature more truly than to-day, in the various incidents
connected with this visit, the cost of which
to him no one might guess. Thrice at least he
passed the clergyman's house, for though he hated
the formula of life, and before a great mind bowed
in unaffected homage, diffidence and a mortifying
sense of his uncouth person and rude breeding
-- 077 --
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kept him back till, at length, defying himself, as it
were, and, it may be, irresistibly attracted by some
sort of affinity of soul, he sought and obtained this
interview; and there never had been and might
never be again in the course of the clergyman's
life an hour he could have selected more wisely
for his purpose.
There are processes, it is said, by which fire can
be drawn from ice; there are influences, superhuman
almost, to break the power of custom, and
strip naked the soul before the eyes of our fellows,
resist as we may. Only in certain states of feeling,
and when time and place and circumstance are all
propitious, may such things be, yet all of us at one
time or another, in affairs of trivial or of great
importance, are apt to feel in such combinations
the inevitable power of a destiny.
Thus these two natures, laying off some of their
pretenses, met and mingled.
“I was engaged with this book,” said Warburton,
turning the lettering toward his new acquaintance
and breaking the silence, which was becoming
embarrassing; “I was engaged with this book, on
your entrance, and debating with myself whether
one might not even become a martyr for the religion
he could not or would not practice in his
daily life.”
Arnold looked embarrassed, and he continued:
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“A mad enthusiast, fancying wings of flame
most fit to bear a sinful soul to heaven—a man
of strong prejudice, rather than of strong faith,
might make this awful sacrifice as a testimony
of feeling, or an atonement for sin; or some, even,
for the glory of a name, register it in everlasting
fire.”
He paused a moment, and then continued, sorrowfully,
and as if speaking to himself, “There is
light, even in the religious walks of life—light
guiding to good deeds and great sacrifices—which
falls not from the beams of the cross.”
He seemed gazing in upon his own soul, as he
spoke, but presently, as if ashamed of his illconcealed
emotion and partial confession, he directed
the conversation in a new channel, where it
flowed in a light, sparkling current, for which Arnold
had no capacity, and he therefore shortly took
his leave.
Warburton said, when he was left alone, “It is
a pity he has not more gentlemanly accomplishments,
but he has the same claim upon man and
God as I, or any one, and it is possible that in all
things to which we may be tempted by ambition
he will surpass me, though I were ten times as
proud, fastidious, and skilled in the commonplaces
of the world.”
He said rightly. Whatever the past, while the
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mind and physical energy fall not yet to ruins, we
may go through the gate of repentance, and shape
our future as we will.
“Elsie, dear, forsaken Elsie! out of your love I
will crown myself, and your purity and innocence
shall be my guide.”
-- -- p491-081
CHAPTER VII.
[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]
Thou art forgotten, thou whose feet
Were listened for like song,
They used to call thy voice so sweet—
They did not miss it long.
L. E. L.
I shall fall
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And no man miss me more.
Shakspeare.
Poets may talk of the fidelity of love—of its
indestructible nature—but we are faithless, at best,
and thrice faithless to the dead.
The grass creeps not so softly nor so soon over
the grave as forgetfulness over the heart. Not
positive forgetfulness, perhaps, but alienation and
indifference. For a time the wing of Death puts
out the sun, and blank, dumb, helpless apathy,
paralyzes the energies of life.
A beloved one—mother, or sister, or child—is
gone, they tell us, gently as may be, and pointing
our thoughts to the heaven where they never are
sick, or weary, and never are parted from dear
ones any more; but what words of comfort may
-- 081 --
[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]
avail! we feel only the awful separation, and in
that there is all sorrow and all pain.
The locks are combed smooth and the feet
straightened, and strong hands with the mattock
and the spade fashion in an hour the “narrow
house.” Our lips whiten and our hearts stand still,
as our clinging arms are forced away and the
shroud is folded about the ruins of mortality.
Scarcely have we strength to pray.
The clods are over the coffin, and there comes a
sense of relief. We return to our homes; and
whatever belonged to the dead, the chair in which
she sat, the book she read, the bed or the cradle in
which she slept—all are hallowed to us, and for a
while cherished as precious mementos. But day
after day the sunshine falls, and the shadow grows
less and less heavy, the expulsive power of new
interests comes in, the accustomed chair has a new
occupant, new eyes are lingering in the book, and
thenceforth everything is linked with new thoughts.
Other lips pronounce the words of the bards, and
the old tones, that made them music, fade away
from the memory.
So, by little and little, the waves of time widen
between us and the lost, till they become a great
sea, across which our thoughts but now and then
are wafted by some tempest of the heart.
“Oh! what are thousand living loves
To one that cannot quit the dead?”
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Thus writes a poet, who should have known
more of the conditions of human feeling. The
dead, if they loved us in life, we can give up; our
souls have been sheltered in their bosoms, the dew
of their garlands has fallen on our brows; we
have been blest, and the blessing is undying in
our recollections of its beauty and sweetness.
And, even if we love without love, and our
heart-yearning is “a voice of music uttered to the
blast, and winning no reply,” what can come
between us so fitly as the grave?
Better for our peace that the soul's melody be
hushed into silence by the hand of death than
that it waken to the touches of another. This
thought, that we are spared the hardest agony of
all to bear, is some mitigation of our wo. It is
the dead to whom we are faithless. Wailing to
ourselves, and with feeble and faltering steps, we
follow the smile that is our heart's star, across all
the wild mountains and waste deserts of life.
A week was gone by, and the blinds were open
again, and the servants busy about the house, arranging
and rearranging, preparing breakfasts and
dinners, nibbling in the pantry, and jesting and
laughing with each other, as though their mistress
were still the presiding genius of the place.
Margaret, as the chief domestic had formerly
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[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]
been called, had intimated that it would be just as
easy to address her as Mrs. Goodell, which gave
infinite delight to those over whom she had
authority. But the rod she swayed was not of
iron, and though they laughed and took occasions
much oftener than necessary to say “Mrs. Goodell,”
they could not choose but love her, for her severest
reproof was never more than a sweet and subdued
expression of surprise.
If the maid had carelessly overturned the urn of
hot coffee in her lap, she would have only said,
“Why, Mary!” or “How unfortunate!”
The nurse, since she had fully stepped into her
new position, she called for the most part, “My
dear,” and in her most patronizing moods, “My
dear child.”
This was not particularly agreeable to Miss
Crum, who was a woman of some spirit, and she
retained alone the old habit of saying “Margaret.”
She was sure she was not spited at any body for
a wind-fall, though she had never met any good
fortune herself that she did not honestly earn;
but if some persons were disposed to take airs on
themselves, she didn't know as she was bound
at all to recognize and humor their foundationless
pride.
If Mrs. Goodell went out to buy a yard of tape,
she was sure her duties to the baby required her at
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home, though some folks had plenty of time to
waste in shopping. If the tea chanced to be weak,
it was never so in Mrs. Wurth's time; if strong,
poor Mr. Wurth would be a ruined man if such
extravagance continued to be indulged. But she
didn't know why she should care; in fact, she
didn't; she was very foolish for saying anything
about it, and almost wished she had neither eyes
nor ears.
In this unamiable state of feeling, she one day
sat in her own room, contemplating, by way of
soothing her feelings, perhaps, though the association
would scarcely be supposed to have that effect,
the worsted dog, now completed and lying on her
knees, when, tapping lightly on the door, but without
waiting an answer, Mrs. Goodell entered. She
was smiling as usual, not graciously, not benignly,
but as though really contented and happy.
The two great trunks containing the black silk
dress, silver spoons, and other valuables, were in
one corner of the room, and with them a band-box,
in a calico sack. Miss Crum didn't care how much
rubbish the housekeeper put in her apartment, and
the housekeeper had been too busy to attend to the
removal of the things till now.
Unloosing from the confinement of its tape-string
the aforesaid calico sack, she took the lid from the
band-box and examined whether the bonnet were
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in a good state of preservation, saying it looked just
like poor Mrs. Wurth, and she could see her with
it on. She then rëclosed the box, tied close the
string about the mouth of the sack, and with a
step so light that it seemed to fall on heather, bore
her treasure away to a small upper chamber, called
the servant's spare bedroom. As she passed the
nurse, who chanced to sit in the way, she held it
aside, greatly more than was necessary, that it
might not disarrange her very gracefully disposed
skirts.
“You needn't be afraid of me, Margaret; I
am not poison,” said that dignified and amiable
personage.
“Why, Miss Crum, dear child! I know you are
not poison. If I disturb you, I will not remove
the other things; but I wished to put everything to
rights before tea.”
Miss Crum drew her chair aside, and asked what
was going to happen—curiosity for the moment
getting the better of her ill humor.
“Oh, nothing,” said Margaret; “a gentleman is
coming to tea, that is all.”
“Good heavens! what a great simpleton you
are!” And more than the original spiteful harshness
of the nurse returned, or would have done so,
but for a second thought.
“Why, Araminta Crum!” exclaimed the
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housekeeper, and with her customary sweet smile, and
light step, the happy woman bore off the box.
When she returned, Miss Crum expressed herself
delighted that the ugly old trunks were to be taken
away. They harrowed up her feelings, she said,
and made her irritable and nervous; and when
they had been unlocked and seen into a little, as
Mrs. Goodell expressed it, she voluntarily assisted
in removing them into the spare room—a task difficult
of accomplishment, but finished, at last, by
dint of hitching them, with interludes for the recovery
of breath, from step to step up the stairs.
“Do you know who is coming?” asked the nurse,
carelessly.
“Really, child, I did not inquire, but think it's
the doctor. He often takes tea with us of a Wednesday
night.”
“With us!” thought Miss Crum, but she wisely
forebore to speak it, and saying she would prefer
that it were anybody else, skipped into her own
room, with the alacrity of sixteen, and began the
most active preparations.
Meantime Margaret made the rounds of the
house, by way of getting all in perfect order before
the gentlemen should come in.
Sometime previous to the appointed hour Miss
Crum was duly arrayed. Her stiff curls were
drawn out to their greatest length, and as smooth
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—as they ever were. The blue ribbons of the cap
were exchanged for white ones, and the black silk
dress for one of pea-green. The lace points of the
petticoat were just the least bit visible, and as she
surveyed herself in the glass an expression of satisfaction
lighted her face that really made her
look quite pretty—“nice as a new pin,” as Margaret
said when, having completed her own toilet, she
came up to hook the pea-green frock.
“Thank you, Mrs. Goodell,” Miss Crum said
when the task was ended, and forthwith began
chattering like a magpie.
She was even more satisfied than before, on seeing
the housekeeper's plain appearance, for Mrs.
Goodell had simply tied on a clean gingham apron,
and made some little effort, useless all, to comb her
thin and faded tresses across the great bald spot
on the top of her head.
“I will just give the baby a few drops of paregoric,”
said the nurse, bending over the cradle
and praising the beautiful black hair of the child,
which she had not noticed before—“for I might
want to stay below a little after tea, one gets so
lonely in one's own room always.”
“Why, Miss Crum, you will not give the baby
laudanum!” and the housekeeper took the vial
from her hands, as she held the teaspoon ready for
the slow and careful dropping. “Dear child, that
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will never do. I will come up and take care of
the little darling.” And she fondled it and called it
a thousand pretty names, hugging it close, and
kissing it over and over, as though she had rescued
it from some terrible peril, which, in truth,
she had.
“Children that are well and healthy, like this
precious 'ittle mousey,” here she squeezed the innocent
more tightly than ever, “will sleep enough,
Miss Crum. Oh yes, him sleep enough, don't him?”
here followed another kiss, after which she related
many instances of death or idiocy produced by
giving bad medicines to such infants.
Miss Crum acknowledged the wisdom of her caution,
though she would probably have been highly
indignant at such an invasion of her peculiar province,
but for anticipations of a display of her attractions
to some purpose at the tea-table. As Margaret
laid the child in the cradle, rocking it to and
fro the while with motherly fondness, she said she
had dreamed of cats the night before, and to dream
of any of the feline tribe was one of the worst signs
that could be—indicating danger to some of the
household, and the shedding of many tears.
Miss Crum smiled, little thinking that she would
verify both these bad omens. How could she? for
ere the smile faded the door-bell rang, and leaning
over the banister she saw a gentleman, who
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inquired for Mr. Wurth and was shown into the
parlor.
“How are you, Frederick?” and “Ah, Joseph,
glad to see you,” were the familiar and cordial
salutations of the friends.
That Mr. Wurth did not say, “Devilish glad to
see you, Jo,” and that Arnold took the hand of his
friend, instead of slapping him on the shoulder
and calling him Fred, was attributable to the recent
melancholy event in the family, but this was all
the change discernible in the method or manner of
either.
The sorrow, the change, apparently were regarded
but as a vacuum around which to talk. And
Joseph Arnold, as he conversed with his rich, indolent
friend, and glided into his more habitual
feeling and action, could hardly have been recognized
as the person who conversed so gravely and
religiously with the clergyman. In allusion to his
visit, he spoke lightly, and as if he had been
prompted by curiosity rather than any deeper feeling,
calling Mr. Warburton that white neckclothed
fellow who visited the consumptive lady, but adding,
“There are more things in the heaven and
earth of that man's mind than are dreamed of in
the philosophy of most of us.”
At the door of the tea-room Miss Crum appeared,
all smiles, at the precise juncture most appropriate,
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and vanished again like the creature of a dream.
A servant was sent for her, but she had a nervous
headache, and begged to be excused.
“Why, Miss Crum!” exclaimed the housekeeper,
as she presently entered the nursery.
For some mysterious cause, the pea-green silk
had been hastily thrown aside, and arrayed in a
long loose gown, and with her face muffled with a
towel, Miss Crum sat, swaying from side to side, as
if repressing by such action some extraordinary emotion.
Noting the preparations for a storm of tears, the
housekeeper wisely and silently withdrew.
-- -- p491-092
CHAPTER VIII.
[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]
Alone, in her dark sorrow
Hour after hour went by.
Whittier.
And he did calm himself
And fix his brow into a kind of quiet.
Byron.
And so, while Miss Crum indulged her sudden
mood, jostling the cradle now and then with one
foot—and the two friends conversed, if not gaily,
at least cheerfully, as they partook of a luxurious
dinner—Wurth acquiescing generally in the suggestions
of Arnold, partly that he was too indolent
to think for himself, and partly from a good natured
disposition to please—the young clergyman
was preparing to dine with the governor of the
state, at whose table he expected to meet several
other distinguished persons. There was yet a little
time before that set in his invitation, and he drew
his easy chair near the fire, and rested his elbow
on the table of carved rose-wood, on which blank
paper, unfinished manuscripts, engravings,
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pamphlets, and two or three large and richly bound
volumes of theology—from their appearance, “a
little heavy, if no less divine”—were strewn in
disorder. It might have been observed that the
two rings sparkled, as of old, on the left hand, on
which, just now, his head reposed, and here and
there a silver thread might have been seen among
his dark thick hair, though he could not yet have
passed the age of twenty-five.
His toilet had been carefully made, the white
neekcloth arranged with tasteful precision, and the
black coat was without so much as a fleck of lint;
and his kid gloves and rose-scented cambric handkerchief
were on the table. For days past he had
been doing penance, but his gray eyes still glittered
from within the black lashes around them, though
the lids had a bluish tint, and drooped more than
was their wont.
His haughty expression of self-reliance was changed
and faded, as it were, to one of dissatisfied, questioning,
and helpless endurance.
He was half-resolved, even yet, to send an apology
and remain at home, for well he knew the
weakness of his heart, and feared the customary
influences of such scenes would have their usual
effect of leading his affections to “the world.”
From an antique writing-case, of costly and elaborate
workmanship, he drew a miniature portrait,
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turned the face to the light, looked at it intently,
rather than fondly, kissed it calmly, and replaced it.
“My life henceforth,” he said, “must conform to
the rules I have laid down, and to the law God has
given. The path is open before me, wherein duty,
religion, every thing, urge me forward; and however
rough and obscure, however much the stones
bruise my feet and the thorns tear my flesh, I will
not linger nor turn aside.”
Before a picture of the death of St. Stephen, he
knelt and besought strength and grace from our
Father in Heaven. But it was not prayer—only
sentences built up with artistic skill, inlaid with
poetic thoughts and pleasant fancies—beautiful,
indeed, but cold, and empty of the eloquence of
feeling. When he arose there was no peace in his
heart, no shining in his face, as of one fresh from
the presence of Divinity.
He had been goaded by conscience into the exercise
of a formula. He had performed a task, and,
when there came no answer, he went forth to dissipate
the trouble of his soul in the atmosphere of
a refined and brilliant society.
Away over the city the sunset glorified the yellow
woods, and illumined, with purple and crimson,
the bordering clouds that edged the blue, filling
the chamber with rosy shadows, where the ancient
nurse rocked the cradle of the little child—a lovely
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embodiment of innocence, the eyes fast shut, and
the soft dimpled hands laid together. How often,
in after years, those hands were locked in the
agony of a broken heart—the horror of a tortured
soul! Rosy shadows of sunset! could you not kiss
that quiet sleep to endless repose?
The house in which Mr. Warburton was become
a guest, with its marble porticos, lofty ceilings and
rich furniture, I need not describe; nor its aristocratic
surroundings, nor the gay party assembled in
its drawing-room—men and women, well born, of
high education, and affluent leisure; nor yet the
viands and wines, nor the services of Sèvres porcelain—
every piece a gem of art—nor those of gold,
and silver, exquisitely wrought.
The conversation was for the most part trivial
and lively, but not without flashes of genius, and
that intellectual tone which marks the most casual
discourse of clever and refined men, no matter of
what subjects. I need not, as I said, describe all
this, though it served to widen the distance which
separated the strong-minded man of the world—who
sought and found in it a temporary forgetfulness of
the past—from the young and artless country girl
whose life and endless destiny, perchance, he carried
carelessly the while in his brain.
On their iron path, cut deep through mountains
of rock, or stretching over vast and nearly level
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fields, or amid villages, or sweeping under dark
and heavy arches, that obscured not only the sunshine
but the daylight, thundered on the cars, fast
and faster, toward the tumultuous and ever-absorbing
city.
What strange diversities of interest, hope and
fear, pleasure and pain, gayety and despair, were
in its myriad habitations, or its streets. There sat
the care-worn mother, watching in tearless agony
the departure of the soul of her only child, and a
little way beyond a maiden singing from her heart
the gayest songs; there want was gnawing with
sharp fangs the vitals of his victims, and in the
next chamber a red faced epicure was heavy with
a surfeit of luxuries; there lusty youth, ill-mannered
in some quest engrossing all his thought,
jostled decrepit age, sans everything but a tenacity
of existence; in each second some frame was stirred
with every emotion, every vicissitude, every experience,
that belongs to human life.
In the motley crowd which occupied one of the
cars sat a young girl, in a gray dress, and closefitting
bonnet. She seemed quite alone, neither
noticing nor noticed of any one. One hand, small,
brown with the sun, and hardened by toil, rested
on the willow basket at her side, and now and then
she wiped her eyes with a white silk handkerchief,
bordered with pink flowers.
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Her face was turned nearly all the while to the
window, and a veil so completely hid it that,
whether she were plain or beautiful might not be
guessed farther than by the general outline, which
indicated extreme youth and slight and graceful
proportions.
The villages grew thicker, forming almost a continuous
street; and with every pause of the train
the girl looked eagerly about, till the conductor
announced the place of the momentary detention,
when she again turned to the window, and seemed
lost in thought.
Slower moved the train, and slower; and houses,
which were low and only seen at intervals, a little
while ago, began to stand compact, and display a
higher and nobler aspect. More and more persons
appeared in the street, till gradually it was filled
with an undistinguishable crowd; show-windows,
illuminated with gas, were seen on either hand;
great hotels, about which many men were standing,
appeared; and hither and thither ran ragged boys,
bearing great bundles under their arms, and crying
the names of the papers of the evening.
The shadows grew darker and deeper; away
down the long avenues shone the lamps; the motion
ceased; “New York!” cried the conductor;
and the rush and confusion of passengers, porters,
and coachmen followed.
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“Have a carriage, Miss? have a carriage?”
“This way—right to the Washington;” “Straight
to the United States;” “Shall I take your basket?—
any baggage?” were the salutations which confounded
and annoyed the inexperienced traveler,
as, putting her veil a little aside, she timidly descended
the steps, and threaded her unknown way
amid the throng.
Outside the densest mass she paused, and an
expression of terror came over her face, such as a
child might feel when lost in the thick woods. A
moment's hesitation, and she went forward, but as
one who knew not whither her steps were tending.
An old woman, wrapped in a black woolen shawl,
sat at her apple-stand, nibbling a piece of cake,
which she clutched, rather than held, in her withered
fingers.
“Can you tell me, madam,” said the girl, pausing
before her, “where Mr. Warburton lives?”
“Who did you say, honey?” mumbled the haglike
creature.
The name was repeated more distinctly and
loudly.
“No—well—I don't know as I do. I know a
Mr. Warner, who sells oranges and cakes in the
Bowery; he just passed here a bit ago, and gave
me this for my supper,” she said, showing the remnant
of cake. “But I reckon maybe it is not him
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you are in search of, so you had best go forward—
you keep people from my stall.”
“No, that is not the person, and for obstructing
your customers I am very sorry.” Then, slipping
a sixpence into the hand of the woman, the girl
passed on. It was some time before she found
courage to repeat the question. No one seemed to
notice her, and how could she obtain their attention?
At length, however, she did so, though
scarcely knowing to whom of the many persons
about her she addressed herself. The nearest man
shook his head, but made no other reply. She
looked after him with beseeching earnestness, and
then, wiping tears from her cheek, walked faster
than before.
Seeing a narrower and less populous street,
which crossed that in which she was walking, she
turned aside, but with no very intelligible or definite
aim. It was growing dark, and she began to
experience a more dreadful sense of desolation.
Talk of loneliness, on the wild hills where no
voice speaks but the wind's, where the long grass
and the pleasant flowers tangle our footsteps, and
the woodbird is startled at our approach! There
is no loneliness—the soul mates itself with the stars
or winds, and wanders at will through the universe,
and no crushing sense of humility, of nothingness,
weighs it down. The feeling comes to us most
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oppressively in cities, as we pass among thousands,
unnoticed and unknown. With our sorrowful isolation,
a sense of unworthiness humbles us; we have
no claims on any one, and yet feel wronged and
insulted, as it were, that we are thus aside from the
aims and interests of all about us. No one, I think,
can find himself alone in a great city, for the first
time, and not experience such a sense of loneness
as he has never before known, though he may have
trodden the sands of the desert, sat in the solemn
shadows of the pyramids, or been lost in the windings
of wildernesses.
Before a small house, with a square yard in front
in which grew some shrubs and green grass, a hearse
was standing, and two men were bearing to it a
large coffin covered with black cloth. The window-blinds
of the house were close shut, and as the
men disappeared through a side door, a little boy,
with yellow hair, and one leg drawn up with disease,
hobbled out, with the help of crutches, and turning
about, peered earnestly within, probably attracted
toward and yet repelled away from the dead.
A strange feeling came into the heart of the girl,
as she stopped and looked; a new and bewildering
sensation, but most unlike that fearful and painful
one which had oppressed her when the neighbors
whom she knew bore the red and naked coffin
within the village graveyard at home.
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A servant girl came hurriedly out, with a broom
in one hand, and in the other a towel, which she
put aside, and then shook the boy roughly, addressing
some words to him in a harsh tone.
She then brought a chair, and though he was
quite large, lifted him into it, and placing a handkerchief
in his hands, left him sitting on the porch
by the open door, where, as was evidently expected,
he began to cry.
“His father or mother is dead, perhaps,” the girl
thought, and, with a heart aching for him, she
went on.
At the street corner was an old brown pump,
beside which stood a tall and awkward youth
pumping water on his bare feet. To him her
hitherto fruitless inquiry was addressed.
Taking from his trowsers pocket (his coat hung
over the top of the pump) a yellow silk handkerchief,
he wiped the perspiration from his face, for
he had been hard at work, and surveying the girl,
answered respectfully, that he knew no person of
the name, but added in a moment, “It can't be the
Rev. Mr. Warburton, can it?” and on receiving an
affirmative reply he looked at the inquirer more
curiously than before, saying, “If you will but
step in this market-house of mine for a minute, I
will show you where Mystery lives.”
“You do not understand,” said the girl,
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hesitating, “it is Nathan Warburton whom I wish to
find.”
“Precisely—I understand, but you don't understand
me; my physiognomy is not very pretty, but
never mind, come in;” and he led the way into a
small grocery, where eggs, butter, vegetables, and
candies, were sold, and before which was the well.
Many books and papers were strewn about the
chairs and counter, and a dozen pots of flowers,
some of them in perfect bloom and exhaling an
exquisite perfume, ornamented a rude table.
Placing the best chair near the door, he said,
“So soon as I can arrange my underpinnings, I
shall be ready,” upon which he began drawing on
his boots, and this done, “I have only to put on the
roof,” he said, taking up a fashionable hat, and then,
having admired the flowers a moment, he led the
way back into the street. The hearse was gone
from before the cottage, and half way up the square,
the pale boy, leaning on his crutches, gazed after it.
“One of my tenants died here to-day,” said the
young man, looking in the direction of the house,
“and that is his little grandson, Dandelion.”
“An odd name,” said the girl.
“I call him so for his yellow hair; I give every
one a name indicative either of some trait of character,
or of some personal beauty or blemish.”
“And Mr. Warburton you call Mystery—why is
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that? But do you see? you did not close the door
of your grocery.”
“No one will harm me; these steel hammers
take care of my possessions;” and he presented a
pair of large and ill-shapen hands, as he continued,
“I call that preacher Mystery, because, though he
is eloquent, and perhaps good, there is something
dark in his nature—so thinks Moon-changer.”
And the green grocer drew himself up to his full
height.
-- -- p491-104
CHAPTER IX.
[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]
How use doth breed a habit in a man.
Shakspeare.
Go to the ant, thou sluggard, learn to live,
And by her wary ways reform thine own.
Smart.
About a year after the events recorded in the
last chapter, night fell upon two travelers in the
vicinity of the “Queen City of the West.” Both
were seated outside the coach; both wore shaggy
overcoats which seemed to have been made of the
hide of some animal, and heavy boots suited to the
rough and difficult ways through which, from their
conversation, they appeared to have passed.
The horses were jaded, and plashed with mud,
and a mist curled from their nostrils as they dragged
the heavy vehicle along the ascent, terminating
in a small village still some miles ahead, where
relays were to be obtained. A yellow border of
woods edged one side of the way, and along the
other ran a creek, between high, steep banks,
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portions of which were broken and hanging downwards,
but kept together by roots and the grass
with which they were covered, and thickly growing
shrubs, that leaned to the water's edge. Here and
there large masses had slid away, and borne with
them trees, the tangled roots of which and the
upturned earth about them made rude hillocks on
shore, while the main portion of the trunk and
half the broken boughs were sunken in the stream,
sluggish and shallow now, but of much depth and
turbulence in places, as the fallen timber indicated.
A few intervals of clearing had been opened in the
woodland, and cabins had been erected, the doors
of many of which stood open, for the season was
mild; and within them, lighted as they were by
logs on the hearth and by candles, whatever work
was going forward might be seen by every passer
along the road. On such exposures of primitive
and pioneer life one of our travelers commented
largely for the amusement of himself and his friends.
In one dwelling sat the wife, midway between
the door—from near which three or four urchins
looked curiously at the stage-coach—and the fire,
before which the good man lay stretched on the
bare floor, and holding and playfully shaking the
baby, almost above his head.
“Is that your mother?” asked one of the outside
travelers of a slim-faced and red-haired boy, who,
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bolder than the rest, sat astride the bars, endeavoring
to count the passengers; “if it is, go in, for
heaven's sake, and tell her to let that suffering
child come out and see us.”
“Yes, my little man, go and tell her, go,” echoed
the person at the side of the last speaker; “but I
did not see,” he continued, “what she was doing—
pinching the child's ears?”
“No: she was combing its hair, and holding it
between her knees, as in a vice, while it screamed
lustily—I suppose to see the coach.”
Our border mothers were not very particular
about appearances, and if they combed their children's
hair at all it was as likely to be at night as
in the morning. There were some better dwellings,
but not many, nor were the surroundings of these
such as taste and refinement would dictate. Instead
of a smooth grass plat in front, which would have
cost little time or trouble, the ground was most
likely to be covered with pig-sties, log stables for
the horses, and rail pens for the calves. Indeed,
one of the last achievements of civilization is that
cultivation of trees and flowers, that tasteful elegance
of arrangement, and neatness, which people
who are poor, in town or country, persist in regarding
as luxuries of the rich, though gentle
natures always may have these blessings, without
money, and almost without care, or any toil, if they
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will. The road we describe was neither macadamized
nor planked, and recent rains had so softened
it that the motion of the coach made little sound,
not enough to drown even the wild low music of
the whippoorwills that to-night made all the woods
vocal.
Just as the full moon pushed its red disk above
the tree-tops, the eminence along which the horses
had climbed so slowly was gained; the woods gradually
thinned away into cultivated land; substantial
houses were seen, with some, indeed, that might be
termed elegant; the road, which had been narrow
and uneven, widened to a smooth level, with strong
fences on either side, instead of being open to the
wood and water, as but a little distance back; the
creek wound itself off among the hills and meadows;
and wheat-fields, waving with their beautiful
wealth, added at the same time to the picturesqueness
and the appearances of thrift along the highway.
A mile in advance shone the village lights. The
neighborhood had evidently within it a large degree
of refinement, with means for the indulgence
of elegant tastes. The horses trotted briskly to the
whistle and whip of the driver, the sleepy passengers
awoke, and there was a general hum of
voices.
“Stop at the cross-roads,” said one of the two
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outside passengers, who had sat for some time silently
and with folded arms.
“Is this the termination of our journey?” asked
his companion, preparing to descend, as they reined
up. “This is not your home, surely?”
“Yes, all the home I shall ever have;” and
motioning the questioner to keep his seat, and
directing the coachman where to set him down,
he left his friend, and all the company, in silent
speculation as to the significance of his proceeding.
The person thus unceremoniously deserted, turned
backward and, leaning over the mail-bag, gazed
earnestly on the moonlighted scene.
Two of the corners were open stubble fields: in
one some cattle had made their beds; in the other
nothing was visible save the guidepost, near the
road, with its two strips of white board and black
lettering, reaching toward the four points of the
compass. In a third division grew clumps of walnut
and maple trees, and near them stood a ruinous
cabin, the roof sunken, the windows broken out, the
door remaining open, and with a great heap of clay
and stones where had been the chimney. And the
last of the four looked dreariest of all, for there
stood the ancient meeting-house, of rough stones,
with its steep, mossy roof, double doors, and little
prison-like windows. A few forest trees—oak, and
elm, and walnut—stood about it, one or two so
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near that their limbs creaked against the wall with
every gust; and others were against the fences, and
about the yard, which was ridged with the graves
of those who in other years had gone there to sing
psalms.
One monument, and only one, lifted itself proudly
among the low head-stones half hidden in the
long white grass. Sunken places among the mounds
there were, holding their gloom away from the cold
moonlight, with rough unlettered pieces of granite
at the head and the feet; and around them curious
school boys walked carefully when they came to
read the names and dates, and simple legends,
spelled by the homely muse, which were to the
sleepers instead of fame, or more ambitious epitaphs,
or elegies.
Very desolate and neglected the place seemed to
be. Thistle-stocks and mullen-rods, dry and seedy,
now grew between the graves; red briers crept
along the walks; and brush-wood, and chance fragments
of boards, and decayed posts, and rough
strips of bark, had been used in mending the
broken picket-fence; and over all streamed the
moonlight, which, in itself, is melancholy.
While the old meeting-house was yet in full
view, and the young man was still gazing back, the
coachman checked his horses, saying, “This is where
I was directed to leave you,” and, with his luggage,
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he was put down, outside the front gate of a comfortable
looking farm-house.
Having seen his effects inside, he hesitated, not
knowing how to proceed; and after a moment he
seated himself on a block, to which was attached a
chain, with its other end made fast to the gate and
with a large weight in the middle, to draw the gate
together as often as it should be opened.
While thus awaiting the approach of his friend,
he surveyed the scene about him, more by way of
amusing himself, than from any idle curiosity; for
it mattered little to him whether he lived in a cottage
or a castle, so that he found shelter and society,
and a soft bed and well furnished table—which
indeed he suspected were most likely to greet him
in habitations somewhat more ambitious than the
one by which he lingered.
A narrow path, strewn with pebbles and bordered
with flowers, led from the gate to the house—
a wooden building, two stories in height, and containing
on the first floor, in front, two square rooms
and an entrance hall. Sheltering the door was a
small portico, having a very steep roof, supported
by columns not much larger than a man's wrist, or
rather by posts, and only two of these, one half of
it resting against the house.
Curtains of green paper hung at the windows,
but they must have been of little use, as each one
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was rolled two thirds of the way from the sill of
the window to which it should have served as a
blind. In one of the upper chambers a light was
burning, near which sat a woman, upright, and
engaged apparently neither with books nor work,
for her arms were folded together across her bosom.
Her dress had the plain appearance which
distinguishes that of a country girl, and her hair
was combed straight back from her forehead.
A snug barn stood in the rear of the house,
where horses were heard stamping, and about which
cattle were seen standing or lying.
Near where the kitchen was supposed to be, for
it was out of sight, an old fashioned well-sweep
was seen, the proper balance of which there appeared
to have been some difficulty in adjusting, as
a portion of it had been hewn away—too great
a portion, it seemed, from blocks of timber artificially
attached, in various places, and a kettle of
stones hung on the extreme lower end. The wellcurb
was all wrecked and gone, or nearly all, enough
remaining only to tell where the well was, and on
the grape-vine which served to lower it, swung the
bucket, shriveled in the sun, and with the hoops
almost fallen off.
The young man would gladly have entered the
house, but for a belligerent guard, in the shape of a
great yellow dog, whose low and warning growls
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kept him still. Now and then he glanced at the
lighted chamber, and smiled to see the upright
woman, motionless as a corpse.
“Ah, Fred, here you are,” said the deserter,
pulling at the gate, which the stone weight made
difficult to open. “I had forgotten all about you.
How long have you been waiting?”
“Not more than two hours; but come, let's get
in; I have looked at the exterior as long as I care
to.”
“Just wait till we settle that question. Two
hours, you say, you have waited? No, Mr. Frederick,
you know it is not more than one.”
“You are right, Jo—just about one,” answered
Mr. Wurth, endeavoring to drag the trunk, while
his friend, not inclined to assist him, but standing
still, repeated, “No, it has not been an hour.”
“Not quite an hour,” echoed the yielding gentleman.
“I know that by the moon,” said the first affirmative.
“Yes, I know it—by the moon, too,” said the
second affirmative; and then, taking up the trunk,
the two walked toward the house.
They passed the front door, where all was dark
and still, and also a side door of the rear building,
which was but one story high, and contained a
dining-room and kitchen. A light streamed from
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the window of the last, revealing a group of which
the chief personage seemed an exceedingly large
and fat woman, who sat on the floor near the fire,
picking leisurely at a fleece of wool which she held
in her lap, and looking very good natured.
“My sister, Mrs. Yancey, Mr. Wurth,” said Joseph
Arnold, opening the door without having
rapped, and before making any salutation on his
own account.
“Why, Josey, is—is that you?” said the woman,
rising from her recumbent posture as fast as her
corpulency would permit; and, throwing her arms
about him, she kissed him over and over, laughing
all the while, and quite hiding a little active man,
who, close behind her, waited his turn to give the
strangers a welcome.
David, and John, and Maria, and two or three
more, were then called up to shake hands with uncle
Josey, and told to say “Yes sir, I thank you,” when
he asked them if they were well; after which they
were required to shake hands with the other gentleman,
and to say “Yes sir, I thank you,” again;
a performance which they seemed to dread, and
which was soon accomplished, fortunately, as the
active little man was kept in the background meanwhile.
“Nancy, Nancy,” he exclaimed, at last, pushing
himself in front of Mrs. Yancey; and taking or
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rather seizing the hand of Arnold, he continued
shaking it at intervals for five minutes, at first with
great energy, which grew less with each renewal of
the exercise.
The stranger then underwent a similar infliction,
but somewhat more brief, and less violent. There
was a heartiness in the tone of the little man, which
made you both like him and feel at home with him
in a moment.
“Nanny,” called the fat woman to a pale and shy
girl, of fourteen, who was rocking the cradle and
looking in the fire, “go up stairs and tell Eunice
that her brother has come.” And, seating herself,
this time on a chair, she said she was never so
glad in all her born days, and ordered Johnny to
carry her wool away, for she was going to enjoy
herself.
“Where shall I put it, mother?” said the boy,
taking it in his arms.
“Into the garret, or under the shed, or to any
place that comes handy,” the good woman answered,
in a soft and loving tone.
“I will take care of it,” interposed the active
little man, who, with a market-basket on his arm,
was exchanging whispers with the girl Nanny, in
a corner of the room. These members of the family
quickly disappeared, the sun-burnt face of the
one shining with the sudden excitement, and the
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colorless features of the other radiant for the moment
with an expression of weighty purposes, which
were soon to be realized for the satisfaction of all
the party.
-- -- p491-116
CHAPTER X.
[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]
“Let all men know this, and keep it in mind always, that a single narrowest, simplest Duty,
steadily practiced day after day, does more to support, and may do more to enlighten the soul of the
Doer, than a course of moral philosophy taught by a tongue which a soul compounded of Bacon,
Spenser, Shakspeare, Homer, Demosthenes and Burke, to my nothing of Socrates and Plato and
Aristotle, should inspire.”
—Christopher under Canvas.
“And some her frantic deemed, and some her deemed a wit.”
—Castle of Indolence.
“The demon Indolence threats overthrow.”
—Ibid.
“Brother Joseph, I hope you are quite well,”
said a tall, dark young woman, coming forward with
slow dignity, and presenting her hand, with a calm,
placid smile, asking, as she did so, whether he had
gained anything in mental stature since she last
had the happiness of seeing him.
By something in the arrangement of her hair, and
a peculiar perpendicularity, Mr. Wurth recognized
her at once as the person he had seen while sitting
on the block at the gate. Her manner and words
manifested neither surprise nor joy, nor did she
seem to feel any interest in the history of her
brother, aside from what she termed that of his
mental growth.
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“Nancy, child,” she said, but without looking at
the girl, who had resumed her place by the cradle,
“don't rock the baby: it will unsettle his mind,
and destroy all his stability of character.”
“Where did you learn that philosophy, Eunice?”
asked Joseph, biting the smile off his lip.
“Nature,” she said, “is my only guide—my only
book. I have put aside all reading for the last
year, so imbued is everything with false notions;
and I may safely say I have grown more, mentally,
in that time than during any of the previous five
years of my life. Self-reliance, self-education, are
what we need. But our highest interest, Joseph, is
not understood, and the physical man, and the
physical woman, too, (here she looked hard at the
fat Mrs. Yancey), are fed to the neglect and starvation
of the soul; for the mind and the soul are,
sympathetically, one.”
“Are they?” asked Joseph, quietly smiling.
“We must endure the burden of existence, while
we are here,” continued the sister; “but this is a
troublesome and wicked world, at best, and we
should all be thankful that we are so soon to be
taken away.”
“Really, you have had a mental advancement!”
and the brother smiled, as before.
Disdaining the sarcasm, if she noticed it, the
woman continued her discourse, observing that she
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had formed a scheme, mentally, of which she had
not hitherto spoken, inasmuch as her higher aims
met no correspondence; but that she was assured
of its feasibility, so soon as her mental attainment
would justify attempting it. Her soul's energies, all
her mental powers, were concentred on the subject
of the Indians. The rude, unsophisticated children
of nature, she felt, would be as wax in her hands;
but with civilized men, warped and dwarfed as their
souls were, by false education, she wished to have
nothing to do. In her brother she reposed some
trust, and she hoped he would eschew the vanities
of the world, and imitate her example, living
thenceforward, for the mind. She concluded with
an intimation that her self-communing had been
interrupted by his coming, and that she must resume
it for an hour, after which she would engage
in sewing for the greater part of the night, as she
was busily engaged in making unbleached cotton
cloth into shirts for the Indians.
“I wonder how she got her cotton cloth,” said
Mr. Joseph Arnold, when she was gone. “I never
knew her to earn money, and no one would be
simple enough to give her any.”
“Why, Josey, I can tell you,” answered Mrs.
Yancey, who had been edifying the stranger with
the history of her courtship and marriage: “it was
a piece William got for me to make up for the
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children; but Euny wanted it so bad for the Ingens,
that I let her take it; and I am half sorry,” she
added, “for we have lost one of our best horses,
and our taxes were heavy this year, and it seems
hard to get another piece.” And Mrs. Yancey
rocked to and fro, laughing the while with an
expression of grim and unsatisfying humor.
“You were foolish, Nancy,” said Joseph; “and
the horse—it's a pity you should have lost him.”
“He died suddenly,” continued Mrs. Yancey,
“and William thought it was from being overheated.
Two little boys about the size of Johnny were
here from town, along in August, and one dreadful
warm day they made so much noise with their
playing, I told them to go out and catch Tom, and
ride, for their amusement; and all three mounted
him at once, and made him run across the meadow,
and up and down a steep hill, in the sun, till
they found he was giving out. That night he
would not eat, and in the morning the poor creatur
was dead.”
The children fell asleep about the floor, for Mrs.
Yancey liked to see children have their comfort,
and never made a point of sending them to bed, or
calling them up, before they were ready. Two or
three cats were perched upon the table, and two or
three more stretched at length on the hearth, enjoying
the warmth of the fire.
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One leg was off the table, and half the chairs
were broken; the stove was cracked, and the door
hanging by one hinge; the floor was dusty, and
spotted with grease, and everything had a neglected
and slovenly air.
“Mother, there is a nice fire in the other room.
Wont you go in there, and the gentleman, and
uncle Josey?” asked little Nancy, appearing at the
door.
This room was no less shabby than the other—
the carpet faded and soiled, the paper torn from
the walls, the looking-glass broken, and every
thing else in conditions to match. There were no
cats on the table, but instead, some pretty plants,
one of which grew in a brown earthen pot—the
rest in broken tea-pots, sugar-bowls, and the like.
“Whew!” said Joseph, half whistling, as he saw
the plants, “how do you chance to have these? I'd
suppose you would think them too much trouble.
How many varieties of cacti have you here?”
“Mrs. Yancey, who did not understand what
was meant, said they belonged to Nancy; he must
ask her. “She had a great many,” she added,
laughing, “but she went to see her cousin Reuben,
last winter, and I forgot to bring them in, and
they all froze.”
“Nanny,” called Joseph, “where did you get
all those cacti?”
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[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]
“I bought them in town,” answered the girl,
appearing at the kitchen door, her sleeves turned
back from the wrist, and as if she were very busy.
Mr. Arnold doubtless expected her to manifest
some astonishment at his plural termination of the
name; and, though she did not, he repeated it, as
if in admiration, saying, “Beautiful cacti!”
There were some peculiar forms of expression,
for which he had an especial fondness. He liked
to hear himself making use of them.
“Did you have any cholera, Josey, about where
you were last summer?” asked Mrs. Yancey, in the
same good-natured tone in which she said everything.
“Not a bit,” was the reply. “I hoped it would
come after the shooting season; we wanted something
to enliven us.”
“What a curious disposition you have,” said the
simple-minded woman; “most young men would
not want the cholera to come near them.”
“Yes, I often wished the cholera would come
along,” repeated the brother; “our caboose was dull
enough when we had killed all the game within
fifty miles of us. Just think what a caboose among
red men would be, and in so vast a wilderness.”
Mr. Joseph Arnold invariably said “red men,”
instead of Indians.
“What did you say was dull, Josey?”
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“I don't know,” said Joseph. “What were we
talking about?”
“Why, about Indians and the cholera.”
“Oh!” as if suddenly recollecting, “I was saying
how dull our caboose was among red men, after we
had killed all the game.”
“What country were you in, Josey?'
“Just over here in Oregon,” he replted, as though
the distance were as nothing to him.
“That is a good long way off. I expect you
have seen a hundred Indians there in a day, sometimes,”
and so she rambled, in her easy way, from
one thing to another. She had no great hopes or
fears, disappointments or sorrows, to serve as the
subjects for her conversation.
She had indeed been a little slow in getting her
wool picked, and William had the sheep sheared
early too, but she had visited some, and received
a good many visitors. One might as well live
while they did live, she thought. Nanny was at
school part of the time, and Euny thought more
of her mind than her body, and so the summer was
gone before she knew it. But after all, the long
winter evenings would be a nice time to pick wool,
and if the boys hadn't their new trowsers they
couldn't wear them out. And she concluded with
the comfortable reflection that William always got
things in some way.
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And, to verify her assurance, Mr. William Yancey
came in while she spoke—his market-basket filled
with various packages, such as grocers provide
and housewives need. He looked worn down with
excessive and protracted toil, but spoke in a cheerful
tone, and seemed neither discouraged nor dissatisfied.
In spite of her want of management, Nancy was
to him the best woman in the world; and now, as
she offered him the rocking-chair, he declined with
all the kindly gallantry which had characterized
him as her lover.
“That is the way he always humors me, Josey,”
said Mrs. Yancey. “The other day I wanted to
make some soap; it should have been made in
April, to be sure, but in April I didn't feel like
boiling soap, and William wanted to get my leeching-tub
and kettle and all my fixings in the back
yard, out of sight, because they didn't look pretty;
but I told him I must have them in front, so, as I
boiled my soap, I could see what was going on;
but it's a pity I had it there, for the wind blew
the blaze against a young tree and withered it to
death; it was a tree that William thought a great
deal of, too.”
Cheerfully, almost gaily, talked the diminutive
and amiable personage whom his wife called William,
joining, as often as he could, in the
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[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]
conversation. There was a beautiful Eden just before him.
Like the mariner of whom the poet sings:
“In the night he spied a light
Shoot o'er the waves before him;”
and though he came never the nigher, he did not
abandon that blest faith in time and energy which
is all that redeenis us from despair. Beautiful gift
of our divine Father, how many souls are stayed up
from anguish by its strength!
Presently after the coming home of the basket,
Nanny appeared and arranged the tea-things, blushing
all the while with a sweet and captivating
timidity. She was fair and slight, with large melancholy
eyes, a low musical voice, and a smile
irresistibly winning. Duty in her hands became a
pleasure, and young as she was, all the household
care and a great part of its toil devolved on her.
It was so natural and easy for Nanny to do this
and that, her mother said, she herself seemed only
in the way when she tried to assist; and Eunice
had wisely concluded, in her higher mental development,
that some persons had no mind at all,
and labor was their only legitimate province.
Snow-white bread and golden butter, tarts, and
cream, and many other delicacies, and substantial
viands—all things on the table, indeed, were spread
with tasteful care, and as the delicious fragrance of
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the supper filled the room, Nanny skipped away to
call her aunt Eunice.
When that lady came she brought her sewing,
at which she continued to stitch all the while, only
now and then sipping tea, or pausing to remark on
the absurdity of eating at night, and its injurious
effect on the mind.
This world and all its interests—railroads and
telegraphs, bread and pie making, poems and histories,
loves and marriages, no matter what was said
of all or any of them, “What are they to me? or
how will such conversation avail the growth of my
intellectual organization?” was her only reply.
“Faith without works, is dead,” said Joseph
abruptly, as he balanced a slice of white bread on
his fore finger.
“We all know that,” said Mrs. Yancey.
“Yes, but what does he mean by it?” said Eunice,
betraying a momentary feeling in the speculations
of a worldling.
“Who made the warm fire? who prepared this
nice supper?” asked Joseph, and repeated again
“Faith without works is dead.”
Mrs. Yancey laughed, Eunice frowned, and Nanny
smiled gratefully, assured of a sympathy and
friendliness between herself and her uncle Joseph.
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CHAPTER XI.
[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]
His speech was a fine sample, on the whole,
Of rhetoric, which the learned call “rigmarole.”
Byron.
I see a yielding in the look of France.
Shakspeare.
Such was the home to which, after a year's
roving life among the Indians of the far west, Arnold
brought his friend for a summer's sojourn.
True, he liked not either of the sisters much, but it
was a place to which he could come freely when
it pleased him, and where he could remain as long
as he chose. He could throw himself on the divan
or the carpet, and, to the astonishment of Mrs.
Yancey, talk of the smart things he had said to the
fools he had met here and there, and of the thousand
things he could do if he only had a chance;
and the simple hearted woman thought it was a
great pity that those who were willing to do so
much for themselves and the world should have
so little opportunity, and that wealth and fame,
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[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]
and a thousand charitable projects, must be foregone
when, but for this or that little condition, they
might be realized.
To have such an auditor was pleasant to Joseph
Arnold. Not every one to whom he told his high
aims and ambitions, with sighing for the untoward
accidents that crippled his faculties, was so credulous.
And this was not all a hypocritical pretense.
Though he had no faith in his power to begin a
great work now—this very hour, to-day, or next
week—he certainly had large confidence in his capacity
for doing something sometime, when one or
two successful fools should get out of his way, and
circumstances should give him but the slightest aid.
In other respects too Mrs. Yancey's house, though
so ill kept, and with every thing at loose ends, was
a good place for him: he could luxuriate in the
pantry, skim the cream from the milk basins,
purloin cold chicken, ham, and sauces, at pleasure;
and in such boyish habits, amid his great plans, he
very frequently indulged, making sad inroads in
Nanny's calculations for supper; and it was a terrible
annoyance to Eunice also, who thought him
worse than the “red men,” and “crushing his mind
as with a nightmare.”
But, in the most unfortunate instances, Mrs. Yancey
laughed as if a pleasant thing had happened,
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saying Nanny would have to provide something
else, and if there were nothing, why William must
go and buy what would do when he came home
from work at night. It appeared, so the good woman
said, that some persons who never performed
any manual labor required more food than those
who worked right hard. “It depends on the organization
or something,” said Mrs. Yancey.
In this last return Joseph Arnold found a fresh
acquisition to his happiness in his young niece.
Gentle and loving and dutiful, considerate for
others, forgetful of self, no hardship was too wearying,
and no sacrifice too great, by which she could
do good to any one. In the garden, by the flowerbeds,
feeding the chickens, telling stories for the
children, in the kitchen, or in the field with her
father, she was busy, and cheerful and contented.
Her indolent and improvident mother relied upon
her judgment and skill, and so did the conceited
Eunice, mourning the while her deficiency of
mind.
To this little girl Arnold often talked—laying
aside his many affectations, and seeming, for the
time, the eccentric but not essentially weak or wrong-hearted
person he really was: proud yet humble,
self-sufficient yet helpless, careless of obtaining yet
stingy of possession, slovenly in dress and rustic in
manners yet despising the one and fostering the
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[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]
other by unmanly and clownish behavior, and
quick to recognize the high and noble yet in many
respects still groveling and low.
To the sisters he presented his most formidable
aspect—sometimes, startling their prejudices by cold
and hard and antagonistic conclusions. He was
fond also of surprising them by the easy familiarity
with which he mentioned men and places they
knew little about, and by pronouncing with fluency
names of minerals, beasts and birds, with which
they were not acquainted, as though he supposed
himself speaking household words—all the while
feeling in his own heart that he was appearing very
far above them, and wonderfully well, withal. He
made occasions to tell of the different amphibia of
the tropics, as if he had passed years in the investigations
of that particular subject—as if their hearts
with one ventricle, and cold red blood, had been
under his dissecting knife, and their precise powers
of respiration had been ascertained by his successful
experiments. The simple terms reptile and serpent
he carefully avoided—testudo, draco, lacerta, rana,
amphisbæna, and cæcilia, sounded so much wiser
than frog, lizard, tortoise, &c. And while Mrs.
Yancey leisurely and laughingly picked wool—the
rain falling in her uncovered soap kettle beside the
door meantime, and spoiling her soap—wondering
at her brother's knowledge, and feeling what a pity
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[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]
it was that chances were so against him; while
Eunice deploring his habitual negligence of the
mind, sat upright, communed with herself, or made
shirts for the Indians; while Nanny prepared the
dinner and milked the cows, and tended the baby;
and William, active and energetic, planned and
worked—Joseph Arnold indulged his appetite, in
the pantry, his passion for hunting, wherever there
were dogs and rabbits, and his ambition, in contradicting
one sister or surprising the other. Surely
no place could have been better suited for him, especially
with his friend Wurth at hand, to supply his
little necessities and acquiesce in all his plans and
assertions; a stronghold and comfortable place of
rest it was, and at present he troubled himself little
that circumstances prevented the accomplishment
of his great designs for the good of himself or the
world.
One day as he came in from the fields, in all the
pride of his sporting regalia, and—throwing in the
lap of Nanny a string of birds, with outstretched
wings and blood-speckled breasts—stretched himself
lazily on the lounge, a quiet but knowing smile
curled his lips, and evidently, from the manner of
his combing with his fingers his full beard—a trick
of his especial good humor—he felicitated himself
upon something of more than usual interest and
significance.
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“Ask uncle Josey if that is all the game he
killed?” said Mrs. Yancey, speaking to the baby,
while she bent over it and gave it a sort of tickling
shake.
“Tell mother,” he replied, addressing the same
factitious medium, “that uncle Josey brought down
several small vertebrated quadrupeds, the which he
didn't choose to bag.”
“Is that what pleases you so much?” asked Eunice
with a disdainful toss of her wise head.
“No,” said Joseph, smiling as with a deeper
enjoyment, and surveying his sister as though in
some way she appeared ludicrous, while he bit the
purplish leaves of a wild plant he held in his hand
to keep back laughter, “no, that is not all, by any
manner of means, my delectable sister.”
Eunice folded her arms and walked straight out
of the room, letting her Indian shirt drag over the
face of her brother, who called after her to know if
she were gone for self-communion, and added with
a peculiar expressiveness of tone that he fancied
that duty had been accomplished for the day.
“What are you eating, uncle Josey?” asked Mrs.
Yancey, oblivious to the little passage between the
brother and sister.
“Some sort of bane; I like the taste of it;” and
the young man took another leaf in his mouth, as
if the eating of poison were a small thing to him,
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continuing, as he did so, “yes, Nanny, this is a
deadly bane.”
“I have heard say,” said Mrs. Yancey, that
whatever the king-snake touches turns to poison—
do you believe it, Josey?”
“It seems very reasonable.”
“I think likely our old horse, Tommy, got hold
of some such thing, poor creature,” said the amiable
woman, and as she pitifully contemplated the case,
Joseph arose and silently left the house, thinking,
to himself, “What a silly woman my sister is!”
and feeling, for the moment, that he could not
breathe the same air with her.
But this does not explain his peculiar smile, nor
why Eunice felt it to be an offense. Since the arrival
of her brother, the views of the philosophical
and progressive young lady seemed to have undergone
some modification. She did not directly admit
this in conversation, but her ostentatious displays
of self-communion became less frequent; she
talked less of the consecration of her life to the
Indians; the idea was not yet abandoned, indeed,
for she wrought daily at the shirts, though no
longer close shut in her chamber, but in the family
group. And once she even hinted, in conversation
with Mr. Wurth, that it was barely possible, after
all, that the heart was worthy of some little regard,
as well as those purely intellectual faculties, to the
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cultivation of which she had deemed it proper to
devote so large a portion of her valuable time.
At length, perhaps without any accurately defined
motive, she arranged the hair she had long
combed away from her temples, for the sake of
clearer perceptions, a little more after the usual
mode, rolling a small puff on either cheek, and
attaching it to the larger division with a side-comb.
It was the shrewd observance of this, and a
fancied detection of the motive, which caused the
offensive smile and good-humored accompaniment.
“Stranger things have happened,” said Arnold,
abruptly, as he returned from his solitary musing,
and seated himself by his elder sister, who sat on
the door-step, playing with the baby and two or
three cats.
“Stranger things than what, Josey?”
“I don't know what I was thinking about,” said
the brother.
“Likely enough it was old Tommy and the king-snake,”
said the sister, as she laughingly hugged
the baby in one arm, and a cat in the other.
“Oh, Nancy!” said the ever active husband,
who had just come in, and was taking a long whip
from the wall, “didn't you see that the pigs were
in the garden?”
“No, William, I didn't,” replied the wife. “I
have been busy scolding a little bit at the children;
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for, don't you think; they got to playing with the
table, turning it up-side-down, and pretending it
was a stage-coach, and some of them horses, and
some passengers; and they hauled it about a little
too roughly, I suppose, for they broke off two more
of the legs, and I don't see how we are to eat with
a table with one leg.”
When the pigs were turned out of the garden,
the tired husband harnessed his horses to the
wagon and carried away the broken table to be
mended, and on his return his wife informed him
that while Nanny was milking, the tea-kettle boiled
dry, and the spout melted off: but they could
make tea in the dinner-pot.
And where was Miss Eunice? Communing with
herself, cultivating her mind, or reflecting on some
special consecration of her life, and what good was
likely to accrue to the world from her noble efforts
and example. She would have been ashamed to
confess that she was really thinking of none of
these things, but it must be admitted that her pretense
to this effect was but a disguise for a more
absorbing occupation of her thoughts.
She was in her chamber, as she was accustomed
to be at this hour, but not sitting in “statue-like
repose,” upright, and with arms across her bosom.
No, she was standing before a small glass, the face
of which had previously been turned to the wall,
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arranging and reärranging her hair; and, when she
succeeded in pleasing herself, it might have been
noticed that the two little puffs were considerably
enlarged, and worn lower on the face; that a white
cape, with ruffles, was substituted for the plain
kerchief previously worn; and that a plain gold
ring—put aside in the period of her philosophie
musing respecting the dignity of her sex and the
objects of an ambition to which she should devote
herself, as a worldly gewgaw—had assumed its old
place on the first finger of her left hand.
When her toilet was completed she still hesitated,
apparently in dread of descending. Once or twice
she advanced to the stairs, and again retreated;
then descended a step or two, and, retiring, sat by
the window till—the tea having been boiled in the
dinner-pot—Nancy came up to call her.
“Nanny, how do I look?” she asked, in a tone
unusually sweet, for she seldom addressed the child
at all: she could not endure contiguity with one so
“totally deficient of intellectual cultivation.”
“Oh! aunt Euny,” she answered, in happy surprise,
“I never saw you look half so pretty.” And,
to her utter astonishment, the cold, uncompromising
aunt, stooped and softly kissed her.
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CHAPTER XII.
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Fate links strange contrasts.
They lived together as most people do,
Suffering each others foibles by accord,
And not exactly either one or two.
Byron.
Is it not better to die willingly,
Than linger till the glass be all outrun!
Spenser.
The fall, that sad season, when the reaping is all
done, and the husbandman sits by the fire, while
the long, dreary rains beat down the last flowers,
and the housewife gathers, from long shut drawers
and presses, the last year's clothes of the children,
brushing off cobwebs, and patching and mending—
that lonesome season came, and went. The revolutions
in costume which take place in the country
with the changes of the seasons, are much more
distinctly marked than in cities; because there, as
the Scotch have it, the “auld clathes” are made to
look “amaist as well as new,” until the winter stores
of woolens come from the factory, and the approach
of the holidays justifies the donning of new suits.
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How awkwardly and almost funnily they look—
boys and girls—as they appear in those shearsand-needle-renewed
garments, too narrow and too
short: boys in coats that have fallen behind the
fashion, with new patches at elbows, and shrinking
from the wrist as though afraid of it, while buttons
and buttonholes will not acknowledge the slightest
affinity; and vests draw themselves up in disdain
from trowsers, that, in turn, leave the ankle unprotected,
and looking slim and shivering, like the
leg of a pullet below the feathers. Half ashamed
they feel when first required to go into the village
for tea and sugar, in spite of the dear kind mother's
assurance that they look very well, and her promise
that they shall soon have new suits, though they
must make the old ones serve as long as they can.
The last admonition is not always heeded, and the
rents widen faster and the patches give way sooner
than seems necessary. And the girls look odd
enough, too, with the bright streaks around their
skirts, where the last year's tucks were; some of
the dresses—for they are woolen—shrunken till
they are thick and stiff enough to stand alone, and
yet too long and large for the younger sisters, to
whom they are appropriated in succession. To be
sure, they can pretend such gowns are the new
fashion when they play with longnecked pumpkins
in the barn, where the veriest old hen serves for a
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waiting-maid, and the tall young calf, stepping
feebly and awkwardly, becomes, in “the rapture of
a vision,” my lady's pet antelope.
This season of falling leaves and changing garments
was long past, and the great log-fires had
blazed in the deep chimneys, and gone down, for
winter, too, was over. The drifting snows, that
made such chilly beds for the young lambs, had
melted in the thawing rains of spring, and the
blustering winds, that angrily shook the great black
forests as easily as they would have shaken the
little beds of reeds, had subsided to laughing murmurs.
The long evenings, bright with hearth-light,
and merry with the sports of children, had
shortened into brief twilights, beautiful with red
clouds, and soft with balmy airs.
And spring now was ripening into summer.
The windows were open, the knitting-work laid
aside for the distaff; the colt was put in harness;
and the fragrant earth turned up before the plow;
while from the open barn-door flew a golden
shower of chaff, where the threshing flail was
heard beating and beating all the day long. The
birds had mended their old nests, and silently and
patiently awaited for the young life and the new
song. The gardens were planted, and tender beets,
and thick-leaved cucumbers, gave thrifty promise;
and the orchard grounds were sown thick with
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blossoms, which the enlarging fruit had pushed
aside.
And Joseph Arnold and his friend still lingered
and loitered with the Yanceys; but Joseph had
grown more melancholy, and was more often than
ever before seen alone. He had concluded that
there was less chance for a man of sense to get
along in this world than he had once with a fond
self-flattery believed.
Frederick Wurth, on the contrary, had become
even more easy and good natured; but though still
generally replying “I think not,” if Joseph said so,
there was one point he would not yield: “single
blessedness” was not the compassing of all human
felicity, and, strange to say, in this opinion he had
a strong ally in Miss Eunice, and she was actually
about to renounce her immature vows, and consecrate
anew her life on the altar of matrimony.
The little puffs, which had at first been worn
with tremulous misgiving, were, in process of time,
lengthened into curls; and afterward these were
divided, and subdivided, till a profusion of graceful
ringlets had more than once been shaken in the
face of some tender appeal with a coquettish “nay.”
Miss Eunice was now, indeed, assured beyond a
possibility of doubt that she was come into the full
light. Beyond the sphere of her vision, there was
nothing to be discovered. The mind and heart
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were all that were worth living for in this poor
world. This was the third or fourth time she
had been equally confident of the correctness and
comprehensiveness of her opinions and ambitions;
and, though the new plan was always in direct
opposition to the old, she affirmed with each change,
and heartily believed, that any further alteration
or modification was quite outside of reason, or any
possibility.
Mr. Wurth was by several years the junior of the
elect lady, who, in her decided habits of thought,
and uncultivated manners, was altogether different
from him, while in every personal attraction he
seemed to have as much superiority as in acquaintance
with the world.
There are some men, and Mr. Frederick Wurth
was one of them, who seem to marry on the
principle by which they would procure a new coat
or hat. The acquisition is indispensable, and who
ever chances to be in the way at the propitious
season is taken, for better or for worse.
Mr. Frederick Wurth was never hard to please.
He shaped his thought in all things, and when it
required but little exertion, the habits of his life, to
a concurrence with the wishes of those about him.
His first wife had been all grace and gentleness,
but wooed less for these qualities than because
accident had thrown him into her society; and
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now—his faculty of adaptation as he called it, but
really his want of such energy as is necessary for
the preservation of any individuality, having made
him familiar and at ease among the Yanceys—he
would have seen in the best trained and most accomplished
belle of the gay world to which he was
born, no attractions higher than those of which the
spinster Eunice boasted. If the whim to marry
had seized him while wandering with Joseph Arnold
beyond the Rocky Mountains, some tawny
daughter of the forest would perhaps as readily
have been chosen for his bride.
Mrs. Yancey grew more laughter-loving every
day, and more confident in hope that some good
luck would happen to her and William; she had
often heard of people having money sent them, or
something, just when they were in the greatest
need. And so, in the blind credulity that takes no
thought of ways and means, she prepared for the
wedding, making larger expenditures than the hard
and scanty earnings of her husband would justify.
Once the little man ventured to hint the propriety
of some economy, when she requested him to buy
half a dozen cans of oysters, and as many turkeys,
and loaves of wedding-cake, with jars of preserves,
and other confections, adding that she must also
have five or six women to help her for a fortnight.
“I thought,” said the little man, “you made fifty
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pounds of sugar into preserves last fall;” and he
looked puzzled, and spoke deprecatingly.
The home-made preserves had fomented, and
been fed to the pigs.
But it was not every day they had a wedding,
and they must do a little like other folks. “Maybe
you will find some money, William, when you
are on the way to town;” and she concluded by
relating that once, when she wanted to go to a big
muster, she couldn't get a new dress, and just when
she had given up, Uncle Benjamin happened to
send her a new red calico pattern for one from
down the river.
So the trustful woman carried the point, and the
obedient husband arrayed himself in his Sunday
trowsers and hat, (he wore no coat in the summer),
with one of the unbleached cotton shirts originally
designed for the Indians, and set out to procure the
aforementioned cakes, sweet-meats and other things
needful at a wedding; having first, with the assistance
of Mr. Frederick Wurth, who democratically
volunteered his assistance, added a fresh supply
of tar to the axles.
Mrs. Yancey purchased for herself, to be worn
on the happy occasion, a new silk dress, and a lace
cap, tastefully ornamented with flowers; and, for
the sake of her husband's gentility she spread in
the yard one of the lot of cotton shirts, to bleach,
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which, owing to the rëconsecration, had fallen to
him. The preparations went forward vigorously.
One or two women of the neighborhood spared
their oldest girls to assist, and occasionally she
herself superintended, waddling, from kitchen to
cellar, with upturned sleeves, and an apron made
of a small table-cloth.
The beating of eggs, and mixing, and rolling,
and cutting, and baking, must be left to the reader's
fancy, and also the nice washing of nice things, and
starching, and drying, and, last of all, the tablesetting
and toilet-making—connected with which
last duty poor Mr. Yancey suffered a disappointment.
The shirt which the kind-hearted wife intended
to have bleached and “done up,” had been quite
forgotten, and when it should have been ready, in
shining whiteness, it was still spread, bleaching, in
the yard, the grass grown round it so that it was
half concealed from observation. For a moment,
it must be confessed, the good man, who was not
entirely destitute of suitable pride for grand occasions,
felt half vexed; but when his wife said it
reminded her of their own happy wedding, he put
his arm up about her neck and kissed her—saying
one of the unbleached shirts would do just as well.
And little Nanny, where was she while the fire
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blazed, and the blustery snows drifted against the
door, and when the garden was planted, and the
spring bloomed and ripened into summer? Slight
and delicate always, she had been growing more
and more fragile, all this while—quietly attending to
household duties as long as she could. Then they
began to give her the rocking-chair, and to tell her
if she would not work so hard she would be better.
Her father came home earlier of nights to milk the
spotted cow, that liked no one to milk her so well
as Nanny—who said every day she was better, and
would soon be able to do as much as she used.
While the winter lasted she was sure she should be
well in the spring, and when spring came, and,
instead of sitting in the rocking-chair, she lay all
day in bed, she said, if it were not for that ugly
cough, she would soon be well.
One day her father brought some roots and
herbs, and made a sort of bitter tea, which Nanny
did not like, though she drank it every day, still
saying it made her stronger, till she could not lift
her head from the pillow to take it any more. The
village doctor was next called, and for weeks the
poor child patiently and almost cheerfully took his
medicines, that seemed more frightful than the
disease; and still, though she said not any longer
she was better, she continued to smile sweetly, and
did not complain. And so, as the faint summer
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came along the meadows and orchards, the dark
shadow imprinted itself in the fair groundwork of
her life.
The father ceased to speak of her getting well,
yet he forebore to mention the grave, or the bright
infinity beyond—as if being silent would push the
reality aside. But still the mother talked hopefully,
saying in a cheerful tone, as she brought the
drink or the medicine, “When you get well, Nanny.”
And the new summer dress and bonnet were
bought, as though she were in health, and as if
such shows would make her so.
In the old fashioned parlor the lights burned
brightly; the little group of rustic friends were in
holiday attire; but Nanny was not there. In a
dimly lighted chamber she too was arrayed, in the
new dress, which, by her own choice, was of pure
white.
Joseph Arnold had been her faithful and constant
watcher, and to-night he kept his place, looking
very melancholy, but neither speaking nor
moving. How distinctly sounded the ticking of
the clock in the adjoining room.
Suddenly a cloud passed over the moon, and the
soft light, that had fallen over the sick girl's pillow,
was gone.
“I am cold, very cold,” she said, faintly.
The young man arose, and laid his hand on her
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forehead. The pulses fluttered, and were still; and
softly kissing her cheek he said, “Dear little Nanny
you will never say you are cold any more.”
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CHAPTER XIII.
[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]
It rains—What lady loves a rainy day!
Longfellow.
One other claimant for human paternity
Swelling the tide that flows on to eternity.
Hood.
The poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
For young ones in her nest, against the owl.
Shakspeare.
Love, nor marriage, nor death, nor funeral, nor
anything else, may stay the wings of time; and the
season of bitterest sorrow, and the time of gladdest
rejoicing, are soon away in the by-gone. The days
blush open, and fade dimly down, and the weeks
come and go, and, smiling or weeping, we go out
to our harvesting of roses, or of thorns. We give
our children in marriage, and bury our dead, and
all the while our hairs are whitening, and the furrows
are deepening on our brows, till, at morning
or midnight, we meet the last enemy, and, after a
little feeble controversy, are heard of no more.
For a year the grass had grown over the grave
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of Nanny, and the mother's tears fell less often on
the bright green mound than they did on the fresh
heaped earth.
By the unlettered headstone Joseph Arnold had
planted a willow, drooping ever, and weeping with
the dews and the rains; and here he might be seen
more often than any who knew her, and, however
solemn his musings were, he did not speak them,
but smiled when his sister asked where he had
been, and replied, with his old affectation, that he
had been to the graveyard to get up his spirits.
“Say to uncle Josey he tells a great story,” Mrs.
Yancey would reply, speaking to the baby; for
whomever she addressed in a negative way, she
was most apt to ask the baby to assume the responsibility.
Yet by whatever prompted, the first and the last
visits of the young man, on going from or returning
to the house of his brother-in-law, were to the
graveyard in which reposed his young niece.
As for Mr. Yancey, he had grown thinner in the
last year, but he worked on, cheerful and energetic
and hopeful as ever. The Indian shirts were not
yet worn out, but the Sunday coat was more
threadbare, and the hat had a few more indentations
than were visible when Eunice was married.
When the children broke the teapot of the new
set of china, Mrs. Yancey made coffee for a month,
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till William could take her to town and supply the
deficiency; and when Joseph told her to get a duplicate,
she told the baby to tell him she wouldn't
do any such thing, for she meant to get another
just like the old one, if she could. To assist about
the house a small negro girl had been obtained,
but she could ill supply the place of Nanny. The
young Griselda had possessed something of her
father's nature, and they twain, within doors and
without, kept all in order; but now there was no
head of the family, it seemed, and all things were
awry, except the happy tempers of Nancy Yancey
and her little husband. The world went wrong,
but they never seemed to know it, or were quite
sure it would go right to-morrow; and age was in
the distance, not so far but that his shadow fell
upon their faces, yet they saw only youth, and
fortunate accidents, and never-ending pleasures, of
such sorts as to one or the other would give most
delight. Dear Mrs. Yancey would occupy the
great armed rocking-chair in years that bounded
her ideas of the farthest future, and the husband
would hold the plow for ever in his undecaying
fields, which sometime, he was sure, would yield
a harvest greater than should be needed for the
season's necessities.
And what changes have a year wrought with
Miss Eunice, or, as we must hereafter say, Mrs.
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Wurth? When she appears in the fashionable
assembly does she wear the same narrow black silk
dress, and big Leghorn bonnet—resembling, as
much as anything, an old-fashioned churn set on
the top of a round table—by which she was always
recognized in the little stone meeting-house? The
world, the world! its hold is very strong upon us
all, theorize as we may, and the rich matron retained
as little of the country maiden as might be.
There were traces of identity, indeed, but this was
no fault of hers; powder and patches, laces and
lawns, did away with them as far as was possible
by art. The heavy mantle and costly bonnet were
worn with little grace; a fine style ill became her;
and under her novel supervision the quiet elegance
which pervaded the house of the first Mrs. Wurth
was broken up, and a showy and glaring discord
substituted.
Some very choice pictures—historical and landscape
pieces—were taken down and consigned to
the “spare-room,” with the wardrobe of the departed
and forgotten, and two portraits hung in their
places—herself and husband, of course—she in a
dress of crimson, fondling a lap-dog.
“My gracious! dear sakes!” exclaimed the nurse,
dancing and curtesying about before it, (she never
walked, or stood still, but ran or skipped when
she attempted the one, and her nearest approach to
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the other was a graceful vibration from foot to
foot). “Dear sakes! Goodell, I shall go blind.”
“Why, Miss Crum! But I hear your baby calling
from the nursery.”
“I can tell you, Goodell, that is not our Mrs.
Wurth,” said Miss Crum, looking over her shoulder,
toward the flashy canvas, as she left the parlors
with her old associate in the family service.
The even good nature and real kindness of the
housekeeper had in process of time won upon the
tart disposition of the nurse, who had made a compromise
of dignity, and in place of saying “Mrs.
Goodell,” or “Margaret,” said now with easy familiarity
and condeseension, Goodell. And so, as their
occupations kept them much apart, they proceeded
nicely till the reign of the second Mrs. Wurth
began; and this new sway, at the period to which
I wish to bring my reader, had been exercised for
a year.
One of those long soaking rains that fall and fall
when the earth is already perfectly drenched and
saturated, and when a thousand eyes are looking
impatiently for the sun, had been steadily coming
down for days, and the clouds looked heavier and
darker still than the first day they rose above the
city. Omnibuses, crowded down to the steps, men
with closely buttoned coats, and faces hidden
beneath umbrellas, hurrying up and down, and
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women, in their worst bonnets and dresses, holding
aside their skirts and stepping carefully, and now
and then a closely-shut coach, were all that could
be seen.
Nor were the sounds such as enliven: the pattering
of the rain against the windows, the low,
dull thunder, which was scarcely known to be such,
and the quick ringing of the bell by some impatient
person at the door, or haply the rattling of the
wheels as some carriage was driven with unusual
speed, were all that claimed attention or broke the
oppressing silence which reigned in the dreary
houses.
A little lurid light glimmered about the sunset,
and the rain ceased long enough to induce some
hope, but with nightfall it came on again, in that
dull, steady way, which gives no indication of
an ending.
It was almost summer, but a fire burned in the
grate (for moisture was gathered in drops on the
walls), where, at the feet of her nurse, a child was
playing, now with a ball and now with a book,
which she affected to read. She was beautiful, and
looking very happy, for her heart held no sad
memory, even though Miss Crum had often shown
how and where she held her to see the funeral train
of her mother, long ago. That excellent person
still occupied her old position, in spite of frequent
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disagreements, which would ere now have ended
in open quarrel and separation, but for circumstances
that were understood by the parties most
interested.
She tripped lightly from place to place, dusting
and brushing, and arranging, and reärranging,
though all things were in the most perfect order.
The rain seemed not to have affected her spirits,
and she even began to sing “Lely loly ly, lyly loly
le,” to a tune of her own improvisation, as she
examined the drawers of the bureau—unfolding
and folding various articles, and making many
separate parcels.
“Oh, mercy!” she suddenly exclaimed, in the
midst of her song, and violently shut the drawer
and seized the hand of little Catharine who, unobserved,
had stolen near, attracted by the song or
by curiosity.
“What has the child done?” asked Mrs. Wurth,
who never used more words than were necessary,
and never said Catharine, but always “Child.”
“Oh! don't you think,” replied the nurse, as
though a fearful calamity had been threatened,
“she had like to have seen”—here she hesitated a
moment, and added, “what I was doing!”
“How absurd, Araminta! the child—not three
years old!” And Mrs. Wurth renewed her occupation
of looking into the fire.
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The nurse heeded not the scornful manner of the
lady, nor her contemptuous words, but, taking up
the little girl, began singing “Catharine, Catharine,
Catharine,” over and over, as if with a view of
soothing her to sleep.
“Who gave her that name?” asked the stepdame,
who well knew it was borne by her mother,
and was kept from making use of it by a jealous
and unholy feeling.
“What name?” said the nurse, still repeating it
in her song.
“The name she bears—what else should I
mean?”
“Who named her Catharine?”—here Miss Crum
kissed her charge—“it was her mother's name,
you know. She was the sweetest and most beautiful
woman in the world. And so young! she was
not twenty-one when she died. She was so refined,
and elegant! and all folks that knew her
said she was perfectly lovely.”
The nurse embraced every opportunity of lauding
the late Mrs. Wurth—her grace and wit, her
gentleness, and personal charms—whenever with
Mrs. Eunice, as she said to Goodell, “merely to
irritate her.” It was her delight to caress the child
in the presence of the reigning mistress, and to
point out, with ingenious phrases, fitted to annoy
that once philosophical specimen of her sex, all
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those resemblances in the one that were suggestive
of contrasts in the other, or that could induce most
mortification in her heart, or keenest regret in the
heart of her husband. There are many women
who are suspected of very little cleverness until
they have fit occasions for displays of malice,
when they evince a genius as brilliant and fearful
as it is unexpected. Our Araminta, though she
had “never been able to see in any man such
qualities as she could endure in a husband,” could
yet see a great way into those mill-stones called
hearts, and she was rarely so happy as when bringing
fire from their flinty centers.
“Mrs. Wurth,” it was her wont to say, as though
there were no other Mrs. Wurth, “had such exquisite
taste in dress, and everything else! I hope
little Catharine will be just like her.”
All this was excessively annoying to the step-mother,
and jealousy of the dead Catharine grew
into dislike of her child, amounting, if not to
hatred, to a hateful repugnance; and something of
the feeling was extended to the nurse, whom she
called “Araminta,” or “nurse,” with all the emphasis
which, for the same purpose, she used in
addressing the housekeeper, to intimate her superior
position, by her name of “Mrs. Goodell.”
Persons who have to serve, have often a peculiar
sensitiveness respecting the social elevation of their
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employers, and are especially jealous of any vulgar
pretension. The dignified and elegant Miss Araminta
Crum, who “might in her day have married
almost any body in the city,” was severely tried in
being compelled by her “affection for the dear
little Catharine” to an obedience to the caprices
and whims of “such an upstart as Mrs. Eunice,”
and to-night she could not resist the temptation of
strengthening her false impression in reference to
the child's name, by these allusions to the mother.
Who would be so likely as the father to call the
child Catharine? The reasonable inference, however,
was not the fact, as, soon after the death of
his wife, Frederick Wurth left home for a year's
adventure and pleasure, having scarcely seen his
daughter, and perhaps never having thought of
such a matter as the selection of her name.
The good Mrs. Goodell, whose love for her late
mistress was sincere, had named the baby, and also
carefully preserved the black silk dress and silver
spoons up to this period.
“Take that child to bed,” said the step-mother,
after enduring the nurse's song half an hour.
“I don't want to go,” the victim answered, her
eyes wide open; and Miss Crum continued her
song for a moment, as though she had not heard
the direction; then, slowly rising, she presented
Catharine for a kiss, to her “mama,” who, ashamed
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to refuse, touched her lips to the child's forehead,
without speaking to her, or looking at her.
And the nurse, telling her she must be a little
lady, and sleep with Goodell to-night, embraced
her as if that parting were the most painful incident
in all her history.
In the morning the house seemed in strange confusion.
The servants were in high glee, and the
breakfast evinced such liberality, in variety and
abundance, as justified suspicions that all things in
the establishment were to be on a new scale of
munificence, while the general satisfaction, which
none seemed able to conceal, was not less suggestive
of some happy fortune. Miss Crum presided
with a pleased smile, while Mr. Frederick Wurth
really laughed out, saying, “The muffins are so
very funny this morning.”
“Why don't mama come?” asked the child, and
Miss Crum informed her little girls must not ask
questions.
After a while, however, she was told, to her
great discontent and bewilderment, that she had a
little sister up stairs, whom some good old lady
had brought from far away to be her companion
and the sharer of her playing.
When Mrs. Wurth appeared at breakfast again,
poor Miss Crum was informed that her services
were no longer required; and that estimable woman
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said she was as glad to go as any one could be to
have her: she was only grieved to leave the darling
Catharine in the hands of such a low creature; at
which scarcely civil speech Mrs. Goodell held up
both hands and exclaimed “Why, Miss Crum!”
-- 158 -- p491-159
CHAPTER XIV.
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The weariest pangs the wretched find
Are rapture, to the dreary void,
The leafless desert of the mind,
The waste of feelings unemployed.
Byron.
Mine after life—What is mine after life!
My day is closed! the gloom of night is come,
A hopeless darkness settles o'er my fate!
Joanna Bailie.
The advertisement for a faithful and efficient
nurse, to take charge of a child three years old,
was speedily answered. It mattered little, indeed,
to Mrs. Wurth, whether a nurse were faithful and
efficient or not—so much did she dislike Catharine,
and so entirely was she engrossed with the little
stranger, as Mrs. Goodell called the baby—so that
the first applicant was almost sure of securing the
place.
It was the morning of the day after Miss Crum's
departure when Mrs. Wurth was informed that a
young woman had called to offer her services.
“Tell her to come up,” she said. “Waiting
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women are so insolent! but the poor creatures have
not mind to comprehend the duties of their stations.”
“This is the person I spoke of,” said Margaret,
as Mrs. Goodell was again called, and turning toward
the candidate for her mistress's approval,
who lingered by the door, she added, “This is
Mrs. Wurth,” and then withdrew.
The lady surveyed her for a moment, in silence,
and pointing to a seat in a distant part of the room,
proceeded with her examination.
“Did you know Mrs. Catharine Wurth?”
“No, madam,” replied the girl, in a low and
melancholy tone, surveying meanwhile the elegant
furniture of the chamber with the air of one who
saw such displays for the first time, but who felt
neither admiration nor surprise.
“Are you fond of children?” was the next question,
asked in a sharp and dissatisfied tone which
brought the large sad looking eyes of the abstracted
young woman into contact with her own cold gray
ones.
“Yes—no—I was never much used to children;”
and she tightened her arms about a small wooden
box she held in her lap, which was, perhaps, a foot
in length, and four or five inches thick.
“If you are too fond, you will spoil the child;
that is all.”
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“That will not be likely; I do not talk much;”
and she reached out her hand and with an air
of unconsciousness muffled the lace which edged
a little robe hanging near her, sighing as she
did so.
“Are you sick? there is no color in your face;”
and Mrs. Wurth began to look at her more curiously.
“No,” said the girl, “I am not sick; my bodily
health is very good.”
“And of course you have no mind.”
“Not much,” she said, writing on the box with
her finger.
“Good health—don't talk—not fond of children:
I think of nothing more I care to ask;” and the
mistress rang the housekeeper's bell. Margaret
appeared presently, and was directed to show the
young woman into the nursery and explain to her
the duties she would be expected to perform.
“Shall I carry your box?” asked the kind Mrs.
Goodell.
The offer was declined, and, pausing at the door,
she turned and said “You have arranged about the
terms, I suppose?”
“No, I thought nothing about it.”
“Why, Mrs. Wurth!”
But when the lady explained that it was not for
persons in her position to parley about dollars and
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cents, the housekeeper bowed, the girl smiled, and
they withdrew together.
Arrived in the nursery, the young woman surveyed
it with the same indifferent curiosity with
which she had noted the chamber of the mistress.
“And this is where I am to sleep?” she remarked,
approaching the bed; and on being answered in
the affirmative, she lifted the pillow, and deposited
her box beneath it.
“What a beautiful child!” she said, for the first
time betraying some interest and animation, and,
stooping, she kissed her cheek, still wet with
tears the little Catharine had shed, having been
sent from her mama's room in punishment for saying
she loved Miss Crum; and, as she lay asleep
in careless gracefulness, the black curls along her
white forehead, her dimpled hands together, and
her face like a rosebud in the dew, she might
well call forth the exclamation of “Beautiful
child!”
“Indeed she is, young woman! and as sweettempered
as she is pretty. You are a young woman,
I see,” added Margaret, “and I don't know
what else to call you.”
“I am twenty, nearly,” said the girl, “and you
may call me Hagar.”
“Hagar!” repeated the housekeeper, whose ideas
of courtesy were not very nice, “you do look as if
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you might have been in the wilderness and found
no water—so pale and melancholy like.”
“I have,” she replied, removing her simple straw
bonnet, and smoothing back her dark and heavy
tresses, as though to divert some paining thought.
“And how much wages do you expect—you
don't look able to do much;” said Margaret, who
was one of those persons constitutionally economical,
and as ready to exert her ability in another's
behalf as in her own.
“I am able to do all that will be required, but I
shall be satisfied with whatever they choose to give
me.”
“Why, dear me!” exclaimed Margaret, alarmed,
in turn for the interest of the girl, and anxious for
justice on both sides: “that will never do, my
child; you must make up your mind to ask what
is right, and Frederick Wurth is not the man to be
mean.”
“I do not care,” Hagar said; “anything you
think is right will satisfy me, if it be enough to
pay for the few things I shall need. Arrange it
for me, if you please.”
This Margaret readily promised to do, and she
then proceeded to an explanation of the various
and not very difficult duties of the nurse, who was
also to be in some sense a governess for the little
girl; and these instructions finished, she led her
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into the “spare room,” where the memorable trunks
were opened, and directions were given for airing
the dress, brightening the silver, &c., as often at
least as once a month.
Hagar was an attentive though she seemed a
scarcely conscious listener, and she readily acquiesced
in every suggestion, and promised to fulfil as
nearly as possible every obligation thus imposed
on her.
And days and weeks followed, and with a quiet
step, a pale unsmiling face, and a voice monotonous
and low, but always gentle, she moved about, executing
with scrupulous exactness every task assigned
her. She rarely spoke, unless there was some
necessity that she should do so, nor did she manifest
an interest in anything she heard or saw. At
times, indeed, when the door of her room was
suddenly opened, she was observed to sit with the
little wooden box in her lap, or hastily to put it
away, and once or twice with signs of an emotion
she could not quite conceal; but there was no other
spell that could disturb the apparent slumber of
her heart, or change the placid and patient expression
of her countenance.
The little Catharine seemed to win more and
more her affection, but she rarely displayed in
words or actions any fondness for the child, who
was, however, quick to understand, as all children
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are, the thousand nameless attentions through which
love finds its way from the heart, and more than
returned all that was given her by the silent nurse.
And Mrs. Eunice was quite content with the
change thus effected in her establishment; she was
seldom annoyed with the presence of the little girl,
or that of the successor of Miss Crum. She cared
little what became of her step-daughter, if she were
but kept from her sight. Hagar, she said, was a
dull mope, with very little mind, and that of a
quality to be moulded to her own will, should she
ever condescend to take any trouble about it; and
she was very fit and quite good enough for the
child.
But Hagar did not regard the supercilious and
even contemptuous haughtiness of her mistress;
she lived in her own world, in her own heart; and
there had histories, and ruins, and shining mountains
away in the past, more beautifully bright for
the wastes about the present; and cloud and darkness
in the future, scarcely pierced by any smouldering
fire of hope, faintly glowing amid the ashes
of nearly forgotten dreams.
The little girl grew strangely shy. Sometimes
she would timidly open the door of Mrs. Wurth's
room, but no kind word nor smile of encouragement
greeted her, and after a little wistful lingering
she would generally go away, wondering why
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her mama never kissed her, as she did her little
sister.
“To be sure, the child is selfish and ill-tempered,”
said the lady to her friends, “but I always do by
her just as if she were my own.”
The philosophical lady was never conscious of
any sins of omission. If, with however much
reluctance and difficulty, she forced herself to the
performance of any common duty—if, in view of
possible consequences, she abstained from an ebullition
of angry feeling—she gave herself infinite
credit for heroical virtue; and she had never a
doubt that the easy processes with which she convinced
herself of the possession of much superfluous
goodness—of what some of the holy fathers might
have called a comfortable store of works of supererogation—
would be accepted in that unknown
world, where there undoubtedly existed an intense
longing for the presence of that daughter of Eve
who had made up a piece and a half of unbleached
muslin into shirts for Winnebagoes and Camanches.
She had an especial mental satisfaction in regarding
the manner with which she discharged the
office of a step-mother to little Kate. If she withheld
a blow from the fragile and beautiful creature,
she counted it as of the merit of a kiss bestowed;
and in fair truth this was not among the most
erroneous of her judgments: for, as the litanies
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have it, from such kisses as she was apt to bestow
on the poor step-child, we might say, Father of
mercies, grant us deliverance!
When she said good-night to him, her father
turned his cheek to be kissed, because it had been
his own custom when young, and not that it gave
him any pleasure, or any thought. And at such
times Mrs. Eunice, too, touched her cold, unimpassioned
lips on her forehead, but without a
word, and with the manner of one performing a
necessary but unpleasant task.
If the fire was aglow on the hearth, and the
circle narrow around it, she made no widening for
the child, if she chanced to come in; nor would
she answer the timid look which asked if she were
welcome. Of course, she was not expected to
remain; there was no place for her; the verdict
was understood as well as if it were spoken, and
the step-daughter felt it as keenly, and was obedient
to it—lingering a moment, and withdrawing
silently as she came.
“You make everything pretty for little sister,”
she sometimes said, “and nothing for me. Won't
you make something for me?”
But Hagar, she was told, would do as well. So,
as she grew, she became lonely, and more and
more reserved—her heart heavy with its own love,—
for all the tenderness of her nature was repulsed,
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and, like a stream forced into its fountain, struggled
for escape somewhere.
One evening Hagar found her sitting on the
floor, and playing with old letters. The child ran
toward her as she entered, and putting the papers
in her lap, asked her to read. She obeyed, mechanically,
and the first dingy bit of paper unfolded was
a receipt for the coffin of the dead mother; and the
next a brief note from a clergyman, in answer
to a request referring to her funeral sermon, and
signed “N. Warburton.” Tears, the first she
had shed in a long time, came to her eyes, and,
taking the child on her knees, she rocked her
to sleep, to the slow and heavy beating of her
heart.
Then she laid her softly in bed, kissed her,
wrapped the covering about her, and, standing
a little way off, seemed to contemplate her beauty
and untroubled slumber with a still and unutterable
sorrow.
While she was thus engaged, the housekeeper,
who often came up to see the nurse, opened the
door, and, approaching the bed, inquired if Catharine
were sick.
“No—she is quite well, I believe.”
“Why, then, do you look so sad, and watch as
if she were dying?”
“I cannot tell: but her beauty, and innocence,
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and this sweet calmness of her rest, made me melancholy.”
“What a strange young woman you are! a
pretty, healthy little girl like that, lying fast asleep,
make you look as though you had no friend!—
really, I fear you have not your right reason.”
“True, she is very lovely, and gently asleep, and
I am faded, and worn, and weary: I cannot sleep as
she does. And if I look as if I had no friend, I
only look as I am.”
“Why, Hagar! it is only to-day that little Catharine
told me she loved you better than anybody
in the world, and then she climbed to the table,
where I was molding cakes, and said she loved me
too. And it made me happy that she did so, and
I made a little cake for her, and she was happy too.”
The good woman smiled as she spoke, and her
plain sunburnt features were transformed almost
into beauty, with the kind and amiable feeling
that was in her heart.
“But if she does love me,” said Hagar, “she
will grow away from me as she becomes older and
contrasts me with the gay and fortunate people
who will be about her.”
“It will be natural, when she is grown, if she
loves another better than you, indeed, and I am
sure I hope she will,” the housekeeper gaily answered,
as a pleasant fancy flashed across her brain.
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“How did you learn to be so happy? I should
like to study your secret.”
“I never learned at all. I have no time to search
after happiness, and, therefore, I suppose it comes
to me. But I am a little tired, to-night—enough
to make me ready to sleep, and so, good night;
and I wish you may wake in the morning blithe
as a lark. We have much to be grateful for.”
“The cottager,” Hagar said, “who stays contented
on the side of the mountain, hears the birds
sing all day; and the glory of the sunset and the
sunrise makes him glad; but he who comes down
into the valleys where there are palaces, is walled
in at morning and evening, or closed about with
clouds; or, ascending to their summits, he treads
their shining snows alone.”
“What do you say?” asked Margaret.
“Nothing,” answered Hagar; and the two women
parted for the night.
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CHAPTER XV.
[figure description] Page 170.[end figure description]
But ever and anon of grief subdued
There comes a token like a serpent's sting.
Byron.
Thought
Precodes the will to think, and error lives
Ere reason can be born.
Congreve.
Some secret venom preys upon his heart,
A stubborn and unconuerable flame
Creeps in his veins and drinks the stream of life.
Rowe.
“Despair, utter despair, is indeed passionless. The hands
fall listlessly, and the eyes fasten on the ground; darkness has
no terror for us, nor the light a charm; scarcely would we
turn aside for the ashes blown against us from the pit, or pause
for the golden shadows that fall from the bastions of the City
of Peace. I tremble to think how a sudden tempest of passion
may sweep over us, and, before reason has time to nerve herself
for defense, prostrate and leave our poor humanity in
ruins—ruins which only the life beyond the grave may build
into beauty again—that life to which we are lifted on the white
wings of prayer, far over the rushing waves of sorrow—far
over the stagnant waters of a hopelessness of the mercy of
Heaven.”
Hagar paused; and, closing the volume from
which she had been reading, seemed lost in
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thought; and little Catharine, who sat silently
listening, though she could not understand, arose,
and twining her arms about the neck of the young
nurse, kissed her cheek, quietly, unobtrusively,
saying in a sweet and childishly beseeching tone,
“Dear Hagar, I want you to read more.”
The sunlight brightly shimmered through the
drapery of the window, and illumined the faces of
the woman and child. The flowers, which grew in
vases of porcelain, with only a handful of the
brown moist earth, in which to take root, blossomed
out, white and yellow and scarlet, leaning
softly to the light. The child reached her hand
toward the slant column of shining beams, but the
woman sat motionless and pale in oppressive
reflection, and not till the request was twice or
thriee repeated did she notice it, when, opening
the book at random, she read:
“The spider works and works, and the silvery tissue
widens, thread after thread; but a dew drop falls too heavy,
or a breath of wind blows too strong, and the frail fabric is
gone; and so we add plan to plan, and involve thought with
thought, building up theories and systems, whose foundations
are unstable as the slim limbs and tremulous leaves beneath
the spider's web. The rock is before us, but we pause on the
sand. With a cloud of unbelief we sweep the stars out of
heaven, and fearfully and vainly work on the dark. Oh,
Time! dim, and fading, and troubled! thy wings are too narrow
to shelter the soul.”
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“Read on,” the child said, fascinated perhaps
by something sweet and touching in the girl's
voice, at times almost tremulous, as if the fountain
of her inmost nature were stirred.
“Since the angels darkened into demons, in the very lap of
heaven, and, discrowning their brows of love, recrowned them
with iron and thorns, the moaning through the universe will
not be still. Sweat must dampen the wheat sheaves, and
tears moisten the rose wreath, and the bridal hymn must bring
up echoes from the grave. Shall we not enjoy the broken
music that is left? shall we pine out of life for that we have
not the food of angels? shall we bide the pitiless storm, when
the home roof might shelter us? We have need of the
strongest defense against the enemies that are in the world,
busy all the time—Doubt, and Change, and Pain, and Death.
If the sea-rocks are not enough for a strong wall, let the
river-reeds be gathered—there may be rents which they will
fill. Little children, with singing, may break them off, and
our safety be made, if not perfect, at least very good and
beautiful.
“We may put on a fair outside, and assume the gloss of
truth, till we make ourselves never so fair; we may cry out
Peace when peace is broken, and Courage when our bosoms
shake with fear; with a lie we may deceive the world, winning
hearts to us all along the journey of life; but we cannot
deceive ourselves. And, after all, perhaps the bitterest of our
punishment is, that the world thinks better of us than we are.
“There is no such pitiable wretch as the successful hypocrite.
To an enemy that we have made, and deserve to have
made, we may yet present an opposing front; but the friendly
hand disarms us—we must smile, smothering conscience, fearing,
too, that every glance is a cunning searcher—every kindest
word laden with suspicion of our hearts. We do not
know, when we envy or execrate the bad, how artificial or
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unreal their seeming prosperity may have been. We do not
know how often they have sat in the tents of sorrow, nor how
much of remorse and shame they have been compelled to
carry in their bosoms.”
And Hagar desultorily turned over the leaves
of the book, until another passage arrested her
attention.
“I have no words to paint her beauty: she was the fulfilled
dream of my boyhood—young, and trusting, and innocent,
and lovely: all I ever desired was in my arms—rather,
all I would have desired, but for defying and damning pride.
She was poor, and I was rich; she was humble, and I was of
a high position. And she was gentle and pure—better, how
infinitely better than I!—yet I cast her from me, and am alone.
But the sea is not wide enough, nor the mountains high
enough, to divide her from my visions. Her reproachful face
comes between me and the sunshine. I take in my hands the
golden lengths of her curls, and say, over and over, `Love, I
love you,' but she will not smile upon me any more.
“She is dead, and I am living—dead, and it was I who made
her grave. To the home of her girlish innocence I dare not go.
Once it was a picture of repose, girt about with beautiful
flowers—now, I know not what—and a mother's abhorring
arms press me back from ever seeing it hereafter.”
And again she read:
“What am I? and what have I been? and what shall I be?
These are the questions that torment me. I have been
wicked, and have stripped myself for the scourge. I have
been rebellious, and have prayed as one who had a right
to be heard. I have climbed against the darkness, trusting
in my own strength, till, faltering and unequal, I have fallen,
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as the serpent from the curse. I have wept tears bitterer than
wormwood, hiding my eyes from all God's beautiful world;
and light, from the beams of the cross, has brightened my
way; but my human life must be henceforth a wandering echo
of the past, and all the future is hidden, perhaps in mercy, from
my eyes.”
Still the child sat listening, as if in perfect sympathy
with every word, when the reading was interrupted
by a tap at the door, which preceded the
entrance of Mr. Frederick Wurth, who sometimes,
failing of amusement, came to the nursery, rather
to converse with Hagar than to see his child. He
was smiling good-naturedly, as was his wont, and
holding in his hand an open letter.
“What are you reading—a new romance.?”
Without speaking, Hagar turned the lettering
of the volume toward him.
“A famous author that man is becoming; he
would not have earned such a reputation in the
profession he deserted, though he had talents for
anything. Jo Arnold said once to me he was the
most eloquent preacher he ever heard, and I said
the same thing to Jo.”
“Who is Jo Arnold?”
But without replying, Mr. Wurth took the
volume out of her hand and read the title page,
saying, “I wanted to see if he still retained the
“reverend,” but I see he simply writes his name,
Nathan Warburton.”
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Hagar said nothing, and he continued, “What
an excitement there was when he left his church
here and the ministry, for foreign travel!”
“Not so much excitement as reluctance to part
with him, was there?”
“No, you are right—reluctance to part with
him; but some thought he was out of his mind.”
“I never thought him so; he seemed to me oppressed
with some private grief, some bereavement,
perhaps.”
“Yes, some private grief or bereavement: no
doubt of it. But how does he write?”
“There are passages in the book which seem to
me very characteristic, but I should say the author
was a wretched man, who scarcely knew his own
purposes.”
Mr. Wurth took the book from her hand, and
glancing over it a moment, said, “Yes, just so—a
wretched man that scarcely knows what he is aiming
to do.”
“He has been traveling a great while—I wonder
if he will ever come home—he would scarcely
become a voluntary exile for life? No, he will
hardly become an exile for life!”
There was a long pause; little Catharine had
climbed on the knee of her father, and was fallen
asleep; he smoothed her black curls with his hand,
and as if for the first time aware of their depth of
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tone, contrasted them with the tresses of Hagar,
which, though called black, seemed almost brown
in comparison.
`Really,” he said with a look of surprise, “I never
knew before that you wore false hair—lose your's
by sickness?”
“I have had occasion to wear this for several
years.”
“That is unfortunate. But Katy grows heavy,”
he continued, for his mind never dwelt long on
any one thing—“ `a little heavy, but no less divine,'
as my friend Jo Arnold would say.”
“You spoke of him before: who is he?” Hagar
asked, as she took the child and placed her on the
bed, bending over her to hide the tears which
would have betrayed how little interest she felt in
the question.
Mr. Wurth explained, and added to the brief
biography, that he would not have believed a man
could so change, if he had not seen it with his own
eyes. “It seems,” he continued, “the metamorphosis
was brought about, at least in part, by this
very Mr. Warburton we have been talking about.”
“Is it possible! And is the change for good or
for evil?”
Mr. Wurth laughingly shook his head, saying,
“Jo used to be a good, easy, devil-may-care sort of
fellow, and now he is a zealous divine.”
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“Then the change is for the better.”
“Yes, I should think it must be for the better;
but here are two letters from him, with a year's
difference in the dates,” and he threw them into
Hagar's lap, assuring her they would explain themselves.
It was one of the necessities of Mr. Wurth's
nature to talk to somebody; and it made little
difference to whom, for he never thought of losing
caste. And in some way he had fallen into that
singular hallucination, that what interested himself
must necessarily interest everybody else; so, from
time to time he brought for Hagar to read, private
letters, written, it might be, by a maiden aunt, and
of a knitting-work character; or by a gay cousin,
who talked of pleasure and made witticisms; or
by some one else, who could by no possibility have
composed a sentence to interest a stranger, ignorant
of his fears, friends, or foes. These missives Hagar
read because accustomed to do whatever was
required of her, never seeming to have any will of
her own: but the two by Joseph Arnold seemed to
claim her thought as well as her eyes. The first
began—
“Dear Fren—This is Sunday, and deuced hot and uncomfortable.
I have been lying under a maple by the mill-stream—
my line thrown out a little way below, and a new
book in hand—one of those bewildering productions which are
making so much noise—of course you understand: that
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strange combination, the latest of Warburton's works. I have
never forgotten that sermon—so full of eloquent warning to
the sinner—so luminous with hope, comforting to the afflicted:
the very words seemed leaning to the heart; and how well
I remember his saying, `Oh, she was good, and in her life
and her death alike beautiful! knowing her goodness, shall it
be to us a barren thing? shall we not also shape our lives
into beauty? shall we not wash and be clean?' But a truce
to sermonizing. My coat is threadbare, and my pockets
empty, but as soon as opportunity occurs I mean to do something.
When I left the house Nancy had her bonnet on to
go to church, but the discovery of a hole in her stocking
obliged her to wait, and as the children had used the darning
yarn for a ball, and she had dropped her thimble in the well,
I fear she must be disappointed. And William too—poor fellow!
I left him waiting patiently, and looking much as if he
had dressed himself forty years ago, and never undressed
since.
“Yours,
J. A.”
The next letter spoke of his entrance into the
ministry—of how easy a thing it was to be pure in
heart, and in all ways, obedient to the highest law.
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CHAPTER XVI.
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O hope, sweet flattere! thy delusive touch
Sheds on afflicted minds the balm of comfort.
Glover.
What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hodden gray, and a'that,
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
A man's a man for a'that.
Burns.
Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife.
Byron.
Time, that great alchemist in whose alembic all
things are changed—debased, or purified, or stript
of glosses, shadows or deceits—has passed onward
through some fifteen years. The excellent Mrs.
Goodell is still the housekeeper of Mr. Frederick
Wurth, whose good-natured face has grown red
and round, while his locks have become gray and
thin, and who remains in that listless and rosy indolence
which knows no discontent with action or
opinion, or with what to others are the most vexing
caprices of the world. The housekeeper is old
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now, but she has lost none of her pleasant cheerfulness,
her tidiness, or activity, and on holidays
she makes a noticeable figure about her dominion,
in the ancient fashioned black silk dress which her
young mistress, Catharine, gave her on her wedding
day.
Mrs. Eunice became, years ago, the centre of a
circle, in which theologies, philosophies, systems
of economy and polity, and half the institutions
built up by the race in a hundred generations,
were demolished with as much ease as Athos, by
that old conqueror who found the mountain in
his way, was cast into the sea. Her mind had
been cultivated until men were seen by her in all
their natural grossness and deformity, and she
made terrible resolves against the continuance of
their tyrannous monopolies, in the council, and the
field, and all varieties of out door affairs. She had
been chairwoman of some scores of committees
formed to demand of governors and presidents the
liberation and pardon of the most depraved wretches
sentenced to penitentiaries or to scaffolds; she was
perfectly convinced that the “philosopher of Jerusalem”
was far behind the editor of the Transcendent
Transcendentalist, and that the Twelve
whom he commissioned to teach his doctrine were
less advanced than the standing committee of the
Society of Unappreciated Women, of which she
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herself was a vice president. Observing that the
hens yielded undue deference to the roosters, every
one of whom seemed to think himself really entitled
to be a cock of the walk, she said it was no
wonder, with the examples they had before them
of men's hateful assumptions, and she organized a
powerful society for the assertion, vindication and
preservation of Biddies' Rights; but though it passed
alarming sets of resolutions, the society's labors
availed but little, so obstinate is mistaken nature,
and so difficult is it to put down abuses that have
been long quietly submitted to. Annoyed at the
difficulties in the way of a reconstruction of society,
but confident that the luminous theories she had
propounded in her communications to The Hour
Glass and The Old Roman, and in her speeches, in
assemblies of the disenthralled, would bear rich
fruit hereafter, she went abroad, to confer with the
great lights of Progression in other countries, and
died—in wet blankets, and hooped about with
galvanic rings—of rage and wonder that she was
met by no processions, and that Jane Eyre, to
whom she had written a letter, knowing her to be
happily married, had not sent a carriage to the
landing to invite her to a conference of a few
months on the best means of promoting the amelioration
of the condition of the sex.
Miss Crum survives these additional fifteen years
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without appearance of much decay. She never
married the doctor, or any body else, but has a
nice room of her own, in the house of a younger
brother, furnished, she says, with all a heart can
desire. The ingrain carpet is faded, and it is nicely
darned; her five windsor chairs are painted red,
and Mrs. Goodell thinks they look almost as good
as mahogany; her rocker, which belonged to her
great aunt, has a cushion covered with handsome
chintz, and a tidy of white cotton, knit with her
own hands; of what material her bureau was made
it might be difficult to tell, but it shines as clearly
as the most freshly polished rosewood; by her high
and narrow bed, is a small cherry stand, on which
the brightest of candlesticks is always in its place,
and from it she sometimes takes a cup of tea, if
she really thinks it will do her good; and a footstool,
in the covering of which is wrought a white
dog with black eyes and a red nose—with one or
two other and unimportant articles—completes her
household furniture. Her two little curls look
much as they looked twenty years ago, and she has
flounces yet for fit occasions. And she is still
industrious—making, mending, keeping the house
in order, and taking care of the children, whom
she thinks she will make her heirs if they grow up
to please her, and are likely to do well in the world.
Her chief delight is in an ancient canary bird that
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never sings. Its plumage is faded, and it picks the
feathers from neck and wings till only its devoted
mistress could tell whether it were bird or beast.
Nevertheless, it seems to her a “thing of beauty,”
and by the hour she talks to it as though it were
a reasoning creature, feeding and scolding it, and
giving it medicine, and sometimes whipping it
with her knitting-needle. By what chance it
became her property I never knew, but it must be
regarded as a fortunate event for both. “Nothing
in its life became it like the leaving it,” any one
would say over its dead body, save her whose
loving hands so long have fed it. She very rarely
goes abroad, unless some gossip more than commonly
fresh and pleasant is added to her secrets, or
some private grief leads her to consultation with
the ever faithful Goodell, with whom she never
doubts of sympathy.
“Oh, dear! Goodell,” she exclaimed, when last
she visited her excellent friend, “I've met with the
dreadfulest misfortune! never a man comes into
my house without committing some despicable
act!”
“Why, Miss Crum! what misfortune has happened?”
“Don't you think,” she explained, “I had a
housefly, which I had taken great pains to keep
alive all the winter, and the other day I sent for
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the doctor to prescribe for my pet bird, and the
ugly thing must have carried it away in his hat,
for I have never seen it since.”
“Why, Miss Crum! That was a misfortune.
But we all have our troubles. A gentleman yesterday
happened to put his cane on my beautiful
black silk dress, and made a rent in it. But he
did not notice the accident. I suppose he did not
know anything about it.”
And the two verd-antiques sat down to a cup of
tea, or rather to many cups, and in the grounds of
each successive one Mrs. Goodell read the fortunes
of herself and friend.
Both were speedily to get money, and, somewhere,
either a black-eyed man or a blue-eyed
man was thinking of one of them, and must needs
cross water to come to her.
But as I have said, neither of these handsome
young fellows had appeared. The water was
probably very wide, but this is a point difficult
ever to ascertain precisely through a tea-cup.
Joseph Arnold has been long years abroad. He
has studied the wonders of nature and of art. He
has measured himself with other men, and his
confidence in himself has been increased. He has
done what his hand found to do; he has learned to
love mankind, and in loving, he has learned to
pray and to hope; and he has learned that we are
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of little account without charity. More than forty
years he has lived in the world, and more than
thirty of them were wasted in vain and idle schemes
for the reformation of society—himself needing
most to be reformed—and in cogitating wonders
he would do, with a fair chance, and if so many
fools were not in his way. In the resolution at last
came the opportunity, and he discovered that no
greater obstacle than himself ever impeded his
advancement in usefulness and reputation. He
says often now, with confidence that it is true, that
energy, with faith, may retrieve the darkest past
that can cast a shadow on the present or the future.
This he said long ago, in conversation with Nathan
Warburton, but he failed then. Some seeds, chancesown,
however, have sprung up at last, and borne
fruit.
“Really, uncle Josey,” said Mrs. Yancey, a day
or two after the coming home of her brother, “how
very handsome you are grown!”
“It is a beautiful provision,” he answered, “that
to those who love us we can never grow old nor
plain.”
“Don't miss a single house,” called Mrs. Yancey
to the youngest child, who was just leaving home
on the important mission of telling all the neighbors
that uncle Joseph was come, and would
preach in the old stone church to-morrow.
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“Shall I tell the woman who wears the black
clothes?” asked the child, pausing, and swinging
on the gate.
“It's curious what made you ever be a preacher,
Josey,” said Mrs. Yancey.
“An eloquent discourse I once heard from a
very strange man; a bunch of flowers and a cup
of water brought to my sick bed by that poor little
black girl who lived with you so many years ago,
when she was sick herself, and dying—these, with
the beautiful good life of little Nanny, were, I believe,
the chief human influences.”
“I say, mother, shall I tell the woman that
wears the black dress?” asked the boy again; and
as he swung to and fro, the gate, on one hinge previously,
gave way, and he fell to the ground.
“Get right up and run along,” said the mother;
“it didn't hurt you much.” But, with his dress
doubly disordered and soiled, and a spot, blue and
purple, on his forehead, the child came stumbling
toward the house.
An old lean cow, and two or three starved pigs,
walked over the prostrate gate into the yard; another
child was sent to call William to put it up,
and the hurt idler was told to bathe the bruised
places in cold water. But Mrs. Yancey did not let
either accident disturb her.
“Get the basin of water for him, Nancy,” said
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the brother, imperiously, as though it were a thing
quite impossible for the child to do, “and hush
his crying, with some little show of motherly kindness.”
As he spoke he arose, with a solemn air,
and set out as his own herald, walking abstractedly
over the fallen gate.
It was summer time, and the sunset of no love-lier
afternoon had ever brightened the world. The
air was sweet with perfume from the hay-fields, and
the mowers, with scythes on their shoulders, were
going homeward, while the waiting watch-dog
“bayed deep-mouthed welcome.” The farmers sat
at their open doors, some with the last newspaper,
and some with babies on their knees, while within
might be seen the white table-cloth and the busy
housewife giving promise of pleasant consummations
of the duties of the day.
To Arnold the world had never looked so beautiful,
and never had he been so entirely happy, as
when, one after another, old and familiar voices
welcomed him home. As he saw the glory of the
sunset, and drank in the sweet air, and thought
of those cordial greetings, he repeated to himself
fragments of grateful songs that echoed to the
sweetest music through his soul.
The mist of purple fire faded in the west, and
the green reaches of trees stood against the clear
sky, before the round was completed, for he was
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often detained to see how one child had grown, and
hear of the marriage of another, and how another
had died far away in adventurous quests of fortune
or distinction.
By the cross-roads stood the old stone meeting-house,
looking as it had looked in the unforgotten
years of his own boyhood. Where the turf had
been smooth when he went away, there were
graves, with long grass wrapping them warmly
about, and others upon which no sod had yet
grown, but the narrow paths wound among them,
and the trees bent over them, as he had seen
the paths wind and the trees wave over graves
on which he had looked with hurried awe in
the twilights of the days when he was a child.
The birds now and then fluttered uneasily, as he
passed beneath the branches in which they rested,
and the wind rustled the leaves with a low and
melancholy sound, which seemed more mournful
than any such sound had ever been to him.
Suddenly over the silence there came a low, soft
song, pleasantly interrupting his reveries. “There
is no habitation that I know of hereabouts,” he
said, and listening, he was at first tempted to
believe it “some fairy creature of the elements;”
but presently he felt assured the tenderness and the
touching pathos belonged to humanity, and doubly
assured when he discovered, on the opposite side
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of the graveyard, the glimmering of a light. As
he approached, he saw that it proceeded from a
cottage, hidden among the trees, a little removed
from the ruins of a cabin long ago in decay. A
pretty cottage it seemed, but so low, and so buried
among the trees and shrubbery, that he had failed
of seeing it, except for the song. Leaning against
the trunk of a walnut tree, he listened till the last
echo was still. There was something in the voice
that went directly to his heart, and more than once
he lifted his eyes in the hope of seeing the singer,
but the door was closed, and though the window
was open, the white curtain was dropped over it,
and with impatient curiosity he was compelled
to await the answer of his summons for admis-sion.
The lamp was shaded within, so that he saw
imperfectly when the door unclosed and its ray
fell on a woman, whose smile was sad as her song.
His errand required but a moment, but he saw
that the person he addressed was not youthful;
that her face was very pale; that her hair was of
the goldenest auburn, and her dress of the deepest
mourning.
Her manner was quiet, and her voice musically
low; but, though such manner and voice must
needs be civil, he could not fail of perceiving that
his apology for intruding on a stranger—that he
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thought himself acquainted with all the people of
the neighborhood—and his announcement of a
sermon the next day, were received with perfect
and undissembled indifference.
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CHAPTER XVII.
[figure description] Page 191.[end figure description]
At church with meck and unaffected grace
His looks aderned the venerable place.
Deserted Village.
Oh night,
And storm, and darkness! ye are wondrous strong.
Childe Harold.
The Sabbath came on, calm and solemn as the
previous day had been lovely and serene. The
birds that had filled with their sweet chattering all
the orchards and meadows, as the evening gathered
the long swathes of crimson into thick purple shades,
flew deep into the forest, where their songs were
hushed in silence, except here and there a clear
and melodious hymn which seemed by the solitary
worshiper intended only for fit audience in
Heaven. The glad and tremulous ripple that ran
along the woods to the touches of the breeze, at
sunset, sounded now like the surge of a far-off
wave, though the tree slanting over the mill-stream
was reflected in the still surface below, where white
ruffling waves scudded so swiftly sometimes.
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By the cool and gnarled roots along the bank,
the sheared sheep and the curly-fleeced lambs lay
together. They had nibbled their fill while the
morning dew was on the pastures.
One pearly fragment of cloud, its edges intermingled
and lost in the blue, lay along the north,
and all the sky beside was clear.
Across the partly mown meadows went children
with baskets of flowers—dainty things, drooping
already on their spindling and wilted stems, though
they had been but an hour from the cool and
woody hollows where they grew. Flocks of plump
and happy looking quails walked before them, their
heads falling and rising to their steps. They were
not afraid. Should the ramblers come too close,
with a whirr they would lift themselves up, and
be gone.
Toward noon, the four roads near the crossing
began to be filled with people on their way to
church. What a beautiful picture they presented,
as one after another they walked down the deeply
worn path, and with slow and reverent steps
entered the house, and joined in the already sounding
psalm.
Among the staid matrons, dressed in a sort of
half mourning, which they had worn ever since
they buried some relation, long, long ago, sat the
rural beauties and belles, whom their mothers
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called giddy and thoughtless—less for their pink and
blue ribbons, and riches of curls, perhaps, than that
in spite of the restraining influences about them
they now and then glanced toward the opposite
side of the house, where the dark locks of sturdy
young men contrasted with the white hairs of patriarchs
and fathers.
If the young people on going home could remember
the text, which they were always asked to
repeat, it was accepted as an evidence that their
hearts were not wholly occupied with the vanities
of the world, and there was shame on their faces
who failed to answer rightly the never forgotten
question.
What a time of congratulations there was at the
conclusion of the service! All were surprised and
pleased that Joseph Arnold, whom they had known
ever since he was a boy, could preach such a sermon;
and all must shake hands and, at least, smile
their satisfaction. Every one who was bidden the
previous night was there, and many others—every
one, except the lady in black—she came not that
Sabbath, nor the next, nor the next.
“Come and sit here,” said Mrs. Yancey, one
evening, to her brother. She was under a tree, at
the door, and, as he joined her she said, “I only
wanted you to hear Hagar sing.”
As he listened to her sad sweet song he
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remembered that it was that which he heard on his solitary
walk the night of his arrival.
“Hagar—who is she?” he asked; adding, “I
never listened to so melodious a voice.”
“I only know her name is Hagar, and that she
lives alone in the cottage you can just see through
the trees. I think she is out of her mind, for when
she came here, don't you think, she brought with
her a little coffin, that is buried among the roses by
the door. Almost every night you may hear her
sing, when she is at home.”
“And where is she when not at home?” asked
the brother.
It was a sultry evening in August; not a
breath stirred the dusty leaves; and, fanning herself
violently with a part of her apron, which she
gathered in her hand, Mrs. Yancey explained that
nobody was ever so kind where there was sickness
or death, or any misfortune, and that every
one loved her for the good she did, but that she
would join in no pleasure, nor ever go from the
cottage in which she lived, except on some errand
of mercy.
Suddenly the twilight deepened into night. The
cattle thrust their nostrils into the air, and hurried
towards their accustomed shelter. The blackness
was untimely and terrible.
“Was that thunder?” asked Arnold, as a low
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rumbling came on the wind, which went gloomily
surging through the tree above them.
“We are going to have a storm,” said the sister;
and, holding out one hand, she exclaimed, “there,
I felt a drop: we had best go in.”
And, as they rose, a quick and sharp peal of
thunder broke from the purple blackness above,
and rolled and rattled down the west, and died in
loose, heavy, and distant reverberations; and before
they could reach the door, a blinding flash lit
up the scene with a bluish and awful flame, and
another sharp peal broke almost over their heads—
a peal that made courage itself afraid. Then came
the rain down the hot and close atmosphere, that
smelt of dust as the torrents dashed against the
ground. The intense fury of the storm subsided,
and the shuddering heart grew stronger, as the
blackness was lifted a little, and the thunder was
heard withdrawing into the skies, which were
darker than the most impenetrable night.
“I wonder,” said Mrs. Yancey, going toward the
window, “if William was out in this rain.”
“He is coming,” answered the children; “that
was the gate.” And as they opened the door, the
fresh cool air came in, sweet as if from seas of
lilies. The eave-ducts were still overflowing, and
little green cisterns of water stood about the yard,
while along the roadside the gutters ran black and
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muddy. Suddenly, from the open door, the children
came huddling in, looking pale and frightened,
catching at their mother's skirts, and, in tones
between terror and wonder, saying, “Oh, mother,
what is it?”
The old dog, that always went with his master
to the fields, came in very wet, crouching low, and
looking at his mistress, ominously whining. And
close behind came he for whom they watched,
not as he had ever come before—but dead, and
borne by two of his neighbors.
The storm had overtaken him on his way from
the fields, and, stopping to shelter himself beneath
a tree, the messenger whose eyes are blinded with
their own fierce light, struck him down. Death is
a fearful thing in any shape—in any form—but
death by sudden violence carries terror always to
the bravest heart.
A night of confusion and sorrow followed. The
dead man was conveyed into the best room, and
dressed for the grave. Poor Mrs. Yancey! in
losing William she had lost all. How should
she be comforted? The little children sat together
very still, for they were afraid when through the
open door they saw, by the window where they had
seen him sit so many times, all that had been their
father—a rigid and frightful corpse,—the white
sheet sunken against the head and the hands and
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the feet, leaving that awful outline that no living
shape assumes. No wonder they cried out, hiding
their faces.
Strange men and women filled the house—twice
as many as could do any good. Gathered in little
groups of two or three, they talked of all the good
qualities of the departed—of when and where the
sad event occurred. Some said the whole family
might have been killed, if the lightning had struck
the house; that they ought to be thankful, and not
give way to such despair; and others pitied poor
Mrs. Yancey; “What will become of her now?”
they said; “the farm has long been mortgaged,
and there are many creditors to claim the little that
is left.”
The supper that waited for the coming of the
husband and father, was removed untasted. The
children could not be persuaded to go to bed—all
so strange—so bewildering; and the good women
of the neighborhood wrapped them in shawls, and
seated them by the fire, while their clothes were
brushed and mended for the funeral.
All night the preparation was going forward—
some busy cutting and making up mourning for
the widowed woman, others putting the house in
order for the funeral, and others cooking and
attending to other duties in the kitchen. Whatever
could be found was used for any purpose for which
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it chanced to be available. The tablecloth was
divided into towels, and the ham, that should have
served for a week, boiled at once; and all the little
which the widow possessed was thus likely to be
destroyed in a day and without necessity.
In the midst of the disorder, muffled in her
black veil and shawl, came Hagar, quietly, unobtrusively.
The direction of affairs was instinctively
yielded to her, and soon all was order.
How beautiful she looked in her ministry of
mercy! Her very tone was comforting. There
was no officious counsel, no authoritative direction,
but all felt her influence, though it was silent as
the falling of the dew. Her smile drew hearts to
her wherever she went, and her hands were full of
blessings. The weak and weeping mourner grew
calm and strong when she was near, and the orphans
were no longer afraid. One of the few, she
was,
“More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.”
The morning came up clear and beautiful; the
mists curled about the bases of the hills, and
reached upward, and upward, till they were lost
in the sunshine. The birds sung all the more
jocundly, for the heat and the storm which had
kept them still.
The late growth of grass was fresh with the rain,
and in the pastures cattle frolicked as with new
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life, and sleek as if fattened in stalls. Here and
there a tree was to be seen rifted by lightning, the
bark partly torn away, perhaps, and the top splintered
and hanging downward.
Under a tall locust, near the house of Mrs.
Yancey, men and boys were gathered all day, talking
of the rent trunk, and examining bits of the
bark pealed aside, and wondering why that tree
should have been struck rather than another. The
gutters had emptied their muddy contents in the
mill-stream, which was greatly enlarged, but no
click of the mill was heard to-day, nor were there
any teams busy. A kind of Sabbath stillness
spread itself all over the neighborhood.
The storm had broken paths among the corn,
and swept the bridge from the creek; but the stalks
were not straightened, nor the bridge rebuilt.
Arnold sat by the window alone—sometimes
abstracted, and sometimes looking toward the hill,
where men were digging beneath the trees. Many
times the woman who was called Hagar passed by,
but without seeming to notice him.
Interest attaches to mystery always, and Arnold
felt strongly inclined to speak to her; for, aside
from any romance connected with the accounts
of her to which he had listened, she seemed a most
winning and lovable person. Her sad and sweet
smile, drew you toward her at once, and in spite
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of yourself your arms reached out to protect her.
Some such feeling took possession of his heart,
and even amid these scenes of mourning his eyes
wandered in her steps as if they were every one a
spell.
At length she drew near the window and dropped
the curtain, that his eyes might a little longer be
spared the sight of the heaped earth.
“Thank you, Hagar,” he said, with something
of his old eccentricity, and as if her name were
familiar to him.
A blush mantled on her cheek, and she was
turning hastily away when he detained her, by
saying, “I was not thinking of that new grave: I
was thinking of you.”
His manner was so gentle and respectful, and
his tone so benignant, that offense was impossible,
though she could not help but feel that such an
address was very free for a stranger, and ill suited
for the occasion; and she replied, with serious
coldness, “I fear, sir, I am but an unworthy subject
for your thoughts.”
“You know best, perhaps; but my reflections
may not have been unprofitable to you, if you will
hear them.”
The blood mounted to her cheek again; and,
between anger and curiosity, she remained silent.
“I have surprised you,” he said, “in your
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fastness of secresy. I do not condemn, but would
comfort and save you.”
“I am penitent, great God, I am penitent,” she
said, hiding her tearful eyes with her hair.
“Hagar,” called some one without, and, withdrawing,
she did not again return.
-- --
CHAPTER XVIII.
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He had ceased
To live within himself; she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all.
Byron.
He loved but one,
And that loved one, alas! could not be his.
Ibid.
Days came and went, and every rising of the
sun showed the world fairer than it had been
before since William's death. He was not indeed
forgotten by any of the family, and even Mrs.
Yancey's philosophy failed of bringing rest under
so profound an affliction; but habit is to half the
world content, and the good woman rapidly learned
to see without a fluttering of the heart his vacant
place at the table, and the night come down without
a signal of his return from the fields. The
light step, the martyr smile, the shows of mourning,
passed away, and all things in the house
moved in the old ways.
The gentle and patient Hagar, like that bird
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which never is seen but when the night or storm
approaches, went with Sorrow, and seemed to have
charmed that shadowy enemy from every other
guest, to be her sole companion. After the brief
interview with Arnold which is described in the
last chapter, she avoided any opportunity for
another. Whatever his talents, the nobility of his
aims, or the bravery of the will with which they
were prosecuted, Mr. Joseph Arnold, like nearly
all men whose earlier years have been passed
among the poor and ill educated, was destitute of
those instincts of gentleness and refinement which
are most essential in society. The laws of courtesy
have grown out of the necessities of men's natures,
and are to be as implicitly obeyed as the least questioned
commands in the decalogue. The man who
despises formalities is in most cases himself to be
despised. But with all his abruptness and obtrusiveness,
Arnold had many really admirable qualities,
of the heart as well as of the understanding,
and he now unwillingly felt that the recluse with
whom he had thus been brought into contact was
destined to have a peculiar influence over his life.
When the congregation assembled the next Sabbath,
it might have been observed that his eyes
were lifted anxiously whenever any mourning robe
darkened the aisle. While he was reading the last
hymn before the sermon, the expected form glided
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in with silent steps, and though his glances did not
wander from the page before him, and a close veil
hid the face of the woman, the recognition was
mutual.
“Surely my history is known to him,” Hagar
thought, as in the unfolding of his sentences she
saw glimpse after glimpse of her own interior life.
She shrank half afraid from his glances, as they
fell, or she fancied that they did so, on herself,
whenever a thought was uttered that seemed to
have been suggested by her experience.
Sisterly affection did not too much warp Mrs.
Yancey's judgment when she told her brother, in
the simplicity of her heart, he had grown handsome.
Though something beyond forty, he had
never in earlier life looked so well. He had cast
off the diffidence that cramped his action, the affectations
that made him clownish, the shabbiness
that disfigured him: he had grown into manhood.
The religious impulses, which in youth came to
him by fits and starts, were now drawn out to the
habitual tenor of life; and nothing in the world is
so elevating and refining, as the sense of religion,
influencing a man in his domestic and social relations.
In early life, “the elements were so mixed in
him,” that it would have been difficult to either
love or hate him. He made no effort to gain
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friends. He enclosed all his better self, as it were,
in a husk, and then, for neglect induced by his own
manner and conduct, became a misanthrope.
One day, ill in health, disheartened for the want
of love, and weary of waiting for some great opportunity,
of which he had been a dreamer, he
turned his face from the wall, with a groan, and
saw on the table before him a cup of cold water
and some flowers—the gift of a feeble, unattractive,
and little regarded child. The words that had
often troubled the fountain of his life came back—
the words of the strangely eloquent Warburton—
“Shall her life of beauty be barren to me?”
From that time, by a strong effort of the will, he
was changed, his life became real and earnest, he
entered upon studies necessary for the service he
proposed to himself, and the little village where he
was born gave him work enough to do. There
rained from his tongue no tempests of eloquence,
with which to win souls; but when he chose, his
words were sharp arrows, from which there was no
escape, and each hearer felt as if his preaching
were especially for him.
It was, perhaps, more than anything else, the
fine intelligence speaking through his face that
made him beautiful. He was changed in heart
and in life, but not altogether lifted out of his nature,
nor above the weaknesses and the needs of
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our daily experience. Individually, he seemed not
to love men, or women, but, melancholy and isolated,
he wandered in the woods or fields, or shut
himself in his own study, during all the week. In
ministering to his flock, his heart seemed overflowing
with love to them and to God. He was very
dear to them, active in the discharge of every duty
incidental to his profession, ready with counsel,
and kind in all the ministrations of mercy, yet his
love was not a familiar thing, to be kept about
their daily lives. Without being arrogant, or
haughty, or cold, there was something in his clolected
and unbending manner, and clear and penetrating
glances, that repelled all close approaches.
The grasp of the most cordial greeting was returned
with only the mildest pressure, and the laughing
salutation was presently forgotten in sober civility.
Diligent and sincere worker as he was, a part of
his great field was untilled, and his people, especially
the young, feared him as much as they loved
him: for among them he was as a stranger. They
admired, respected, and almost reverenced him;
but more was scarcely possible without a change in
his very nature.
Yet he did all that he could. His large love
embraced the world. It was expansive, but not
flowing out warm and soft, from the close folding
of one human heart, widening and widening, till it
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embraced all. He had sold away many of his darling
idols, and given their price to the poor; but
the great necessity of human nature was the thing
which he yet lacked.
The time came when, but for one dark hindrance,
he might have been swept into the full
light. Already on the day of which I have been
speaking, as he leaned from the desk in the pleading
of general interests, one, more especial, fixed
often his glance and his thought.
When the services were ended, many came
around him, as the rural custom was, but though
he did not avoid, he seemed not to seek their greetings,
and, as soon as might be, he passed hastily
from the house, with a look of solemn austerity.
By the smooth mound, where no spear of grass
had as yet taken root, Mrs. Yancey stood, and
beside her, speaking no word, but tenderly pressing
her hand, was Hagar, who had not paused with
the rest. As the preacher came by, no arm was
outstretched to support the mourner, or draw her
away, and only saying, without any previous recognition,
“I am glad, Hagar, to see you at church,”
he passed on.
After that day, Hagar was sure to be at every
morning and evening service. She came and went
alone, speaking no word to any one. Curiosity
gradually died away, and the villagers came to
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regard her as a poor, half-crazed woman, but harmless
and, gentle—to be pitied, watched, and, if
necessary, supported and protected.
But the pastor thought of her differently. One
evening as she sat by the open window, gazing
down on the little grave beneath, a footstep pressed
the sward, and, looking up, she saw Joseph Arnold
stand before her. For a moment he remained
silent; and then directing his eyes to the point
which had engrossed her attention, he said, “What
is the meaning of this, Hagar?”
The woman did not answer, and he continued,
“The softest interpretations were selfishness, or
insanity; but there are those who might find other
motives for the avoidance of consecrated ground.
You have no right to bring reproaches on yourself,
if innocent, nor any longer to seek concealment, if”—
he said no more, but looked the thought he did
not speak.
“Who are you, who thus invade my privacy?”
she said, suddenly recovering from some surprise
and confusion, “and by what authority do you
question my motives or my innocence? I have
not sought you, nor disturbed you in any way.
Leave me alone. So much I ask of justice and of
charity.”
But far from being moved by the offended
dignity of her manner, and her last command, he
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calmly, as if in pity, approached, and seated himself
near her.
“Hagar,” he said, in tones of the tenderest interest,
“I must stay till I have answered your questions,
and thus justified myself.”
Tears stood in her eyes, and the angry spot
burned itself out in her cheek; and though she did
not grant with words the implied request, she did
not refuse it, and the intruder went on: “By the
authority of my sacred office I make inquest of all
characters by which I am surrounded, and by
your virtual confession of sin, I question your innocence.
You have not sought me, it is true;
but how know you that you have not disturbed
me?”
“I am but an humble and weak woman,” answered
Hagar, her voice trembling, “and will not
oppose my convictions to your judgment or reasoning.
But am I not for my motives answerable to
the same tribunal as yourself? And if I have
acknowledged guilt, by my general bearing to the
world, why should I make further confession to
you, or to any one?”
“And for the last?” said the preacher.
“If I have disturbed you I can only be sorry.”
“It is so—and what are you now? You disturb
me, I said truly.”
“Then I am sorry now.”
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“And nothing more?”
“What can I more?”
“Everything, if you will.”
“You deceive yourself. I am alone, and as you
seem to know, an outcast from the world, seeking,
in continual prayer and penitence, to atone my sin,
or to stay back a little the vengeance of Heaven.
Oh! leave me. I am done with mortality, save as
the servant of such as suffer, and you need no
help.”
“Yes, Hagar, that is what I need—help, and no
one but you can give it me. Till I saw you, I
went through the journey of life alone, and very
desolate and wretched I was, until the baptism of
Christian faith was given me. This new life was
to me—is to me—the greatest good; and not till I
saw you did I know there was a feeling of my nature
unsatisfied—the need of closer sympathy, of
nearer human communion than I had found. You
have no need that I should tell you, nor to be surprised
at the discovery, that I love you.”
“Speak not to me of love,” she replied, solemnly,
mournfully, lifting her hand between her white
cheek and the steadfast eyes that gazed on her.
“You do not know me. There is between us a
wall, black as the pit, and high as Heaven. Seek
not to know any more, but leave me, and forget
this sudden impulse—for it is nothing more. My
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arms would lie about your neck like a curse.
Hope nothing, ask nothing of me.”
“Do I speak as if moved by a sudden impulse?
No, I know what I say, and what I seek, and what
I would have, and shall have, in spite of yourself.
I do not know you, you say. Have you not been
aware of my near presence, as, night after night,
you have sung in the moonlight songs which seemed
only meant for me? Did you not feel that I
was praying for you, as you wept by the grave
of—”
“Great God! and have you then been a spy on
my actions and my words?” she exclaimed, passionately.
“And for what are you come now?
to reproach and mock me? Oh! if you ever knew
the need of pity, spare me.”
“I beseech you, do not again interrupt me.
Your love would not be a curse to me. Since
your sad smile first dawned on me, and I heard
your first gentle words, I have been more and more
drawn from isolation, and in human love I have
learned more and more my necessities. I come not
to unravel your history, or pass judgment on your
life. I love you, and whatever be that past on
which you throw yourself as on a consuming fire,
I would unite my life with yours, and make you
sharer of whatever awaits me, in time and in
eternity.”
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“I have abjured all human happiness. I would
not love you if I could. My life is an everlasting
penance.”
“For what this penance is resolved, I do not
know, I do not seek to know. You have sinned
and suffered. What matters to me the precise
nature of the offense or the expiation? Is he who
rejects God's good gifts sinless any more than he
who abuses them by excessive indulgence? Will
the flowers bloom for you any brighter in Paradise
that you trample them here? Have you not, after
all, mistaken the Great Work, which does not lift
us through fasting and immolation up to Heaven,
but sweetly draws Heaven down to us, and makes
the mortal the beginning of immortal joys? You
have only to open the windows beneath this humble
roof, and the angels will come in.”
“Your words sound well; but sin abases itself.
The snake's head hides not under the dove's wing,
but grovels in the dust, as is fit. The love of a
pure heart and lofty soul is a thing of exceeding
beauty; but, knowing my deformity, if you could
come down and clothe me with it as with a garment,
in the ashes of lost innocence, you could
plant here no self-respect. It were like a green
vine twining itself about a ruin, trembling at every
breath. Go back into the sunshine, and leave me
to the dark.”
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Arnold arose as she concluded, with the same
calm confidence that had characterized all his
movements, and pointing to the little mound below
the window, on which the moonlight was trembling,
he said, “When the grass there shall be dead
and faded, I will come again. In the meantime,
temper your heart as you will, I defy you to crush
out entirely its yearning for human love. When
we meet, it will be to part never, or forever.”
And, without waiting a reply, he withdrew, as
silently and mysteriously as he had come.
“Shall a chance breath trouble the fountain that
it has been the work of a life-time to still?” said
Hagar; and, closing the window, she sought forgetfulness
in sleep—in vain.
It was a melancholy life she surveyed, and
with all its suffering, all its sin, the retrospect
brought a feeling kindred with joy—the sense of
submission, and expiation, under which martyrs
have sung their divinest triumphs.
It may be indeed that the highest happiness of
life is always touched with sadness. Love and
Faith dwell ever in the haunted house of Fear.
The lights of the birth chamber stream across the
narrow bed where the pleasant morning touches
the eyelids of the sleepers no more, where the
white hands of the little children are never
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unlocked for the flowers that hang over their dark unrocking
cradles.
Even the incarnate Redeemer was a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief-discrowned of
immortality—crowned with thorns.
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CHAPTER XIX.
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Are we not one! Are we not joined by Heaven!
Each interwoven with the other's fate!
Rowk.
'Tis far off;
And rather like a dream, than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants.
Shakspeare.
The placid and luxurious autumn faded slowly
away. The minister became more and more fraternal
with his people, and every Sabbath his benedictions
fell more and more lovingly and tenderly
as he glanced down on a congregation that was
becoming one of friends as well as of pupils; and
as he stayed for smiles and kind inquiries and the
expression of affectionate hopes, the bonds of sympathy
and fellowship grew all the while more
strong, and beautiful in their strength.
As the widowed sister wept by the gray stone,
that stood scarcely higher than the whitening grass,
a kind arm was about her, and a soothing voice
told her of the fairer and wider mansions in our
Father's house, till her heart's half-complaining
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softened to gratitude, that she had yet a brother's
companionship and affection.
And all these Sabbaths came Hagar, muffled in
black, and wearing the same sad look of resignation—
silently came and went—no bounding in her
step, nor exultation in her smile. Had she crushed
out the human yearning for human love, and within
the cell of perpetual penance, locked herself in
barren seclusion?
At length mid winter came, with cold and terrible
storms, and cheerles solitudes—winter, grand,
gloomy, and stern, with never a smile, never a tear,
no hedgerow flowers with hues beyond all art, no
dancing streams with sweeter music than the flute's,—
winter, made to compel men into affections that
have in them dearer joys than all the fairest gifts
ever brought to castles of indolence by voluptuous
summer—winter, that clothing as with draperies of
death the external world, leads to such cultivation
of the heart, and such development of the interior
life, as gives, in the long years and ages, its sweet
proportion of beauty to our human nature.
It was night. All day the snow had fallen, and
fallen, till the smooth level had hid the graves
about the old church, while above them the limbs
of the trees were weighed heavily down; but at
sunset the blustering winds came sweeping from
their far caverns, and white drifts were heaped, and
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the laden boughs shaken bare. As the shadows
deepened, there came out no moon nor star. Nothing
was heard but the moaning of the wind.
Even the owl, close-muffled from the storm, made
no complaint—it was so terrible and desolate a
night. The cock drew his proud head against his
ruffling feathers, and forgot to cry the hour; and
the watch-dog changed his accustomed bay to a
lonesome howl, he was so cold. And so were the
lambs, dimpling the hill-side snow, and bleating
piteously to the winds.
From the cottage of Hagar shone a little pallid
light. Was she alone, and listening to the storm?
The tempest in her bosom was more fierce than the
storm without. With an iron hand she put down
her heart that thrilled to the whisper of love.
“I thought,” she said, speaking very calmly, “I
had enough to endure before; but you, my friend,
have laid upon me the heaviest of all crosses.
Patiently as I may, I must submit to the burden.”
“Then you love me, Hagar; and yet seal my
doom in darkness. Listen for but a moment. You
saw, perhaps, from your window, that a grave was
made to-day in the churchyard—that there were
few to bury the dead, and no mourners. I was
among those who saw the falling of the clods
and the snow on the coffin. I saw the old man
die, and performed the funeral service. He had
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never wife nor child, but in his lonesome cabin
lived and ended his life alone; and when I saw the
steady hand of a stranger remove the coarse notched
cloth from the face, that we might see the last
of his mortality, I shuddered and stood back: not
afraid of death, but of such a death. On the livid
and frightful features there was no smile, such as
must have kindled, even in death, beneath the eyes
of love. In the thin white hairs, above the wrinkled
forehead, no soft hand of infancy or maidenhood
had ever bathed itself. The eyes had grown blind,
and the blue lids dropped over them, without
having seen the sunshine that perfected the world;
and the mouth had fallen from roseate fullness, to a
sunken and purple gap, unpressed by affection's
kiss, and it seemed hungry yet.
`To die, and not be missed, is infamy.'
You can save me, Hagar. When the leaves were
dying I told you I would come now—that we
should meet to part never, or forever. Have you
decided? I wait, till your hands crown me with
leaves dropping perpetual dew, or hang a weight
about my neck to drag me down through all time.”
“God knows how my heart is bleeding,” answered
Hagar. “I am powerless to help you.—
Nothing can save me from the infamy of which you
speak. Long ago I set sharp thorns in my pillow,
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and your head could not rest there. I love you—
you know I love you. But I have loved another,
and we are divided.”
Arnold moved impatiently, and spoke almost
coldly, “You have loved—I care not when, nor
whom, so you love not another now. The young
plants are fair enough, but the full harvest is not
gathered in the May. In youth, love is little more
than the sparkle, that may be quickly dried up, or
brushed aside; but in manhood and womanhood,
there is depth in passion, which cannot be previously
conceived of. The young bole uplifts itself
when the storm is past, but the mature tree, if it
fall, must perish.”
“I know it all—I feel it all,” answered Hagar.
“Yet I half exult that a new weight is laid upon
me. I was becoming inured to the old. It were a
small thing to lay down my life in your arms; but
to give up my life's life, to push back the sunrise,
and hug to my bosom the dark—this is what I must
do. If you love me, go, I beseech you, go back
into the sunshine, and—”
The hand she upraised was put softly down, and
kisses prisoned the speaking lips in silence.
That pressure unlocked from its ice the crimson,
and for a moment the hearts of the lovers beat
responsive, and a moment only, for the next Hagar
stood erect and composed. As one might forcibly
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shut the fluttering wing of a bird, she had stilled
her heart, and her voice was low and terribly calm,
as she said, “We must part, and forever.”
“Forever! Hagar, forever? At least, tell me
why.” And all the agony of expiring hope was in
the appeal.
She stood silent a moment, and then answered,
“If there be any farther humiliation, any deeper
suffering than I have known, I will meet it. Sit
down, and hear me speak.”
“Not till you have heard me. And, as I annihilate
this distance you placed but now between us,”
he said, embracing her, “I annihilate all obstacles
to our union at once, and forever.”
“It is a beautiful dream,” she answered, “and I
would that it might last.”
“It may last, Hagar; it shall last while we live,
while our souls live.”
“If it could,” she repeated—“but no, it cannot
be. I saw from the first that I could love you,
and I did not avoid the temptation, but Sabbath
after Sabbath fed upon your smile and your
words, and day after day, and night after night
walked in visions by your side, nursing into full
life the love which I meant to battle with and to
baffle. This was to be my crowning triumph.
And would you tempt me,” she continued, reproachfully,
“to sell away the pure fountain of
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[figure description] Page 221.[end figure description]
eternity for the troubled waters of time? But why
need we repeat this sort of conversation? Is not
true love the victor always?”
The time of parting came, and the forever was
changed to never.
“One request, dear love, before I go. Never
dig up the buried past any more, and voluntarily
surrender yourself to torment. You need, my poor
Hagar, the shelter of a great and unfaltering love;
and with something to protect, to lean upon me, I
shall grow stronger as well as you.”
The promise was sadly yielded, and then and
there in her bewildering happiness, Hagar sealed
on the forehead of her lover the betrothal that
might have secured the happiness of both, as far as
felicity may be secured in love.
“One star has broken through a cloud,” Arnold
said, pointing upward. “See how clear and steady
it shines! I accept the omen.”
“There is but one star,” answered Hagar, very
sadly, “and that is among clouds. Alas! there is
no below. joy below. Clouds are ready to sweep
across the stars, and the few flowers grow along a
hard and toilsome way. Is it worth our while to
pause on this little atom of time, and gaze at the
one till it or obscured, or gather the other to wither
in our hands?”
“Life, as you say, is an atom; and time a very
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little thing, when measured against eternity. When
we lift up our eyes, and see above us a universe of
worlds, held at their places in the illimitable space,
and moving with accuracy to the will of Omniscience,
our own little planet dwarfs indeed, and all
the lives that men have lived since the creation
shrink within a point on the dial, and we are overwhelmed
with astonishment that God should be
mindful of us. But when we remember that our
lives are sparks from the eternal essence, and themselves
destined to exist forever, this humanity of
ours seems worthy of its declared dignity and
destiny.”
“Our life is great only as a state of probation;
great only as the accidents and burdens and ills
connected with it, bear upon the future. Viewed
in this light, life indeed assumes another aspect.
Let us part now.”
“Not so, Hagar; I feel as if, should I go from
your presence now, the daylight just breaking
would never open any more. I seem on the edge
of a bright world, and I fear to turn away, lest
blank darkness swallow it up. Tell me again that
you love me.”
“I love you, with all the devotion of my nature
I love you,” she replied, but the words seemed to
contain rather a prophecy of sorrow, than an assurance
of hope.
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And so, under the wild night, while the wind
tossed hither and thither the snow, and the one
star trembled among the clouds, the lovers parted.
All over the neighborhood there was great rejoicing.
“The minister is going to be married,”
said one to another; and every one seemed to
regard the event as one in some sense needful
to his own happiness.
With strange invocations of rhyme, the moon
was charmed, that her faint light might reveal in
visions the color of the eyes and hair which should
belong to the yet unknown lover.
Many were the gay meetings of rural beaux and
belles, and love-makings, begun in jest, ended in
the “sober certainty of waking bliss.”
Ah me, what merry nights they were, when, in
the great sled, half sunken in straw, and wrapped
in coverlets, the “old folks” ploughed through
drifted snow, and faced the rough wind, to visit
some neighbor a dozen miles away, perhaps. What
merry nights for the young and careless, and especially
when the approaching nuptials led so easily
the discourse into the sweetest of all channels.
Bright from the homestead windows streamed
the light of the log-heap fires, and often the midnight
cock crowed twiced and thrice before the
circle around the hearth was broken.
The old had so many memories to renew, and
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the young so many hopes to unfold, while here the
round iron tea-kettle sang of muffins and honey,
materializing and humanizing the most serious fancies,
and saddest recollections of perilous adventures,
warning ghosts, and unhappy death-beds;
and there the shaggy hickory bark sent up a thousand
sparkles, as the laughing girls walked backward
to bake on the fire-shovel the cake mixed
without salt, which must be eaten without a word
to break the spell, as shining and soulful eyes
spoke unutterable things.
How could they hear the striking of the old
clock, sounded it never so loudly, for the joyous
tumult in their hearts; or how see the dial plate,
lifted close to the ceiling though it were, and
shining in the ruddy glow of the hot coals—how
see this, for the smiling faces between?
And so the hours were narrowed into moments,
and the sober work-horses came prankishly trot-ting
and snorting to the door, breaking in upon
the midst of hilarity, and making the children
wonder why their parents had come so early.
New dresses must be made, and new and stylish
fashions introduced, which the careful mother
thought hazardous to be worn in mid-winter. But
the daughter looked so pretty with her plump arms
and shoulders bare, and in her head-dress of roses,
they could not refuse that it should be worn—“just
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once,” and half believed, as they said, that pride
would keep the child warm enough.
And the bridal morning came. The garlands
were fresh all about the church, and the happy
pairs filled the pews and aisles, eagerly expectant.
At last there was a movement at the door, and a
step on the threshold. The clergyman was there,
and alone.
-- -- p491-227
CHAPTER XX.
[figure description] Page 226.[end figure description]
About his shelves,
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses,
Were thinly scattered to make up a show.
Shakspeare.
Far from the maddening crowd's ignoble strife,
They kept the even tenor of their way.
Gray
When Arnold that morning entered the little
cottage which had been the home of Hagar, she
was not there. In his search he was soon startled
by signs of her removal, but there was no clue to
the direction in which she was gone. Whoever
had assisted her, thus suddenly to turn aside from
affection, and rest, was perhaps heir to the scanty
property she had left, and would keep her secret.
Her lover paused a moment by the still scarcely
extinguished fire on the hearth, and on the mantle
saw a small pacquet inscribed with his name. He
broke the seal, and for an hour—insensible of the
increasing cold—forgetful of those who waited his
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appearance at the church—he read the secret and
painful history in which was involved not Hagar's
fate alone, but the disappointment of the dearest
and fondest hopes he himself had ever dared to
cherish. The manuscript was as follows:
The past, my poor friend, presses me from you.
I cannot be your wife, and my heart aches, not so
much for myself, as for you, while I write this
necessary and irrevocable decision. If I might have
done so, I would gladly have gone hence with the
dark history I am about to unfold, locked in my
own brain, that I might have lived in your memory,
a vision of the night and the stars, that faded in the
morning.
As I begin my task my memories go back
beyond that portion of my life in which my destiny
was woven, and the tearful leisure of the few
nights before me, until we shall at last have parted,
I will devote to a record of the recollections which
are apt to hover about my heart. If they seem
trifling to you, it will not be while I myself am
thought of with any tenderness—and after that
time how you regard the reminiscences of my unfolding
and decaying will be of no more moment
to me than to yourself.
It is many years ago that I was a little innocent
child, gentle and loving; but my parents were
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poor, and the toils of their hard and rough journey
made them negligent of me. I do not remember
of ever being kissed in childhood, even by my
mother. I do not think I ever was. I remember
seeing her always at work, and the patient and
weary look that she wore. My father, I felt always,
was not a good man. He often spoke harshly to
my mother, when at home, but he was not much
there, and I know that I was gladdest when he was
gone. I could not bear to see the tears in my
mother's eyes, and have her tell me to go out and
play, and that I would never be so happy again,
when I wonderingly stood about her, anxious to
soothe her sorrow, and yet half fearful of approaching
her. It was a sad pastime, my solitary playing,
for I had no sisters, and never but one brother,
and he many years younger than I. Sometimes I
sat in the shade, and tied grapes into a long chain,
wondering whether I could ever make enough to
reach round the world; and sometimes I climbed to
a small broken glass, which hung so high that
neither my father nor my mother could see within
it, I thought. It was a feat, I remember, difficult
to accomplish, and only by the aid of a little chair,
set on the table, could I, even by standing on tip-toe,
see myself in it at all. The arrangement of
my hair, which I had been told was golden and
pretty, was one of my favorite occupations,
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notwithstanding that my mother often told me I had
better be learning to sweep. I knew it not at the
time, but I know now that we must have been
very poor. Our few articles of furniture were of a
ruder fashion than I have ever seen since. I never
went from home, except once, when I remember
going with my mother to visit a sick relation of
hers. On that occasion she curled my hair, and I
wore a new dress, made of an old one, which in
some remote time had been my grandmother's. I
had no bonnet, no shoes—but the first I had never
had, and the last I supposed were not to be worn
in the summer. We walked across the fields a
long way, and I grew weary (though I said I was
not) before we reached the house. At last we came
in view of it, or rather in view of the hollow in
which it stood. “We are almost there,” my mother
said; and, as she seated me on the topmost
fence-rail, and picked the briers from my feet, I
must have cried, so hot and tired was I, but for
the novelty before me. They were rich people I
was to see, my mother said, and I must behave
very nicely. There yet lay between us and the
house a field, that seemed to me interminable—a
part in stubble and a part newly plowed. The
heat twinkled against the ground, and, in the shade
of a distant tree the plow-boy was resting his
team. When we approached, he renewed his labor,
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and I walked in the new furrow, close behind him,
to the end. How cool and moist the ground felt
to my feet. He kindly assisted us over the fence,
lifting me in his arms, and I remember he called
me a pretty girl, and gave me some berries. This
I recalled in after years, for we became friends, and
when I was grown he praised me with the same
words, and would have made me his wife.
With what interest I looked at everything! I
had never seen any rich people before. The principal
house was of brick, and seemed to have stood
a great while, for the green moss had crept all over
the walls, and the wood-work was fallen partly to
decay. This part of the building was low, and
long, and narrow; the chimneys were square and
large; and at the windows hung close shutters,
which were of a black ashen color, the natural hue
of the wood so long exposed to the storm and sunshine,
and they were so heavy as to have lost their
shape, and taken that of diamonds, so that they
could not be shut. The earth appeared to have
grown about the house, for on opening the door
there was a descent of one or two steps to the level
floor, and the room had such an air, smelling of
damp and mold, as might have greeted us on entering
a cellar.
The furniture was homely enough. An old-fashioned
clock, which reached from the floor to
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the ceiling, a bureau and table, both covered with
white diaper linen, some unpainted chairs, with
bottoms of fine split wood, I think were the chief
articles. The wall had never been plastered, but it
was nicely whitewashed, and the floor was without
a carpet. On the hearth stood an old washing-tub,
filled with earth, in which grew a thrifty orange
tree, tall as I was then, and I thought it the crowning
attraction of the place. A cucumber vine grew
by its side, trained over its boughs, and with the
young fruit dropping in curious little bottles, to
produce unnatural forms—a device, as I learned
afterward, of John Dale, the plow-boy, as was also
a curiously made bird-house, on the top of a pole
planted before the door, and higher than the dreary
mansion itself.
I had ample time for observation, as I was left
alone while my mother went to the adjoining room
to see our sick relation, Aunt Elizabeth, as I was
taught to call her. I could hear the voices of poeple
talking, but not distinctly, and I longed very
much to examine the young eucumbers; but I
feared to leave my seat, and could only amuse myself
by looking at the clock, and listening to the
dozen round-backed guinea-fowls, that kept up an
incessant noise. At last, with my cheek resting on
one arm, I fell asleep, and did not wake till a tap
on the window-pane, by which I sat, aroused me,
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and a strange voice said, “Is this the little girl that
helped me plow?”
I was awake in an instant. The face was all
radiant with joy, and I caught something of the
spirit that illumined it.
No introduction was necessary; the window did
not divide us long; I was shown not only the bottled
cucumbers and the bird-house, but the various
kinds of fowls, and beautiful rabbits, beside many
other things that were curious, because new. The
rear portion of the house was of logs, with a chimney
of stones on the outside, against which some
baskets, filled with straw, were hung for hens'
nests. These I visited with my new acquaintance,
and had my apron filled with eggs, which were
carried in for dinner.
The kitchen was sunken farther in the ground
than the other portion of the house, so that the
rain-water which had fallen a day or two previously
stood over the floor to the depth of an
inch or more, and the fire was kept, therefore, and
the meals prepared, in a shed, screened from the
sun by branches of adjacent trees.
Within this summer kitchen, Squire Davids, my
aunt's husband, when I first saw him, sat mending
a pair of old shoes, and tending potatoes that were
roasting in the hot ashes, covered over with coals.
He was a large man, with florid complexion, and
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almost entirely bald, having only a thin fringe of
white hair falling on his neck and forehead, while
the rest of his head was bare, and seemed hard and
polished, like a shining stone.
He had been once or twice in the Legislature, in
consequence of his early settlement in the country,
I believe, and he was much esteemed for wisdom,
not only by his wife, who was in the habit of saying
that he had a wonderful gift of argument, but
by all the people of the neighborhood.
He was by every body regarded as a good man,
without a question as to his particular theology;
he was sent for to visit the sick, to talk with and
pray for them, and, if need were, to write their
wills; and he knew something of the human system,
and the diseases to which it is subject, and so
compounded excellent medicines of roots and herbs,
which some, whom they had benefited, thought
infallible for any manner of complaint, and often
affirmed that they never could desire a better doctor,
or knew of one to whom a skill in physic was
so natural.
He was exceedingly industrious, and all his life
accomplished himself the chief business of his farm,
until about the period of my visit, when his various
more public duties drew so largely on his time that
he consented to employ a boy as his assistant—a
man was not to be thought of. And of even this
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unworthy innovation, he often spoke as if he were
ashamed.
He took me on his knee, while my mother was
preparing the table for dinner, and made many
inquiries concerning my industrial habits and abilities,
to my no small discomfiture, for I could but
confess that I was ignorant to an extent that
shocked him. “Why, Elsie, my little daughter,”
he said, “your mother will quite ruin you.”
He then asked me my age, and, on my replying
that I was almost eight years old, he hastily put me
down, and looked at me with a real or affected
astonishment that brought tears to my eyes.
“No, no,” he said directly, “this will never do:
a nice looking little girl, almost eight years old,
almost a woman, and not know how to milk a cow,
nor sweep the house! Elsie will have to come and
live with her aunt Elizabeth and uncle David, and
learn how to make bread, and puddings, and be a
woman.”
He then smoothed my curls—the pretty curls
my mother had made—all away from my forehead,
and, after plaiting them, tied them in a sort of knot
on my head, with one of the waxed strings with
which he had been mending the shoe. After this,
he told me that I must have a comb, and do up my
hair like a lady—that only babies let curls fall
about their faces. I was mortified, and wished I
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had staid at home, especially when he told me of
a dozen girls he knew, none of them so old, and all
so much superior to me. One had made a quilt containing
a thousand pieces, another could bake in
the brick oven, and another had made her father a
shirt as well as anybody except in the stitching and
the button-holes.
It seemed that dinner would never be ready and
interrupt this conversation; but it was, at last, and
as he seated me at the table he inquired of me
if I never thought I ought to earn my bread before
I ate it.
I had never thought of any such thing, and I felt
so badly that presently I went from the table, and
resuming my old seat, counted the broken panes of
glass in the windows. After a little while I was
taken to see my aunt, and the old man repeated in
my hearing all my indolence and worthlessness,
saving, in conclusion, “I guess we must take the
child, Lizabeth, and try to make something of
her.” My aunt, as I afterwards found, was a kind-hearted,
ignorant old woman, no less industrious
than her husband, and of so frugal a disposition,
even in sickness, that she would have no hired
assistance, compelling the squire on such occasions,
with perhaps the occasional assistance of some
neighboring spinster, to be himself his housekeeper.
She was tall and dark—stooping much, either
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naturally, or with years. Her dress, winter and
summer, was of black flannel, with straight sleeves,
and skirt inconveniently narrow; and her cap of
white cambric, worn without trimming or borders,
and low over the forehead, across which lay the
wrinkles, as they did indeed all down her face, to
the point of her sharp chin.
The lonely, homesick feeling that came to me, as
I sat in the silent parlor, looking at the tall clock,
and listening to the guinea-hens, as they sunned
their variegated humps, was new to me, and
strange, but gradually, in custom, it was forgotten
or lost
There is no life perhaps so turbulent, or filled
with such momentous incidents, that its earliest
glimpses of the world beyond the limits of home
can be forgotten; veterans on battle fields have
died exulting at the brave ascent of kites held by
their childish hands; and statesmen sitting with
closed eyes, in senates that have trembled at their
words, have felt the approach of tears with never
dying memories of a mother's praise at their first
triumphs in the school room. I have no power to
tell you of all my life's vicissitudes since then,
of the wild interblendings of heaven and hell
through which I have passed, the days of smiling
hope or nights of pitiless despair; but I do not
know that there is any point in all my experience
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to which my mind of its own accord goes back
more frequently than to these scenes at the Davids'
farm house.
Yet I have not lingered thus long on this first
visit, so much for its own interest or importance,
as because I soon after went to remain with my
uncle and aunt, and that day's history became in a
degree my biography for the next seven years.
-- -- p491-239
CHAPTER XXI.
[figure description] Page 238.[end figure description]
O dronken man! disfigured in they face.
Chaucer.
You do look, my son, in a moved sort.
The Tempest.
To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new.
Anon.
You would have but an unjust impression of
that unhappy childhood of which I have already
revealed to you so much—that childhood which
perhaps has been remembered with tears which
would not let him write my sins sometimes, by
the angel who makes up the accounts between us
and our Father in Heaven—if I shrunk from recording
the most terrible of its scenes, which was
of subsequent occurrence. When I heard you
preach from that awful passage of His word which
describes the worst of ages as without natural affection
you will not wonder, after reading these recitals,
at my feeling that thus much of the prophecy had
been fulfilled in my miserable home. If I have
been too easily tempted by delusive promises of
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peace—if for that life of love which is ever an object
of the true soul's intensest longing, I have hazarded
too much, and lost all that is most necessary
to such life—remember from what storm and gloom
I looked out on the shows by which I was tempted,
and what temptations! I speak not in extenuation
of my crime, of which there is One to judge truly,
and, for the years of my repentance, very kindly;
but for your just pride of your own intelligence,
and for the hope I have that still you will remember
me hereafter with some gentleness.
It was but a few days after that visit to my aunt
which I have mentioned so particularly, that my
father was brought home in a condition so frightful
that there was at once despair of his life. I remember
to-night, as I sit here alone by this wintry
fire, shining out against the panes which shield me
from the angry tempest of snow and hail—I remember
the oppressing sense of fear and wonder
with which I saw him conveyed to the gate of our
poor house, in his own little cart, which was half
filled with straw to save him as much as possible
from the tortures of a removal in that terrible state.
He was partly sheltered by an old broken umbrella,
and his forehead was bound with a cloth red with
his blood.
He scowled on me as they lifted him down, and
when I went close, and asked him what was the
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matter, he thrust me roughly aside, with an oath
that made me tremble.
In a few moments I summoned courage to peer
in at the door, and then I saw my mother almost
overwhelmed in the momentary insanity of grief,
wringing her hands, shrieking, and weeping; but
she became more calm, and presently one of the
men approached her and whispered some words to
which she gave an affirmative answer, upon which
he came out to me and put his large right hand
upon my shoulder, saying that my father had been
in a brawl, and got the worst of it, that he would
die, may be, before Squire Davids could be got
there, and would certainly not live more than a day
or two. I joined then instinctively in the passionate
sorrow of my mother, not indeed that much
love was possible for one who never had evinced
a feeling of humanity for me, but that all was so
sudden, so strange, so terrible; and then the man
said, to comfort me, that I ought not to cry for it, as
I would be far better off, as well as my mother,
when the last nail was in his coffin. I forgot he
had not been to me as other fathers to their children
whom I knew, and shuddered at a speech
that even a fiend, I since have thought sometimes,
should never make to a child about a father; and
I pulled myself away from him—for he held me
with a tight rather than a friendly grasp—and
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going to my accustomed play ground, under a low
cherry tree, where the grass was all trodden down,
I attempted to think of other things. It was in
vain, and I called the dog to me, and tried to
make him play with a stick, as I had done often
before, but he sullenly refused, and pressing his
nose to the door-sill he piteously howled and would
not be driven away.
As I sat thus weeping by myself, and at the
same time attempting to draw a picture of the dog
on the smooth bark of the tree, with a common
pencil I had found a few days previously, a youth,
who was passing in a chaise, drew up and asked me
why I was crying, and who taught me to make
pictures. At first I hid the lines with my apron,
but he spoke so kindly and praised my skill so
much that I withdrew it, and told him why I
cried. I had never seen any one so handsome
and well dressed as he, and I was quite astonished
and delighted when he took from his pocket a
small book of engravings, and a crayon, and gave
them both to me, saying, “You are a little genius,
and you must learn how to use them, and become
an artist.”
How quickly the world recognizes the creative
powers of him who has been nursed in the lap of
ease! how many hands reach out to aid the climbing
laurel toward his brows, that never have been
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browned with the hot sun as he has toiled in fields,
nor furrowed with any slow shaping care, or the
quick mastery of a sudden sorrow. But the entitled
poor too often struggle for bays that are
heaped up on the undeserving rich; they grope
through obscure ways, hungry, like
Blind Orion, for the morn,
with but the cloud and dread presentiment of greatness
on their souls. The soil of poverty smothers
the flowers of inspiration from the world's discovery,
or stifles songs that if unloosed might fill
with melody a thousand years. Yet the divine
faculties do not attain their best development when
led by luxury among bowers and fountains, so
often as when the darkest forms of wretchedness
drag them in chains through deserts, and over
crags, and down amid whatever is most to be feared,
or hated, in human life. “Wicked Angelo must
work in ceilings till he can only read with his
book above his head.” The roof of a prison kept
the eyes of Tasso from that nature which should
have fed his soul with beauty and with strength.
And what immortal visions have come, Dante, to
lone exiles, or, Gallileo, to those who watched the
stars through windows grated with impassable
iron! How many hearts are beating like death
watches in the dark—passing, unknown, out of
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time—whose simple experience if unfolded would
draw away the eyes of the subtlest anatomists of
exalted passion from the most impressive pages in
all written art. Poets, the wings of whose fancy
beat exultingly up through the golden clouds
where my poor thoughts cannot climb, tell us of
immortal amaranths shadowing the green summits
of Fame's far mountain, but no such sweet
repose of joy has been disclosed in any life that
I have known, and if such sunshine as the children
of genius seek, be found except in rifts through
darkest clouds, haply it will be only in that day
which will come after the last night of all.
I cannot express to you the interest with which
the stranger's gifts inspired me, nor the influence
which his gentle words had on my efforts and aspirations
in all my succeeding years of childhood.
As I yet sat beneath the tree, turning the
leaves over and over, and backward and forward,
the man who had stopped to comfort me so strangely
returned, in company with my uncle. Both
seemed to have ridden very fast, for the nostrils
and flanks of their horses were specked with foam.
“Hi, hi!” said Squire Davids, seeing me, “can
you find nothing better to do?” The other person
came near, and, taking from his head the blue
woolen cap, which was old, and falling on one
side, wiped the perspiration from his face with his
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sleeve, as he asked me whether my father was
ready for his shroud. He then inquired if I had
seen him, and, taking me by the hand, led me in,
telling my mother he had brought me to take a
last look.
After a partial examination of the injuries which
my father had received, Squire Davids shook his
head, and a whispered consultation followed, at the
conclusion of which it was announced as the general
opinion that a doctor must be sent for to come
from the city. This terrified me more than I had
been before, for I knew that when a doctor was
called from town the case was desperate. As to
who was called, I think that in their judgment it
made little difference, and the man in the blue cap,
who seemed officious, set out presently on the important
mission, saying, as he departed, “All the
doctors in the world cannot set him on his feet
again.”
“No sir, no sir,” responded one or two voices;
but Squire Davids said while there was life there
was hope, and the same voices said “Yes, sir, yes,
sir.” For myself, I remember that I felt very
much encouraged, as well as afraid, for I supposed
that though a regular physician was never summoned
but in extremity, he could perform miracles.
“Well,” said the squire to my mother, when
about to depart, “whether he lives or dies, you will
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have your hands full; yes, whether he lives or dies,
you will have your hands full: so just get this
little girl ready, (here he laid his hand on my head)
and I'll take her home with me.”
With some tears—whether for me or for the
wretched state of things about her, I do not know—
the dress which had been my grandmother's, with
some other rudely made garments, constituting all
my wardrobe, were tied in a handkerchief which
my mother took from her neck, and which was, I
believe, all the one she had; and then, mounted
behind the old man, I was carried away, and sold,
as it were, into bondage.
I am sure I need not describe to you the life I
led at the house of my uncle. During the seven
years of my service, I saw my mother but once:
I was well provided for, she thought, and she was
satisfied.
Through every winter season I was sent to school,
where the books I used were those my uncle himself
had used when a boy, and I learned little from
them. But my teacher had seen something of the
world, and he taught in this obscure and lonely
place, a part of the time, to enable him to struggle
upward for the rest. He received only a pitiful
compensation, but the three richest men of the district
gave him board and lodging, and, with an old
trunk, and a bundle of books, he moved from place
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to place. Our house was, of course, one of his
homes; and from his conversation and reading I
learned more than I did at school.
In the summer, I was often required to gain time
from my household routine for the performance of
extra tasks, such as dropping corn, and other duties
in the field. Sometimes John Dale and I rested
together in the shade, and, so long as we talked of
our work, of how soon we should get the seed in,
and how soon it would be up, and of the scarecrow
we should make of Aunt Elizabeth's plaid cloak
and the Squire's bell-crowned hat, we preserved
the most perfect unity of feeling. But when I told
some story learned of the schoolmaster, or exhibited
the new drawing I had made, the sympathy was
ended. So, as I grew older, there was accumulated
in my mind a world of thoughts and emotions of
which he had no knowledge. He was always very
kind to me, constructed swings for me, and brought
to me frequently the fairest apples and the ripest
berries—so I could not choose but love him—and
yet I preferred often to be alone. And when the
schoolmaster was with us, I sat on a low stool
by his side, with my knitting, (for I was never
suffered to be idle) and listened all the while he read
or talked to me, leaving John to decide upon the
color of the new cart, and the best time of the
moon for planting potatoes, according to the
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traditions he had received from the old farmers of the
neighborhood.
The schoolmaster praised my drawings, too, and
all the summer, as lamb, or cow, or tree, took
natural shape beneath my pencil, I pleased myself
with anticipations of the surprise and pleasure he
would feel in my improvement. Nobody could
understand me so well as he, and the long winter
evenings seemed too short, when I sat in the blaze
of the heaped wood-fires with him. If he praised
me, I could not sleep all the night, but vague and
strange yearnings, that I can now better define,
alternately uplifted and cast me down.
I could see, in the starlight, visions of pictures,
glorious embodiments of all beautiful things of
which I had ever dreamed, and on the wind I
could hear murmurs of praise.
I would think, “I am mocked with laurels hung
above my reach; I have no power to climb, and no
hand will reach downward to help me up: it were
better to shut my eyes, and sink to the level of circumstances.”
And I would say sometimes, “John is
soundly asleep, acquiring strength for the tasks of
to-morrow—no waking visions haunt his pillow.”
But turn as I would to the real life before me,
there was another life outside the narrow continent
of being to which my experience was limited,
where, in spite of the actual and the probable,
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irresistible influences compelled me to walk, and I
woke, after fitful and brief slumbers, with flushed
cheeks and a throbbing bosom, for which John's
honest pity, and my aunt's wholesome exercise in
the dairy, were no palliatives.
So the years came and went, and came and went
again; and childish fancies were lost in a no less
dreamy girlhood. I need not describe the little
phases of joy and sorrow, hope and fear, compassed
by the same dull round, and ending in the same
hopeless endurance. I needed not indeed to relate
to you all that I here have written, but I cannot
help but think that this various and humble experience
was a preparation for the fate to which I
am sorrowfully approaching; and if I could linger
long enough to unfold to you the hard privation,
and helpless ambition, that made up the history of
my childhood, you might at least, sometimes, turn
from the melancholy results to the molding influences,
and the media through which you see
would possibly present a softened shade.
My fifteenth birth-day was passed, and John called
me still a pretty girl. Neither tasks with my
needle, nor field nor household toil, had done me
much wrong in his opinion; and my little brown
hands were none the less pretty that they were
brown, nor my cheeks less lovely that their crimson
blushed not out of snow. Wan and faded as I am,
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I can hardly trace my lineaments in the healthful
and rustic girl I was then. One day, when the
schoolmaster had just gone from us, and a wretched
and helpless feeling oppressed me, my uncle came
home with a letter for me—the first I ever received.
I had seen some two or three letters, perhaps, that
were sent at long intervals to Squire Davids, with
superscriptions in hieroglyphics covering the entire
surface, but an epistle neatly folded, and directed
in a hand that seemed to me the perfection of
writing, I now saw for the first time. A new
world seemed opening as I broke the seal and read
the mysterious communication.
By the death of a relation, my mother was
become heir to a decent competence, and I was
henceforth to live with her, in a pretty cottage not
fifty miles from the great city of which I had
dreamed ever since I was a little child. I was lost
in incredulous surprise for a time, but even before
the preparations for my departure were completed,
my first enthusiasm was gone. I was to leave the
roof-tree and the hearth-light that had sheltered
and warmed me for years, and I knew not what I
should obtain. Contending emotions filled my
heart. The bird that flies against his prison bars
will sometimes refuse freedom itself, when the cage
is open, and such a feeling was mine. I knew not
till then, how endeared to me were the old
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homestead, and even the dumb brutes with whose aspects
I had become familiar.
It was a mild evening in April, and the trees
had scarcely leaves enough for shadows yet, when
I left the house to visit for the last time, probably,
the adjacent places I had loved the most. I had
turned from the grass bank where I had read
sometimes, and taken in my arms the young trees I
had tried to imitate in my poor drawings, and was
returning homeward, with my heart's sorrow dimming
my eyes, when, a little aside from my path,
sitting on a harrow sunken in the edge of a plowed
field, I saw John Dale. His attitude evinced his
sudden grief, and with an air of abandonment he
buried his face in his hands.
“Come, John,” I said, approaching him, and affecting
not to see his sorrow, “I am going home
now—won't you go with me?” He was startled,
for he had not seen me; but there came to his
cheek no flush of shame, and with a look half
beseeching and half reproachful he remained silent.
I could not go on, and after a moment's hesitation
I sat down beside him on the harrow. I tried to
talk of the sunset, of the budding trees, and all the
common things that had previously interested him.
With his hard and sun-burned hand he wiped the
tears from his eyes and listened, but he did not
smile, nor seem aware of his work, as with a small
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stick he loosened from one tooth of the harrow the
moist earth.
At last I persuaded him into some conversation
of the farm he had bought, and was working to
pay for; but the attraction it had for him was
connected with me, and as I did not wish to discourage,
and thereby wound him, and could not
give him any hope, our words were formal, and
unsatisfactory to both, and we went homeward in
silence. “What have I done? where am I to go?”
were my thoughts on waking in the morning; but,
looking from the window, I saw the new cart,
which John had painted, waiting to carry me away.
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CHAPTER XXII.
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High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.
Shakspeare.
Playful she turned that he might see
The passing smile her cheek put on,
But when she marked how mournfully
His eyes met hers, that smile was gone.
Lalla Rookh.
In these seven years of her widowhood circumstances
had been fortunate for my mother. With
more happy associations and less oppressing cares,
the natural gentleness of her disposition had been
restored, and sweet affections which a miserable life
had blighted, blossomed again in modest beauty,
making her in a humble sphere and limited circle
an object of the kindliest regard, so that all who
knew her had been pleased with her accession to
the little competence which led to our reunion. In
our pleasant cottage a new and happy life opened
upon me, as the fairest morning in gardens of flowers,
to one who has wandered all night in deserts.
Though I had received but such education as is
bestowed in the common schools in rural districts,
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yet in the winter quarter of each year I had been
an industrious and quick learner, and had generally
been first in my class and in the praises of my
teachers. And I had cultivated as much as possible,
though always without any suitable instructor,
my taste for drawing. The little sketches I sometimes
made with crayons or common water colors
were very rude indeed, but I was proud of them,
and always fancied, perhaps truly, that the last one
was the best of all I had made. In every way the
discipline of character and habit at my uncle's had
been advantageous to me, and I was now happy in
the conviction of my mother—that I surpassed in
all accomplishments as in beauty any young girl
with whom I was likely to associate.
But new changes were before me. One afternoon
as I sat by the window of our little parlor, I
was startled by some disturbance in the street, and
in a moment a gentleman who had been thrown
from his carriage was brought into the house. He
was not seriously injured, but in the opinion of the
physician who was summoned, it was necessary
that he should remain a few days in repose, and as
I with book or pencil sat frequently in the room
where he reclined on a sofa, we became acquainted,
and a feeling of such interest succeeded as I had
never felt for any one I knew.
I had never, in truth, previously known a
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gentleman of education and the manners which belong
to a polished society, and my poorly educated fancy
had never an ideal to be compared with Mr. Warburton.
His conversation was all freshness and
beauty to me, and he was studiously kind, as if
delighted that he had power to communicate to
any one a pleasure. I listened with more rapt
attention than the fair Venetian long ago. He saw
my attempts at drawing, praised them, and said
that with such genius as I possessed but cultivation
was necessary to a great excellence in art, and in a
mood half serious and half earnest he became for
the time my instructor, unfolding to me those fundamental
principles which a taste for sketching had
made familiar to himself when a youth, though he
confessed a long neglect of a pursuit in which a
love of nature once had made him an enthusiast.
One day as I was exhibiting to him my first
rude pictures, I related the chance by which I had
become aware of the possession of any natural
talent of this kind—the stranger's notice of me,
his kindness, and its influence on my happiness
and efforts. He heard me with attention, growing
into earnestness, and when I had concluded, exclaimed,
“Oh, I have then to congratulate myself
on having been your discoverer, as well as teacher!”
Suddenly the bond of our union was drawn closer—
we were old friends. I need not enter into
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details. From what I have said you may readily
conceive of his handsome person, intellectual endowments,
and persuasive eloquence; and of my
ambition, trustfulness, and simple faith. Why
should I linger on such scenes—why tell you the
results your thought anticipates? We parted lovers,
and in truth
“My star stood still before him.”
His love—for I still believe he loved me—was
not the all-absorbing passion which was in my
heart. Ambition was mixed with his tenderest
devotion. His partiality led him to exaggerate
my talents, which he believed would ultimately
add new luster to the fame he was determined himself
to achieve. I was never for a moment, something
to shelter, to protect—a solace for sorrow or
joy of softer and less ambitious moods—but
through the very bridal veil the iron purpose he
formed stood hard and unyielding before me. No
paradise of sweet repose tempted me, but study
and toil, with certainty of disappointed hopes, and
the constant goading of a task-master who would
hear of no pain, nor weariness, nor faltering, nor
see anything but the possible triumph. But when
he swept from the hard and steep way the soft
mists of fancy, and taking my hand, said, “Are
you strong enough? and brave enough? have you
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sufficient faith in yourself and in me?” I went
forward with a courage equal to his will; and so
long as his arm was about me, and his voice whispering
inducements and confidence, no labor or
sacrifice was greater than I could dare.
“He will never marry you,” said my mother;
“I wish you had never seen him. Throw away
your idle fancies, and become the happy wife of
John Dale.” But opposition strengthened my
devotion to him, and when forbidden to see each
other any more, we met clandestinely, and the
fruits of my disobedience were such abandonment
of my very soul to him as Heaven has ever visited
with shame and misery.
Night after night I sat in the accustomed bower,
waiting for his promised footsteps, with my heart
beating, down from the wildness of expectancy to
the stillness of distracting fear, as the hours deepened
and darkened, and my mysterious lover did
not come. At last this agony of suspense could
be endured no longer, and under false pretexts I
left my home, and sought, alone and friendless, in
the strange great city, my promised husband.
At a time and place most unfortunate, I presented
myself before him, and claimed the fulfilment
of his vows.
Need I say how I appeared—a rustic girl, without
the beauty joy and hope can give the commonest
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expression, and without the grace which the most
untutored may possess with innocence and content,
thus intruding into the midst of refinement
and elegance?
“Who is she, and what does she want?” whispered
one to another; for Mr. Warburton had
given me but a cold recognition, without an intimation
as to the claims I had upon his affection
and justice, and I saw the angry spot burning in
his cheek as he gracefully made his adieus, and as
hastily as possible drew me away. What an ordeal
awaited me! Shame, confusion, self-reproach, utter
despair, and, over all, the cold cruelty, the calm
decision, the unconcealed anger and probable
abandonment of him for whom I had bartered
every hope that had been mine, for honor, life, or
eternity.
I was dumb before him, went whithersoever he
led, and to all his harsh reproaches answered not a
word. At length with wonderful adroitness he
assumed to be the injured party, and talked of ruin
my thoughtless imprudence would bring upon us
both. “Marriage, just now,” he said, “is impossible.
You must content yourself with such a home
as I think proper or have power to give you, for a
while, and, meantime, I will be with you as much
as is consistent with my duties; I will aid you in
your studies, and you will have all my love. Have
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you bravery and faith enough to work, and wait
till it is possible to fulfil the promises I made you,
and have ever held to be sacred obligations? If
you say yes, dear Elsie, I shall for your courage
and endurance hold you doubly dear. If you say
no, I abandon you at once and forever to the doom
you court, and give you but my hatred and my
curse.”
“For your love, Nathan,” I said, “I can brave
all things. I can wait, and work, and hope. But
when shall we be married?”
“I do not know,” he answered; “but as soon
as it is possible. The future, however, is not what
you are to think of now. You must bend all your
energies to the development of your genius. Feeling
can be crushed easily enough—with only an
effort of the will.”
We had gone through various windings and
intricate ways, and stopped, at length, before a
dilapidated building, some four or five stories in
height, in an obscure and narrow street, and here,
for the present, was to be my home. I ascended
the steep and dirty stairs, pair after pair, and was
shewn, at last, to a small and cheaply furnished
apartment, in the fourth story, where, I was told,
I must make myself contented and happy.
As the door closed, or was about closing upon
my prison, I could no longer keep the tears from
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my eyes, or suppress the sound of my emotion.
“Wait,” I said, imploringly, reaching out my
arms, “Oh! wait, and reassure me! My head and
heart are breaking, and I am afraid to be here
alone.”
“I have said all I can say, given you every assurance
of love and protection that a reasonable
woman could ask, and, unless you wish to forfeit
all claims upon me, refrain from such foolish and
ill-timed appeals. Good night.”
“Oh, have mercy! pity me!” I exclaimed. I
could not help it. He turned toward me, for a
moment, and with a look that seemed crushing me
into perdition, folded his arms, and saying, simply,
“Well!” he descended the stairs without another
word.
Tehe agony I endured that night may never be
written.
When the morning came, and I went to the window,
I found that instead of looking into the street
as I expected, the prospect was completely shut in
by high brick walls, with only a plat of ground a
few yards in extent for the eye to rest on, and that
beaten, heated, cracked open, and entirely destitute
of grass or flowers. This, then, was to be my
home! I soon discovered that I was in one of the
most crowded and in all ways least endurable of
the common boarding houses of New York.
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I cannot describe it, nor my sufferings while I
remained in it, a helpless and hopeless stranger,
among persons with whom I could not wish to be
acquainted. Only one gleam of sunshine ever illumined
the place, and that was in the kind words
and cheerful smile of a grocer—an awkward young
man, but good and amiable, who lived there, and
had kindly assisted me to find Mr. Warburton, on
my arrival in town.
I was constantly tortured with the fear of desertion,
and sometimes the days came and went
and the long nights wore by without his coming,
for whose sake only I endured existence.
And when he made his unfrequent visits, and
my heart leapt joyously to meet him, he would
perhaps simply inquire what I had accomplished,
examine my work critically, and if it were good
say I must make it better, and if it chanced to
displease him, tear it or trample it beneath his feet,
and without a word of endearment, or a promise
of brighter days, leave me to the awful solitude of
my thoughts. Sometimes I prayed to die; sometimes
I cried out, like a child that is lost in a
wilderness, and sometimes, with my hands dropping
listlessly beside me, I sat through the day and
night in silent and dumb despair. At other times
I took courage—Heaven knows whence it came—
and wrought earnestly and hopefully, till physical
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weariness, or the old fear, brought back again
despair and the prostration of all my faculties.
I must have died, but for some occasional kindnesses,
giving me gleams of hope. How grateful I
was for them, and how long I lived on their memory!
Is it a wonder if, under such circumstances,
my progress in my difficult art was slow? and, as
the ambition once connected with me began to
decay, if his love rapidly declined, and soon was
ended.
The history of this wretched prison would fill a
volume, if I had time to write it. How vividly it
all rises in memory—all that I saw and felt there.
There was dark panel work at the head and the
foot of the bed, by which I used to sit, and, on the
smooth surfaces, trace characters with my finger—
sometimes my own name, sometimes Mr. Warburton's—
and records of sin and suffering, fearful
death-beds, and terrible judgments. What pages I
have thus traced, to give shape or solace to my
sorrow. But all that mournful writing left no impression
on the blank panels, where the same
story was repeated over and over a thousand
times.
The dusty cobwebs seemed to have hung for
ages along the ceiling, and to have filled the corners
of the room with gossamer shelves, that were
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sunken with the white wings of the candle-moth,
and the bodies of flies, dry as mummies. The
colors in the tattered carpet had been worn into a
red and muddy hue; the chairs seemed to have
been brought there because too much decayed or
broken to be retained in the more public rooms,
pegs in the wall served instead of a wardrobe, and
the other furniture consisted of a small table,
painted red, and streaked and dotted with yellow,
and a stand, of a bluish stone color, on which was a
bowl and a tall pitcher, with the spout and handle
broken. Add to these a green rocking-chair, with
yellow flowers painted on the slats of the back, and
so disordered with age or careless use as searcely
to be occupied with safety, and you have a perfect
inventory of the room's contents.
Notwithstanding its unpromising aspect I often
pleased myself with fancies that, for so little, this
might be mended and that renewed, till all should
be comfortable and pretty, and then how happy we
could be, even there! he whom I loved so well,
and I. But these visions, so bright to me, were
never a spell for him, and I dared not even whisper
them, since to him the impolitic was the impossible.
What would the people among whom he was accustomed
to move, say to his union with me, and
the abandonment of his elegant lodgings for a
humbler home to be shared with such a wife? In
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such a prospect he would have seen the forfeiture
of his long sought and hardly earned position.
I made a thousand plans that seemed feasible, till
I unfolded them to him. “Do you not see, dear
Elsie,” he would say, “how utterly impossible it
is? Employ your mind with your pictures, just
now. I hope a brighter destiny awaits you. If
I should not live to see it—when my poor name is
forgotten, your's will be famous. Work, dear Elsie,
work, and wait a little longer.”
Often, as he spoke thus, tears were in his eyes,
and there was a pathos and tremulous gentleness
in his voice that indicated the sincerity of his trust
in my abilities, and the fear of some dark and premature
ending of his own career; which foreknowledge,
as it now seems to have been, stood ever
like some haunting phantom between him and the
light. While he spoke of my prospective triumphs
he felt always the presence of this prophetic shadow
over him; and, forgetting the miserable realities in
which I was already involved—I, who needed
strength and comfort so much, became his strengthener
and comforter. While he was with me, and
speaking kindly and hopefully, I forgot all the
past, and all the future; for in the blindness of her
own devotion, woman rests satisfied, so long as she
is not cast into outer darkness. Good—she knows
not, suspects not how—will at some indefinite
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time—she thinks not when—be the result of ill;
and so, with the darkest present closing about her,
she remains unconscious, incredulous, and, under
the close arching of the sepulcher, reaching for
roses on the wall.
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CHAPTER XXIII.
[figure description] Page 265.[end figure description]
I have possessed your grace of what I purpose;
And by our holy Sabbath have I swom
To have the due and forfeit of my bond.
Shakspeare.
O hateful, hellish sneke! what Furie furst
Brought the from baleful house of Proserpine.
Spenser.
A Thing of wonderful strength, and of strange
and fearful mystery, is woman's love. I was strictly
forbidden by Warburton to go from the house,
and you may fancy how weary I grew of myself
as the sun came up, and climbed, slowly, higher
and higher, and then faded, and went down, and
the moon came and went among the stars, now
shining in full splendor that seemed to mock me,
and now shrinking to a thin and pallid ghost, that
saddened me no less. You most know, indeed,
how little there was to interest me, outside of myself,
and how dreary and desolate grew the world
within.
Three times a day I went down the narrow and
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dark stairs, to the room in which the boarders
assembled for their meals, which was low, and so
dim, having but one window, and that opening on
an alley, that the two gas-burners—unornamented,
angular, and seeming to be driven in the ceiling
toward either end of the table—were always lighted
even in the summer noon. Here I saw men and
women, evidently belonging to the poorest, if not
to the meanest grades of society. Women, whose
occupation was washing and house-cleaning; reduced
seamstresses, who could afford no better
place; men, who did all sorts of work and drudgery,
with now and then a fellow of more wit and
less honesty whose means of living even in so miserable
a way were a mystery. Two organ-grinders
there were, whose monkeys regaled themselves on
bits of stale bread and the rinds of cheese, in the
yard of which I have spoken, while their masters
fared little more luxuriously inside the house.
The grocer to whom I have referred, and whom
they called John, was the most pleasing, intelligent,
and gentlemanly person among them all. His place
at the table was opposite mine, and as he was
very talkative I could not without seeming uncivil
avoid conversation with him at times, for he was
exceedingly polite to me, offering always the first
service of whatever was on the table, and sometimes
bringing me flowers, which he delighted in
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cultivating, and at other times cakes or candy,
from his grocery, with a boyish kindness that won
upon me, because so few were kind to me there,
and because I knew it was a display of genuine
feeling.
In the common books—such as were sold in
paper covers—and general affairs of the day, he
was at home; and, somewhere in his nature, which
was for the most part coarse, and laughably eccentric,
there was a vein of refinement.
A day or two after I was conducted to this house
I was requested to go down to the parlor for an
interview with my host. He was a bluff and surly
looking man, having but one eye, and with hair
stiff and white as bristles, and teeth black and
broken.
“I suppose, Miss, or Mrs., or whatever”—he
said, fixing his eye on me, “you know it's our
custom, when we take in strangers, to ask payment
in advance.” I was silent, for I had thought nothing
about it; and he continued, “If you don't
know it, 't is so, and maybe it 's just as convenient
for you to make us safe now as any time. Nice
airy room, you have, and everything in the first
style; and what's more, no questions asked, and
that's no ways disagreeable, I reckon;” at the close
of which speech he winked and leered with an
expression both insinuating and offensive.
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“I must implore your patience for a day or two,”
I said, “till I can communicate with my friend”—
“Communicate with the devil,” he said, interrupting
me, and rising and approaching he extended
his fore finger almost to my face, as he
continued, “Mind you, I have given you fair
warning, and if the dollars are not in my hand to-morrow
night, you go out of this place without
ceremony. Devilish pretty box we'd get ourselves
in, keeping the like of you for nothing. It
wouldn't take more nor a gust of wind to blow you
over; and then there's a coffin, and some kind of
a burying to be paid for. Do you mind that, young
woman?”
I was paralyzed—dumb with the consciousness
that I was indeed liable to such coarse and harsh
treatment, and that I was powerless to defend
myself in any way.
When he reached the door, he turned, and with
an air and manner of mock gravity said, “you had
best make it convenient, my dear madam, to communicate,
as soon as possible, with that friend o'
yourn;” and with the flourish of a hand that seemed
never to have been washed, unless in the gutters,
he disappeared.
In my terror and mortification, I had not noticed
that the grocer sat by the table reading, or seeming
to read, till the importunate host was gone, when,
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throwing down his paper, he told me not to mind
the old sinner, and offered to loan me money, if I
required, saying, by way of making me confident
of his ability, that he had two doubloons in his
pocket.
My eyes had been tearless till he spoke. I
thought the fountain way dry; but with this display
of kindness, the blinding flood was loosened
and I could not give expression in words to the
gratitude I felt.
Stumbling near my own door, I heard a smoothered
groan from an adjoining room; and, pausing
to listen, it was repeated again and again. The
door was slightly ajar, and wiping my eyes, I
tapped lightly, wondering whether there could be
any greater suffering in the world than mine.
“Come in,” said a shrill voice, and I entered. The
apartment was furnished even more meanly and
meagerly than mine, and was occupied, at the time,
by two women—one an invalid, in the last stage
of consumption, as appeared from her perpetual
cough and the sickening transparency of her forehead
and hands.
She smiled as I entered, and motioned me to a
seat near her cot-bed, the pillow of which seemed
much too low, and the clothing too scanty—consisting
of a dirty blanket and a ragged blue quilt,
that would not cover both feet and hands at the
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same time. Her complexion was a pale straw color,
her lips a pinkish blue, and her eyes glitteringly
bright.
“Are you in great pain?” I asked, for she seemed
in intense suffering.
“No,” she answered faintly, “but I am dying
for air, and they won't give it to me. For mercy's
sake, open the window,” and she seemed gasping
for breath as she spoke.
The ceiling was low, the window closed with a
blanket curtain, to prevent the admission of a
breath of air, and the stove was at a glowing heat.
As I lifted the window a woman who had been
sitting near the fire drew me away and closed it
again, saying, in a whisper, “She don't know what
she wants; she's crazy.” In vain the sick woman
insisted on having air; her attendant refused, and,
by way of diverting her thoughts, I suppose, took
from the mantle a torn and dirty pack of cards, and
having presented them at the bedside to be cut,
seated herself near by on the floor and began telling
the fortune of the poor creature who, lulled into
listening, presently fell asleep.
“Now,” said the fortune-teller, presenting them
for me to cut, “I'll tell yours.” After dealing
them off, she shook her head, saying she didn't like
to tell me all she saw, for she was sure I would not
be so happy for having heard it. All my
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superstitious fears were roused, and as I left the suffocating
room I thought nothing could add to my
wretchedness; but, slipped beneath my own door,
I found a note, which Mr. Warburton had left for
me, having chanced to call in my absence. My
heart sank within me, when I discovered that he
had been there and was gone. With a trembling
hand I unfolded and read what he had written:
“It seems, Elsie, you have found better friends than I.
Very well. I shall not trouble you till you are willing to
see me.”
Imagine, if it be possible, what were my emotions.
The incidents which I have related here
are but examples of my suffering. The life I led was
one endurable to a common nature only when repelled
from another existence by mysterious and
awful fears of immortal retribution for sin.
Perhaps he will return again, I thought; surely
pity will prompt him to return when he remembers
what I must suffer. There was no ground for his
fancy that I had left the house; in a calmer moment
he will feel how foolish and unreasonable it
is to be angry without cause, and feeling this he
will come back; Oh, I am sure he will come! And
so I arose and looked at the sun sloping westward
over the gray house-tops—there were yet some hours
before night, and counting and recounting the probabilities
of his being in the neighborhood, I stood
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at the window till the last slant sunbeams drew
themselves away from the highest roofs and towers
that I could see. My God! what a sickening and
sinking of the heart I experienced—what an atmosphere
of agony weighed me down—as the light of
promise darkened from the horizon of hope. The
murmur of the life about me was like the flowing
of the sea-waves, mournful to hear; and I sorrowfully
recounted all the bright ventures I had seen
go down.
There may be circumstances in which we find a
sort of pleasure in exaggerating the wrongs and
afflictions we have suffered, but this is in the crescent
phase of sorrow, not when it is at the full, for
then there can be no exaggeration, and the recounting
of evils is like crowning the aching and bleeding
forehead with thorns. Now and then I heard an
appreaching step and my heart ceased to beat—it
came nearer and nearer, and I was irresistibly
drawn toward the sound, and my arms involuntarily
reached themselves out—thought touched the
summit of desire—hope, stretched to its utmost
tension, snapped, and that swimming and choking
sensation came over me which he feels beneath
whose feet the scaffolding is giving way. At times
it seemed to me that I must fly—
“Anywhere, anywhere out of the world”—
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and as a demon might howl against the barriers of
his hell, my heart, maddened with remorseful
agony, cried for the light from which it was shut
away; for all the bitter anguish under which mortality
ever groaned seemed gathering into those
few moments, and I felt struck apart alike from the
peace of death and the rest of life. Talk of sorrow—
there is no sorrow like that she feels who
sees the love fading out, for the brief beauty of
which she has defied the red shadows of the pit;
the stony pillow of the prison is softer than hers;
the rack is as a bed of roses compared with the
shameful torment upon which her soul is stretched.
In vain for her the arch fiend uncloses his dark
cavern and shows her the serpents and the chains;
she well knows there is nothing more that they
can do.
So the dull twilight came down, and as I heard
the lifting of the sash in the sick chamber which
was next to mine, the demons for a moment stood
back. I hurried to the bedside; thank God! they
had given her air at last, and a smile played over
the torture of her working lips, as the fresh breeze
fanned for a moment the expiring flame of life;
but the eyes looked reproaches even beneath their
fluttering lids, and till the features were set. A
sudden wave of exultation bore me up when I saw
that she was dead, and having put my hand on the
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clammy temple, and the feet—stiffening beneath
the ragged covering that had always till then been
too scanty—that assurance might be perfect, I went
away from the shape of untroubled dust, half
regretful that I was not myself the victim in that
terrible conflict and defeat. When I was alone, all
that night, I thought of the calm close that comes
over the stormiest life so soon, and the grave, that
has been so often called cruel, seemed to me kinder
than the cradle, for I narrowed my thoughts from
the infinite doubt and mystery beyond.
The leaden moments lengthened into dreary
hours, the hours into dim days, and the days into
darker nights; and as the time drew on when the
torture must at least be changed, I could scarcely
forbear a supplication that it might prove mortal,
before to unoffending innocence my sin should bring
the suffering and shame from which there could be
no possible escape. How could I hear that worse
than orphaned cry, and live! Yet when I weighed
the probable chances, and saw in fancy the shadow
of the nameless being wound almost at my feet,
the weakness of our nature was more and more
felt, and the uncertain sunshine brightened as it
receded.
The crisis was nearly come, and my turbulent
thoughts had drifted into that strait which is
neither hope nor fear, when he from whom I had
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almost reconciled myself to be separated once more
came to me.
His tears fell against my face as he bent over my
pillow, and up from the fountain in which days of
estrangement had choked it, came the old warmth
and tenderness of my love. And with his kisses
yet fresh on my lips I said, “Stay, Nathan,
oh, do not leave me now; to-night, only to-night—
I shall perhaps never have another favor to ask of
you—I hope I shall not—but I want your love to
be about me at the last—I want my eyes as I sink
into the darkness to rest on you, for with all the
fervor of my first devotion I love you now. Say
at least you will stay near me, and if we must
part, let me be the first to go—you know, dear
love, I will never come back to trouble you any
more.”
“Do not, gentlest and best of all women,” he
said, as seating himself beside me he took my hands
in his, “do not ask impossibilities—I will pray for
you, dear wife—I, who dare not pray for myself
any more, will pray for you.” Then after rallying
me on my childish fears, the expression of which
he continually interrupted with assurances of love
and fidelity, he took from his pocket-book some
blank paper and a pencil and sat for a moment,
silent and hesitating.
Presently, in a manner which he meant to he
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careless and playful, he said, “How old are you,
Elsie?”
Afterward he asked many circumstances of my
childhood and early life—all with special reference,
as I knew, to the probability that this was the last
opportunity he could ever have of ascertaining
these particulars, which an undefinable feeling in
his heart made him anxious to possess. Nevertheless
I answered calmly and definitely till all was
done, and then said simply, “Why have you made
such inquiries?”
“One of these days, dear wife,” he replied,
“when you are well, and we are living happily
together, I intend to write a romance, and make
you its heroine.”
When I was dead he would have written me a
fine epitaph.
In my heart, there is one book which human
eyes have never looked upon. I have “closed it,
and clasped it with a clasp,” even from my own
eyes. Help me, Oh God! to live a life that shall
plead for me in that day when it shall be opened!
As I sat one evening in the broad moonlight
that streamed through my naked window, there
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was a light tap at my door, and on opening it the
curious youth, of whom I have before spoken,
stood there, holding in his hand a string of red
beads. “Here, Hagar,” he said, (for he never called
me Elsie,) “is a present for the baby;” and before
I could thank him he was gone.
They were the first gift the unconscious innocent
ever received, and as I clasped them on her snowy
neck, and rocked the little one to and fro, with no
rebuking eyes upon me, I felt something of a
mother's pride—almost a gleam of happiness.
Any intercourse between the young grocer and
myself had been forbidden by Mr. Warburton, on
the pretext that his ill-breeding and inferior social
position rendered him an unfit companion for me.
And indeed I neither sought nor desired his intimate
companionship, but could not help feeling
very grateful for kind acts, and even for looks
that did not say, “I despise you.”
Tearing a blank leaf from a letter I had just
received from Mr. Warburton, I wrote a few lines
of grateful acknowledgment to the young man,
folded, superscribed, and threw them on the table,
to be handed to him in the morning.
I had scarcely done so when a shadow darkened
the moonlight, and, turning, I saw before me the
father of my child.
“Dear Elsie,” he said, taking my hand with the
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tenderest solemnity, “to-morrow we shall be married,
if, indeed, the love you once bore me has not
been changed into hatred. I am ambitious and
proud, my dear wife, and therefore have seemed
cold, cruel even, sometimes, perhaps, but all the
time you were dear to me, dearer than all in the
world, dearer than any words can tell; and from
this time you have, if you can forgive me and love
me yet, the protection of a husband, as well as the
devotion of a lover. The world shall know and
honor you as my wife, dear Elsie.”
The kisses, the fond interchanges of assurance,
the calm, rather than tumultuous happiness, I need
not attempt to describe. The picture of this scene
could be interesting only to lovers. All men have
generous moods and right impulses sometimes, and
Mr. Warburton had his, and these were of them.
As he clasped our sleeping infant in his arms,
its face wet with a baptism of repentant and loving
tears, I sitting by his side, and the moonlight
covering us both, I never felt so sober an
assurance of bliss. I cared not to speak, lest I
should break the spell, and, leaning upon a sure
hope, I fell asleep.
When I awoke, it was to feel the final ruin of
all my mortal happiness. The room was cold and
empty. My promised husband, and my beautiful
and innocent child, were gone, and forever.
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Unfolded in my lap lay the note I had written,
and beside it the torn letter. There was no word
of explanation—none was needed—I saw, and
felt all.
-- -- p491-281
CHAPTER XXIV.
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Existence may be borne, and the deep root
Of life and sufferance makes its firm abode
In bare and desolate bosoms: mute
The camel labors with the heaviest load,
And the wolf dies in silence. Not bestowed
In vain should such example be; if they,
Things of ignoble or of savage mood
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay
May temper it to bear—it is but for a day.
Byron.
Gradually I recovered from the mental and
physical prostration in which he left me. But
whither should I go? what should I do? I could
not return to the home I had dishonored and deserted,
and ask the recognition and affection of
friends and kindred I had thus abandoned. Though
my mother was pining for me day and night, I
could not go back to her, so changed, and with the
confession of his sins, whom I had so praised and
trusted in, against her will. I knew not what to
do; all was blank, dark, impenetrable night. But
at length I roused myself to action. The letters
which had given me so intense a happiness, the
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sketches and paintings on which I had toiled so
industriously and long and with so loving an ambition,
all the dearest souvenirs of earlier and
brighter days, were now as a dead life to me. I
placed them in a small wooden box, and with them
buried all my hopes and ambitions. While waiting
for some opportunity that heaven should render
available for my determined but undirected will, I
saw an advertisement for a nurse, to take charge of
a little girl, and immediately decided to apply for
the situation.
The long tresses that had often been called beautiful,
I held a moment before my eyes, and with difficulty
suppressing the memory of his praises as he
had played with them, and struggling tears with
which they came to me, I cut them off, and disguised
myself with a dark plain braid of hair, in
which my appearance was so changed I scarcely
recognized myself.
My application was successful; I became an inmate
of the house of Mrs. Wurth. When asked my
name, I said it was Hagar; and without being
questioned, without questioning—performing my
duties without any fear or hope—I remained in
this place until the child grew into womanhood.
In the meanwhile I heard often of your other sister,
though for reasons which you may apprehend,
there was little intimacy between her family and
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that of her better educated and more fashionable
niece, so that Mrs. Yancey had never seen me;
and I heard of you, and sometimes of this isolated
cottage in which I have been living.
I never saw my child again. The name of Mr.
Warburton gradually became familiar to the world;
he abandoned his profession—not in want of that
success which should have more than satisfied his
high reaching expectations, for he was master of a
refined and touching eloquence, and thoroughly accomplished
in all appropriate learning, so that
fame waited surely on his patient endeavor; but
that perhaps, I thought, some haunting memories
beckoned him from a vocation in which he was too
proud to appear without a conscious honesty. I
have not ever doubted the sincerity of his belief in
what he taught from the pulpit, or that his instincts
were religious, but he ventured accommodations
with conscience, and needed that bravery of nature
which is the best security of virtue. He went
abroad, and became a man of letters, and was fortunate.
I read his books—in that hopeless, homeless
life, and heard his old companions discuss his character
and genius. How my heart warmed when I
heard men praise him! and when ungenerous
thoughts of him were spoken, with what difficulty
I repressed the impulse to defend him! Though I
had no expectation that I should ever see him,
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though I knew he bore in his heart the cruelest
feelings of injustice to me, I knew also that some
times I was remembered, and with tenderness.
And in all he wrote I saw that he was a wretched
wanderer, an outlaw of his own mind—so that the
poor servant who should have been his wife, did
not envy him his triumphs, but with a subtler
sense than others had of all the thoughts he gave
the world, pitied him.
In the maturity of his life, and the fullness of his
fame, he returned to his own country, and we
walked again in the streets of the same city.
Catharine Wurth had grown to be a beautiful
girl—
Half a woman, half a child,
and the love of her gentle and trustful heart had
been almost entirely mine, and there was nothing
else in the world so dear to me. Imagine, then, if
it be possible, the torture which run through all
my nature, when I saw this affection, this last
solace of my life, weaned away from me, by him
who once had been my lover, and my promised
husband.
They met in society, and had been acquainted
for weeks, perhaps for months, when I first met
him at her house. I knew him instantly—changed
as he was with griefs and years; but how should
he know in the dark-haired Hagar, whom he saw
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[figure description] Page 284.[end figure description]
as one of the household of his expected bride, the
young and blooming Elsie of long ago?
He was not more changed in person than in character.
Yet there were signs still of the stern pride
of former days, though it was subdued and silent,
not assuming, ostentatious, and haughty.
Conscious of his powers and position, the fluctuations
of opinion, praise, or censure, had no effect
upon him.
Sometimes he talked with a gay air and apparent
joyousness, but it was only a playing of the surface;
all the while a quick observer might perceive
that below was a sea heaving with irresistible and
terrible currents—a sea which none who saw him
ever could fathom.
There seemed about him always something unnatural,
unreal; even when the circle in which he
moved was captivated by his wit, or awed by the
quickness and strength of his judgment, something
that made one distrustful, and half afraid.
With a burning in my bosom, that was anger
and sorrow, and jealousy, almost madness, I assisted
in the bridal preparations, saw the sacred ceremonial
of marriage, and was installed in the new
home, not so much the pensioned companion as the
confidante and dear friend of the young wife.
She, to her husband, was a beautiful toy, a pet,
a bird of brilliant plumage and a sweet song—to
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see or hear when he was weary of thought or of
the outdoor world—but incapable of satisfying
either his mind or his heart.
“Catharine,” I heard him say one morning, as
she stood near me, while I pulled the yellow leaves
from some flowers and loosened the earth about the
roots; “my study, I wish you to remember, is
sacred to myself; when I am within, it must be
understood that I can never suffer any intrusion.”
The wife laughed, as she replied, that she had no
love for the monkish closet, and that even her
woman's curiosity should never tempt her to enter
the place, especially after nightfall. I laughed too,
and I suspect there was something of defiance in
my tone and manner, as, with the yellow leaves in
my hand, I walked past him, and entered the forbidden
room.
“Where did you get that Hagar?” I heard him
say, when I was out of sight. “There is something
in her voice and laughter, sometimes, that disturbs
me. You must dismiss her.”
In a moment afterward they entered the library
together. It was furnished with exquisite taste,
and the rich cases covering nearly all the walls
were filled with the choicest books, which he had
chosen to be his most intimate companions in an
isolated middle age and in the decline of life. They
did not notice me, and he proceeded in a gay
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manner to exhibit to his wife the presentation copies of
works he had received from famous authors, while
abroad, and books curious for antiquity, or as specimens
of art, and opening a cabinet, he displayed
the souvenirs of his visits to many remarkable
places, she listening all the while with a kind of
childish pride and wonder, but I unmoved, though
I felt the ashes that had been my heart disturbed,
and a tremulous pain there, where I thought should
be only insensible stillness and silence.
There was one drawer of the cabinet, in the
centre, and larger than the others, which he did
not open, and touching it with her fan, his wife
said, “What is this? I wish to see all.”
A sudden pallor came over his face, and he put
his hand upon her arm and drew her away,
saying hastily, “Nothing—nothing that will interest
you—some old letters—papers—accumulations
of years—nothing for you to see.”
I thought I read the secrets of that drawer, as I
marked the flush upon his cheek when he precipitately
passed me, leading her from the room. As
he turned back he motioned my withdrawal, and
as soon as, mechanically, I passed the threshold, I
heard the turning of the key that secured to him
the secrecy he pined for in that solitude.
His wife, thus dismissed, retired with a light
heart, to amuse herself with flowers or birds, or
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the new novel, or her music, but I lingered near
the door, and hearing soon a suppressed groan, I
looked and saw him, before that secret drawer,
which was slightly opened, on his knees, alternately
in passionate prayer, and with unmoving lips, his
face turned upward, with such repose of expression
as seemed to evince madness, and heavy
drops upon his pallid face—drops that were not
tears.
There are hours, as Manfred said, all tortured
into ages, which yet we can outlive. In the few
weeks since first I knew he had returned, who can
imagine the intensity of my anguish, the power of
that great passion which had slept through years,
to awake, under such circumstances, in the close
presence of its object. Yet I was calm—I was
very calm, as I turned away from observing how
he too struggled with the past—so calm that I wondered,
and placed my palm upon my brow to see if
there was no throbbing there, and on my heart, to
be assured it beat so slowly. It was true. I could
have walked that moment, every nerve as tranquil
as a sleeping child's, down from the blessed river
which flows in Paradise, into the red and burning
wastes of hell.
Another change awaited me; and whither should
I go? I knew not. I was friendless, homeless,
except in his home, where it was impossible to
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remain. Heaven would not long uphold me if I
voluntarily braved so terrible a danger.
I could not depart without possessing myself of
that secret, which I felt was in some way connected
with my own history, but in every effort I made to
open the mysterious drawer I was baffled.
I did not avoid Warburton. Whatever the emotions
awakened by my presence, he certainly did
not know me, and probably had never in any way
associated the names of Hagar and Elsie. But
when we met I saw that there were fearful struggles
in his heart, and felt that I was seeing
God's retribution for the wrongs which I had suffered.
His wife, however, seemed insensible of his unhappiness,
or if some moment he forgot his difficult
but flimsy masque of peace, she had no doubt he
would be restored to cheerfulness by some such
poor resort as would have healed the deepest sorrow
she herself had ever known. She came to
me one morning with a face radiant with pleasant
expectations, saying, “We are to have such a delightful
time to-night! and I wish you to select the
most becoming of all my dresses for me to wear.”
“What do you propose?” I said.
“There is to be a splendid opera, with a new
prima donna, and Mr. Warburton is to take me—
we shall be so happy!”
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I made every arrangement for her pleasure, but
with an oppressive sense of melancholy and vague
foreboding of terror that assured me the end of all
this doubt, of this life I had been leading with so
continual and painful an effort, was nearly accomplished.
Mr. Warburton had seemed through the
day unusually depressed and stern, and when on
the approach of evening he came from a long seclusion
in the library, not as if he dreamed of any
joy, but with a countenance shaded in gloom, and
restless glances, or fixed eyes that gazed on nothing,
I could have flung my arms about him as he passed
me, and said, Let me comfort you! with all your
triumphs you are more wretched than I, and God
pity you if you are more guilty! But my arms
fell powerless beside me, and my lips were mute.
I had been alone, perhaps an hour, after their
departure, when the resolved but undecided will
which occupied my brain took shape, and I made
instant preparation to leave the house forever. A
trunk containing the few things of mine most
necessary for my comfort, I had packed days before,
in anticipation of some sudden emergency,
and having confided it to a person from whom I
could privately regain it whenever I should have
another home, I went to my room for the little box
in which were preserved the mementos of my
youth—my drawings, and the elaborated pictures
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he had gazed on, praising them, and the letters
which had filled my heart one time with sweeter
blisses than a century of common life would bring
to me. As I was passing through the hall the
key of the lock fel on the floor, and as I picked it
up I observed that it was of a size and form perhaps
to fit the lock of that drawer I had so
anxiously and vainly sought to open. Stealthily,
though no one could see me, I entered the library,
applied it, succeeded, and in a moment the fearful
enigma was revealed.
In a case of black and polished wood was a
coffin, decayed, as if it had been buried many
years; the lid was removed, and in it was a skeleton,
which instinctively I recognized as my child;
and from the accumulated dust, red beads glittered
in the light of the close lamp. My heart seemed
stiller than a grave, as I looked on and saw in the
drawer beside these dread memorials of guilt and
suffering, my picture, and the letters I had written
when I was like it, young and beautiful, and seeing
in the future vistas of flowers, and fairest skies
perpetually serene—those letters, so full of love
and confidence that had made me what I was, to
that hour in which I stood there in the presence of
such horrors, my forehead wet as with the crown
of a murderess.
I know not whence I had the strength to do so,
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but mechanically I lifted the fragile coffin in my
arms, and pressed it to my heart, and on the skeleton
I placed the letters, and the miniature, under
which it crumbled, formless, which observing, a
tear would have struggled to my face, but it was
dried by the hot fire which burned intensely in my
brain. I took up the lamp, and turning, saw a
shadow on the wall, and in a moment, looking
down upon me as from the dark, large shining
eyes, so mournful that to have seen them might
have taught the very stones to be pitiful.
-- -- p491-293
CHAPTER XXV.
[figure description] Page 292.[end figure description]
Alone once more, and desolate now forever.
Mrs. Osgood
How stiff is my vile sense,
That I stand up, and have ingonious feeling
Of my huge sorrow! better I were distract:
So should my thoughts be severed from my griefs,
And woes, by wrong imagination, lose
The knowledge of themselves.
Shakspeare.
Alack, 'tis he! why he was met even now
As mad as the vext sea.
Shakspeare.
Hitherto, I had been near Warburton, stood
beside him, studied him—unknown—as an unseen
spirit.
“Elsie!” he said.
“Nathan!”
There was a long silence. His face grew white,
and his thin lips moved, but he did not speak, and
his eyes rested on me with such melancholy and
reproachful tenderness, that remorse went burning
down into my heart, as though mine had been all
the guilt. I involuntarily and silently prayed,
Have mercy on him, oh God! whatever darkness
be reserved for me! I would have gone, but his
arms reached toward me, and I had no strength to
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[figure description] Page 293.[end figure description]
execute my will. And if I had known that I was
thus giving up my soul, in that moment I would
not, I could not have prevented his embrace. That
long and passionate kiss—but with lips so cold!—
it quickened the flame smouldering for so many
wretched years, and hereafter it will never go
out.
“This—this is no phantom of a troubled brain—
no such phantom as I have seen so often,” he whispered,
as beneath his arms he felt the throbbing of
my bosom: “look up, Elsie, dear Elsie, and tell
me we shall never, never, never part any more;”
and his low voice thrilled with a most touching
tenderness and sweetness.
“I am Elsie—yes, I am Elsie—poor, degraded,
so changed that you have not known me, all this
while! but not yours—the hands of Innocence
draw me away from you—not yours! it is too late,—
your wife!”
“You are my wife—I have no other—can have
no other. You are mine in all the fondest love—
by the sacredest obligations—before God, in spite
of men's prohibitions. No—no—I see how it shall
be—you are mine, and I married her, not knowing
you were alive—that is it! I thought you were
dead, and so I married her! And you will not—
swear that you will not leave me,—this pent agony
breaks out at last—and this curse of secrecy is
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ended—ah, Elsie!—peace comes at length—but
how late—how strange!”
My kisses brought no color to his cheek, but his
eyes, seeming to shine with an unearthly lustre,
looked steadily in mine with a beseeching tenderness,
and his lips, slightly apart, ashen and cold,
quivered with thoughts he could not shape in
words, and in his hands he clutched mine with a
fearful earnestness. Forgive me, All Merciful! if
I failed to crush at once that love which thus revived;
guilty, and ruined as it was, its broken and
faded light was dearer and brighter than all that
ever came down into the night from heaven. Regardless
of the sinful horrors of the past, of the
judgment to come, I look back on that hour of our
rëunion as on a rift of light between two seas of
darkness. Oh, love! the crimson, widening from
thy kiss, gives all their beauty to the roses and to
the clouds; without thee all is blank—desolate.
Ages of torture and of bliss were lived by us in
those few moments; we only felt that to be parted
was to die; that our souls were interblended; that
our thoughts could never be divided, nor stayed
from wandering down that pathway which is bordered
with fire. I felt, I knew, that with more
fervor than ever before he loved me then, disrobed
of the beauty and purity of my maiden years, discrowned
of the golden glory which he saw about
-- 295 --
[figure description] Page 295.[end figure description]
my temples long ago, when he had praised my
genius, and felt that his own nature in my presence
was abased. He had himself sat on the barren
cliffs of fame, drank till he had no more thirst, of
praise, and now he could stoop and lift me from
the dust, and feel that my simple love was more
than all to him.
I had become reconciled to my own nothingness
and oblivion, though I had not seen the star of that
ambition which arose in the light of his praises,
fade and go down, without regrets; it had burned
long and sweetly before me, and it was hard to see
it set, in quick and endless night. But with woman
ambition is never a disconnected and single aim;
she finds sometimes along the steeps to which it
leads a bitter compensation for dear hopes, and
sometimes with its flames she points the arrows of
revenge; it is only when her heart is closed against
all sympathies that her ambition dies; she cannot
sift clear purposes and distinct aims from the impulses
of feeling; she cannot think patiently down
to the bottom of things, and separate and analyze
and collect and build that which shall be only immortal;
in the storehouse of her imagery there is
no beauty unless associated with love; in the
council chamber of her thoughts there is no absolute
power; her ideas link themselves in one train,
beginning in love and ending in death. She may
-- 296 --
[figure description] Page 296.[end figure description]
press her way through walls of thorns or of fire;
and the shadow of the laurel may sweep through
her hair, but the triumph is for love's sake, in one
way or another. In man's nature affection is as
the ivy to the oak—in woman's it is the oak to the
ivy. Therefore was my ambition dead.
It was the strangest and the saddest of the hours
of my life. I only know that I gathered me about,
as some consolation, the repeated assurances of his
love—that my heart was broken anew with the
consciousness of his suffering—that we met, and
parted.
“I have tried,” he said, “to assemble in my
thoughts the crimes of all the world; to slip from
doom by losing myself among the thousands of
guilty souls crowding, through life, and down to
death, and up to judgment; but over all there was
one crime which made me eminent, so that every
one could point to me and hail me as the Man!
Ah, dear Elsie, forsaken, but always loved! cool for
another moment with the dew of your kisses the
fires that will at last consume me.” And after a
moment's silence, “The world is wide: let us fly
together, and in each other's embrace defy what we
cannot evade; I feel even now the madness of my
heart coming up to my brain; if you go, you leave
me to insanity and death, Elsie;” and the melancholy
and reproachful and tenderly-appealing
-- 297 --
[figure description] Page 297.[end figure description]
pathos of his eyes burned through my bosom to my
soul, as he continued, “Leave me not, dear one,
beauty of my dreams, mother of my child!”
“Murderer!” I cried with a sudden horror, “let
me go!” and escaping from his now unclasped and
powerless arms, I took up the bones of my dead,
and flew—alone—under the light of the midnight
stars—along the hushed streets of the city.
Let me not lift the curtain from the remainder
of that terrible night. I would that it were hidden
forever from my memory. Walking, I heard the
birds sing across the meadows, and presently the
sounds of moving life, but from everything in nature
I seemed struck apart. I tried to watch the
shadows as they chased each other over the hills;
to fix my thoughts on the oxen as they ploughed
along the fields; but continually disordered recollections
would sweep like crushing storms through
all my consciousness; whatever I attempted, my
mind in cloud and tumult would come still to the
awful scene I had left; and men and women seemed
to know a curse was on me, and to avoid me; and
when the night came down again, wearied, and
utterly desolate, bearing still that coffin pressed to
my bosom, I saw in the darkness his glittering
eyes looking into mine the agonies which he had
suffered through so many years. Heaven, at length,
-- 298 --
[figure description] Page 298.[end figure description]
I felt, had withdrawn its high support, and I was
drifting insensibly, hopelessly, toward the pit.
Agony of agonies, to live thus, to front the
gloom and the torture, and not rush blindly to the
grave, where no reproachful or distrustful eyes
might see me any more, and no voice call me in
the morning to take up the burden of life.
They are not the brave who die under the heavy
pressure of pains and sorrows; there is courage
enough in almost every one to give himself the
sharp thrusts that should win freedom. At the
sound of a trumpet hills are darkened with armies
marching to death as to a triumph with flowers;
uplifted by the sublimity of his sacrifice, one may
become a martyr and sing of victory in a robe of
flame: behind, the reverence of ages—before, the
eternal shadowing of the wings of love; but the
enthusiasm born of the loftiest passion is transient
as the occasions of its necessity.
To live a martyr, with no supporting phrenzy;
to see days rise and set, summers bloom and fade,
the vigorous year break his fetters of ice, and sleep
again under a shroud of snow; and through all
changes fold the hands upon an empty, aching
breast, knowing there is no peace this side the
grave, and fearing to look beyond; no voice in all
the world to say, I love you, love you more and
more for the hate or scorn of others!—to live thus,
-- 299 --
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with an unfaltering will—ah! it is very hard. I
almost wished as I crouched out of sight for rest
by the wayside, that some sudden blow would
crush me out of being. I looked at the waters,
and thought how softly they would close above me
and be still. But Gabriel, I knew, could find me
in the sea!
The evening of the second day I sat down by
the roadside, under a tree, exhausted, wasted with
sleeplessness and hunger. The deepest crimson of
sunset was over the western woods; the gnats
hummed faintly, and the ants worked busily in a
little hill by my side, while a flock of sheep came
nibbling the short grass almost up to my feet.
Something of the tranquil influence of the time
began to steal over me, when I observed, a short
distance away, not far removed from the roadside,
a dark and naked building surrounded by a wall,
and looking closer, I perceived that the windows
were grated, and I was thinking of the blessed life
the prisoner might lead, thus shut from the cruel
gazing of the world, if there were no haunting conscience
still to trouble him, when a cloud of dust
rose from the track of an approaching carriage,
shaped like the dens for wild beasts that are drawn
through the country on wheels; and looking intently
at it as it passed, I saw a white face pressed
against the bars, and eyes glaring like fire ——
-- 300 --
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it was Mr. Warburton, on his way to the madhouse!
You understand now why I turn from the fountain,
and the white tent of innocence, to wander
thirsty and alone in the desert. God bless you.
Farewell.
Thus ended the MS. which Arnold held in his
hand as he entered the church, that winter morning,
to receive their greetings who had assembled for
his bridal. The strange woman was never seen in
the village again, but her neighbors still speak
sometimes, on occasions of suffering and sorrow, of
the good deeds of Hagar, the Penitent.
FINIS.
Back matter
-- --
JUST PUBLISHED, LYRA, AND OTHER POEMS.
[figure description] Advertisement.[end figure description]
By ALICE CAREY,
AUTHOR OF “CLOVERNOOK,” AND ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF “POEMS BY
ALICE AND PœBE CAREY.”
In one volume, 12mo, cloth, price 75 ets.
“Whether poetry be defined as the rhythmical creation of beauty, as passion or eloquence
in harmonious numbers, or as thought and feeling manifested by processes of
the imagination, Alice Carey is incontestably and incomparably the first living American
poetess—fresh, indigenous, national—rich beyond precedent in suitable and sensuous imagery—
of the finest and highest qualities of feeling, and such powers of creation as the
Almighty has seen fit to bestow but rarely or in far-separated countries.... The forms
of her imagination are clothed with spoils she herself has brought' from the fields.—The
feelings displayed in her poems are in an eminent degree fruits of her own experience.
In all literature there is nothing in every respect more certainly genuine..... It may easily
be inferred from many of her compositions who are her favorite poets—especially
that Chaucer and Milton are lovingly studied by her; but it is impossible to deny that
she has original and extraordinary powers, or that the elements of genius are poured
forth in her verses with an astonishing richness and prodigality”
—Boston Transcript.
“Some of these poems are truly great. Miss Carey is among the best of living poets,
There are startling intimations of power, low, vague murmurings of a magic voice,
everywhere to be detected, which leave the impression of genius undeveloped, and yet
to shine forth. A deep, mellow feeling, the chords of which are susceptible of heavenly
music, a power and sweetness of versification, and a familiar touch of those transcendent
truths to which genius alone has access, are qualities of the true poet. We feel
the spell the moment we enter the sphere of her thought.”
—New York Evangelist.
“Miss Carey possesses a lively and delicate fancy; her mind teems with rural images,
which have been suggested by a genuine passion for nature; she avails herself
with spontaneous facility, of the everyday sights and sounds of the country for the
purposes of poetry; throwing the charm of a graceful ideality over the homeliest details
of household life; her verse flows in a vein of pure and tender sentiment; while
she possesses a sufficient variety and strength of expression to do justice to her highest
inspirations. In sweetness, in pathos, in tenderness, in the simple melody of versification,
she will compare favorably with Mrs. Browning, or with any other living poetess.
She is always calm, reverent, and subdued.”
—New York Daily Tribune.
“These are the sweetest and most beautiful poems we have ever read. When once
taken up the volume must be finished. There is something so charmingly rich, so
delightfully enchanting, yet so simple and natural in its contents, that they take right
hold of the mind and heart and leave an impression for ever. Alice Carey is no common
author. Whatever she writes, in prose or poetry, contains so many strong points of
originality, of real genius, of well-cultivated and fertile imagination, that it may be justly
said she writes for immortality. She is a jewel in the casket of American literature, that
dims the lustre of the most precious in that of any other nation.”
—Syracuse Daily Journal.
“The author holds an honorable place in the front rank of our poets, and both here
and in Europe is esteemed one of the sweetest and most pathetic and tender living
writers. In many of these poems we find instances of the most exquisite versification,
combined frequently with descriptive powers that successfully rival Bryant in his own
realm, and distance every other writer among us. Indeed, there is scarcely a poem in
this collection that does not sparkle with pure gems.”
—Albany State Register.
“The genuine inspiration of poetic feeling,... replete with tenderness and beauty,
earnestness and truthful simplicity, and all the attributes of a powerful imagination and
vivid fancy. We know of no superior to Miss Carey among the female authors of this
country.”
—New York Journal of Commerce.
“To say that Alice Carey is `what Milton would have been, had Milton been a woman,'
we can not regard as extravagant praise. Her poems have little in common
with the mass of verses by her sex. She has the strength of the old masters of song,
with all the sweetness of a woman. She has a wealth of imagery and a felicity in the
description of nature rarely met.”
—Portland Transcript.
“Alice Carey's book is full of beautiful thoughts; there is draught after draught of
pure pleasure for the lover of sweet, tender fancies, and imagery which captivates,
while it enforces truth. It is difficult to read Miss Carey's poems without being drawn
toward her, and thinking that those must be happy who are loved by her; and this is
one reason why we call her poems feminine.”
—New York Courier and Inquirer.
“ `Lyra and other Poems,' just published by Redfield, attracts everywhere, a remarkable
degree of attention. A dozen of the leading journals, and many eminent critics,
have pronounced the authoress the greatest poetess living.”
—New York Mirror.
-- --
Clovernook; OR, RECOLLECTIONS OF OUR HOME IN THE WEST.
[figure description] Advertisement.[end figure description]
By ALICE CAREY.
Illustrated by Darley. One vol., 12mo.
“We do not hesitate to predict for these sketches a wide popularity.
They bear the true stamp of genius—simple, natural, truthful—and evince
a keen sense of the humor and pathos, of the comedy and tragedy, of life
in the country. No one who has ever read it can forget the sad and beautiful
story of Mary Wildermings; its weird fancy, tenderness, and beauty;
its touching description of the emotions of a sick and suffering human spirit,
and its exquisite rural pictures. The moral tone of Alice Carey's writings
is unobjectionable always.”
—J. G. Whittier.
“Miss Carey's experience has been in the midst of rural occupations, in
the interior of Ohio. Every word here reflects this experience, in the rarest
shapes, and most exquisite hues. The opinion now appears to be commonly
entertained, that Alice Carey is decidedly the first of our female authors;
an opinion which Fitz-Greene Halleck, J. G. Whittier, Dr. Griswold,
Wm. D. Gallagher, Bayard Taylor, with many others, have on various
occasions endorsed.”
—Illustrated News.
“If we look at the entire catalogue of female writers of prose fiction in
this country, we shall find no one who approaches Alice Carey in the best
characteristics of genius. Like all genuine authors she has peculiarities;
her hand is detected as unerringly as that of Poe or Hawthorne; as much
as they she is apart from others and above others; and her sketches of
country life must, we think, be admitted to be superior even to those delightful
tales of Miss Mitford, which, in a similar line, are generally acknowledged
to be equal to anything done in England.”
—International Magazine.
“Alice Carey has perhaps the strongest imagination among the women
of this country. Her writings will live longer than those of any other
woman among us.”
—American Whig Review.
“Alice Carey has a fine, rich, and purely original genius. Her country
stories are almost unequaled.”
—Knickerbocker Magazine.
“Miss Carey's sketches are remarkably fresh, and exquisite in delicacy,
humor, and pathos. She is booked for immortality.”
—Home Journal.
“The Times speaks of Alice Carey as standing at the head of the living
female writers of America. We go even farther in our favorable judgment,
and express the opinion that among those living or dead, she has had no
equal in this country; and we know of few in the annals of English literature
who have exhibited superior gifts of real poetic genius.”
—The (Portland, Me.) Electic.
-- --
JUST PUBLISHED, THE POETICAL WORKS OF FITZ-GREEN HALLECK.
[figure description] Advertisement.[end figure description]
NEW AND ONLY COMPLETE EDITION.
One Volume, 12mo., Cloth—Price $1.
“Halleck's sparkling qualities were long ago developed, but no successor has arisen to
dispute his supremacy in his peculiar line. The delicacy of touch, the music of versification,
the finish and point of satire, and the magic of genius, are still as visible as
when they first arrested the public admiration, and made Halleck one of the foremost
of the poets of the country.”
—New York Evangelist.
“It is related in the Rev. James Freeman Clarke's account of his travels, lately published,
that at one of Rogers's breakfasts, the aged poet recited Halleck's lines on the
death of his friend Drake, and added: `No man living can write such poetry now.' ”
—New York Evening Post.
“Halleck is one of the brightest stars in our American literature, and his name is
like a household word wherever the English language is spoken.”
—Albany Express.
“There are few poems to be found, in any language, that surpass, in beauty of
thought and structure some of these.”
—Boston Commonwealth.
“Mr. Halleck never appeared in a better dress, and few poets ever deserved a better
one.”
—Christian Intelligencer.
“To the numerous admirers of Mr. Halleck, this will be a welcome book; for it is a
characteristic desire in human nature to have the productions of our favorite authors
in an elegant and substantial form.”
—Christian Freeman.
“Halleck's poetry has always been distinguished for easy versification, graphic
description, exquisite touches of the pathetic and the humorous (for these two powers
are always found combined), and for a keen sense of the ridiculous. On the same
page the reader will often find the tender and the droll so strangely intermixed, that
the tear and the smile will be in each other's embraces”
—Hartford Courant.
“The author of Marco Bozzaris is already classical in American literature; there
are no sweeter, quainter, or grander lines in our language, than some that he has produced.”
—Detroit Free Press.
“The poetry of Halleck should not be confined to any one class of purchasers. It is
too genuine and national not to find a response in every true and simple heart.”
—
Christian Advocate.
“Halleck's fame is world-wide, and precludes our criticism of his poetry.”
—Farmer
and Mechanic.
“The contents of this volume will bear a reperusal far better than much that is published
under the name of poetry, and making considerable pretension, will sustain a
first reading. It is only true genius that gives to its work a perpetual freshness, insomuch
that the more frequently we return to it the deeper is our admiration. The
publisher has issued the volume in a style of most unexceptionable elegance.”
—Troy
Northern Budget.
“Without making unbecoming comparisons, we may avow our conviction, that
there are strains of poetry in this book which the age has not surpassed. There are
poems here in which melody and power, elegance of expression, and fullness of meaning,
are so exquisitely blended, that we know not where to look for instances of completer
triumph over the difficulties of poetical composition.”
—Home Journal.
“We are glad to see his poetical pieces again collected. Though many of them are
as familiar to us as a household word—as his `Marco Bozzaris'—others, as his `Fanny,'
have been long out of print. But in this volume we have them all, as selected by himself,
and got up in a style answering to their worth.”
—Hartford Herald.
“His poems are chaste, graceful, witty, and, as in the case of his `Marco Bozzaris,'
stirring. He ranks among the first of American poets, and has written some pieces
which will live as long as expressions of true pathos and friendship shall wake a
response in the heart.”
—Central Christian Herald.
-- --
THE CURIOSITIES OF ETYMOLOGY. JUST PUBLISHED, THE STUDY OF WORDS.
[figure description] Advertisement.[end figure description]
FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED.
BY RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, B.D.,
One Volume, 12mo., Cloth—Price 75 cts.
“Trench, like Whately, has the happy faculty of simplifying and making plain, things
in themselves complex and obscure. Here he weighs words, as it were, in a balance,
and give us their true philosophy.”
—Christian Intelligencer.
“He discourses in a truly learned and lively manner upon the original unity of language,
and the origin, derivation and history of words, with their morality and separate
spheres of meaning.”
—Evening Post.
“All thoughtful people, who wish to try to say what they think, and think what they
say, will derive much advantage from the study of this volume.”
—Student.
“Here is a book that is worth its weight in gold to the man capable of appreciating
the value of the study of words.”
—Musical World.
“This volume will be found exceedingly useful, not alone for what it teaches, but as
a stimulus to thought and study, and opening wide a suggestive field for pleasing and
beneficial investigation.”
—Troy Daily Times.
“To those who have paid little attention to the philosophy of language, it will furnish
much novel and interesting information, and few are so well posted up in wordknowledge
as to read it without instruction.”
—Buffalo Courier.
“The plan of the work is original, ingenious, and simple, and can not fail to interest
and profit all those who delight in the philosophy of words or the mechanism of
speech.”
—Farmer and Mechanic.
“This is a noble tribute to the divine faculty of speech. Popularly written, for use
as lectures, exact in its learning, and poetic in its vision, it is a book at once for the
scholar and the general reader.”
—New York Evangelist.
“It is an admirable work, full of instruction in the matter of language, rich in suggestions
on every subject of thought and expression. It is just the thing to be put into
the hands of young people finishing their school education, and desirous of understanding
that mysterious gift of language which they have been learning to use.”
—
Christian Inquirer.
“It is written in a singularly clear, strong, Saxon style, showing the writer to be a
master in the use of the great instrument of human progress, of which he treats.”
—
Portland Transcript.
“The biography of a single word furnishes as interesting a chapter as the history of
any ordinary hero you may select from Plutarch or Headley. Mr. Trench might very
well entitle his book, `The Curiosities of Etymology.' ”
—Harpers' Magazine.
“This little volume is full of valuable suggestions. The adept in verbal distinctions
will find in it no little amusement as well as instruction.”
—Syracuse Religious Recorder.
“It is one of the most striking and original publications of the day, with nothing of
hardness, dullness, or dryness about it, but altogether fresh, lively, and entertaining.”
—Boston Evening Traveller.
“The book is full of curious analysis and shrewd philosophical exposition.”
—
Yankee Blade.
“The student, the literary man, those of every profession, who wish to cultivate a
pure style of composition or public speaking, will find great assistance in this volume.”
—Christian Ambassador.
“The tracing of the origin and history of many of the words of our language is
most amusingly done, and will well repay a perusal.”
—Hartford Couraut.
“In its construction, the author has mingled so much fine thought and lively writing
with his learning, that the book is anything but dull.”
—Christian Freeman.
“The use and abuse of words ought to be understood, and can be by a careful reading
of this work.”
—Detroit Free Press.
“The volume is one of more than ordinary interest and value, and will afford both
entertainment and profit to scholars.”
—Central Ch. Herald.
-- --
MISS CHESEBRO'S NEW WORK. DREAM-LAND BY DAYLIGHT; A PANORAMA OF ROMANCE.
[figure description] Advertisement.[end figure description]
By CAROLINE CHESEBRO.
Illustrated by Darley. One vol., 12mo.
“These simple and beautiful stories are all highly endued with an exquisite
perception of natural beauty, with which is combined an appreciative sense of its
relation to the highest moral emotions.”
—Albany State Register.
“There is a fine vein of pure and holy thought pervading every tale in the volume;
and every lover of the beautiful and true will feel while perusing it that
he is conversing with a kindred spirit.”
—Albany Evening Atlas.
“The journey through Dream-Land will be found full of pleasure; and when
one returns from it, he will have his mind filled with good suggestions for practical
life.”
—Rochester Democrat.
“The anticipations we have had of this promised book are more than realized.
It is a collection of beautiful sketches, in which the cultivated imagination of the
authoress has interwoven the visions of Dream-Land with the realities of life.”
Ontario Messenger.
“The dedication, in its sweet and touching purity of emotion, is itself an earnest
of the many `blessed household voices' that come up from the heart's clear
depth, throughout the book.”
—Ontario Repository.
“Gladly do we greet this floweret in the field of our literature, for it is fragrant
with sweets and bright with hues that mark it to be of Heaven's own planting.”
Courier and Enquirer.
“There is a depth of sentiment and feeling not ordinarily met with, and some
of the noblest faculties and affections of man's nature are depicted and illustrated
by the skilful pen of the authoress.”
—Churchman.
“This collection of stories fully sustains her previous reputation, and also gives
a brilliant promise of future eminence in this department of literature.”
Tribune.
“We find in this volume unmistakeable evidences of originality of mind, an
almost superfluous depth of reflection for the department of composition to which
it is devoted, a rare facility in seizing the multiform aspects of nature, and a still
rarer power of giving them the form and hue of imagination, without destroying
their identity.”
—Harper's Magazine.
“In all the productions of Miss Chesebro's pen is evident a delicate perception
of the relation of natural beauty to the moral emotions, and a deep love of the true
and the beautiful in art and nature.”
—Day-Book.
-- --
JUST PUBLISHED, IS A A PILGRIMAGE.
[figure description] Advertisement.[end figure description]
BY CAROLINE CHESEBRO'.
In one volume, 12mo., cloth, price $1.00. Second Edition.
“Miss Chesebro' has conquered a high place in a difficult sphere of literary creation.
Without indulging in superfluous comparisons, we tell her that she need not envy the
position of any female writer in this country. Her vigorous originality is a pledge of
ability for future triumphs. But if she shall leave no other memorial of her gifted
nature, it is no mean fame to have been the writer of `Isa's Pilgrimage.' ”
—New York
Daily Tribune.
“The character of Isa is unique and extraordinary, requiring a powerful imagination
to conceive, and a master-pen to portray. The style is vigorous as well as luxuriant
argumentative as well as imaginative, and carries a wild and weird spell to the
heart of the reader.”
—Home Journal.
“To many the book will be merely a powerfully-wrought fiction, which they will
read at a grasp, and fling aside when they have gulped the denouement, as they do the
scores of novels which are constantly pouring from the press; but to all who think, as
well as read, it will prove something more and better.”
—Albany Daily State Register.
“The author has drawn a melancholy picture illustrative of the fallibility of human
judgment, and her tale, rightly understood, is a moral lesson of no inconsiderable
force.”
—Boston Journal.
“The writer of this volume, we believe, had high intentions of doing a great and
good thing: it has marks of genius, truth, and feeling in it, and much of it is greatly
to our mind.”
—New York Observer.
“This is a work of more ambitious aim than that of the generality of brief works of
fiction. The character of the heroine is powerfully sustained, the subordinate characters
well developed, and the work elevated and healthy in tone.”
—Literary World.
“She evidently possesses great facility with the pen, and bids fair to make rapid
progress in the path of letters. From a perusal of this new work, we have no hesitation
in saying that she possesses a comprehensive, inventive, and brilliant mind, capable
of conceiving strange scenes and positions, and reasoning upon them in sparkling
language.”
—True Democrat.
“The Pilgrimage is fraught throughout with scenes of thrilling interest—romantic,
yet possessing a naturalness that seems to stamp them as real; the style is flowing and
easy, chaste and beautiful.”
—Troy Daily Times.
“Miss Chesebro' is evidently a thinker—she skims not the mere surface of life, but
plunges boldly into the hidden mysteries of the spirit, by which she is warranted in
making her startling revelations of human passion.”
—Christian Freeman.
“There comes out in this book the evidence of an inventive mind, a cultivated taste,
an exquisite sensibility, and a deep knowledge of human nature.”
—Albany Argus.
“It is a charming book, pervaded by a vein of pure ennobling thought.”
—Troy Whig.
“There is no one who will doubt that this is a courageous and able work, displaying
genius and depth of feeling, and striking at a high and noble aim.”
—N. Y. Evangelist.
“There is a fine vein of tenderness running through the story, which is peculiarly
one of passion and sentiment.”
—Arthur's Home Gazette.
“We have here a picture of the pilgrimage of life, made by one who has climbed the
hill sufficiently high to make a retrospect of the past, give much of actual experience,
and dart a glance along the vista lying before. Whoever follows her attentively
through this volume will be the better fitted for the journey which all on earth must
travel.”
—Christian Intelligencer.
“This is the production of a writer of considerable fancy, and good descriptive
powers.”
—Richmond Religious Herald.
“She holds a ready pen, and the pages evince a woman of deep thought.”
—Boston Evening Gazette.
-- --
NEW AND FASCINAT NG WORK. MEN AND WOMEN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY,
[figure description] Advertisement.[end figure description]
BY ARSENE HOUSSAYE.
With beautifully-engraved Portraits of Louis XV. and Mad. de Pompadour.
In Two Vols. 12mo., on extra superfine paper, 450 pages each,
Cloth, Price $2.50.
Contents.—Dufresny, Fontenelle, Marivaux, Piron, The Abbé Prévost, Gentil-Bernard,
Florian, Boufliers, Diderot, Grétry, Rivarol, Louis XV., Greuze, Boucher, The Van
loos, Lantara, Watteau, La Motte, Dèhle, Abbé Trublet, Buffon, Dorat, Cardinal de
Bernis, Crébillon the Gay, Marie Antoinette, Madame de Pompadour, Vadé, Mdlle. Camargo,
Mdlle. Clairon, Madame de la Popelinière, Sophie Arnould, Crébillon the
Tragic, Mdlle, Guimard, Three Pages from the Life of Dancourt, A Promenade in the
Palais-Royal, the Chevalier' de la Clos.
“A more fascinating book than this rarely issues from the teeming press. Fascinating
in its subject; fascinating in its style; fascinating in its power to lead the reader
into castle-building of the most gorgeous and bewitching description. The men and
women of the last century, whose characteristics and habits of life the author makes his
theme, are French men and women. The Court of Louis XV, is the ground—not classic
ground, not romantic, far from hallowed, and yet enchanted—upon which he treads.
His step befits the place. He handles his subject daintily, elegantly, and with an apparent
consciousness of the bewildering effect he is producing.”
—Courier and Enquirer.
“A Book of books.—Two deliciously spicy volumes, that are a perfect bonne bouche
for an epicure in reading, have just been published by Redfield. They are called `The
Men and Women of the Eighteenth Century,' translated from the French of Arséne
Houssaye. Anecdotes, gossip, history, biography, are admirably mingled, and, in the
clear, bright, sunny English they have been transplanted into, they form as agreeable a
book as the season can show.”
—Home Journal.
“A combination of the light graces of literature with a profound philosophic insight,
such as is rarely found but among French writers, is essential in an historian of the eighteenth
century. We find such a combination in the brilliant work, the `Men and Women
of the Eighteenth Century,' by Arséne Houssaye.”
—Literary World.
“In the volumes of Arséne Houssaye before us, these gay but unsubstantial shadows
take flesh and blood, and become the Men and Women—the living realities of the Eighteenth
Century.”
—International Magazine.
“These two beautiful volumes are worthy the perusal of every intelligent reader. Mr.
Houssaye has opened a new path in the common every-day field of literature, his subjects
are of the deepest interest and the handles them with an accomplished pen.”
—
Buffalo Daily Ledger.
“They indeed furnish a most impressive picture of France, during that century, as
seen in her princes, philosophers, poets, painters, actors, dancers, &c.”
—Boston Traveler.
“It presents by far the best portrait of the prominent figures of the age to which it refers,
that we know of in the English language.”
—Evening Post.
“In these volumes are contained the sketches of the beaux esprits of the reign of Louis
XV.—a period notorious for the profligacy of the court, as it was remarkable for its influential
literary coteries, which gathered the wit and talent of the age.”
—Boston Journal.
“They reveal the familiar life of the time, disclose the inmost traits of thought and the
hidden motives of action, and furnish in all respects a glass in which we may view the
past age.”
—Brooklyn Evening Star.
“While they are true to the history of the times, and the men and women of the times,
they are as entertaining as the stories of the Arabian nights.”
—Bunker Hill Aurora.
“The author has laid his hand upon the dead heart of that age, reanimated the illustrious
dead who adorn it, and brought out before us of the present century—for inspection,
admiration, and criticism—its poets, philosophers, statemen, authors, artists, and
wits.”
—Albany State Register.
“We think, indeed, that we have never met with anything that carries us so entirely
into the interior life of French society in that age.”
—Albany Express.
-- --
JUST PUBLISHED, LILLIAN AND OTHER POEMS.
[figure description] Advertisement.[end figure description]
BY WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED.
Now first Collected. One Volume 12mo. Price One Dollar.
“The author was careless of his fame, though he sent forth nothing from his pen without
the stamp of his exquisite taste and elaborate finish. The poems in this collection
are just those to read aloud in the drawing-room, when sentiment must be tempered
with sprightliness, and pathos with wit. It is a charming book.”
—Boston Transcript.
“A timely publication is this volume. A more charming companion (in the shape of
a book) can scarcely be found for the summer holydays.”
—New York Tribune.
“They are amusing sketches, gay and sprightly in their character, exhibiting great
facility of composition, and considerable powers of satire.”
—Hartford Courant.
“His poems are generally very sprightly and pungent. The humor and satire so far
as they pervade his lines are chastened by good taste and kindly feeling. The book will
doubtless command much attention.”
—N. H. Pattadium.
“As a writer of vers de societe he is pronounced to be without an equal among English
authors.”
—Syracuse Daily Journal.
“The author of this volume was one of the most fluent and versatile English poets that
have shone in the literary world within the last century. His versification is astonishingly
easy and airy, and his imagery not less wonderfully graceful and aerial.”
—Albany
State Register.
“Many of his poems are of a high order—indeed, unsurpassed in their peculiar style
and classification.”
—Lovell Courier.
“The versification is graceful, fluent, and eloquent. Praed resembles Halleck at times
in a humorous blending of the romantic and practical; and it is ever his habit to clothe
grave thoughts in gay careless language, like one who presents truth in the garb of jest.”
—Journal of Commerce.
“There is a brilliant play of fancy in `Lillian,' and a moving tenderness in `Josephine,'
for which it would be hard to find equals. We welcome, therefore, this first collected
edition of his works.”
—Albany Express.
“The volume is one of the most interesting of the recently published collections of
poems, and will find many admirers. Its beautiful appearance is well deserved by the
contents.”
—Newark Advertiser.
“Almost every line shows that Mr. Praed was a master in the use of our language, and
was gifted in a high degree with good sense and poetical conceptions. He is never lost
in sentiment so far as to forget how his subject would be received by common sense.
This sometimes gives his verses the appearance of wanting earnestness, indeed makes
them sound almost flippant. But it gives them, on the other hand, a character of universality
that will please more readers than the most pleasing abandonment to sentiment.
We can freely recommend it to a place in every library.”
—Commonwealth.
“How poems like these could have so long escaped the notice of the leading English
booksellers, is somewhat curious, for they certainly deserve a place in the best libraries,
and no poet's library can be complete without them.”
—Albion.
“The poems are full of fancy and of refinement; with the man of sentiment continually
peeping out of the man of the world; and with a strange mixture of natural beauty,
with the most delicate art. Praed might, with more ambition, have been a great poet.
He was contented with being a popular one; writing only for occasion, and more generally
from an impulse of fun than one of feeling.”
—Evening Bulletin.
“His literary reputation was truly an enviable one, and we are glad that the public
are afforded the possession and reading of some of his very superior productions.”
—
Syracuse Star.
“Though not a voluminous, he certainly was a true poet, as every tolerable judge
will find on a persual of but a few pages of this work. Many admirers of the poet will
hail this publication with pleasure.”
—Christian Intelligencer.
“Lillian, with the accompanying productions of its author, forms therefore a most delightful
volume, and the lovers of the poetic in thought, in feeling and expression, will
feel under obligations to the compiler and the publisher for having so much contributed
to their intellectual enjoyment.”
—Troy Budget.
“Praed was an agreeable companion, an excellent man, a dashing, off-hand writer, and
a pleasant rhymer.”
—Musical World.
-- --
LEGENDS OF LOVE AND CHIVALRY.
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THE CAVALIERS OF ENGLAND;
OR
THE TIMES OF THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1642 AND 1688.
BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT.
One Volume, 12mo., Cloth—Price $1.25.
“They are graphic stories, and in the highest degree attractive to the imagination as
well as instructive, and can not fail to be popular.”
—Commercial.
“In all that Mr. Herbert has written, there is greater narrative power and felicity of
description than in the works of many whose books, from special excellence of style or
some happy selection of subject, have commanded a wider popularity.”
—Courier and
Enquirer.
“They bring the past days of old England vividly before the reader, and impress upon
the mind with indelible force, the living images of the puritans as well as the cavaliers,
whose earnest character and noble deeds lend such a lively interest to the legends of
the times in which they lived and fought, loved and hated, prayed and revelled.”
—Newark
Daily.
“These tales are written in the popular author's best style, and give us a vivid and
thrilling idea of the customs and influences of the chivalrous age.”
—Christian Freeman.
“To those who love a retrospect of those ages when our ancestors warred for civil
and religious freedom, this must be a delightful volume. Mr. Herbert has here given us
a series of graphic delineations of those times, but the whole space covered by him may
be said to extend from the crusades to the renowned era of Louis XIV. He has never
before carried his readers through more interesting ground than this.”
—Christian Intelligencer.
“His narrative is always full of great interest; his descriptive powers are of an un-common
order; the romance of history loses nothing at his hands; he paints with the
power, vigor, and effect of a master.”
—The Times.
“This volume is destined to place the author yet higher in the temple of fame, and
render him yet dearer to the reading public of America and Europe.”
—Syracuse Daily
Journal.
“Herbert's novels have always been noted for their interesting and exciting incidents
and well-managed plots.”
—Hartford Courant.
“This work is written in the author's easy and graceful style, and is replete with interest.”
—Syracuse Star.
“Mr. Herbert has collected in this volume a number of touching incidents and traditions
connected with the great revolution, which can not but prove entertaining to the
reading public.”
—Truth Teller.
“The stories are full of love, and hate, and jealousy, and other things, much like G.
P. R. James's “Tales of the Passions,” though with more elaborate plot, written with
spirit, and likely to be welcomed by many readers.”
—Intelligencer.
“The author of this work is a successful writer of historical novels. He is skilful in
giving a life-like representation of ancient usages and manners, which have passed away
except so far as they remain in tradition and written records. This volume is another
evidence of the growing powers of Mr. Herbert. No man in this country improves in a
faster ratio than he, and none is distinguished by a broader or more unremitting industry.
His contributions to our literature of late years have been varied, brilliant, and profound.”
—Bangor Mercury.
“These tales are intended to illustrate the habits of society, life, and manners, the
usages and feelings, both military and domestic, of various countries, at different epochs,
from the commencement of chivalry in the crusades, to its conclusion in the epoch of
Louis XIV. of France.”
—State Register.
“Mr. Herbert's mind is fully imbued with the tone of the period, and acquainted intimately
with the historical material he so skilfully blends with the productions of his
own fine invention and disciplined imagination.”
—Temperance Offering.
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A NEW AND POPULAR VOLUME.
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TALES AND TRADITIONS
OF
HUNGARY.
BY THERESA PULSZKY.
With a Portrait of the Author.
In One Volume, Cloth—Price, $1.25.
The above contains, in addition to the English publication, a new Preface, and
Tales, now first printed from the manuscript of the Author, who has a direct interest in
the publication.
CONTENTS.
1. The Baron's Daughter.
2. The Castle of Zipsen.
3. Yanoshik, the Robber.
4. The Free Shot.
5. The Golden Cross of Korosfo.
6. The Guardians.
7. The Love of the Angels.
8. The Maid and the Genii.
9. Ashmodai, the Lame Demon.
10. The Nun of Rauchenbach.
11. The Cloister of Manastir.
12. Pan Twardowsky.
13. The Poor Tartar.
14. The Maidens' Castle.
15. The Hair of the Orphan Girl.
16. The Rocks of Lipnik.
17. Jack, the Horse-Dealer.
18. Klingsohr of Hungary.
19. Yanosh, the Hero.
20. The Hungarian Outlaws.
21. Tradition of the Hungarian Race.
“Madame Pulszky is familiar with these traditions of the people, and has perfectly
succeeded in getting them into an attractive form, with some purely original tales from
her own pen”
—Worcester National ægis.
“The legends in this work are very beautiful, full of interest, varied and sparkling in
style.”
—Boston Olive Branch.
“Strikingly illustrative of the manners and customs that have prevailed in different
periods of her history, it is written with graceful yet dignified freedom.”
—Albany Arg.
“The stories are of a wild and fanciful character, which will cause them to be read
with interest by all, while they really throw light upon the early history and manners
of Hungary.”
—Albany Express.
“Remarkably well written, and illustrative, in an eminent degree, of the different
epochs in the history of Hungary, and present distinct phases of Hungarian life, painted
in glowing colors, and interwoven with the vigorous play of a lively imagination.”
—Albany Daily Register.
“They are tersely and descriptively written, and give the reader a better insight into
the ancient and peculiar characteristics of this people than can be gathered from any
mere history.”
—Bunker Hill Aurora.
“Some of them are exceedingly beautiful, and indicate the character and habits of
thought of the people better than anything we have seen.”
—N. O. Journal and Courier.
“The author enters into the legendary life of her own country, and transfuses them
into a language that she has mastered so as to write it with uncommon purity and
correctness.”
—Independent.
“This work claims more attention than is ordinarily given to books of its class.
Such is the fluency and correctness—nay, even the nicety and felicity of style—with
which Madame Pulszky writes the English language, that merely in this respect the
tales here collected form a curious study.”
—London Examiner.
“Freshness of subject is invaluable in literature—Hungary is still fresh ground. It
has been trodden, but it is not yet a common highway. The tales and legends are very
various, from the mere traditional anecdote to the regular legend, and they have the
sort of interest which all national traditions excite.”
—London Leader.
“Madam Pulszky has a special budget of her own. The legend of `The Castle of
Zipsen is told with racy humor. Whimsically absurd are the matrimonial difficulties
of Pan and Panna Twardowsky, as here related: while the fate of Vendelin Drugeth
gives that fine old legend a more orthodox and edifying close than the original version
possesses. Most interesting of all are `The Hungarian Outlaws.' ”
—London Athenæum.
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JUST PUBLISHED, THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT.
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MEMOIRS OF
DISTINGUISHED SCOTTISH FEMALE CHARACTERS,
Embracing the Period of the Covenant and the Persecution.
By the REV. JAMES ANDERSON.
In One Volume, 12mo., cloth, Price $1.25—extra gilt, gilt edges $1.75.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
“It is written with great spirit and a hearty sympathy, and abounds in incidents of
more than a romantic interest, while the type of piety it discloses is the noblest and
most elevated.”
—N. Y. Evangelist.
“Seldom has there been a more interesting volume than this in our hands. Stories
of Scottish suffering for the faith have always thrilled us; but here we have the memoirs
of distinguished female characters, embracing the period of the Covenant and the
Persecution, with such tales of heroism, devotion, trials, triumphs, or deaths, as rouse
subdue, and deeply move the heart of the reader.”
—N. Y. Observer.
“Many a mother in Israel will have her faith strengthened, and her zeal awakened,
and her courage animated afresh by the example set before her—by the cloud of wit
nesses of her own sex, who esteemed everything—wealth, honor, pleasure, case, and
life itself—vastly inferior to the grace of the Gospel; and who freely offered themselves
and all that they had, to the sovereign disposal of Him who had called them with an
holy calling; according to his purpose and grace.”
—Richmond, (Va.) Watchman and
Observer.
“The Scotch will read this book because it commemorates their noble countrywomen;
Presbyterians will like it, because it records the endurance and triumphs of their
faith; and the ladies will read it, as an interesting memorial of what their sex has done
in trying times for truth and liberty.”
—Cincinnati Central Christian Herald.
“It is a record which, while it confers honor on the sex, will elevate the heart, and
strengthen it to the better performance of every duty.”
—Richmond (Va.) Religious
Herald.
“The Descendants of these saints are among us, in this Pilgrim land, and we earnestly
commend this book to their perusal.”
—Plymoth Old Colony Memorial.
“There are pictures of endurance, trust, and devotion, in this volume of illustrious
suffering, which are worthy of a royal setting.”
—Ontario Repository.
“They abound with incidents and anecdotes illustrative of the times and we need
scarcely say are deeply interesting to all who take an interest in the progress of christianity.”
—Boston Journal.
“Mr. Anderson has treated his subject ably, and has set forth in strong light the en
during faith and courage of the wives and daughters of the Covenanters.”
—N. Y. Albion.
“It is a book of great attractiveness, having not only the freshness of novelty but
every element of historical interest.
—Courier and Enquirer.
“The author is a clergyman of the Scottish kirk, and has executed his undertaking
with that spirit and fulness which might be expected from one enjoying the best advantages
for the discovery of obscure points in the history of Scotland, and the warmes'
sympathy with the heroines of his own creed.”
—Commercial Advertiser.
-- --
REDFIELD'S NEW AND POPULAR PUBLICATIONS.
[figure description] Advertisement.[end figure description]
WORKS IN PREPARATION.
MEN OF THE TIME IN 1852;
Or, Sketches of Living Notables: Authors, Architects, Artists,
Composers, Demagogues, Divines, Dramatists, Engineers, Journalists,
Monarchs, Ministers, Novelists, Philanthropists, Politicians,
Poets, Preachers, Savans, Statesmen, Travellers, Voyagers,
Warriors, etc. One vol., 12mo.
PHILOSOPHERS AND ACTRESSES.
By Arsene Houssaye. With beautifully-engraved Portraits of
Voltaire and Mad. Parabère. Two vols., 12mo.
THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES.
By Joseph Francois Michaud. Translated by Robson. Three
vols., 12mo.
OUTLINES OF COMPARATIVE PHYSIOGNOMY.
By J. W. Redfield, M.D. 8vo, paper, with numerous illustrations.
Price 50 cents.
JAPAN; HISTORICAL, SOCIAL, AND INDUSTRIAL.
By C. Ludwig, J. U. D. Wiih maps, and other illustrations, from
the best and latest authorities.
ANCIENT EGYPT UNDER THE PHARAOHS.
By John Kendrick, M. A. In 2 vols., 12mo.
NEWMAN'S REGAL ROME.
In 1 vol., 12 mo. Price 75 cents.
FATHER MARQUETTE'S DISCOVERY
And Exploration of the Valley and River of the Mississippi. By
John J. Shea. With fac-similies and a copy of his map. Now
first translated from the original manuscripts. In 1 vol., 8vo.
HAGAR, A ROMANCE OF TO-DAY.
A new work by Alice Carey, author of “Clovernook,” “Lyra,
and Other Poems,” &c.
THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT.
A new work by Caroline Chesebro', author of “Isa, a Pilgrimage,”
and “Dream Land by Daylight.”
THE MASTER BUILDER;
Or, Life in the City. By Day Kellogg Lee, author of “Summerfield,
or Life on the Farm.”
THE CHEVALIERS OF FRANCE;
From the Crusaders to the Mareschals of Louis XIV. By Henry
William Herbert. One vol., 12mo.
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Cary, Alice, 1820-1871 [1852], Hagar: a story of to-day. (Redfield, New York) [word count] [eaf491T].
