“I dare say Dorothy will take them,” said Miss Deborah. “When a woman has married a Continental parson, what can you expect of her? but, for my part, I should feel that I dishonored the house of the Lord to enter it with gloves on made by those atheistical French people. The fact is, we must put a stop to worldly conformities somewhere.”
“And you draw the line at French gloves,” said Ellery.
“No, indeed,” said Miss Deborah; “by no means French gloves. French novels, French philosophy, and, above all, French morals, or rather want of morals, – these are what I go against, Cousin Ellery.”
So saying, Miss Debby led the way to the breakfast-table, with an air of the most martial and determined moral principle.
I remember only one other incident of that morning before we went to church. The dear old lady had seemed sensibly affected by the levity with which Ellery Davenport generally spoke upon sacred subjects, and disturbed by her daughter’s confident assertions of his infidel sentiments. So she administered to him an admonition in her own way. A little before church-time she was sitting on the sofa, reading in her great Bible spread out on the table before her.
“Ellery,” she said, “come here and sit down by me. I want you to read me this text.”
“Certainly, Aunty, by all means,” he said, as he seated himself by her, bent his handsome head over the book, and, following the lead of her trembling finger, read: –
“And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy fathers, and serve him with a perfect heart and a willing mind. If thou seek him, he will be found of thee, but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off forever.”
“Ellery,” she said, with trembling earnestness, “think of that, my boy. O Ellery, remember!”
He turned and kissed her hand, and there certainly were tears in his eyes. “Aunty,” he said, “you must pray for me; I may be a good boy one of these days, who knows?”
There was no more preaching, and no more said; she only held his hand, looked lovingly at him, and stroked his forehead. “There have been a great many good people among your fathers, Ellery.”
“I know it,” he said.
At this moment Miss Debby came in with the summons to church. The family carriage came round for the old lady, but we were better pleased to walk up the street under convoy of Ellery Davenport, who made himself quite delightful to us. Tina obstinately refused to take his hand, and insisted upon walking only with Harry, though from time to time she cast glances at him over her shoulder, and he called her “a little chip of mother Eve’s block,” – at which she professed to feel great indignation.
The reader may remember my description of our meetinghouse at Oldtowr., and therefore will not wonder that the architecture of the Old North and its solemn-sounding chimes, though by no means remarkable compared with European churches, appeared to us a vision of wonder. We gazed with delighted awe at the chancel and the altar, with their massive draperies of crimson looped back with heavy gold cord and tassels, and revealing a cloud of little winged cherubs, whereat Tina’s eye grew large with awe, as if she had seen a vision. Above this there was a mystical Hebrew word emblazoned in a golden halo, while around the galleries of the house were marvellous little colored statuettes of angels blowing long golden trumpets. These figures had been taken from a privateer and presented to the church by a British man-of-war, and no child that saw them would ever forget them. Then there was the organ, whose wonderful sounds were heard by me for the first time in my life. There was also an indefinable impression of stately people that worshipped there. They all seemed to me like Lady Lothrop, rustling in silks and brocades; with gentlemen like Captain Brown, in scarlet cloaks and powdered hair. Not a crowded house by any means, but a well-ordered and select few, who performed all the responses and evolutions of the service with immaculate propriety. I was struck with every one’s kneeling and bowing the head on taking a seat in the church; even gay Ellery Davenport knelt down and hid his face in his hat, though what he did it for was a matter of some speculation with us afterward. Miss Debby took me under her special supervision. She gave me a prayer-book, found the places for me, and took me up and down with her through the whole service, giving her responses in such loud, clear, and energetic tones as entirely to acquit herself of her share of responsibility in the matter. The “true Church” received no detriment, so far as she was concerned. I was most especially edified and astonished by the deep courtesies which she and several distinguished-looking ladies made at the name of the Saviour in the Creed; so much so, that she was obliged to tap me on the head to indicate to me my own part in that portion of the Church service.
I was surprised to observe that Harry appeared perfectly familiar with the ceremony; and Lady Lothrop, who had him under her particular surveillance, looked on with wonder and approbation, as he quietly opened his prayer-book and went through the service with perfect regularity. Tina, who stood between Ellery Davenport and the old lady, seemed, to tell the truth, much too conscious of the amused attention with which he was regarding her little movements, notwithstanding the kindly efforts of her venerable guardian to guide her through the service. She resolutely refused to allow him to assist her, half-turning her back upon him, but slyly watching him from under her long eyelashes, in a way that afforded him great amusement.
The sermon which followed the prayers was of the most droning and sleepy kind. But as it was dispensed by a regularly ordained successor of the Apostles, Miss Deborah, though ordinarily the shrewdest and sharpest of womankind, and certainly capable of preaching a sermon far more to the point herself, sat bolt upright and listened to all those slumberous platitudes with the most reverential attention.
It yet remains a mystery to my mind, how a church which retains such a stimulating and inspiring liturgy could have such drowsy preaching, – how men could go through with the “Te Deum,” and the “Gloria in Excelsis,” without one thrill of inspiration, or one lift above the dust of earth, and, after uttering words which one would think might warm the frozen heart of the very dead, settle sleepily down into the quietest commonplace. Such, however, has been the sin of ritualism in all days, principally because human nature is, above all things, lazy, and needs to be thorned and goaded up those heights where it ought to fly.
Harry and I both had a very nice little nap during sermon-time, while Ellery Davenport made a rabbit of his pocket-handkerchief by way of paying his court to Tina, who sat shyly giggling and looking at him. After the services came the Easter dinner, to which, as a great privilege, we were admitted from first to last; although children in those days were held to belong strictly to the dessert, and only came in with the nuts and raisins. I remember Ellery Davenport seemed to be the life of the table, and kept everybody laughing. He seemed particularly fond of rousing up Miss Debby to those rigorous and energetic statements concerning Church and King which she delivered with such freedom.
“I don’t know how we are any of us to get to heaven now,” he said to Miss Debby. “Supposing I wanted to be confirmed, there is n’t a bishop in America.”
“Well, don’t you think they will send one over?” said Lady Widgery, with a face of great solicitude.
“Two, madam; it would take two in order to start the succession in America. The apostolic electricity cannot come down through one.”
“I heard that Dr. Franklin was negotiating with the Archbishop of Canterbury,” said Lady Lothrop.
“Yes, but they are not in the best humor toward us over there,” said Ellery. “You know what Franklin wrote back, don’t you?”
“No,” said Lady Widgery; “what was it?”
“Well, you see, he found Canterbury & Co. rather huffy, and somewhat on the high-and-mighty order with him, and, being a democratic American, he did n’t like it. So he wrote over that he did n’t see, for his part, why anybody that wanted to preach the Gospel could n’t preach it, without sending a thousand miles across the water to ask leave of a cross old gentleman at Canterbury.”
A shocked expression went round the table, and Miss Debby drew herself up. “That ‘s what I call a profane remark, Ellery Davenport,” she said.
“I did n’t make it, you understand.”
“No dear, you did n’t,” said the old lady. “Of course you would n’t say such a thing.”
“Of course I should n’t, Aunty, – O no. I ‘m only concerned to know how I shall be confirmed, if ever I want to be. Do you think there really is no other way to heaven, Miss Debby? Now, if the Archbishop of Canterbury won’t repent, and I do, – if he won’t send a bishop, and I become a good Christian, – don’t you think now the Church might open the door a little crack for me?”
“Why, of course, Ellery,” said Lady Lothrop. “We believe that many good people will be saved out of the Church.”
“My dear madam, that ‘s because you married a Congregational parson; you are getting illogical.”
“Ellery, you know better,” said Miss Debby, vigorously. “You know we hold that many good persons out of the Church are saved, though they are saved by uncovenanted mercies. There are no direct promises to any but those in the Church; they have no authorized ministry or sacraments.”
“What a dreadful condition these American colonies are in!” said Ellery; “it ‘s a result of our Revolution which never struck me before.”
“You can sneer as much as you please, it ‘s a solemn fact, Ellery; it ‘s the chief mischief of this dreadful rebellion.”
“Come, come, children,” said the old lady; “let ‘s talk about something else. We ‘ve been to the communion, and heard about ‘peace on earth and good-will to men.’ I always think of our blessed King George every time I take the communion wine out of those cups that he gave to our church.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Miss Debby; “it will be a long time before you get the American Congress to giving communion services, like our good, pious King George.”
“It ‘s a pity pious folks are so apt to be pig-headed,” said Ellery, in a tone just loud enough to stir up Miss Debby, but not to catch the ear of the old lady.
“I suppose there never was such a pious family as our royal family,” said Lady Widgery. “I have been told that Queen Charlotte reads prayers with her maids regularly every night, and we all know how our blessed King read prayers beside a dying cottager.”
“I do not know what the reason is,” said Ellery Davenport, reflectively, “but political tyrants as a general thing are very pious men. The worse their political actions are, the more they pray. Perhaps it is on the principle of compensation, just as animals that are incapacitated from helping themselves in one way have some corresponding organ in another direction.”
“I agree with you that kings are generally religious,” said Lady Widgery, “and you must admit that, if monarchy makes men religious, it is an argument in its favor, because there is nothing so important as religion, you know.”
“The argument, madam, is a profound one, and does credit to your discernment; but the question now is, since it has pleased Providence to prosper rebellion, and allow a community to be founded without any true church, or any means of getting at true ordinances and sacraments, what young fellows like us are to do about it.”
“I ‘ll tell you, Ellery,” said the old lady, laying hold of his arm. “‘ Know the God of thy fathers, and serve him with a perfect heart and willing mind,’ and everything will come right.”
“But, even then, I could n’t belong to ‘the true Church,'” said Ellery.
“You ‘d belong to the church of all good people,” said the old lady, “and that ‘s the main thing.”
“Aunty, you are always right,” he said.
Now I listened with the sharpest attention to all this conversation, which was as bewildering to me as all the rest of the scenery and surroundings of this extraordinary visit had been.
Miss Debby’s martial and declaratory air, the vigorous faith in her statements which she appeared to have, were quite a match, it seemed to me, for similar statements of a contrary nature which I had heard from my respected grandmother; and I could n’t help wondering in my own mind what strange concussions of the elementary powers would result if ever these two should be brought together. To use a modern figure, it would be like the meeting of two full-charged railroad engines, from opposite directions, on the same track.
After dinner, in the evening, instead of the usual Service of Family prayers, Miss Debby catechised her family in a vigorous and determined manner. We children went and stood up with the row of men and maid servants, and Harry proved to have a very good knowledge of the catechism, but Tina and I only compassed our answers by repeating them after Miss Debby; and she applied herself to teaching us as if this were the only opportunity of getting the truth we were ever to have in our lives.
In fact, Miss Debby made a current of electricity that, for the time being, carried me completely away, and I exerted myself to the utmost to appear well before her, especially as I had gathered from Aunt Lois and Aunt Keziah’s conversations, that whatever went on in this mansion belonged strictly to upper circles of society, dimly known and revered. American democracy had not in those days become a practical thing, so as to outgrow the result of generations of reverence for the upper classes. And the man-servant and the maid-servants seemed so humble, and Miss Debby so victorious and dominant, that I could n’t help feeling what a grand thing the true Church must be, and find growing in myself the desires of a submissive catechumen.
As to the catechism itself, I don’t recollect that I thought one moment what a word of it meant, I was so absorbed and busy in the mere effort of repeating it after Miss Debby’s rapid dictation.
The only comparison I remember to have made with that which I had been accustomed to recite in school every Saturday respected the superior case of answering the first question; which required me, instead of relating in metaphysical terms what “man’s chief end” was in time and eternity, to give a plain statement of what my own name was on this mortal earth.
This first question, as being easiest, was put to Tina, who dimpled and colored and flashed out of her eyes, as she usually did when addressed, looked shyly across at Ellery Davenport, who sat with an air of negligent amusement contemplating the scene, and then answered with sufficient precision and distinctness, “Eglantine Percival.”
He gave a little start, as if some sudden train or recollection had been awakened, and looked at her with intense attention; and when Ellery Davenport fixed his attention upon anybody, there was so much fire and electricity in his eyes that they seemed to be felt, even at a distance; and I saw that Tina constantly colored and giggled, and seemed so excited that she scarcely knew what she was saying, till at last Miss Debby, perceiving this, turned sharp round upon him, and said, “Ellery Davenport, if you have n’t any religion yourself, I wish you would n’t interrupt my instructions.”
“Bless my soul, cousin! what was I doing? I have been sitting here still as a mouse; but I ‘ll turn my back, and read a good book”; – and round he turned, accordingly, till the catechising was finished.
When it was all over, and the servants had gone out, we grouped ourselves around the fire, and Ellery Davenport began: “Cousin Debby, I ‘m going to come down handsomely to you. I admit that your catechism is much better for children than the one I was brought up on. I was well drilled in the formulas of the celebrated Assembly of dryvines of Westminster, and dry enough I found it. Now it ‘s a true proverb,’ Call a man a thief, and he ‘ll steal’; ‘give a dog a bad name, and he ‘ll bite you’; tell a child that he is ‘a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven,’ and he feels, to say the least, civilly disposed towards religion; tell him ‘he is under God’s wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and the pains of hell forever,’ because somebody ate an apple five thousand years ago, and his religious associations are not so agreeable, – especially if he has the answers whipped into him, or has to go to bed without his supper for not learning them.”
“You poor dear!” said the old lady; “did they send you to bed without your supper? They ought to have been whipped themselves, every one of them.”
“Well, you see, I was a little fellow when my parents died, and brought up under brother Jonathan, who was the bluest kind of blue; and he was so afraid that I should mistake my naturally sweet temper for religion, that he instructed me daily that I was a child of wrath, and could n’t, and did n’t, and never should do one right thing till I was regenerated, and when that would happen no mortal knew; so I thought, as my account was going to be scored off at that time, it was no matter if I did run up a pretty long one; so I lied and stole whenever it came handy.”
“O Ellery, I hope not!” said the old lady; “certainly you never stole anything!”
“Have, though, my blessed aunt, – robbed orchards and watermelon patches; but then St. Augustine did that very thing himself, and he did n’t turn about till he was thirty years old, and I ‘m a good deal short of that yet; so you see there is a great chance for me.”
“Ellery, why don’t you come into the true Church?” said Miss Debby. “That ‘s what you need.”
“Well,” said Ellery, “I must confess that I like the idea of a nice old motherly Church, that sings to us, and talks to us, and prays with us, and takes us in her lap and coddles us when we are sick and says, –
‘Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber.’
Nothing would suit me better, if I could get my reason to sleep; but the mischief of a Calvinistic education is, it wakes up your reason, and it never will go to sleep again, and you can’t take a pleasant humbug if you would. Now, in this life, where nobody knows anything about anything, a capacity for humbugs would be a splendid thing to have. I wish to my heart I ‘d been brought up a Roman Catholic! but I have not, – I ‘ve been brought up a Calvinist, and so here I am.”
“But if you ‘d try to come into the Church and believe,” said Miss Debby, energetically, “grace would be given you. You ‘ve been baptized, and the Church admits your baptism. Now just assume your position.”
Miss Debby spoke with such zeal and earnestness, that I, whom she was holding in her lap, looked straight across with the expectation of hearing Ellery Davenport declare his immediate conversion then and there. I shall never forget the expression of his face. There was first a flash of amusement, as he looked at Miss Debby’s strong, sincere face, and then it faded into something between admiration and pity; and then he said to himself in a musing tone: “I a ‘member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.'” And then a strange sarcastic expression broke over his face, as he added: “Could n’t do it cousin; not exactly my style. Besides, I should n’t be much of a credit to any church, and whichever catches me would be apt to find a shark in the net. You see,” he added, jumping up and walking about rapidly, “I have the misfortune to have an extremely exacting nature, and, if I set out to be religious at all, it would oblige me to carry the thing to as great lengths as did my grandfather Jonathan Edwards. I should have to take up the cross and all that, and I don’t want to, and don’t mean to; and as to all these pleasant, comfortable churches, where a follow can get to heaven without it, I have the misfortune of not being able to believe in them; so there you see precisely my situation.”
“These horrid old Calvinistic doctrines,” said Miss Debby, “are the ruin of children.”
“My dear, they are all in the Thirty-nine Articles as strong as in the Cambridge platform, and all the other platforms, for the good reason that John Calvin himself had the overlooking of them. And, what is worse, there is an abominable sight of truth in them. Nature herself is a high Calvinist, old jade; and there never was a man of energy enough to feel the force of the world he deals with that was n’t a predestinarian, from the time of the Greek Tragedians down to the time of Oliver Cromwell, and ever since. The hardest doctrines are the things that a fellow sees with his own eyes going on in the world around him. If you had been in England, as I have, where the true Church prevails, you ‘d see that pretty much the whole of the lower classes there are predestinated to be conceived and born in sin, and shapen in iniquity; and come into the world in such circumstances that to expect even decent morality of them is expecting what is contrary to all reason. This is your Christian country, after eighteen hundred years’ experiment of Christianity. The elect, by whom I mean the bishops and clergy and upper classes, have attained to a position in which a decent and religious life is practicable, and where there is leisure from the claims of the body to attend to those of the soul. These, however, to a large extent are smothering in their own fat or, as your service to-day had it, ‘Their heart is fat as brawn’; and so they don’t, to any great extent, make their calling and election sure. Then, as for heathen countries, they are a peg below those of Christianity. Taking the mass of human beings in the world at this hour, they are in such circumstances, that, so far from it ‘s being reasonable to expect the morals of Christianity of them, they are not within sight of ordinary human decencies. Talk of purity of heart to a Malay or Hottentot! Why, the doctrine of a clean shirt is an uncomprehended mystery to more than half the human race at this moment. That ‘s what I call visible election and reprobation, get rid of it as we may or can.”
“Positively, Ellery, I am not going to have you talk so before these children,” said Miss Debby, getting up and ringing the bell energetically. “This all comes of the vile democratic idea that people are to have opinions on all subjects, instead of believing what the Church tells them; and, as you say, it ‘s Calvinism that starts people out to be always reasoning and discussing and having opinions. I hate folks who are always speculating and thinking, and having new doctrines; all I want to know is my duty, and to do it. I want to know what my part is, and it ‘s none of my business whether the bishops and the kings and the nobility do theirs or not, if I only do mine. ‘To do my duty in that state of life in which it has pleased God to call me,’ is all I want, and I think it is all anybody need want.”
“Amen!” said Ellery Davenport, “and so be it.”
Here Mrs. Margery appeared with the candles to take us to bed.
In bidding our adieus for the night, it was customary for good children to kiss all round; but Tina, in performing this ceremony both this night and the night before, resolutely ignored Ellery Davenport, notwithstanding his earnest petitions; and, while she would kiss with ostentatious affection those on each side of him, she hung her head and drew back whenever he attempted the familiarity, yet, by way of reparation, turned back at the door as she was going out, and made him a parting salutation with the air of a princess; and I heard him say, “Upon my word, how she does it!”
After we left the room (this being a particular which, like tellers of stories in general, I learned from other sources), he turned to Lady Lothrop and said: “Did I understand that she said her name was Eglantine Percival, and that she is a sort of foundling?”
“Certainly,” said Lady Lothrop; “both these children are orphans, left on the parish by a poor woman who died in a neighboring town. They appear to be of good blood and breeding, but we have no means of knowing who they are.”
“Well,” said Ellery Davenport, “I knew a young English officer by the name of Percival, who was rather a graceless fellow. He once visited me at my country-seat, with several others. When he went away, being, as he often was, not very fit to take care of himself, he dropped and left a pocket-book, so some of the servants told me, which was thrown into one of the drawers, and for aught I know may be there now: it ‘s just barely possible that it may be, and that there may be some papers in it which will shed light on these children’s parentage. If I recollect rightly, he was said to be connected with a good English family, and it might be possible, if we were properly informed, to shame him, or frighten him into doing something for these children. I will look into the matter myself, when I am in England next winter, where I shall have some business; that is to say, if we can get any clew. The probability is that the children are illegitimate.”
“O, I hope not,” said Lady Lothrop; “they appear to have been so beautifully educated.”
“Well,” said Ellery Davenport, “he may have seduced his curate’s daughter; that ‘s a very simple supposition. At any rate he never produced her in society, never spoke of her, kept her in cheap, poor lodgings in the country, and the general supposition was that she was his mistress, not his wife.”
“No,” said a little voice near his elbow, which startled every one in the room, – “no, Mr. Davenport, my mother was my father’s wife.”
The fire had burnt low, and the candles had not been brought in, and Harry, who had been sent back by Mrs. Margery to give message as to the night arrangements, had entered the room softly, and stood waiting to get a chance to deliver it. He now came forward, and stood trembling with agitation, pale yet bold. Of course all were very much shocked as he went on: “They took my mother’s wedding-ring, and sold it to pay for her coffin; but she always wore it and often told me when it was put on. But,” he added,” she told me, the night she died, that I had no father but God.”
“And he is Father enough!” said the old lady, who, entirely broken down and overcome, clasped the little boy in her arms. “Never you mind it, dear, God certainly will take care of you.”
“I know he will,” said the boy, with solemn simplicity; “but I want you all to believe the truth about my mother.”
It was characteristic of that intense inwardness and delicacy which were so peculiar in Harry’s character, that, when he came back from this agitating scene, he did not tell me a word of what had occurred, nor did I learn it till years afterwards. I was very much in the habit of lying awake nights, long after he had sunk into untroubled slumbers, and this night I remember that he lay long but silently awake, so very still and quiet, that it was some time before I discovered that he was not sleeping.
The next day Ellery Davenport left us, but we remained to see the wonders of Boston. I remembered my grandmother’s orders, and went on to Copps Hill, and to the old Granary burying-ground, to see the graves of the saints, and read the inscriptions. I had a curious passion for this sort of mortuary literature, even as a child, – a sort of nameless, weird, strange delight, – so that I accomplished this part of my grandmother’s wishes con amore.
Boston in those days had not even arrived at being a city, but, as the reader may learn from contemporary magazines, was known as the Town of Boston. In some respects, however, it was even more attractive in those days for private residences than it is at present. As is the case now in some of our large rural towns, it had many stately old houses, which stood surrounded by gardens and grounds, where fruits and flowers were tended with scrupulous care. It was sometimes called “the garden town.” The house of Madam Kittery stood on a high eminence overlooking the sea, and had connected with it a stately garden, which, just at the time of year I speak of, was gay with the first crocuses and snowdrops.
In the eyes of the New England people, it was always a sort of mother-town, – a sacred city, the shrine of that religious enthusiasm which founded the States of New England. There were the graves of her prophets and her martyrs, – those who had given their lives through the hardships of that enterprise in so ungenial a climate.
On Easter Monday Lady Lothrop proposed to take us all to see the shops and sights of Boston, with the bountiful intention of purchasing some few additions to the children’s wardrobes. I was invited to accompany the expedition, and all parties appeared not a little surprised, and somewhat amused, that I preferred, instead of this lively tour among the living, to spend my time in a lonely ramble in the Copps Hill burying-ground.
I returned home after an hour or two spent in this way, and found the parlor deserted by all except dear old Madam Kittery. I remember, even now, the aspect of that sunny room, and the perfect picture of peace and love that she seemed to me, as she sat on the sofa with a table full of books drawn up to her, placidly reading.
She called me to her as soon as I came in, and would have me get on the sofa by her. She stroked my head, and looked lovingly at me, and called me “Sonny,” till my whole heart opened toward her as a flower opens toward the sunshine.
Among all the loves that man has to woman, there is none so sacred and saint-like as that toward these dear, white-haired angels, who seem to form the connecting link between heaven and earth, who have lived to get the victory over every sin and every sorrow, and live perpetually on the banks of the dark river, in that bright, calm land of Beulah, where angels daily walk to and fro, and sounds of celestial music are heard across the water.
Such have no longer personal cares, or griefs, or sorrows. The tears of life have all been shed, and therefore they have hearts at leisure to attend to every one else. Even the sweet, guileless childishness that comes on in this period has a sacred dignity; it is a seal of fitness for that heavenly kingdom, which whosoever shall not receive as a little child, shall not enter therein.
Madam Kittery, with all her apparent simplicity, had a sort of simple shrewdness. She delighted in reading, and some of the best classical literature was always lying on her table. She began questioning me about my reading, and asking me to read to her, and seemed quite surprised at the intelligence and expression with which I did it.
I remember, in the course of the reading, coming across a very simple Latin quotation, at which she stopped me. “There,” said she, “is one of those Latin streaks that always trouble me in books, because I can’t tell what they mean. When George was alive, he used to read them to me.”
Now, as this was very simple, I felt myself quite adequate to its interpretation, and gave it with a readiness which pleased her.
“Why! how came you to know Latin?” she said.
Then my heart opened, and I told her all my story, and how my poor father had always longed to go to college, “and died without the sight,” and how he had begun to teach me Latin; but how he was dead, and my mother was poor, and grandpapa could only afford to keep Uncle Bill in college, and there was no way for me to go, and Aunt Lois wanted to bind me out to a shoemaker. And then I began to cry, as I always did when I thought of this.
I shall never forget the overflowing, motherly sympathy which had made it easy for me to tell all this to one who, but a few hours before, had been a stranger; nor how she comforted me, and cheered me, and insisted upon it that I should immediately eat a piece of cake, and begged me not to trouble myself about it, and she would talk to Debby, and something should be done.
Now I had not the slightest idea of what Madam Kittery could do in the situation, but I was exceedingly strengthened and consoled, and felt sure that there had come a favorable turn in my fortunes; and the dear old lady and myself forthwith entered into a league of friendship.
I was thus emboldened, now that we were all alone, and Miss Debby far away, to propound to her indulgent ear certain political doubts, raised by the conflict of my past education with the things I had been hearing for the last day or two.
“If King George was such a good man, what made him oppress the Colonies so?” said I.
“Why, dear, he did n’t,” she said, earnestly. “That ‘s all a great mistake. Our King is a dear, pious, good man, and wished us all well, and was doing just the best for us he knew how.”
“Then was it because he did n’t know how to govern us?” said I.
“My dear, you know the King can do no wrong; it was his ministers, if anybody. I don’t know exactly how it was, but they got into a brangle, and everything went wrong; and then there was so much evil feeling and fighting and killing, and ‘there was confusion, and every evil work.’ There ‘s my poor boy,” she said, pointing to the picture with a trembling hand, and to the sword hanging in its crape loop, – “he died for his King, doing his duty in that state of life in which it pleased God to call him. I must n’t be sorry for that, but O, I wish there had n’t been any war, and we could have had it all peaceful, and George could have stayed with us. I don’t see, either, the use of all these new-fangled notions, but then I try to love everybody, and hope for the best.”
So spoke my dear old friend; and has there ever been a step in human progress that has not been taken against the prayers of some good soul, and been washed by tears, sincerely and despondently shed? But, for all this, is there not a true unity of the faith in all good hearts? and when they have risen a little above the mists of earth, may not both sides – the conqueror and the conquered – agree that God hath given them the victory in advancing the cause of truth and goodness?
Only one other conversation that I heard during this memorable visit fixed itself very strongly in my mind. On the evening of this same day, we three children were stationed at a table to look at a volume of engravings of beautiful birds, while Miss Debby, Lady Widgery and Madam Kittery sat by the fire. I heard them talking of Ellery Davenport, and, though I had been instructed that it was not proper for children to listen when their elders were talking among themselves, yet it really was not possible to avoid hearing what Miss Debby said, because all her words were delivered with such a sharp and determinate emphasis.
As it appeared, Lady Widgery had been relating to them some of the trials and sorrows of Ellery Davenport’s domestic life. And then there followed a buzz of some kind of story which Lady Widgery seemed relating with great minuteness. At last I heard Miss Deborah exclaim earnestly: “If I had a daughter, catch me letting her be intimate with Ellery Davenport! I tell you that man has n’t read French for nothing.”
“I do assure you, his conduct has been marked with perfect decorum,” said lady Widgery.
“So are your French novels,” said Miss Deborah; “they are always talking about decorum; they are full of decorum and piety! why, the kingdom of heaven is nothing to them! but somehow they all end in adultery.”
“Debby,” said the old lady, “I can’t bear to hear you talk so. I think your cousin’s heart is in the right place, after all; and he ‘s a good, kind boy as ever was.”
“But mother, he ‘s a liar! that ‘s just what he is.”
“Debby, Debby! how can you talk so?”
“Well, mother, people have different names for different things. I hear a great deal about Ellery Davenport’s tact and knowledge of the world, and all that; but he does a great deal of what I call lying, – so there! Now there are some folks who lie blunderingly, and unskilfully, but I ‘ll say for Ellery Davenport that he can lie as innocently and sweetly and prettily as a French woman, and I can’t say any more. And if a woman does n’t want to believe him, she just must n’t listen to him, that ‘s all. I always believe him when he is around, but when he ‘s away and I think him over, I know just what he is, and see just what an old fool he has made of me.”
These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.
CHAPTER XXVI.
WHAT “OUR FOLKS” SAID AT OLDTOWN.
WE children returned to Oldtown, crowned with victory, as it were. Then, as now, even in the simple and severe Puritanical village, there was much incense burnt upon the altar of gentility, – a deity somewhat corresponding to the unknown god whose altar Paul found at Athens, and probably more universally worshipped in all the circles of this lower world than any other idol on record.
Now we had been taken notice of, put forward, and patronized, in undeniably genteel society. We had been to Boston and come back in a coach; and what well-regulated mind does not see that that was something to inspire respect?
Aunt Lois was evidently dying to ask us all manner of questions, but was restrained by a sort of decent pride. To exhibit any undue eagerness would be to concede that she was ignorant of good society, and that the ways and doings of upper classes were not perfectly familiar to her. That, my dear reader, is what no good democratic American woman can for a moment concede. Aunt Lois therefore, for once in her life, looked complacently on Sam Lawson, who continued to occupy his usual roost in the chimney-corner, and who, embarrassed with no similar delicate scruples, put us through our catechism with the usual Yankee thoroughness.
“Well, chillen, I suppose them Kitterys has everythin’ in real grander, don’t they? I ‘ve heerd tell that they hes Turkey carpets on th’ floors. You know Josh Kittery, he was in the Injy trade. Turkey carpets is that kind, you know, that lies all up thick like a mat. They had that kind, did n’t they?”
We eagerly assured him that they did.
“Want to know, now,” said Sam, who always moralized as he went along. “Wal, wal, some folks does seem to receive their good thin’s in this life, don’t they? S’pose the tea-things all on ’em was solid silver, wa’ n’t they? Yeh did n’t ask them, did yeh?”
“O no,” said I; “you know we were told we must n’t ask questions.”
“Jes so; very right, – little boys should n’t ask questions. But I ‘ve heerd a good ‘eal about the Kittery silver. Jake Marshall, he knew a fellah that had talked with one of their servants, that helped bury it in the cellar in war-times, and he said theh was porringers an’ spoons an’ tankards, say nothing of tablespoons, an’ silver forks, an’ sich. That ‘ere would ha’ been a haul for Congress, if they could ha’ got hold on’t in war-time, would n’t it? S’pose yeh was sot up all so grand, and hed servants to wait on yeh, behind yer chairs, did n’t yeh?”
“Yes,” we assured him, “we did.”
“Wal, wal; yeh must n’t be carried away by these ‘ere glories: they ‘s transitory, arter all: ye must jest come right daown to plain livin’. How many servants d’ yeh say they kep’?”
“Why, there were two men and two women, besides Lady Widgery’s maid and Mrs. Margery.”
“And all used to come in to prayers every night,” said Harry.
“Hes prayers reg’lar, does they?” said Sam. “Well, now, that ‘ere beats all! Did n’t know as these gran’ families wus so pious as that comes to. Who prayed?”
“Old Madam Kittery,” said I. “She used to read prayers out of a large book.”
“O yis; these ‘ere gran’ Tory families is ‘Piscopal, pretty much all on ’em. But now readin’ prayers out of a book, that ‘ere don’ strike me as just the right kind o’ thing. For my part, I like prayers that come right out of the heart better. But then, lordy massy, folks hes theh different ways; an’ I ain’t so set as Polly is. Why, I b’lieve, if that ‘ere woman had her way, theh would n’t nobody be ‘lowed to do nothin’, except just to suit her. Yeh did n’t notice, did yeh, what the Kittery coat of arms was?”
Yes, we had noticed it; and Harry gave a full description of an embroidered set of armorial bearings which had been one of the ornaments of the parlor.
“So you say,” said Sam, “‘t was a lion upon his hind legs, – that ‘ere is what they call ‘the lion rampant,’ – and then there was a key and a scroll. Wal! coats of arms is curus, and I don’t wonder folks kind o’ hangs onter um; but then, the Kitterys bein’ Tories, they nat’ally has more interest in sech thin’s. Do you know where Mis’ Kittery keeps her silver nights?”
“No, really,” said I; “we were sent to bed early, and did n’t see.”
Now this inquiry, from anybody less innocent than Sam Lawson, might have been thought a dangerous exhibition of burglarious proclivities; but from him it was received only as an indication of that everlasting thirst for general information which was his leading characteristic.
When the rigor of his cross-examination had somewhat abated, he stooped over the fire to meditate further inquiries. I seized the opportunity to propound to my grandmother a query which had been the result of my singular experiences for a day or two past. So, after an interval in which all had sat silently looking into the great coals of fire, I suddenly broke out with the inquiry, “Grandmother, what is The True Church?”
I remember the expression on my grandfather’s calm, benign face as I uttered this query. It was an expression of shrewd amusement, such as befits the face of an elder when a younger has propounded a well-worn problem; but my grandmother had her answer at the tip of her tongue, and replied, “It is the whole number of the elect, my son.”
I had in my head a confused remembrance of Ellery Davenport’s tirade on election, and of the elect who did or did not have clean shirts; so I pursued my inquiry by asking, “Who are the elect?”
“All good people,” replied my grandfather. “In every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him.”
“Well, how came you to ask that question?” said my grandmother, turning on me.
“Why,” said I, “because Miss Deborah Kittery said that the war destroyed the true Church in this country.”
“O, pshaw!” said my grandmother; “that ‘s some of her Episcopal nonsense. I really should like to ask her, now, if she thinks there ain’t any one going to heaven but Episcopalians.”
“O no, she does n’t think so,” said I, rather eagerly. “She said a great many good people would be saved out of the Church, but they would be saved by uncovenanted mercies.”
“Uncovenanted fiddlesticks!” said my grandmother, her very cap-border bristling with contempt and defiance. “Now, Lois, you just see what comes of sending children into Tory Episcopal families, – coming home and talking nonsense like that!”
“Mercy, mother! what odds does it make?” said Aunt Lois. “The children have got to learn to hear all sorts of things said, – may as well hear them at one time as another. Besides, it all goes into one ear and out at the other.”
My grandmother was better pleased with the account that I hastened to give her of my visit to the graves of the saints and martyrs, in my recent pilgrimage. Her broad face glowed with delight, as she told over again to our listening ears the stories of the faith and self-denial of those who had fled from an oppressive king and church, that they might plant a new region where life should be simpler, easier, and more natural. And she got out her “Cotton Mather,” and, notwithstanding Aunt Lois’s reminder that she had often read it before, read to us again, in a trembling yet audible voice, that wonderful document, in which the reasons for the first planting of New England are set forth. Some of these reasons I remember from often hearing them in my childhood. They speak thus quaintly of the old countries of Europe: –
“Thirdly. The land grows weary of her inhabitants, insomuch that man, which is the most precious of all creatures, is here more vile than the earth he treads upon, – children, neighbors, and friends, especially the poor, which, if things were right, would be the greatest earthly blessings.
“Fourthly. We are grown to that intemperance in all excess of riot, as no mean estate will suffice a man to keep sail with his equals, and he that fails in it must live in scorn and contempt hence it comes to pass that all arts and trades are carried in that deceitful manner and unrighteous course, as it is almost impossible for a good, upright man to maintain his constant charge, and live comfortably in them.
“Fifthly. The schools of learning and religion are so corrupted as (besides the insupportable charge of education) most children of the best, wittiest, and of the fairest hopes are perverted, corrupted, and utterly overthrown by the multitude of evil examples and licentious behaviours in these seminaries.
“Sixthly. The whole earth is the Lord’s garden, and he hath given it to the sons of Adam to be tilled and improved by them. Why then should we stand starving here for places of habitation, and in the mean time suffer whole countries as profitable for the use of man to lie waste without any improvement?”
Language like this, often repeated, was not lost upon us. The idea of self-sacrifice which it constantly inculcated, – the reverence for self-denial, – the conception of a life which should look, not mainly to selfish interests, but to the good of the whole human race, prevented the hardness and roughness of those early New England days from becoming mere stolid, material toil. It was toil and manual labor ennobled by a new motive.
Even in those very early times there was some dawning sense of what the great American nation was yet to be. And every man, woman, and child was constantly taught, by every fireside, to feel that he or she was part and parcel of a great new movement in human progress. The old aristocratic ideas, though still lingering in involuntary manners and customs, only served to give a sort of quaintness and grace of Old-World culture to the roughness of new-fledged democracy.
Our visit to Boston was productive of good to us such as we little dreamed of. In the course of a day or two Lady Lothrop called, and had a long private interview with the female portion of the family; after which, to my great delight, it was announced to us that Harry and I might begin to study Latin, if we pleased, and if we proved bright, good boys, means would be provided for the finishing of our education in college.
I was stunned and overwhelmed by the great intelligence, and Harry and I ran over to tell it to Tina, who jumped about and hugged and kissed us both with an impartiality which some years later she quite forgot to practise.
“I ‘m glad, because you like it,” she said; “but I should think it would be horrid to study Latin.”
I afterwards learned that I was indebted to my dear old friend Madam Kittery for the good fortune which had befallen me. She had been interested in my story, as it appears, to some purpose, and, being wealthy and without a son, had resolved to console herself by appropriating to the education of a poor boy a portion of the wealth which should have gone to her own child.
The searching out of poor boys, and assisting them to a liberal education, had ever been held to be one of the appropriate works of the minister in a New England town. The schoolmaster who taught the district school did not teach Latin; but Lady Lothrop was graciously pleased to say that, for the present, Dr. Lothrop would hear our lessons at a certain hour every afternoon; and the reader may be assured that we studied faithfully in view of an ordeal like this.
I remember one of our favorite places for study. The brown, sparkling stream on which my grandfather’s mill was placed had just below the mill-dam a little island, which a boy could easily reach by wading through the shallow waters over a bed of many-colored pebbles. The island was overshadowed by thick bushes, which were all wreathed and matted together by a wild grape-vine; but within I had hollowed out for myself a green little arbor, and constructed a rude wigwam of poles and bark, after the manner of those I had seen among the Indians. It was one of the charms of this place, that nobody knew of it: it was utterly secluded; and being cut off from land by the broad belt of shallow water, and presenting nothing to tempt or attract anybody to its shores, it was mine, and mine alone. There I studied, and there I read; there I dreamed and saw visions.
Never did I find it in my heart to tell to any other boy the secret of this woodland shelter, this fairy-land, so near to the real outer world; but Harry, with his refinement, his quietude, his sympathetic silence, seemed to me as unobjectionable an associate as the mute spiritual companions whose presence had cheered my lonely, childish sleeping-room.
We moved my father’s Latin books into a rough little closet that we constructed in our wigwam; and there, with the water dashing behind us, and the afternoon sun shining down through the green grape-leaves, with bluebirds and bobolinks singing to us, we studied our lessons. More than that, we spent many pleasant hours in reading; and I have now a résumé, in our boyish handwriting, of the greater part of Plutarch’s Lives, which we wrote out during this summer.
As to Tina, of course she insisted upon it that we should occasionally carry her in a lady-chair over to this island, that she might inspect our operations and our housekeeping, and we read some of these sketches to her for her critical approbation; and if any of them pleased her fancy, she would immediately insist that we should come over to Miss Mehitable’s, and have a dramatic representation of them up in the garret.
Saturday afternoon, in New England, was considered, from time immemorial, as the children’s perquisite; and hard-hearted must be that parent or that teacher who would wish to take away from them its golden hours. Certainly it was not Miss Mehitable, nor my grandmother, that could be capable of any such cruelty.
Our Saturday afternoons were generally spent as Tina dictated; and, as she had a decided taste for the drama, one of our most common employments was the improvising of plays, with Miss Tina for stage manager. The pleasure we took in these exercises was inconceivable; they had for us a vividness and reality past all expression.
I remember our acting, at one time, the Book of Esther, with Tina, very much be-trinketed and dressed out in an old flowered brocade that she had rummaged from a trunk in the garret, as Queen Esther. Harry was Mordecai, and I was Ahasuerus.
The great trouble was to find a Haman; but, as the hanging of Haman was indispensable to any proper moral effect of the tragedy, Tina petted and cajoled and coaxed old Bose, the yellow dog of our establishment, to undertake the part, instructing him volubly that he must sulk and look cross when Mordecai went by, – a thing which Bose, who was one of the best-natured of dogs, found difficulty in learning. Bose would always insist upon sitting on his haunches, in his free-and-easy, jolly manner, and lolling out his red tongue in a style so decidedly jocular as utterly to spoil the effect, till Tina, reduced to desperation, ensconced herself under an old quilted petticoat behind him, and brought out the proper expression at the right moment by a vigorous pull at his tail. Bose was a dog of great constitutional equanimity, but there were some things that transcended even his powers of endurance, and the snarl that he gave to Mordecai was held to be a triumphant success; but the thing was, to get him to snarl when Tina was in front of him, where she could see it; and now will it be believed that the all-conquering little mischief-maker actually kissed and flattered and bejuggled old Polly into taking this part behind the scenes?
No words can more fitly describe the abject state to which that vehemently moral old soul was reduced.
When it came to the hanging of Haman, the difficulties thickened. Polly warned us that we must by no means attempt to hang Bose by the neck, as “the crittur was heavy, and ‘t was sartin to be the death of him.” So we compromised by passing the rope under his fore paws, or, as Tina called it, “under his arms.” But Bose was rheumatic, and it took all Tina’s petting and caressing, and obliged Polly to go down and hunt out two or three slices of meat from her larder, to induce him fairly to submit to the operation; but hang him we did, and he ki-hied with a vigor that strikingly increased the moral effect. So we soon let him down again, and plentifully rewarded him with cold meat.
In a similar manner we performed a patriotic drama, entitled “The Battle of Bunker Hill,” in which a couple of old guns that we found in the garret produced splendid effects, and salvoes of artillery were created by the rolling across the garret of two old cannon-balls; but this was suppressed by order of the authorities, on account of the vigor of the cannonade. Tina, by the by figured in this as the “Genius of Liberty,” with some stars on her head cut out of gilt paper, and wearing an old flag which we had pulled out of one of the trunks.
We also acted the history of “Romulus and Remus,” with Bose for the she-wolf. The difference in age was remedied by a vigorous effort of the imagination. Of course, operations of this nature made us pretty familiar with the topography of the old garret. There was, however, one quarter, fenced off by some barrels filled with pamphlets, where Polly strictly forbade us to go.
What was the result of such a prohibition, O reader? Can you imagine it to be any other than that that part of the garret became at once the only one that we really cared about investigating? How we hung about it, and considered it, and peeped over and around and between the barrels at a pile of pictures, that stood with their faces to the wall! What were those pictures, we wondered. When we asked Polly this, she drew on a mysterious face and said, “Them was things we must n’t ask about.”
We talked it over among ourselves, and Tina assured us that she dreamed about it at nights; but Polly had strictly forbidden us even to mention that corner of the garret to Miss Mehitable, or to ask her leave to look at it, alleging, as a reason, that “‘twould bring on her hypos.”
We did n’t know what “hypos” were, but we supposed of course they must be something dreadful; but the very fearfulness of the consequences that might ensue from our getting behind those fatal barrels only made them still more attractive. Finally, one rainy Saturday afternoon, when we were tired of acting plays, and the rain pattered on the roof, and the wind howled and shook the casings, and there was a generally wild and disorganized state of affairs out of doors, a sympathetic spirit of insubordination appeared to awaken in Tina’s bosom. “I declare, I am going inside of those barrels!” she said. “I don’t care if Polly does scold us; I know I can bring her all round again fast enough. I can do about what I like with Polly. Now you boys just move this barrel a little bit, and I ‘ll go in and see!”
Just at this moment there was one of those chance lulls in the storm that sometimes occur, and as Tina went in behind the barrels, and boldly turned the first picture, a ray of sunshine streamed through the dusky window and lit it up with a watery light.
Harry and Tina both gave an exclamation of astonishment.
“O Tina! It ‘s the lady in the closet!”
The discovery seemed really to frighten the child. She retreated quickly to the outside of the barrels again, and stood with us, looking at the picture.
It was a pastel of a young girl in a plain, low-necked white dress, with a haughty, beautiful head, and jet-black curls flowing down her neck, and deep, melancholy black eyes, that seemed to fix themselves reproachfully on us.
“O dear me, Harry, what shall we do!” said Tina. “How she looks at us! This certainly is the very same one that we saw in the old house.”
“You ought not to have done it, Tina,” said Harry, in a rather low and frightened voice; “but I ‘ll go in and turn it back again.”
Just at this moment we heard what was still more appalling, – the footsteps of Polly on the garret stairs.
“Well! now I should like to know if there ‘s any mischief you would n’t be up to, Tina Percival,” she said, coming forward, reproachfully. “When I give you the run of the whole garret, and wear my life out a pickin’ up and puttin’ up after you, I sh’d think you might let this ‘ere corner alone!”
“Oh! but, Polly, you ‘ve no idea how I wanted to see it, and do pray tell me who it is, and how came it here? Is it anybody that ‘s dead?” said Tina, hanging upon Polly caressingly.
“Somebody that ‘s dead to us, I ‘m afraid,” said Polly, solemnly.
“Do tell us, Polly, do! who was she?”
“Well, child, you must n’t never tell nobody, nor let a word about it come out of your lips; but it ‘s Parson Rossiter’s daughter Emily, and where she ‘s gone to, the Lord only knows. I took that ‘ere pictur’ down myself, and put it up here with Mr Theodore’s, so ‘t Miss Mehitable need n’t see ’em, ’cause they always give her the hypos.”
“And don’t anybody know where she is,” said Tina,” or if she ‘s alive or dead?”
“Nobody,” said Polly, shaking her head solemnly. “All I hope is, she may never come back here again. You see, children, what comes o’ follerin’ the nateral heart; it ‘s deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. She followed her nateral heart, and nobody knows where she ‘s gone to.”
Polly spoke with such sepulchral earnestness that, what with gloomy weather and the consciousness of having been accessory to an unlawful action, we all felt, to say the least, extremely sober.
“Do you think I have got such a heart as that?” said Tina, after a deep-drawn sigh.
“Sartain, you have,” said the old woman. “We all on us has. Why, if the Lord should give any on us a sight o’ our own heart just as it is, it would strike us down dead right on the spot.”
“Mercy on us, Polly! I hope he won’t, then,” said Tina. “But, Polly,” she added getting her arms round her neck and playing with her gold beads, “you have n’t got such a very bad heart now; I don’t believe a word of it. I ‘m sure you are just as good as can be.”
“Law, Miss Tina, you don’t see into me,” said Polly, who, after all, felt a sort of ameliorating gleam stealing over her. “You must n’t try to wheedle me into thinking better of myself than I be; that would just lead to carnal security.”
“Well, Polly, don’t tell Miss Mehitable, and I ‘ll try and not get you into carnal security.”
Polly went behind the barrels, gently wiped the dust from the picture, and turned the melancholy, beseeching face to the wall again; but we pondered and talked many days as to what it might be.
CHAPTER XXVII.
HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWN.
ON the whole, about this time in our life we were a reasonably happy set of children. The Thanksgiving festival of that year is particularly impressed on my mind as a white day.
Are there any of my readers who do not know what Thanksgiving day is to a child? Then let them go back with me, and recall the image of it as we kept it in Oldtown.
People have often supposed, because the Puritans founded a society where there were no professed public amusements, that therefore there was no fun going on in the ancient land of Israel, and that there were no cakes and ale, because they were virtuous. They were never more mistaken in their lives. There was an abundance of sober, well-considered merriment; and the hinges of life were well oiled with that sort of secret humor which to this day gives the raciness to real Yankee wit. Besides this, we must remember that life itself is the greatest possible amusement to people who really believe they can do much with it, – who have that intense sense of what can be brought to pass by human effort, that was characteristic of the New England colonies. To such it is not exactly proper to say that life is an amusement, but it certainly is an engrossing interest that takes the place of all amusements.