We had an earnest discussion among us four as to what was proper to be done with the lover. Harry insisted upon it, that, after tearing his hair and executing all the proprieties of despair, he should end by falling on his sword; and he gave us two or three extemporaneous representations of the manner in which he intended to bring out this last scene. How we streamed with laughter over these discussions, as Harry, whose mat of curls was somewhat prodigious, ran up and down the room, howling distractedly, running his fingers through his hair until each separate curl stood on end, and his head was about the size of a half-bushel! We nearly killed ourselves laughing over our tragedy, but still the language thereof was none the less broken-hearted and impassioned.
Tina was vindictive and bloodthirsty in her determination that the tragedy should be of the deepest dye. She exhibited the ferocity of a little pirate in her utter insensibility to the details of blood and murder, and would not hear of any concealment, or half-measures, to spare anybody’s feelings. She insisted upon being stabbed on the stage, and she had rigged up a kitchen carving-knife with a handle of gilt paper, ornamented with various breastpins of the girls, which was celebrated in florid terms in her part of the drama as a Tyrian dagger.
“Why Tyrian,” objected Harry, “when it is the Jews that are fighting the Ammonites?”
“O nonsense, Harry! Tyrian sounds a great deal better, and the Ammonites, I don’t doubt, had Tyrian daggers,” said Tina, who displayed a feminine facility in the manufacture of facts. “Tyre, you know,” she added, “was the country where all sorts of things were made: Tyrian purple and Tyrian mantles, – of course they must have made daggers, and the Jews must have got them, – of course they must! I ‘m going to have it, not only a Tyrian dagger, but a sacred dagger, taken away from a heathen temple and consecrated to the service of the Lord. And only see what a sheath I have made for it! Why, at this distance it could n’t be told from gold! And how do you suppose that embossed work is made? Why, it ‘s different-colored grains of rice and gilt paper rolled up!”
It must be confessed that nobody enjoyed Tina’s successes more heartily than she did herself. I never knew anybody who had a more perfect delight in the work of her own hands.
It was finally concluded, in full concert, that the sacrifice was to be performed at an altar, and here came an opportunity for Miss Titcomb’s proficiency in tombstones to exercise itself. Our altar was to be like the lower part of a monument, so we decided, and Miss Titcomb had numerous patterns of this kind, subject to our approval. It was to be made life-size, of large sheets of pasteboard, and wreathed with sacrificial garlands.
Tina was to come in at the head of a chorus of wailing maidens, who were to sing a most pathetic lamentation over her. I was to stand grim and resolved, with my eyes rolled up into my helmet, and the sacrificial Tyrian dagger in my hands, when she was to kneel down before the altar, which was to have real flame upon it. The top of the altar was made to conceal a large bowl of alcohol, and before the entering of the procession the lights were all to be extinguished, and the last scene was to be witnessed by the lurid glare of the burning light on the altar. Any one who has ever tried the ghostly, spectral, supernatural appearance which his very dearest friend may be made to have by this simple contrivance, can appreciate how very sanguine our hopes must have been of the tragical power of this dénouement.
All came about quite as we could have hoped. The academy hall was packed and crammed to the ceiling, and our acting was immensely helped by the loudly expressed sympathy of the audience, who entered into the play with the most undisguised conviction of its reality. When the lights were extinguished, and the lurid flame flickered up on the altar, and Tina entered dressed in white with her long hair streaming around her, and with an inspired look of pathetic resignation in her large, earnest eyes, a sort of mournful shudder of reality came over me, and the words I had said so many times concerning the sacrifice of the victim became suddenly intensely real; it was a sort of stage illusion, an overpowering belief in the present.
The effect of the ghastly light on Tina’s face, on Esther’s and Harry’s, as they grouped themselves around in the preconcerted attitudes, was really overwhelming.
It had been arranged that, at the very moment when my hand was raised, Harry, as the lover, should rush forward with a shriek, and receive the dagger in his own bosom. This was the last modification of our play, after many successive rehearsals, and the success was prodigious. I stabbed Harry to the heart, Tina gave a piercing shriek and fell dead at his side, and then I plunged the dagger into my own heart, and the curtain fell, amid real weeping and wailing from many unsophisticated, soft-hearted old women.
Then came the last scene, – the procession of youths and maidens across the stage, bearing the bodies of the two lovers, – the whole ending in an admirably constructed monument, over which a large willow was seen waving. This last gave to Miss Titcomb, as she said, more complete gratification than any scene that had been exhibited. The whole was a most triumphant success.
Heber Atwood’s “old woman” declared that she caught her breath, and thought she “should ha’ fainted clean away when she see that gal come in.” And as there was scarcely a house in which there was not a youth or a maiden who had borne a part in the chorus, all Cloudland shared in the triumph.
By way of dissipating the melancholy feelings consequent upon the tragedy, we had a farce called “Our Folks,” which was acted extemporaneously by Harry, Tina, and myself, consisting principally in scenes between Harry as Sam Lawson, Tina as Hepsie, and myself as Uncle Fliakim, come in to make a pastoral visit, and exhort them how to get along and manage their affairs more prosperously. There had been just enough strain upon our nerves, enough reality of tragic exultation, to excite that hysterical quickness of humor which comes when the nervous system is well up. I let off my extra steam in Uncle Fliakim with a good will, as I danced in in my black silk tights, knocking down the spinning-wheel, upsetting the cradle, setting the babies to crying, and starting Hepsie’s tongue, which lost nothing of force or fluency in Tina’s reproduction. How the little elf could have transformed herself in a few moments into such a peaked, sharp, wiry-featured, virulent-tongued virago, was a matter of astonishment to us all; while Harry, with a suit of fluttering old clothes, with every joint dissolving in looseness, and with his bushy hair in a sort of dismayed tangle, with his cheeks sucked in and his eyes protruding, gave an inimitable Sam Lawson.
The house was convulsed; the screams and shrieks of laughter quite equalled the moans of distress in our tragedy.
And so the curtain fell on our last exhibition in Cloudland. The next day was all packing of trunks and taking of leave, and last words from Mr. Rossiter and Mr. Avery to the school, and settling of board-bills and school-bills, and sending back all the breastpins from the Tyrian dagger, and a confused kicking about of helmets, together with interchanges between various Johns and Joans of vows of eternal constancy, assurances from some fair ones that, “though they could not love, they should always regard as a brother,” and from some of our sex to the same purport toward gentle-hearted Aramintas, – very pleasant to look upon and charming to dwell upon, – who were not, after all, our chosen Aramintas; and there was no end of three and four-paged notes written, in which Susan Ann told Susan Jane that “never, never shall we forget the happy hours we ‘ve spent together on Cloudland hill, – never shall the hand of friendship grow cold, or the heart of friendship cease to beat with emotion.”
Poor dear souls all of us! We meant every word that we said.
It was only the other day that I called in a house on Beacon Street to see a fair sister, to whom on this occasion I addressed a most pathetic note, and who sent me a very pretty curl of golden-brown hair. Now she is Mrs. Boggs, and the sylph that was is concealed under a most enormous matron; the room trembles when she sets her foot down. But I found her heart in the centre of the ponderous mass, and, as I am somewhat inclining to be a stout old gentleman, we shook the room with out merriment. Such is life!
The next day Tina was terribly out of spirits, and had two or three hours of long and bitter crying, the cause of which none of our trio could get out of her.
The morning that we were to leave she went around bidding good by to everybody and everything, for there was not a creature in Cloudland that did not claim some part in her, and for whom she had not a parting word. And, finally, I proposed that we should go in to the schoolmaster together and have a last good time with him, and then, with one of her sudden impulsive starts, she turned her back on me.
“No, no, Horace! I don’t want to see him any more!”
I was in blank amazement for a moment, and then I remembered the correspondence on the improvement of her mind.
“Tina, you don’t tell me,” said I, “that Mr. Rossiter has – “
She turned quickly round and faced on the defensive.
“Now, Horace, you need not talk to me, for it is not my fault! Could I dream of such a thing, now? Could I? Mr. Rossiter, of all the men on earth! Why, Horace, I do love him dearly. I never had any father – that cared for me, at least,” she said, with a quiver in her voice; “and he was beginning to seem so like a father to me. I loved him, I respected him, I reverenced him, – and now was I wrong to express it?”
“Why, but, Tina,” said I, in amazement, “Mr. Rossiter cannot – he could not mean to marry you!”
“No, no. He says that he would not. He asked nothing. It all seemed to come out before he thought what he was saying, – that he has been thinking altogether too much of me, and that when I go it will seem as if all was gone that he cares for. I can’t tell you how he spoke, Horace; there was something fearful in it, and he trembled. O Horace, he loves me nobly, disinterestedly, truly; but I felt guilty for it. I felt that such a power of feeling never ought to rest on such a bit of thistle-down as I am. Oh! why would n’t he stay on the height where I had put him, and let me reverence and admire him, and have him to love as my father?”
“But Tina, you cannot, you must not now – “
“I know it, Horace. I have lost him for a friend and father and guide because he will love me too well.”
And so ends Mr. Jonathan Rossiter’s Spartan training.
My good friends of the American Republic, if ever we come to have mingled among the senators of the United States specimens of womankind like Tina Percival, we men remaining such as we by nature are and must be, will not the general hue of polities take a decidedly new and interesting turn?
Mr. Avery parted from us with some last words of counsel.
“You are going into college life, boys, and you must take care of your bodies. Many a boy breaks down because he keeps his country appetite and loses his country exercise. You must balance study and brain-work by exercise and muscle-work, or you ‘ll be down with dyspepsia, and won’t know what ails you. People have wondered where the seat of original sin is; I think it ‘s in the stomach. A man eats too much and neglects exercise, and the Devil has him all his own way, and the little imps, with their long black fingers, play on his nerves like a piano. Never overwork either body or mind, boys. All the work that a man can do that can be rested by one night’s sleep is good for him, but fatigue that goes into the next day is always bad. Never get discouraged at difficulties. I give you both this piece of advice. When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you till it seems as if you could n’t hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that ‘s just the place and time that the tide ‘ll turn. Never trust to prayer without using every means in your power, and never use the means without trusting in prayer. Get your evidences of grace by pressing forward to the mark, and not by groping with a lantern after the boundary-lines, – and so, boys, go, and God bless you!”
CHAPTER XL.
WE ENTER COLLEGE.
HARRY and I entered Cambridge with honor. It was a matter of pride with Mr. Rossiter that his boys should go more than ready, – that an open and abundant entrance should be administered unto them in the classic halls; and so it was with us. We were fully prepared on the conditions of the sophomore year, and thus, by Mr. Rossiter’s drill, had saved the extra expenses of one year of college life.
We had our room in common, and Harry’s improved means enabled him to fit it up and embellish it in an attractive manner. Tina came over and presided at the inauguration, and helped us hang our engravings, and fitted up various little trifles of shell and moss work, – memorials of Cloudland.
Tina was now visiting at the Kitterys’, in Boston, dispensing smiles and sunbeams, inquired after and run after by every son of Adam who happened to come in her way, all to no purpose, so far as her heart was concerned.
“Favors to none, to all she smiles extends;
Oft she rejects, but never once offends.”
Tina’s education was now, in the common understanding of society, looked upon as finished. Harry’s and mine were commencing; we were sophomores in college. She was a young lady in society; yet she was younger than either of us, and had, I must say, quite as good a mind, and was fully as capable of going through our college course with us as of having walked thus far.
However, with her the next question was, Whom will she marry? – a question that my young lady seemed not in the slightest hurry to answer. I flattered myself on her want of susceptibility that pointed in the direction of marriage. She could feel so much friendship, – such true affection, – and yet was apparently so perfectly devoid of passion.
She was so brilliant, and so fitted to adorn society, that one would have thought she would have been ennuyée in the old Rossiter house, with only the society of Miss Mehitable and Polly; but Tina was one of those whose own mind and nature are sufficient excitement to keep them always burning. She loved her old friend with all her little heart, and gave to her all her charms and graces, and wound round her in a wild-rose garland, like the eglantine that she was named after.
She had cultivated her literary tastes and powers. She wrote and sketched and painted for Miss Mehitable, and Miss Mehitable was most appreciative. Her strong, shrewd, well-cultivated mind felt and appreciated the worth and force of everything there was in Tina, and Tina seemed perfectly happy and satisfied with one devoted admirer. However, she had two, for Polly still survived, being of the dry immortal species, and seemed, as Tina told her, quite as good as new. And Tina once more had uproarious evenings with Miss Mehitable and Polly, delighting herself with the tumults of laughter which she awakened.
She visited and patronized Sam Lawson’s children, gave them candy and told them stories, and now and then brought home Hepsie’s baby for a half-day, and would busy herself dressing it up in something new of her own invention and construction. Poor Hepsie was one of those women fated always to have a baby in which she seemed to have no more maternal pleasure than an old fowling-piece. But Tina looked at her on the good-natured and pitiful side, although, to be sure, she did study her with a view to dramatic representation, and made no end of capital of her in this way in the bosom of her own family. Tina’s mimicry and mockery had not the slightest tinge of contempt or ill-feeling in it; it was pure merriment, and seemed to be just as natural to her as the freakish instincts of the mocking-bird, who sits in the blossoming boughs above your head, and sends back every sound that you hear with a wild and airy gladness.
Tina’s letters to us were full of this mirthful, effervescent sparkle, to which everything in Oldtown afforded matter of amusement; and the margins of them were scrawled with droll and lifelike caricatures, in which we recognized Sam Lawson, and Hepsie, and Uncle Fliakim, and, in fact, all the Oldtown worthies, – not even excepting Miss Mehitable and Polly, the minister and his lady, my grandmother, Aunt Lois, and Aunt Keziah. What harm was there in all this, when Tina assured us that aunty read the letters before they went, and laughed until she cried over them?
“But, after all,” I said to Harry one day, “it ‘s rather a steep thing for girls that have kept step with us in study up to this point, and had their minds braced just as ours have been, with all the drill of regular hours and regular lessons, to be suddenly let down, with nothing in particular to do.”
“Except to wait the coming man,” said Harry, “who is to teach her what to do.”
“Well,” said I, “in the interval, while this man is coming, what has Tina to do but to make a frolic of life? to live like a bobolink on a clover-head, to sparkle like a dewdrop in a thorn bush, to whirl like a bubble on a stream? Why could n’t she as well find the coming man while she is doing something as while she is doing nothing? Esther and you found each other while you were working side by side, your minds lively and braced, toiling at the same great ideas, knowing each other in the very noblest part of your natures; and you are true companions; it is a mating of souls and not merely of bodies.”
“I know that,” said Harry, “I know, too, that in these very things that I set my heart on in the college course Esther is by far my superior. You know, Horace, that she was ahead of us in both Greek and mathematics; and why should she not go through the whole course with us as well as the first part? The fact is, a man never sees a subject thoroughly until he sees what a woman will think of it, for there is a woman’s view of every subject, which has a different shade from a man’s view, and that is what you and I have insensibly been absorbing in all our course hitherto. How splendidly Esther lighted up some of those passages of the Greek tragedy! and what a sparkle and glitter there were in some of Tina’s suggestions! All I know, Horace, is that it is confoundedly dull being without them; these fellows are well enough, but they are cloddish and lumpish.”
Well,” said I, “that is n’t the worst of it. When such a gay creature of the elements as Tina is has nothing earthly to do to steady her mind and task her faculties, and her life becomes a mere glitter, and her only business to amuse the passing hour, it throws her open to all sorts of temptations from that coming man, whoever he may be. Can we wonder that girls love to flirt, and try their power on lovers? And then they are fair game for men who want to try their powers on them, and some man who has a vacation in his life purpose, and wants something to amuse him, makes an episode by getting up some little romance, which is an amusement to him, but all in all to her. Is that fair?”
“True,” said Harry, “and there ‘s everything about Tina to tempt one; she is so dazzling and bewildering and exciting that a man might intoxicate himself with her for the mere pleasure of the thing, as one takes opium or champagne; and that sort of bewilderment and intoxication girls often mistake for love! I would to Heaven, Horace, that I were as sure that Tina loves you as I am that Esther loves me.”
“She does love me with her heart,” said I, “but not with her imagination. The trouble with Tina, Harry, is this: she is a woman that can really and truly love a man as a sister, or as a friend, or as a daughter, and she is a woman that no man can love in that way long. She feels nothing but affection, and she always creates passion. I have not the slightest doubt that she loves me dearly, but I have a sort of vision that between her and me will come some one who will kindle her imagination; and all the more so that she has nothing serious to do, nothing to keep her mind braced, and her intellectual and judging faculties in the ascendant, but is fairly set adrift, just like a little flowery boat, without steersman or oars, on a bright, swift-rushing river. Did you ever notice, Harry, what a singular effect Ellery Davenport seems to have on her?”
“No,” said Harry, starting and looking surprised. “Why, Horace, Ellery Davenport is a good deal older than she is, and a married man too.”
“Well, Harry, did n’t you ever hear of married men that liked to try experiments with girls? and in our American society they can do it all the more safely, because here, thank Heaven! nobody ever dreams but what marriage is a perfect regulator and safeguard.”
“But,” said Harry, rubbing his eyes like a person just waking up, “Horace, it must be the mere madness of jealousy that would put such a thing into your head. Why, there has n’t been the slightest foundation for it.”
“That is to say, Harry, you ‘ve been in love with Esther, and your eyes and ears and senses have all run one way. But I have lived in Tina, and I believe I have a sort of divining power, so that I can almost see into her heart. I feel in myself how things affect her, and I know, by feeling and sensation, that from her childhood Ellery Davenport has had a peculiar magnetic effect upon her.”
“But, Horace, he is a married man,” persisted Harry.
“A fascinating married man, victimized by a crazy wife, and ready to throw himself on the sympathies of womanhood in this affliction. The fair sex are such Good Samaritans that some fellows make capital of their wounds and bruises.”
“Well, but,” said Harry, “there ‘s not the slightest thing that leads me to think that he ever cared particularly about Tina.”
“That ‘s because you are Tina’s brother, and not her lover,” said I. “I remember as long ago as when we were children, spending Easter at Madam Kittery’s, how Ellery Davenport’s eyes used to follow her, – how she used constantly to seem to excite and interest him; and all this zeal about your affairs, and his coming up to Oldtown, and cultivating Miss Mehitable’s acquaintance so zealously, and making himself so necessary to her; and then he has always been writing letters or sending messages to Tina, and then, when he was up in Cloudland, did n’t you see how constantly his eyes followed her? He came there for nothing but to see her, – I ‘m perfectly sure of it.”
“Well, Horace, you are about as absurd as a lover need be!” said Harry. “Mr. Davenport is rather a conceited man of the world; I think he patronized me somewhat extensively; but all this about Tina is a romance of your own spinning, you may be sure of it.”
This conversation occurred one Saturday morning, while we were dressing and arraying ourselves to go into Boston, where we had engaged to dine at Madam Kittery’s.
From the first of our coming to Cambridge, we had remembered our old-time friendship for the Kitterys, and it was an arranged thing that we were to dine with them every Saturday. The old Kittery mansion we had found the same still, charming, quaint, inviting place that it seemed to us in our childhood. The years that had passed over the silvery head of dear old Madam Kittery had passed lightly and reverently, each one leaving only a benediction.
She was still to be found, when we called, seated, as in days long ago, on her little old sofa in the sunny window, and with her table of books before her, reading her Bible and Dr. Johnson, and speaking on “Peace and good-will to men.”
As to Miss Debby, she was as up and down, as high-stepping and outspoken and pleasantly sub-acid as ever. The French Revolution had put her in a state of good-humor hardly to be conceived of. It was so delightful to have all her theories of the bad effects of republics on lower classes illustrated and confirmed in such a striking manner, that even her indignation at the destruction of such vast numbers of the aristocracy was but a slight feature in comparison with it.
She kept the newspapers and magazines at hand which contained all the accounts of the massacres, mobbings, and outrages, and read them, in a high tone of voice, to her serving-women, butler, and footman after family prayers. She catechized more energetically than ever, and bore more stringently on ordering one’s self lowly and reverently to one’s betters, enforcing her remarks by the blood-and-thunder stories of the guillotine in France.
We were hardly seated in the house, and had gone over the usual track of inquiries which fill up the intervals, when she burst forth on us, triumphant.
“Well, my English papers have come in. Have you seen the last news from France? They ‘re at it yet, hotter than ever. One would think that murdering the king and queen might have satisfied them, but it don’t a bit. Everybody is at it now, cutting everybody’s else throat, and there really does seem to be a prospect that the whole French nation will become extinct.”
“Indeed,” said Harry, with an air of amusement. “Well, Miss Debby, I suppose you think that would be the best way of settling things.”
“Don’t know but it would,” said Miss Debby, putting on her spectacles in a manner which pushed her cap-border up into a bristling, helmet-like outline, and whirling over her file of papers, seemingly with a view to edifying us with the most startling morsels of French history for the six months past.
“Here ‘s the account of how they worshipped ‘the Goddess of Reason’!” She cried, eyeing us fiercely, as if we had been part and party in the transaction. “Here ‘s all about how their philosophers and poets, and what not, put up a drab, and worshipped her as their ‘Goddess of Reason’! And then they annulled the Sabbath, and proclaimed that ‘death is an Eternal Sleep’! Now, that is just what Tom Jefferson likes; it ‘s what suits him. I read it to Ellery Davenport yesterday, to show him what his principles come to.”
Harry immediately hastened to assure Miss Debby that we were stanch Federalists, and not in the least responsible for any of the acts or policy of Thomas Jefferson.
“Don’t know anything about that; you see it ‘s the Democrats that have got the country, and are running as hard as they can after France. Ah, here it is,” Miss Debby added, still turning over her files of papers. “Here are the particulars of the execution of the queen. You can see, – they had her on a common cart, hands tied behind her, rattling and jolting, with all the vile fishwomen and dirty drabs of Paris leering and jeering at her, and they even had the cruelty,” she added, coming indignantly at us as if we were responsible for it, “to stop the cart in front of her palace, so that she might be agonized at seeing her former home, and they might taunt her in her agonies! Anybody that can read that, and not say the French are devils, I ‘d like to know what they are made of!”
“Well,” said Harry, undismayed by the denunciations; “the French are an exceedingly sensitive and excitable people, who had been miseducated and mismanaged, and taught brutality and cruelty by the examples of the clergy and nobility.”
“Excitable fiddlesticks!” said Miss Debby, who, like my grandmother, had this peculiar way of summing up an argument. “I don’t believe in softening sin and iniquity by such sayings as that.”
“But you must think,” said Harry, “that the French are human beings, and only act as any human beings would under their circumstances.”
“Don’t believe a word of it!” said she, shortly. “I agree with the man who said, ‘God made two kinds of nature, – human nature and French nature.’ Voltaire, was n’t it, himself, that said the French were a compound of the tiger and the monkey? I wonder what Tom Jefferson thinks of his beautiful, darling French Republic now! I presume he likes it. I don’t doubt it is just such a state of things as he is trying to bring to pass here in America.”
“O,” said I, “the Federalists will head him at the next election.”
“I don’t know anything about your Democrats and your Federalists,” said she. “I thank Heaven I wash my hands of this government.”
“And does King George still reign here?” said Harry.
“Certainly he does, young gentleman! Whatever happens to this government, I have no part in it.”
Miss Debby, upon this, ushered us to the dinner-table, and said grace in a resounding, and belligerent voice, and, sitting down, began to administer the soup to us with great determination.
Old Madam Kittery, who had listened with a patient smile to all the preceding conversation, now began in a gentle aside to me.
“I really don’t think it is good for Debby to read those bloody-bone stories morning, noon, and night, as she does,” she said. “She really almost takes away my appetite some days, and it does seem as if she would n’t talk about anything else. Now, Horace,” she said to me, appealingly, “the Bible says ‘Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity,’ and I can’t help feeling that Debby talks as if she were really glad to see those poor French making such a mess of things. I can’t feel so. If they are French, they ‘re our brothers, you know, and Debby really seems to go against the Bible, – not that she means to, dear,” she added, earnestly, laying her hand on mine; “Debby is an excellent woman; but, between you and me, I think she is a little excitable.”
“What ‘s that mother ‘s saying?” said Miss Debby, who kept a strict survey over all the sentiments expressed in her household. “What was mother saying?”
“I was saying, Debby, that I did n’t think it did any good for you to keep reading over and over those dreadful things.”
“And who does keep reading them over?” said Miss Debby, “I should like to know. I ‘m sure I don’t; except when it is absolutely necessary to instruct the servants and put them on their guard. I ‘m sure I am as averse to such details as anybody can be.”
Miss Debby said this with that innocent air with which good sort of people very generally maintain that they never do things which most of their acquaintances consider them particular nuisances for doing.
“By the by, Horace,” said Miss Debby, by way of changing the subject, “have you seen Ellery Davenport since he came home?”
“No,” said I, with a sudden feeling as if my heart was sinking down into my boots. “Has he come home to stay?”
“O yes,” said Miss Debby; “his dear, sweet, model, Republican France grew too hot to hold him. He had to flee to England, and now he has concluded to come home and make what mischief he can here, with his democratic principles and his Rousseau and all the rest of them.”
“Debby is n’t as set against Ellery as she seems to be,” said the old lady, in an explanatory aside to me. “You know, dear, he ‘s her cousin.”
“And you really think he intends to live in this country for the future?” said I.
“Well, I suppose so.” said Miss Debby. “You know that poor, miserable, crazy wife of his is dead, and my lord is turned loose on society as a widower at large, and all the talk here in good circles is, Who is the blessed woman that shall be Mrs. Ellery Davenport the second? The girls are all pulling caps for him, of course.”
It was perfectly ridiculous and absurd, but I suddenly lost all appetite for my dinner, and sat back in my chair playing with my knife and fork, until the old lady said to me compassionately: –
“Why, dear, you don’t seem to be eating anything! Debby, put an oyster-paté on Horace’s plate; he don’t seem to relish his chicken.”
I had to submit to the oyster-paté, and sit up and eat it like a man, to avoid the affectionate importunity of my dear old friend. In despair, I plunged into the subject least agreeable to me, and remarked: –
“Mr. Davenport is a very brilliant man, and I suppose in very good circumstances; is he not?”
“Yes, enormously rich,” said Miss Debby. “He still passes for young, with that face of his that never will grow old, I believe. And then he has a tongue that could wheedle a bird out of a tree; so I don’t know what is to hinder him from having as many wives as Solomon, if he feels so disposed. I don’t imagine there is anybody would say ‘No’ to him.”
“Well, I hope he will marry a good girl,” said the old lady, “poor dear boy. I always loved Ellery; and he would make any woman happy, I am sure.”
“That depends,” said Miss Debby, “on what the woman wants. If she wants laces and cashmere shawls, and horses and carriages, and a fine establishment, Ellery Davenport will give her those. But if she wants a man to love her all her life, that ‘s what Ellery Davenport can’t do for any woman. He is a man that never cares for anything he has got. It ‘s always the thing that he has n’t got that he ‘s after. It ‘s the ‘pot of money at the end of the rainbow,’ or the ‘philosopher’s stone,’ or any other thing that keeps a man all his life on a canter, and never getting anywhere. And no woman will ever be anything to him but a temporary diversion. Ho can amuse himself in too many ways to want her.”
“Yes,” said the old lady, “but when a man marries he promises to cherish her.”
“My dear mother, that is in the Church Service, and I assure you Ellery Davenport has got beyond that. He ‘s altogether too fine and wise and enlightened to think that a man should spend his days in cherishing a woman merely because he went through the form of marriage with her in church. Much cherishing his crazy wife got of him! but he used his affliction to get half a dozen girls in love with him, so that he might be cherished himself. I tell you what, – Ellery Davenport lays out to marry a real angel. He ‘s to swear and she ‘s to pray! He is to wander where he likes, and she is always to meet him with a smile and ask no questions. That is the part for Mrs Ellery Davenport to act.”
“I don’t believe a word of it, Debby,” said the old lady “You ‘ll see now, – you ‘ll see.”
CHAPTER XLI.
NIGHT TALKS.
WE walked home that night by starlight, over the long bridge between Boston and Cambridge, and watched the image of the great round yellow moon just above the horizon, breaking and shimmering in the water into a thousand crystal fragments, like an orb of golden glass. We stopped midway in the calm obscurity, with our arms around each other, and had one of those long talks that friends, even the most confidential, can have only in the darkness. Cheek to cheek under the soft dim mantle of the starlight, the night flowers of the innermost soul open.
We talked of our loves, our hopes, of the past, the present, and the great hereafter, in which we hoped forever to mingle. And then Harry spoke to me of his mother, and told in burning words of that life of bitterness and humiliation and sorrow through which he had passed with her.
“O Harry,” said I, “did it not try your faith, that God should have left her to suffer all that?”
“No, Horace, no, because in all that suffering she conquered, – she was more than conqueror. O, I have seen such divine peace in her eyes, at the very time when everything earthly was failing her! Can I ever doubt? I who saw into heaven when she entered? No, I have seen her crowned, glorified, in my soul as plainly as if it had been a vision.”
At that moment I felt in myself that magnetic vibration of the great central nerves which always prefaced my spiritual visions, and looking up I saw that the beautiful woman I had seen once before was standing by Harry, but now more glowing and phosphorescent than I saw her last; there was a divine, sweet, awful radiance in her eyes, as she raised her hands above his head, he, meanwhile, stooping down and looking intently into the water.
“Harry,” said I, after a few moments of silence, “do you believe your mother sees and knows what you do in this world, and watches over you?”
“That has always been one of those things that I have believed without reasoning,” said Harry, musingly. “I never could help believing it; and there have been times in my life when I felt so certain that she must be near me, that it seemed as though, if I spoke, she must answer, – if I reached out my hand, it would touch hers. It is one of my instinctive certainties. It is curious,” he added, “that the difference between Esther and myself is just the reverse kind of that which generally subsists between man and woman. She has been all her life so drilled in what logicians call reasoning, that, although she has a glorious semi-spiritual nature, and splendid moral instincts, she never trusts them. She is like an eagle that should insist upon climbing a mountain by beak and claw instead of using wings. She must always see the syllogism before she will believe.”
“For my part,” said I, “I have always felt the tyranny of the hard New England logic, and it has kept me from really knowing what to believe about many phenomena of my own mind that are vividly real to me.” Here I faltered and hesitated, and the image that seemed to stand by us slowly faded. I could not and did not say to Harry how often I had seen it.
“After all I have heard and thought on this subject,” said Harry, “my religious faith is what it always was, – a deep, instinctive certainty, an embrace by the soul of something which it could not exist without. My early recollections are stronger than anything else of perfect and utter helplessness, of troubles entirely beyond all human aid. My father – ” He stopped and shuddered. “Horace, he was one of those whom intemperance makes mad. For a great part of his time he was a madman, with all the cunning, all the ingenuity, the devilishness of insanity, and I have had to stand between him and my mother, and to hide Tina out of his way.” He seemed to shudder as one convulsed. “One does not get over such a childhood,” he said. “It has made all my religious views, my religious faith, rest on two ideas, – man’s helplessness, and God’s helpfulness. We are sent into this world in the midst of a blind, confused jangle of natural laws, which we cannot by any possibility understand, and which cut their way through and over and around us. They tell us nothing; they have no sympathy; they hear no prayer; they spare neither vice nor virtue. And if we have no friend above to guide us through the labyrinth, if there is no Father’s heart, no helping hand, of what use is life? I would throw myself into this river, and have it over with at once.”
“I always noticed your faith in prayer,” said I. “But how can it consist with this known inflexibility of natural laws?”
“And what if natural laws were meant as servants of man’s moral life? What if Jesus Christ and his redeeming, consoling work were the first thing, and all things made by him for this end? Inflexible physical laws are necessary; their very inflexibility is divine order; but ‘what law cannot do, in that it is weak through the flesh, God did by sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.’ Christ delivers us from slavery to natural law; he comes to embody and make visible the paternal idea; and if you and I, with our small knowledge of physical laws, can so turn and arrange them that their inflexible course shall help, and not hinder, much more can their Maker.”
“You always speak of Christ as God.”
“I have never thought of God in any other way,” he answered. “Christ is the God of sufferers; and those who learn religion by sorrow always turn to him. No other than a suffering God could have helped my mother in her anguish.”
“And do you think,” said I, “that prayer is a clew strong enough to hold amid the rugged realities of life?”
“I do,” said Harry. “At any rate, there is my great venture; that is my life-experiment. My mother left me that as her only legacy.”
“It certainly seems to have worked well for you so far, Harry,” said I, “and for me too, for God has guided us to what we scarcely could have hoped for, two poor boys as we were, and so utterly helpless. But then, Harry, there must be a great many prayers that are never answered.”
“Of course,” said Harry, “I do not suppose that God has put the key of all the universe into the hand of every child; but it is a comfort to have a Father to ask of, even though he refuse five times out of six, and it makes all the difference between having a father and being an orphan. Yes,” he added, after a few moments of thought, “my poor mother’s prayers seemed often to be denied, for she prayed that my father might reform. She often prayed from day to day that we might be spared miseries that he still brought upon us. But I feel sure that she has seen by this time that her Father heard the prayers that he seemed to deny, and her faith in him never failed. What is that music?” he said.
At this moment there came softly over the gleaming water, from the direction of the sea, the faintest possible vibration of a sound, like the dying of an organ tone. It might be from some ship, hidden away far off in the mist, but the effect was soft and dreamy as if it came from some spirit-land.
“I often think,” said Harry, listening for a moment, “that no one can pronounce on what this life has been to him until he has passed entirely through it, and turns around and surveys it from the other world. I think then we shall see everything in its true proportions; but till then we must walk by faith and not by sight, – faith that God loves us, faith that our Saviour is always near us, and that all things are working together for good.”
“Harry,” said I, “do you ever think of your father now?”
“Horace, there is where I wish I could be a more perfect Christian than I am. I have a bitter feeling toward him, that I fear is not healthful, and that I pray God to take away. Tonight, since we have been standing here, I have had a strange, remorseful feeling about him, as if some good spirit were interceding for him with me, and trying to draw me to love and forgive him. I shall never see him, probably, until I meet him in the great Hereafter, and then, perhaps, I shall find that her prayers have prevailed for him.”
It was past twelve o’clock when we got to our room that night and Harry found lying on his table a great sealed package from England. He opened it and found in it, first, a letter from his father, Sir Harry Percival. The letter was as follows: –
“HOLME HOUSE.
“MY SON HARRY: –
“I have had a dozen minds to write to you before now, having had good accounts of you from Mr. Davenport; but, to say truth, have been ashamed to write. I did not do right by your mother, nor by you and your sister, as I am now free to acknowledge. She was not of a family equal to ours, but she was too good for me. I left her in America like a brute as I was, and God has judged me for it.
“I married the woman my father picked out for me, when I came home, and resolved to pull up and live soberly like a decent man. But nothing went well with me. My children died one after another; my boy lived to be seven years old, but he was feeble, and now he is dead too, and you are the heir. I am thinking that I am an old sinner, and in a bad way. Have had two turns of gout in the stomach that went hard with me, and the doctor don’t think I shall stand many such. I have made my will with a provision for the girl, and you will have the estate in course. I do wish you would come over and see a poor old sinner before he dies. It is n’t in the least jolly being here, and I am dev’lish cross, they say. I suppose I am, but if you were minded to come I ‘d try and behave myself, and so make amends for what ‘s past beyond recall.
“Your father,
“HARRY PERCIVAL.”
Accompanying this letter was a letter from the family lawyer, stating that on the 18th day of the month past Sir Harry Percival had died of an attack of gout. The letter went on to give various particulars about the state of the property, and the steps which had been taken in relation to it, and expressing the hope that the arrangements made would meet with his approbation.
It may well be imagined that it was almost morning before we closed our eyes, after so very startling a turn in our affairs. We lay long discussing it in every possible light, and now first I found courage to tell Harry of my own peculiar experiences, and of what I had seen that very evening. “It seems to me,” said Harry, when I had told him all, “as if I felt what you saw. I had a consciousness of a sympathetic presence, something breathing over me like wind upon harp-strings, something particularly predisposing me to think kindly of my father. My feeling towards him has been the weak spot of my inner life always, and I had a morbid horror of him. Now I feel at peace with him. Perhaps her prayers have prevailed to save him from utter ruin.”
CHAPTER XLII.
SPRING VACATION AT OLDTOWN.
IT was the spring vacation, and Harry and I were coming again to Oldtown; and ten miles back, where we changed horses, we had left the crawling old Boston stage and took a footpath through a patch of land known as the Spring Pasture. Our road lay pleasantly along the brown, sparkling river, which was now just waked up, after its winter nap, as fussy and busy and chattering as a housekeeper that has overslept herself. There were downy catkins on the willows, and the water-maples were throwing out their crimson tassels. The sweet-flag was just showing its green blades above the water, and here and there, in nooks, there were yellow cowslips reflecting their bright gold faces in the dark water.
Harry and I had walked this way that we might search under the banks and among the dried leaves for the white waxen buds and flowers of the trailing arbutus. We were down on our knees, scraping the leaves away, when a well-known voice came from behind the bushes.
“Wal, lordy massy, boys! Here ye be! Why, I ben up to Siah’s tahvern, an’ looked inter the stage, an’ did n’t see yer. I jest thought I ‘d like to come an’ kind o’ meet yer. Lordy massy, they ‘s all a lookin’ out for yer ‘t all the winders; ‘n’ Aunt Lois, she ‘s ben bilin’ up no end o’ doughnuts, an’ tearin’ round ‘nough to drive the house out o’ the winders, to git everything ready for ye. Why, it beats the Prodigal Son all holler, the way they ‘re killin’ the fatted calves for yer; an’ everybody in Oldtown ‘s a wantin’ to see Sir Harry.”
“O nonsense, Sam!” said Harry, coloring. “Hush about that! We don’t have titles over here in America.”
“Lordy massy, that ‘s just what I wus a tellin’ on ’em up to store. It ‘s a pity, ses I, this yere happened arter peace was signed, ’cause we might ha’ had a real live Sir Harry round among us. An’ I think Lady Lothrop, she kind o’ thinks so too.”
“O nonsense!” said Harry. “Sam, are the folks all well?”
“O lordy massy, yes! Chirk and chipper as can be. An there ‘s Tiny, they say she ‘s a goin’ to be an heiress nowadays, an’ there ‘s no end of her beaux. There ‘s Ellery Devenport ben down here these two weeks, a puttin’ up at the tahvern, with a landau an’ a span o’ crack horses, a takin’ on her out to ride every day, and Miss Mehitable, she ‘s so sot up, she ‘s reelly got a bran-new bonnet, an’ left off that ‘ere old un o’ hern that she ‘s had trimmed over spring an’ fall goin’ on these ‘ere ten years. I thought that ‘ere bonnet ‘s going to last out my time, but I see it hain’t. An’ she ‘s got a new Injy shawl, that Mr. Devenport gin her. Yeh see, he understan’s courtin’, all round.”
This intelligence, of course, was not the most agreeable to me. I hope, my good friends, that you have never known one of those quiet hours of life, when, while you are sitting talking and smiling, and to all appearance quite unmoved, you hear a remark or learn a fact that seems to operate on you as if somebody had quietly turned a faucet that was letting out your very life. Down, down, down, everything seems sinking, the strength passing away from you as the blood passes when an artery is cut. It was with somewhat this sensation that I listened to Sam’s chatter, while I still mechanically poked away the leaves and drew out the long waxy garlands that I had been gathering for her!
Sam seated himself on the bank, and, drawing his knees up to his chin and clasping his hands upon them, began moralizing in his usual strain.
“Lordy massy, lordy massy, what a changin’ world this ‘ere is! It ‘s jest see-saw, teeter-tawter, up an’ down. To-day it ‘s I ‘m up an’ you ‘re down, an’ to-morrow it ‘s you ‘re up and I ‘m down! An’ then, by an’ by, death comes an’ takes us all. I ‘ve been kind o’ dwellin’ on some varses to-day. –
‘death, like a devourin’ deluge,
Sweeps all away.
The young, the old, the middle-aged,
To him become a prey.’
That ‘ere is what Betty Poganut repeated to me the night we sot up by Statiry’s corpse. Yeh ‘member Statiry Poganut? Well, she ‘s dead at last. Yeh see, we all gits called in our turn. We hain’t here no continuin’ city.”
“But, Sam,” said I, “how does business get along? Have n’t you anything to do but tramp the pastures and moralize? “
“Wal,” said Sam, “I ‘ve hed some pretty consid’able spells of blacksmithin’ lately. There ‘s Mr. Devenport, he ‘s sech a pleasant-spoken man, he told me he brought his team all the way up from Bostin a purpose so that I might ‘tend to their huffs. I ‘ve been a shoein’ on ’em fresh all round, an’ the off horse, he ‘d kind o’ got a crack in his huff, an’ I ‘ve been a doctorin’ on ‘t; an’ Mr Devenport, he said he had n’t found nobody that knew how to doctor a horse’s huffs ekal to me. Very pleasant-spoken man Mr. Devenport is; he ‘s got a good word for everybody. They say there ain’t no end to his fortin, an’ he goes a flingin’ on ‘t round, right en’ left, like a prince. Why, when I ‘d done shoein’ his hosses, he jest put his hand inter his pocket en’ handed me out ten dollars! ripped it out, he did, jest as easy as water runs! But there was Tiny a standin’ by; I think she kind o’ sot him on. O lordy massy, it ‘s plain to be seen that she rules him. It ‘s all cap in hand to her, an’ ‘What you will, madam,’ an’ ‘Will ye have the end o’ the rainbow, or a slice out o’ the moon, or what is it?’ It ‘s all ekal to him, so as Miss Tiny wants it. Lordy massy,” he said lowering his voice confidentially to Harry, “course these ‘ere things is all temporal, an’ our hearts ought n’t to be too much sot on ’em; still he ‘s got about the most amazin’ fortin there is round Bostin. Why, if you b’lieve me, ‘tween you an’ me, it ‘s him as owns the Dench Place, where you and Tiny put up when you wus children! Don’t ye ‘member when I found ye? Ye little guessed whose house ye wus a puttin’ up at then; did yer? Lordy massy, lordy massy, who ‘d ha’ thought it? The wonderful ways of Providence! ‘He setteth the poor on high, an letteth the runagates continoo in scarceness.’ Wal, wal, it ‘s a kind o’ instructive world.”
“Do you suppose,” said Harry to me, in a low voice, “that this creature knows anything of what he is saying? “
“I ‘m afraid he does,” said I. “Sam seems to have but one talent, and that is picking up news; and generally his guesses turn out to be about true.”
“Sam,” said I, by way of getting him to talk of something else, rather than on what I dreaded to hear, “you have n’t said a word about Hepsy and the children. How are they all?”
“Wal, the young uns hes all got the whoopin’ cough,” said Sam, “an’ I ‘m e’en a ‘most beat out with ’em. For fust it ‘s one barks, an then another, an’ then all together. An’ then Hepsy, she gets riled an’ she scolds; an’, take it all together, a feller’s head gits kind o’ turned. When ye hes a lot o’ young uns, there ‘s allus suthin’ a goin’ on among ’em; ef ‘t ain’t whoopin’ cough, it ‘s measles; an’ ef ‘t ain’t measles, it ‘s chicken-pox, or else it ‘s mumps, or scarlet-fever, or suthin’. They ‘s all got to be gone through, fust an’ last. It ‘s enough to wean a body from this world. Lordy massy, yest ‘day arternoon I see yer Aunt Keziah an’ yer Aunt Lois out a cuttin’ cowslip greens t’other side o’ th’ river, an’ the sun it shone so bright, an’ the turtles an’ frogs they kind o’ peeped so pleasant, an’ yer aunts they sot on the bank so kind o’ easy an’ free, an’ I stood there a lookin’ on ’em, an’ I could n’t help a thinkin’, ‘Lordy messy, I wish t’ I wus an old maid.’ Folks ‘scapes a great deal that don’t hev no young uns a hangin’ onter ’em.”
“Well, Sam,” said Harry, “is n’t there any news stirring round in the neighborhood?”
“S’pose ye had n’t heerd about the great church-quarrel over to Needmore?” he said.
“Quarrel? Why, no,” said Harry. “What is it about?”
“Wal, ye see, there ‘s a kind o’ quarrel ris ‘tween Parson Perry and Deacon Bangs. I can’t jest git the right on ‘t, but it ‘s got the hull town afire. I b’lieve it cum up in a kind o’ dispute how to spell Saviour. The Deacon he ‘s on the school committee, en’ Person Perry he ‘s on ‘t; an’ the Deacon he spells it iour, an’ Parson Perry he spells it ior, an’ they would n’t neither on ’em give up. Wal, ye know Deacon Bangs, – I s’pose he ‘s a Christian, – but, lordy massy, he ‘s one o’ yer dreadful ugly kind o’ Christians, that, when they gits their backs up, will do worse things than sinners will. I reelly think they kind o’ take advantage o’ their position, an’ think, es they ‘re goin’ to be saved by grace, grace shell hev enough on ‘t. Now, to my mind, ef either on ’em wus to give way, the Deacon oughter give up to the Parson; but the Deacon he don’t think so. Between you and me,” said Sam, “it ‘s my opinion that ef Ma’am Perry hed n’t died jest when she did, this ‘ere thing would never ha’ growed to where ‘t is. But ye see Ma’am Perry she died, an’ that left Parson Perry a widower, an’ folks did talk about him an’ Mahaley Bangs, an’ fact was, ‘long about last spring, Deacon Bangs an’ Mis’ Bangs an’ Mahaley wus jest as thick with the Parson as they could be. Why, Granny Watkins told me about their havin’ on him to tea two an’ three times a week, an’ Mahaley ‘d make two kinds o’ cake, an’ they ‘d have preserved watermelon rinds an’ peaches an’ cranberry saace, an’ then ‘t was all sugar an’ all sweet, an’ the Deacon he talked bout raisin’ Parson Perry’s salary. Wal, then, ye see, Parson Perry he went over to Oldtown an’ married Jerushy Peabody. Now, Jerushy’s a nice, pious gal, an’ it ‘s a free country, an’ parsons hes a right to suit ’emselves as well’s other men. But Jake Marshall, he ses to me, when he heerd o’ that, ses he, ‘They ‘ll be findin’ fault with Parson Perry’s doctrines now afore two months is up; ye see if they don’t.’ Wal, sure enuff, this ‘ere quarrel ’bout spellin’ Saviour come on fuss, an’ Deacon Bangs he fit the Parson like a bulldog. An’ next town-meetin’ day he told Parson Perry right out before everybody thet he was wuss then ‘n Armenian, – thet he was a rank Pelagian; ‘n’ he said there was folks thet hed taken notes o’ his sermons for two years back, n’ they could show thet he hed n’t preached the real doctrine of total depravity, nor ‘riginal sin, an’ thet he ‘d got the plan o’ salvation out o’ j’int intirely; he was all kind o’ flattin’ out onter morality. An’ Parson Perry he sed he ‘d preached jest ‘s he allers hed. ‘Tween you ‘n me, we know he must ha’ done that, cause these ‘ere ministers thet nev to go preachin’ round ‘n’ round like a hoss in a cider-mill, – wal’, course they must preach the same sermons over. I s’pose they kind o’ trim ’em up with new collars ‘n’ wristbands. But we used to say thet Parson Lothrop hed a bar’l o’ sermons, ‘n’ when he got through the year he turned his bar’l t’other side up, and begun at t’other end. Lordy massy, who ‘s to know it, when half on em ‘s asleep? And I guess the preachin ‘s full as good as the pay anyhow. Wal, the upshot on ‘t all is, they got a gret counsel there, an they ‘re a tryin’ Mr. Perry for heresy an’ what not. Wal, I don’t b’lieve there ‘s a yeller dog goes inter the Needmore meetin’-house now that ain’t got his mind made up one way or t’other about it. Yer don’t hear nothin’ over there now ‘xcept about Armenians an’ Pelagians an’ Unitarians an’ total depravity. Lordy massy! wal, they lives up to that doctrine any way. What do ye think of old Sphyxy Smith ‘s bein’ called in as one o’ the witnesses in council? She don’ know no more ’bout religion than an’ old hetchel, but she ‘s ferce as can be on Deacon Bangs’s side, an’ Old Crab Smith he hes to hev’ his say ’bout it.”
“Do tell,” said Harry, wonderingly, “if that old creature is alive yet!”
“‘Live? Why, yis, ye may say so,” said Sam. “Much alive as ever he was. Ye see he kind o’ pickles himself in hard cider, an’ I dunno but he may live to hector his wife till he ‘s ninety. But he ‘s gret on the trial now, an’ very much interested ’bout the doctrines. He ses thet he had n’t heard a sermon on sovereignty or ‘lection, or reprobation, sence he can remember. Wal, t’other side, they say they don’t see what business Old Crab an’ Miss Sphxyx hev to be meddlin’ so much, when they ain’t church-members. Why, I was over to Needmore town-meetin’ day jest to hear ’em fight over it; they talked a darned sight more ’bout that than ’bout the turnpikes or town business. Why, I heard Deacon Brown (he ‘s on the parson’s side) tellin’ Old Crab he did n’t see what business he had to boss the doctrines, when he warn’t a church-member, and Old Crab said it was his bisness about the doctrines, ’cause he paid to hev ’em. ‘Ef I pay for good strong doctrine, why, I want to hev good strong doctrine, says Old Crab, says he. ‘Ef I pays for hell-fire, I want to hev hell-fire, and hev it hot too. I don’t want none o’ your prophesyin’ smooth things. Why,’ says he, ‘look at Dr. Stern. His folks hes the very hair took off their heads ‘most every Sunday, and he don’t get no more ‘n we pay Parson Perry. I tell yew,’ says Old Crab, ‘he ‘s a lettin’ on us all go to sleep, and it ‘s no wonder I ain’t in the church.’ Ye see, Old Crab and Sphyxy, they seem to be kind o’ settin’ it down to poor old Parson Perry’s door that he hain’t converted ’em, an’ made saints on ’em long ago, when they ‘ve paid up their part o’ the salary reg’lar, every year. Jes’ so onreasonable folks will be; they give a man two hunderd dollars a year an’ his wood, an’ spect him to git all on em’ inter the kingdom o’ heaven, whether they will or no, jest as the angels got Lot’s wife and daughters out o’ Sodom.”
“That poor little old woman!” said Harry. “Do tell if she is living yet!”
“O yis, she ‘s all right,” said Sam; “she ‘s one o’ these ‘ere little thin, dry old women that keep a good while. But ain’t ye heerd? their son Obid’s come home an’ bought a farm, an’ married a nice gal, and he insists on it his mother shall live with him. An’ so Old Crab and Miss Sphyxy, they fight it out together. So the old woman is delivered from him most o’ the time. Sometimes he walks over there an’ stays a week, an’ takes a spell o’ aggravatin’ on ‘er, that kind o’ sets him up, but he ‘s so busy now ’bout the quarrel ‘t I b’lieve he lets her alone.”
By this time we had reached the last rail-fence which separated us from the grassy street of Oldtown, and here Sam took his leave of us.
“I promised Hepsy when I went out,” he said, “thet I ‘d go to the store and git her some corn meal, but I ‘ll be round agin in th’ evening. Look ‘ere,” he added, “I wus out this mornin’, an’ I dug some sweet-flag root for yer. I know ye used ter like sweet-flag root. ‘T ain’t time for young wintergreen yit, but here ‘s a bunch I picked yer, with the berries an’ old leaves. Do take ’em, boys, jest for sake o’ old times!”
We thanked him, of course; there was a sort of aroma of boyhood about these things, that spoke of spring days and melting snows, and long Saturday afternoon rambles that we had had with Sam years before. And we saw his lean form go striding off with something of an affectionate complacency.
“Horace,” said Harry, the minute we were alone, “you must n’t mind too much about Sam’s gossip.”
“It is just what I have been expecting,” said I;” but in a few moments we shall know the truth.”
We went on until the square white front of the old Rossiter house rose upon our view. We stopped before it, and down the walk from the front door to the gate, amid the sweet budding lilacs came gleaming and glancing the airy form of Tina. So airy she looked, so bright, so full of life and joy, and threw herself into Harry’s arms, laughing and crying.
“O Harry, Harry! God has been good to us! And you, dear brother Horace,” she said, turning to me and giving me both her hands, with one of those frank, loving looks that said as much as another might say by throwing herself into your arms. “We are all so happy!” she said.
I determined to have it over at once, and I said, “Am I then to congratulate you, Tina, on your engagement?”
She laughed and blushed, and held up her hand, on which glittered a great diamond, and hid her face for a moment on Harry’s shoulder.
“I could n’t write to you about it, boys, – I could n’t! But I meant to tell you myself and tell you the first thing too. I wanted to tell you about him, because I think you none of you know him, or half how noble and good he is! Come, come in,” she said, taking us each by the hand and drawing us along with her. “Come in and see Aunty; she ‘ll be so glad to see you!”
If there was any one thing for which I was glad at this moment, it was that I had never really made love to Tina. It was a comfort to me to think that she did not and could not possibly know the pain she was giving me. All I know is that, at the moment, I was seized with a wild, extravagant gayety, and rattled and talked and laughed with a reckless abandon that quite astonished Harry. It seemed to me as if every ludicrous story and every droll remark that I had ever heard came thronging into my head together. And I believe that Tina really thought that I was sincere in rejoicing with her. Miss Mehitable talked with us gravely about it while Tina was out of the room. It was most sudden and unexpected, she said, to her; she always had supposed that Ellery Davenport had admired Tina, but never that he had thought of her in this way. In a worldly point of view, the match was a more brilliant one than could ever have been expected. He was of the best old families in the country, – of the Edwards and the Davenport stock, – his talents were splendid, and his wealth would furnish everything that wealth could furnish. “There is only one thing,” she continued gravely; “I am not satisfied about his religious principles. But Tina is an enthusiast, and has perfect faith that he will come all right in this respect. He seems to be completely dazzled and under her influence now,” said Miss Mehitable, taking a leisurely pinch of snuff, “but then, you see, that ‘s a common phenomenon, about this time in a man’s life. But,” she added, “where there is such a strong attachment on both sides, all we can do is to wish both sides well, and speed them on their way. Mr. Davenport has interested himself in the very kindest manner in regard to both Tina and Harry, and I suppose it is greatly owing to this that affairs have turned out as prosperously as they have. As you know, Sir Harry made a handsome provision for Tina in his will. I confess I am glad of that,” she said, with a sort of pride. “I would n’t want my little Tina to have passed into his arms altogether penniless. When first love is over, men sometimes remember those things.”