“Pshaw, pshaw! No, you don’t. What do you want to be so odd for? Don’t you ever say such things.”
Sam, however, was willing to aid and abet me in strolling and lounging anywhere and at any hour, and lent a willing ear to my tales of what I saw, and had in his capacious wallet a pendent story or a spiritual precedent for anything that I could mention.
On this night, after he had left me, I went to bed with my mind full of the haunted house, and all that was to be hoped or feared from its exploration. Whether this was the cause or not, the result was that Harvey appeared nearer and more friendly than ever; and he held by his hand another boy, whose figure appeared to me like a faintly discerned form in a mist. Sometimes the mist seemed to waver and part, and I caught indistinct glimpses of bright yellow curls and clear blue eyes, and then Harvey smiled and shook his head. When he began to disappear, he said to me, “Good by”; and I felt an inward assurance that he was about to leave me. I said my “Good by” aloud, and stretched out my hands.
“Why Horace, Horace!” said my mother, waking suddenly at the sound of my voice, – “Horace, wake up; you ‘ve been dreaming.”
I had not even been asleep, but I did not tell her so, and turning over, as I usually did when the curtain fell over my dreamland, I was soon asleep. I was wide awake with the earliest peep of dawn the next morning, and had finished dressing myself before my mother awoke.
Ours was an early household, and the brisk tap of Aunt Lois’s footsteps, and the rattling of chairs and dishes in the kitchen, showed that breakfast was in active preparation.
My grandfather’s prediction with regard to my Uncle Eliakim proved only too correct. The fact was, that the poor man lived always in the whirl of a perfect Maelstrom of promises and engagements, which were constantly converging towards every hour of his unoccupied time. His old wagon and horse both felt the effects of such incessant activity, and such deficient care and attention as were consequent upon it, and were at all times in a state of dilapidation. Therefore it was that the next morning nine, ten, and eleven o’clock appeared, and no Uncle Eliakim.
Sam Lawson had for more than two hours been seated in an expectant attitude on our doorstep; but as the sun shone warm, and he had a large mug of cider between his hands, he appeared to enjoy his mind with great equanimity.
Aunt Lois moved about the house with an air and manner of sharp contempt, which exhibited itself even in the way she did her household tasks. She put down plates as if she despised them, and laid sticks of wood on the fire with defiant thumps, as much as to say that she knew some things that had got to be in time and place if others were not; but she spake no word.
Aunt Lois, as I have often said before, was a good Christian, and held it her duty to govern her tongue. True, she said many sharp and bitter things; but nobody but herself and her God knew how many more she would have said had she not reined herself up in conscientious silence. But never was there a woman whose silence could express more contempt and displeasure than hers. You could feel it in the air about you, though she never said a word. You could feel it in the rustle of her dress, in the tap of her heels over the floor, in the occasional flash of her sharp, black eye. She was like a thunder-cloud whose quiet is portentous, and from which you every moment expect a flash or an explosion. This whole morning’s excursion was contrary to her mind and judgment, – an ill-advised, ill-judged, shiftless proceeding, and being entered on in a way as shiftless.
“What time do you suppose it is, mother?” she at last said to my grandmother, who was busy in her buttery.
“Massy, Lois! I dare n’t look,” called out my grandmother who was apt to fall behindhand of her desires in the amount of work she could bring to pass of a morning. “I don’t want to know.”
“Well, it ‘s eleven o’clock,” said Lois, relentlessly, “and no signs of Uncle ‘Liakim yet; and there ‘s Sam Lawson, I s’pose he ‘s going to spend the day on our doorstep.”
Sam Lawson looked after my Aunt Lois as she went out of the kitchen. “Lordy, massy, Horace, I would n’t be so kind o’ unreconciled as she is all the time for nothin’. Now I might get into a fluster ’cause I ‘m kep’ a waitin’, but I don’t. I think it ‘s our duty to be willin’ to wait quiet till things come round; this ‘ere’s a world where things can’t be driv’, and folks must n’t set their heart on havin’ everthing come out jes’ so, ’cause ef they do they ‘ll allers be in a stew, like Hepsy and Miss Lois there. Let ’em jest wait quiet, and things allers do come round in the end as well or better ‘n ef you worried.”
And as if to illustrate and justify this train of thought, Uncle Eliakim’s wagon at this moment came round the corner of the street, driving at a distracted pace. The good man came with such headlong speed and vivacity that his straw hat was taken off by the breeze, and flew far behind him, and he shot up to our door, as he usually did to that of the meeting-house, as if he were going to drive straight in.
“Lordy, massy, Mr. Sheril,” said Sam, “don’t get out; I ‘ll get your hat. Horace, you jest run and pick it up; that ‘s a good boy.”
I ran accordingly, but my uncle had sprung out as lively as an autumn grasshopper. “I ‘ve been through a sea of troubles this morning,” he said. “I lent my waggin to Jake Marshall yesterday afternoon, to take his wife a ride. I thought if Jake was a mind to pay the poor woman any attention, I ‘d help; but when he brought it back last night, one of the bolts was broken, and the harness gave out in two places.”
“Want to know?” said Sam, leisurely examining the establishment. “I think the neighbors ought to subscribe to keep up your team, Mr. Sheril, for it ‘s free to the hull on ’em.”
“And what thanks does he get?” said Aunt Lois, sharply. “Well, Uncle ‘Liakim, it ‘s almost dinner-time.”
“I know it, I know it, I know it, Lois. But there ‘s been a lot o’ things to do this morning. Just as I got the waggin mended come Aunt Bathsheba Sawin’s boy and put me in mind that I promised to carry her corn to grind; and I had to stop and take that round to mill; and then I remembered the pills that was to go to Hannah Dexter –”
“I dare say, and forty more things like it,” said Aunt Lois.
“Well, jump in now,” said Uncle Fly; “we ‘ll be over and back in no time.”
“You may as well put it off till after dinner now,” said Aunt Lois.
“Could n’t stop for that,” said Uncle ‘Liakim; “my afternoon is all full now. I ‘ve got to be in twenty places before night.” And away we rattled, while Aunt Lois stood looking after us in silent, unutterable contempt.
“Stop! Stop! Stop! Whoa! Whoa!” said Uncle ‘Liakim, drawing suddenly up. “There ‘s that plaster for Widdah Peters, after all. I wonder if Lois would n’t just run up with it.” By this time he had turned the horse, who ran, with his usual straightforward, blind directness, in a right line, against the doorstep again.
“Well, what now?” said Aunt Lois, appearing at the door.
“Why, Lois, I ‘ve just come back to tell you I forgot I promised to carry Widdah Peters that plaster for lumbago; could n’t you just find time to run up there with it?”
“Well, give it to me,” said Aunt Lois, with sharp precision, and an air of desperate patience.
“Yes, yes, I will,” said Uncle Fly, standing up and beginning a rapid search into that series of pockets which form a distinguishing mark of masculine habiliments, – searching with such hurried zeal that he really seemed intent on tearing himself to pieces. “Here ‘t is! – no, pshaw, pshaw! that ‘s my handkerchief! O, here! – pshaw, pshaw! Why, where is it? Did n’t I put it in? – or did I – O, here it is in my vest-pocket; no, though. Where a plague!” and Uncle Fly sprang from the wagon and began his usual active round-and-round chase after himself, slapping his pockets, now before and now behind, and whirling like a dancing dervis, while Aunt Lois stood regarding him with stony composure.
“If you could ever think where anything was, before you began to talk about it, it would be an improvement,” she said.
“Well, fact is,” said Uncle Eliakim, “now I think of it, Mis’ Sheril made me change my coat just as I came out, and that ‘s the whole on ‘t. You just run up, Lois, and tell Mis’ Sheril to send one of the boys down to Widdah Peters’s with the plaster she ‘ll find in the pocket, – right-hand side. Come now, get up.”
These last words were addressed, not to Aunt Lois, but to the horse, who, kept in rather a hungry and craving state by his master’s hurrying manner of life, had formed the habit of sedulously improving every spare interval in catching at a mouthful of anything to eat, and had been accordingly busy in cropping away a fringe of very green grass that was growing up by the kitchen doorstep, from which occupation he was remorselessly twitched up and started on an impetuous canter.
“Wal, now I hope we ‘re fairly started,” said Sam Lawson, “and, Mr. Sheril, you may as well, while you are about it, take the right road as the wrong one, ’cause that ‘ere saves time. It ‘s pleasant enough anywhere, to be sure, to-day; but when a body ‘s goin’ to a place, a body likes to get there, as it were.”
“Well, well, well,” said Uncle Fly, “we ‘re on the right road, ain’t we?”
“Wal, so fur you be; but when you come out on the plains, you must take the fust left-hand road that drives through the woods, and you may jest as well know as much aforehand.”
“Much obliged to you,” said my uncle. “I reely had n’t thought particularly about the way.”
“S’pose not,” said Sam, composedly; “so it ‘s jest as well you took me along. Lordy massy, there ain’t a road nor a cart-path round Oldtown that I hain’t been over, time and time again. I believe I could get through any on ’em the darkest night that ever was hatched. Jake Marshall and me has been Indianing round these ‘ere woods more times ‘n you could count. It ‘s kind o’ pleasant, a nice bright day like this ‘ere, to be a joggin’ along in the woods. Everything so sort o’ still, ye know; and ye hear the chestnuts a droppin’, and the wa’nuts. Jake and me, last fall, went up by Widdah Peters’s one day, and shuck them trees, and got nigh about a good bushel o’ wa’nuts. I used to kind o’ like to crack ’em for the young uns, nights, last winter, when Hepsy ‘d let em sit up. Though she ‘s allers for drivin’ on ’em all off to bed, and makin’ it kind o’ solitary, Hepsy is.” And Sam concluded the conjugal allusion with a deep sigh.
“Have you ever been into the grounds of the Dench house?” said Uncle Fly.
“Wal, no, not reely; but Jake, he has; and ben into the house too. There was a fellow named ‘Biah Smith that used to be a kind o’ servant to the next family that come in after Lady Frankland went out, and he took Jake all over it once when there wa’n’t nobody there. ‘Biah, he said that when Sir Harry lived there, there was one room that was always kept shet up, and wa’n’t never gone into, and in that ‘ere room there was the long red cloak, and the hat and sword, and all the clothes he hed on when he was buried under the ruins in that ‘ere earthquake. They said that every year, when the day of the earthquake come round, Sir Harry used to spend it a fastin’ and prayin’ in that ‘ere room, all alone. ‘Biah says that he had talked with a fellow that was one of Sir Harry’s body-servants, and he told him that Sir Harry used to come out o’ that ‘ere room lookin’ more like a ghost than a live man, when he ‘d fasted and prayed for twenty-four hours there. Nobody knows what might have ‘peared to him there.”
I wondered much in my own quiet way at this story, and marvelled whether, in Sir Harry’s long, penitential watchings, he had seen the air of the room all tremulous with forms and faces such as glided around me in my solitary hours.
“Naow, you see,” said Sam Lawson, “when the earthquake come, Sir Harry, he was a driving with a court lady; and she, poor soul, went into ‘tarnity in a minit, – ‘thout a minit to prepare. And I ‘spect there ain’t no reason to s’pose but what she was a poor, mis’able Roman Catholic. So her prospects could n’t have been noways encouragin’. And it must have borne on Sir Harry’s mind to think she should be took and he spared, when he was a cuttin’ up just in the way he was. I should n’t wonder but she should ‘pear to him. You know they say there is a woman in white walks them grounds, and ‘Biah, he says, as near as he can find out, it ‘s that ‘ere particular chamber as she allers goes to. ‘Biah said he ‘d seen her at the windows a wringin’ her hands and a crying’ fit to break her heart, poor soul. Kind o’ makes a body feel bad, ’cause, arter all, ‘t wa’n’t her fault she was born a Roman Catholic, – now was it?”
The peculiarity of my own mental history had this effect on me from a child, that it wholly took away from me all dread of the supernatural. A world of shadowy forms had always been as much a part of my short earthly experience as the more solid and tangible one of real people. I had just as quiet and natural a feeling about one as the other. I had not the slightest doubt, on hearing Sam’s story, that the form of the white lady did tenant those deserted apartments; and so far from feeling any chill or dread in the idea, I felt only a sort of curiosity to make her acquaintance.
Our way to the place wound through miles of dense forest. Sir Harry had chosen it, as a retreat from the prying eyes and slanderous tongues of the world, and a region of woodland solitude. And as we trotted leisurely under the bright scarlet and yellow boughs of the forest, Uncle Eliakim and Sam discoursed of the traditions of the place we were going to.
“Who was it bought the place after Lady Frankland went to England?” said Uncle Eliakim.
“Wal, I believe ‘t was let a spell. There was some French folks hed it ‘long through the war. I heerd tell that they was pretty high people. I never could quite make out when they went off; there was a good many stories round about it. I did n’t clearly make out how ‘t was, till Dench got it. Dench, you know, got his money in a pretty peculiar way, ef all they say ‘s true.”
“How’s that?” said my uncle.
“Wal, they do say he got the great carbuncle that was at the bottom of Sepaug River. You ‘ve heard about the great carbuncle, I s’pose?”
“O, no! do pray tell me about it,” said I, interrupting with fervor.
“Why, did n’t you never hear ’bout that? want to know. Wal, I ‘ll tell ye, then. I know all ’bout it. Jake Marshall, he told me that Dench fust told him, and he got it from old Mother Ketury, ye know, – a regelar old heathen Injun Ketury is, – and folks do go so fur as to say that in the old times Ketury ‘d ‘a’ ben took up for a witch, though I never see no harm in her ways. Ef there be sperits, and we all know there is, what ‘s the harm o’ Ketery’s seein’ on ’em?”
“Maybe she can’t help seeing them,” suggested I.
“Jes so, jes so; that ‘ere’s what I telled Jake when we’s a talking it over, and he said he did n’t like Dench’s havin’ so much to do with old Ketury. But la, old Ketury could say the Lord’s Prayer in Injun, cause I ‘ve heard her; though she would n’t say it when she did n’t want to and she would say it when she did, – jest as the fit took her. But lordy massy, them wild Injuns, they ain’t but jest half folks, they ‘re so kind o’ wild, and birchy and bushy as a body may say. Ef they take religion at all, it ‘s got to be in their own way. Ef you get the wild beast all out o’ one on ’em, there don’t somehow seem to be enough left to make an ordinary smart man of, so much on em’s wild. Anyhow, Dench, he was thick with Ketury, and she told him all about the gret carbuncle, and gin him directions how to get it.”
“But I don’t know what a great carbuncle is,” I interrupted.
“Lordy massy, boy, did n’t you never read in your Bible about the New Jerusalem, and the precious stones in the foundation, that shone like the sun? Wal, the carbuncle was one on ’em.”
“Did it fall down out of heaven into the river?” said I.
“Mebbe,” said Sam. “At any rate Ketury, she told ’em what they had to do to get it. They had to go out arter it jest exactly at twelve o’clock at night, when the moon was full. You was to fast all the day before, and go fastin’, and say the Lord’s Prayer in Injun afore you went; and when you come to where ‘t was, you was to dive after it. But there wa’n’t to be a work spoke; if there was, it went right off.”
“What did they have to say the prayer in Indian for?” said I.
“Lordy massy, boy, I s’pose ‘t was ’cause ‘t was Indian sperits kep’ a watch over it. Any rate ‘t was considerable of a pull on ’em, ’cause Ketury, she had to teach ’em; and she wa’n’t allers in the sperit on ‘t. Sometimes she ‘s crosser ‘n torment, Ketury is. Dench, he gin her fust and last as much as ten dollars, – so Jake says. However, they got all through with it, and then come a moonlight night, and they went out. Jake says it was the spendidest moonlight ye ever did see, – all jest as still, – only the frogs and the turtles kind o’ peepin’; and they did n’t say a word, and rowed out past the pint there, where the water’s ten feet deep, and he looked down and see it a shinin’ on the bottom like a great star, making the waters all light like a lantern. Dench, he dived for it, Jake said; and he saw him put his hand right on it; and he was so tickled, you know, to see he ‘d got it, that he could n’t help hollerin’ right out, “There, you got it!’ and it was gone. Dench was mad enough to ‘a’ killed him ’cause, when it goes that ‘ere way, you can’t see it agin for a year and a day. But two or three year arter, all of a sudden Dench, he seemed to kind o’ spruce up and have a deal o’ money to spend. He said an uncle had died and left it to him in England; but Jake Marshall says you ‘ll never take him in that ‘ere way. He says he thinks it ‘s no better’n witchcraft, getting money that ‘ere way. Ye see Jake was to have had half it they ‘d ‘a’ got it, and not getting’ nothin’ kind o’ sot him to thinkin’ on it in a moral pint o’ view, ye know. – But, lordy massy, where be we, Mr. Sheril? This ‘ere’s the second or third time we ‘ve come round to this ‘ere old dead chestnut. We ain’t makin’ no progress.”
In fact there were many and crossing cart-paths through this forest, which had been worn by different farmers of the vicinity in going after their yearly supply of wood; and, notwithstanding Sam’s assertion of superior knowledge in these matters, we had, in the negligent inattention of his narrative, become involved in this labyrinth, and driven up and down, and back and forward, in the wood, without seeming at all to advance upon our errand.
“Wal, I declare for’t, I never did see nothing beat it,” said Sam. “We ‘ve been goin’ jest round and round for this hour or more, and come out again at exactly the same place. I ‘ve heerd of places that ‘s kep’ hid, and folks allers gets sort o’ struck blind and confused that undertakes to look ’em up. Wal, I don’t say I believe in sich stories, but this ‘ere is curous. Why, I ‘d ‘a’ thought I could ‘a’ gone straight to it blindfolded, any day. Ef Jake Marshall were here, he ‘d go straight to it.”
“Well, Sam,” said Uncle Eliakim, “it ‘s maybe because you and me got so interested in telling stories that we ‘ve missed the way.”
“That ‘ere’s it, ‘thout a doubt,” said Sam. “Now I ‘ll just brush up, and kind o’ concentrate my ‘tention. I ‘ll just git out and walk a spell, and take an observation.”
The result of this improved attention to the material facts of the case was, that we soon fell into a road that seemed to wind slowly up a tract of rising ground, and to disclose to our view, through an interlacing of distant boughs, the western horizon, toward which the sun was now sinking with long, level beams. We had been such a time in our wanderings, that there seemed a prospect of night setting in before we should be through with our errand and ready to return.
“The house stan’s on the top of a sort o’ swell o’ ground,” said Sam; “and as nigh as I can make it out, it must be somewhere about there.”
“There is a woman a little way before us,” said I; “why don’t you ask her?”
I saw very plainly in a turn of the road a woman whose face was hidden by a bonnet, who stood as if waiting for us. It was not the white woman of ghostly memory, but apparently a veritable person in the every-day habiliments of common life, who stood as if waiting for us.
“I don’t see no woman,” said Sam; “where is she?”
I pointed with my finger, but as I did so the form melted away. I remember distinctly the leaves of the trees back of it appearing through it as through a gauze veil, and then it disappeared entirely.
“There is n’t any woman that I can see,” said Uncle Eliakim, briskly. “The afternoon sun must have got into your eyes, boy.”
I had been so often severely checked and reproved for stating what I saw, that I now determined to keep silence, whatever might appear to me. At a little distance before us the road forked, one path being steep and craggy, and the other easier of ascent, and apparently going in much the same general direction. A little in advance, in the more rugged path, stood the same female form. Her face was hidden by a branch of a tree, but she beckoned to us. “Take that path, Uncle ‘Liakim,” said I, “it ‘s the right one.”
“Lordy, massy,” said Sam Lawson, “how in the world should you know that? That ‘ere is the shortest road to the Dench house, and the other leads away from it.”
I kept silence as to my source of information, and still watched the figure. As we passed it, I saw a beautiful face with a serene and tender expression, and her hands were raised as if in blessing. I looked back earnestly and she was gone.
A few moments after, we were in the grounds of the place, and struck into what had formerly been the carriage way, though now overgrown with weeds, and here and there with a jungle of what was once well-kept ornamental shrubbery. A tree had been uprooted by the late tempest, and blown down across the road, and we had to make quite a little detour to avoid it.
“Now how are we to get into this house?” said Uncle Eliakim. “No doubt it ‘s left fastened up.”
“Do you see that?” said Sam Lawson, who had been gazing steadily upward at the chimneys of the house, with his eyes shaded by one of his great hands. “Look at that smoke from the middle chimbly.”
“There ‘s somebody in the house, to be sure,” said Uncle Eliakim; “suppose we knock at the front door here?” – and with great briskness, suiting the action to the word, he lifted the black serpent knocker, and gave such a rat tat tat as must have roused all the echoes of the old house, while Sam Lawson and I stood by him, expectant, on the front steps.
Sam then seated himself composedly on a sort of bench which was placed under the shadow of the porch, and awaited the result with the contentment of a man of infinite leisure. Uncle Eliakim, however, felt pressed for time, and therefore gave another long and vehement rap. Very soon a chirping of childish voices was heard behind the door, and a pattering of feet; there appeared to be a sort of consultation.
“There they be now,” said Sam Lawson, “jest as I told you.”
“Please go round to the back door,” said a childish voice; “this is locked, and I can’t open it.”
We all immediately followed Sam Lawson, who took enormous strides over the shrubbery, and soon I saw the vision of a curly-headed, blue-eyed boy holding open the side door of the house.
I ran up to him. “Are you Harvey?” I said.
“No,” he answered; “my name is n’t Harvey, it ‘s Harry; and this is my sister Tina,” – and immediately a pair of dark eyes looked out over his shoulder.
“Well, we ‘ve come to take you to my grandmother’s house,” said I.
I don’t know how it was, but I always spoke of our domestic establishment under the style and title of the female ruler. It was grandmother’s house.
“I am glad of it,” said the boy, “for we have tried two or three times to find our way to Oldtown, and got lost in the woods and had to come back here again.”
Here the female partner in the concern stepped a little forward, eager for her share in the conversation. “Do you know old Sol?” she said.
“Lordy massy, I do,” said Sam Lawson, quite delighted at this verification of the identity of the children. “Yes, I see him only day afore yesterday, and he was ‘quirin arter you, and we thought we ‘d find you over in this ‘ere house, ’cause I ‘d seen smoke a comin’ out o’ the chimblies. Had a putty good time in the old house, I reckon. Ben all over it pretty much, hain’t ye?”
“O yes,” said Tina; “and it ‘s such a strange old place, – a great big house with ever so many rooms in it!”
“Wal, we ‘ll jest go over it, being as we ‘re here,” said Sam; and into it we all went.
Now there was nothing in the world that little Miss Tina took more native delight in than in playing the hostess. To entertain was her dearest instinct, and she hastened with all speed to open before us all in the old mansion that her own rummaging and investigating talents had brought to light, chattering meanwhile with the spirit of a bobolink.
“You don’t know,” she said to Sam Lawson, “what a curious little closet there is in here, with book-cases and drawers, and a looking-glass in the door, with a curtain over it.”
“Want to know?” said Sam. “Wal, that ‘ere does beat all. It ‘s some of them old English folks’s grander, I s’pose.”
“And here ‘s a picture of such a beautiful lady, that always looks at you, whichever way you go, – just see.”
“Lordy massy, so ‘t does. Wal, now, them drawers, mebbe, have got curous things in ’em,” suggested Sam.
“O yes, but Harry never would let me look in them. I tried, though, once, when Harry was gone; but, if you ‘ll believe me, they ‘re all locked.”
“Want to know?” said Sam. “That ‘ere ‘s a kind o’ pity now.”
“Would you open them? You would n’t, would you?” said the little one, turning suddenly round and opening her great wide eyes full on him. “Harry said the place was n’t ours, and it would n’t be proper.”
“Wal, he ‘s a nice boy; quite right in him. Little folks must n’t touch things that ain’t theirn,” said Sam, who was strong on the moralities; though, after all, when all the rest had left the apartment, I looked back and saw him giving a sly tweak to the drawers of the cabinet on his own individual account.
“I was just a makin’ sure, you know, that ‘t was all safe,” he said, as he caught my eye, and saw that he was discovered.
Sam revelled and expatiated, however, in the information that lay before him in the exploration of the house. No tourist with Murray’s guide-book in band, and with travels to prepare for publication, ever went more patiently through the doing of a place. Not a door was left closed that could be opened; not a passage unexplored. Sam’s head came out dusty and cobwebby between the beams of the ghostly old garret, where mouldy relics of antique furniture were reposing, and disappeared into the gloom of the spacious cellars, where the light was as darkness. He found none of the marks of the traditional haunted room but he prolonged the search till there seemed a prospect that poor Uncle Eliakim would have to get him away by physical force, if we meant to get home in time for supper.
“Mr. Lawson, you don’t seem to remember we have n’t any of us had a morsel of dinner, and the sun is actually going down. The folks ‘ll be concerned about us. Come, let ‘s take the children and be off.”
And so we mounted briskly into the wagon, and the old horse, vividly impressed with the idea of barn and hay at the end of his toils, seconded the vigorous exertions of Uncle Fly, and so we rattled and spun on our homeward career, and arrived at the farmhouse a little after moonrise.
CHAPTER XVIII.
TINA’S ADOPTION.
DURING the time of our journey to the enchanted ground, my Aunt Lois, being a woman of business, who always knew precisely what she was about, had contrived not only to finish meritoriously her household tasks, and to supplement Uncle Eliakim’s forgetful benevolence, but also to make a call on Miss Mehitable Rossiter, for the sake of unburdening to her her oppressed heart. For Miss Mehitable bore in our family circle the repute of being a woman of counsel and sound wisdom. The savor of ministerial stock being yet strong about her, she was much resorted to for advice in difficult cases.
“I don’t object, of course, to doing for the poor and orphaned, and all that,” said Aunt Lois, quite sensibly; “but I like to see folks seem to know what they are doing, and where they are going, and not pitch and tumble into things without asking what ‘s to come of them. Now, we ‘d just got Susy and the two boys on our hands, and here will come along a couple more children to-night; and I must say I don’t see what ‘s to be done with them.”
“It ‘s a pity you don’t take snuff,” said Miss Mehitable, with a whimsical grimace. “Now, when I come to any of the crossplaces of life, where the road is n’t very clear, I just take a pinch of snuff and wait; but as you don’t, just stay and get a cup of tea with me, in a quiet, Christian way, and after it we will walk round to your mother’s and look at these children.”
Aunt Lois was soothed in her perturbed spirit by this proposition; and it was owing to this that, when we arrived at home, long after dark, we found Miss Mehitable in the circle around the blazing kitchen fire. The table was still standing, with ample preparations for an evening meal, – a hot smoking loaf of rye-and-Indian bread, and a great platter of cold boiled beef and pork, garnished with cold potatoes and turnips, the sight of which, to a party who had had no dinner all day, was most appetizing.
My grandmother’s reception of the children was as motherly as if they had been of her own blood. In fact, their beauty and evident gentle breeding won for them immediate favor in all eyes.
The whole party sat down to the table, and, after a long and somewhat scattering grace, pronounced by Uncle Eliakim, fell to with a most amazing appearance of enjoyment. Sam’s face waxed luminous as he buttered great blocks of smoking brown bread with the fruits of my grandmother’s morning churning, and refreshed himself by long and hearty pulls at the cider-mug.
“I tell you,” he said, “when folks hes been a ridin’ on an empty stomach ever since breakfast, victuals is victuals; we learn how to be thankful for ’em; so I ‘ll take another slice o’ that ‘ere beef, and one or two more cold potatoes, and the vinegar, Mr. Sheril. Wal, chillen, this ere’s better than bein’ alone in that there old house, ain’t it?”
“Yes, indeed,” piped Tina; “I had begun to be quite discouraged. We tried and tried to find our way to Oldtown, and always got lost in the woods.” Seeing that this remark elicited sympathy in the listeners, she added, “I was afraid we should die there, and the robins would have to cover us up, like some children papa used to tell about.”
“Poor babes! just hear ’em,” said my grandmother, who seemed scarcely able to restrain herself from falling on the necks of the children, in the ardor of her motherly kindness, while she doubled up an imaginary fist at Miss Asphyxia Smith, and longed to give her a piece of her mind touching her treatment of them.
Harry remained modestly silent; but he and I sat together, and our eyes met every now and then with that quiet amity to which I had been accustomed in my spiritual friend. I felt a cleaving of spirit to him that I had never felt towards any human being before, – a certainty that something had come to me in him that I had always been wanting, – and I was too glad for speech.
He was one of those children who retreat into themselves and make a shield of quietness and silence in the presence of many people, while Tina, on the other hand, was electrically excited, waxed brilliant in color, and rattled and chattered with as fearless confidence as a cat-bird.
“Come hither to me, little maiden,” said Miss Mehitable, with a whimsical air of authority, when the child had done her supper. Tina came to her knee, and looked up into the dusky, homely face, in that still, earnest fashion in which children seem to study older people.
“Well, how do you like me?” said Miss Mehitable, when this silent survey had lasted an appreciable time.
The child still considered attentively, looking long into the great, honest, open eyes, and then her face suddenly rippled and dimpled all over like a brook when a sunbeam strikes it. “I do like you. I think you are good,” she said, putting out her hands impulsively.
“Then up you come,” said Miss Mehitable, lifting her into her lap. “It ‘s well you like me, because, for aught you know, I may be an old fairy; and if I did n’t like you, I might turn you into a mouse or a cricket. Now how would you like that?”
“You could n’t do it,” said Tina, laughing.
“How do you know I could n’t?”
“Well, if you did turn me into a mouse, I ‘d gnaw your knitting-work,” said Tina, laying hold of Miss Mehitable’s knitting. “You ‘d be glad to turn me back again.”
“Heyday! I must take care how I make a mouse of you, I see. Perhaps I ‘ll make you into a kitten.”
“Well, I ‘d like to be a kitten, if you ‘ll keep a ball for me to play with, and give me plenty of milk,” said Tina, to whom no proposition seemed to be without possible advantages.
“Will you go home and live with me, and be my kitten?”
Tina had often heard her brother speak of finding a good woman who should take care of her; and her face immediately became grave at this proposal. She seemed to study Miss Mehitable in a new way. “Where do you live?” she said.
“O, my house is only a little way from here.”
“And may Harry come to see me?”
“Certainly he may.”
“Do you want me to work for you all the time?” said Tina; “because,” she added, in a low voice, “I like to play sometimes, and Miss Asphyxia said that was wicked.”
“Did n’t I tell you I wanted you for my little white kitten,” said Miss Mehitable, with an odd twinkle. “What work do you suppose kittens do?”
“Must I grow up and catch rats?” said the child.
“Certainly you will be likely to,” said Miss Mehitable, solemnly. “I shall pity the poor rats when you are grown up.”
Tina looked in the humorous, twinkling old face with a gleam of mischievous comprehension, and, throwing her arms around Miss Mehitable, said, “Yes, I like you, and I will be your kitten.”
There was a sudden, almost convulsive pressure of the little one to the kind old breast, and Miss Mehitable’s face wore a strange expression, that looked like the smothered pang of some great anguish blended with a peculiar tenderness. One versed in the reading of spiritual histories might have seen that, at that moment, some inner door of that old heart opened, not without a grating of pain, to give a refuge to the little orphan; but opened it was, and a silent inner act of adoption had gone forth. Miss Mehitable beckoned my grandmother and Aunt Lois into a corner of the fireplace by themselves, while Sam Lawson was entertaining the rest of the circle by reciting the narrative of day’s explorations.
“Now I suppose I ‘m about as fit to undertake to bring up a child as the old Dragon of Wantley,” said Miss Mehitable; “as you seem to have a surplus on your hands, I ‘m willing to take the girl and do what I can for her.”
“Dear Miss Mehitable, what a mercy it ‘ll be to her!” said grandmother and Aunt Lois, simultaneously; – “if you feel you can afford it,” added Aunt Lois, considerately.
“Well, the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field are taken care of somehow, as we are informed,” said Miss Mehitable. “My basket and store are not much to ask a blessing on, but I have a sort of impression that an orphan child will make it none the less likely to hold out.”
“There ‘ll always be a handful of meal in the barrel and a little oil in the cruse for you, I ‘m sure,” said my grandmother; “the word of the Lord stands sure for that.”
A sad shadow fell over Miss Mehitable’s face at these words, and then the usual expression of quaint humor stole over it. “It ‘s to be hoped that Polly will take the same view of the subject that you appear to,” said she. “My authority over Polly is, you know, of an extremely nominal kind.”
“Still,” said my grandmother, “you must be mistress in your own house. Polly, I am sure, knows her duty to you.”
“Polly’s idea of allegiance is very much like that of the old Spanish nobles to their king; it used to run somewhat thus: ‘We, who are every way as good as you are, promise obedience to your government if you maintain our rights and liberties, but if not, not.’ Now Polly’s ideas of ‘rights and liberties’ are of a very set and particular nature, and I have found her generally disposed to make a good fight for them. Still, after all,” she added, “the poor old thing loves me, and I think will be willing to indulge me in having a doll, if I really am set upon it. The only way I can carry my point with Polly is, to come down on her with a perfect avalanche of certainty, and so I have passed my word to you that I will be responsible for this child. Polly may scold and fret for a fortnight; but she is too good a Puritan to question whether people shall keep their promises. Polly abhors covenant-breaking with all her soul, and so in the end she will have to help me through.”
“It ‘s a pretty child,” said my grandmother, “and an engaging one, and Polly may come to liking her.”
“There ‘s no saying.,” said Miss Mehitable. “You never know what you may find in the odd corners of an old maid’s heart, when you fairly look into them. There are often unused hoards of maternal affection enough to set up an orphan-asylum; but it ‘s like iron filings and a magnet, – you must try them with a live child and if there is anything in ’em you find it out. That little object,” she said, looking over her shoulder at Tina, “made an instant commotion in the dust and rubbish of my forlorn old garret, and brought to light a deal that I thought had gone to the moles and the bats long ago. She will do me good, I can feel, with her little pertnesses and her airs and fancies. If you could know how chilly and lonesome an old house gets sometimes, particularly in autumn, when the equinoctial storm is brewing! A lively child is a godsend, even if she turns the whole house topsy-turvy.”
“Well, a child can’t always be a plaything,” said Aunt Lois; “it ‘s a solemn and awful responsibility.”
“And if I don’t take it, who will?” said Miss Mehitable gravely. “If a better one would, I would n’t. I ‘ve no great confidence in myself. I profess no skill in human cobbling. I can only give house-room and shelter and love, and let come what will come. ‘A man cannot escape what is written on his forehead,’ the Turkish proverb says, and this poor child’s history is all forewritten.”
“The Lord will bless you for your goodness to the orphan,” said my grandmother.
“I don’t know about its being goodness. I take a fancy to her. I hunger for the child. There ‘s no merit in wanting your bit of cake, and maybe taking it when it is n’t good for you but let ‘s hope all ‘s well that ends well. Since I have fairly claimed her for mine, I begin to feel a fierce right of property in her, and you ‘d see me fighting like an old hen with anybody that should try to get her away from me. You ‘ll see me made an old fool of by her smart little ways and speeches; and I already am proud of her beauty. Did you ever see a brighter little minx?”
We looked across to the other end of the fireplace, where Miss Tina sat perched, with great contentment, on Sam Lawson’s knee listening with wide-open eyes to the accounts he was giving of the haunted house. The beautiful hair that Miss Asphyxia had cut so close had grown with each day, till now it stood up in rings of reddish gold, through which the fire shone with a dancing light: and her great eyes seemed to radiate brightness from as many points as a diamond.
“Depend upon it, those children are of good blood,” said Miss Mehitable, decisively. “You ‘ll never make me believe that they will not be found to belong in some way to some reputable stock.”
“Well, we know nothing about their parents,” said my grandmother “except what we heard second-hand through Sam Lawson. It was a wandering woman, sick and a stranger, who was taken down and died in Old Crab Smith’s house, over in Needmore.”
“One can tell, by the child’s manner of speaking, that she has been brought up among educated people,” said Miss Mehitable. “She is no little rustic. The boy, too, looks of the fine clay of the earth. But it ‘s time for me to take little Miss Rattlebrain home with me, and get her into bed. Sleep is a gracious state for children, and the first step in my new duties is a plain one.” So saying, Miss Mehitable rose, and, stepping over to the other side of the fireplace, tapped Tina lightly on the shoulder. “Come, Pussy,” she said, “get your bonnet, and we will go home.”
Harry, who had watched all the movements between Miss Mehitable and his sister with intense interest, now stepped forward, blushing very much, but still with a quaint little old-fashioned air of manliness. “Is my sister going to live with you?”
“So we have agreed, my little man,” said Miss Mehitable. “I hope you have no objection?”
“Will you let me come and see her sometimes?”
“Certainly; you will always be quite welcome.”
“I want to see her sometimes, because my mother left her under my care. I shan’t have a great deal of time to come in the daytime, because I must work for my living,” he said. “but a little while sometimes at night, if you would let me.”
“And what do you work at?” said Miss Mehitable, surveying the delicate boy with an air of some amusement.
“I used to pick up potatoes, and fodder the cattle, and do a great many things; and I am growing stronger every day, and by and by can do a great deal more.”
“Well said, sonny,” said my grandfather, laying his hand on Harry’s head. “You speak like a smart boy. We can have you down to help tend sawmill.”
“I wonder how many more boys will be wanted to help tend sawmill,” said Aunt Lois.
“Well, good night, all,” said Miss Mehitable starting to go home.
Tina, however, stopped and left her side, and threw her arms round Harry’s neck and kissed him. “Good night now. You ‘ll come and see me to-morrow;” she said.
“May I come too?” I said, almost before I thought.
“O, certainly, do come,” said Tina, with that warm, earnest light in her eyes which seemed the very soul of hospitality. “She ‘ll like to have you, I know.”
“The child is taking possession of the situation at once,” Miss Mehitable. “Well, Brighteyes, you may come too,” she added, to me. “A precious row there will be among the books when you all get together there”; – and Miss Mehitable with the gay, tripping figure by her side, left the room.
“Is this great, big, dark house yours?” said the child, as they came under the shadow of a dense thicket of syringas and lilacs that overhung the front of the house.
“Yes, this is Doubting Castle,” said Miss Mehitable.
“And does Giant Despair live here?” said Tina. “Mamma showed me a picture of him once in a book.”
“Well, he has tried many times to take possession,” said Miss Mehitable, “but I do what I can to keep him out, and you must help me.”
Saying this she opened the door of a large, old-fashioned room, that appeared to have served both the purposes of a study and parlor. It was revealed to view by the dusky, uncertain glimmer of a wood fire that had burned almost down on a pair of tall brass andirons. The sides of the room were filled to the ceiling with book-cases full of books. Some dark portraits of men and women were duskily revealed by the flickering light, as well as a wide, ample-bosomed chintz sofa and a great chintz-covered easy-chair. A table draped with a green cloth stood in a corner by the fire, strewn over with books and writing-materials, and sustaining a large work-basket.
“How dark it is!” said the child.
Miss Mehitable took a burning splinter of the wood, and lighted a candle in a tall, plated candlestick, that stood on the high, narrow mantel-piece over the fireplace. At this moment a side door opened, and a large-boned woman, dressed in a homespun stuff petticoat, with a short, loose sack of the same material, appeared at the door. Her face was freckled; her hair, of a carroty-yellow, was plastered closely to her head and secured by a horn comb; her eyes were so sharp and searching, that, as she fixed them on Tina, she blinked involuntarily. Around her neck she wore a large string of gold beads, the brilliant gleam of which, catching the firelight, revealed itself at once to Tina’s eye, and caused her to regard the woman with curiosity.
She appeared to have opened the door with an intention of asking a question; but stopped and surveyed the child with a sharp expression of not very well-pleased astonishment. “I thought you spoke to me,” she said, at last, to Miss Mehitable.
“You may warm my bed now, Polly,” said Miss Mehitable. “I shall be ready to go up in a few moments.”
Polly stood a moment more, as if awaiting some communication about the child; but as Miss Mehitable turned away, and appeared to be busying herself about the fire, Polly gave a sudden windy dart from the room, and closed the door with a bang that made the window-casings rattle.
“Why, what did she do that for?” said Tina.
“O, it ‘s Polly’s way; she does everything with all her might.” said Miss Mehitable.
“Don’t she like me?” said the child.
“Probably not. She knows nothing about you, and she does not like new things.”
“But won’t she ever like me?” persisted Tina.
“That, my dear, will depend in a great degree on yourself. If she sees that you are good and behave well, she will probably end by liking you; but old people like her are afraid that children will meddle with their things, and get them out of place.”
“I mean to be good,” said Tina, resolutely. “When I lived with Miss Asphyxia, I wanted to be bad, I tried to be bad: but now I am changed. I mean to be good, because you are good to me,” and the child laid her head confidingly in Miss Mehitable’s lap.
The dearest of all flattery to the old and uncomely is this caressing, confiding love of childhood, and Miss Mehitable felt a glow of pleasure about her dusky old heart, at which she really wondered. “Can anything so fair really love me?” she asked herself. Alas! how much of this cheap-bought happiness goes to waste daily! While unclaimed children grow up loveless, men and women wither in lonely, craving solitude.
Polly again appeared at the door. “Your bed’s all warm, and you ‘d better go right up, else what ‘s the use of warming it?”
“Yes, I ‘ll come immediately,” said Miss Mehitable, endeavoring steadfastly to look as if she did not see Polly’s looks, and to act as if there had of course always been a little girl to sleep with her.
“Come, my little one.” My little one! Miss Mehitable’s heart gave a great throb at this possessive pronoun. It all seemed as strange to her as a dream. A few hours ago, and she sat in the old windy, lonesome house, alone with the memories of dead friends, and feeling herself walking to the grave in a dismal solitude. Suddenly she awoke as from a dark dream, and found herself sole possessor of beauty, youth, and love, in a glowing little form, all her own, with no mortal to dispute it. She had a mother’s right in a child. She might have a daughter’s love. The whole house seemed changed. The dreary, lonesome great hall, with its tall, solemn-ticking clock, the wide, echoing staircase, up which Miss Mehitable had crept, shivering and alone, so many sad nights, now gave back the chirpings of Tina’s rattling gayety and the silvery echoes of her laugh, as, happy in her new lot, she danced up the stairway, stopping to ask eager questions on this and that, as anything struck her fancy. For Miss Tina had one of those buoyant, believing natures, born to ride always on the very top crest of every wave, – one fully disposed to accept of good fortune in all its length and breadth, and to make the most of it at once.
“This is our home,” she said, “is n’t it?
“Yes, darling,” said Miss Mehitable, catching her in her arms fondly; “it is our home; we will have good times here together.”
Tina threw her arms around Miss Mehitable’s neck and kissed her. “I ‘m so glad! Harry said that God would find us a home as soon as it was best, and now here it comes.”
Miss Mehitable set the child down by the side of a great dark wooden bedstead, with tall, carved posts, draped with curious curtains of India linen, where strange Oriental plants and birds, and quaint pagodas and figures in turbans, were all mingled together, like the phantasms in a dream. Then going to a tall chest of drawers, resplendent with many brass handles, which reached almost to the ceiling, she took a bunch of keys from her pocket and unlocked a drawer. A spasm as of pain passed over her face as she opened it, and her hands trembled with some suppressed emotion as she took up and laid down various articles, searching for something. At last she found what she wanted, and shook it out. It was a child’s nightgown, of just the size needed by Tina. It was yellow with age, but made with dainty care. She sat down by the child and began a movement towards undressing her.
“Shall I say my prayers to you,” said Tina, “before I go to bed?”
“Certainly,” said Miss Mehitable; “by all means.”
“They are rather long,” said the child, apologetically, – “that is, if I say all that Harry does. Harry said mamma wanted us to say them all every night. It takes some time.”
“O, by all means say all,” said Miss Mehitable.
Tina kneeled down by her and put her hands in hers, and said the Lord’s Prayer, and the psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd.” She had a natural turn for elocution, this little one, and spoke her words with a grace and an apparent understanding not ordinary in childhood.
“There ‘s a hymn, besides,” she said. “It belongs to the prayer.”
“Well, let us have that,” said Miss Mehitable.
Tina repeated, –
“One there is above all others
Well deserves the name of Friend;
His is love beyond a brother’s,
Costly, free, and knows no end.”
She had an earnest, half-heroic way of repeating, and as she gazed into her listener’s eyes she perceived, by a subtile instinct, that what she was saying affected her deeply. She stopped, wondering.
“Go on, my love,” said Miss Mehitable.
Tina continued, with enthusiasm, feeling that she was making an impression on her auditor:
“Which of all our friends, to save us,
Could or would have shed his blood?
But the Saviour died to have us
Reconciled in him to God.
“When he lived on earth abaséd,
Friend of sinners was his name;
Now, above all glory raiséd,
He rejoiceth in the same.”
“O my, child, where did you learn that hymn?” said Miss Mehitable, to whom the words were new. Simple and homely as they were, they had struck on some inner nerve, which was vibrating with intense feeling. Tears were standing in her eyes.
“It was mamma’s hymn,” said Tina. “She always used to say it. There is one more verse,” she added.
“O for grace our hearts to soften!
Teach us, Lord, at length to love;
We, alas! forget too often
What a Friend we have above.”
“Is that the secret of all earthly sorrow, then?” said Miss Mehitable aloud, in involuntary soliloquy. The sound of her own voice seemed to startle her. She sighed deeply, and kissed the child. “Thank you, my darling. It does me good to hear you,” she said.
The child had entered so earnestly, so passionately even, into the spirit of the words she had been repeating, that she seemed to Miss Mehitable to be transfigured into an angel messenger, sent to inspire faith in God’s love in a darkened, despairing soul. She put her into bed; but Tina immediately asserted her claim to an earthly nature by stretching herself exultingly in the warm bed, with an exclamation of vivid pleasure.
“How different this seems from my cold old bed at Miss Asphyxia’s!” she said. “O, that horrid woman! how I hate her!” she added, with a scowl and a frown, which made the angelhood of the child more than questionable.
Miss Mehitable’s vision melted. It was not a child of heaven, but a little mortal sinner, that she was tucking up for the night; and she felt constrained to essay her first effort at moral training.
“My dear,” she said, “did you not say, to-night, ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us’? Do you know what that means?”
“O yes,” said Tina, readily.
“Well, if your Heavenly Father should forgive your sins just as you forgive Miss Asphyxia, how would you like that?”
There was a silence. The large bright eyes grew round and reflective, as they peered out from between the sheets and the pillow. At last she said, in a modified voice: “Well, I won’t hate her any more. But,” she added, with increased vivacity, “I may think she ‘s hateful, may n’t I?”
Is there ever a hard question in morals that children do not drive straight at, in their wide-eyed questioning?
Miss Mehitable felt inclined to laugh, but said, gravely: “I would n’t advise you to think evil about her. Perhaps she is a poor woman that never had any one to love her, or anything to love, and it has made her hard.”
Tina looked at Miss Mehitable earnestly, as if she were pondering the remark. “She told me that she was put to work younger than I was,” she said, “and kept at it all the time.”
“And perhaps, if you had been kept at work all your life in that hard way, you would have grown up to be just like her.”
“Well, then, I ‘m sorry for her,” said Tina. “There ‘s nobody loves her, that ‘s a fact. Nobody can love her, unless it ‘s God. He loves every one, Harry says.”
“Well, good night, my darling,” said Miss Mehitable, kissing her. “I shall come to bed pretty soon. I will leave you a candle,” she added; “because this is a strange place.”
“How good you are!” said Tina. “I used to be so afraid in the dark, at Miss Asphyxia’s; and I was so wicked all day, that I was afraid of God too, at night. I used sometimes to think I heard something chewing under my bed; and I thought it was a wolf, and would eat me up.”
“Poor little darling!” said Miss Mehitable. “Would you rather I sat by you till you went to sleep?”
“No, thank you; I don’t like to trouble you,” said the child. “If you leave a candle I sha’ n’t be afraid. And, besides, I ‘ve said my prayers now. I didn’t use to say them one bit at Miss Asphyxia’s. She would tell me to say my prayers, and then bang the door so hard, and I would feel cross, and think I would n’t. But I am better now, because you love me.”