chapter_number
stringlengths 1
2
| title
stringlengths 3
691
| text
stringlengths 38
376k
| metadata
dict |
|---|---|---|---|
6
|
None
|
The wind charged down upon them, slamming the door at their backs, extinguishing the broad shaft of light that had momentarily shot out into the darkness, and swept them a dozen yards away. Gaining the lee of a madrono tree, Lance opened his blanketed arms, enfolded the girl, and felt her for one brief moment tremble and nestle in his bosom like some frightened animal. “Well,” he said, gayly, “what next?” Flip recovered herself. “You're safe now anywhere outside the house. But did you expect them tonight?” Lance shrugged his shoulders. “Why not?” “Hush!” returned the girl; “they're coming this way.”
The four flickering, scattered lights presently dropped into line. The trail had been found; they were coming nearer. Flip breathed quickly; the spiced aroma of her presence filled the blanket as he drew her tightly beside him. He had forgotten the storm that raged around them, the mysterious foe that was approaching, until Flip caught his sleeve with a slight laugh. “Why, it's Kennedy and Bijah?”
“Who's Kennedy and Bijah?” asked Lance, curtly.
“Kennedy's the Postmaster and Bijah's the Butcher.”
“What do they want?” continued Lance.
“Me,” said Flip, coyly.
“You?”
“Yes; let's run away.”
Half leading, half dragging her friend, Flip made her way with unerring woodcraft down the ravine. The sound of voices and even the tumult of the storm became fainter, an acrid smell of burning green wood smarted Lance's lips and eyes; in the midst of the darkness beneath him gradually a faint, gigantic nimbus like a lurid eye glowed and sank, quivered and faded with the spent breath of the gale as it penetrated their retreat. “The pit,” whispered Flip; “it's safe on the other side,” she added, cautiously skirting the orbit of the great eye, and leading him to a sheltered nest of bark and sawdust. It was warm and odorous. Nevertheless, they both deemed it necessary to enwrap themselves in the single blanket. The eye beamed fitfully upon them, occasionally a wave of lambent tremulousness passed across it; its weirdness was an excuse for their drawing nearer each other in playful terror.
“Flip.”
“Well?”
“What did the other two want? To see you, TOO?”
“Likely,” said Flip, without the least trace of coquetry. “There's been a lot of strangers yer, off and on.”
“Perhaps you'd like to go back and see them?”
“Do you want me to?”
Lance's reply was a kiss. Nevertheless he was vaguely uneasy. “Looks a little as if I were running away, don't it?” he suggested.
“No,” said Flip; “they think you're only a squaw; it's me they're after.” Lance smarted a little at this infelicitous speech. A strange and irritating sensation had been creeping over him--it was his first experience of shame and remorse. “I reckon I'll go back and see,” he said, rising abruptly.
Flip was silent. She was thinking. Believing that the men were seeking her only, she knew that their attention would be directed from her companion when it was found out he was no longer with her, and she dreaded to meet them in his irritable presence.
“Go,” she said, “tell Dad something's gone wrong in the diamond pit, and say I'm watching it for him here.”
“And you?”
“I'll go there and wait for him. If he can't get rid of them, and they follow him there, I'll come back here and meet you. Anyhow, I'll manage to have Dad wait there a spell.”
She took his hand and led him back by a different path to the trail. He was surprised to find that the cabin, its window glowing from the fire, was only a hundred yards away. “Go in the back way, by the shed. Don't go in the room, nor near the light, if you can. Don't talk inside, but call or beckon to Dad. Remember,” she said, with a laugh, “you're keeping watch of me for him. Pull your hair down on your eyes so.” This operation, like most feminine embellishments of the masculine toilet was attended by a kiss, and Flip, stepping back into the shadow, vanished in the storm.
Lance's first movements were inconsistent with his assumed sex. He picked up his draggled skirt, and drew a bowie knife from his boot. From his bosom he took a revolver, turning the chambers noiselessly as he felt the caps. He then crept toward the cabin softly and gained the shed. It was quite dark but for a pencil of light piercing a crack of the rude, ill-fitting door that opened on the sitting-room. A single voice not unfamiliar to him, raised in half-brutal triumph, greeted his ears.
A name was mentioned--his own! His angry hand was on the latch. One moment more and he would have burst the door, but in that instant another name was uttered--a name that dropped his hand from the latch and the blood from his cheeks. He staggered backward, passed his hand swiftly across his forehead, recovered himself with a gesture of mingled rage and despair, and, sinking on his knees beside the door, pressed his hot temples against the crack.
“Do I know Lance Harriott?” said the voice. “Do I know the d----d ruffian? Didn't I hunt him a year ago into the brush three miles from the Crossing? Didn't we lose sight of him the very day he turned up yer at this ranch, and got smuggled over into Monterey? Ain't it the same man as killed Arkansaw Bob--Bob Ridley--the name he went by in Sonora? And who was Bob Ridley, eh? Who? Why, you d----d old fool, it was Bob Fairley--YOUR SON!”
The old man's voice rose querulous and indistinct.
“What are ye talkin' about?” interrupted the first speaker. “I tell you I KNOW. Look at these pictures. I found 'em on his body. Look at 'em. Pictures of you and your girl. Pr'aps you'll deny them. Pr'aps you'll tell me I lie when I tell you HE told me he was your son; told me how he ran away from you; how you were livin' somewhere in the mountains makin' gold, or suthin' else, outer charcoal. He told me who he was as a secret. He never let on he told it to any one else. And when I found that the man who killed him, Lance Harriott, had been hidin' here, had been sendin' spies all around to find out all about your son, had been foolin' you and tryin' to ruin your gal as he had killed your boy, I knew that HE knew it, too.”
“LIAR!”
The door fell in with a crash. There was the sudden apparition of a demoniac face, still half hidden by the long trailing black locks of hair that curled like Medusa's around it. A cry of terror filled the room. Three of the men dashed from the door and fled precipitately. The man who had spoken sprang toward his rifle in the chimney corner. But the movement was his last; a blinding flash and shattering report interposed between him and his weapon.
The impulse carried him forward headlong into the fire, that hissed and spluttered with his blood, and Lance Harriott with his smoking pistol, strode past him to the door. Already far down the trail there were hurried voices, the crack and crackling of impending branches growing fainter and fainter in the distance. Lance turned back to the solitary living figure--the old man.
Yet he might have been dead, too, he sat so rigid and motionless, his fixed eyes staring vacantly at the body on the hearth. Before him on the table lay the cheap photographs, one evidently of himself, taken in some remote epoch of complexion, one of a child which Lance recognized as Flip.
“Tell me,” said Lance hoarsely, laying his quivering hand on the table, “was Bob Ridley your son?”
“My son,” echoed the old man in a strange, far-off voice, without turning his eyes from the corpse--“My son--is--is--is there!” pointing to the dead man. “Hush! Didn't he tell you so? Didn't you hear him say it? Dead--dead--shot--shot!”
“Silence! are you crazy, man?” repeated Lance, tremblingly; “that is not Bob Ridley, but a dog, a coward, a liar gone to his reckoning. Hear me! If your son WAS Bob Ridley, I swear to God I never knew it, now or--or--THEN. Do you hear me? Tell me! Do you believe me? Speak! You shall speak.”
He laid his hand almost menacingly on the old man's shoulder. Fairley slowly raised his head. Lance fell back with a groan of horror. The weak lips were wreathed with a feeble imploring smile, but the eyes wherein the fretful, peevish, suspicious spirit had dwelt were blank and tenantless; the flickering intellect that had lit them was blown out and vanished.
Lance walked toward the door and remained motionless for a moment, gazing into the night. When he turned back again toward the fire his face was as colorless as the dead man's on the hearth; the fire of passion was gone from his beaten eyes; his step was hesitating and slow. He went up to the table.
“I say, old man,” he said, with a strange smile and an odd, premature suggestion of the infinite weariness of death in his voice, “you wouldn't mind giving me this, would you?” and he took up the picture of Flip. The old man nodded repeatedly. “Thank you,” said Lance. He went to the door, paused a moment, and returned. “Good-by, old man,” he said, holding out his hand. Fairley took it with a childish smile. “He's dead,” said the old man softly, holding Lance's hand, but pointing to the hearth. “Yes,” said Lance, with the faintest of smiles on the palest of faces. “You feel sorry for any one that's dead, don't you?” Fairley nodded again. Lance looked at him with eyes as remote as his own, shook his head, and turned away. When he reached the door he laid his revolver carefully, and, indeed, somewhat ostentatiously, upon a chair. But when he stepped from the threshold he stopped a moment in the light of the open door to examine the lock of a small derringer which he drew from his pocket. He then shut the door carefully, and with the same slow, hesitating step, felt his way into the night.
He had but one idea in his mind, to find some lonely spot; some spot where the footsteps of man would never penetrate, some spot that would yield him rest, sleep, obliteration, forgetfulness, and, above all, where HE would be forgotten. He had seen such places; surely there were many,--where bones were picked up of dead men who had faded from the earth and had left no other record. If he could only keep his senses now he might find such a spot, but he must be careful, for her little feet went everywhere, and she must never see him again alive or dead. And in the midst of his thoughts, and the darkness, and the storm, he heard a voice at his side, “Lance, how long you have been!”
***** Left to himself, the old man again fell into a vacant contemplation of the dead body before him, until a stronger blast swept down like an avalanche upon the cabin, burst through the ill-fastened door and broken chimney, and, dashing the ashes and living embers over the floor, filled the room with blinding smoke and flame. Fairley rose with a feeble cry, and then, as if acted upon by some dominant memory, groped under the bed until he found his buckskin bag and his precious crystal, and fled precipitately from the room. Lifted by this second shock from his apathy, he returned to the fixed idea of his life,--the discovery and creation of the diamond,--and forgot all else. The feeble grasp that his shaken intellect kept of the events of the night relaxed, the disguised Lance, the story of his son, the murder, slipped into nothingness; there remained only the one idea, his nightly watch by the diamond pit. The instinct of long habit was stronger than the darkness or the onset of the storm, and he kept his tottering way over stream and fallen timber until he reached the spot. A sudden tremor seemed to shake the lambent flame that had lured him on. He thought he heard the sound of voices; there were signs of recent disturbance,--footprints in the sawdust! With a cry of rage and suspicion, Fairley slipped into the pit and sprang toward the nearest opening. To his frenzied fancy it had been tampered with, his secret discovered, the fruit of his long labors stolen from him that very night. With superhuman strength he began to open the pit, scattering the half-charred logs right and left, and giving vent to the suffocating gases that rose from the now incandescent charcoal. At times the fury of the gale would drive it back and hold it against the sides of the pit, leaving the opening free; at times, following the blind instinct of habit, the demented man would fall upon his face and bury his nose and mouth in the wet bark and sawdust. At last, the paroxysm past, he sank back again in his old apathetic attitude of watching, the attitude he had so often kept beside his sylvan crucible. In this attitude and in silence he waited for the dawn.
It came with a hush in the storm; it came with blue openings in the broken up and tumbled heavens; it came with stars that glistened first, and then paled, and at last sank drowning in those deep cerulean lakes; it came with those cerulean lakes broadening into vaster seas, whose shores expanded at last into one illimitable ocean, cerulean no more, but flecked with crimson and opal dyes; it came with the lightly lifted misty curtain of the day, torn and rent on crag and pine top, but always lifting, lifting. It came with the sparkle of emerald in the grasses, and the flash of diamonds in every spray, with a whisper in the awakening woods, and voices in the traveled roads and trails.
The sound of these voices stopped before the pit, and seemed to interrogate the old man. He came, and, putting his finger on his lips, made a sign of caution. When three or four men had descended he bade them follow him, saying, weakly and disjointedly, but persistently: “My boy--my son Robert--came home--came home at last--here with Flip--both of them--come and see!”
He had reached a little niche or nest in the hillside, and stopped and suddenly drew aside a blanket. Beneath it, side by side, lay Flip and Lance, dead, with their cold hands clasped in each other's.
“Suffocated!” said two or three, turning with horror toward the broken up and still smouldering pit.
“Asleep!” said the old man. “Asleep! I've seen 'em lying that way when they were babies together. Don't tell me! Don't say I don't know my own flesh and blood! So! so! So, my pretty ones!” He stooped and kissed them. Then, drawing the blanket over them gently, he rose and said softly, “Good night!”
|
{
"id": "2793"
}
|
1
|
None
|
IT was sheep-shearing time in Southern California, but sheep-shearing was late at the Senora Moreno's. The Fates had seemed to combine to put it off. In the first place, Felipe Moreno had been ill. He was the Senora's eldest son, and since his father's death had been at the head of his mother's house. Without him, nothing could be done on the ranch, the Senora thought. It had been always, “Ask Senor Felipe,” “Go to Senor Felipe,” “Senor Felipe will attend to it,” ever since Felipe had had the dawning of a beard on his handsome face.
In truth, it was not Felipe, but the Senora, who really decided all questions from greatest to least, and managed everything on the place, from the sheep-pastures to the artichoke-patch; but nobody except the Senora herself knew this. An exceedingly clever woman for her day and generation was Senora Gonzaga Moreno,--as for that matter, exceedingly clever for any day and generation; but exceptionally clever for the day and generation to which she belonged. Her life, the mere surface of it, if it had been written, would have made a romance, to grow hot and cold over: sixty years of the best of old Spain, and the wildest of New Spain, Bay of Biscay, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Ocean,--the waves of them all had tossed destinies for the Senora. The Holy Catholic Church had had its arms round her from first to last; and that was what had brought her safe through, she would have said, if she had ever said anything about herself, which she never did,--one of her many wisdoms. So quiet, so reserved, so gentle an exterior never was known to veil such an imperious and passionate nature, brimful of storm, always passing through stress; never thwarted, except at peril of those who did it; adored and hated by turns, and each at the hottest. A tremendous force, wherever she appeared, was Senora Moreno; but no stranger would suspect it, to see her gliding about, in her scanty black gown, with her rosary hanging at her side, her soft dark eyes cast down, and an expression of mingled melancholy and devotion on her face. She looked simply like a sad, spiritual-minded old lady, amiable and indolent, like her race, but sweeter and more thoughtful than their wont. Her voice heightened this mistaken impression. She was never heard to speak either loud or fast. There was at times even a curious hesitancy in her speech, which came near being a stammer, or suggested the measured care with which people speak who have been cured of stammering. It made her often appear as if she did not known her own mind; at which people sometimes took heart; when, if they had only known the truth, they would have known that the speech hesitated solely because the Senora knew her mind so exactly that she was finding it hard to make the words convey it as she desired, or in a way to best attain her ends.
About this very sheep-shearing there had been, between her and the head shepherd, Juan Canito, called Juan Can for short, and to distinguish him from Juan Jose, the upper herdsman of the cattle, some discussions which would have been hot and angry ones in any other hands than the Senora's.
Juan Canito wanted the shearing to begin, even though Senor Felipe were ill in bed, and though that lazy shepherd Luigo had not yet got back with the flock that had been driven up the coast for pasture. “There were plenty of sheep on the place to begin with,” he said one morning,--“at least a thousand;” and by the time they were done, Luigo would surely be back with the rest; and as for Senor Felipe's being in bed, had not he, Juan Canito, stood at the packing-bag, and handled the wool, when Senor Felipe was a boy? Why could he not do it again? The Senora did not realize how time was going; there would be no shearers to be hired presently, since the Senora was determined to have none but Indians. Of course, if she would employ Mexicans, as all the other ranches in the valley did, it would be different; but she was resolved upon having Indians,--“God knows why,” he interpolated surlily, under his breath.
“I do not quite understand you, Juan,” interrupted Senora Moreno at the precise instant the last syllable of this disrespectful ejaculation had escaped Juan's lips; “speak a little louder. I fear I am growing deaf in my old age.”
What gentle, suave, courteous tones! and the calm dark eyes rested on Juan Canito with a look to the fathoming of which he was as unequal as one of his own sheep would have been. He could not have told why he instantly and involuntarily said, “Beg your pardon, Senora.”
“Oh, you need not ask my pardon, Juan,” the Senora replied with exquisite gentleness; “it is not you who are to blame, if I am deaf. I have fancied for a year I did not hear quite as well as I once did. But about the Indians, Juan; did not Senor Felipe tell you that he had positively engaged the same band of shearers we had last autumn, Alessandro's band from Temecula? They will wait until we are ready for them. Senor Felipe will send a messenger for them. He thinks them the best shearers in the country. He will be well enough in a week or two, he thinks, and the poor sheep must bear their loads a few days longer. Are they looking well, do you think, Juan? Will the crop be a good one? General Moreno used to say that you could reckon up the wool-crop to a pound, while it was on the sheep's backs.”
“Yes, Senora,” answered the mollified Juan; “the poor beasts look wonderfully well considering the scant feed they have had all winter. We'll not come many pounds short of our last year's crop, if any. Though, to be sure, there is no telling in what case that--Luigo will bring his flock back.”
The Senora smiled, in spite of herself, at the pause and gulp with which Juan had filled in the hiatus where he had longed to set a contemptuous epithet before Luigo's name.
This was another of the instances where the Senora's will and Juan Canito's had clashed and he did not dream of it, having set it all down as usual to the score of young Senor Felipe.
Encouraged by the Senora's smile, Juan proceeded: “Senor Felipe can see no fault in Luigo, because they were boys together; but I can tell him, he will rue it, one of these mornings, when he finds a flock of sheep worse than dead on his hands, and no thanks to anybody but Luigo. While I can have him under my eye, here in the valley, it is all very well; but he is no more fit to take responsibility of a flock, than one of the very lambs themselves. He'll drive them off their feet one day, and starve them the next; and I've known him to forget to give them water. When he's in his dreams, the Virgin only knows what he won't do.”
During this brief and almost unprecedented outburst of Juan's the Senora's countenance had been slowly growing stern. Juan had not seen it. His eyes had been turned away from her, looking down into the upturned eager face of his favorite collie, who was leaping and gambolling and barking at his feet.
“Down, Capitan, down!” he said in a fond tone, gently repulsing him; “thou makest such a noise the Senora can hear nothing but thy voice.”
“I heard only too distinctly, Juan Canito,” said the Senora in a sweet but icy tone. “It is not well for one servant to backbite another. It gives me great grief to hear such words; and I hope when Father Salvierderra comes, next month, you will not forget to confess this sin of which you have been guilty in thus seeking to injure a fellow-being. If Senor Felipe listens to you, the poor boy Luigo will be cast out homeless on the world some day; and what sort of a deed would that be, Juan Canito, for one Christian to do to another? I fear the Father will give you penance, when he hears what you have said.”
“Senora, it is not to harm the lad,” Juan began, every fibre of his faithful frame thrilling with a sense of the injustice of her reproach.
But the Senora had turned her back. Evidently she would hear no more from him then. He stood watching her as she walked away, at her usual slow pace, her head slightly bent forward, her rosary lifted in her left hand, and the fingers of the right hand mechanically slipping the beads.
“Prayers, always prayers!” thought Juan to himself, as his eyes followed her. “If they'll take one to heaven, the Senora'll go by the straight road, that's sure! I'm sorry I vexed her. But what's a man to do, if he's the interest of the place at heart, I'd like to know. Is he to stand by, and see a lot of idle mooning louts run away with everything? Ah, but it was an ill day for the estate when the General died,--an ill day! an ill day! And they may scold me as much as they please, and set me to confessing my sins to the Father; it's very well for them, they've got me to look after matters. Senor Felipe will do well enough when he's a man, maybe; but a boy like him! Bah!” And the old man stamped his foot with a not wholly unreasonable irritation, at the false position in which he felt himself put.
“Confess to Father Salvierderra, indeed!” he muttered aloud. “Ay, that will I. He's a man of sense, if he is a priest,”--at which slip of the tongue the pious Juan hastily crossed himself,--“and I'll ask him to give me some good advice as to how I'm to manage between this young boy at the head of everything, and a doting mother who thinks he has the wisdom of a dozen grown men. The Father knew the place in the olden time. He knows it's no child's play to look after the estate even now, much smaller as it is! An ill day when the old General died, an ill day indeed, the saints rest his soul!” Saying this, Juan shrugged his shoulders, and whistling to Capitan, walked towards the sunny veranda of the south side of the kitchen wing of the house, where it had been for twenty odd years his habit to sit on the long bench and smoke his pipe of a morning. Before he had got half-way across the court-yard, however, a thought struck him. He halted so suddenly that Capitan, with the quick sensitiveness of his breed, thought so sudden a change of purpose could only come from something in connection with sheep; and, true to his instinct of duty, pricked up his ears, poised himself for a full run, and looked up in his master's face waiting for explanation and signal. But Juan did not observe him.
“Ha!” he said, “Father Salvierderra comes next month, does he? Let's see. To-day is the 25th. That's it. The sheep-shearing is not to come off till the Father gets here. Then each morning it will be mass in the chapel, and each night vespers; and the crowd will be here at least two days longer to feed, for the time they will lose by that and by the confessions. That's what Senor Felipe is up to. He's a pious lad. I recollect now, it was the same way two years ago. Well, well, it is a good thing for those poor Indian devils to get a bit of religion now and then; and it's like old times to see the chapel full of them kneeling, and more than can get in at the door; I doubt not it warms the Senora's heart to see them all there, as if they belonged to the house, as they used to: and now I know when it's to be, I have only to make my arrangements accordingly. It is always in the first week of the month the Father gets here. Yes; she said, 'Senor Felipe will be well enough in a week or two, he thinks.' Ha! ha! It will be nearer two; ten days or thereabouts. I'll begin the booths next week. A plague on that Luigo for not being back here. He's the best hand I have to cut the willow boughs for the roofs. He knows the difference between one year's growth and another's; I'll say that much for him, spite of the silly dreaming head he's got on his shoulders.”
Juan was so pleased with his clearing up in his mind as to Senor Felipe's purpose about the time of the sheep-shearing, that it put him in good humor for the day,--good humor with everybody, and himself most of all. As he sat on the low bench, his head leaning back against the whitewashed wall, his long legs stretched out nearly across the whole width of the veranda, his pipe firm wedged in the extreme left corner of his mouth, his hands in his pockets, he was the picture of placid content. The troop of youngsters which still swarmed around the kitchen quarters of Senora Moreno's house, almost as numerous and inexplicable as in the grand old days of the General's time, ran back and forth across Juan's legs, fell down between them, and picked themselves up by help of clutches at his leather trousers, all unreproved by Juan, though loudly scolded and warned by their respective mothers from the kitchen.
“What's come to Juan Can to be so good-natured to-day?” saucily asked Margarita, the youngest and prettiest of the maids, popping her head out of a window, and twitching Juan's hair. He was so gray and wrinkled that the maids all felt at ease with him. He seemed to them as old as Methuselah; but he was not really so old as they thought, nor they so safe in their tricks. The old man had hot blood in his veins yet, as the under-shepherds could testify.
“The sight of your pretty face, Senorita Margarita,” answered Juan quickly, cocking his eye at her, rising to his feet, and making a mock bow towards the window.
“He! he! Senorita, indeed!” chuckled Margarita's mother, old Marda the cook. “Senor Juan Canito is pleased to be merry at the doors of his betters;” and she flung a copper saucepan full of not over-clean water so deftly past Juan's head, that not a drop touched him, and yet he had the appearance of having been ducked. At which bit of sleight-of-hand the whole court-yard, young and old, babies, cocks, hens, and turkeys, all set up a shout and a cackle, and dispersed to the four corners of the yard as if scattered by a volley of bird-shot. Hearing the racket, the rest of the maids came running,--Anita and Maria, the twins, women forty years old, born on the place the year after General Moreno brought home his handsome young bride; their two daughters, Rosa and Anita the Little, as she was still called, though she outweighed her mother; old Juanita, the oldest woman in the household, of whom even the Senora was said not to know the exact age or history; and she, poor thing, could tell nothing, having been silly for ten years or more, good for nothing except to shell beans: that she did as fast and well as ever, and was never happy except she was at it. Luckily for her, beans are the one crop never omitted or stinted on a Mexican estate; and for sake of old Juanita they stored every year in the Moreno house, rooms full of beans in the pod (tons of them, one would think), enough to feed an army. But then, it was like a little army even now, the Senora's household; nobody ever knew exactly how many women were in the kitchen, or how many men in the fields. There were always women cousins, or brother's wives or widows or daughters, who had come to stay, or men cousins, or sister's husbands or sons, who were stopping on their way up or down the valley. When it came to the pay-roll, Senor Felipe knew to whom he paid wages; but who were fed and lodged under his roof, that was quite another thing. It could not enter into the head of a Mexican gentleman to make either count or account of that. It would be a disgraceful niggardly thought.
To the Senora it seemed as if there were no longer any people about the place. A beggarly handful, she would have said, hardly enough to do the work of the house, or of the estate, sadly as the latter had dwindled. In the General's day, it had been a free-handed boast of his that never less than fifty persons, men, women and children, were fed within his gates each day; how many more, he did not care, nor know. But that time had indeed gone, gone forever; and though a stranger, seeing the sudden rush and muster at door and window, which followed on old Marda's letting fly the water at Juan's head, would have thought, “Good heavens, do all those women, children, and babies belong in that one house!” the Senora's sole thought, as she at that moment went past the gate, was, “Poor things! how few there are left of them! I am afraid old Marda has to work too hard. I must spare Margarita more from the house to help her.” And she sighed deeply, and unconsciously held her rosary nearer to her heart, as she went into the house and entered her son's bedroom. The picture she saw there was one to thrill any mother's heart; and as it met her eye, she paused on the threshold for a second,--only a second, however; and nothing could have astonished Felipe Moreno so much as to have been told that at the very moment when his mother's calm voice was saying to him, “Good morning, my son, I hope you have slept well, and are better,” there was welling up in her heart a passionate ejaculation, “O my glorious son! The saints have sent me in him the face of his father! He is fit for a kingdom!”
The truth is, Felipe Moreno was not fit for a kingdom at all. If he had been, he would not have been so ruled by his mother without ever finding it out. But so far as mere physical beauty goes, there never was a king born, whose face, stature, and bearing would set off a crown or a throne, or any of the things of which the outside of royalty is made up, better than would Felipe Moreno's. And it was true, as the Senora said, whether the saints had anything to do with it or not, that he had the face of his father. So strong a likeness is seldom seen. When Felipe once, on the occasion of a grand celebration and procession, put on the gold-wrought velvet mantle, gayly embroidered short breeches fastened at the knee with red ribbons, and gold-and-silver-trimmed sombrero, which his father had worn twenty-five years before, the Senora fainted at her first look at him,--fainted and fell; and when she opened her eyes, and saw the same splendid, gayly arrayed, dark-bearded man, bending over her in distress, with words of endearment and alarm, she fainted again.
“Mother, mother mia,” cried Felipe, “I will not wear them if it makes you feel like this! Let me take them off. I will not go to their cursed parade;” and he sprang to his feet, and began with trembling fingers to unbuckle the sword-belt.
“No, no, Felipe,” faintly cried the Senora, from the ground. “It is my wish that you wear them;” and staggering to her feet, with a burst of tears, she rebuckled the old sword-belt, which her fingers had so many times--never unkissed--buckled, in the days when her husband had bade her farewell and gone forth to the uncertain fates of war. “Wear them!” she cried, with gathering fire in her tones, and her eyes dry of tears,--“wear them, and let the American hounds see what a Mexican officer and gentleman looked like before they had set their base, usurping feet on our necks!” And she followed him to the gate, and stood erect, bravely waving her handkerchief as he galloped off, till he was out of sight. Then with a changed face and a bent head she crept slowly to her room, locked herself in, fell on her knees before the Madonna at the head of her bed, and spent the greater part of the day praying that she might be forgiven, and that all heretics might be discomfited. From which part of these supplications she derived most comfort is easy to imagine.
Juan Canito had been right in his sudden surmise that it was for Father Salvierderra's coming that the sheep-shearing was being delayed, and not in consequence of Senor Felipe's illness, or by the non-appearance of Luigo and his flock of sheep. Juan would have chuckled to himself still more at his perspicacity, had he overheard the conversation going on between the Senora and her son, at the very time when he, half asleep on the veranda, was, as he would have called it, putting two and two together and convincing himself that old Juan was as smart as they were, and not to be kept in the dark by all their reticence and equivocation.
“Juan Can is growing very impatient about the sheep-shearing,” said the Senora. “I suppose you are still of the same mind about it, Felipe,--that it is better to wait till Father Salvierderra comes? As the only chance those Indians have of seeing him is here, it would seem a Christian duty to so arrange it, if it be possible; but Juan is very restive. He is getting old, and chafes a little, I fancy, under your control. He cannot forget that you were a boy on his knee. Now I, for my part, am like to forget that you were ever anything but a man for me to lean on.”
Felipe turned his handsome face toward his mother with a beaming smile of filial affection and gratified manly vanity. “Indeed, my mother, if I can be sufficient for you to lean on, I will ask nothing more of the saints;” and he took his mother's thin and wasted little hands, both at once, in his own strong right hand, and carried them to his lips as a lover might have done. “You will spoil me, mother,” he said, “you make me so proud.”
“No, Felipe, it is I who am proud,” promptly replied the mother; “and I do not call it being proud, only grateful to God for having given me a son wise enough to take his father's place, and guide and protect me through the few remaining years I have to live. I shall die content, seeing you at the head of the estate, and living as a Mexican gentleman should; that is, so far as now remains possible in this unfortunate country. But about the sheep-shearing, Felipe. Do you wish to have it begun before the Father is here? Of course, Alessandro is all ready with his band. It is but two days' journey for a messenger to bring him. Father Salvierderra cannot be here before the 10th of the month. He leaves Santa Barbara on the 1st, and he will walk all the way,--a good six days' journey, for he is old now and feeble; then he must stop in Ventura for a Sunday, and a day at the Ortega's ranch, and at the Lopez's,--there, there is a christening. Yes, the 10th is the very earliest that he can be here,--near two weeks from now. So far as your getting up is concerned, it might perhaps be next week. You will be nearly well by that time.”
“Yes, indeed,” laughed Felipe, stretching himself out in the bed and giving a kick to the bedclothes that made the high bedposts and the fringed canopy roof shake and creak; “I am well now, if it were not for this cursed weakness when I stand on my feet. I believe it would do me good to get out of doors.”
In truth, Felipe had been hankering for the sheep-shearing himself. It was a brisk, busy, holiday sort of time to him, hard as he worked in it; and two weeks looked long to wait.
“It is always thus after a fever,” said his mother. “The weakness lasts many weeks. I am not sure that you will be strong enough even in two weeks to do the packing; but, as Juan Can said this morning, he stood at the packing-bag when you were a boy, and there was no need of waiting for you for that!”
“He said that, did he!” exclaimed Felipe, wrathfully. “The old man is getting insolent. I'll tell him that nobody will pack the sacks but myself, while I am master here; and I will have the sheep-shearing when I please, and not before.”
“I suppose it would not be wise to say that it is not to take place till the Father comes, would it?” asked the Senora, hesitatingly, as if the thing were evenly balanced in her mind. “The Father has not that hold on the younger men he used to have, and I have thought that even in Juan himself I have detected a remissness. The spirit of unbelief is spreading in the country since the Americans are running up and down everywhere seeking money, like dogs with their noses to the ground! It might vex Juan if he knew that you were waiting only for the Father. What do you think?”
“I think it is enough for him to know that the sheep-shearing waits for my pleasure,” answered Felipe, still wrathful, “and that is the end of it.” And so it was; and, moreover, precisely the end which Senora Moreno had had in her own mind from the beginning; but not even Juan Canito himself suspected its being solely her purpose, and not her son's. As for Felipe, if any person had suggested to him that it was his mother, and not he, who had decided that the sheep-shearing would be better deferred until the arrival of Father Salvierderra from Santa Barbara, and that nothing should be said on the ranch about this being the real reason of the postponing, Felipe would have stared in astonishment, and have thought that person either crazy or a fool.
To attain one's ends in this way is the consummate triumph of art. Never to appear as a factor in the situation; to be able to wield other men, as instruments, with the same direct and implicit response to will that one gets from a hand or a foot,--this is to triumph, indeed: to be as nearly controller and conqueror of Fates as fate permits. There have been men prominent in the world's affairs at one time and another, who have sought and studied such a power and have acquired it to a great degree. By it they have manipulated legislators, ambassadors, sovereigns; and have grasped, held, and played with the destinies of empires. But it is to be questioned whether even in these notable instances there has ever been such marvellous completeness of success as is sometimes seen in the case of a woman in whom the power is an instinct and not an attainment; a passion rather than a purpose. Between the two results, between the two processes, there is just that difference which is always to be seen between the stroke of talent and the stroke of genius.
Senora Moreno's was the stroke of genius.
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
2
|
None
|
THE Senora Moreno's house was one of the best specimens to be found in California of the representative house of the half barbaric, half elegant, wholly generous and free-handed life led there by Mexican men and women of degree in the early part of this century, under the rule of the Spanish and Mexican viceroys, when the laws of the Indies were still the law of the land, and its old name, “New Spain,” was an ever-present link and stimulus to the warmest memories and deepest patriotisms of its people.
It was a picturesque life, with more of sentiment and gayety in it, more also that was truly dramatic, more romance, than will ever be seen again on those sunny shores. The aroma of it all lingers there still; industries and inventions have not yet slain it; it will last out its century,--in fact, it can never be quite lost, so long as there is left standing one such house as the Senora Moreno's.
When the house was built, General Moreno owned all the land within a radius of forty miles,--forty miles westward, down the valley to the sea; forty miles eastward, into the San Fernando Mountains; and good forty miles more or less along the coast. The boundaries were not very strictly defined; there was no occasion, in those happy days, to reckon land by inches. It might be asked, perhaps, just how General Moreno owned all this land, and the question might not be easy to answer. It was not and could not be answered to the satisfaction of the United States Land Commission, which, after the surrender of California, undertook to sift and adjust Mexican land titles; and that was the way it had come about that the Senora Moreno now called herself a poor woman. Tract after tract, her lands had been taken away from her; it looked for a time as if nothing would be left. Every one of the claims based on deeds of gift from Governor Pio Fico, her husband's most intimate friend, was disallowed. They all went by the board in one batch, and took away from the Senora in a day the greater part of her best pasture-lands. They were lands which had belonged to the Bonaventura Mission, and lay along the coast at the mouth of the valley down which the little stream which ran past her house went to the sea; and it had been a great pride and delight to the Senora, when she was young, to ride that forty miles by her husband's side, all the way on their own lands, straight from their house to their own strip of shore. No wonder she believed the Americans thieves, and spoke of them always as hounds. The people of the United States have never in the least realized that the taking possession of California was not only a conquering of Mexico, but a conquering of California as well; that the real bitterness of the surrender was not so much to the empire which gave up the country, as to the country itself which was given up. Provinces passed back and forth in that way, helpless in the hands of great powers, have all the ignominy and humiliation of defeat, with none of the dignities or compensations of the transaction.
Mexico saved much by her treaty, spite of having to acknowledge herself beaten; but California lost all. Words cannot tell the sting of such a transfer. It is a marvel that a Mexican remained in the country; probably none did, except those who were absolutely forced to it.
Luckily for the Senora Moreno, her title to the lands midway in the valley was better than to those lying to the east and the west, which had once belonged to the missions of San Fernando and Bonaventura; and after all the claims, counter-claims, petitions, appeals, and adjudications were ended, she still was left in undisputed possession of what would have been thought by any new-comer into the country to be a handsome estate, but which seemed to the despoiled and indignant Senora a pitiful fragment of one. Moreover, she declared that she should never feel secure of a foot of even this. Any day, she said, the United States Government might send out a new Land Commission to examine the decrees of the first, and revoke such as they saw fit. Once a thief, always a thief. Nobody need feel himself safe under American rule. There was no knowing what might happen any day; and year by year the lines of sadness, resentment, anxiety, and antagonism deepened on the Senora's fast aging face.
It gave her unspeakable satisfaction, when the Commissioners, laying out a road down the valley, ran it at the back of her house instead of past the front. “It is well,” she said. “Let their travel be where it belongs, behind our kitchens; and no one have sight of the front doors of our houses, except friends who have come to visit us.” Her enjoyment of this never flagged. Whenever she saw, passing the place, wagons or carriages belonging to the hated Americans, it gave her a distinct thrill of pleasure to think that the house turned its back on them. She would like always to be able to do the same herself; but whatever she, by policy or in business, might be forced to do, the old house, at any rate, would always keep the attitude of contempt,--its face turned away.
One other pleasure she provided herself with, soon after this road was opened,--a pleasure in which religious devotion and race antagonism were so closely blended that it would have puzzled the subtlest of priests to decide whether her act were a sin or a virtue. She caused to be set up, upon every one of the soft rounded hills which made the beautiful rolling sides of that part of the valley, a large wooden cross; not a hill in sight of her house left without the sacred emblem of her faith. “That the heretics may know, when they go by, that they are on the estate of a good Catholic,” she said, “and that the faithful may be reminded to pray. There have been miracles of conversion wrought on the most hardened by a sudden sight of the Blessed Cross.”
There they stood, summer and winter, rain and shine, the silent, solemn, outstretched arms, and became landmarks to many a guideless traveller who had been told that his way would be by the first turn to the left or the right, after passing the last one of the Senora Moreno's crosses, which he couldn't miss seeing. And who shall say that it did not often happen that the crosses bore a sudden message to some idle heart journeying by, and thus justified the pious half of the Senora's impulse? Certain it is, that many a good Catholic halted and crossed himself when he first beheld them, in the lonely places, standing out in sudden relief against the blue sky; and if he said a swift short prayer at the sight, was he not so much the better?
The house, was of adobe, low, with a wide veranda on the three sides of the inner court, and a still broader one across the entire front, which looked to the south. These verandas, especially those on the inner court, were supplementary rooms to the house. The greater part of the family life went on in them. Nobody stayed inside the walls, except when it was necessary. All the kitchen work, except the actual cooking, was done here, in front of the kitchen doors and windows. Babies slept, were washed, sat in the dirt, and played, on the veranda. The women said their prayers, took their naps, and wove their lace there. Old Juanita shelled her beans there, and threw the pods down on the tile floor, till towards night they were sometimes piled up high around her, like corn-husks at a husking. The herdsmen and shepherds smoked there, lounged there, trained their dogs there; there the young made love, and the old dozed; the benches, which ran the entire length of the walls, were worn into hollows, and shone like satin; the tiled floors also were broken and sunk in places, making little wells, which filled up in times of hard rains, and were then an invaluable addition to the children's resources for amusement, and also to the comfort of the dogs, cats, and fowls, who picked about among them, taking sips from each.
The arched veranda along the front was a delightsome place. It must have been eighty feet long, at least, for the doors of five large rooms opened on it. The two westernmost rooms had been added on, and made four steps higher than the others; which gave to that end of the veranda the look of a balcony, or loggia. Here the Senora kept her flowers; great red water-jars, hand-made by the Indians of San Luis Obispo Mission, stood in close rows against the walls, and in them were always growing fine geraniums, carnations, and yellow-flowered musk. The Senora's passion for musk she had inherited from her mother. It was so strong that she sometimes wondered at it; and one day, as she sat with Father Salvierderra in the veranda, she picked a handful of the blossoms, and giving them to him, said, “I do not know why it is, but it seems to me if I were dead I could be brought to life by the smell of musk.”
“It is in your blood, Senora,” the old monk replied. “When I was last in your father's house in Seville, your mother sent for me to her room, and under her window was a stone balcony full of growing musk, which so filled the room with its odor that I was like to faint. But she said it cured her of diseases, and without it she fell ill. You were a baby then.”
“Yes,” cried the Senora, “but I recollect that balcony. I recollect being lifted up to a window, and looking down into a bed of blooming yellow flowers; but I did not know what they were. How strange!”
“No. Not strange, daughter,” replied Father Salvierderra. “It would have been stranger if you had not acquired the taste, thus drawing it in with the mother's milk. It would behoove mothers to remember this far more than they do.”
Besides the geraniums and carnations and musk in the red jars, there were many sorts of climbing vines,--some coming from the ground, and twining around the pillars of the veranda; some growing in great bowls, swung by cords from the roof of the veranda, or set on shelves against the walls. These bowls were of gray stone, hollowed and polished, shining smooth inside and out. They also had been made by the Indians, nobody knew how many ages ago, scooped and polished by the patient creatures, with only stones for tools.
Among these vines, singing from morning till night, hung the Senora's canaries and finches, half a dozen of each, all of different generations, raised by the Senora. She was never without a young bird-family on hand; and all the way from Bonaventura to Monterey, it was thought a piece of good luck to come into possession of a canary or finch of Senora Moreno's 'raising.
Between the veranda and the river meadows, out on which it looked, all was garden, orange grove, and almond orchard; the orange grove always green, never without snowy bloom or golden fruit; the garden never without flowers, summer or winter; and the almond orchard, in early spring, a fluttering canopy of pink and white petals, which, seen from the hills on the opposite side of the river, looked as if rosy sunrise clouds had fallen, and become tangled in the tree-tops. On either hand stretched away other orchards,--peach, apricot, pear, apple pomegranate; and beyond these, vineyards. Nothing was to be seen but verdure or bloom or fruit, at whatever time of year you sat on the Senora's south veranda.
A wide straight walk shaded by a trellis so knotted and twisted with grapevines that little was to be seen of the trellis wood-work, led straight down from the veranda steps, through the middle of the garden, to a little brook at the foot of it. Across this brook, in the shade of a dozen gnarled old willow-trees, were set the broad flat stone washboards on which was done all the family washing. No long dawdling, and no running away from work on the part of the maids, thus close to the eye of the Senora at the upper end of the garden; and if they had known how picturesque they looked there, kneeling on the grass, lifting the dripping linen out of the water, rubbing it back and forth on the stones, sousing it, wringing it, splashing the clear water in each other's faces, they would have been content to stay at the washing day in and day out, for there was always somebody to look on from above. Hardly a day passed that the Senora had not visitors. She was still a person of note; her house the natural resting-place for all who journeyed through the valley; and whoever came, spent all of his time, when not eating, sleeping, or walking over the place, sitting with the Senora on the sunny veranda. Few days in winter were cold enough, and in summer the day must be hot indeed to drive the Senora and her friends indoors. There stood on the veranda three carved oaken chairs, and a carved bench, also of oak, which had been brought to the Senora for safe keeping by the faithful old sacristan of San Luis Rey, at the time of the occupation of that Mission by the United States troops, soon after the conquest of California. Aghast at the sacrilegious acts of the soldiers, who were quartered in the very church itself, and amused themselves by making targets of the eyes and noses of the saints' statues, the sacristan, stealthily, day by day and night after night, bore out of the church all that he dared to remove, burying some articles in cottonwood copses, hiding others in his own poor little hovel, until he had wagon-loads of sacred treasures. Then, still more stealthily, he carried them, a few at a time, concealed in the bottom of a cart, under a load of hay or of brush, to the house of the Senora, who felt herself deeply honored by his confidence, and received everything as a sacred trust, to be given back into the hands of the Church again, whenever the Missions should be restored, of which at that time all Catholics had good hope. And so it had come about that no bedroom in the Senora's house was without a picture or a statue of a saint or of the Madonna; and some had two; and in the little chapel in the garden the altar was surrounded by a really imposing row of holy and apostolic figures, which had looked down on the splendid ceremonies of the San Luis Rey Mission, in Father Peyri's time, no more benignly than they now did on the humbler worship of the Senora's family in its diminished estate. That one had lost an eye, another an arm, that the once brilliant colors of the drapery were now faded and shabby, only enhanced the tender reverence with which the Senora knelt before them, her eyes filling with indignant tears at thought of the heretic hands which had wrought such defilement. Even the crumbling wreaths which had been placed on some of the statues' heads at the time of the last ceremonial at which they had figured in the Mission, had been brought away with them by the devout sacristan, and the Senora had replaced each one, holding it only a degree less sacred than the statue itself.
This chapel was dearer to the Senora than her house. It had been built by the General in the second year of their married life. In it her four children had been christened, and from it all but one, her handsome Felipe, had been buried while they were yet infants. In the General's time, while the estate was at its best, and hundreds of Indians living within its borders, there was many a Sunday when the scene to be witnessed there was like the scenes at the Missions,--the chapel full of kneeling men and women; those who could not find room inside kneeling on the garden walks outside; Father Salvierderra, in gorgeous vestments, coming, at close of the services, slowly down the aisle, the close-packed rows of worshippers parting to right and left to let him through, all looking up eagerly for his blessing, women giving him offerings of fruit or flowers, and holding up their babies that he might lay his hands on their heads. No one but Father Salvierderra had ever officiated in the Moreno chapel, or heard the confession of a Moreno. He was a Franciscan, one of the few now left in the country; so revered and beloved by all who had come under his influence, that they would wait long months without the offices of the Church, rather than confess their sins or confide their perplexities to any one else. From this deep-seated attachment on the part of the Indians and the older Mexican families in the country to the Franciscan Order, there had grown up, not unnaturally, some jealousy of them in the minds of the later-come secular priests, and the position of the few monks left was not wholly a pleasant one. It had even been rumored that they were to be forbidden to continue longer their practice of going up and down the country, ministering everywhere; were to be compelled to restrict their labors to their own colleges at Santa Barbara and Santa Inez. When something to this effect was one day said in the Senora Moreno's presence, two scarlet spots sprang on her cheeks, and before she bethought herself, she exclaimed, “That day, I burn down my chapel!”
Luckily, nobody but Felipe heard the rash threat, and his exclamation of unbounded astonishment recalled the Senora to herself.
“I spoke rashly, my son,” she said. “The Church is to be obeyed always; but the Franciscan Fathers are responsible to no one but the Superior of their own order; and there is no one in this land who has the authority to forbid their journeying and ministering to whoever desires their offices. As for these Catalan priests who are coming in here, I cannot abide them. No Catalan but has bad blood in his veins!”
There was every reason in the world why the Senora should be thus warmly attached to the Franciscan Order. From her earliest recollections the gray gown and cowl had been familiar to her eyes, and had represented the things which she was taught to hold most sacred and dear. Father Salvierderra himself had come from Mexico to Monterey in the same ship which had brought her father to be the commandante of the Santa Barbara Presidio; and her best-beloved uncle, her father's eldest brother, was at that time the Superior of the Santa Barbara Mission. The sentiment and romance of her youth were almost equally divided between the gayeties, excitements, adornments of the life at the Presidio, and the ceremonies and devotions of the life at the Mission. She was famed as the most beautiful girl in the country. Men of the army, men of the navy, and men of the Church, alike adored her. Her name was a toast from Monterey to San Diego. When at last she was wooed and won by Felipe Moreno, one of the most distinguished of the Mexican Generals, her wedding ceremonies were the most splendid ever seen in the country. The right tower of the Mission church at Santa Barbara had been just completed, and it was arranged that the consecration of this tower should take place at the time of her wedding, and that her wedding feast should be spread in the long outside corridor of the Mission building. The whole country, far and near, was bid. The feast lasted three days; open tables to everybody; singing, dancing, eating, drinking, and making merry. At that time there were long streets of Indian houses stretching eastward from the Mission; before each of these houses was built a booth of green boughs. The Indians, as well as the Fathers from all the other Missions, were invited to come. The Indians came in bands, singing songs and bringing gifts. As they appeared, the Santa Barbara Indians went out to meet them, also singing, bearing gifts, and strewing seeds on the ground, in token of welcome. The young Senora and her bridegroom, splendidly clothed, were seen of all, and greeted, whenever they appeared, by showers of seeds and grains and blossoms. On the third day, still in their wedding attire, and bearing lighted candles in their hands, they walked with the monks in a procession, round and round the new tower, the monks chanting, and sprinkling incense and holy water on its walls, the ceremony seeming to all devout beholders to give a blessed consecration to the union of the young pair as well as to the newly completed tower. After this they journeyed in state, accompanied by several of the General's aids and officers, and by two Franciscan Fathers, up to Monterey, stopping on their way at all the Missions, and being warmly welcomed and entertained at each.
General Moreno was much beloved by both army and Church. In many of the frequent clashings between the military and the ecclesiastical powers he, being as devout and enthusiastic a Catholic as he was zealous and enthusiastic a soldier, had had the good fortune to be of material assistance to each party. The Indians also knew his name well, having heard it many times mentioned with public thanksgivings in the Mission churches, after some signal service he had rendered to the Fathers either in Mexico or Monterey. And now, by taking as his bride the daughter of a distinguished officer, and the niece of the Santa Barbara Superior, he had linked himself anew to the two dominant powers and interests of the country.
When they reached San Luis Obispo, the whole Indian population turned out to meet them, the Padre walking at the head. As they approached the Mission doors the Indians swarmed closer and closer and still closer, took the General's horse by the head, and finally almost by actual force compelled him to allow himself to be lifted into a blanket, held high up by twenty strong men; and thus he was borne up the steps, across the corridor, and into the Padre's room. It was a position ludicrously undignified in itself, but the General submitted to it good-naturedly.
“Oh, let them do it, if they like,” he cried, laughingly, to Padre Martinez, who was endeavoring to quiet the Indians and hold them back. “Let them do it. It pleases the poor creatures.”
On the morning of their departure, the good Padre, having exhausted all his resources for entertaining his distinguished guests, caused to be driven past the corridors, for their inspection, all the poultry belonging to the Mission. The procession took an hour to pass. For music, there was the squeaking, cackling, hissing, gobbling, crowing, quacking of the fowls, combined with the screaming, scolding, and whip-cracking of the excited Indian marshals of the lines. First came the turkeys, then the roosters, then the white hens, then the black, and then the yellow, next the ducks, and at the tail of the spectacle long files of geese, some strutting, some half flying and hissing in resentment and terror at the unwonted coercions to which they were subjected. The Indians had been hard at work all night capturing, sorting, assorting, and guarding the rank and file of their novel pageant. It would be safe to say that a droller sight never was seen, and never will be, on the Pacific coast or any other. Before it was done with, the General and his bride had nearly died with laughter; and the General could never allude to it without laughing almost as heartily again.
At Monterey they were more magnificently feted; at the Presidio, at the Mission, on board Spanish, Mexican, and Russian ships lying in harbor, balls, dances, bull-fights, dinners, all that the country knew of festivity, was lavished on the beautiful and winning young bride. The belles of the coast, from San Diego up, had all gathered at Monterey for these gayeties, but not one of them could be for a moment compared to her. This was the beginning of the Senora's life as a married woman. She was then just twenty. A close observer would have seen even then, underneath the joyous smile, the laughing eye, the merry voice, a look thoughtful, tender, earnest, at times enthusiastic. This look was the reflection of those qualities in her, then hardly aroused, which made her, as years developed her character and stormy fates thickened around her life, the unflinching comrade of her soldier husband, the passionate adherent of the Church. Through wars, insurrections, revolutions, downfalls, Spanish, Mexican, civil, ecclesiastical, her standpoint, her poise, remained the same. She simply grew more and more proudly, passionately, a Spaniard and a Moreno; more and more stanchly and fierily a Catholic, and a lover of the Franciscans.
During the height of the despoiling and plundering of the Missions, under the Secularization Act, she was for a few years almost beside herself. More than once she journeyed alone, when the journey was by no means without danger, to Monterey, to stir up the Prefect of the Missions to more energetic action, to implore the governmental authorities to interfere, and protect the Church's property. It was largely in consequence of her eloquent entreaties that Governor Micheltorena issued his bootless order, restoring to the Church all the Missions south of San Luis Obispo. But this order cost Micheltorena his political head, and General Moreno was severely wounded in one of the skirmishes of the insurrection which drove Micheltorena out of the country.
In silence and bitter humiliation the Senora nursed her husband back to health again, and resolved to meddle no more in the affairs of her unhappy country and still more unhappy Church. As year by year she saw the ruin of the Missions steadily going on, their vast properties melting away, like dew before the sun, in the hands of dishonest administrators and politicians, the Church powerless to contend with the unprincipled greed in high places, her beloved Franciscan Fathers driven from the country or dying of starvation at their posts, she submitted herself to what, she was forced to admit, seemed to be the inscrutable will of God for the discipline and humiliation of the Church. In a sort of bewildered resignation she waited to see what further sufferings were to come, to fill up the measure of the punishment which, for some mysterious purpose, the faithful must endure. But when close upon all this discomfiture and humiliation of her Church followed the discomfiture and humiliation of her country in war, and the near and evident danger of an English-speaking people's possessing the land, all the smothered fire of the Senora's nature broke out afresh. With unfaltering hands she buckled on her husband's sword, and with dry eyes saw him go forth to fight. She had but one regret, that she was not the mother of sons to fight also.
“Would thou wert a man, Felipe,” she exclaimed again and again in tones the child never forgot. “Would thou wert a man, that thou might go also to fight these foreigners!”
Any race under the sun would have been to the Senora less hateful than the American. She had scorned them in her girlhood, when they came trading to post after post. She scorned them still. The idea of being forced to wage a war with pedlers was to her too monstrous to be believed. In the outset she had no doubt that the Mexicans would win in the contest.
“What!” she cried, “shall we who won independence from Spain, be beaten by these traders? It is impossible!”
When her husband was brought home to her dead, killed in the last fight the Mexican forces made, she said icily, “He would have chosen to die rather than to have been forced to see his country in the hands of the enemy.” And she was almost frightened at herself to see how this thought, as it dwelt in her mind, slew the grief in her heart. She had believed she could not live if her husband were to be taken away from her; but she found herself often glad that he was dead,--glad that he was spared the sight and the knowledge of the things which happened; and even the yearning tenderness with which her imagination pictured him among the saints, was often turned into a fierce wondering whether indignation did not fill his soul, even in heaven, at the way things were going in the land for whose sake he had died.
Out of such throes as these had been born the second nature which made Senora Moreno the silent, reserved, stern, implacable woman they knew, who knew her first when she was sixty. Of the gay, tender, sentimental girl, who danced and laughed with the officers, and prayed and confessed with the Fathers, forty years before, there was small trace left now, in the low-voiced, white-haired, aged woman, silent, unsmiling, placid-faced, who manoeuvred with her son and her head shepherd alike, to bring it about that a handful of Indians might once more confess their sins to a Franciscan monk in the Moreno chapel.
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
3
|
None
|
JUAN CANITO and Senor Felipe were not the only members of the Senora's family who were impatient for the sheep-shearing. There was also Ramona. Ramona was, to the world at large, a far more important person than the Senora herself. The Senora was of the past; Ramona was of the present. For one eye that could see the significant, at times solemn, beauty of the Senora's pale and shadowed countenance, there were a hundred that flashed with eager pleasure at the barest glimpse of Ramona's face; the shepherds, the herdsmen, the maids, the babies, the dogs, the poultry, all loved the sight of Ramona; all loved her, except the Senora. The Senora loved her not; never had loved her, never could love her; and yet she had stood in the place of mother to the girl ever since her childhood, and never once during the whole sixteen years of her life had shown her any unkindness in act. She had promised to be a mother to her; and with all the inalienable stanchness of her nature she fulfilled the letter of her promise. More than the bond lay in the bond; but that was not the Senora's fault.
The story of Ramona the Senora never told. To most of the Senora's acquaintances now, Ramona was a mystery. They did not know--and no one ever asked a prying question of the Senora Moreno--who Ramona's parents were, whether they were living or dead, or why Ramona, her name not being Moreno, lived always in the Senora's house as a daughter, tended and attended equally with the adored Felipe. A few gray-haired men and women here and there in the country could have told the strange story of Ramona; but its beginning was more than a half-century back, and much had happened since then. They seldom thought of the child. They knew she was in the Senora Moreno's keeping, and that was enough. The affairs of the generation just going out were not the business of the young people coming in. They would have tragedies enough of their own presently; what was the use of passing down the old ones? Yet the story was not one to be forgotten; and now and then it was told in the twilight of a summer evening, or in the shadows of vines on a lingering afternoon, and all young men and maidens thrilled who heard it.
It was an elder sister of the Senora's,--a sister old enough to be wooed and won while the Senora was yet at play,--who had been promised in marriage to a young Scotchman named Angus Phail. She was a beautiful woman; and Angus Phail, from the day that he first saw her standing in the Presidio gate, became so madly her lover, that he was like a man bereft of his senses. This was the only excuse ever to be made for Ramona Gonzaga's deed. It could never be denied, by her bitterest accusers, that, at the first, and indeed for many months, she told Angus she did not love him, and could not marry him; and that it was only after his stormy and ceaseless entreaties, that she did finally promise to become his wife. Then, almost immediately, she went away to Monterey, and Angus set sail for San Blas. He was the owner of the richest line of ships which traded along the coast at that time; the richest stuffs, carvings, woods, pearls, and jewels, which came into the country, came in his ships. The arrival of one of them was always an event; and Angus himself, having been well-born in Scotland, and being wonderfully well-mannered for a seafaring man, was made welcome in all the best houses, wherever his ships went into harbor, from Monterey to San Diego.
The Senorita Ramona Gonzaga sailed for Monterey the same day and hour her lover sailed for San Blas. They stood on the decks waving signals to each other as one sailed away to the south, the other to the north. It was remembered afterward by those who were in the ship with the Senorita, that she ceased to wave her signals, and had turned her face away, long before her lover's ship was out of sight. But the men of the “San Jose” said that Angus Phail stood immovable, gazing northward, till nightfall shut from his sight even the horizon line at which the Monterey ship had long before disappeared from view.
This was to be his last voyage. He went on this only because his honor was pledged to do so. Also, he comforted himself by thinking that he would bring back for his bride, and for the home he meant to give her, treasures of all sorts, which none could select so well as he. Through the long weeks of the voyage he sat on deck, gazing dreamily at the waves, and letting his imagination feed on pictures of jewels, satins, velvets, laces, which would best deck his wife's form and face. When he could not longer bear the vivid fancies' heat in his blood, he would pace the deck, swifter and swifter, till his steps were like those of one flying in fear; at such times the men heard him muttering and whispering to himself, “Ramona! Ramona!” Mad with love from the first to the last was Angus Phail; and there were many who believed that if he had ever seen the hour when he called Ramona Gonzaga his own, his reason would have fled forever at that moment, and he would have killed either her or himself, as men thus mad have been known to do. But that hour never came. When, eight months later, the “San Jose” sailed into the Santa Barbara harbor, and Angus Phail leaped breathless on shore, the second man he met, no friend of his, looking him maliciously in the face, said. “So, ho! You're just too late for the wedding! Your sweetheart, the handsome Gonzaga girl, was married here, yesterday, to a fine young officer of the Monterey Presidio!”
Angus reeled, struck the man a blow full in the face, and fell on the ground, foaming at the mouth. He was lifted and carried into a house, and, speedily recovering, burst with the strength of a giant from the hands of those who were holding him, sprang out of the door, and ran bareheaded up the road toward the Presidio. At the gate he was stopped by the guard, who knew him.
“Is it true?” gasped Angus.
“Yes, Senor,” replied the man, who said afterward that his knees shook under him with terror at the look on the Scotchman's face. He feared he would strike him dead for his reply. But, instead, Angus burst into a maudlin laugh, and, turning away, went staggering down the street, singing and laughing.
The next that was known of him was in a low drinking-place, where he was seen lying on the floor, dead drunk; and from that day he sank lower and lower, till one of the commonest sights to be seen in Santa Barbara was Angus Phail reeling about, tipsy, coarse, loud, profane, dangerous.
“See what the Senorita escaped!” said the thoughtless. “She was quite right not to have married such a drunken wretch.”
In the rare intervals when he was partially sober, he sold all he possessed,--ship after ship sold for a song, and the proceeds squandered in drinking or worse. He never had a sight of his lost bride. He did not seek it; and she, terrified, took every precaution to avoid it, and soon returned with her husband to Monterey.
Finally Angus disappeared, and after a time the news came up from Los Angeles that he was there, had gone out to the San Gabriel Mission, and was living with the Indians. Some years later came the still more surprising news that he had married a squaw,--a squaw with several Indian children,--had been legally married by the priest in the San Gabriel Mission Church. And that was the last that the faithless Ramona Gonzaga ever heard of her lover, until twenty-five years after her marriage, when one day he suddenly appeared in her presence. How he had gained admittance to the house was never known; but there he stood before her, bearing in his arms a beautiful babe, asleep. Drawing himself up to the utmost of his six feet of height, and looking at her sternly, with eyes blue like steel, he said: “Senora Ortegna, you once did me a great wrong. You sinned, and the Lord has punished you. He has denied you children. I also have done a wrong; I have sinned, and the Lord has punished me. He has given me a child. I ask once more at your hands a boon. Will you take this child of mine, and bring it up as a child of yours, or of mine, ought to be brought up?”
The tears were rolling down the Senora Ortegna's cheeks. The Lord had indeed punished her in more ways than Angus Phail knew. Her childlessness, bitter as that had been, was the least of them. Speechless, she rose, and stretched out her arms for the child. He placed it in them. Still the child slept on, undisturbed.
“I do not know if I will be permitted,” she said falteringly; “my husband--” “Father Salvierderra will command it. I have seen him,” replied Angus.
The Senora's face brightened. “If that be so, I hope it can be as you wish,” she said. Then a strange embarrassment came upon her, and looking down upon the infant, she said inquiringly, “But the child's mother?”
Angus's face turned swarthy red. Perhaps, face to face with this gentle and still lovely woman he had once so loved, he first realized to the full how wickedly he had thrown away his life. With a quick wave of his hand, which spoke volumes, he said: “That is nothing. She has other children, of her own blood. This is mine, my only one, my daughter. I wish her to be yours; otherwise, she will be taken by the Church.”
With each second that she felt the little warm body's tender weight in her arms, Ramona Ortegna's heart had more and more yearned towards the infant. At these words she bent her face down and kissed its cheek. “Oh, no! not to the Church! I will love it as my own,” she said.
Angus Phail's face quivered. Feelings long dead within him stirred in their graves. He gazed at the sad and altered face, once so beautiful, so dear. “I should hardly have known you, Senora!” burst from him involuntarily.
She smiled piteously, with no resentment. “That is not strange. I hardly know myself,” she whispered. “Life has dealt very hardly with me. I should not have known you either--Angus.” She pronounced his name hesitatingly, half appealingly. At the sound of the familiar syllables, so long unheard, the man's heart broke down. He buried his face in his hands, and sobbed out: “O Ramona, forgive me! I brought the child here, not wholly in love; partly in vengeance. But I am melted now. Are you sure you wish to keep her? I will take her away if you are not.”
“Never, so long as I live, Angus,” replied Senora Ortegna. “Already I feel that she is a mercy from the Lord. If my husband sees no offence in her presence, she will be a joy in my life. Has she been christened?”
Angus cast his eyes down. A sudden fear smote him. “Before I had thought of bringing her to you,” he stammered, “at first I had only the thought of giving her to the Church. I had had her christened by”--the words refused to leave his lips--“the name--Can you not guess, Senora, what name she bears?”
The Senora knew. “My own?” she said.
Angus bowed his head. “The only woman's name that my lips ever spoke with love,” he said, reassured, “was the name my daughter should bear.”
“It is well,” replied the Senora. Then a great silence fell between them. Each studied the other's face, tenderly, bewilderedly. Then by a simultaneous impulse they drew nearer. Angus stretched out both his arms with a gesture of infinite love and despair, bent down and kissed the hands which lovingly held his sleeping child.
“God bless you, Ramona! Farewell! You will never see me more,” he cried, and was gone.
In a moment more he reappeared on the threshold of the door, but only to say in a low tone, “There is no need to be alarmed if the child does not wake for some hours yet. She has had a safe sleeping-potion given her. It will not harm her.”
One more long lingering look into each other's faces, and the two lovers, so strangely parted, still more strangely met, had parted again, forever. The quarter of a century which had lain between them had been bridged in both their hearts as if it were but a day. In the heart of the man it was the old passionate adoring love reawakening; a resurrection of the buried dead, to full life, with lineaments unchanged. In the woman it was not that; there was no buried love to come to such resurrection in her heart, for she had never loved Angus Phail. But, long unloved, ill-treated, heartbroken, she woke at that moment to the realization of what manner of love it had been which she had thrown away in her youth; her whole being yearned for it now, and Angus was avenged.
When Francis Ortegna, late that night, reeled, half-tipsy, into his wife's room, he was suddenly sobered by the sight which met his eyes,--his wife kneeling by the side of the cradle, in which lay, smiling in its sleep, a beautiful infant.
“What in the devil's name,” he began; then recollecting, he muttered: “Oh, the Indian brat! I see! I wish you joy, Senora Ortegna, of your first child!” and with a mock bow, and cruel sneer, he staggered by, giving the cradle an angry thrust with his foot as he passed.
The brutal taunt did not much wound the Senora. The time had long since passed when unkind words from her husband could give her keen pain. But it was a warning not lost upon her new-born mother instinct, and from that day the little Ramona was carefully kept and tended in apartments where there was no danger of her being seen by the man to whom the sight of her baby face was only a signal for anger and indecency.
Hitherto Ramona Ortegna had, so far as was possible, carefully concealed from her family the unhappiness of her married life. Ortegna's character was indeed well known; his neglect of his wife, his shameful dissipations of all sorts, were notorious in every port in the country. But from the wife herself no one had even heard so much as a syllable of complaint. She was a Gonzaga, and she knew how to suffer in silence, But now she saw a reason for taking her sister into her confidence. It was plain to her that she had not many years to live; and what then would become of the child? Left to the tender mercies of Ortegna, it was only too certain what would become of her. Long sad hours of perplexity the lonely woman passed, with the little laughing babe in her arms, vainly endeavoring to forecast her future. The near chance of her own death had not occurred to her mind when she accepted the trust.
Before the little Ramona was a year old, Angus Phail died. An Indian messenger from San Gabriel brought the news to Senora Ortegna. He brought her also a box and a letter, given to him by Angus the day before his death. The box contained jewels of value, of fashions a quarter of a century old. They were the jewels which Angus had bought for his bride. These alone remained of all his fortune. Even in the lowest depths of his degradation, a certain sentiment had restrained him from parting with them. The letter contained only these words: “I send you all I have to leave my daughter. I meant to bring them myself this year. I wished to kiss your hands and hers once more. But I am dying. Farewell.”
After these jewels were in her possession, Senora Ortegna rested not till she had persuaded Senora Moreno to journey to Monterey, and had put the box into her keeping as a sacred trust. She also won from her a solemn promise that at her own death she would adopt the little Ramona. This promise came hard from Senora Moreno. Except for Father Salvierderra's influence, she had not given it. She did not wish any dealings with such alien and mongrel blood, “If the child were pure Indian, I would like it better,” she said. “I like not these crosses. It is the worst, and not the best of each, that remains.”
But the promise once given, Senora Ortegna was content. Well she knew that her sister would not lie, nor evade a trust. The little Ramona's future was assured. During the last years of the unhappy woman's life the child was her only comfort. Ortegna's conduct had become so openly and defiantly infamous, that he even flaunted his illegitimate relations in his wife's presence; subjecting her to gross insults, spite of her helpless invalidism. This last outrage was too much for the Gonzaga blood to endure; the Senora never afterward left her apartment, or spoke to her husband. Once more she sent for her sister to come; this time, to see her die. Every valuable she possessed, jewels, laces, brocades, and damasks, she gave into her sister's charge, to save them from falling into the hands of the base creature that she knew only too well would stand in her place as soon as the funeral services had been said over her dead body.
Stealthily, as if she had been a thief, the sorrowing Senora Moreno conveyed her sister's wardrobe, article by article, out of the house, to be sent to her own home. It was the wardrobe of a princess. The Ortegnas lavished money always on the women whose hearts they broke; and never ceased to demand of them that they should sit superbly arrayed in their lonely wretchedness.
One hour after the funeral, with a scant and icy ceremony of farewell to her dead sister's husband, Senora Moreno, leading the little four-year-old Ramona by the hand, left the house, and early the next morning set sail for home.
When Ortegna discovered that his wife's jewels and valuables of all kinds were gone, he fell into a great rage, and sent a messenger off, post-haste, with an insulting letter to the Senora Moreno, demanding their return. For answer, he got a copy of his wife's memoranda of instructions to her sister, giving all the said valuables to her in trust for Ramona; also a letter from Father Salvierderra, upon reading which he sank into a fit of despondency that lasted a day or two, and gave his infamous associates considerable alarm, lest they had lost their comrade. But he soon shook off the influence, whatever it was, and settled back into his old gait on the same old high-road to the devil. Father Salvierderra could alarm him, but not save him.
And this was the mystery of Ramona. No wonder the Senora Moreno never told the story. No wonder, perhaps, that she never loved the child. It was a sad legacy, indissolubly linked with memories which had in them nothing but bitterness, shame, and sorrow from first to last.
How much of all this the young Ramona knew or suspected, was locked in her own breast. Her Indian blood had as much proud reserve in it as was ever infused into the haughtiest Gonzaga's veins. While she was yet a little child, she had one day said to the Senora Moreno, “Senora, why did my mother give me to the Senora Ortegna?”
Taken unawares, the Senora replied hastily: “Your mother had nothing whatever to do with it. It was your father.”
“Was my mother dead?” continued the child.
Too late the Senora saw her mistake. “I do not know,” she replied; which was literally true, but had the spirit of a lie in it. “I never saw your mother.”
“Did the Senora Ortegna ever see her?” persisted Ramona.
“No, never,” answered the Senora, coldly, the old wounds burning at the innocent child's unconscious touch.
Ramona felt the chill, and was silent for a time, her face sad, and her eyes tearful. At last she said, “I wish I knew if my mother was dead.”
“Why?” asked the Senora.
“Because if she is not dead I would ask her why she did not want me to stay with her.”
The gentle piteousness of this reply smote the Senora's conscience. Taking the child in her arms, she said, “Who has been talking to you of these things, Ramona?”
“Juan Can,” she replied.
“What did he say?” asked the Senora, with a look in her eye which boded no good to Juan Canito.
“It was not to me he said it, it was to Luigo; but I heard him,” answered Ramona, speaking slowly, as if collecting her various reminiscences on the subject. “Twice I heard him. He said that my mother was no good, and that my father was bad too.” And the tears rolled down the child's cheeks.
The Senora's sense of justice stood her well in place of tenderness, now. Caressing the little orphan as she had never before done, she said, with an earnestness which sank deep into the child's mind, “Ramona must not believe any such thing as that. Juan Can is a bad man to say it. He never saw either your father or your mother, and so he could know nothing about them. I knew your father very well. He was not a bad man. He was my friend, and the friend of the Senora Ortegna; and that was the reason he gave you to the Senora Ortegna, because she had no child of her own. And I think your mother had a good many.”
“Oh!” said Ramona, relieved, for the moment, at this new view of the situation,--that the gift had been not as a charity to her, but to the Senora Ortegna. “Did the Senora Ortegna want a little daughter very much?”
“Yes, very much indeed,” said the Senora, heartily and with fervor. “She had grieved many years because she had no child.”
Silence again for a brief space, during which the little lonely heart, grappling with its vague instinct of loss and wrong, made wide thrusts into the perplexities hedging it about, and presently electrified the Senora by saying in a half-whisper, “Why did not my father bring me to you first? Did he know you did not want any daughter?”
The Senora was dumb for a second; then recovering herself, she said: “Your father was the Senora Ortegna's friend more than he was mine. I was only a child, then.”
“Of course you did not need any daughter when you had Felipe,” continued Ramona, pursuing her original line of inquiry and reflection without noticing the Senora's reply. “A son is more than a daughter; but most people have both,” eying the Senora keenly, to see what response this would bring.
But the Senora was weary and uncomfortable with the talk. At the very mention of Felipe, a swift flash of consciousness of her inability to love Ramona had swept through her mind. “Ramona,” she said firmly, “while you are a little girl, you cannot understand any of these things. When you are a woman, I will tell you all that I know myself about your father and your mother. It is very little. Your father died when you were only two years old. All that you have to do is to be a good child, and say your prayers, and when Father Salvierderra comes he will be pleased with you. And he will not be pleased if you ask troublesome questions. Don't ever speak to me again about this. When the proper time comes I will tell you myself.”
This was when Ramona was ten. She was now nineteen. She had never again asked the Senora a question bearing on the forbidden subject. She had been a good child and said her prayers, and Father Salvierderra had been always pleased with her, growing more and more deeply attached to her year by year. But the proper time had not yet come for the Senora to tell her anything more about her father and mother. There were few mornings on which the girl did not think, “Perhaps it may be to-day that she will tell me.” But she would not ask. Every word of that conversation was as vivid in her mind as it had been the day it occurred; and it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that during every day of the whole nine years had deepened in her heart the conviction which had prompted the child's question, “Did he know that you did not want any daughter?”
A nature less gentle than Ramona's would have been embittered, or at least hardened, by this consciousness. But Ramona's was not. She never put it in words to herself. She accepted it, as those born deformed seem sometimes to accept the pain and isolation caused by their deformity, with an unquestioning acceptance, which is as far above resignation, as resignation is above rebellious repining.
No one would have known, from Ramona's face, manner, or habitual conduct, that she had ever experienced a sorrow or had a care. Her face was sunny, she had a joyous voice, and never was seen to pass a human being without a cheerful greeting, to highest and lowest the same. Her industry was tireless. She had had two years at school, in the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Los Angeles, where the Senora had placed her at much personal sacrifice, during one of the hardest times the Moreno estate had ever seen. Here she had won the affection of all the Sisters, who spoke of her habitually as the “blessed child.” They had taught her all the dainty arts of lace-weaving, embroidery, and simple fashions of painting and drawing, which they knew; not overmuch learning out of books, but enough to make her a passionate lover of verse and romance. For serious study or for deep thought she had no vocation. She was a simple, joyous, gentle, clinging, faithful nature, like a clear brook rippling along in the sun,--a nature as unlike as possible to the Senora's, with its mysterious depths and stormy, hidden currents.
Of these Ramona was dimly conscious, and at times had a tender, sorrowful pity for the Senora, which she dared not show, and could only express by renewed industry, and tireless endeavor to fulfil every duty possible in the house. This gentle faithfulness was not wholly lost on Senora Moreno, though its source she never suspected; and it won no new recognition from her for Ramona, no increase of love.
But there was one on whom not an act, not a look, not a smile of all this graciousness was thrown away. That one was Felipe. Daily more and more he wondered at his mother's lack of affection for Ramona. Nobody knew so well as he how far short she stopped of loving her. Felipe knew what it meant, how it felt, to be loved by the Senora Moreno. But Felipe had learned while he was a boy that one sure way to displease his mother was to appear to be aware that she did not treat Ramona as she treated him. And long before he had become a man he had acquired the habit of keeping to himself most of the things he thought and felt about his little playmate sister,--a dangerous habit, out of which were slowly ripening bitter fruits for the Senora's gathering in later years.
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
4
|
None
|
IT was longer even than the Senora had thought it would be, before Father Salvierderra arrived. The old man had grown feeble during the year that she had not seen him, and it was a very short day's journey that he could make now without too great fatigue. It was not only his body that had failed. He had lost heart; and the miles which would have been nothing to him, had he walked in the companionship of hopeful and happy thoughts, stretched out wearily as he brooded over sad memories and still sadder anticipations,--the downfall of the Missions, the loss of their vast estates, and the growing power of the ungodly in the land. The final decision of the United States Government in regard to the Mission-lands had been a terrible blow to him. He had devoutly believed that ultimate restoration of these great estates to the Church was inevitable. In the long vigils which he always kept when at home at the Franciscan Monastery in Santa Barbara, kneeling on the stone pavement in the church, and praying ceaselessly from midnight till dawn, he had often had visions vouchsafed him of a new dispensation, in which the Mission establishments should be reinstated in all their old splendor and prosperity, and their Indian converts again numbered by tens of thousands.
Long after every one knew that this was impossible, he would narrate these visions with the faith of an old Bible seer, and declare that they must come true, and that it was a sin to despond. But as year after year he journeyed up and down the country, seeing, at Mission after Mission, the buildings crumbling into ruin, the lands all taken, sold, resold, and settled by greedy speculators; the Indian converts disappearing, driven back to their original wildernesses, the last traces of the noble work of his order being rapidly swept away, his courage faltered, his faith died out. Changes in the manners and customs of his order itself, also, were giving him deep pain. He was a Franciscan of the same type as Francis of Assisi. To wear a shoe in place of a sandal, to take money in a purse for a journey, above all to lay aside the gray gown and cowl for any sort of secular garment, seemed to him wicked. To own comfortable clothes while there were others suffering for want of them--and there were always such--seemed to him a sin for which one might not undeservedly be smitten with sudden and terrible punishment. In vain the Brothers again and again supplied him with a warm cloak; he gave it away to the first beggar he met: and as for food, the refectory would have been left bare, and the whole brotherhood starving, if the supplies had not been carefully hidden and locked, so that Father Salvierderra could not give them all away. He was fast becoming that most tragic yet often sublime sight, a man who has survived, not only his own time, but the ideas and ideals of it. Earth holds no sharper loneliness: the bitterness of exile, the anguish of friendlessness at their utmost, are in it; and yet it is so much greater than they, that even they seem small part of it.
It was with thoughts such as these that Father Salvierderra drew near the home of the Senora Moreno late in the afternoon of one of those midsummer days of which Southern California has so many in spring. The almonds had bloomed and the blossoms fallen; the apricots also, and the peaches and pears; on all the orchards of these fruits had come a filmy tint of green, so light it was hardly more than a shadow on the gray. The willows were vivid light green, and the orange groves dark and glossy like laurel. The billowy hills on either side the valley were covered with verdure and bloom,--myriads of low blossoming plants, so close to the earth that their tints lapped and overlapped on each other, and on the green of the grass, as feathers in fine plumage overlap each other and blend into a changeful color.
The countless curves, hollows, and crests of the coast-hills in Southern California heighten these chameleon effects of the spring verdure; they are like nothing in nature except the glitter of a brilliant lizard in the sun or the iridescent sheen of a peacock's neck.
Father Salvierderra paused many times to gaze at the beautiful picture. Flowers were always dear to the Franciscans. Saint Francis himself permitted all decorations which could be made of flowers. He classed them with his brothers and sisters, the sun, moon, and stars,--all members of the sacred choir praising God.
It was melancholy to see how, after each one of these pauses, each fresh drinking in of the beauty of the landscape and the balmy air, the old man resumed his slow pace, with a long sigh and his eyes cast down. The fairer this beautiful land, the sadder to know it lost to the Church,--alien hands reaping its fulness, establishing new customs, new laws. All the way down the coast from Santa Barbara he had seen, at every stopping-place, new tokens of the settling up of the country,--farms opening, towns growing; the Americans pouring in, at all points, to reap the advantages of their new possessions. It was this which had made his journey heavy-hearted, and made him feel, in approaching the Senora Moreno's, as if he were coming to one of the last sure strongholds of the Catholic faith left in the country.
When he was within two miles of the house, he struck off from the highway into a narrow path that he recollected led by a short-cut through the hills, and saved nearly a third of the distance. It was more than a year since he had trod this path, and as he found it growing fainter and fainter, and more and more overgrown with the wild mustard, he said to himself, “I think no one can have passed through here this year.”
As he proceeded he found the mustard thicker and thicker. The wild mustard in Southern California is like that spoken of in the New Testament, in the branches of which the birds of the air may rest. Coming up out of the earth, so slender a stem that dozens can find starting-point in an inch, it darts up, a slender straight shoot, five, ten, twenty feet, with hundreds of fine feathery branches locking and interlocking with all the other hundreds around it, till it is an inextricable network like lace. Then it bursts into yellow bloom still finer, more feathery and lacelike. The stems are so infinitesimally small, and of so dark a green, that at a short distance they do not show, and the cloud of blossom seems floating in the air; at times it looks like golden dust. With a clear blue sky behind it, as it is often seen, it looks like a golden snow-storm. The plant is a tyrant and a nuisance,--the terror of the farmer; it takes riotous possession of a whole field in a season; once in, never out; for one plant this year, a million the next; but it is impossible to wish that the land were freed from it. Its gold is as distinct a value to the eye as the nugget gold is in the pocket.
Father Salvierderra soon found himself in a veritable thicket of these delicate branches, high above his head, and so interlaced that he could make headway only by slowly and patiently disentangling them, as one would disentangle a skein of silk. It was a fantastic sort of dilemma, and not unpleasing. Except that the Father was in haste to reach his journey's end, he would have enjoyed threading his way through the golden meshes. Suddenly he heard faint notes of singing. He paused,--listened. It was the voice of a woman. It was slowly drawing nearer, apparently from the direction in which he was going. At intervals it ceased abruptly, then began again; as if by a sudden but brief interruption, like that made by question and answer. Then, peering ahead through the mustard blossoms, he saw them waving and bending, and heard sounds as if they were being broken. Evidently some one entering on the path from the opposite end had been caught in the fragrant thicket as he was. The notes grew clearer, though still low and sweet as the twilight notes of the thrush; the mustard branches waved more and more violently; light steps were now to be heard. Father Salvierderra stood still as one in a dream, his eyes straining forward into the golden mist of blossoms. In a moment more came, distinct and clear to his ear, the beautiful words of the second stanza of Saint Francis's inimitable lyric, “The Canticle of the Sun:” “Praise be to thee, O Lord, for all thy creatures, and especially for our brother the Sun,--who illuminates the day, and by his beauty and splendor shadows forth unto us thine.”
“Ramona!” exclaimed the Father, his thin cheeks flushing with pleasure. “The blessed child!” And as he spoke, her face came into sight, set in a swaying frame of the blossoms, as she parted them lightly to right and left with her hands, and half crept, half danced through the loop-hole openings thus made. Father Salvierderra was past eighty, but his blood was not too old to move quicker at the sight of this picture. A man must be dead not to thrill at it. Ramona's beauty was of the sort to be best enhanced by the waving gold which now framed her face. She had just enough of olive tint in her complexion to underlie and enrich her skin without making it swarthy. Her hair was like her Indian mother's, heavy and black, but her eyes were like her father's, steel-blue. Only those who came very near to Ramona knew, however, that her eyes were blue, for the heavy black eyebrows and long black lashes so shaded and shadowed them that they looked black as night. At the same instant that Father Salvierderra first caught sight of her face, Ramona also saw him, and crying out joyfully, “Ah, Father, I knew you would come by this path, and something told me you were near!” she sprang forward, and sank on her knees before him, bowing her head for his blessing. In silence he laid his hands on her brow. It would not have been easy for him to speak to her at that first moment. She had looked to the devout old monk, as she sprang through the cloud of golden flowers, the sun falling on her bared head, her cheeks flushed, her eyes shining, more like an apparition of an angel or saint, than like the flesh-and-blood maiden whom he had carried in his arms when she was a babe.
“We have been waiting, waiting, oh, so long for you, Father!” she said, rising. “We began to fear that you might be ill. The shearers have been sent for, and will be here tonight, and that was the reason I felt so sure you would come. I knew the Virgin would bring you in time for mass in the chapel on the first morning.”
The monk smiled half sadly. “Would there were more with such faith as yours, daughter,” he said. “Are all well on the place?”
“Yes, Father, all well,” she answered. “Felipe has been ill with a fever; but he is out now, these ten days, and fretting for--for your coming.”
Ramona had like to have said the literal truth,--“fretting for the sheep-shearing,” but recollected herself in time.
“And the Senora?” said the Father.
“She is well,” answered Ramona, gently, but with a slight change of tone,--so slight as to be almost imperceptible; but an acute observer would have always detected it in the girl's tone whenever she spoke of the Senora Moreno. “And you,--are you well yourself, Father?” she asked affectionately, noting with her quick, loving eye how feebly the old man walked, and that he carried what she had never before seen in his hand,--a stout staff to steady his steps. “You must be very tired with the long journey on foot.”
“Ay, Ramona, I am tired,” he replied. “Old age is conquering me. It will not be many times more that I shall see this place.”
“Oh, do not say that, Father,” cried Ramona; “you can ride, when it tires you too much to walk. The Senora said, only the other day, that she wished you would let her give you a horse; that it was not right for you to take these long journeys on foot. You know we have hundreds of horses. It is nothing, one horse,” she added, seeing the Father slowly shake his head.
“No;” he said, “it is not that. I could not refuse anything at the hands of the Senora. But it was the rule of our order to go on foot. We must deny the flesh. Look at our beloved master in this land, Father Junipero, when he was past eighty, walking from San Diego to Monterey, and all the while a running ulcer in one of his legs, for which most men would have taken to a bed, to be healed. It is a sinful fashion that is coming in, for monks to take their ease doing God's work. I can no longer walk swiftly, but I must walk all the more diligently.”
While they were talking, they had been slowly moving forward, Ramona slightly in advance, gracefully bending the mustard branches, and holding them down till the Father had followed in her steps. As they came out from the thicket, she exclaimed, laughing, “There is Felipe, in the willows. I told him I was coming to meet you, and he laughed at me. Now he will see I was right.”
Astonished enough, Felipe, hearing voices, looked up, and saw Ramona and the Father approaching. Throwing down the knife with which he had been cutting the willows, he hastened to meet them, and dropped on his knees, as Ramona had done, for the monk's blessing. As he knelt there, the wind blowing his hair loosely off his brow, his large brown eyes lifted in gentle reverence to the Father's face, and his face full of affectionate welcome, Ramona thought to herself, as she had thought hundreds of times since she became a woman, “How beautiful Felipe is! No wonder the Senora loves him so much! If I had been beautiful like that she would have liked me better.” Never was a little child more unconscious of her own beauty than Ramona still was. All the admiration which was expressed to her in word and look she took for simple kindness and good-will. Her face, as she herself saw it in her glass, did not please her. She compared her straight, massive black eyebrows with Felipe's, arched and delicately pencilled, and found her own ugly. The expression of gentle repose which her countenance wore, seemed to her an expression of stupidity. “Felipe looks so bright!” she thought, as she noted his mobile changing face, never for two successive seconds the same. “There is nobody like Felipe.” And when his brown eyes were fixed on her, as they so often were, in a long lingering gaze, she looked steadily back into their velvet depths with an abstracted sort of intensity which profoundly puzzled Felipe. It was this look, more than any other one thing, which had for two years held Felipe's tongue in leash, as it were, and made it impossible for him to say to Ramona any of the loving things of which his heart had been full ever since he could remember. The boy had spoken them unhesitatingly, unconsciously; but the man found himself suddenly afraid. “What is it she thinks when she looks into my eyes so?” he wondered. If he had known that the thing she was usually thinking was simply, “How much handsomer brown eyes are than blue! I wish my eyes were the color of Felipe's!” he would have perceived, perhaps, what would have saved him sorrow, if he had known it, that a girl who looked at a man thus, would be hard to win to look at him as a lover. But being a lover, he could not see this. He saw only enough to perplex and deter him.
As they drew near the house, Ramona saw Margarita standing at the gate of the garden. She was holding something white in her hands, looking down at it, and crying piteously. As she perceived Ramona, she made an eager leap forward, and then shrank back again, making dumb signals of distress to her. Her whole attitude was one of misery and entreaty. Margarita was, of all the maids, most beloved by Ramona. Though they were nearly of the same age, it had been Margarita who first had charge of Ramona; the nurse and her charge had played together, grown up together, become women together, and were now, although Margarita never presumed on the relation, or forgot to address Ramona as Senorita, more like friends than like mistress and maid.
“Pardon me, Father,” said Ramona. “I see that Margarita there is in trouble. I will leave Felipe to go with you to the house. I will be with you again in a few moments.” And kissing his hand, she flew rather than ran across the field to the foot of the garden.
Before she reached the spot, Margarita had dropped on the ground and buried her face in her hands. A mass of crumpled and stained linen lay at her feet.
“What is it? What has happened, Margarita mia?” cried Ramona, in the affectionate Spanish phrase. For answer, Margarita removed one wet hand from her eyes, and pointed with a gesture of despair to the crumpled linen. Sobs choked her voice, and she buried her face again in her hands.
Ramona stooped, and lifted one corner of the linen. An involuntary cry of dismay broke from her, at which Margarita's sobs redoubled, and she gasped out, “Yes, Senorita, it is totally ruined! It can never be mended, and it will be needed for the mass to-morrow morning. When I saw the Father coming by your side, I prayed to the Virgin to let me die. The Senora will never forgive me.”
It was indeed a sorry sight. The white linen altar-cloth, the cloth which the Senora Moreno had with her own hands made into one solid front of beautiful lace of the Mexican fashion, by drawing out part of the threads and sewing the remainder into intricate patterns, the cloth which had always been on the altar, when mass was said, since Margarita's and Ramona's earliest recollections,--there it lay, torn, stained, as if it had been dragged through muddy brambles. In silence, aghast, Ramona opened it out and held it up. “How did it happen, Margarita?” she whispered, glancing in terror up towards the house.
“Oh, that is the worst of it, Senorita!” sobbed the girl. “That is the worst of it! If it were not for that, I would not be so afraid. If it had happened any other way, the Senora might have forgiven me; but she never will. I would rather die than tell her;” and she shook from head to foot.
“Stop crying, Margarita!” said Ramona, firmly, “and tell me all about it. It isn't so bad as it looks. I think I can mend it.”
“Oh, the saints bless you!” cried Margarita, looking up for the first time. “Do you really think you can mend it, Senorita? If you will mend that lace, I'll go on my knees for you all the rest of my life!”
Ramona laughed in spite of herself. “You'll serve me better by keeping on your feet,” she said merrily; at which Margarita laughed too, through her tears. They were both young.
“Oh, but Senorita,” Margarita began again in a tone of anguish, her tears flowing afresh, “there is not time! It must be washed and ironed to-night, for the mass to-morrow morning, and I have to help at the supper. Anita and Rosa are both ill in bed, you know, and Maria has gone away for a week. The Senora said if the Father came to-night I must help mother, and must wait on table. It cannot be done. I was just going to iron it now, and I found it--so--It was in the artichoke-patch, and Capitan, the beast, had been tossing it among the sharp pricks of the old last year's seeds.”
“In the artichoke-patch!” ejaculated Ramona. “How under heavens did it get there?”
“Oh, that was what I meant, Senorita, when I said she never would forgive me. She has forbidden me many times to hang anything to dry on the fence there; and if I had only washed it when she first told me, two days ago, all would have been well. But I forgot it till this afternoon, and there was no sun in the court to dry it, and you know how the sun lies on the artichoke-patch, and I put a strong cloth over the fence, so that the wood should not pierce the lace, and I did not leave it more than half an hour, just while I said a few words to Luigo, and there was no wind; and I believe the saints must have fetched it down to the ground to punish me for my disobedience.”
Ramona had been all this time carefully smoothing out the torn places, “It is not so bad as it looks,” she said; “if it were not for the hurry, there would be no trouble in mending it. But I will do it the best I can, so that it will not show, for to-morrow, and then, after the Father is gone, I can repair it at leisure, and make it just as good as new. I think I can mend it and wash it before dark,” and she glanced at the sun. “Oh, yes, there are good three hours of daylight yet. I can do it. You put the irons on the fire, to have them hot, to iron it as soon as it is partly dried. You will see it will not show that anything has happened to it.”
“Will the Senora know?” asked poor Margarita, calmed and reassured, but still in mortal terror.
Ramona turned her steady glance full on Margarita's face. “You would not be any happier if she were deceived, do you think?” she said gravely.
“O Senorita, after it is mended? If it really does not show?” pleaded the girl.
“I will tell her myself, and not till after it is mended,” said Ramona; but she did not smile.
“Ah, Senorita,” said Margarita, deprecatingly, “you do not know what it is to have the Senora displeased with one.”
“Nothing can be so bad as to be displeased with one's self,” retorted Ramona, as she walked swiftly away to her room with the linen rolled up under her arm. Luckily for Margarita's cause, she met no one on the way. The Senora had welcomed Father Salvierderra at the foot of the veranda steps, and had immediately closeted herself with him. She had much to say to him,--much about which she wished his help and counsel, and much which she wished to learn from him as to affairs in the Church and in the country generally.
Felipe had gone off at once to find Juan Canito, to see if everything were ready for the sheep-shearing to begin on the next day, if the shearers arrived in time; and there was very good chance of their coming in by sundown this day, Felipe thought, for he had privately instructed his messenger to make all possible haste, and to impress on the Indians the urgent need of their losing no time on the road.
It had been a great concession on the Senora's part to allow the messenger to be sent off before she had positive intelligence as to the Father's movements. But as day after day passed and no news came, even she perceived that it would not do to put off the sheep-shearing much longer, or, as Juan Canito said, “forever.” The Father might have fallen ill; and if that were so, it might very easily be weeks before they heard of it, so scanty were the means of communication between the remote places on his route of visitation. The messenger had therefore been sent to summon the Temecula shearers, and Senora had resigned herself to the inevitable; piously praying, however, morning and night, and at odd moments in the day, that the Father might arrive before the Indians did. When she saw him coming up the garden-walk, leaning on the arm of her Felipe, on the afternoon of the very day which was the earliest possible day for the Indians to arrive, it was not strange that she felt, mingled with the joy of her greeting to her long-loved friend and confessor, a triumphant exultation that the saints had heard her prayers.
In the kitchen all was bustle and stir. The coming of any guest into the house was a signal for unwonted activities there,--even the coming of Father Salvierderra, who never knew whether the soup had force-meat balls in it or not, old Marda said; and that was to her the last extreme of indifference to good things of the flesh. “But if he will not eat, he can see,” she said; and her pride for herself and for the house was enlisted in setting forth as goodly an array of viands as her larder afforded, She grew suddenly fastidious over the size and color of the cabbages to go into the beef-pot, and threw away one whole saucepan full of rice, because Margarita had put only one onion in instead of two.
“Have I not told you again and again that for the Father it is always two onions?” she exclaimed. “It is the dish he most favors of all; and it is a pity too, old as he is. It makes him no blood. It is good beef he should take now.”
The dining-room was on the opposite side of the courtyard from the kitchen, and there was a perpetual procession of small messengers going back and forth between the rooms. It was the highest ambition of each child to be allowed to fetch and carry dishes in the preparation of the meals at all times; but when by so doing they could perchance get a glimpse through the dining-room door, open on the veranda, of strangers and guests, their restless rivalry became unmanageable. Poor Margarita, between her own private anxieties and her multiplied duties of helping in the kitchen, and setting the table, restraining and overseeing her army of infant volunteers, was nearly distraught; not so distraught, however, but that she remembered and found time to seize a lighted candle in the kitchen, run and set it before the statue of Saint Francis of Paula in her bedroom, hurriedly whispering a prayer that the lace might be made whole like new. Several times before the afternoon had waned she snatched a moment to fling herself down at the statue's feet and pray her foolish little prayer over again. We think we are quite sure that it is a foolish little prayer, when people pray to have torn lace made whole. But it would be hard to show the odds between asking that, and asking that it may rain, or that the sick may get well. As the grand old Russian says, what men usually ask for, when they pray to God, is, that two and two may not make four. All the same he is to be pitied who prays not. It was only the thought of that candle at Saint Francis's feet, which enabled Margarita to struggle through this anxious and unhappy afternoon and evening.
At last supper was ready,--a great dish of spiced beef and cabbage in the centre of the table; a tureen of thick soup, with force-meat balls and red peppers in it; two red earthen platters heaped, one with the boiled rice and onions, the other with the delicious frijoles (beans) so dear to all Mexican hearts; cut-glass dishes filled with hot stewed pears, or preserved quinces, or grape jelly; plates of frosted cakes of various sorts; and a steaming silver teakettle, from which went up an aroma of tea such as had never been bought or sold in all California, the Senora's one extravagance and passion.
“Where is Ramona?” asked the Senora, surprised and displeased, as she entered the dining-room, “Margarita, go tell the Senorita that we are waiting for her.”
Margarita started tremblingly, with flushed face, towards the door. What would happen now! “O Saint Francis,” she inwardly prayed, “help us this once!”
“Stay,” said Felipe. “Do not call Senorita Ramona.” Then, turning to his mother, “Ramona cannot come. She is not in the house. She has a duty to perform for to-morrow,” he said; and he looked meaningly at his mother, adding, “we will not wait for her.”
Much bewildered, the Senora took her seat at the head of the table in a mechanical way, and began, “But--” Felipe, seeing that questions were to follow, interrupted her: “I have just spoken with her. It is impossible for her to come;” and turning to Father Salvierderra, he at once engaged him in conversation, and left the baffled Senora to bear her unsatisfied curiosity as best she could.
Margarita looked at Felipe with an expression of profound gratitude, which he did not observe, and would not in the least have understood; for Ramona had not confided to him any details of the disaster. Seeing him under her window, she had called cautiously to him, and said: “Dear Felipe, do you think you can save me from having to come to supper? A dreadful accident has happened to the altar-cloth, and I must mend it and wash it, and there is barely time before dark. Don't let them call me; I shall be down at the brook, and they will not find me, and your mother will be displeased.”
This wise precaution of Ramona's was the salvation of everything, so far as the altar-cloth was concerned. The rents had proved far less serious than she had feared; the daylight held out till the last of them was skilfully mended; and just as the red beams of the sinking sun came streaming through the willow-trees at the foot of the garden, Ramona, darting down the garden, had reached the brook, and kneeling on the grass, had dipped the linen into the water.
Her hurried working over the lace, and her anxiety, had made her cheeks scarlet. As she ran down the garden, her comb had loosened and her hair fallen to her waist. Stopping only to pick up the comb and thrust it in her pocket, she had sped on, as it would soon be too dark for her to see the stains on the linen, and it was going to be no small trouble to get them out without fraying the lace.
Her hair in disorder, her sleeves pinned loosely on her shoulders, her whole face aglow with the earnestness of her task, she bent low over the stones, rinsing the altar-cloth up and down in the water, anxiously scanning it, then plunging it in again.
The sunset beams played around her hair like a halo; the whole place was aglow with red light, and her face was kindled into transcendent beauty. A sound arrested her attention. She looked up. Forms, dusky black against the fiery western sky, were coming down the valley. It was the band of Indian shearers. They turned to the left, and went towards the sheep sheds and booths. But there was one of them that Ramona did not see. He had been standing for some minutes concealed behind a large willow-tree a few rods from the place where Ramona was kneeling. It was Alessandro, son of Pablo Assis, captain of the shearing band. Walking slowly along in advance of his men, he had felt a light, as from a mirror held in the sun, smite his eyes. It was the red sunbeam on the glittering water where Ramona knelt. In the same second he saw Ramona.
He halted, as wild creatures of the forest halt at a sound; gazed; walked abruptly away from his men, who kept on, not noticing his disappearance. Cautiously he moved a few steps nearer, into the shelter of a gnarled old willow, from behind which he could gaze unperceived on the beautiful vision,--for so it seemed to him.
As he gazed, his senses seemed leaving him, and unconsciously he spoke aloud; “Christ! What shall I do!”
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
5
|
None
|
THE room in which Father Salvierderra always slept when at the Senora Moreno's house was the southeast corner room. It had a window to the south and one to the east. When the first glow of dawn came in the sky, this eastern window was lit up as by a fire. The Father was always on watch for it, having usually been at prayer for hours. As the first ray reached the window, he would throw the casement wide open, and standing there with bared head, strike up the melody of the sunrise hymn sung in all devout Mexican families. It was a beautiful custom, not yet wholly abandoned. At the first dawn of light, the oldest member of the family arose, and began singing some hymn familiar to the household. It was the duty of each person hearing it to immediately rise, or at least sit up in bed, and join in the singing. In a few moments the whole family would be singing, and the joyous sounds pouring out from the house like the music of the birds in the fields at dawn. The hymns were usually invocations to the Virgin, or to the saint of the day, and the melodies were sweet and simple.
On this morning there was another watcher for the dawn besides Father Salvierderra. It was Alessandro, who had been restlessly wandering about since midnight, and had finally seated himself under the willow-trees by the brook, at the spot where he had seen Ramona the evening before. He recollected this custom of the sunrise hymn when he and his band were at the Senora's the last year, and he had chanced then to learn that the Father slept in the southeast room. From the spot where he sat, he could see the south window of this room. He could also see the low eastern horizon, at which a faint luminous line already showed. The sky was like amber; a few stars still shone faintly in the zenith. There was not a sound. It was one of those rare moments in which one can without difficulty realize the noiseless spinning of the earth through space. Alessandro knew nothing of this; he could not have been made to believe that the earth was moving. He thought the sun was coming up apace, and the earth was standing still,--a belief just as grand, just as thrilling, so far as all that goes, as the other: men worshipped the sun long before they found out that it stood still. Not the most reverent astronomer, with the mathematics of the heavens at his tongue's end, could have had more delight in the wondrous phenomenon of the dawn, than did this simple-minded, unlearned man.
His eyes wandered from the horizon line of slowly increasing light, to the windows of the house, yet dark and still. “Which window is hers? Will she open it when the song begins?” he thought. “Is it on this side of the house? Who can she be? She was not here last year. Saw the saints ever so beautiful a creature!”
At last came the full red ray across the meadow. Alessandro sprang to his feet. In the next second Father Salvierderra flung up his south window, and leaning out, his cowl thrown off, his thin gray locks streaming back, began in a feeble but not unmelodious voice to sing,-- “O beautiful Queen, Princess of Heaven.”
Before he had finished the second line, a half-dozen voices had joined in,--the Senora, from her room at the west end of the veranda, beyond the flowers; Felipe, from the adjoining room; Ramona, from hers, the next; and Margarita and other of the maids already astir in the wings of the house. As the volume of melody swelled, the canaries waked, and the finches and the linnets in the veranda roof. The tiles of this roof were laid on bundles of tule reeds, in which the linnets delighted to build their nests. The roof was alive with them,--scores and scores, nay hundreds, tame as chickens; their tiny shrill twitter was like the tuning of myriads of violins.
“Singers at dawn From the heavens above People all regions; Gladly we too sing,” continued the hymn, the birds corroborating the stanza. Then men's voices joined in,--Juan and Luigo, and a dozen more, walking slowly up from the sheepfolds. The hymn was a favorite one, known to all.
“Come, O sinners, Come, and we will sing Tender hymns To our refuge,” was the chorus, repeated after each of the five verses of the hymn.
Alessandro also knew the hymn well. His father, Chief Pablo, had been the leader of the choir at the San Luis Rey Mission in the last years of its splendor, and had brought away with him much of the old choir music. Some of the books had been written by his own hand, on parchment. He not only sang well, but was a good player on the violin. There was not at any of the Missions so fine a band of performers on stringed instruments as at San Luis Rey. Father Peyri was passionately fond of music, and spared no pains in training all the neophytes under his charge who showed any special talent in that direction. Chief Pablo, after the breaking up of the Mission, had settled at Temecula, with a small band of his Indians, and endeavored, so far as was in his power, to keep up the old religious services. The music in the little chapel of the Temecula Indians was a surprise to all who heard it.
Alessandro had inherited his father's love and talent for music, and knew all the old Mission music by heart. This hymn to the “Beautiful Queen, Princess of Heaven,” was one of his special favorites; and as he heard verse after verse rising, he could not forbear striking in.
At the first notes of this rich new voice, Ramona's voice ceased in surprise; and, throwing up her window, she leaned out, eagerly looking in all directions to see who it could be. Alessandro saw her, and sang no more.
“What could it have been? Did I dream it?” thought Ramona, drew in her head, and began to sing again.
With the next stanza of the chorus, the same rich barytone notes. They seemed to float in under all the rest, and bear them along, as a great wave bears a boat. Ramona had never heard such a voice. Felipe had a good tenor, and she liked to sing with him, or to hear him; but this--this was from another world, this sound. Ramona felt every note of it penetrating her consciousness with a subtle thrill almost like pain. When the hymn ended, she listened eagerly, hoping Father Salvierderra would strike up a second hymn, as he often did; but he did not this morning; there was too much to be done; everybody was in a hurry to be at work: windows shut, doors opened; the sounds of voices from all directions, ordering, questioning, answering, began to be heard. The sun rose and let a flood of work-a-day light on the whole place.
Margarita ran and unlocked the chapel door, putting up a heartfelt thanksgiving to Saint Francis and the Senorita, as she saw the snowy altar-cloth in its place, looking, from that distance at least, as good as new.
The Indians and the shepherds, and laborers of all sorts, were coming towards the chapel. The Senora, with her best black silk handkerchief bound tight around her forehead, the ends hanging down each side of her face, making her look like an Assyrian priestess, was descending the veranda steps, Felipe at her side; and Father Salvierderra had already entered the chapel before Ramona appeared, or Alessandro stirred from his vantage-post of observation at the willows.
When Ramona came out from the door she bore in her hands a high silver urn filled with ferns. She had been for many days gathering and hoarding these. They were hard to find, growing only in one place in a rocky canon, several miles away.
As she stepped from the veranda to the ground, Alessandro walked slowly up the garden-walk, facing her. She met his eyes, and, without knowing why, thought, “That must be the Indian who sang.” As she turned to the right and entered the chapel, Alessandro followed her hurriedly, and knelt on the stones close to the chapel door. He would be near when she came out. As he looked in at the door, he saw her glide up the aisle, place the ferns on the reading-desk, and then kneel down by Felipe in front of the altar. Felipe turned towards her, smiling slightly, with a look as of secret intelligence.
“Ah, Senor Felipe has married. She is his wife,” thought Alessandro, and a strange pain seized him. He did not analyze it; hardly knew what it meant. He was only twenty-one. He had not thought much about women. He was a distant, cold boy, his own people of the Temecula village said. It had come, they believed, of learning to read, which was always bad. Chief Pablo had not done his son any good by trying to make him like white men. If the Fathers could have stayed, and the life at the Mission have gone on, why, Alessandro could have had work to do for the Fathers, as his father had before him. Pablo had been Father Peyri's right-hand man at the Mission; had kept all the accounts about the cattle; paid the wages; handled thousands of dollars of gold every month. But that was “in the time of the king;” it was very different now. The Americans would not let an Indian do anything but plough and sow and herd cattle. A man need not read and write, to do that.
Even Pablo sometimes doubted whether he had done wisely in teaching Alessandro all he knew himself. Pablo was, for one of his race, wise and far-seeing. He perceived the danger threatening his people on all sides. Father Peyri, before he left the country, had said to him: “Pablo, your people will be driven like sheep to the slaughter, unless you keep them together. Knit firm bonds between them; band them into pueblos; make them work; and above all, keep peace with the whites. It is your only chance.”
Most strenuously Pablo had striven to obey Father Peyri's directions. He had set his people the example of constant industry, working steadily in his fields and caring well for his herds. He had built a chapel in his little village, and kept up forms of religious service there. Whenever there were troubles with the whites, or rumors of them, he went from house to house, urging, persuading, commanding his people to keep the peace. At one time when there was an insurrection of some of the Indian tribes farther south, and for a few days it looked as if there would be a general Indian war, he removed the greater part of his band, men, women, and children driving their flocks and herds with them, to Los Angeles, and camped there for several days, that they might be identified with the whites in case hostilities became serious.
But his labors did not receive the reward that they deserved. With every day that the intercourse between his people and the whites increased, he saw the whites gaining, his people surely losing ground, and his anxieties deepened. The Mexican owner of the Temecula valley, a friend of Father Peyri's, and a good friend also of Pablo's, had returned to Mexico in disgust with the state of affairs in California, and was reported to be lying at the point of death. This man's promise to Pablo, that he and his people should always live in the valley undisturbed, was all the title Pablo had to the village lands. In the days when the promise was given, it was all that was necessary. The lines marking off the Indians' lands were surveyed, and put on the map of the estate. No Mexican proprietor ever broke faith with an Indian family or village, thus placed on his lands.
But Pablo had heard rumors, which greatly disquieted him, that such pledges and surveyed lines as these were corning to be held as of no value, not binding on purchasers of grants. He was intelligent enough to see that if this were so, he and his people were ruined. All these perplexities and fears he confided to Alessandro; long anxious hours the father and son spent together, walking back and forth in the village, or sitting in front of their little adobe house, discussing what could be done. There was always the same ending to the discussion,--a long sigh, and, “We must wait, we can do nothing.”
No wonder Alessandro seemed, to the more ignorant and thoughtless young men and women of his village, a cold and distant lad. He was made old before his time. He was carrying in his heart burdens of which they knew nothing. So long as the wheat fields came up well, and there was no drought, and the horses and sheep had good pasture, in plenty, on the hills, the Temecula people could be merry, go day by day to their easy work, play games at sunset, and sleep sound all night. But Alessandro and his father looked beyond. And this was the one great reason why Alessandro had not yet thought about women, in way of love; this, and also the fact that even the little education he had received was sufficient to raise a slight barrier, of which he was unconsciously aware, between him and the maidens of the village. If a quick, warm fancy for any one of them ever stirred in his veins, he found himself soon, he knew not how, cured of it. For a dance, or a game, or a friendly chat, for the trips into the mountains after acorns, or to the marshes for grasses and reeds, he was their good comrade, and they were his; but never had the desire to take one of them for his wife, entered into Alessandro's mind. The vista of the future, for him, was filled full by thoughts which left no room for love's dreaming; one purpose and one fear filled it,--the purpose to be his father's worthy successor, for Pablo was old now, and very feeble; the fear, that exile and ruin were in store for them all.
It was of these things he had been thinking as be walked alone, in advance of his men, on the previous night, when he first saw Ramona kneeling at the brook. Between that moment and the present, it seemed to Alessandro that some strange miracle must have happened to him. The purposes and the fears had alike gone. A face replaced them; a vague wonder, pain, joy, he knew not what, filled him so to overflowing that he was bewildered. If he had been what the world calls a civilized man, he would have known instantly and would have been capable of weighing, analyzing, and reflecting on his sensations at leisure. But he was not a civilized man; he had to bring to bear on his present situation only simple, primitive, uneducated instincts and impulses. If Ramona had been a maiden of his own people or race, he would have drawn near to her as quickly as iron to the magnet. But now, if he had gone so far as to even think of her in such a way, she would have been, to his view, as far removed from him as was the morning star beneath whose radiance he had that morning watched, hoping for sight of her at her window. He did not, however, go so far as to thus think of her. Even that would have been impossible. He only knelt on the stones outside the chapel door, mechanically repeating the prayers with the rest, waiting for her to reappear. He had no doubt, now, that she was Senor Felipe's wife; all the same he wished to kneel there till she came out, that he might see her face again. His vista of purpose, fear, hope, had narrowed now down to that,--just one more sight of her. Ever so civilized, he could hardly have worshipped a woman better. The mass seemed to him endlessly long. Until near the last, he forgot to sing; then, in the closing of the final hymn, he suddenly remembered, and the clear deep-toned voice pealed out, as before, like the undertone of a great sea-wave, sweeping along.
Ramona heard the first note, and felt again the same thrill. She was as much a musician born as Alessandro himself. As she rose from her knees, she whispered to Felipe: “Felipe, do find out which one of the Indians it is has that superb voice. I never heard anything like it.”
“Oh, that is Alessandro,” replied Felipe, “old Pablo's son. He is a splendid fellow. Don't you recollect his singing two years ago?”
“I was not here,” replied Ramona; “you forget.”
“Ah, yes, so you were away; I had forgotten,” said Felipe. “Well, he was here. They made him captain of the shearing-band, though he was only twenty, and he managed the men splendidly. They saved nearly all their money to carry home, and I never knew them do such a thing before. Father Salvierderra was here, which might have had something to do with it; but I think it was quite as much Alessandro. He plays the violin beautifully. I hope he has brought it along. He plays the old San Luis Rey music. His father was band-master there.”
Ramona's eyes kindled with pleasure. “Does your mother like it, to have him play?” she asked.
Felipe nodded. “We'll have him up on the veranda tonight,” he said.
While this whispered colloquy was going on, the chapel had emptied, the Indians and Mexicans all hurrying out to set about the day's work. Alessandro lingered at the doorway as long as he dared, till he was sharply called by Juan Canito, looking back: “What are you gaping at there, you Alessandro! Hurry, now, and get your men to work. After waiting till near midsummer for this shearing, we'll make as quick work of it as we can. Have you got your best shearers here?”
“Ay, that I have,” answered Alessandro; “not a man of them but can shear his hundred in a day, There is not such a band as ours in all San Diego County; and we don't turn out the sheep all bleeding, either; you'll see scarce a scratch on their sides.”
“Humph.” retorted Juan Can. “'Tis a poor shearer, indeed, that draws blood to speak of. I've sheared many a thousand sheep in my day, and never a red stain on the shears. But the Mexicans have always been famed for good shearers.”
Juan's invidious emphasis on the word “Mexicans” did not escape Alessandro. “And we Indians also,” he answered, good-naturedly, betraying no annoyance; “but as for these Americans, I saw one at work the other day, that man Lomax, who settled near Temecula, and upon my faith, Juan Can, I thought it was a slaughter-pen, and not a shearing. The poor beasts limped off with the blood running.”
Juan did not see his way clear at the moment to any fitting rejoinder to this easy assumption, on Alessandro's part, of the equal superiority of Indians and Mexicans in the sheep-shearing art; so, much vexed, with another “Humph!” he walked away; walked away so fast, that he lost the sight of a smile on Alessandro's face, which would have vexed him still further.
At the sheep-shearing sheds and pens all was stir and bustle. The shearing shed was a huge caricature of a summerhouse,--a long, narrow structure, sixty feet long by twenty or thirty wide, all roof and pillars; no walls; the supports, slender rough posts, as far apart as was safe, for the upholding of the roof, which was of rough planks loosely laid from beam to beam. On three sides of this were the sheep-pens filled with sheep and lambs.
A few rods away stood the booths in which the shearers' food was to be cooked and the shearers fed. These were mere temporary affairs, roofed only by willow boughs with the leaves left on. Near these, the Indians had already arranged their camp; a hut or two of green boughs had been built, but for the most part they would sleep rolled up in their blankets, on the ground. There was a brisk wind, and the gay colored wings of the windmill blew furiously round and round, pumping out into the tank below a stream of water so swift and strong, that as the men crowded around, wetting and sharpening their knives, they got well spattered, and had much merriment, pushing and elbowing each other into the spray.
A high four-posted frame stood close to the shed; in this, swung from the four corners, hung one of the great sacking bags in which the fleeces were to be packed. A big pile of bags lay on the ground at the foot of the posts. Juan Can eyed them with a chuckle. “We'll fill more than those before night, Senor Felipe,” he said. He was in his element, Juan Can, at shearing times. Then came his reward for the somewhat monotonous and stupid year's work. The world held no better feast for his eyes than the sight of a long row of big bales of fleece, tied, stamped with the Moreno brand, ready to be drawn away to the mills. “Now, there is something substantial,” he thought; “no chance of wool going amiss in market!”
If a year's crop were good, Juan's happiness was assured for the next six months. If it proved poor, he turned devout immediately, and spent the next six months calling on the saints for better luck, and redoubling his exertions with the sheep.
On one of the posts of the shed short projecting slats were nailed, like half-rounds of a ladder. Lightly as a rope-walker Felipe ran up these, to the roof, and took his stand there, ready to take the fleeces and pack them in the bag as fast as they should be tossed up from below. Luigo, with a big leathern wallet fastened in front of him, filled with five-cent pieces, took his stand in the centre of the shed. The thirty shearers, running into the nearest pen, dragged each his sheep into the shed, in a twinkling of an eye had the creature between his knees, helpless, immovable, and the sharp sound of the shears set in. The sheep-shearing had begun. No rest now. Not a second's silence from the bleating, baa-ing, opening and shutting, clicking, sharpening of shears, flying of fleeces through the air to the roof, pressing and stamping them down in the bales; not a second's intermission, except the hour of rest at noon, from sunrise till sunset, till the whole eight thousand of the Senora Moreno's sheep were shorn. It was a dramatic spectacle. As soon as a sheep was shorn, the shearer ran with the fleece in his hand to Luigo, threw it down on a table, received his five-cent piece, dropped it in his pocket, ran to the pen, dragged out another sheep, and in less than five minutes was back again with a second fleece. The shorn sheep, released, bounded off into another pen, where, light in the head no doubt from being three to five pounds lighter on their legs, they trotted round bewilderedly for a moment, then flung up their heels and capered for joy.
It was warm work. The dust from the fleeces and the trampling feet filled the air. As the sun rose higher in the sky the sweat poured off the men's faces; and Felipe, standing without shelter on the roof, found out very soon that he had by no means yet got back his full strength since the fever. Long before noon, except for sheer pride, and for the recollection of Juan Canito's speech, he would have come down and yielded his place to the old man. But he was resolved not to give up, and he worked on, though his face was purple and his head throbbing. After the bag of fleeces is half full, the packer stands in it, jumping with his full weight on the wool, as he throws in the fleeces, to compress them as much as possible. When Felipe began to do this, he found that he had indeed overrated his strength. As the first cloud of the sickening dust came up, enveloping his head, choking his breath, he turned suddenly dizzy, and calling faintly, “Juan, I am ill,” sank helpless down in the wool. He had fainted. At Juan Canito's scream of dismay, a great hubbub and outcry arose; all saw instantly what had happened. Felipe's head was hanging limp over the edge of the bag, Juan in vain endeavoring to get sufficient foothold by his side to lift him. One after another the men rushed up the ladder, until they were all standing, a helpless, excited crowd, on the roof, one proposing one thing, one another. Only Luigo had had the presence of mind to run to the house for help. The Senora was away from home. She had gone with Father Salvierderra to a friend's house, a half-day's journey off. But Ramona was there. Snatching all she could think of in way of restoratives, she came flying back with Luigo, followed by every servant of the establishment, all talking, groaning, gesticulating, suggesting, wringing their hands,--as disheartening a Babel as ever made bad matters worse.
Reaching the shed, Ramona looked up to the roof bewildered. “Where is he?” she cried. The next instant she saw his head, held in Juan Canito's arms, just above the edge of the wool-bag. She groaned, “Oh, how will he ever be lifted out!”
“I will lift him, Senora,” cried Alessandro, coming to the front, “I am very strong. Do not be afraid; I will bring him safe down.” And swinging himself down the ladder, he ran swiftly to the camp, and returned, bringing in his hands blankets. Springing quickly to the roof again, he knotted the blankets firmly together, and tying them at the middle around his waist, threw the ends to his men, telling them to hold him firm. He spoke in the Indian tongue as he was hurriedly doing this, and Ramona did not at first understand his plan. But when she saw the Indians move a little back from the edge of the roof, holding the blankets firm grasped, while Alessandro stepped out on one of the narrow cross-beams from which the bag swung, she saw what he meant to do. She held her breath. Felipe was a slender man; Alessandro was much heavier, and many inches taller. Still, could any man carry such a burden safely on that narrow beam! Ramona looked away, and shut her eyes, through the silence which followed. It was only a few moments; but it seemed an eternity before a glad murmur of voices told her that it was done, and looking up, she saw Felipe lying on the roof, unconscious, his face white, his eyes shut. At this sight, all the servants broke out afresh, weeping and wailing, “He is dead! He is dead!”
Ramona stood motionless, her eyes fixed on Felipe's face. She, too, believed him dead; but her thought was of the Senora.
“He is not dead,” cried Juan Canito, who had thrust his hand under Felipe's shirt. “He is not dead. It is only a faint.”
At this the first tears rolled down Ramona's face. She looked piteously at the ladder up and down which she had seen Alessandro run as if it were an easy indoor staircase. “If I could only get up there!” she said, looking from one to another. “I think I can;” and she put one foot on the lower round.
“Holy Virgin!” cried Juan Can, seeing her movement. “Senorita! Senorita! do not attempt it. It is not too easy for a man. You will break your neck. He is fast coming to his senses.”
Alessandro caught the words. Spite of all the confusion and terror of the scene, his heart heard the word, “Senorita.” Ramona was not the wife of Felipe, or of any man. Yet Alessandro recollected that he had addressed her as Senora, and she did not seem surprised. Coming to the front of the group he said, bending forward, “Senorita!” There must have been something in the tone which made Ramona start. The simple word could not have done it. “Senorita,” said Alessandro, “it will be nothing to bring Senor Felipe down the ladder. He is, in my arms, no more than one of the lambs yonder. I will bring him down as soon as he is recovered. He is better here till then. He will very soon be himself again. It was only the heat.” Seeing that the expression of anxious distress did not grow less on Ramona's face, he continued, in a tone still more earnest, “Will not the Senorita trust me to bring him safe down?”
Ramona smiled faintly through her tears. “Yes,” she said, “I will trust you. You are Alessandro, are you not?”
“Yes, Senorita,” he answered, greatly surprised, “I am Alessandro.”
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
6
|
None
|
A BAD beginning did not make a good ending of the Senora Moreno's sheep-shearing this year. One as superstitiously prejudiced against Roman Catholic rule as she was in favor of it, would have found, in the way things fell out, ample reason for a belief that the Senora was being punished for having let all the affairs of her place come to a standstill, to await the coming of an old monk. But the pious Senora, looking at the other side of the shield, was filled with gratitude that, since all this ill luck was to befall her, she had the good Father Salvierderra at her side to give her comfort and counsel.
It was not yet quite noon of the first day, when Felipe fainted and fell in the wool; and it was only a little past noon of the third, when Juan Canito, who, not without some secret exultation, had taken Senor Felipe's place at the packing, fell from the cross-beam to the ground, and broke his right leg,--a bad break near the knee; and Juan Canito's bones were much too old for fresh knitting. He would never again be able to do more than hobble about on crutches, dragging along the useless leg. It was a cruel blow to the old man. He could not be resigned to it. He lost faith in his saints, and privately indulged in blasphemous beratings and reproaches of them, which would have filled the Senora with terror, had she known that such blasphemies were being committed under her roof.
“As many times as I have crossed that plank, in my day!” cried Juan; “only the fiends themselves could have made me trip; and there was that whole box of candles I paid for with my own money last month, and burned to Saint Francis in the chapel for this very sheep-shearing! He may sit in the dark, for all me, to the end of time! He is no saint at all! What are they for, if not to keep us from harm when we pray to them? I'll pray no more. I believe the Americans are right, who laugh at us.” From morning till night, and nearly from night till morning, for the leg ached so he slept little, poor Juan groaned and grumbled and swore, and swore and grumbled and groaned. Taking care of him was enough, Margarita said, to wear out the patience of the Madonna herself. There was no pleasing him, whatever you did, and his tongue was never still a minute. For her part, she believed that it must be as he said, that the fiends had pushed him off the plank, and that the saints had had their reasons for leaving him to his fate. A coldness and suspicion gradually grew up in the minds of all the servants towards him. His own reckless language, combined with Margarita's reports, gave the superstitious fair ground for believing that something had gone mysteriously wrong, and that the Devil was in a fair way to get his soul, which was very hard for the old man, in addition to all the rest he had to bear. The only alleviation he had for his torments, was in having his fellow-servants, men and women, drop in, sit by his pallet, and chat with him, telling him all that was going on; and when by degrees they dropped off, coming more and more seldom, and one by one leaving off coming altogether, it was the one drop that overflowed his cup of misery; and he turned his face to the wall, left off grumbling, and spoke only when he must.
This phase frightened Margarita even more than the first. Now, she thought, surely the dumb terror and remorse of one who belongs to the Devil had seized him, and her hands trembled as she went through the needful ministrations for him each day. Three months, at least, the doctor, who had come from Ventura to set the leg, had said he must lie still in bed and be thus tended. “Three months!” sighed Margarita. “If I be not dead or gone crazy myself before the end of that be come!”
The Senora was too busy with Felipe to pay attention or to give thought to Juan. Felipe's fainting had been the symptom and beginning of a fierce relapse of the fever, and he was lying in his bed, tossing and raving in delirium, always about the wool.
“Throw them faster, faster! That's a good fleece; five pounds more; a round ton in those bales. Juan! Alessandro! Captain! --Jesus, how this sun burns my head!”
Several times he had called “Alessandro” so earnestly, that Father Salvierderra advised bringing Alessandro into the room, to see if by any chance there might have been something in his mind that he wished to say to him. But when Alessandro stood by the bedside, Felipe gazed at him vacantly, as he did at all the others, still repeating, however, “Alessandro! Alessandro!”
“I think perhaps he wants Alessandro to play on his violin,” sobbed out Ramona. “He was telling me how beautifully Alessandro played, and said he would have him up on the veranda in the evening to play to us.”
“We might try it,” said Father Salvierderra. “Have you your violin here, Alessandro?”
“Alas, no, Father,” replied Alessandro, “I did not bring it.”
“Perhaps it would do him good it you were to sing, then,” said Ramona. “He was speaking of your voice also.”
“Oh, try, try.” said the Senorita, turning to Alessandro. “Sing something low and soft.”
Alessandro walked from the bed to the open window, and after thinking for a moment, began a slow strain from one of the masses.
At the first note, Felipe became suddenly quiet, evidently listening. An expression of pleasure spread over his feverish face. He turned his head to one side, put his hand under his cheek and closed his eyes. The three watching him looked at each other in astonishment.
“It is a miracle,” said Father Salvierderra. “He will sleep.”
“It was what he wanted!” whispered Ramona.
The Senora spoke not, but buried her face in the bedclothes for a second; then lifting it, she gazed at Alessandro as if she were praying to a saint. He, too, saw the change in Felipe, and sang lower and lower, till the notes sounded as if they came from afar; lower and lower, slower; finally they ceased, as if they died away lost in distance. As they ceased, Felipe opened his eyes.
“Oh, go on, go on!” the Senora implored in a whisper shrill with anxiety. “Do not stop!”
Alessandro repeated the strain, slow, solemn; his voice trembled; the air in the room seemed stifling, spite of the open window; he felt something like terror, as he saw Felipe evidently sinking to sleep by reason of the notes of his voice. There had been nothing in Alessandro's healthy outdoor experience to enable him to understand such a phenomenon. Felipe breathed more and more slowly, softly, regularly; soon he was in a deep sleep. The singing stopped; Felipe did not stir.
“Can I go?” whispered Alessandro.
“No, no.” replied the Senora, impatiently. “He may wake any minute.”
Alessandro looked troubled, but bowed his head submissively, and remained standing by the window. Father Salvierderra was kneeling on one side of the bed, the Senora at the other, Ramona at the foot,--all praying; the silence was so great that the slight sounds of the rosary beads slipping against each other seemed loud. In a niche in the wall, at the head of the bed, stood a statue of the Madonna, on the other side a picture of Santa Barbara. Candles were burning before each. The long wicks smouldered and died down, sputtering, then flared up again as the ends fell into the melted wax. The Senora's eyes were fixed on the Madonna. The Father's were closed. Ramona gazed at Felipe with tears streaming down her face as she mechanically told her beads.
“She is his betrothed, no doubt,” thought Alessandro. “The saints will not let him die;” and Alessandro also prayed. But the oppression of the scene was too much for him. Laying his hand on the low window-sill, he vaulted over it, saying to Ramona, who turned her head at the sound, “I will not go away, Senorita, I will be close under the window, if he awakes.”
Once in the open air, he drew a long breath, and gazed bewilderedly about him, like one just recovering consciousness after a faint. Then he threw himself on the ground under the window, and lay looking up into the sky. Capitan came up, and with a low whine stretched himself out at full length by his side. The dog knew as well as any other one of the house that danger and anguish were there.
One hour passed, two, three; still no sound from Felipe's room. Alessandro rose, and looked in at the window. The Father and the Senora had not changed their attitudes; their lips were yet moving in prayer. But Ramona had yielded to her fatigue; slipped from her knees into a sitting posture, with her head leaning against the post of the bedstead, and fallen asleep. Her face was swollen and discolored by weeping, and heavy circles under her eyes told how tired she was. For three days and nights she had scarcely rested, so constant were the demands on her. Between Felipe's illness and Juan Can's, there was not a moment without something to be done, or some perplexing question to be settled, and above all, and through all, the terrible sorrow. Ramona was broken down with grief at the thought of Felipe's death. She had never known till she saw him lying there delirious, and as she in her inexperience thought, dying, how her whole life was entwined with his. But now, at the very thought of what it would be to live without him, her heart sickened. “When he is buried, I will ask Father Salvierderra to take me away. I never can live here alone,” she said to herself, never for a moment perceiving that the word “alone” was a strange one to have come into her mind in the connection. The thought of the Senora did not enter into her imaginations of the future which so smote her with terror. In the Senora's presence, Ramona always felt herself alone.
Alessandro stood at the window, his arms folded, leaning on the sill, his eyes fixed on Ramona's face and form. To any other than a lover's eyes she had not looked beautiful now; but to Alessandro she looked more beautiful than the picture of Santa Barbara on the wall beyond. With a lover's instinct he knew the thoughts which had written such lines on her face in the last three days. “It will kill her if he dies,” he thought, “if these three days have made her look like that.” And Alessandro threw himself on the ground again, his face down. He did not know whether it were an hour or a day that he had lain there, when he heard Father Salvierderra's voice speaking his name. He sprang up, to see the old monk standing in the window, tears running down his cheeks. “God be praised,” he said, “the Senor Felipe will get well. A sweat has broken out on his skin; he still sleeps, but when he wakes he will be in his right mind. The strength of the fever is broken. But, Alessandro, we know not how to spare you. Can you not let the men go without you, and remain here? The Senora would like to have you remain in Juan Can's place till he is about. She will give you the same wages he had. Would it not be a good thing for you, Alessandro? You cannot be sure of earning so much as that for the next three months, can you?”
While the Father was speaking, a tumult had been going on in Alessandro's breast. He did not know by name any of the impulses which were warring there, tearing him in twain, as it were, by their pulling in opposite directions; one saying “Stay!” and the other saying “Go!” He would not have known what any one meant, who had said to him, “It is danger to stay; it is safety to fly.” All the same, he felt as if he could do neither.
“There is another shearing yet, Father,” he began, “at the Ortega's ranch. I had promised to go to them as soon as I had finished here, and they have been wroth enough with us for the delay already. It will not do to break the promise, Father.”
Father Salvierderra's face fell. “No, my son, certainly not,” he said; “but could no one else take your place with the band?”
Hearing these words, Ramona came to the window, and leaning out, whispered, “Are you talking about Alessandro's staying? Let me come and talk to him. He must not go.” And running swiftly through the hall, across the veranda, and down the steps, she stood by Alessandro's side in a moment. Looking up in his face pleadingly, she said: “We can't let you go, Alessandro. The Senor will pay wages to some other to go in your place with the shearers. We want you to stay here in Juan Can's place till he is well. Don't say you can't stay! Felipe may need you to sing again, and what would we do then? Can't you stay?”
“Yes, I can stay, Senorita,” answered Alessandro, gravely. “I will stay so long as you need me.”
“Oh, thank you, Alessandro!” Ramona cried. “You are good, to stay. The Senora will see that it is no loss to you;” and she flew back to the house.
“It is not for the wages, Senorita,” Alessandro began; but Ramona was gone. She did not hear him, and he turned away with a sense of humiliation. “I don't want the Senorita to think that it was the money kept me,” he said, turning to Father Salvierderra. “I would not leave the band for money; it is to help, because they are in trouble, Father.”
“Yes, yes, son. I understand that,” replied the monk, who had known Alessandro since he was a little fellow playing in the corridors of San Luis Rey, the pet of all the Brothers there. “That is quite right of you, and the Senora will not be insensible of it. It is not for such things that money can pay. They are indeed in great trouble now, and only the two women in the house; and I must soon be going on my way North again.”
“Is it sure that Senor Felipe will get well?” asked Alessandro.
“I think so,” replied Father Salvierderra. “These relapses are always worse than the first attack; but I have never known one to die, after he had the natural sweat to break from the skin, and got good sleep. I doubt not he will be in his bed, though, for many days, and there will be much to be seen to. It was an ill luck to have Juan Can laid up, too, just at this time. I must go and see him; I hear he is in most rebellious frame of mind, and blasphemes impiously.”
“That does he!” said Alessandro. “He swears the saints gave him over to the fiends to push him off the plank, and he'll have none of them from this out! I told him to beware, or they might bring him to worse things yet if he did not mend his speech of them.”
Sighing deeply as they walked along, the monk said: “It is but a sign of the times. Blasphemers are on the highway. The people are being corrupted. Keeps your father the worship in the chapel still, and does a priest come often to the village?”
“Only twice a year,” replied Alessandro; “and sometimes for a funeral, if there is money enough to pay for the mass. But my father has the chapel open, and each Sunday we sing what we know of the mass; and the people are often there praying.”
“Ay, ay! Ever for money!” groaned Father Salvierderra, not heeding the latter part of the sentence. “Ever for money! It is a shame. But that it were sure to be held as a trespass, I would go myself to Temecula once in three months; but I may not. The priests do not love our order.”
“Oh, if you could, Father,” exclaimed Alessandro, “it would make my father very glad! He speaks often to me of the difference he sees between the words of the Church now and in the days of the Mission. He is very sad, Father, and in great fear about our village. They say the Americans, when they buy the Mexicans' lands, drive the Indians away as if they were dogs; they say we have no right to our lands. Do you think that can be so, Father, when we have always lived on them, and the owners promised them to us forever?”
Father Salvierderra was silent a long time before replying, and Alessandro watched his face anxiously. He seemed to be hesitating for words to convey his meaning. At last he said: “Got your father any notice, at any time since the Americans took the country,--notice to appear before a court, or anything about a title to the land?”
“No, Father,” replied Alessandro.
“There has to be some such paper, as I understand their laws,” continued the monk; “some notice, before any steps can be taken to remove Indians from an estate. It must be done according to the law, in the courts. If you have had no such notice, you are not in danger.”
“But, Father,” persisted Alessandro, “how could there be a law to take away from us the land which the Senor Valdez gave us forever?”
“Gave he to you any paper, any writing to show it?”
“No, no paper; but it is marked in red lines on the map. It was marked off by Jose Ramirez, of Los Angeles, when they marked all the boundaries of Senor Valdez's estate. They had many instruments of brass and wood to measure with, and a long chain, very heavy, which I helped them carry. I myself saw it marked on the map. They all slept in my father's house,--Senor Valdez, and Ramirez, and the man who made the measures. He hired one of our men to carry his instruments, and I went to help, for I wished to see how it was done; but I could understand nothing, and Jose told me a man must study many years to learn the way of it. It seemed to me our way, by the stones, was much better. But I know it is all marked on the map, for it was with a red line; and my father understood it, and Jose Ramirez and Senor Valdez both pointed to it with their finger, and they said, 'All this here is your land, Pablo, always.' I do not think my father need fear, do you?”
“I hope not,” replied Father Salvierderra, cautiously; “but since the way that all the lands of the Missions have been taken away, I have small faith in the honesty of the Americans. I think they will take all that they can. The Church has suffered terrible loss at their hands.”
“That is what my father says,” replied Alessandro. “He says, 'Look at San Luis Rey! Nothing but the garden and orchard left, of all their vast lands where they used to pasture thirty thousand sheep. If the Church and the Fathers could not keep their lands, what can we Indians do?' That is what my father says.”
“True, true!” said the monk, as he turned into the door of the room where Juan Can lay on his narrow bed, longing yet fearing to see Father Salvierderra's face coming in. “We are all alike helpless in their hands, Alessandro. They possess the country, and can make what laws they please. We can only say, 'God's will be done,'” and he crossed himself devoutly, repeating the words twice.
Alessandro did the same, and with a truly devout spirit, for he was full of veneration for the Fathers and their teachings; but as he walked on towards the shearing-shed he thought: “Then, again, how can it be God's will that wrong be done? It cannot be God's will that one man should steal from another all he has. That would make God no better than a thief, it looks to me. But how can it happen, if it is not God's will?”
It does not need that one be educated, to see the logic in this formula. Generations of the oppressed and despoiled, before Alessandro, had grappled with the problem in one shape or another.
At the shearing-shed, Alessandro found his men in confusion and ill-humor. The shearing had been over and done by ten in the morning, and why were they not on their way to the Ortega's? Waiting all day,--it was now near sunset,--with nothing to do, and still worse with not much of anything to eat, had made them all cross; and no wonder. The economical Juan Can, finding that the work would be done by ten, and supposing they would be off before noon, had ordered only two sheep killed for them the day before, and the mutton was all gone, and old Marda, getting her cue from Juan, had cooked no more frijoles than the family needed themselves; so the poor shearers had indeed had a sorry day of it, in no wise alleviated either by the reports brought from time to time that their captain was lying on the ground, face down, under Senor Felipe's window, and must not be spoken to.
It was not a propitious moment for Alessandro to make the announcement of his purpose to leave the band; but he made a clean breast of it in few words, and diplomatically diverted all resentment from himself by setting them immediately to voting for a new captain to take his place for the remainder of the season.
“Very well!” they said hotly; “captain for this year, captain for next, too!” It wasn't so easy to step out and in again of the captaincy of the shearers!
“All right,” said Alessandro; “please yourselves! It is all the same to me. But here I am going to stay for the present. Father Salvierderra wishes it.”
“Oh, if the Father wishes it, that is different.” “Ah, that alters the case!” “Alessandro is right!” came up in confused murmur from the appeased crowd. They were all good Catholics, every one of the Temecula men, and would never think of going against the Father's orders. But when they understood that Alessandro's intention was to remain until Juan Canito's leg should be well enough for him to go about again, fresh grumblings began. That would not do. It would be all summer. Alessandro must be at home for the Saint Juan's Day fete, in midsummer,--no doing anything without Alessandro then. What was he thinking of? Not of the midsummer fete, that was certain, when he promised to stay as long as the Senorita Ramona should need him. Alessandro had remembered nothing except the Senorita's voice, while she was speaking to him. If he had had a hundred engagements for the summer, he would have forgotten them all. Now that he was reminded of the midsummer fete, it must be confessed he was for a moment dismayed at the recollection; for that was a time, when, as he well knew, his father could not do without his help. There were sometimes a thousand Indians at this fete, and disorderly whites took advantage of the occasion to sell whisky and encourage all sorts of license and disturbance. Yes, Alessandro's clear path of duty lay at Temecula when that fete came off. That was certain.
“I will manage to be at home then,” he said. “If I am not through here by that time, I will at least come for the fete. That you may depend on.”
The voting for the new captain did not take long. There was, in fact, but one man in the band fit for the office. That was Fernando, the only old man in the band; all the rest were young men under thirty, or boys. Fernando had been captain for several years, but had himself begged, two years ago, that the band would elect Alessandro in his place. He was getting old, and he did not like to have to sit up and walk about the first half of every night, to see that the shearers were not gambling away all their money at cards; he preferred to roll himself up in his blanket at sunset and sleep till dawn the next morning. But just for these few remaining weeks he had no objection to taking the office again. And Alessandro was right, entirely right, in remaining; they ought all to see that, Fernando said; and his word had great weight with the men.
The Senora Moreno, he reminded them, had always been a good friend of theirs, and had said that so long as she had sheep to shear, the Temecula shearers should do it; and it would be very ungrateful now if they did not do all they could to help her in her need.
The blankets were rolled up, the saddles collected, the ponies caught and driven up to the shed, when Ramona and Margarita were seen coming at full speed from the house.
“Alessandro! Alessandro!” cried Ramona, out of breath, “I have only just now heard that the men have had no dinner to-day. I am ashamed; but you know it would not have happened except for the sickness in the house. Everybody thought they were going away this morning. Now they must have a good supper before they go. It is already cooking. Tell them to wait.”
Those of the men who understood the Spanish language, in which Ramona spoke, translated it to those who did not, and there was a cordial outburst of thanks to the Senorita from all lips. All were only too ready to wait for the supper. Their haste to begin on the Ortega sheep-shearing had suddenly faded from their minds. Only Alessandro hesitated.
“It is a good six hours' ride to Ortega's,” he said to the men. “You'll be late in, if you do not start now.”
“Supper will be ready in an hour,” said Ramona. “Please let them stay; one hour can't make any difference.”
Alessandro smiled. “It will take nearer two, Senorita, before they are off,” he said; “but it shall be as you wish, and many thanks to you, Senorita, for thinking of it.”
“Oh, I did not think of it myself,” said Ramona. “It was Margarita, here, who came and told me. She knew we would be ashamed to have the shearers go away hungry. I am afraid they are very hungry indeed,” she added ruefully. “It must be dreadful to go a whole day without anything to eat; they had their breakfast soon after sunrise, did they not?”
“Yes, Senorita,” answered Alessandro, “but that is not long; one can do without food very well for one day. I often do.”
“Often.” exclaimed Ramona; “but why should you do that?” Then suddenly bethinking herself, she said in her heart, “Oh, what a thoughtless question! Can it be they are so poor as that?” And to save Alessandro from replying, she set off on a run for the house, saying, “Come, come, Margarita, we must go and help at the supper.”
“Will the Senorita let me help, too,” asked Alessandro, wondering at his own boldness,--“if there is anything I can do?”
“Oh, no,” she cried, “there is not. Yes, there is, too. You can help carry the things down to the booth; for we are short of hands now, with Juan Can in bed, and Luigo gone to Ventura for the doctor. You and some of your men might carry all the supper over. I'll call you when we are ready.”
The men sat down in a group and waited contentedly, smoking, chatting, and laughing. Alessandro walked up and down between the kitchen and the shed. He could hear the sounds of rattling dishes, jingling spoons, frying, pouring water. Savory smells began to be wafted out. Evidently old Marda meant to atone for the shortcoming of the noon. Juan Can, in his bed, also heard and smelled what was going on. “May the fiends get me,” he growled, “if that wasteful old hussy isn't getting up a feast for those beasts of Indians! There's mutton and onions, and peppers stewing, and potatoes, I'll be bound, and God knows what else, for beggars that are only too thankful to get a handful of roasted wheat or a bowl of acorn porridge at home. Well, they'll have to say they were well feasted at the Moreno's,--that's one comfort. I wonder if Margarita'll think I am worthy of tasting that stew! San Jose! but it smells well! Margarita! Margarita!” he called at top of his lungs; but Margarita did not hear. She was absorbed in her duties in the kitchen; and having already taken Juan at sundown a bowl of the good broth which the doctor had said was the only sort of food he must eat for two weeks, she had dismissed him from her mind for the night. Moreover, Margarita was absent-minded to-night. She was more than half in love with the handsome Alessandro, who, when he had been on the ranch the year before, had danced with her, and said many a light pleasant word to her, evenings, as a young man may; and what ailed him now, that he seemed, when he saw her, as if she were no more than a transparent shade, through which he stared at the sky behind her, she did not know. Senor Felipe's illness, she thought, and the general misery and confusion, had perhaps put everything else out of his head; but now he was going to stay, and it would be good fun having him there, if only Senor Felipe got well, which he seemed likely to do. And as Margarita flew about, here, there, and everywhere, she cast frequent glances at the tall straight figure pacing up and down in the dusk outside.
Alessandro did not see her. He did not see anything. He was looking off at the sunset, and listening. Ramona had said, “I will call you when we are ready.” But she did not do as she said. She told Margarita to call.
“Run, Margarita,” she said. “All is ready now; see if Alessandro is in sight. Call him to come and take the things.”
So it was Margarita's voice, and not Ramona's, that called “Alessandro! Alessandro! the supper is ready.”
But it was Ramona who, when Alessandro reached the doorway, stood there holding in her arms a huge smoking platter of the stew which had so roused poor Juan Can's longings; and it was Ramona who said, as she gave it into Alessandro's hands, “Take care, Alessandro, it is very full. The gravy will run over if you are not careful. You are not used to waiting on table;” and as she said it, she smiled full into Alessandro's eyes,--a little flitting, gentle, friendly smile, which went near to making him drop the platter, mutton, gravy, and all, then and there, at her feet.
The men ate fast and greedily, and it was not, after all, much more than an hour, when, full fed and happy, they were mounting their horses to set off. At the last moment Alessandro drew one of them aside. “Jose,” he said, “whose horse is the faster, yours or Antonio's?”
“Mine,” promptly replied Jose. “Mine, by a great deal. I will run Antonio any day he likes.”
Alessandro knew this as well before asking as after. But Alessandro was learning a great many things in these days, among other things a little diplomacy. He wanted a man to ride at the swiftest to Temecula and back. He knew that Jose's pony could go like the wind. He also knew that there was a perpetual feud of rivalry between him and Antonio, in matter of the fleetness of their respective ponies. So, having chosen Jose for his messenger, he went thus to work to make sure that he would urge his horse to its utmost speed.
Whispering in Jose's ear a few words, he said, “Will you go? I will pay you for the time, all you could earn at the shearing.”
“I will go,” said Jose, elated. “You will see me back tomorrow by sundown.”
“Not earlier?” asked Alessandro. “I thought by noon.”
“Well, by noon be it, then,” said Jose. “The horse can do it.”
“Have great care!” said Alessandro.
“That will I,” replied Jose; and giving his horse's sides a sharp punch with his knees, set off at full gallop westward.
“I have sent Jose with a message to Temecula,” said Alessandro, walking up to Fernando. “He will be back here tomorrow noon, and join you at the Ortega's the next morning.”
“Back here by noon to-morrow!” exclaimed Fernando. “Not unless he kills his horse!”
“That was what he said,” replied Alessandro, nonchalantly.
“Easy enough, too!” cried Antonio, riding up on his little dun mare. “I'd go in less time than that, on this mare. Jose's is no match for her, and never was. Why did you not send me, Alessandro?”
“Is your horse really faster than Jose's?” said Alessandro. “Then I wish I had sent you. I'll send you next time.”
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
7
|
None
|
IT was strange to see how quickly and naturally Alessandro fitted into his place in the household. How tangles straightened out, and rough places became smooth, as he quietly took matters in hand. Luckily, old Juan Can had always liked him, and felt a great sense of relief at the news of his staying on. Not a wholly unselfish relief, perhaps, for since his accident Juan had not been without fears that he might lose his place altogether; there was a Mexican he knew, who had long been scheming to get the situation, and had once openly boasted at a fandango, where he was dancing with Anita, that as soon as that superannuated old fool, Juan Canito, was out of the way, he meant to be the Senora Moreno's head shepherd himself. To have seen this man in authority on the place, would have driven Juan out of his mind.
But the gentle Alessandro, only an Indian,--and of course the Senora would never think of putting an Indian permanently in so responsible a position on the estate,--it was exactly as Juan would have wished; and he fraternized with Alessandro heartily from the outset; kept him in his room by the hour, giving him hundreds of long-winded directions and explanations about things which, if only he had known it, Alessandro understood far better than he did.
Alessandro's father had managed the Mission flocks and herds at San Luis Rey for twenty years; few were as skilful as he; he himself owned nearly as many sheep as the Senora Moreno; but this Juan did not know. Neither did he realize that Alessandro, as Chief Pablo's son, had a position of his own not without dignity and authority. To Juan, an Indian was an Indian, and that was the end of it. The gentle courteousness of Alessandro's manner, his quiet behavior, were all set down in Juan's mind to the score of the boy's native amiability and sweetness. If Juan had been told that the Senor Felipe himself had not been more carefully trained in all precepts of kindliness, honorable dealing, and polite usage, by the Senora, his mother, than had Alessandro by his father, he would have opened his eyes wide. The standards of the two parents were different, to be sure; but the advantage could not be shown to be entirely on the Senora's side. There were many things that Felipe knew, of which Alessandro was profoundly ignorant; but there were others in which Alessandro could have taught Felipe; and when it came to the things of the soul, and of honor, Alessandro's plane was the higher of the two. Felipe was a fair-minded, honorable man, as men go; but circumstances and opportunity would have a hold on him they could never get on Alessandro. Alessandro would not lie; Felipe might. Alessandro was by nature full of veneration and the religious instinct; Felipe had been trained into being a good Catholic. But they were both singularly pure-minded, open-hearted, generous-souled young men, and destined, by the strange chance which had thus brought them into familiar relations, to become strongly attached to each other. After the day on which the madness of Felipe's fever had been so miraculously soothed and controlled by Alessandro's singing, he was never again wildly delirious. When he waked in the night from that first long sleep, he was, as Father Salvierderra had predicted, in his right mind; knew every one, and asked rational questions. But the over-heated and excited brain did not for some time wholly resume normal action. At intervals he wandered, especially when just arousing from sleep; and, strangely enough, it was always for Alessandro that he called at these times, and it seemed always to be music that he craved. He recollected Alessandro's having sung to him that first night. “I was not so crazy as you all thought,” he said. “I knew a great many of the things I said, but I couldn't help saying them; and I heard Ramona ask Alessandro to sing; and when he began, I remember I thought the Virgin had reached down and put her hand on my head and cooled it.”
On the second evening, the first after the shearers had left, Alessandro, seeing Ramona in the veranda, went to the foot of the steps, and said, “Senorita, would Senor Felipe like to have me play on the violin to him tonight?”
“Why, whose violin have you got?” exclaimed Ramona, astonished.
“My own, Senorita.”
“Your own! I thought you said you did not bring it.”
“Yes, Senorita, that is true; but I sent for it last night, and it is here.”
“Sent to Temecula and back already!” cried Ramona.
“Yes, Senorita. Our ponies are swift and strong. They can go a hundred miles in a day, and not suffer. It was Jose brought it, and he is at the Ortega's by this time.”
Ramona's eyes glistened. “I wish I could have thanked him,” she said. “You should have let me know. He ought to have been paid for going.”
“I paid him, Senorita; he went for me,” said Alessandro, with a shade of wounded pride in the tone, which Ramona should have perceived, but did not, and went on hurting the lover's heart still more.
“But it was for us that you sent for it, Alessandro; the Senora would rather pay the messenger herself.”
“It is paid, Senorita. It is nothing. If the Senor Felipe wishes to hear the violin, I will play;” and Alessandro walked slowly away.
Ramona gazed after him. For the first time, she looked at him with no thought of his being an Indian,--a thought there had surely been no need of her having, since his skin was not a shade darker than Felipe's; but so strong was the race feeling, that never till that moment had she forgotten it.
“What a superb head, and what a walk!” she thought. Then, looking more observantly, she said: “He walks as if he were offended. He did not like my offering to pay for the messenger. He wanted to do it for dear Felipe. I will tell Felipe, and we will give him some present when he goes away.”
“Isn't he splendid, Senorita?” came in a light laughing tone from Margarita's lips close to her ear, in the fond freedom of their relation. “Isn't he splendid? And oh, Senorita, you can't think how he dances! Last year I danced with him every night; he has wings on his feet, for all he is so tall and big.”
There was a coquettish consciousness in the girl's tone, that was suddenly, for some unexplained reason, exceedingly displeasing to Ramona. Drawing herself away, she spoke to Margarita in a tone she had never before in her life used. “It is not fitting to speak like that about young men. The Senora would be displeased if she heard you,” she said, and walked swiftly away leaving poor Margarita as astounded as if she had got a box on the ear.
She looked after Ramona's retreating figure, then after Alessandro's. She had heard them talking together just before she came up. Thoroughly bewildered and puzzled, she stood motionless for several seconds, reflecting; then, shaking her head, she ran away, trying to dismiss the harsh speech from her mind. “Alessandro must have vexed the Senorita,” she thought, “to make her speak like that to me.” But the incident was not so easily dismissed from Margarita's thoughts. Many times in the day it recurred to her, still a bewilderment and a puzzle, as far from solution as ever. It was a tiny seed, whose name she did not dream of; but it was dropped in soil where it would grow some day,--forcing-house soil, and a bitter seed; and when it blossomed, Ramona would have an enemy.
All unconscious, equally of Margarita's heart and her own, Ramona proceeded to Felipe's room. Felipe was sleeping, the Senora sitting by his side, as she had sat for days and nights,--her dark face looking thinner and more drawn each day; her hair looking even whiter, if that could be; and her voice growing hollow from faintness and sorrow.
“Dear Senora,” whispered Ramona, “do go out for a few moments while he sleeps, and let me watch,--just on the walk in front of the veranda. The sun is still lying there, bright and warm. You will be ill if you do not have air.”
The Senora shook her head. “My place is here,” she answered, speaking in a dry, hard tone. Sympathy was hateful to the Senora Moreno; she wished neither to give it nor take it. “I shall not leave him. I do not need the air.”
Ramona had a cloth-of-gold rose in her hand. The veranda eaves were now shaded with them, hanging down like a thick fringe of golden tassels. It was the rose Felipe loved best. Stooping, she laid it on the bed, near Felipe's head. “He will like to see it when he wakes,” she said.
The Senora seized it, and flung it far out in the room. “Take it away! Flowers are poison when one is ill,” she said coldly. “Have I never told you that?”
“No, Senora,” replied Ramona, meekly; and she glanced involuntarily at the saucer of musk which the Senora kept on the table close to Felipe's pillow.
“The musk is different,” said the Senora, seeing the glance. “Musk is a medicine; it revives.”
Ramona knew, but she would have never dared to say, that Felipe hated musk. Many times he had said to her how he hated the odor; but his mother was so fond of it, that it must always be that the veranda and the house would be full of it. Ramona hated it too. At times it made her faint, with a deadly faintness. But neither she nor Felipe would have confessed as much to the Senora; and if they had, she would have thought it all a fancy.
“Shall I stay?” asked Ramona, gently.
“As you please,” replied the Senora. The simple presence of Ramona irked her now with a feeling she did not pretend to analyze, and would have been terrified at if she had. She would not have dared to say to herself, in plain words: “Why is that girl well and strong, and my Felipe lying here like to die! If Felipe dies, I cannot bear the sight of her. What is she, to be preserved of the saints!”
But that, or something like it, was what she felt whenever Ramona entered the room; still more, whenever she assisted in ministering to Felipe. If it had been possible, the Senora would have had no hands but her own do aught for her boy. Even tears from Ramona sometimes irritated her. “What does she know about loving Felipe! He is nothing to her!” thought the Senora, strangely mistaken, strangely blind, strangely forgetting how feeble is the tie of blood in the veins by the side of love in the heart.
If into this fiery soul of the Senora's could have been dropped one second's knowledge of the relative positions she and Ramona already occupied in Felipe's heart, she would, on the spot, have either died herself or have slain Ramona, one or the other. But no such knowledge was possible; no such idea could have found entrance into the Senora's mind. A revelation from Heaven of it could hardly have reached even her ears. So impenetrable are the veils which, fortunately for us all, are forever held by viewless hands between us and the nearest and closest of our daily companions.
At twilight of this day Felipe was restless and feverish again. He had dozed at intervals all day long, but had had no refreshing sleep.
“Send for Alessandro,” he said. “Let him come and sing to me.”
“He has his violin now; he can play, if you would like that better,” said Ramona; and she related what Alessandro had told her of the messenger's having ridden to Temecula and back in a night and half a day, to bring it.
“I wanted to pay the man,” she said; “I knew of course your mother would wish to reward him. But I fancy Alessandro was offended. He answered me shortly that it was paid, and it was nothing.”
“You couldn't have offended him more,” said Felipe. “What a pity! He is as proud as Lucifer himself, that Alessandro. You know his father has always been the head of their band; in fact, he has authority over several bands; General, they call it now, since they got the title from the Americans; they used to call it Chief., and until Father Peyri left San Luis Rey, Pablo was in charge of all the sheep, and general steward and paymaster. Father Peyri trusted him with everything; I've heard he would leave boxes full of uncounted gold in Pablo's charge to pay off the Indians. Pablo reads and writes, and is very well off; he has as many sheep as we have, I fancy!”
“What!” exclaimed Ramona, astonished. “They all look as if they were poor.”
“Oh, well, so they are,” replied Felipe, “compared with us; but one reason is, they share everything with each other. Old Pablo feeds and supports half his village, they say. So long as he has anything, he will never see one of his Indians hungry.”
“How generous!” warmly exclaimed Ramona; “I think they are better than we are, Felipe!”
“I think so, too,” said Felipe. “That's what I have always said. The Indians are the most generous people in the world. Of course they have learned it partly from us; but they were very much so when the Fathers first came here. You ask Father Salvierderra some day. He has read all Father Junipero's and Father Crespi's diaries, and he says it is wonderful how the wild savages gave food to every one who came.”
“Felipe, you are talking too much,” said the Senora's voice, in the doorway; and as she spoke she looked reproachfully at Ramona. If she had said in words, “See how unfit you are to be trusted with Felipe. No wonder I do not leave the room except when I must!” her meaning could not have been plainer. Ramona felt it keenly, and not without some misgiving that it was deserved.
“Oh, dear Felipe, has it hurt you?” she said timidly; and to the Senora, “Indeed, Senora, he has been speaking but a very few moments, very low.”
“Go call Alessandro, Ramona, will you?” said Felipe. “Tell him to bring his violin. I think I will go to sleep if he plays.”
A long search Ramona had for Alessandro. Everybody had seen him a few minutes ago, but nobody knew where he was now. Kitchens, sheepfolds, vineyards, orchards, Juan Can's bedchamber,--Ramona searched them all in vain. At last, standing at the foot of the veranda steps, and looking down the garden, she thought she saw figures moving under the willows by the washing-stones.
“Can he be there?” she said. “What can he be doing there? Who is it with him?” And she walked down the path, calling, “Alessandro! Alessandro!”
At the first sound, Alessandro sprang from the side of his companion, and almost before the second syllables had been said, was standing face to face with Ramona.
“Here I am, Senorita. Does Senor Felipe want me? I have my violin here. I thought perhaps he would like to have me play to him in the twilight.”
“Yes,” replied Ramona, “he wishes to hear you. I have been looking everywhere for you.” As she spoke, she was half unconsciously peering beyond into the dusk, to see whose figure it was, slowly moving by the brook.
Nothing escaped Alessandro's notice where Ramona was concerned. “It is Margarita,” he said instantly. “Does the Senorita want her? Shall I run and call her?”
“No,” said Ramona, again displeased, she knew not why, nor in fact knew she was displeased; “no, I was not looking for her. What is she doing there?”
“She is washing,” replied Alessandro, innocently.
“Washing at this time of day!” thought Ramona, severely. “A mere pretext. I shall watch Margarita. The Senora would never allow this sort of thing.” And as she walked back to the house by Alessandro's side, she meditated whether or no she would herself speak to Margarita on the subject in the morning.
Margarita, in the mean time, was also having her season of reflections not the pleasantest. As she soused her aprons up and down in the water, she said to herself, “I may as well finish them now I am here. How provoking! I've no more than got a word with him, than she must come, calling him away. And he flies as if he was shot on an arrow, at the first word. I'd like to know what's come over the man, to be so different. If I could ever get a good half-hour with him alone, I'd soon find out. Oh, but his eyes go through me, through and through me! I know he's an Indian, but what do I care for that. He's a million times handsomer than Senor Felipe. And Juan Jose said the other day he'd make enough better head shepherd than old Juan Can, if Senor Felipe'd only see it; and why shouldn't he get to see it, if Alessandro's here all summer?” And before the aprons were done, Margarita had a fine air-castle up: herself and Alessandro married, a nice little house, children playing in the sunshine below the artichoke-patch, she herself still working for the Senora. “And the Senorita will perhaps marry Senor Felipe,” she added, her thoughts moving more hesitatingly. “He worships the ground she walks on. Anybody with quarter of a blind eye can see that; but maybe the Senora would not let him. Anyhow, Senor Felipe is sure to have a wife, and so and so.” It was an innocent, girlish castle, built of sweet and natural longings, for which no maiden, high or low, need blush; but its foundations were laid in sand, on which would presently beat such winds and floods as poor little Margarita never dreamed of.
The next day Margarita and Ramona both went about their day's business with a secret purpose in their hearts. Margarita had made up her mind that before night she would, by fair means or foul, have a good long talk with Alessandro. “He was fond enough of me last year, I know,” she said to herself, recalling some of the dances and the good-night leave-takings at that time. “It's because he is so put upon by everybody now. What with Juan Can in one bed sending for him to prate to him about the sheep, and Senor Felipe in another sending for him to fiddle him to sleep, and all the care of the sheep, it's a wonder he's not out of his mind altogether. But I'll find a chance, or make one, before this day's sun sets. If I can once get a half-hour with him, I'm not afraid after that; I know the way it is with men!” said the confident Margarita, who, truth being told, it must be admitted, did indeed know a great deal about the way it is with men, and could be safely backed, in a fair field, with a fair start, against any girl of her age and station in the country. So much for Margarita's purpose, at the outset of a day destined to be an eventful one in her life.
Ramona's purpose was no less clear. She had decided, after some reflection, that she would not speak to the Senora about Margarita's having been under the willows with Alessandro in the previous evening, but would watch her carefully and see whether there were any farther signs of her attempting to have clandestine interviews with him.
This course she adopted, she thought, chiefly because of her affection for Margarita, and her unwillingness to expose her to the Senora's displeasure, which would be great, and terrible to bear. She was also aware of an unwillingness to bring anything to light which would reflect ever so lightly upon Alessandro in the Senora's estimation. “And he is not really to blame,” thought Ramona, “if a girl follows him about and makes free with him. She must have seen him at the willows, and gone down there on purpose to meet him, making a pretext of the washing. For she never in this world would have gone to wash in the dark, as he must have known, if he were not a fool. He is not the sort of person, it seems to me, to be fooling with maids. He seems as full of grave thought as Father Salvierderra. If I see anything amiss in Margarita to-day, I shall speak to her myself, kindly but firmly, and tell her to conduct herself more discreetly.”
Then, as the other maiden's had done, Ramona's thoughts, being concentrated on Alessandro, altered a little from their first key, and grew softer and more imaginative; strangely enough, taking some of the phrases, as it were, out of the other maiden's mouth.
“I never saw such eyes as Alessandro has,” she said. “I wonder any girl should make free with him. Even I myself, when he fixes his eyes on me, feel a constraint. There is something in them like the eyes of a saint, so solemn, yet so mild. I am sure he is very good.”
And so the day opened; and if there were abroad in the valley that day a demon of mischief, let loose to tangle the skeins of human affairs, things could not have fallen out better for his purpose than they did; for it was not yet ten o'clock of the morning, when Ramona, sitting at her embroidery in the veranda, half hid behind the vines, saw Alessandro going with his pruning-knife in his hand towards the artichoke-patch at the east of the garden, and joining the almond orchard. “I wonder what he is going to do there,” she thought. “He can't be going to cut willows;” and her eyes followed him till he disappeared among the trees.
Ramona was not the only one who saw this. Margarita, looking from the east window of Father Salvierderra's room, saw the same thing. “Now's my chance!” she said; and throwing a white reboso coquettishly over her head, she slipped around the corner of the house. She ran swiftly in the direction in which Alessandro had gone. The sound of her steps reached Ramona, who, lifting her eyes, took in the whole situation at a glance. There was no possible duty, no possible message, which would take Margarita there. Ramona's cheeks blazed with a disproportionate indignation. But she bethought herself, “Ah, the Senora may have sent her to call Alessandro!” She rose, went to the door of Felipe's room, and looked in. The Senora was sitting in the chair by Felipe's bed, with her eyes closed. Felipe was dozing. The Senora opened her eyes, and looked inquiringly at Ramona.
“Do you know where Margarita is?” said Ramona.
“In Father Salvierderra's room, or else in the kitchen helping Marda,” replied the Senora, in a whisper. “I told her to help Marda with the peppers this morning.”
Ramona nodded, returned to the veranda, and sat down to decide on her course of action. Then she rose again, and going to Father Salvierderra's room, looked in. The room was still in disorder. Margarita had left her work there unfinished. The color deepened on Ramona's cheeks. It was strange how accurately she divined each process of the incident. “She saw him from this window,” said Ramona, “and has run after him. It is shameful. I will go and call her back, and let her see that I saw it all. It is high time that this was stopped.”
But once back in the veranda, Ramona halted, and seated herself in her chair again. The idea of seeming to spy was revolting to her.
“I will wait here till she comes back,” she said, and took up her embroidery. But she could not work. As the minutes went slowly by, she sat with her eyes fixed on the almond orchard, where first Alessandro and then Margarita had disappeared. At last she could bear it no longer. It seemed to her already a very long time. It was not in reality very long,--a half hour or so, perhaps; but it was long enough for Margarita to have made great headway, as she thought, in her talk with Alessandro, and for things to have reached just the worst possible crisis at which they could have been surprised, when Ramona suddenly appeared at the orchard gate, saying in a stern tone, “Margarita, you are wanted in the house!” At a bad crisis, indeed, for everybody concerned. The picture which Ramona had seen, as she reached the gate, was this: Alessandro, standing with his back against the fence, his right hand hanging listlessly down, with the pruning-knife in it, his left hand in the hand of Margarita, who stood close to him, looking up in his face, with a half-saucy, half-loving expression. What made bad matters worse, was, that at the first sight of Ramona, Alessandro snatched his hand from Margarita's, and tried to draw farther off from her, looking at her with an expression which, even in her anger, Ramona could not help seeing was one of disgust and repulsion. And if Ramona saw it, how much more did Margarita! Saw it, as only a woman repulsed in presence of another woman can see and feel. The whole thing was over in the twinkling of an eye; the telling it takes double, treble the time of the happening. Before Alessandro was fairly aware what had befallen, Ramona and Margarita were disappearing from view under the garden trellis,--Ramona walking in advance, stately, silent, and Margarita following, sulky, abject in her gait, but with a raging whirlwind in her heart.
It had taken only the twinkling of an eye, but it had told Margarita the truth. Alessandro too.
“My God.” he said, “the Senorita thought me making love to that girl. May the fiends get her! The Senorita looked at me as if I were a dog. How could she think a man would look at a woman after he had once seen her! And I can never, never speak to her to tell her! Oh, this cannot be borne!” And in his rage Alessandro threw his pruning-knife whirling through the air so fiercely, it sank to the hilt in one of the old olive-trees. He wished he were dead. He was minded to flee the place. How could he ever look the Senorita in the face again!
“Perdition take that girl!” he said over and over in his helpless despair. An ill outlook for Margarita after this; and the girl had not deserved it.
In Margarita's heart the pain was more clearly defined. She had seen Ramona a half-second before Alessandro had; and dreaming no special harm, except a little confusion at being seen thus standing with him,--for she would tell the Senorita all about it when matters had gone a little farther,--had not let go of Alessandro's hand. But the next second she had seen in his face a look; oh, she would never forget it, never! That she should live to have had any man look at her like that! At the first glimpse of the Senorita, all the blood in his body seemed rushing into his face, and he had snatched his hand away,--for it was Margarita herself that had taken his hand, not he hers,--had snatched his hand away, and pushed her from him, till she had nearly fallen. All this might have been borne, if it had been only a fear of the Senorita's seeing them, which had made him do it. But Margarita knew a great deal better than that. That one swift, anguished, shame-smitten, appealing, worshipping look on Alessandro's face, as his eyes rested on Ramona, was like a flash of light into Margarita's consciousness. Far better than Alessandro himself, she now knew his secret. In her first rage she did not realize either the gulf between herself and Ramona, or that between Ramona and Alessandro. Her jealous rage was as entire as if they had all been equals together. She lost her head altogether, and there was embodied insolence in the tone in which she said presently, “Did the Senorita want me?”
Turning swiftly on her, and looking her full in the eye, Ramona said: “I saw you go to the orchard, Margarita, and I knew what you went for. I knew that you were at the brook last night with Alessandro. All I wanted of you was, to tell you that if I see anything more of this sort, I shall speak to the Senora.”
“There is no harm,” muttered Margarita, sullenly. “I don't know what the Senorita means.”
“You know very well, Margarita,” retorted Ramona. “You know that the Senora permits nothing of the kind. Be careful, now, what you do.” And with that the two separated, Ramona returning to the veranda and her embroidery, and Margarita to her neglected duty of making the good Father's bed. But each girl's heart was hot and unhappy; and Margarita's would have been still hotter and unhappier, had she heard the words which were being spoken on the veranda a little later.
After a few minutes of his blind rage at Margarita, himself, and fate generally, Alessandro, recovering his senses, had ingeniously persuaded himself that, as the Senora's; and also the Senorita's servant, for the time being, he owed it to them to explain the situation in which he had just been found. Just what he was to say he did not know; but no sooner had the thought struck him, than he set off at full speed for the house, hoping to find Ramona on the veranda, where he knew she spent all her time when not with Senor Felipe.
When Ramona saw him coming, she lowered her eyes, and was absorbed in her embroidery. She did not wish to look at him.
The footsteps stopped. She knew he was standing at the steps. She would not look up. She thought if she did not, he would go away. She did not know either the Indian or the lover nature. After a time, finding the consciousness of the soundless presence intolerable, she looked up, and surprised on Alessandro's face a gaze which had, in its long interval of freedom from observation, been slowly gathering up into it all the passion of the man's soul, as a burning-glass draws the fire of the sun's rays. Involuntarily a low cry burst from Ramona's lips, and she sprang to her feet.
“Ah! did I frighten the Senorita? Forgive. I have been waiting here a long time to speak to her. I wished to say--” Suddenly Alessandro discovered that he did not know what he wished to say.
As suddenly, Ramona discovered that she knew all he wished to say. But she spoke not, only looked at him searchingly.
“Senorita,” he began again, “I would never be unfaithful to my duty to the Senora, and to you.”
“I believe you, Alessandro,” said Ramona. “It is not necessary to say more.”
At these words a radiant joy spread over Alessandro's face. He had not hoped for this. He felt, rather than heard, that Ramona understood him. He felt, for the first time, a personal relation between himself and her.
“It is well,” he said, in the brief phrase so frequent with his people. “It is well.” And with a reverent inclination of his head, he walked away. Margarita, still dawdling surlily over her work in Father Salvierderra's room, heard Alessandro's voice, and running to discover to whom he was speaking, caught these last, words. Peering from behind a curtain, she saw the look with which he said them; saw also the expression on Ramona's face as she listened.
Margarita clenched her hands. The seed had blossomed. Ramona had an enemy.
“Oh, but I am glad Father Salvierderra has gone!” said the girl, bitterly. “He'd have had this out of me, spite of everything. I haven't got to confess for a year, maybe; and much can happen in that time.”
Much, indeed!
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
8
|
None
|
FELIPE gained but slowly. The relapse was indeed, as Father Salvierderra had said, worse than the original attack. Day after day he lay with little apparent change; no pain, but a weakness so great that it was almost harder to bear than sharp suffering would have been. Nearly every day Alessandro was sent for to play or sing to him. It seemed to be the only thing that roused him from his half lethargic state. Sometimes he would talk with Alessandro on matters relative to the estate, and show for a few moments something like his old animation; but he was soon tired, and would close his eyes, saying: “I will speak with you again about this, Alessandro; I am going to sleep now. Sing.”
The Senora, seeing Felipe's enjoyment of Alessandro's presence, soon came to have a warm feeling towards him herself; moreover, she greatly liked his quiet reticence. There was hardly a surer road to the Senora's favor, for man or woman, than to be chary of speech and reserved in demeanor. She had an instinct of kinship to all that was silent, self-contained, mysterious, in human nature. The more she observed Alessandro, the more she trusted and approved him. Luckily for Juan Can, he did not know how matters were working in his mistress's mind. If he had, he would have been in a fever of apprehension, and would have got at swords' points with Alessandro immediately. On the contrary, all unaware of the real situation of affairs, and never quite sure that the Mexican he dreaded might not any day hear of his misfortune, and appear, asking for the place, he took every opportunity to praise Alessandro to the Senora. She never visited his bedside that he had not something to say in favor of the lad, as he called him.
“Truly, Senora,” he said again and again, “I do marvel where the lad got so much knowledge, at his age. He is like an old hand at the sheep business. He knows more than any shepherd I have,--a deal more; and it is not only of sheep. He has had experience, too, in the handling of cattle. Juan Jose has been beholden to him more than once, already, for a remedy of which he knew not. And such modesty, withal. I knew not that there were such Indians; surely there cannot be many such.”
“No, I fancy not,” the Senora would reply, absently. “His father is a man of intelligence, and has trained his son well.”
“There is nothing he is not ready to do,” continued Alessandro's eulogist. “He is as handy with tools as if he had been 'prenticed to a carpenter. He has made me a new splint for my leg, which was a relief like salve to a wound, so much easier was it than before. He is a good lad,--a good lad.”
None of these sayings of Juan's were thrown away on the Senora. More and more closely she watched Alessandro; and the very thing which Juan had feared, and which he had thought to avert by having Alessandro his temporary substitute, was slowly coming to pass. The idea was working in the Senora's mind, that she might do a worse thing than engage this young, strong, active, willing man to remain permanently in her employ. The possibility of an Indian's being so born and placed that he would hesitate about becoming permanently a servant even to the Senora Moreno, did not occur to her. However, she would do nothing hastily. There would be plenty of time before Juan Can's leg was well. She would study the young man more. In the mean time, she would cause Felipe to think of the idea, and propose it.
So one day she said to Felipe: “What a voice that Alessandro has, Felipe. We shall miss his music sorely when he goes, shall we not?”
“He's not going!” exclaimed Felipe, startled.
“Oh, no, no; not at present. He agreed to stay till Juan Can was about again; but that will be not more than six weeks now, or eight, I suppose. You forget how time has flown while you have been lying here ill, my son.”
“True, true!” said Felipe. “Is it really a month already?” and he sighed.
“Juan Can tells me that the lad has a marvellous knowledge for one of his years,” continued the Senora. “He says he is as skilled with cattle as with sheep; knows more than any shepherd we have on the place. He seems wonderfully quiet and well-mannered. I never saw an Indian who had such behavior.”
“Old Pablo is just like him,” said Felipe. “It was natural enough, living so long with Father Peyri. And I've seen other Indians, too, with a good deal the same manner as Alessandro. It's born in them.”
“I can't bear the idea of Alessandro's going away. But by that time you will be well and strong,” said the Senora; “you would not miss him then, would you?”
“Yes, I would, too!” said Felipe, pettishly. He was still weak enough to be childish. “I like him about me. He's worth a dozen times as much as any man we've got. But I don't suppose money could hire him to stay on any ranch.”
“Were you thinking of hiring him permanently?” asked the Senora, in a surprised tone. “I don't doubt you could do so if you wished. They are all poor, I suppose; he would not work with the shearers if he were not poor.”
“Oh, it isn't that,” said Felipe, impatiently. “You can't understand, because you've never been among them. But they are just as proud as we are. Some of them, I mean; such men as old Pablo. They shear sheep for money just as I sell wool for money. There isn't so much difference. Alessandro's men in the band obey him, and all the men in the village obey Pablo, just as implicitly as my men here obey me. Faith, much more so!” added Felipe, laughing. “You can't understand it, mother, but it's so. I am not at all sure I could offer Alessandro Assis money enough to tempt him to stay here as my servant.”
The Senora's nostrils dilated in scorn. “No, I do not understand it,” she said. “Most certainly I do not understand it. Of what is it that these noble lords of villages are so proud? their ancestors,--naked savages less than a hundred years ago? Naked savages they themselves too, to-day, if we had not come here to teach and civilize them. The race was never meant for anything but servants. That was all the Fathers ever expected to make of them,--good, faithful Catholics, and contented laborers in the fields. Of course there are always exceptional instances, and I think, myself, Alessandro is one. I don't believe, however, he is so exceptional, but that if you were to offer him, for instance, the same wages you pay Juan Can, he would jump at the chance of staying on the place.”
“Well, I shall think about it,” said Felipe. “I'd like nothing better than to have him here always. He's a fellow I heartily like. I'll think about it.”
Which was all the Senora wanted done at present.
Ramona had chanced to come in as this conversation was going on. Hearing Alessandro's name she seated herself at the window, looking out, but listening intently. The month had done much for Alessandro with Ramona, though neither Alessandro nor Ramona knew it. It had done this much,--that Ramona knew always when Alessandro was near, that she trusted him, and that she had ceased to think of him as an Indian any more than when she thought of Felipe, she thought of him as a Mexican. Moreover, seeing the two men frequently together, she had admitted to herself, as Margarita had done before her, that Alessandro was far the handsomer man of the two. This Ramona did not like to admit, but she could not help it.
“I wish Felipe were as tall and strong as Alessandro,” she said to herself many a time. “I do not see why he could not have been. I wonder if the Senora sees how much handsomer Alessandro is.”
When Felipe said that he did not believe he could offer Alessandro Assis money enough to tempt him to stay on the place, Ramona opened her lips suddenly, as if to speak, then changed her mind, and remained silent. She had sometimes displeased the Senora by taking part in conversations between her and her son.
Felipe saw the motion, but he also thought it wiser to wait till after his mother had left the room, before he asked Ramona what she was on the point of saying. As soon as the Senora went out, he said, “What was it, Ramona, you were going to say just now?”
Ramona colored. She had decided not to say it.
“Tell me, Ramona,” persisted Felipe. “You were going to say something about Alessandro's staying; I know you were.”
Ramona did not answer. For the first time in her life she found herself embarrassed before Felipe.
“Don't you like Alessandro?” said Felipe.
“Oh, yes!” replied Ramona, with instant eagerness. “It was not that at all. I like him very much;” But then she stopped.
“Well, what is it, then? Have you heard anything on the place about his staying?”
“Oh, no, no; not a word!” said Ramona. “Everybody understands that he is here only till Juan Can gets well. But you said you did not believe you could offer him money enough to tempt him to stay.”
“Well,” said Felipe, inquiringly, “I do not. Do you?”
“I think he would like to stay,” said Ramona, hesitatingly. “That was what I was going to say.”
“What makes you think so?” asked Felipe.
“I don't know,” Ramona said, still more hesitatingly. Now that she had said it, she was sorry. Felipe looked curiously at her. Hesitancy like this, doubts, uncertainty as to her impressions, were not characteristic of Ramona. A flitting something which was far from being suspicion or jealousy, and yet was of kin to them both, went through Felipe's mind,--went through so swiftly that he was scarce conscious of it; if he had been, he would have scorned himself. Jealous of an Indian sheep-shearers Impossible! Nevertheless, the flitting something left a trace, and prevented Felipe from forgetting the trivial incident; and after this, it was certain that Felipe would observe Ramona more closely than he had done; would weigh her words and actions; and if she should seem by a shade altered in either, would watch still more closely. Meshes were closing around Ramona. Three watchers of her every look and act,--Alessandro in pure love, Margarita in jealous hate, Felipe in love and perplexity. Only the Senora observed her not. If she had, matters might have turned out very differently, for the Senora was clear-sighted, rarely mistaken in her reading of people's motives, never long deceived; but her observing and discriminating powers were not in focus, so far as Ramona was concerned. The girl was curiously outside of the Senora's real life. Shelter, food, clothes, all external needs, in so far as her means allowed, the Senora would, without fail, provide for the child her sister had left in her hands as a trust; but a personal relation with her, a mother's affection, or even interest and acquaintance, no. The Senora had not that to give. And if she had it not, was she to blame? What could she do? Years ago Father Salvierderra had left off remonstrating with her on this point. “Is there more I should do for the child? Do you see aught lacking, aught amiss?” the Senora would ask, conscientiously, but with pride. And the Father, thus inquired of, could not point out a duty which had been neglected.
“You do not love her, my daughter,” he said.
“No.” Senora Moreno's truthfulness was of the adamantine order. “No, I do not. I cannot. One cannot love by act of will.”
“That is true,” the Father would say sadly; “but affection may be cultivated.”
“Yes, if it exists,” was the Senora's constant answer. “But in this case it does not exist. I shall never love Ramona. Only at your command, and to save my sister a sorrow, I took her. I will never fail in my duty to her.”
It was of no use. As well say to the mountain, “Be cast into the sea,” as try to turn the Senora's heart in any direction whither it did not of itself tend. All that Father Salvierderra could do, was to love Ramona the more himself, which he did heartily, and more and more each year, and small marvel at it; for a gentler, sweeter maiden never drew breath than this same Ramona, who had been all these years, save for Felipe, lonely in the Senora Moreno's house.
Three watchers of Ramona now. If there had been a fourth, and that fourth herself, matters might have turned out differently. But how should Ramona watch? How should Ramona know? Except for her two years at school with the nuns, she had never been away from the Senora's house. Felipe was the only young man she had known,--Felipe, her brother since she was five years old.
There were no gayeties in the Senora Moreno's home. Felipe, when he needed them, went one day's journey, or two, or three, to get them; went as often as he liked. Ramona never went. How many times she had longed to go to Santa Barbara, or to Monterey, or Los Angeles; but to have asked the Senora's permission to accompany her on some of her now infrequent journeys to these places would have required more courage than Ramona possessed. It was now three years since she left the convent school, but she was still as fresh from the hands of the nuns as on the day when, with loving tears, they had kissed her in farewell. The few romances and tales and bits of verse she had read were of the most innocent and old-fashioned kind, and left her hardly less childlike than before. This childlikeness, combined with her happy temperament, had kept her singularly contented in her monotonous life. She had fed the birds, taken care of the flowers, kept the chapel in order, helped in light household work, embroidered, sung, and, as the Senora eight years before had bade her do, said her prayers and pleased Father Salvierderra.
By processes strangely unlike, she and Alessandro had both been kept strangely free from thoughts of love and of marriage,--he by living in the shadow, and she by living in the sun; his heart and thoughts filled with perplexities and fears, hers filled by a placid routine of light and easy tasks, and the outdoor pleasures of a child.
As the days went on, and Felipe still remained feeble, Alessandro meditated a bold stroke. Each time that he went to Felipe's room to sing or to play, he felt himself oppressed by the air. An hour of it made him uncomfortable. The room was large, and had two windows, and the door was never shut; yet the air seemed to Alessandro stifling.
“I should be as ill as the Senor Felipe, if I had to stay in that room, and a bed is a weakening thing, enough to pull the strongest man down,” said Alessandro to Juan Can one day. “Do you think I should anger them if I asked them to let me bring Senor Felipe out to the veranda and put him on a bed of my making? I'd wager my head I'd put him on his feet in a week.”
“And if you did that, you might ask the Senora for the half of the estate, and get it, lad,” replied Juan, Seeing the hot blood darkening in Alessandro's face at his words, he hastened to add, “Do not be so hot-blooded. I meant not that you would ask any reward for doing it; I was only thinking what joy it would be to the Senora to see Senor Felipe on his feet again. It has often crossed my thoughts that if he did not get up from this sickness the Senora would not be long behind him. It is but for him that she lives. And who would have the estate in that case, I have never been able to find out.”
“Would it not be the Senorita?” asked Alessandro.
Juan Can laughed an ugly laugh. “Ha, ha! Let the Senora hear you say that!” he said. “Faith, it will be little the Senorita gets more than enough for her bread, may be, out of the Moreno estate. Hark ye, Alessandro; if you will not tell, I will tell you the story of the Senorita. You know she is not of the Moreno blood; is no relation of theirs.”
“Yes,” said Alessandro; “Margarita has said to me that the Senorita Ramona was only the foster-child of the Senora Moreno.”
“Foster-child!” repeated Juan Can, contemptuously, “there is something to the tale I know not, nor ever could find out; for when I was in Monterey the Ortegna house was shut, and I could not get speech of any of their people. But this much I know, that it was the Senora Ortegna that had the girl first in keeping; and there was a scandalous tale about her birth.”
If Juan Can's eyes had not been purblind with old age, he would have seen that in Alessandro's face which would have made him choose his words more carefully. But he went on: “It was after the Senora Ortegna was buried, that our Senora returned, bringing this child with her; and I do assure you, lad, I have seen the Senora look at her many a time as if she wished her dead. And it is a shame, for she was always as fair and good a child as the saints ever saw. But a stain on the blood, a stain on the blood, lad, is a bitter thing in a house. This much I know, her mother was an Indian. Once when I was in the chapel, behind the big Saint Joseph there, I overheard the Senora say as much. She was talking to Father Salvierderra, and she said, 'If the child had only the one blood in her veins, it would be different. I like not these crosses with Indians.'”
If Alessandro had been civilized, he would at this word “Indian” have bounded to his feet. Being Alessandro, he stood if possible stiller than before, and said in a low voice, “How know you it was the mother that was the Indian?”
Juan laughed again, maliciously: “Ha, it is the Ortegna face she has; and that Ortegna, why, he was the scandal byword of the whole coast. There was not a decent woman would have spoken to him, except for his wife's sake.”
“But did you not say that it was in the Senora Ortegna's keeping that the child was?” asked Alessandro, breathing harder and faster each moment now; stupid old Juan Can so absorbed in relish of his gossip, that he noticed nothing.
“Ay, ay. So I said,” he went on; “and so it was. There be such saints, you know; though the Lord knows if she had been minded to give shelter to all her husband's bastards, she might have taken lease of a church to hold them. But there was a story about a man's coming with this infant and leaving it in the Senora's room; and she, poor lady, never having had a child of her own, did warm to it at first sight, and kept it with her to the last; and I wager me, a hard time she had to get our Senora to take the child when she died; except that it was to spite Ortegna, I think our Senora would as soon the child had been dead.”
“Has she not treated her kindly?” asked Alessandro, in a husky voice.
Juan Can's pride resented this question. “Do you suppose the Senora Moreno would do an unkindness to one under her roof?” he asked loftily. “The Senorita has been always, in all things, like Senor Felipe himself. It was so that she promised the Senora Ortegna, I have heard.”
“Does the Senorita know all this?” asked Alessandro.
Juan Can crossed himself. “Saints save us, no!” he exclaimed. “I'll not forget, to my longest day, what it cost me, once I spoke in her hearing, when she was yet small. I did not know she heard; but she went to the Senora, asking who was her mother. And she said I had said her mother was no good, which in faith I did, and no wonder. And the Senora came to me, and said she, 'Juan Canito, you have been a long time in our house; but if ever I hear of your mentioning aught concerning the Senorita Ramona, on this estate or anywhere else in the country, that day you leave my service!' --And you'd not do me the ill-turn to speak of it, Alessandro, now?” said the old man, anxiously. “My tongue runs away with me, lying here on this cursed bed, with nothing to do,--an active man like me.”
“No, I'll not speak of it, you may be assured,” said Alessandro, walking away slowly.
“Here! Here!” called Juan. “What about that plan you had for making a bed for Senor Felipe on the verandah Was it of raw-hide you meant?”
“Ah, I had forgotten,” said Alessandro, returning. “Yes, that was it. There is great virtue in a raw-hide, tight stretched; my father says that it is the only bed the Fathers would ever sleep on, in the Mission days. I myself like the ground even better; but my father sleeps always on the rawhide. He says it keeps him well. Do you think I might speak of it to the Senora?”
“Speak of it to Senor Felipe himself,” said Juan. “It will be as he says. He rules this place now, from beginning to end; and it is but yesterday I held him on my knee. It is soon that the old are pushed to the wall, Alessandro.”
“Nay, Juan Canito,” replied Alessandro, kindly. “It is not so. My father is many years older than you are, and he rules our people to-day as firmly as ever. I myself obey him, as if I were a lad still.”
“What else, then, but a lad do you call yourself, I wonder?” thought Juan; but he answered, “It is not so with us. The old are not held in such reverence.”
“That is not well,” replied Alessandro. “We have been taught differently. There is an old man in our village who is many, many years older than my father. He helped to carry the mortar at the building of the San Diego Mission, I do not know how many years ago. He is long past a hundred years of age. He is blind and childish, and cannot walk; but he is cared for by every one. And we bring him in our arms to every council, and set him by my father's side. He talks very foolishly sometimes, but my father will not let him be interrupted. He says it brings bad luck to affront the aged. We will presently be aged ourselves.”
“Ay, ay!” said Juan, sadly. “We must all come to it. It is beginning to look not so far off to me!”
Alessandro stared, no less astonished at Juan Can's unconscious revelation of his standard of measurement of years than Juan had been at his. “Faith, old man, what name dost give to yourself to-day!” he thought; but went on with the topic of the raw-hide bed. “I may not so soon get speech with Senor Felipe,” he said. “It is usually when he is sleepy that I go to play for him or to sing. But it makes my heart heavy to see him thus languishing day by day, and all for lack of the air and the sun, I do believe, indeed, Juan.”
“Ask the Senorita, then,” said Juan. “She has his ear at all times.”
Alessandro made no answer. Why was it that it did not please him,--this suggestion of speaking to Ramona of his plan for Felipe's welfare? He could not have told; but he did not wish to speak of it to her.
“I will speak to the Senora,” he said; and as luck would have it, at that moment the Senora stood in the doorway, come to ask after Juan Can's health.
The suggestion of the raw-hide bed struck her favorably. She herself had, in her youth, heard much of their virtues, and slept on them. “Yes,” she said, “they are good. We will try it. It was only yesterday that Senor Felipe was complaining of the bed he lies on; and when he was well, he thought nothing could be so good; he brought it here, at a great price, for me, but I could not lie on it. It seemed as if it would throw me off as soon as I lay down; it is a cheating device, like all these innovations the Americans have brought into the country. But Senor Felipe till now thought it a luxury; now he tosses on it, and says it is throwing him all the time.”
Alessandro smiled, in spite of his reverence for the Senora. “I once lay down on one myself, Senora,” he said, “and that was what I said to my father. It was like a wild horse under me, making himself ready to buck. I thought perhaps the invention was of the saints, that men should not sleep too long.”
“There is a pile of raw-hides,” said Juan, “well cured, but not too stiff; Juan Jose was to have sent them off to-day to be sold; one of those will be just right. It must not be too dry.”
“The fresher the better,” said Alessandro, “so it have no dampness. Shall I make the bed, Senora?” he asked, “and will the Senora permit that I make it on the veranda? I was just asking Juan Can if he thought I might be so bold as to ask you to let me bring Senor Felipe into the outer air. With us, it is thought death to be shut up in walls, as he has been so long. Not till we are sure to die, do we go into the dark like that.”
The Senora hesitated. She did not share Alessandro's prejudice in favor of fresh air.
“Night and day both?” she said. “Surely it is not well to sleep out in the night?”
“That is the best of all, Senora,” replied Alessandro, earnestly. “I beg the Senora to try it. If Senor Felipe have not mended greatly after the first night he had so slept, then Alessandro will be a liar.”
“No, only mistaken,” said the Senora, gently. She felt herself greatly drawn to this young man by his devotion, as she thought, of Felipe. “When I die and leave Felipe here,” she had more than once said to herself, “it would be a great good to him to have such a servant as this on the place.”
“Very well, Alessandro,” she replied; “make the bed, and we will try it at once.”
This was early in the forenoon. The sun was still high in the west, when Ramona, sitting as usual in the veranda, at her embroidery, saw Alessandro coming, followed by two men, bearing the raw-hide bed.
“What can that be?” she said. “Some new invention of Alessandro's, but for what?”
“A bed for the Senor Felipe, Senorita,” said Alessandro, running lightly up the steps. “The Senora has given permission to place it here on the veranda, and Senor Felipe is to lie here day and night; and it will be a marvel in your eyes how he will gain strength. It is the close room which is keeping him weak now; he has no illness.”
“I believe that is the truth, Alessandro,” exclaimed Ramona; “I have been thinking the same thing. My head aches after I am in that room but an hour, and when I come here I am well. But the nights too, Alessandro? Is it not harmful to sleep out in the night air?”
“Why, Senorita?” asked Alessandro, simply.
And Ramona had no answer, except, “I do not know; I have always heard so.”
“My people do not think so,” replied Alessandro; “unless it is cold, we like it better. It is good, Senorita, to look up at the sky in the night.”
“I should think it would be,” cried Ramona. “I never thought of it. I should like to do it.”
Alessandro was busy, with his face bent down, arranging the bedstead in a sheltered corner of the veranda. If his face had been lifted, Ramona would have seen a look on it that would have startled her more than the one she had surprised a few days previous, after the incident with Margarita. All day there had been coming and going in Alessandro's brain a confused procession of thoughts, vague yet intense. Put in words, they would have been found to be little more than ringing changes on this idea: “The Senorita Ramona has Indian blood in her veins. The Senorita Ramona is alone. The Senora loves her not. Indian blood! Indian blood!” These, or something like them, would have been the words; but Alessandro did not put them in words. He only worked away on the rough posts for Senor Felipe's bedstead, hammered, fitted, stretched the raw-hide and made it tight and firm, driving every nail, striking every blow, with a bounding sense of exultant strength, as if there were suddenly all around him a new heaven and a new earth.
Now, when he heard Ramona say suddenly in her girlish, eager tone, “It must be; I never thought of it; I should like to try it,” these vague confused thoughts of the day, and the day's bounding sense of exultant strength, combined in a quick vision before Alessandro's eyes,--a vision of starry skies overhead, Ramona and himself together, looking up to them. But when he raised his head, all he said was, “There, Senorita! That is all firm, now. If Senor Felipe will let me lay him an this bed, he will sleep as he has not slept since he fell ill.”
Ramona ran eagerly into Felipe's room, “The bed is all ready on the veranda,” she exclaimed. “Shall Alessandro come in and carry you out?”
Felipe looked up, startled. The Senora turned on Ramona that expression of gentle, resigned displeasure, which always hurt the girl's sensitive nature far worse than anger. “I had not spoken to Felipe yet of the change, Ramona,” she said. “I supposed that Alessandro would have informed me when the bed was ready; I am sorry you came in so suddenly. Felipe is still very weak, you see.”
“What is it? What is it?” exclaimed Felipe, impatiently.
As soon as it was explained to him, he was like a child in his haste to be moved.
“That's just what I needed!” he exclaimed. “This cursed bed racks every bone in my body, and I have longed for the sun more than ever a thirsty man longed for water. Bless you, Alessandro,” he went on, seeing Alessandro in the doorway. “Come here, and take me up in those long arms of yours, and carry me quick. Already I feel myself better.”
Alessandro lifted him as if he were a baby; indeed, it was but a light burden now, Felipe's wasted body, for a man much less strong than Alessandro to lift.
Ramona, chilled and hurt, ran in advance, carrying pillows and blankets. As she began to arrange them on the couch, the Senora took them from her hands, saying, “I will arrange them myself;” and waved Ramona away.
It was a little thing. Ramona was well used to such. Ordinarily it would have given her no pain she could not conceal. But the girl's nerves were not now in equilibrium. She had had hard work to keep back her tears at the first rebuff. This second was too much. She turned, and walked swiftly away, the tears rolling down her cheeks.
Alessandro saw it; Felipe saw it.
To Felipe the sight was, though painful, not a surprise. He knew but too well how often his mother hurt Ramona. All he thought now, in his weakness, was, “Alas! what a pity my mother does not love Ramona!”
To Alessandro the sight was the one drop too much in the cup. As he stooped to lay Felipe on the bed, he trembled so that Felipe looked up, half afraid.
“Am I still so heavy, Alessandro?” he said smiling.
“It is not your weight, Senor Felipe,” answered Alessandro, off guard, still trembling, his eyes following Ramona.
Felipe saw. In the next second, the eyes of the two young men met. Alessandro's fell before Felipe's. Felipe gazed on, steadily, at Alessandro.
“Ah!” he said; and as he said it, he closed his eyes, and let his head sink back into the pillow.
“Is that comfortable? Is that right?” asked the Senora, who had seen nothing.
“The first comfortable moment I have had, mother,” said Felipe. “Stay, Alessandro, I want to speak to you as soon as I am rested. This move has shaken me up a good deal. Wait.”
“Yes, Senor,” replied Alessandro, and seated himself on the veranda steps.
“If you are to stay, Alessandro,” said the Senora, “I will go and look after some matters that need my attention. I feel always at ease about Senor Felipe when you are with him. You will stay till I come back?”
“Yes, Senora,” said Alessandro, in a tone cold as the Senora's own had been to Ramona. He was no longer in heart the Senora Moreno's servant. In fact, he was at that very moment revolving confusedly in his mind whether there could be any possibility of his getting away before the expiration of the time for which he had agreed to stay.
It was a long time before Felipe opened his eyes. Alessandro thought he was asleep.
At last Felipe spoke. He had been watching Alessandro's face for some minutes. “Alessandro,” he said.
Alessandro sprang to his feet, and walked swiftly to the bedside. He did not know what the next word might be. He felt that the Senor Felipe had seen straight into his heart in that one moment's look, and Alessandro was preparing for anything.
“Alessandro,” said Felipe, “my mother has been speaking to me about your remaining with us permanently. Juan Can is now very old, and after this accident will go on crutches the rest of his days, poor soul! We are in great need of some man who understands sheep, and the care of the place generally.”
As he spoke, he watched Alessandro's face closely. Swift changing expressions passed over it. Surprise predominated. Felipe misunderstood the surprise. “I knew you would be surprised,” he said. “I told my mother that you would not think of it; that you had stayed now only because we were in trouble.”
Alessandro bowed his head gratefully. This recognition from Felipe gave him pleasure.
“Yes, Senor,” he said, “that was it. I told Father Salvierderra it was not for the wages. But my father and I have need of all the money we can earn. Our people are very poor, Senor. I do not know whether my father would think I ought to take the place you offer me, or not, Senor. It would be as he said. I will ask him.”
“Then you would be willing to take it?” asked Felipe.
“Yes, Senor, if my father wished me to take it,” replied Alessandro, looking steadily and gravely at Felipe; adding, after a second's pause, “if you are sure that you desire it, Senor Felipe, it would be a pleasure to me to be of help to you.”
And yet it was only a few moments ago that Alessandro had been turning over in his mind the possibility of leaving the Senora Moreno's service immediately. This change had not been a caprice, not been an impulse of passionate desire to remain near Ramona; it had come from a sudden consciousness that the Senor Felipe would be his friend. And Alessandro was not mistaken.
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
9
|
None
|
WHEN the Senora came back to the veranda, she found Felipe asleep, Alessandro standing at the foot of the bed, with his arms crossed on his breast, watching him. As the Senora drew near, Alessandro felt again the same sense of dawning hatred which had seized him at her harsh speech to Ramona. He lowered his eyes, and waited to be dismissed.
“You can go now, Alessandro,” said the Senora. “I will sit here. You are quite sure that it will be safe for Senor Felipe to sleep here all night?”
“It will cure him before many nights,” replied Alessandro, still without raising his eyes, and turning to go.
“Stay,” said the Senora. Alessandro paused. “It will not do for him to be alone here in the night, Alessandro.”
Alessandro had thought of this, and had remembered that if he lay on the veranda floor by Senor Felipe's side, he would also lie under the Senorita's window.
“No, Senora,” he replied. “I will lie here by his side. That was what I had thought, if the Senora is willing.”
“Thank you, Alessandro,” said the Senora, in a tone which would have surprised poor Ramona, still sitting alone in her room, with sad eyes. She did not know the Senora could speak thus sweetly to any one but Felipe. “Thank you! You are kind. I will have a bed made for you.”
“Oh, no.” cried Alessandro; “if the Senora will excuse me, I could not lie on a bed. A raw-hide like Senor Felipe's, and my blanket, are all I want. I could not lie on any bed.”
“To be sure,” thought the Senora; “what was I thinking of! How the boy makes one forget he is an Indian! But the floor is harder than the ground, Alessandro,” she said kindly.
“No, Senora,” he said, “it is all one; and to-night I will not sleep. I will watch Senor Felipe, in case there should be a wind, or he should wake and need something.”
“I will watch him myself till midnight,” said the Senora. “I should feel easier to see how he sleeps at first.”
It was the balmiest of summer nights, and as still as if no living thing were on the earth. There was a full moon, which shone on the garden, and on the white front of the little chapel among the trees. Ramona, from her window, saw Alessandro pacing up and down the walk. She had seen him spread down the raw-hide by Felipe's bed, and had seen the Senora take her place in one of the big carved chairs. She wondered if they were both going to watch; she wondered why the Senora would never let her sit up and watch with Felipe.
“I am not of any use to anybody,” she thought sadly. She dared not go out and ask any questions about the arrangements for the night. At supper the Senora had spoken to her only in the same cold and distant manner which always made her dumb and afraid. She had not once seen Felipe alone during the day. Margarita, who, in the former times,--ah, how far away those former times looked now! --had been a greater comfort to Ramona than she realized,--Margarita now was sulky and silent, never came into Ramona's presence if she could help it, and looked at her sometimes with an expression which made Ramona tremble, and say to herself, “She hates me; She has always hated me since that morning.”
It had been a long, sad day to Ramona; and as she sat in her window leaning her head against the sash, and looked at Alessandro pacing up and down, she felt for the first time, and did not shrink from it nor in any wise disavow or disguise it to herself, that she was glad he loved her. More than this she did not think; beyond this she did not go. Her mind was not like Margarita's, full of fancies bred of freedom in intercourse with men. But distinctly, tenderly glad that Alessandro loved her, and distinctly, tenderly aware how well he loved her, she was, as she sat at her window this night, looking out into the moonlit garden; after she had gone to bed, she could still hear his slow, regular steps on the garden-walk, and the last thought she had, as she fell asleep, was that she was glad Alessandro loved her.
The moon had been long set, and the garden, chapel-front, trees, vines, were all wrapped in impenetrable darkness, when Ramona awoke, sat up in her bed, and listened. All was so still that the sound of Felipe's low, regular breathing came in through her open window. After hearkening to it for a few moments, she rose noiselessly from her bed, and creeping to the window parted the curtains and looked out; noiselessly, she thought; but it was not noiselessly enough to escape Alessandro's quick ear; without a sound, he sprang to his feet, and stood looking at Ramona's window.
“I am here, Senorita,” he whispered. “Do you want anything?”
“Has he slept all night like this?” she whispered back.
“Yes, Senorita. He has not once moved.”
“How good!” said Ramona. “How good!”
Then she stood still; she wanted to speak again to Alessandro, to hear him speak again, but she could think of no more to say. Because she could not, she gave a little sigh.
Alessandro took one swift step towards the window. “May the saints bless you, Senorita,” he whispered fervently.
“Thank you, Alessandro,” murmured Ramona, and glided back to her bed, but not to sleep. It lacked not much of dawn; as the first faint light filtered through the darkness, Ramona heard the Senora's window open.
“Surely she will not strike up the hymn and wake Felipe,” thought Ramona; and she sprang again to the window to listen. A few low words between the Senora and Alessandro, and then the Senora's window closed again, and all was still.
“I thought she would not have the heart to wake him,” said Ramona to herself. “The Virgin would have had no pleasure in our song, I am sure; but I will say a prayer to her instead;” and she sank on her knees at the head of her bed, and began saying a whispered prayer. The footfall of a spider in Ramona's room had not been light enough to escape the ear of that watching lover outside. Again Alessandro's tall figure arose from the floor, turning towards Ramona's window; and now the darkness was so far softened to dusk, that the outline of his form could be seen. Ramona felt it rather than saw it, and stopped praying. Alessandro was sure he had heard her voice.
“Did the Senorita speak?” he whispered, his face close at the curtain. Ramona, startled, dropped her rosary, which rattled as it fell on the wooden floor.
“No, no, Alessandro,” she said, “I did not speak.” And she trembled, she knew not why. The sound of the beads on the floor explained to Alessandro what had been the whispered words he heard.
“She was at her prayers,” he thought, ashamed and sorry. “Forgive me,” he whispered, “I thought you called;” and he stepped back to the outer edge of the veranda, and seated himself on the railing. He would lie down no more. Ramona remained on her knees, gazing at the window. Through the transparent muslin curtain the dawning light came slowly, steadily, till at last she could see Alessandro distinctly. Forgetful of all else, she knelt gazing at him. The rosary lay on the floor, forgotten. Ramona would not finish that prayer, that day. But her heart was full of thanksgiving and gratitude, and the Madonna had a better prayer than any in the book.
The sun was up, and the canaries, finches, and linnets had made the veranda ring with joyous racket, before Felipe opened his eyes. The Senora had come and gone and come again, looking at him anxiously, but he stirred not. Ramona had stolen timidly out, glancing at Alessandro only long enough to give him one quick smile, and bent over Felipe's bed, holding her breath, he lay so still.
“Ought he to sleep so long?” she whispered.
“Till the noon, it may be,” answered Alessandro; “and when he wakes, you will see by his eye that he is another man.”
It was indeed so. When Felipe first looked about him, he laughed outright with pure pleasure. Then catching sight of Alessandro at the steps, he called, in a stronger voice than had yet been heard from him, “Alessandro, you are a famous physician. Why couldn't that fool from Ventura have known as much? With all his learning, he had had me in the next world before many days, except for you. Now, Alessandro, breakfast! I'm hungry. I had forgotten what the thought of food was like to a hungry stomach. And plenty! plenty!” he called, as Alessandro ran toward the kitchen. “Bring all they have.”
When the Senora saw Felipe bolstered up in the bed, his eye bright, his color good, his voice clear, eating heartily like his old self, she stood like a statue in the middle of the veranda for a moment; then turning to Alessandro, she said chokingly, “May Heaven reward you!” and disappeared abruptly in her own room. When she came out, her eyes were red. All day she moved and spoke with a softness unwonted, indeed inconceivable. She even spoke kindly and without constraint to Ramona. She felt like one brought back from the dead.
After this, a new sort of life began for them all. Felipe's bed on the veranda was the rallying point for everything and everybody. . The servants came to look up at him, and wish him well, from the garden-walk below. Juan Can, when he first hobbled out on the stout crutches Alessandro had made him of manzanita wood, dragged himself all the way round the house, to have a look at Senor Felipe and a word with him. The Senora sat there, in the big carved chair, looking like a sibyl with her black silk banded head-dress severely straight across her brow, and her large dark eyes gazing out, past Felipe, into the far south sky. Ramona lived there too, with her embroidery or her book, sitting on cushions on the floor in a corner, or at the foot of Felipe's bed, always so placed, however,--if anybody had noticed, but nobody did,--so placed that she could look at Felipe without looking full at the Senora's chair, even if the Senora were not in it.
Here also came Alessandro many times a day,--sometimes sent for, sometimes of his own accord. He was freely welcome. When he played or sang he sat on the upper step of the stairs leading down to the garden. He also had a secret, which he thought all his own, in regard to the positions he chose. He sat always, when Ramona was there, in the spot which best commanded a view of her face. The secret was not all his own. Felipe knew it. Nothing was escaping Felipe in these days. A bomb-shell exploding at their feet would not have more astonished the different members of this circle, the Senora, Ramona, Alessandro, than it would to have been made suddenly aware of the thoughts which were going on in Felipe's mind now, from day to day, as he lay there placidly looking at them all.
It is probable that if Felipe had been in full health and strength when the revelation suddenly came to him that Alessandro loved Ramona, and that Ramona might love Alessandro, he would have been instantly filled with jealous antagonism. But at the time when this revelation came, he was prostrate, feeble, thinking many times a day that he must soon die; it did not seem to Felipe that a man could be so weak as he was, and ever again be strong and well. Side by side with these forebodings of his own death, always came the thought of Ramona. What would become of her, if he were gone? Only too well he knew that the girl's heart would be broken; that she could not live on alone with his mother. Felipe adored his mother; but he understood her feeling about Ramona.
With his feebleness had also come to Felipe, as is often the case in long illnesses, a greater clearness of perception. Ramona had ceased to puzzle him. He no longer asked himself what her long, steady look into his eyes meant. He knew. He saw it mean that as a sister she loved him, had always loved him, and could love him in no other way. He wondered a little at himself that this gave him no more pain; only a sort of sweet, mournful tenderness towards her. It must be because he was so soon going out of the world, he thought. Presently he began to be aware that a new quality was coming into his love for her. He himself was returning to the brother love which he had had for her when they were children together, and in which he had felt no change until he became a man and Ramona a woman. It was strange what a peace fell upon Felipe when this was finally clear and settled in his mind. No doubt he had had more misgiving and fear about his mother in the matter than he had ever admitted to himself; perhaps also the consciousness of Ramona's unfortunate birth had rankled at times; but all this was past now. Ramona was his sister. He was her brother. What course should he pursue in the crisis which he saw drawing near? How could he best help Ramona? What would be best for both her and Alessandro? Long before the thought of any possible union between himself and Ramona had entered into Alessandro's mind, still longer before it had entered into Ramona's to think of Alessandro as a husband, Felipe had spent hours in forecasting, plotting, and planning for them. For the first time in his life he felt himself in the dark as to his mother's probable action. That any concern as to Ramona's personal happiness or welfare would influence her, he knew better than to think for a moment. So far as that was concerned, Ramona might wander out the next hour, wife of a homeless beggar, and his mother would feel no regret. But Ramona had been the adopted daughter of the Senora Ortegna, bore the Ortegna name, and had lived as foster-child in the house of the Morenos. Would the Senora permit such a one to marry an Indian?
Felipe doubted. The longer he thought, the more he doubted. The more he watched, the more he saw that the question might soon have to be decided. Any hour might precipitate it. He made plan after plan for forestalling trouble, for preparing his mother; but Felipe was by nature indolent, and now he was, in addition, feeble. Day after day slipped by. It was exceedingly pleasant on the veranda. Ramona was usually with him; his mother was gentler, less sad, than he had ever seen her. Alessandro was always at hand, ready for any service,--in the field, in the house,--his music a delight, his strength and fidelity a repose, his personal presence always agreeable. “If only my mother could think it,” reflected Felipe, “it would be the best thing, all round, to have Alessandro stay here as overseer of the place, and then they might be married. Perhaps before the summer is over she will come to see it so.”
And the delicious, languid, semi-tropic summer came hovering over the valley. The apricots turned golden, the peaches glowed, the grapes filled and hardened, like opaque emeralds hung thick under the canopied vines. The garden was a shade brown, and the roses had all fallen; but there were lilies, and orange-blossoms, and poppies, and carnations, and geraniums in the pots, and musk,--oh, yes, ever and always musk. It was like an enchanter's spell, the knack the Senora had of forever keeping relays of musk to bloom all the year; and it was still more like an enchanter's spell, that Felipe would never confess that he hated it.' But the bees liked it, and the humming-birds,--the butterflies also; and the air was full of them. The veranda was a quieter place now as the season's noon grew near. The linnets were all nesting, and the finches and the canaries too; and the Senora spent hours, every day, tirelessly feeding the mothers. The vines had all grown and spread out to their thickest; no need any longer of the gay blanket Alessandro had pinned up that first morning to keep the sun off Felipe's head.
What was the odds between a to-day and a to-morrow in such a spot as this? “To-morrow,” said Felipe, “I will speak to my mother,” and “to-morrow,” and “to-morrow;” but he did not.
There was one close observer of these pleasant veranda days that Felipe knew nothing about. That was Margarita. As the girl came and went about her household tasks, she was always on the watch for Alessandro, on the watch for Ramona. She was biding her time. Just what shape her revenge was going to take, she did not know. It was no use plotting. It must be as it fell out; but that the hour and the way for her revenge would come she never doubted.
When she saw the group on the veranda, as she often did, all listening to Alessandro's violin, or to his singing, Alessandro himself now at his ease and free in the circle, as if he had been there always, her anger was almost beyond bounds.
“Oh, ho! like a member of the family; quite so!” she sneered. “It is new times when a head shepherd spends his time with the ladies of the house, and sits in their presence like a guest who is invited! We shall see; we shall see what comes of all this!” And she knew not which she hated the more of the two, Alessandro or Ramona.
Since the day of the scene at the artichoke-field she had never spoken to Alessandro, and had avoided, so far as was possible, seeing him. At first Alessandro was sorry for this, and tried to be friendly with her. As soon as he felt assured that the incident had not hurt him at all in the esteem of Ramona, he began to be sorry for Margarita. “A man should not be rude to any maiden,” he thought; and he hated to remember how he had pushed Margarita from him, and snatched his hand away, when he had in the outset made no objection to her taking it. But Margarita's resentment was not to be appeased. She understood only too clearly how little Alessandro's gentle advances meant, and she would none of them. “Let him go to his Senorita,” she said bitterly, mocking the reverential tone in which she had overheard him pronounce the word. “She is fond enough of him, if only the fool had eyes to see it. She'll be ready to throw herself at his head before long, if this kind of thing keeps up. 'It is not well to speak thus freely of young men, Margarita!' Ha, ha! Little I thought that day which way the wind set in my mistress's temper! I'll wager she reproves me no more, under this roof or any other! Curse her! What did she want of Alessandro, except to turn his head, and then bid him go his way!”
To do Margarita justice, she never once dreamed of the possibility of Ramona's wedding Alessandro. A clandestine affair, an intrigue of more or less intensity, such as she herself might have carried on with any one of the shepherds,--this was the utmost stretch of Margarita's angry imaginations in regard to her young mistress's liking for Alessandro. There was not, in her way of looking at things, any impossibility of such a thing as that. But marriage! It might be questioned whether that idea would have been any more startling to the Senora herself than to Margarita.
Little had passed between Alessandro and Ramona which Margarita did not know. The girl was always like a sprite,--here, there, everywhere, in an hour, and with eyes which, as her mother often told her, saw on all sides of her head. Now, fired by her new purpose, new passion, she moved swifter than ever, and saw and heard even more, There were few hours of any day when she did not know to a certainty where both Alessandro and Ramona were; and there had been few meetings between them which she had not either seen or surmised.
In the simple life of such a household as the Senora's, it was not strange that this was possible; nevertheless, it argued and involved untiring vigilance on Margarita's part. Even Felipe, who thought himself, from his vantage-post of observation on the veranda, and from his familiar relation with Ramona, well informed of most that happened, would have been astonished to hear all that Margarita could have told him. In the first days Ramona herself had guilelessly told him much,--had told him how Alessandro, seeing her trying to sprinkle and bathe and keep alive the green ferns with which she had decorated the chapel for Father Salvierderra's coming, had said: “Oh, Senorita, they are dead! Do not take trouble with them! I will bring you fresh ones;” and the next morning she had found, lying at the chapel door, a pile of such ferns as she had never before seen; tall ones, like ostrich-plumes, six and eight feet high; the feathery maidenhair, and the gold fern, and the silver, twice as large as she ever had found them. The chapel was beautiful, like a conservatory, after she had arranged them in vases and around the high candlesticks.
It was Alessandro, too, who had picked up in the artichoke-patch all of the last year's seed-vessels which had not been trampled down by the cattle, and bringing one to her, had asked shyly if she did not think it prettier than flowers made out of paper. His people, he said, made wreaths of them. And so they were, more beautiful than any paper flowers which ever were made,--great soft round disks of fine straight threads like silk, with a kind of saint's halo around them of sharp, stiff points, glossy as satin, and of a lovely creamy color. It was the strangest thing in the world nobody had ever noticed them as they lay there on the ground. She had put a great wreath of them around Saint Joseph's head, and a bunch in the Madonna's hand; and when the Senora saw them, she exclaimed in admiration, and thought they must have been made of silk and satin.
And Alessandro had brought her beautiful baskets, made by the Indian women at Pala, and one which had come from the North, from the Tulare country; it had gay feathers woven in with the reeds,--red and yellow, in alternate rows, round and round. It was like a basket made out of a bright-colored bird.
And a beautiful stone bowl Alessandro had brought her, glossy black, that came all the way from Catalina Island; a friend of Alessandro's got it. For the first few weeks it had seemed as if hardly a day passed that there was not some new token to be chronicled of Alessandro's thoughtfulness and good-will. Often, too, Ramona had much to tell that Alessandro had said,--tales of the old Mission days that he had heard from his father; stories of saints, and of the early Fathers, who were more like saints than like men, Alessandro said,--Father Junipero, who founded the first Missions, and Father Crespi, his friend. Alessandro's grandfather had journeyed with Father Crespi as his servant, and many a miracle he had with his own eyes seen Father Crespi perform. There was a cup out of which the Father always took his chocolate for breakfast,--a beautiful cup, which was carried in a box, the only luxury the Father had; and one morning it was broken, and everybody was in terror and despair. “Never mind, never mind,” said the Father; “I will make it whole;” and taking the two pieces in his hands, he held them tight together, and prayed over them, and they became one solid piece again, and it was used all through the journey, just as before.
But now, Ramona never spoke voluntarily of Alessandro. To Felipe's sometimes artfully put questions or allusions to him, she made brief replies, and never continued the topic; and Felipe had observed another thing: she now rarely looked at Alessandro. When he was speaking to others she kept her eyes on the ground. If he addressed her, she looked quickly up at him, but lowered her eyes after the first glance. Alessandro also observed this, and was glad of it. He understood it. He knew how differently she could look in his face in the rare moments when they were alone together. He fondly thought he alone knew this; but he was mistaken. Margarita knew. She had more than once seen it.
It had happened more than once that he had found Ramona at the willows by the brook, and had talked with her there. The first time it happened, it was a chance; after that never a chance again, for Alessandro went often seeking the spot, hoping to find her. In Ramona's mind too, not avowed, but half consciously, there was, if not the hope of seeing him there, at least the memory that it was there they had met. It was a pleasant spot,--cool and shady even at noon, and the running water always full of music. Ramona often knelt there of a morning, washing out a bit of lace or a handkerchief; and when Alessandro saw her, it went hard with him to stay away. At such moments the vision returned to him vividly of that first night when, for the first second, seeing her face in the sunset glow, he had thought her scarce mortal. It was not that he even now thought her less a saint; but ah, how well he knew her to be human! He had gone alone in the dark to this spot many a time, and, lying on the grass, put his hands into the running water, and played with it dreamily, thinking, in his poetic Indian fashion, thoughts like these: “Whither have gone the drops that passed beneath her hands, just here? These drops will never find those in the sea; but I love this water!”
Margarita had seen him thus lying, and without dreaming of the refined sentiment which prompted his action, had yet groped blindly towards it, thinking to herself: “He hopes his Senorita will come down to him there. A nice place it is for a lady to meet her lover, at the washing-stones! It will take swifter water than any in that brook, Senorita Ramona, to wash you white in the Senora's eyes, if ever she come upon you there with the head shepherd, making free with him, may be! Oh, but if that could only happen, I'd die content!” And the more Margarita watched, the more she thought it not unlikely that it might turn out so. It was oftener at the willows than anywhere else that Ramona and Alessandro met; and, as Margarita noticed with malicious satisfaction, they talked each time longer, each time parted more lingeringly. Several times it had happened to be near supper-time; and Margarita, with one eye on the garden-walk, had hovered restlessly near the Senora, hoping to be ordered to call the Senorita to supper.
“If but I could come on them of a sudden, and say to her as she did to me, 'You are wanted in the house'! Oh, but it would do my soul good! I'd say it so it would sting like a lash laid on both their faces! It will come! It will come! It will be there that she'll be caught one of these fine times she's having! I'll wait! It will come!”
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
10
|
None
|
IT came. And when it came, it fell out worse for Ramona than Margarita's most malicious hopes had pictured; but Margarita had no hand in it. It was the Senora herself.
Since Felipe had so far gained as to be able to be dressed, sit in his chair on the veranda, and walk about the house and garden a little, the Senora, at ease in her mind about him, had resumed her old habit of long, lonely walks on the place. It had been well said by her servants, that there was not a blade of grass on the estate that the Senora had not seen. She knew every inch of her land. She had a special purpose in walking over it now. She was carefully examining to see whether she could afford to sell to the Ortegas a piece of pasture-land which they greatly desired to buy, as it joined a pasturage tract of theirs. This bit of land lay farther from the house than the Senora realized, and it had taken more time than she thought it would, to go over it; and it was already sunset on this eventful day, when, hurrying home, she turned off from the highway into the same shortcut path in which Father Salvierderra had met Ramona in the spring. There was no difficulty now in getting through the mustard tangle. It was parched and dry, and had been trampled by cattle. The Senora walked rapidly, but it was dusky twilight when she reached the willows; so dusky that she saw nothing--and she stepped so lightly on the smooth brown path that she made no sound--until suddenly, face to face with a man and a woman standing locked in each other's arms, she halted, stepped back a pace, gave a cry of surprise, and, in the same second, recognized the faces of the two, who, stricken dumb, stood apart, each gazing into her face with terror.
Strangely enough, it was Ramona who spoke first. Terror for herself had stricken her dumb; terror for Alessandro gave her a voice.
“Senora,” she began.
“Silence! Shameful creature!” cried the Senora. “Do not dare to speak! Go to your room!”
Ramona did not move.
“As for you,” the Senora continued, turning to Alessandro, “you,”--she was about to say, “You are discharged from my service from this hour,” but recollecting herself in time, said,--“you will answer to Senor Felipe. Out of my sight!” And the Senora Moreno actually, for once in her life beside herself with rage, stamped her foot on the ground. “Out of my sight!” she repeated.
Alessandro did not stir, except to turn towards Ramona with an inquiring look. He would run no risk of doing what she did not wish. He had no idea what she would think it best to do in this terrible dilemma.
“Go, Alessandro,” said Ramona, calmly, still looking the Senora full in the eye. Alessandro obeyed; before the words had left her lips, he had walked away.
Ramona's composure, and Alessandro's waiting for further orders than her own before stirring from the spot, were too much for Senora Moreno. A wrath, such as she had not felt since she was young, took possession of her. As Ramona opened her lips again, saying, “Senora,” the Senora did a shameful deed; she struck the girl on the mouth, a cruel blow.
“Speak not to me!” she cried again; and seizing her by the arm, she pushed rather than dragged her up the garden-walk.
“Senora, you hurt my arm,” said Ramona, still in the same calm voice. “You need not hold me. I will go with you. I am not afraid.”
Was this Ramona? The Senora, already ashamed, let go the arm, and stared in the girl's face. Even in the twilight she could see upon it an expression of transcendent peace, and a resolve of which no one would have thought it capable. “What does this mean?” thought the Senora, still weak, and trembling all over, from rage. “The hussy, the hypocrite!” and she seized the arm again.
This time Ramona did not remonstrate, but submitted to being led like a prisoner, pushed into her own room, the door slammed violently and locked on the outside.
All of which Margarita saw. She had known for an hour that Ramona and Alessandro were at the willows, and she had been consumed with impatience at the Senora's prolonged absence. More than once she had gone to Felipe, and asked with assumed interest if he were not hungry, and if he and the Senorita would not have their supper.
“No, no, not till the Senora returns,” Felipe had answered. He, too, happened this time to know where Ramona and Alessandro were. He knew also where the Senora had gone, and that she would be late home; but he did not know that there would be any chance of her returning by way of the willows at the brook; if he had known it, he would have contrived to summon Ramona.
When Margarita saw Ramona shoved into her room by the pale and trembling Senora, saw the key turned, taken out, and dropped into the Senora's pocket, she threw her apron over her head, and ran into the back porch. Almost a remorse seized her. She remembered in a flash how often Ramona had helped her in times gone by,--sheltered her from the Senora's displeasure. She recollected the torn altar-cloth. “Holy Virgin! what will be done to her now?” she exclaimed, under her breath. Margarita had never conceived of such an extremity as this. Disgrace, and a sharp reprimand, and a sundering of all relations with Alessandro,--this was all Margarita had meant to draw down on Ramona's head. But the Senora looked as if she might kill her.
“She always did hate her, in her heart,” reflected Margarita; “she shan't starve her to death, anyhow. I'll never stand by and see that. But it must have been something shameful the Senora saw, to have brought her to such a pass as this;” and Margarita's jealousy again got the better of her sympathy. “Good enough for her. No more than she deserved. An honest fellow like Alessandro, that would make a good husband for any girl!” Margarita's short-lived remorse was over. She was an enemy again.
It was an odd thing, how identical were Margarita's and the Senora's view and interpretation of the situation. The Senora looking at it from above, and Margarita looking at it from below, each was sure, and they were both equally sure, that it could be nothing more nor less than a disgraceful intrigue. Mistress and maid were alike incapable either of conjecturing or of believing the truth.
As ill luck would have it,--or was it good luck? --Felipe also had witnessed the scene in the garden-walk. Hearing voices, he had looked out of his window, and, almost doubting the evidence of his senses, had seen his mother violently dragging Ramona by the arm,--Ramona pale, but strangely placid; his mother with rage and fury in her white face. The sight told its own tale to Felipe. Smiting his forehead with his hand, he groaned out: “Fool that I was, to let her be surprised; she has come on them unawares; now she will never, never forgive it!” And Felipe threw himself on his bed, to think what should be done. Presently he heard his mother's voice, still agitated, calling his name. He remained silent, sure she would soon seek him in his room. When she entered, and, seeing him on the bed, came swiftly towards him, saying, “Felipe, dear, are you ill?” he replied in a feeble voice, “No, mother, only tired a little to-night;” and as she bent over him, anxious, alarmed, he threw his arms around her neck and kissed her warmly. “Mother mia!” he said passionately, “what should I do without you?” The caress, the loving words, acted like oil on the troubled waters. They restored the Senora as nothing else could. What mattered anything, so long as she had her adoring and adorable son! And she would not speak to him, now that he was so tired, of this disgraceful and vexing matter of Alessandro. It could wait till morning. She would send him his supper in his room, and he would not miss Ramona, perhaps.
“I will send your supper here, Felipe,” she said; “you must not overdo; you have been walking too much. Lie still.” And kissing him affectionately, she went to the dining-room, where Margarita, vainly trying to look as if nothing had happened, was standing, ready to serve supper. When the Senora entered, with her countenance composed, and in her ordinary tones said, “Margarita, you can take Senor Felipe's supper into his room; he is lying down, and will not get up; he is tired,” Margarita was ready to doubt if she had not been in a nightmare dream. Had she, or had she not, within the last half-hour, seen the Senora, shaking and speechless with rage, push the Senorita Ramona into her room, and lock her up there? She was so bewildered that she stood still and gazed at the Senora, with her mouth wide open.
“What are you staring at, girl?” asked the Senora, so sharply that Margarita jumped.
“Oh, nothing, nothing, Senora! And the Senorita, will she come to supper? Shall I call her?” she said.
The Senora eyed her. Had she seen? Could she have seen? The Senora Moreno was herself again. So long as Ramona was under her roof, no matter what she herself might do or say to the girl, no servant should treat her with disrespect, or know that aught was wrong.
“The Senorita is not well,” she said coldly. “She is in her room. I myself will take her some supper later, if she wishes it. Do not disturb her.” And the Senora returned to Felipe.
Margarita chuckled inwardly, and proceeded to clear the table she had spread with such malicious punctuality two short hours before. In those two short hours how much had happened!
“Small appetite for supper will our Senorita have, I reckon,” said the bitter Margarita, “and the Senor Alessandro also! I'm curious to see how he will carry himself.”
But her curiosity was not gratified. Alessandro came not to the kitchen. The last of the herdsmen had eaten and gone; it was past nine o'clock, and no Alessandro. Slyly Margarita ran out and searched in some of the places where she knew he was in the habit of going; but Alessandro was not to be found. Once she brushed so near his hiding-place that he thought he was discovered, and was on the point of speaking, but luckily held his peace, and she passed on. Alessandro was hid behind the geranium clump at the chapel door; sitting on the ground, with his knees drawn up to his chin, watching Ramona's window. He intended to stay there all night. He felt that he might be needed: if Ramona wanted him, she would either open her window and call, or would come out and go down through the garden-walk to the willows. In either case, he would see her from the hiding-place he had chosen. He was racked by his emotions; mad with joy one minute, sick at heart with misgiving the next. Ramona loved him. She had told him so. She had said she would go away with him and be his wife. The words had but just passed her lips, at that dreadful moment when the Senora appeared in their presence. As he lived the scene over again, he re-experienced the joy and the terror equally.
What was not that terrible Senora capable of doing? Why did she look at him and at Ramona with such loathing scorn? Since she knew that the Senorita was half Indian, why should she think it so dreadful a thing for her to marry an Indian man? It did not once enter into Alessandro's mind, that the Senora could have had any other thought, seeing them as she did, in each other's arms. And again what had he to give to Ramona? Could she live in a house such as he must live in,--live as the Temecula women lived? No! for her sake he must leave his people; must go to some town, must do--he knew not what--something to earn more money. Anguish seized him as he pictured to himself Ramona suffering deprivations. The more he thought of the future in this light, the more his joy faded and his fear grew. He had never had sufficient hope that she could be his, to look forward thus to the practical details of life; he had only gone on loving, and in a vague way dreaming and hoping; and now,--now, in a moment, all had been changed; in a moment he had spoken, and she had spoken, and such words once spoken, there was no going back; and he had put his arms around her, and felt her head on his shoulder, and kissed her! Yes, he, Alessandro, had kissed the Senorita Ramona, and she had been glad of it, and had kissed him on the lips, as no maiden kisses a man unless she will wed with him,--him, Alessandro! Oh, no wonder the man's brain whirled, as he sat there in the silent darkness, wondering, afraid, helpless; his love wrenched from him, in the very instant of their first kiss,--wrenched from him, and he himself ordered, by one who had the right to order him, to begone! What could an Indian do against a Moreno!
Would Felipe help him? Ay, there was Felipe! That Felipe was his friend, Alessandro knew with a knowledge as sure as the wild partridge's instinct for the shelter of her brood; but could Felipe move the Senora? Oh, that terrible Senora! What would become of them?
As in the instant of drowning, men are said to review in a second the whole course of their lives, so in this supreme moment of Alessandro's love there flashed through his mind vivid pictures of every word and act of Ramona's since he first knew her. He recollected the tone in which she had said, and the surprise with which he heard her say it, at the time of Felipe's fall, “You are Alessandro, are you not?” He heard again her soft-whispered prayers the first night Felipe slept on the veranda. He recalled her tender distress because the shearers had had no dinner; the evident terribleness to her of a person going one whole day without food. “O God! will she always have food each day if she comes with me?” he said. And at the bare thought he was ready to flee away from her forever. Then he recalled her look and her words only a few hours ago, when he first told her he loved her; and his heart took courage. She had said, “I know you love me, Alessandro, and I am glad of it,” and had lifted her eyes to his, with all the love that a woman's eyes can carry; and when he threw his arms around her, she had of her own accord come closer, and laid one hand on his shoulder, and turned her face to his. Ah, what else mattered! There was the whole world; if she loved him like this, nothing could make them wretched; his love would be enough for her,--and for him hers was an empire.
It was indeed true, though neither the Senora nor Margarita would have believed it, that this had been the first word of love ever spoken between Alessandro and Ramona, the first caress ever given, the first moment of unreserve. It had come about, as lovers' first words, first caresses, are so apt to do, unexpectedly, with no more premonition, at the instant, than there is of the instant of the opening of a flower. Alessandro had been speaking to Ramona of the conversation Felipe had held with him in regard to remaining on the place, and asked her if she knew of the plan.
“Yes,” she said; “I heard the Senora talking about it with Felipe, some days ago.”
“Was she against my staying?” asked Alessandro, quickly.
“I think not,” said Ramona, “but I am not sure. It is not easy to be sure what the Senora wishes, till afterward. It was Felipe that proposed it.”
This somewhat enigmatical statement as to the difficulty of knowing the Senora's wishes was like Greek to Alessandro's mind.
“I do not understand, Senorita,” he said. “What do you mean by 'afterward'?”
“I mean,” replied Ramona, “that the Senora never says she wishes anything; she says she leaves everything to Felipe to decide, or to Father Salvierderra. But I think it is always decided as she wishes to have it, after all. The Senora is wonderful, Alessandro; don't you think so?”
“She loves Senor Felipe very much,” was Alessandro's evasive reply.
“Oh, yes,” exclaimed Ramona. “You do not begin to know how much. She does not love any other human being. He takes it all. She hasn't any left. If he had died, she would have died too. That is the reason she likes you so much; she thinks you saved Felipe's life. I mean, that is one reason,” added Ramona, smiling, and looking up confidingly at Alessandro, who smiled back, not in vanity, but honest gratitude that the Senorita was pleased to intimate that he was not unworthy of the Senora's regard.
“I do not think she likes me,” he said. “I cannot tell why; but I do not think she likes any one in the world. She is not like any one I ever saw, Senorita.”
“No,” replied Ramona, thoughtfully. “She is not. I am, oh, so afraid of her, Alessandro! I have always been, ever since I was a little girl. I used to think she hated me; but now I think she does not care one way or the other, if I keep out of her way.”
While Ramona spoke these words, her eyes were fixed on the running water at her feet. If she had looked up, and seen the expression in Alessandro's eyes as he listened, the thing which was drawing near would have drawn near faster, would have arrived at that moment; but she did not look up. She went on, little dreaming how hard she was making it for Alessandro.
“Many's the time I've come down here, at night, to this brook, and looked at it, and wished it was a big river, so I could throw myself in, and be carried away out to the sea, dead. But it is a fearful sin, Father Salvierderra says, to take one's own life; and always the next morning, when the sun came out, and the birds sang, I've been glad enough I had not done it. Were you ever so unhappy as that, Alessandro?”
“No, Senorita, never,” replied Alessandro; “and it is thought a great disgrace, among us, to kill one's self. I think I could never do it. But, oh, Senorita, it is a grief to think of your being unhappy. Will you always be so? Must you always stay here?”
“Oh, but I am not always unhappy!” said Ramona, with her sunny little laugh. “Indeed, I am generally very happy. Father Salvierderra says that if one does no sin, one will be always happy, and that it is a sin not to rejoice every hour of the day in the sun and the sky and the work there is to do; and there is always plenty of that.” Then, her face clouding, she continued: “I suppose I shall always stay here. I have no other home; you know I was the Senora's sister's adopted child. She died when I was little, and the Senora kindly took me. Father Salvierderra says I must never forget to be grateful to her for all she has done for me, and I try not to.”
Alessandro eyed her closely. The whole story, as Juan Can had told it to him, of the girl's birth, was burning in his thoughts. How he longed to cry out, “O my loved one, they have made you homeless in your home. They despise you. The blood of my race is in your veins; come to me; come to me! be surrounded with love!” But he dared not. How could he dare?
Some strange spell seemed to have unloosed Ramona's tongue to-night. She had never before spoken to Alessandro of her own personal history or burdens; but she went on: “The worst thing is, Alessandro, that she will not tell me who my mother was; and I do not know if she is alive or not, or anything about her. Once I asked the Senora, but she forbade me ever to ask her again. She said she herself would tell me when it was proper for me to know. But she never has.”
How the secret trembled on Alessandro's lips now. Ramona had never seemed so near, so intimate, so trusting. What would happen if he were to tell her the truth? Would the sudden knowledge draw her closer to him, or repel her?
“Have you never asked her again?” he said.
Ramona looked up astonished. “No one ever disobeyed the Senora,” she said quickly.
“I would!” exclaimed Alessandro.
“You may think so,” said Ramona, “but you couldn't. When you tried, you would find you couldn't. I did ask Father Salvierderra once.”
“What did he say?” asked Alessandro, breathless.
“The same thing. He said I must not ask; I was not old enough. When the time came, I would be told,” answered Ramona, sadly. “I don't see what they can mean by the time's coming. What do you suppose they meant?”
“I do not know the ways of any people but my own, Senorita,” replied Alessandro. “Many things that your people do, and still more that these Americans do, are to me so strange, I know nothing what they mean. Perhaps they do not know who was your mother?”
“I am sure they do,” answered Ramona, in a low tone, as if the words were wrung from her. “But let us talk about something else, Alessandro; not about sad things, about pleasant things. Let us talk about your staying here.”
“Would it be truly a pleasure to the Senorita Ramona, if I stayed?” said Alessandro.
“You know it would,” answered Ramona, frankly, yet with a tremor in her voice, which Alessandro felt. “I do not see what we could any of us do without you. Felipe says he shall not let you go.”
Alessandro's face glowed. “It must be as my father says, Senorita,” he said. “A messenger came from him yesterday, and I sent him back with a letter telling him what the Senor Felipe had proposed to me, and asking him what I should do. My father is very old, Senorita, and I do not see how he can well spare me. I am his only child, and my mother died years ago. We live alone together in our house, and when I am away he is very lonely. But he would like to have me earn the wages, I know, and I hope he will think it best for me to stay. There are many things we want to do for the village; most of our people are poor, and can do little more than get what they need to eat day by day, and my father wishes to see them better off before he dies. Now that the Americans are coming in all around us, he is afraid and anxious all the time. He wants to get a big fence built around our land, so as to show where it is; but the people cannot take much time to work on the fence; they need all their time to work for themselves and their families. Indians have a hard time to live now, Senorita. Were you ever in Temecula?”
“No,” said Ramona. “Is it a large town?”
Alessandro sighed. “Dear Senorita, it is not a town; it is only a little village not more than twenty houses in all, and some of those are built only of tule. There is a chapel, and a graveyard. We built an adobe wall around the graveyard last year. That my father said we would do, before we built the fence round the village.”
“How many people are there in the village?” asked Ramona.
“Nearly two hundred, when they are all there; but many of them are away most of the time. They must go where they can get work; they are hired by the farmers, or to do work on the great ditches, or to go as shepherds; and some of them take their wives and children with them. I do not believe the Senorita has ever seen any very poor people.”
“Oh, yes, I have, Alessandro, at Santa Barbara. There were many poor people there, and the Sisters used to give them food every week.”
“Indians?” said Alessandro.
Ramona colored. “Yes,” she said, “some of them were, but not like your men, Alessandro. They were very different; miserable looking; they could not read nor write, and they seemed to have no ambition.”
“That is the trouble,” said Alessandro, “with so many of them; it is with my father's people, too. They say, 'What is the use?' My father gets in despair with them, because they will not learn better. He gives them a great deal, but they do not seem to be any better off for it. There is only one other man in our village who can read and write, besides my father and me, Senorita; and yet my father is all the time begging them to come to his house and learn of him. But they say they have no time; and indeed there is much truth in that, Senorita. You see everybody has troubles, Senorita.”
Ramona had been listening with sorrowful face. All this was new to her. Until to-night, neither she nor Alessandro had spoken of private and personal matters.
“Ah, but these are real troubles,” she said. “I do not think mine were real troubles at all. I wish I could do something for your people, Alessandro. If the village were only near by, I could teach them, could I not? I could teach them to read. The Sisters always said, that to teach the ignorant and the poor was the noblest work one could do. I wish I could teach your people. Have you any relatives there besides your father? Is there any one in the village that you--love, Alessandro?”
Alessandro was too much absorbed in thoughts of his people, to observe the hesitating emphasis with which Ramona asked this question.
“Yes, Senorita, I love them all. They are like my brothers and sisters, all of my father's people,” he said; “and I am unhappy about them all the time.”
During the whole of this conversation Ramona had had an undercurrent of thought going on, which was making her uneasy. The more Alessandro said about his father and his people, the more she realized that he was held to Temecula by bonds that would be hard to break, the more she feared his father would not let him remain away from home for any length of time. At the thought of his going away, her very heart sickened. Taking a sudden step towards him, she said abruptly, “Alessandro, I am afraid your father will not give his consent to your staying here.”
“So am I, Senorita,” he replied sadly.
“And you would not stay if he did not approve of it, of course,” she said.
“How could I, Senorita?”
“No,” she said, “it would not be right;” but as she said these words, the tears filled her eyes.
Alessandro saw them. The world changed in that second. “Senorita! Senorita Ramona!” he cried, “tears have come in your eyes! O Senorita, then you will not be angry if I say that I love you!” and Alessandro trembled with the terror and delight of having said the words.
Hardly did he trust his palpitating senses to be telling him true the words that followed, quick, firm, though only in a whisper,--“I know that you love me, Alessandro, and I am glad of it!” Yes, this was what the Senorita Ramona was saying! And when he stammered, “But you, Senorita, you do not--you could not--” “Yes, Alessandro, I do--I love you!” in the same clear, firm whisper; and the next minute Alessandro's arms were around Ramona, and he had kissed her, sobbing rather than saying, “O Senorita, do you mean that you will go with me? that you are mine? Oh, no, beloved Senorita, you cannot mean that!” But he was kissing her. He knew she did mean it; and Ramona, whispering, “Yes, Alessandro, I do mean it; I will go with you,” clung to him with her hands, and kissed him, and repeated it, “I will go with you, I love you.” And then, just then, came the Senora's step, and her sharp cry of amazement, and there she stood, no more than an arm's-length away, looking at them with her indignant, terrible eyes.
What an hour this for Alessandro to be living over and over, as he crouched in the darkness, watching! But the bewilderment of his emotions did not dull his senses. As if stalking deer in a forest, he listened for sounds from the house. It seemed strangely still. As the darkness deepened, it seemed still stranger that no lamps were lit. Darkness in the Senora's room, in the Senorita's; a faint light in the dining-room, soon put out,--evidently no supper going on there. Only from under Felipe's door streamed a faint radiance; and creeping close to the veranda, Alessandro heard voices fitfully talking,--the Senora's and Felipe's; no word from Ramona. Piteously he fixed his eyes on her window; it was open, but the curtains tight drawn; no stir, no sound. Where was she? What had been done to his love? Only the tireless caution and infinite patience of his Indian blood kept Alessandro from going to her window. But he would imperil nothing by acting on his own responsibility. He would wait, if it were till daylight, till his love made a sign. Certainly before long Senor Felipe would come to his veranda bed, and then he could venture to speak to him. But it was near midnight when the door of Felipe's room opened, and he and his mother came out, still speaking in low tones. Felipe lay down on his couch; his mother, bending over, kissed him, bade him good-night, and went into her own room.
It had been some time now since Alessandro had left off sleeping on the veranda floor by Felipe's side. Felipe was so well it was not needful. But Felipe felt sure he would come to-night, and was not surprised when, a few minutes after the Senora's door closed, he heard a low voice through the vines, “Senor Felipe?”
“Hush, Alessandro,” whispered Felipe. “Do not make a sound. To-morrow morning early I will see you, behind the little sheepfold. It is not safe to talk here.”
“Where is the Senorita?” Alessandro breathed rather than said.
“In her room,” answered Felipe.
“Well?” said Alessandro.
“Yes,” said Felipe, hoping he was not lying; and this was all Alessandro had to comfort himself with, through his long night of watching. No, not all; one other thing comforted him,--the notes of two wood-doves, that at intervals he heard, cooing to each other; just the two notes, the call and the answer, “Love?” “Here.” “Love?” “Here,”--and long intervals of silence between. Plain as if written on a page was the thing they told.
“That is what my Ramona is like,” thought he, “the gentle wood-dove. If she is my wife my people will call her Majel, the Wood-Dove.”
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
11
|
None
|
WHEN the Senora bade Felipe good-night, she did not go to bed. After closing her door, she sat down to think what should be done about Ramona. It had been a hard task she had set herself, talking all the evening with Felipe without alluding to the topic uppermost in her mind. But Felipe was still nervous and irritable. She would not spoil his night's rest, she thought, by talking of disagreeable things. Moreover, she was not clear in her own mind what she wished to have done about Alessandro. If Ramona were to be sent away to the nuns, which was the only thing the Senora could think of as yet, there would be no reason for discharging Alessandro. And with him the Senora was by no means ready to part, though in her first anger she had been ready to dismiss him on the spot. As she pursued her reflections, the whole situation cleared itself in her mind; so easily do affairs fall into line, in the plottings and plannings of an arbitrary person, who makes in his formula no allowance for a human element which he cannot control.
Ramona should be sent in disgrace to the Sisters' School, to be a servant there for the rest of her life. The Senora would wash her hands of her forever. Even Father Salvierderra himself could not expect her any longer to keep such a shameless creature under her roof. Her sister's written instructions had provided for the possibility of just such a contingency. Going to a secret closet in the wall, behind a life-size statue of Saint Catharine, the Senora took out an iron box, battered and rusty with age, and set it on the bed. The key turned with difficulty in the lock. It was many years since the Senora had opened this box. No one but herself knew of its existence. There had been many times in the history of the Moreno house when the price of the contents of that box would have averted loss and misfortune; but the Senora no more thought of touching the treasure than if it had been guarded by angels with fiery swords. There they lay, brilliant and shining even in the dim light of the one candle,--rubies, emeralds, pearls, and yellow diamonds. The Senora's lip curled as she looked at them. “Fine dowry, truly, for a creature like this!” she said. “Well I knew in the beginning no good would come of it; base begotten, base born, she has but carried out the instincts of her nature. I suppose I may be grateful that my own son was too pure to be her prey!” “To be given to my adopted daughter, Ramona Ortegna, on her wedding day,”--so the instructions ran,--“if she weds worthily and with your approval. Should such a misfortune occur, which I do not anticipate, as that she should prove unworthy, then these jewels, and all I have left to her of value, shall be the property of the Church.”
“No mention as to what I am to do with the girl herself if she proves unworthy,” thought the Senora, bitterly; “but the Church is the place for her; no other keeping will save her from the lowest depths of disgrace. I recollect my sister said that Angus had at first intended to give the infant to the Church. Would to God he had done so, or left it with its Indian mother!” and the Senora rose, and paced the floor. The paper of her dead sister's handwriting fell at her feet. As she walked, her long skirt swept it rustling to and fro. She stooped, picked it up, read it again, with increasing bitterness. No softness at the memory of her sister's love for the little child; no relenting. “Unworthy!” Yes, that was a mild word to apply to Ramona, now. It was all settled; and when the girl was once out of the house, the Senora would breathe easier. She and Felipe would lead their lives together, and Felipe would wed some day. Was there a woman fair enough, good enough, for Felipe to wed? But he must wed; and the place would be gay with children's voices, and Ramona would be forgotten.
The Senora did not know how late it was. “I will tell her to-night,” she said. “I will lose no time; and now she shall hear who her mother was!”
It was a strange freak of just impulse in the Senora's angry soul, which made her suddenly remember that Ramona had had no supper, and led her to go to the kitchen, get a jug of milk and some bread, and take them to the room. Turning the key cautiously, that Felipe might not hear, she opened the door and glided in. No voice greeted her; she held her candle high up; no Ramona in sight; the bed was empty. She glanced at the window. It was open. A terror seized the Senora; fresh anger also. “She has run off with Alessandro,” she thought, “What horrible disgrace.” Standing motionless, she heard a faint, regular breathing from the other side of the bed. Hastily crossing the room, she saw a sight which had melted a heart that was only ice; but the Senora's was stone toward Ramona. There lay Ramona on the floor, her head on a pillow at the feet of the big Madonna which stood in the corner. Her left hand was under her cheek, her right arm flung tight around the base of the statue. She was sound asleep. Her face was wet with tears. Her whole attitude was full of significance. Even helpless in sleep, she was one who had taken refuge in sanctuary. This thought had been distinct in the girl's mind when she found herself, spite of all her woe and terror, growing sleepy. “She won't dare to hurt me at the Virgin's feet,” she had said; “and the window is open. Felipe would hear if I called; and Alessandro will watch.” And with a prayer on her lips she fell asleep.
It was Felipe's nearness more than the Madonna's, which saved her from being roused to hear her doom. The Senora stood for some moments looking at her, and at the open window. With a hot rush of disgraceful suspicions, she noted what she had never before thought of, that Alessandro, through all his watching with Felipe, had had close access to Ramona's window. “Shameful creature!” she repeated to herself. “And she can sleep! It is well she prayed, if the Virgin will hear such!” and she turned away, first setting down the jug of milk and the bread on a table. Then, with a sudden and still more curious mingling of justness in her wrath, she returned, and lifting the coverlet from the bed, spread it over Ramona, covering her carefully from head to foot. Then she went out and again locked the door.
Felipe, from his bed, heard and divined all, but made no sound. “Thank God, the poor child is asleep!” he said; “and my poor dear mother feared to awake me by speaking to her! What will become of us all to-morrow!” And Felipe tossed and turned, and had barely fallen into an uneasy sleep, when his mother's window opened, and she sang the first line of the sunrise hymn. Instantly Ramona joined, evidently awake and ready; and no sooner did the watching Alessandro hear the first note of her voice, than he struck in; and Margarita, who had been up for an hour, prowling, listening, peering, wondering, her soul racked between her jealousy and her fears,--even Margarita delayed not to unite; and Felipe, too, sang feebly; and the volume of the song went up as rounded and melodious as if all hearts were at peace and in harmony, instead of being all full of sorrow, confusion, or hatred. But there was no one of them all who was not the better for the singing; Ramona and Alessandro most of all.
“The saints be praised,” said Alessandro. “There is my wood-dove's voice. She can sing!” And, “Alessandro was near. He watched all night. I am glad he loves me,” said Ramona.
“To hear those two voices.” said the Senora; “would one suppose they could sing like that? Perhaps it is not so bad as I think.”
As soon as the song was done, Alessandro ran to the sheepfold, where Felipe had said he would see him. The minutes would be like years to Alessandro till he had seen Felipe.
Ramona, when she waked and found herself carefully covered, and bread and milk standing on the table, felt much reassured. Only the Senora's own hand had done this, she felt sure, for she had heard her the previous evening turn the key in the lock, then violently take it out; and Ramona knew well that the fact of her being thus a prisoner would be known to none but the Senora herself. The Senora would not set servants to gossiping. She ate her bread and milk thankfully, for she was very hungry. Then she set her room in order, said her prayers, and sat down to wait. For what? She could not imagine; in truth, she did not much try. Ramona had passed now into a country where the Senora did not rule. She felt little fear. Felipe would not see her harmed, and she was going away presently with Alessandro. It was wonderful what peace and freedom lay in the very thought. The radiance on her face of these two new-born emotions was the first thing the Senora observed as she opened the door, and slowly, very slowly, eyeing Ramona with a steady look, entered the room. This joyous composure on Ramona's face angered the Senora, as it had done before, when she was dragging her up the garden-walk. It seemed to her like nothing less than brazen effrontery, and it changed the whole tone and manner of her address.
Seating herself opposite Ramona, but at the farthest side of the room, she said, in a tone scornful and insulting, “What have you to say for yourself?”
Returning the Senora's gaze with one no less steady, Ramona spoke in the same calm tone in which she had twice the evening before attempted to stay the Senora's wrath. This time, she was not interrupted.
“Senora,” she said slowly, “I tried to tell you last night, but you would not hear me. If you had listened, you would not have been so angry. Neither Alessandro nor I have done anything wrong, and we were not ashamed. We love each other, and we are going to be married, and go away. I thank you, Senora, for all you have done for me; I am sure you will be a great deal happier when I am away;” and Ramona looked wistfully, with no shade of resentment, into the Senora's dark, shrunken face. “You have been very good to do so much for a girl you did not love. Thank you for the bread and milk last night. Perhaps I can go away with Alessandro to-day. I do not know what he will wish. We had only just that minute spoken of being married, when you found us last night.”
The Senora's face was a study during the few moments that it took to say these words. She was dumb with amazement. Instantaneously, on the first sense of relief that the disgrace had not been what she supposed, followed a new wrath, if possible hotter than the first; not so much scorn, but a bitterer anger. “Marry! Marry that Indian!” she cried, as soon as she found voice. “You marry an Indian? Never! Are you mad? I will never permit it.”
Ramona looked anxiously at her. “I have never disobeyed you, Senora,” she said, “but this is different from all other things; you are not my mother. I have promised to marry Alessandro.”
The girl's gentleness deceived the Senora.
“No,” she said icily, “I am not your mother; but I stand in a mother's place to you. You were my sister's adopted child, and she gave you to me. You cannot marry without my permission, and I forbid you ever to speak again of marrying this Indian.”
The moment had come for the Senora Moreno to find out, to her surprise and cost, of what stuff this girl was made,--this girl, who had for fourteen years lived by her side, docile, gentle, sunny, and uncomplaining in her loneliness. Springing to her feet, and walking swiftly till she stood close face to face with the Senora, who, herself startled by the girl's swift motion, had also risen to her feet, Ramona said, in a louder, firmer voice: “Senora Moreno, you may forbid me as much as you please. The whole world cannot keep me from marrying Alessandro. I love him. I have promised, and I shall keep my word.” And with her young lithe arms straight down at her sides, her head thrown back, Ramona flashed full in the Senora's face a look of proud defiance. It was the first free moment her soul had ever known. She felt herself buoyed up as by wings in air. Her old terror of the Senora fell from her like a garment thrown off.
“Pshaw!” said the Senora, contemptuously, half amused, in spite of her wrath, by the girl's, as she thought, bootless vehemence, “you talk like a fool. Do you not know that I can shut you up in the nunnery to-morrow, if I choose?”
“No, you cannot!” replied Ramona.
“Who, then, is to hinder me.” said the Senora, insolently.
“Alessandro!” answered Ramona, proudly.
“Alessandro!” the Senora sneered. “Alessandro! Ha! a beggarly Indian, on whom my servants will set the dogs, if I bid them! Ha, ha!”
The Senora's sneering tone but roused Ramona more. “You would never dare!” she cried; “Felipe would not permit it!” A most unwise retort for Ramona.
“Felipe!” cried the Senora, in a shrill voice. “How dare you pronounce his name! He will none of you, from this hour! I forbid him to speak to you. Indeed, he will never desire to set eyes on you when he hears the truth.”
“You are mistaken, Senora,” answered Ramona, more gently. “Felipe is Alessandro's friend, and--mine,” she added, after a second's pause.
“So, ho! the Senorita thinks she is all-powerful in the house of Moreno!” cried the Senora. “We will see! we will see! Follow me, Senorita Ramona!” And throwing open the door, the Senora strode out, looking back over her shoulder.
“Follow me!” she cried again sharply, seeing that Ramona hesitated; and Ramona went; across the passage-way leading to the dining-room, out into the veranda, down the entire length of it, to the Senora's room,--the Senora walking with a quick, agitated step, strangely unlike her usual gait; Ramona walking far slower than was her habit, and with her eyes bent on the ground. As they passed the dining-room door, Margarita, standing just inside, shot at Ramona a vengeful, malignant glance.
“She would help the Senora against me in anything,” thought Ramona; and she felt a thrill of fear, such as the Senora with all her threats had not stirred.
The Senora's windows were open. She closed them both, and drew the curtains tight. Then she locked the door, Ramona watching her every movement.
“Sit down in that chair,” said the Senora, pointing to one near the fireplace. A sudden nervous terror seized Ramona.
“I would rather stand, Senora,” she said.
“Do as I bid you.” said the Senora, in a husky tone; and Ramona obeyed. It was a low, broad armchair, and as she sank back into it, her senses seemed leaving her. She leaned her head against the back and closed her eyes. The room swam. She was roused by the Senora's strong smelling-salts held for her to breathe, and a mocking taunt from the Senora's iciest voice: “The Senorita does not seem so over-strong as she did a few moments back!”
Ramona tried to reason with herself; surely no ill could happen to her, in this room, within call of the whole house. But an inexplicable terror had got possession of her; and when the Senora, with a sneer on her face, took hold of the Saint Catharine statue, and wheeling it half around, brought into view a door in the wall, with a big iron key in the keyhole, which she proceeded to turn, Ramona shook with fright. She had read of persons who had been shut up alive in cells in the wall, and starved to death. With dilating eyes she watched the Senora, who, all unaware of her terror, was prolonging it and intensifying it by her every act. First she took out the small iron box, and set it on a table. Then, kneeling, she drew out from an inner recess in the closet a large leather-covered box, and pulled it, grating and scraping along the floor, till it stood in front of Ramona. All this time she spoke no word, and the cruel expression of her countenance deepened each moment. The fiends had possession of the Senora Moreno this morning, and no mistake. A braver heart than Ramona's might have indeed been fearful, at being locked up alone with a woman who looked like that.
Finally, she locked the door and wheeled the statue back into its place. Ramona breathed freer. She was not, after all, to be thrust into the wall closet and left to starve. She gazed with wonder at the old battered boxes. What could it all mean?
“Senorita Ramona Ortegna,” began the Senora, drawing up a chair, and seating herself by the table on which stood the iron box, “I will now explain to you why you will not marry the Indian Alessandro.”
At these words, this name, Ramona was herself again,--not her old self, her new self, Alessandro's promised wife. The very sound of his name, even on an enemy's tongue, gave her strength. The terrors fled away. She looked up, first at the Senora, then at the nearest window. She was young and strong; at one bound, if worst came to worst, she could leap through the window, and fly for her life, calling on Alessandro.
“I shall marry the Indian Alessandro, Senora Moreno,” she said, in a tone as defiant, and now almost as insolent, as the Senora's own.
The Senora paid no heed to the words, except to say, “Do not interrupt me again. I have much to tell you;” and opening the box, she lifted out and placed on the table tray after tray of jewels. The sheet of written paper lay at the bottom of the box.
“Do you see this paper, Senorita Ramona?” she asked, holding it up. Ramona bowed her head. “This was written by my sister, the Senora Ortegna, who adopted you and gave you her name. These were her final instructions to me, in regard to the disposition to be made of the property she left to you.”
Ramona's lips parted. She leaned forward, breathless, listening, while the Senora read sentence after sentence. All the pent-up pain, wonder, fear of her childhood and her girlhood, as to the mystery of her birth, swept over her anew, now. Like one hearkening for life or death, she listened. She forgot Alessandro. She did not look at the jewels. Her eyes never left the Senora's face. At the close of the reading, the Senora said sternly, “You see, now, that my sister left to me the entire disposition of everything belonging to you.”
“But it hasn't said who was my mother,” cried Ramona. “Is that all there is in the paper?”
The Senora looked stupefied. Was the girl feigning? Did she care nothing that all these jewels, almost a little fortune, were to be lost to her forever?
“Who was your mother?” she exclaimed, scornfully, “There was no need to write that down. Your mother was an Indian. Everybody knew that!”
At the word “Indian,” Ramona gave a low cry.
The Senora misunderstood it. “Ay,” she said, “a low, common Indian. I told my sister, when she took you, the Indian blood in your veins would show some day; and now it has come true.”
Ramona's cheeks were scarlet. Her eyes flashed. “Yes, Senora Moreno,” she said, springing to her feet; “the Indian blood in my veins shows to-day. I understand many things I never understood before. Was it because I was an Indian that you have always hated me?”
“You are not an Indian, and I have never hated you,” interrupted the Senora.
Ramona heeded her not, but went on, more and more impetuously. “And if I am an Indian, why do you object to my marrying Alessandro? Oh, I am glad I am an Indian! I am of his people. He will be glad!” The words poured like a torrent out of her lips. In her excitement she came closer and closer to the Senora. “You are a cruel woman,” she said. “I did not know it before; but now I do. If you knew I was an Indian, you had no reason to treat me so shamefully as you did last night, when you saw me with Alessandro. You have always hated me. Is my mother alive'? Where does she live? Tell me; and I will go to her to-day. Tell me! She will be glad that Alessandro loves me!”
It was a cruel look, indeed, and a crueller tone, with which the Senora answered: “I have not the least idea who your mother was, or if she is still alive, Nobody ever knew anything about her,--some low, vicious creature, that your father married when he was out of his senses, as you are now, when you talk of marrying Alessandro!”
“He married her, then?” asked Ramona, with emphasis. “How know you that, Senora Moreno?”
“He told my sister so,” replied the Senora, reluctantly. She grudged the girl even this much of consolation.
“What was his name?” asked Ramona.
“Phail; Angus Phail,” the Senora replied almost mechanically. She found herself strangely constrained by Ramona's imperious earnestness, and she chafed under it. The tables were being turned on her, she hardly knew how. Ramona seemed to tower in stature, and to have the bearing of the one in authority, as she stood before her pouring out passionate question after question. The Senora turned to the larger box, and opened it. With unsteady hands she lifted out the garments which for so many years had rarely seen the light. Shawls and ribosos of damask, laces, gowns of satin, of velvet. As the Senora flung one after another on the chairs, it was a glittering pile of shining, costly stuffs. Ramona's eyes rested on them dreamily.
“Did my adopted mother wear all these?” she asked, lifting in her hand a fold of lace, and holding it up to the light, in evident admiration.
Again the Senora misconceived her. The girl seemed not insensible to the value and beauty of this costly raiment. Perhaps she would be lured by it.
“All these are yours, Ramona, you understand, on your wedding day, if you marry worthily, with my permission,” said the Senora, in a voice a shade less cold than had hitherto come from her lips. “Did you understand what I read you?”
The girl did not answer. She had taken up in her hand a ragged, crimson silk handkerchief, which, tied in many knots, lay in one corner of the jewel-box.
“There are pearls in that,” said the Senora; “that came with the things your father sent to my sister when he died.”
Ramona's eyes gleamed. She began untying the knots. The handkerchief was old, the knots tied tight, and undisturbed for years. As she reached the last knot, and felt the hard stones, she paused. “This was my father's, then.” she said.
“Yes,” said the Senora, scornfully. She thought she had detected a new baseness in the girl. She was going to set up a claim to all which had been her father's property. “They were your father's, and all these rubies, and these yellow diamonds;” and she pushed the tray towards her.
Ramona had untied the last knot. Holding the handkerchief carefully above the tray, she shook the pearls out. A strange, spicy fragrance came from the silk. The pearls fell in among the rubies, rolling right and left, making the rubies look still redder by contrast with their snowy whiteness.
“I will keep this handkerchief,” she said, thrusting it as she spoke, by a swift resolute movement into her bosom. “I am very glad to have one thing that belonged to my father. The jewels, Senora, you can give to the Church, if Father Salvierderra thinks that is right. I shall marry Alessandro;” and still keeping one hand in her bosom where she had thrust the handkerchief, she walked away and seated herself again in her chair.
Father Salvierderra! The name smote the Senora like a spear-thrust, There could be no stronger evidence of the abnormal excitement under which she had been laboring for the last twenty-four hours, than the fact that she had not once, during all this time, thought to ask herself what Father Salvierderra would say, or might command, in this crisis. Her religion and the long habit of its outward bonds had alike gone from her in her sudden wrath against Ramona. It was with a real terror that she became conscious of this.
“Father Salvierderra?” she stammered; “he has nothing to do with it.”
But Ramona saw the change in the Senora's face, at the word, and followed up her advantage. “Father Salvierderra has to do with everything,” she said boldly. “He knows Alessandro, He will not forbid me to marry him, and if he did--” Ramona stopped. She also was smitten with a sudden terror at the vista opening before her,--of a disobedience to Father Salvierderra.
“And if he did,” repeated the Senora, eyeing Ramona keenly, “would you disobey him?”
“Yes,” said Ramona.
“I will tell Father Salvierderra what you say,” retorted the Senora, sarcastically, “that he may spare himself the humiliation of laying any commands on you, to be thus disobeyed.”
Ramona's lip quivered, and her eyes filled with the tears which no other of the Senora's taunts had been strong enough to bring. Dearly she loved the old monk; had loved him since her earliest recollection. His displeasure would be far more dreadful to her than the Senora's. His would give her grief; the Senora's, at utmost, only terror.
Clasping her hands, she said, “Oh, Senora, have mercy! Do not say that to the Father!”
“It is my duty to tell the Father everything that happens in my family,” answered the Senora, chillingly. “He will agree with me, that if you persist in this disobedience you will deserve the severest punishment. I shall tell him all;” and she began putting the trays back in the box.
“You will not tell him as it really is, Senora,” persisted Ramona. “I will tell him myself.”
“You shall not see him! I will take care of that!” cried the Senora, so vindictively that Ramona shuddered.
“I will give you one more chance,” said the Senora, pausing in the act of folding up one of the damask gowns. “Will you obey me? Will you promise to have nothing more to do with this Indian?”
“Never, Senora,” replied Ramona; “never!”
“Then the consequences be on your own head,” cried the Senora. “Go to your room! And, hark! I forbid you to speak of all this to Senor Felipe. Do you hear?”
Ramona bowed her head. “I hear,” she said; and gliding out of the room, closed the door behind her, and instead of going to her room, sped like a hunted creature down the veranda steps, across the garden, calling in a low tone, “Felipe! Felipe! Where are you, Felipe?”
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
12
|
None
|
THE little sheepfold, or corral, was beyond the artichoke-patch, on that southern slope whose sunshine had proved so disastrous a temptation to Margarita in the matter of drying the altar-cloth. It was almost like a terrace, this long slope; and the sheepfold, being near the bottom, was wholly out of sight of the house. This was the reason Felipe had selected it as the safest spot for his talk with Alessandro.
When Ramona reached the end of the trellised walk in the garden, she halted and looked to the right and left. No one was in sight. As she entered the Senora's room an hour before, she had caught a glimpse of some one, she felt almost positive it was Felipe, turning off in the path to the left, leading down to the sheepfold. She stood irresolute for a moment, gazing earnestly down this path. “If the saints would only tell me where he is!” she said aloud. She trembled as she stood there, fearing each second to hear the Senora's voice calling her. But fortune was favoring Ramona, for once; even as the words passed her lips, she saw Felipe coming slowly up the bank. She flew to meet him. “Oh, Felipe, Felipe!” she began.
“Yes, dear, I know it all,” interrupted Felipe; “Alessandro has told me.”
“She forbade me to speak to you, Felipe,” said Ramona, “but I could not bear it. What are we to do? Where is Alessandro?”
“My mother forbade you to speak to me!” cried Felipe, in a tone of terror. “Oh, Ramona, why did you disobey her? If she sees us talking, she will be even more displeased. Fly back to your room. Leave it all to me. I will do all that I can.”
“But, Felipe,” began Ramona, wringing her hands in distress.
“I know! I know!” said Felipe; “but you must not make my mother any more angry. I don't know what she will do till I talk with her. Do go back to your room! Did she not tell you to stay there?”
“Yes,” sobbed Ramona, “but I cannot. Oh, Felipe, I am so afraid! Do help us! Do you think you can? You won't let her shut me up in the convent, will you, Felipe? Where is Alessandro? Why can't I go away with him this minute? Where is he? Dear Felipe, let me go now.”
Felipe's face was horror-stricken. “Shut you in the convent!” he gasped. “Did she say that? Ramona, dear, fly back to your room. Let me talk to her. Fly, I implore you. I can't do anything for you if she sees me talking with you now;” and he turned away, and walked swiftly down the terrace.
Ramona felt as if she were indeed alone in the world. How could she go back into that house! Slowly she walked up the garden-path again, meditating a hundred wild plans of escape. Where, where was Alessandro? Why did he not appear for her rescue? Her heart failed her; and when she entered her room, she sank on the floor in a paroxysm of hopeless weeping. If she had known that Alessandro was already a good half-hour's journey on his way to Temecula, galloping farther and farther away from her each moment, she would have despaired indeed.
This was what Felipe, after hearing the whole story, had counselled him to do. Alessandro had given him so vivid a description of the Senora's face and tone, when she had ordered him out of her sight, that Felipe was alarmed. He had never seen his mother angry like that. He could not conceive why her wrath should have been so severe. The longer he talked with Alessandro, the more he felt that it would be wiser for him to be out of sight till the first force of her anger had been spent. “I will say that I sent you,” said Felipe, “so she cannot feel that you have committed any offence in going. Come back in four days, and by that time it will be all settled what you shall do.”
It went hard with Alessandro to go without seeing Ramona; but it did not need Felipe's exclamation of surprise, to convince him that it would be foolhardy to attempt it. His own judgment had told him that it would be out of the question.
“But you will tell her all, Senor Felipe? You will tell her that it is for her sake I go?” the poor fellow said piteously, gazing into Felipe's eyes as if he would read his inmost soul.
“I will, indeed, Alessandro; I will,” replied Felipe; and he held his hand out to Alessandro, as to a friend and equal. “You may trust me to do all I can do for Ramona and for you.”
“God bless you, Senor Felipe,” answered Alessandro, gravely, a slight trembling of his voice alone showing how deeply he was moved.
“He's a noble fellow,” said Felipe to himself, as he watched Alessandro leap on his horse, which had been tethered near the corral all night,--“a noble fellow! There isn't a man among all my friends who would have been manlier or franker than he has been in this whole business. I don't in the least wonder that Ramona loves him. He's a noble fellow! But what is to be done! What is to be done!”
Felipe was sorely perplexed. No sharp crisis of disagreement had ever arisen between him and his mother, but he felt that one was coming now. He was unaware of the extent of his influence over her. He doubted whether he could move her very far. The threat of shutting Ramona up in the convent terrified him more than he liked to admit to himself. Had she power to do that? Felipe did not know. She must believe that she had, or she would not have made the threat. Felipe's whole soul revolted at the cruel injustice of the idea.
“As if it were a sin for the poor girl to love Alessandro!” he said. “I'd help her to run away with him, if worse comes to worst. What can make my mother feel so!” And Felipe paced back and forth till the sun was high, and the sharp glare and heat reminded him that he must seek shelter; then he threw himself down under the willows. He dreaded to go into the house. His instinctive shrinking from the disagreeable, his disposition to put off till another time, held him back, hour by hour. The longer he thought the situation over, the less he knew how to broach the subject to his mother; the more uncertain he felt whether it would be wise for him to broach it at all. Suddenly he heard his name called. It was Margarita, who had been sent to call him to dinner. “Good heavens! dinner already!” he cried, springing to his feet.
“Yes, Senor,” replied Margarita, eyeing him observantly. She had seen him talking with Alessandro, had seen Alessandro galloping away down the river road. She had also gathered much from the Senora's look, and Ramona's, as they passed the dining-room door together soon after breakfast. Margarita could have given a tolerably connected account of all that had happened within the last twenty-four hours to the chief actors in this tragedy which had so suddenly begun in the Moreno household. Not supposed to know anything, she yet knew nearly all; and her every pulse was beating high with excited conjecture and wonder as to what would come next.
Dinner was a silent and constrained meal,--Ramona absent, the fiction of her illness still kept up; Felipe embarrassed, and unlike himself; the Senora silent, full of angry perplexity. At her first glance in Felipe's face, she thought to herself, “Ramona has spoken to him. When and how did she do it?” For it had been only a few moments after Ramona had left her presence, that she herself had followed, and, seeing the girl in her own room, had locked the door as before, and had spent the rest of the morning on the veranda within hands' reach of Ramona's window. How, when, and where had she contrived to communicate with Felipe? The longer the Senora studied over this, the angrier and more baffled she felt; to be outwitted was even worse to her than to be disobeyed. Under her very eyes, as it were, something evidently had happened, not only against her will, but which she could not explain. Her anger even rippled out towards Felipe, and was fed by the recollection of Ramona's unwise retort, “Felipe would not let you!” What had Felipe done or said to make the girl so sure that he would be on her side and Alessandro's? Was it come to this, that she, the Senora Moreno, was to be defied in her own house by children and servants!
It was with a tone of severe displeasure that she said to Felipe, as she rose from the dinner-table, “My son, I would like to have some conversation with you in my room, if you are at leisure.”
“Certainly, mother,” said Felipe, a load rolling off his mind at her having thus taken the initiative, for which he lacked courage; and walking swiftly towards her, he attempted to put his arm around her waist, as it was his affectionate habit frequently to do. She repulsed him gently, but bethinking herself, passed her hand through his arm, and leaning on it heavily as she walked, said: “This is the most fitting way, my son. I must lean more and more heavily on you each year now. Age is telling on me fast. Do you not find me greatly changed, Felipe, in the last year?”
“No, madre mia,” replied Felipe, “indeed I do not. I see not that you have changed in the last ten years.” And he was honest in this. His eyes did not note the changes so clear to others, and for the best of reasons. The face he saw was one no one else ever beheld; it was kindled by emotion, transfigured by love, whenever it was turned towards him.
The Senora sighed deeply as she answered: “That must be because you so love me, Felipe. I myself see the changes even day by day. Troubles tell on me as they did not when I was younger. Even within the last twenty-four hours I seem to myself to have aged frightfully;” and she looked keenly at Felipe as she seated herself in the arm-chair where poor Ramona had swooned a few hours before. Felipe remained standing before her, gazing, with a tender expression, upon her features, but saying nothing.
“I see that Ramona has told you all!” she continued, her voice hardening as she spoke. What a fortunate wording of her sentence!
“No, mother; it was not Ramona, it was Alessandro, who told me this morning, early,” Felipe answered hastily, hurrying on, to draw the conversation as far away from Ramona as possible. “He came and spoke to me last night after I was in bed; but I told him to wait till morning, and then I would hear all he had to say.”
“Ah!” said the Senora, relieved. Then, as Felipe remained silent, she asked, “And what did he say?”
“He told me all that had happened.”
“All!” said the Senora, sneeringly. “Do you suppose that he told you all?”
“He said that you had bidden him begone out of your sight,” said Felipe, “and that he supposed he must go. So I told him to go at once. I thought you would prefer not to see him again.”
“Ah!” said the Senora again, startled, gratified that Felipe had so promptly seconded her action, but sorry that Alessandro had gone. “Ah, I did not know whether you would think it best to discharge him at once or not; I told him he must answer to you. I did not know but you might devise some measures by which he could be retained on the estate.”
Felipe stared. Could he believe his ears? This did not sound like the relentless displeasure he had expected. Could Ramona have been dreaming? In his astonishment, he did not weigh his mother's words carefully; he did not carry his conjecture far enough; he did not stop to make sure that retaining Alessandro on the estate might not of necessity bode any good to Ramona; but with his usual impetuous ardor, sanguine, at the first glimpse of hope, that all was well, he exclaimed joyfully, “Ah, dear mother, if that could only be done, all would be well;” and, never noting the expression of his mother's face, nor pausing to take breath, he poured out all he thought and felt on the subject.
“That is just what I have been hoping for ever since I saw that he and Ramona were growing so fond of each other. He is a splendid fellow, and the best hand we have ever had on the place. All the men like him; he would make a capital overseer; and if we put him in charge of the whole estate, there would not be any objection to his marrying Ramona. That would give them a good living here with us.”
“Enough!” cried the Senora, in a voice which fell on Felipe's ears like a voice from some other world,--so hollow, so strange. He stopped speaking, and uttered an ejaculation of amazement. At the first words he had uttered, the Senora had fixed her eyes on the floor,--a habit of hers when she wished to listen with close attention. Lifting her eyes now, fixing them full on Felipe, she regarded him with a look which not all his filial reverence could bear without resentment. It was nearly as scornful as that with which she had regarded Ramona. Felipe colored.
“Why do you look at me like that, mother?” he exclaimed. “What have I done?”
The Senora waved her hand imperiously. “Enough!” she reiterated. “Do not say any more. I wish to think for a few moments;” and she fixed her eyes on the floor again.
Felipe studied her countenance. A more nearly rebellious feeling than he had supposed himself capable of slowly arose in his heart. Now he for the first time perceived what terror his mother must inspire in a girl like Ramona.
“Poor little one!” he thought. “If my mother looked at her as she did at me just now, I wonder she did not die.”
A great storm was going on in the Senora's bosom. Wrath against Ramona was uppermost in it. In addition to all else, the girl had now been the cause, or at least the occasion, of Felipe's having, for the first time in his whole life, angered her beyond her control.
“As if I had not suffered enough by reason of that creature,” she thought bitterly to herself, “without her coming between me and Felipe!”
But nothing could long come between the Senora and Felipe. Like a fresh lava-stream flowing down close on the track of its predecessor, came the rush of the mother's passionate love for her son close on the passionate anger at his words.
When she lifted her eyes they were full of tears, which it smote Felipe to see. As she gazed at him, they rolled down her cheeks, and she said in trembling tones: “Forgive me, my child; I had not thought anything could make me thus angry with you. That shameless creature is costing us too dear. She must leave the house.”
Felipe's heart gave a bound; Ramona had not been mistaken, then. A bitter shame seized him at his mother's cruelty. But her tears made him tender; and it was in a gentle, even pleading voice that he replied: “I do not see, mother, why you call Ramona shameless. There is nothing wrong in her loving Alessandro.”
“I found her in his arms!” exclaimed the Senora.
“I know,” said Felipe; “Alessandro told me that he had just at that instant told her he loved her, and she had said she loved him, and would marry him, just as you came up.”
“Humph!” retorted the Senora; “do you think that Indian would have dared to speak a word of love to the Senorita Ramona Ortegna, if she had not conducted herself shamelessly? I wonder that he concerned himself to speak about marriage to her at all.”
“Oh, mother! mother!” was all that Felipe could say to this. He was aghast. He saw now, in a flash, the whole picture as it lay in his mother's mind, and his heart sank within him. “Mother!” he repeated, in a tone which spoke volumes.
“Ay,” she continued, “that is what I say. I see no reason why he hesitated to take her, as he would take any Indian squaw, with small ceremony of marrying.”
“Alessandro would not take any woman that way any quicker than I would, mother,” said Felipe courageously; “you do him injustice.” He longed to add, “And Ramona too,” but he feared to make bad matters worse by pleading for her at present.
“No, I do not,” said the Senora; “I do Alessandro full justice. I think very few men would have behaved as well as he has under the same temptation. I do not hold him in the least responsible for all that has happened. It is all Ramona's fault.”
Felipe's patience gave way. He had not known, till now, how very closely this pure and gentle girl, whom he had loved as a sister in his boyhood, and had come near loving as a lover in his manhood, had twined herself around his heart. He could not remain silent another moment, and hear her thus wickedly accused.
“Mother!” he exclaimed, in a tone which made the Senora look up at him in sudden astonishment. “Mother, I cannot help it if I make you very angry; I must speak; I can't bear to hear you say such things of Ramona. I have seen for a long time that Alessandro loved the very ground under her feet; and Ramona would not have been a woman if she had not seen it too! She has seen it, and has felt it, and has come to love him with all her soul, just as I hope some woman will love me one of these days. If I am ever loved as well as she loves Alessandro, I shall be lucky. I think they ought to be married; and I think we ought to take Alessandro on to the estate, so that they can live here. I don't see anything disgraceful in it, nor anything wrong, nor anything but what was perfectly natural. You know, mother, it isn't as if Ramona really belonged to our family; you know she is half Indian.” A scornful ejaculation from his mother interrupted him here; but Felipe hurried on, partly because he was borne out of himself at last by impetuous feeling, partly that he dreaded to stop, because if he did, his mother would speak; and already he felt a terror of what her next words might be. “I have often thought about Ramona's future, mother. You know a great many men would not want to marry her, just because she is half Indian. You, yourself, would never have given your consent to my marrying her, if I had wanted to.” Again an exclamation from the Senora, this time more of horror than of scorn. But Felipe pressed on. “No, of course you would not, I always knew that; except for that, I might have loved her myself, for a sweeter girl never drew breath in this God's earth.” Felipe was reckless now; having entered on this war, he would wage it with every weapon that lay within his reach; if one did not tell, another might. “You have never loved her. I don't know that you have ever even liked her; I don't think you have. I know, as a little boy, I always used to see how much kinder you were to me than to her, and I never could understand it. And you are unjust to her now. I've been watching her all summer; I've seen her and Alessandro together continually. You know yourself, mother, he has been with us on the veranda, day after day, just as if he were one of the family. I've watched them by the hour, when I lay there so sick; I thought you must have seen it too. I don't believe Alessandro has ever looked or said or done a thing I wouldn't have done in his place; and I don't believe Ramona has ever looked, said, or done a thing I would not be willing to have my own sister do!” Here Felipe paused. He had made his charge; like a young impetuous general, massing all his forces at the onset; he had no reserves. It is not the way to take Gibraltars.
When he paused, literally breathless, he had spoken so fast,--and even yet Felipe was not quite strong, so sadly had the fever undermined his constitution,--the Senora looked at him interrogatively, and said in a now composed tone: “You do not believe that Ramona has done anything that you would not be willing to have your own sister do? Would you be willing that your own sister should marry Alessandro?”
Clever Senora Moreno! During the few moments that Felipe had been speaking, she had perceived certain things which it would be beyond her power to do; certain others that it would be impolitic to try to do. Nothing could possibly compensate her for antagonizing Felipe. Nothing could so deeply wound her, as to have him in a resentful mood towards her; or so weaken her real control of him, as to have him feel that she arbitrarily overruled his preference or his purpose. In presence of her imperious will, even her wrath capitulated and surrendered. There would be no hot words between her and her son. He should believe that he determined the policy of the Moreno house, even in this desperate crisis.
Felipe did not answer. A better thrust was never seen on any field than the Senora's question. She repeated it, still more deliberately, in her wonted gentle voice. The Senora was herself again, as she had not been for a moment since she came upon Alessandro and Ramona at the brook. How just and reasonable the question sounded, as she repeated it slowly, with an expression in her eyes, of poising and weighing matters. “Would you be willing that your own sister should marry Alessandro?”
Felipe was embarrassed. He saw whither he was being led. He could give but one answer to this question. “No, mother,” he said, “I should not; but--” “Never mind buts,” interrupted his mother; “we have not got to those yet;” and she smiled on Felipe,--an affectionate smile, but it somehow gave him a feeling of dread. “Of course I knew you could make but one answer to my question. If you had a sister, you would rather see her dead than married to any one of these Indians.”
Felipe opened his lips eagerly, to speak. “Not so,” he said.
“Wait, dear!” exclaimed his mother. “One thing at a time, I see how full your loving heart is, and I was never prouder of you as my son than when listening just now to your eloquent defence of Ramona, Perhaps you may be right and I wrong as to her character and conduct. We will not discuss those points.” It was here that the Senora had perceived some things that it would be out of her power to do. “We will not discuss those, because they do not touch the real point at issue. What it is our duty to do by Ramona, in such a matter as this, does not turn on her worthiness or unworthiness. The question is, Is it right for you to allow her to do what you would not allow your own sister to do?” The Senora paused for a second, noted with secret satisfaction how puzzled and unhappy Felipe looked; then, in a still gentler voice, she went on, “You surely would not think that right, my son, would you?” And now the Senora waited for an answer.
“No, mother,” came reluctantly from Felipe's lips. “I suppose not; but--” “I was sure my own son could make no other reply,” interrupted the Senora. She did not wish Felipe at present to do more than reply to her questions. “Of course it would not be right for us to let Ramona do anything which we would not let her do if she were really of our own blood. That is the way I have always looked at my obligation to her. My sister intended to rear her as her own daughter. She had given her her own name. When my sister died, she transferred to me all her right and responsibility in and for the child. You do not suppose that if your aunt had lived, she would have ever given her consent to her adopted daughter's marrying an Indian, do you?”
Again the Senora paused for a reply, and again the reluctant Felipe said, in a low tone, “No, I suppose she would not.”
“Very well. Then that lays a double obligation on us. It is not only that we are not to permit Ramona to do a thing which we would consider disgraceful to one of our own blood; we are not to betray the trust reposed in us by the only person who had a right to control her, and who transferred that trust to us. Is not that so?”
“Yes, mother,” said the unhappy Felipe.
He saw the meshes closing around him. He felt that there was a flaw somewhere in his mother's reasoning, but he could not point it out; in fact, he could hardly make it distinct to himself. His brain was confused. Only one thing he saw clearly, and that was, that after all had been said and done, Ramona would still marry Alessandro. But it was evident that it would never be with his mother's consent. “Nor with mine either, openly, the way she puts it. I don't see how it can be; and yet I have promised Alessandro to do all I could for him. Curse the luck, I wish he had never set foot on the place!” said Felipe in his heart, growing unreasonable, and tired with the perplexity.
The Senora continued: “I shall always blame myself bitterly for having failed to see what was going on. As you say, Alessandro has been with us a great deal since your illness, with his music, and singing, and one thing and another; but I can truly say that I never thought of Ramona's being in danger of looking upon him in the light of a possible lover, any more than of her looking thus upon Juan Canito, or Luigo, or any other of the herdsmen or laborers. I regret it more than words can express, and I do not know what we can do, now that it has happened.”
“That's it, mother! That's it!” broke in Felipe. “You see, you see it is too late now.”
The Senora went on as if Felipe had not spoken. “I suppose you would really very much regret to part with Alessandro, and your word is in a way pledged to him, as you had asked him if he would stay on the place, Of course, now that all this has happened, it would be very unpleasant for Ramona to stay here, and see him continually--at least for a time, until she gets over this strange passion she seems to have conceived for him. It will not last. Such sudden passions never do.” The Senora artfully interpolated, “What should you think, Felipe, of having her go back to the Sisters' school for a time? She was very happy there.”
The Senora had strained a point too far. Felipe's self-control suddenly gave way, and as impetuously as he had spoken in the beginning, he spoke again now, nerved by the memory of Ramona's face and tone as she had cried to him in the garden, “Oh, Felipe, you won't let her shut me up in the convent, will you?” “Mother!” he cried, “you would never do that. You would not shut the poor girl up in the convent!”
The Senora raised her eyebrows in astonishment. “Who spoke of shutting up?” she said. “Ramona has already been there at school. She might go again. She is not too old to learn. A change of scene and occupation is the best possible cure for a girl who has a thing of this sort to get over. Can you propose anything better, my son? What would you advise?” And a third time the Senora paused for an answer.
These pauses and direct questions of the Senora's were like nothing in life so much as like that stage in a spider's processes when, withdrawing a little way from a half-entangled victim, which still supposes himself free, it rests from its weaving, and watches the victim flutter. Subtle questions like these, assuming, taking for granted as settled, much which had never been settled at all, were among the best weapons in the Senora's armory. They rarely failed her.
“Advise!” cried Felipe, excitedly. “Advise! This is what I advise--to let Ramona and Alessandro marry. I can't help all you say about our obligations. I dare say you're right; and it's a cursedly awkward complication for us, anyhow, the way you put it.”
“Yes, awkward for you, as the head of our house,” interrupted the Senora, sighing. “I don't quite see how you would face it.”
“Well, I don't propose to face it,” continued Felipe, testily. “I don't propose to have anything to do with it, from first to last. Let her go away with him, if she wants to.'
“Without our consent?” said the Senora, gently.
“Yes, without it, if she can't go with it; and I don't see, as you have stated it, how we could exactly take any responsibility about marrying her to Alessandro. But for heaven's sake, mother, let her go! She will go, any way. You haven't the least idea how she loves Alessandro, or how he loves her. Let her go!”
“Do you really think she would run away with him, if it came to that?” asked the Senora, earnestly. “Run away and marry him, spite of our refusing to consent to the marriage?”
“I do,” said Felipe.
“Then it is your opinion, is it, that the only thing left for us to do, is to wash our hands of it altogether, and leave her free to do what she pleases?”
“That's just what I do think, mother,” replied Felipe, his heart growing lighter at her words. “That's just what I do think. We can't prevent it, and it is of no use to try. Do let us tell them they can do as they like.”
“Of course, Alessandro must leave us, then,” said the Senora. “They could not stay here.”
“I don't see why!” said Felipe, anxiously.
“You will, my son, if you think a moment. Could we possibly give a stronger indorsement to their marriage than by keeping them here? Don't you see that would be so?”
Felipe's eyes fell. “Then I suppose they couldn't be married here, either,” he said.
“What more could we do than that, for a marriage that we heartily approved of, my son?”
“True, mother;” and Felipe clapped his hand to his forehead. “But then we force them to run away!”
“Oh, no.” said the Senora, icily. “If they go, they will go of their own accord. We hope they will never do anything so foolish and wrong. If they do, I suppose we shall always be held in a measure responsible for not having prevented it. But if you think it is not wise, or of no use to attempt that, I do not see what there is to be done.”
Felipe did not speak. He felt discomfited; felt as if he had betrayed his friend Alessandro, his sister Ramona; as if a strange complication, network of circumstances, had forced him into a false position; he did not see what more he could ask, what more could be asked, of his mother; he did not see, either, that much less could have been granted to Alessandro and Ramona; he was angry, wearied, perplexed.
The Senora studied his face. “You do not seem satisfied, Felipe dear,” she said tenderly. “As, indeed, how could you be in this unfortunate state of affairs? But can you think of anything different for us to do?”
“No,” said Felipe, bitterly. “I can't, that's the worst of it. It is just turning Ramona out of the house, that's all.”
“Felipe! Felipe!” exclaimed the Senora, “how unjust you are to yourself! You know you would never do that! You know that she has always had a home here as if she were a daughter; and always will have, as long as she wishes it. If she chooses to turn her back on it, and go away, is it our fault? Do not let your pity for this misguided girl blind you to what is just to yourself and to me. Turn Ramona out of the house! You know I promised my sister to bring her up as my own child; and I have always felt that my son would receive the trust from me, when I died. Ramona has a home under the Moreno roof so long as she will accept it. It is not just, Felipe, to say that we turn her out;” and tears stood in the Senora's eyes.
“Forgive me, dear mother,” cried the unhappy Felipe. “Forgive me for adding one burden to all you have to bear. Truth is, this miserable business has so distraught my senses, I can't seem to see anything as it is. Dear mother, it is very hard for you. I wish it were done with.”
“Thanks for your precious sympathy, my Felipe,” replied the Senora. “If it were not for you, I should long ago have broken down beneath my cares and burdens. But among them all, have been few so grievous as this. I feel myself and our home dishonored. But we must submit. As you say, Felipe, I wish it were done with. It would be as well, perhaps, to send for Ramona at once, and tell her what we have decided. She is no doubt in great anxiety; we will see her here.”
Felipe would have greatly preferred to see Ramona alone; but as he knew not how to bring this about he assented to his mother's suggestion.
Opening her door, the Senora walked slowly down the passage-way, unlocked Ramona's door, and said: “Ramona, be so good as to come to my room. Felipe and I have something to say to you.”
Ramona followed, heavy-hearted. The words, “Felipe and I,” boded no good.
“The Senora has made Felipe think just as she does herself,” thought Ramona. “Oh, what will become of me!” and she stole a reproachful, imploring look at Felipe. He smiled back in a way which reassured her; but the reassurance did not last long.
“Senorita Ramona Ortegna,” began the Senora. Felipe shivered. He had had no conception that his mother could speak in that way. The words seemed to open a gulf between Ramona and all the rest of the world, so cold and distant they sounded,--as the Senora might speak to an intruding stranger.
“Senorita Ramona Ortegna,” she said, “my son and I have been discussing what it is best for us to do in the mortifying and humiliating position in which you place us by your relation with the Indian Alessandro. Of course you know--or you ought to know--that it is utterly impossible for us to give our consent to your making such a marriage; we should be false to a trust, and dishonor our own family name, if we did that.”
Ramona's eyes dilated, her cheeks paled; she opened her lips, but no sound came from them; she looked toward Felipe, and seeing him with downcast eyes, and an expression of angry embarrassment on his face, despair seized her. Felipe had deserted their cause. Oh, where, where was Alessandro! Clasping her hands, she uttered a low cry,--a cry that cut Felipe to the heart. He was finding out, in thus being witness of Ramona's suffering, that she was far nearer and dearer to him than he had realized. It would have taken very little, at such moments as these, to have made Felipe her lover again; he felt now like springing to her side, folding his arms around her, and bidding his mother defiance. It took all the self-control he could gather, to remain silent, and trust to Ramona's understanding him later.
Ramona's cry made no break in the smooth, icy flow of the Senora's sentences. She gave no sign of having heard it, but continued: “My son tells me that he thinks our forbidding it would make no difference; that you would go away with the man all the same. I suppose he is right in thinking so, as you yourself told me that even if Father Salvierderra forbade it, you would disobey him. Of course, if this is your determination, we are powerless. Even if I were to put you in the keeping of the Church, which is what I am sure my sister, who adopted you as her child, would do, if she were alive, you would devise some means of escape, and thus bring a still greater and more public scandal on the family. Felipe thinks that it is not worth while to attempt to bring you to reason in that way; and we shall therefore do nothing. I wish to impress it upon you that my son, as head of this house, and I, as my sister's representative, consider you a member of our own family. So long as we have a home for ourselves, that home is yours, as it always has been. If you choose to leave it, and to disgrace yourself and us by marrying an Indian, we cannot help ourselves.”
The Senora paused. Ramona did not speak. Her eyes were fixed on the Senora's face, as if she would penetrate to her inmost soul; the girl was beginning to recognize the Senora's true nature; her instincts and her perceptions were sharpened by love.
“Have you anything to say to me or to my son?” asked the Senora.
“No, Senora,” replied Ramona; “I do not think of anything more to say than I said this morning. Yes,” she added, “there is. Perhaps I shall not speak with you again before I go away. I thank you once more for the home you have given me for so many years. And you too, Felipe,” she continued, turning towards Felipe, her face changing, all her pent-up affection and sorrow looking out of her tearful eyes,--“you too, dear Felipe. You have always been so good to me. I shall always love you as long as I live;” and she held out both her hands to him. Felipe took them in his, and was about to speak, when the Senora interrupted him. She did not intend to have any more of this sort of affectionate familiarity between her son and Ramona.
“Are we to understand that you are taking your leave now?” she said. “Is it your purpose to go at once?”
“I do not know, Senora,” stammered Ramona; “I have not seen Alessandro; I have not heard--” And she looked up in distress at Felipe, who answered compassionately,-- “Alessandro has gone.”
“Gone!” shrieked Ramona. “Gone! not gone, Felipe!”
“Only for four days,” replied Felipe. “To Temecula. I thought it would be better for him to be away for a day or two. He is to come back immediately. Perhaps he will be back day after to-morrow.”
“Did he want to go? What did he go for? Why didn't you let me go with him? Oh, why, why did he go?” cried Ramona.
“He went because my son told him to go,” broke in the Senora, impatient of this scene, and of the sympathy she saw struggling in Felipe's expressive features. “My son thought, and rightly, that the sight of him would be more than I could bear just now; so he ordered him to go away, and Alessandro obeyed.”
Like a wounded creature at bay, Ramona turned suddenly away from Felipe, and facing the Senora, her eyes resolute and dauntless spite of the streaming tears, exclaimed, lifting her right hand as she spoke, “You have been cruel; God will punish you!” and without waiting to see what effect her words had produced, without looking again at Felipe, she walked swiftly out of the room.
“You see,” said the Senora, “you see she defies us.”
“She is desperate,” said Felipe. “I am sorry I sent Alessandro away.”
“No, my son,” replied the Senora, “you were wise, as you always are. It may bring her to her senses, to have a few days' reflection in solitude.”
“You do not mean to keep her locked up, mother, do you?” cried Felipe.
The Senora turned a look of apparently undisguised amazement on him. “You would not think that best, would you? Did you not say that all we could do, was simply not to interfere with her in any way? To wash our hands, so far as is possible, of all responsibility about her?”
“Yes, yes,” said the baffled Felipe; “that was what I said. But, mother--” He stopped. He did not know what he wanted to say.
The Senora looked tenderly at him, her face full of anxious inquiry.
“What is it, Felipe dear? Is there anything more you think I ought to say or do?” she asked.
“What is it you are going to do, mother?” said Felipe. “I don't seem to understand what you are going to do.”
“Nothing, Felipe! You have entirely convinced me that all effort would be thrown away. I shall do nothing,” replied the Senora. “Nothing whatever.”
“Then as long as Ramona is here, everything will be just as it always has been?” said Felipe.
The Senora smiled sadly. “Dear Felipe, do you think that possible? A girl who has announced her determination to disobey not only you and me, but Father Salvierderra, who is going to bring disgrace both on the Moreno and the Ortegna name,--we can't feel exactly the same towards her as we did before, can we?”
Felipe made an impatient gesture. “No, of course not. But I mean, is everything to be just the same, outwardly, as it was before?”
“I supposed so,” said the Senora. “Was not that your idea? We must try to have it so, I think. Do not you?”
“Yes,” groaned Felipe, “if we can!”
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
13
|
None
|
THE Senora Moreno had never before been so discomfited as in this matter of Ramona and Alessandro. It chafed her to think over her conversation with Felipe; to recall how far the thing she finally attained was from the thing she had in view when she began. To have Ramona sent to the convent, Alessandro kept as overseer of the place, and the Ortegna jewels turned into the treasury of the Church,--this was the plan she had determined on in her own mind. Instead of this, Alessandro was not to be overseer on the place; Ramona would not go to the convent: she would be married to Alessandro, and they would go away together; and the Ortegna jewels,--well, that was a thing to be decided in the future; that should be left to Father Salvierderra to decide. Bold as the Senora was, she had not quite the courage requisite to take that question wholly into her own hands.
One thing was clear, Felipe must not be consulted in regard to them. He had never known of them, and need not now. Felipe was far too much in sympathy with Ramona to take a just view of the situation. He would be sure to have a quixotic idea of Ramona's right of ownership. It was not impossible that Father Salvierderra might have the same feeling. If so, she must yield; but that would go harder with her than all the rest. Almost the Senora would have been ready to keep the whole thing a secret from the Father, if he had not been at the time of the Senora Ortegna's death fully informed of all the particulars of her bequest to her adopted child. At any rate, it would be nearly a year before the Father came again, and in the mean time she would not risk writing about it. The treasure was as safe in Saint Catharine's keeping as it had been all these fourteen years; it should still lie hidden there. When Ramona went away with Alessandro, she would write to Father Salvierderra, simply stating the facts in her own way, and telling him that all further questions must wait for decision until they met.
And so she plotted and planned, and mapped out the future in her tireless weaving brain, till she was somewhat soothed for the partial failure of her plans.
There is nothing so skilful in its own defence as imperious pride. It has an ingenious system of its own, of reprisals,--a system so ingenious that the defeat must be sore indeed, after which it cannot still find some booty to bring off! And even greater than this ingenuity at reprisals is its capacity for self-deception. In this regard, it outdoes vanity a thousandfold. Wounded vanity knows when it is mortally hurt; and limps off the field, piteous, all disguises thrown away. But pride carries its banner to the last; and fast as it is driven from one field unfurls it in another, never admitting that there is a shade less honor in the second field than in the first, or in the third than in the second; and so on till death. It is impossible not to have a certain sort of admiration for this kind of pride. Cruel, those who have it, are to all who come in their way; but they are equally cruel to themselves, when pride demands the sacrifice. Such pride as this has led many a forlorn hope, on the earth, when all other motives have died out of men's breasts; has won many a crown, which has not been called by its true name.
Before the afternoon was over, the Senora had her plan, her chart of the future, as it were, all reconstructed; the sting of her discomfiture soothed; the placid quiet of her manner restored; her habitual occupations also, and little ways, all resumed. She was going to do “nothing” in regard to Ramona. Only she herself knew how much that meant; how bitterly much! She wished she were sure that Felipe also would do “nothing;” but her mind still misgave her about Felipe. Unpityingly she had led him on, and entangled him in his own words, step by step, till she had brought him to the position she wished him to take. Ostensibly, his position and hers were one, their action a unit; all the same, she did not deceive herself as to his real feeling about the affair. He loved Ramona. He liked Alessandro. Barring the question of family pride, which he had hardly thought of till she suggested it, and which he would not dwell on apart from her continuing to press it,--barring this, he would have liked to have Alessandro marry Ramona and remain on the place. All this would come uppermost in Felipe's mind again when he was removed from the pressure of her influence. Nevertheless, she did not intend to speak with him on the subject again, or to permit him to speak to her. Her ends would be best attained by taking and keeping the ground that the question of their non-interference having been settled once for all, the painful topic should never be renewed between them. In patient silence they must await Ramona's action; must bear whatever of disgrace and pain she chose to inflict on the family which had sheltered her from her infancy till now.
The details of the “nothing” she proposed to do, slowly arranged themselves in her mind. There should be no apparent change in Ramona's position in the house. She should come and go as freely as ever; no watch on her movements; she should eat, sleep, rise up and sit down with them, as before; there should be not a word, or act, that Felipe's sympathetic sensitiveness could construe into any provocation to Ramona to run away. Nevertheless, Ramona should be made to feel, every moment of every hour, that she was in disgrace; that she was with them, but not of them; that she had chosen an alien's position, and must abide by it. How this was to be done, the Senora did not put in words to herself, but she knew very well. If anything would bring the girl to her senses, this would. There might still be a hope, the Senora believed, so little did she know Ramona's nature, or the depth of her affection for Alessandro, that she might be in this manner brought to see the enormity of the offence she would commit if she persisted in her purpose. And if she did perceive this, confess her wrong, and give up the marriage,--the Senora grew almost generous and tolerant in her thoughts as she contemplated this contingency,--if she did thus humble herself and return to her rightful allegiance to the Moreno house, the Senora would forgive her, and would do more for her than she had ever hitherto done. She would take her to Los Angeles and to Monterey; would show her a little more of the world; and it was by no means unlikely that there might thus come about for her a satisfactory and honorable marriage. Felipe should see that she was not disposed to deal unfairly by Ramona in any way, if Ramona herself would behave properly.
Ramona's surprise, when the Senora entered her room just before supper, and, in her ordinary tone, asked a question about the chili which was drying on the veranda, was so great, that she could not avoid showing it both in her voice and look.
The Senora recognized this immediately, but gave no sign of having done so, continuing what she had to say about the chili, the hot sun, the turning of the grapes, etc., precisely as she would have spoken to Ramona a week previous. At least, this was what Ramona at first thought; but before the sentences were finished, she had detected in the Senora's eye and tone the weapons which were to be employed against her. The emotion of half-grateful wonder with which she had heard the first words changed quickly to heartsick misery before they were concluded; and she said to herself: “That's the way she is going to break me down, she thinks! But she can't do it. I can bear anything for four days; and the minute Alessandro comes, I will go away with him.” This train of thought in Ramona's mind was reflected in her face. The Senora saw it, and hardened herself still more. It was to be war, then. No hope of surrender. Very well. The girl had made her choice.
Margarita was now the most puzzled person in the household. She had overheard snatches of the conversation between Felipe and his mother and Ramona, having let her curiosity get so far the better of her discretion as to creep to the door and listen. In fact, she narrowly escaped being caught, having had barely time to begin her feint of sweeping the passage-way, when Ramona, flinging the door wide open, came out, after her final reply to the Senora, the words of which Margarita had distinctly heard: “God will punish you.”
“Holy Virgin! how dare she say that to the Senora?” ejaculated Margarita, under her breath; and the next second Ramona rushed by, not even seeing her. But the Senora's vigilant eyes, following Ramona, saw her; and the Senora's voice had a ring of suspicion in it, as she called, “How comes it you are sweeping the passage-way at this hour of the day, Margarita?”
It was surely the devil himself that put into Margarita's head the quick lie which she instantaneously told. “There was early breakfast, Senora, to be cooked for Alessandro, who was setting off in haste, and my mother was not up, so I had it to cook.”
As Margarita said this, Felipe fixed his eyes steadily upon her. She changed color. Felipe knew this was a lie. He had seen Margarita peering about among the willows while he was talking with Alessandro at the sheepfold; he had seen Alessandro halt for a moment and speak to her as he rode past,--only for a moment; then, pricking his horse sharply, he had galloped off down the valley road. No breakfast had Alessandro had at Margarita's hands, or any other's, that morning. What could have been Margarita's motive for telling this lie?
But Felipe had too many serious cares on his mind to busy himself long with any thought of Margarita or her fibs. She had said the first thing which came into her head, most likely, to shelter herself from the Senora's displeasure; which was indeed very near the truth, only there was added a spice of malice against Alessandro. A slight undercurrent of jealous antagonism towards him had begun to grow up among the servants of late; fostered, if not originated, by Margarita's sharp sayings as to his being admitted to such strange intimacy with the family.
While Felipe continued ill, and was so soothed to rest by his music, there was no room for cavil. It was natural that Alessandro came and went as a physician might. But after Felipe had recovered, why should this freedom and intimacy continue? More than once there had been sullen mutterings of this kind on the north veranda, when all the laborers and servants were gathered there of an evening, Alessandro alone being absent from the group, and the sounds of his voice or his violin coming from the south veranda, where the family sat.
“It would be a good thing if we too had a bit of music now and then,” Juan Canito would grumble; “but the lad's chary enough of his bow on this side the house.”
“Ho! we're not good enough for him to play to!” Margarita would reply; “'Like master, like servant,' is a good proverb sometimes, but not always. But there's a deal going on, on the veranda yonder, besides fiddling!” and Margarita's lips would purse themselves up in an expression of concentrated mystery and secret knowledge, well fitted to draw from everybody a fire of questions, none of which, however, would she answer. She knew better than to slander the Senorita Ramona, or to say a word even reflecting upon her unfavorably. Not a man or a woman there would have borne it. They all had loved Ramona ever since she came among them as a toddling baby. They petted her then, and idolized her now. Not one of them whom she had not done good offices for,--nursed them, cheered them, remembered their birthdays and their saints'-days. To no one but her mother had Margarita unbosomed what she knew, and what she suspected; and old Marda, frightened at the bare pronouncing of such words, had terrified Margarita into the solemnest of promises never, under any circumstances whatever, to say such things to any other member of the family. Marda did not believe them. She could not. She believed that Margarita's jealousy had imagined all.
“And the Senora; she'd send you packing off this place in an hour, and me too, long's I've lived here, if ever she was to know of you blackening the Senorita. An Indian, too! You must be mad, Margarita!”
When Margarita, in triumph, had flown to tell her that the Senora had just dragged the Senorita Ramona up the garden-walk, and shoved her into her room and locked the door, and that it was because she had caught her with Alessandro at the washing-stones, Marda first crossed herself in sheer mechanical fashion at the shock of the story, and then cuffed Margarita's ears for telling her.
“I'll take the head off your neck, if you say that aloud again! Whatever's come to the Senora! Forty years I've lived under this roof, and I never saw her lift a hand to a living creature yet. You're out of your senses, child!” she said, all the time gazing fearfully towards the room.
“You'll see whether I am out of my senses or not,” retorted Margarita, and ran back to the dining-room. And after the dining-room door was shut, and the unhappy pretence of a supper had begun, old Marda had herself crept softly to the Senorita's door and listened, and heard Ramona sobbing as if her heart would break. Then she knew that what Margarita had said must be true, and her faithful soul was in sore straits what to think. The Senorita misdemean herself! Never! Whatever happened, it was not that! There was some horrible mistake somewhere. Kneeling at the keyhole, she had called cautiously to Ramona, “Oh, my lamb, what is it?” But Ramona had not heard her, and the danger was too great of remaining; so scrambling up with difficulty from her rheumatic knees, the old woman had hobbled back to the kitchen as much in the dark as before, and, by a curiously illogical consequence, crosser than ever to her daughter. All the next day she watched for herself, and could not but see that all appearances bore out Margarita's statements. Alessandro's sudden departure had been a tremendous corroboration of the story. Not one of the men had had an inkling of it; Juan Canito, Luigo, both alike astonished; no word left, no message sent; only Senor Felipe had said carelessly to Juan Can, after breakfast: “You'll have to look after things yourself for a few days, Juan. Alessandro has gone to Temecula.”
“For a few days!” exclaimed Margarita, sarcastically, when this was repeated to her. “That's easy said! If Alessandro Assis is seen here again, I'll eat my head! He's played his last tune on the south veranda, I wager you.”
But when at supper-time of this same eventful day the Senora was heard, as she passed the Senorita's door, to say in her ordinary voice, “Are you ready for supper, Ramona?” and Ramona was seen to come out and walk by the Senora's side to the dining-room; silent, to be sure,--but then that was no strange thing, the Senorita always was more silent in the Senora's presence,--when Marda, standing in the court-yard, feigning to be feeding her chickens, but keeping a close eye on the passage-ways, saw this, she was relieved, and thought: “It's only a dispute there has been. There will be disputes in families sometimes. It is none of our affair. All is settled now.”
And Margarita, standing in the dining-room, when she saw them all coming in as usual,--the Senora, Felipe, Ramona,--no change, even to her scrutinizing eye, in anybody's face, was more surprised than she had been for many a day; and began to think again, as she had more than once since this tragedy began, that she must have dreamed much that she remembered.
But surfaces are deceitful, and eyes see little. Considering its complexity, the fineness and delicacy of its mechanism, the results attainable by the human eye seem far from adequate to the expenditure put upon it. We have flattered ourselves by inventing proverbs of comparison in matter of blindness,--“blind as a bat,” for instance. It would be safe to say that there cannot be found in the animal kingdom a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range of circumstance and connection, as the greater majority of human beings are in the bosoms of their families. Tempers strain and recover, hearts break and heal, strength falters, fails, and comes near to giving way altogether, every day, without being noted by the closest lookers-on.
Before night of this second day since the trouble had burst like a storm-cloud on the peaceful Moreno household, everything had so resumed the ordinary expression and routine, that a shrewder observer and reasoner than Margarita might well be excused for doubting if any serious disaster could have occurred to any one. Senor Felipe sauntered about in his usual fashion, smoking his cigarettes, or lay on his bed in the veranda, dozing. The Senora went her usual rounds of inspection, fed her birds, spoke to every one in her usual tone, sat in her carved chair with her hands folded, gazing out on the southern sky. Ramona busied herself with her usual duties, dusted the chapel, put fresh flowers before all the Madonnas, and then sat down at her embroidery. Ramona had been for a long time at work on a beautiful altar-cloth for the chapel. It was to have been a present to the Senora. It was nearly done. As she held up the frame in which it was stretched, and looked at the delicate tracery of the pattern, she sighed. It had been with a mingled feeling of interest and hopelessness that she had for months been at work on it, often saying to herself, “She won't care much for it, beautiful as it is, just because I did it; but Father Salvierderra will be pleased when he sees it.”
Now, as she wove the fine threads in and out, she thought: “She will never let it be used on the altar. I wonder if I could any way get it to Father Salvierderra, at Santa Barbara. I would like to give it to him. I will ask Alessandro. I'm sure the Senora would never use it, and it would be a shame to leave it here. I shall take it with me.” But as she thought these things, her face was unruffled. A strange composure had settled on Ramona. “Only four days; only four days; I can bear anything for four days!” these words were coming and going in her mind like refrains of songs which haunt one's memory and will not be still. She saw that Felipe looked anxiously at her, but she answered his inquiring looks always with a gentle smile. It was evident that the Senora did not intend that she and Felipe should have any private conversation; but that did not so much matter. After all, there was not so much to be said. Felipe knew all. She could tell him nothing; Felipe had acted for the best, as he thought, in sending Alessandro away till the heat of the Senora's anger should have spent itself.
After her first dismay at suddenly learning that Alessandro had gone, had passed, she had reflected that it was just as well. He would come back prepared to take her with him. How, or where, she did not know; but she would go with no questions. Perhaps she would not even bid the Senora good-by; she wondered how that would arrange itself, and how far Alessandro would have to take her, to find a priest to marry them. It was a terrible thing to have to do, to go out of a home in such a way: no wedding--no wedding clothes--no friends--to go unmarried, and journey to a priest's house, to have the ceremony performed; “but it is not my fault,” said Ramona to herself; “it is hers. She drives me to do it. If it is wrong, the blame will be hers. Father Salvierderra would gladly come here and marry us, if she would send for him. I wish we could go to him, Alessandro and I; perhaps we can. I would not be afraid to ride so far; we could do it in two days.” The more Ramona thought of this, the more it appeared to her the natural thing for them to do. “He will be on our side, I know he will,” she thought. “He always liked Alessandro, and he loves me.”
It was strange how little bitterness toward the Senora was in the girl's mind; how comparatively little she thought of her. Her heart was too full of Alessandro and of their future; and it had never been Ramona's habit to dwell on the Senora in her thoughts. As from her childhood up she had accepted the fact of the Senora's coldness toward her, so now she accepted her injustice and opposition as part of the nature of things, and not to be altered.
During all these hours, during the coming and going of these crowds of fears, sorrows, memories, anticipations in Ramona's heart, all that there was to be seen to the eye was simply a calm, quiet girl, sitting on the veranda, diligently working at her lace-frame. Even Felipe was deceived by her calmness, and wondered what it meant,--if it could be that she was undergoing the change that his mother had thought possible, and designated as coming “to her senses.” Even Felipe did not know the steadfast fibre of the girl's nature; neither did he realize what a bond had grown between her and Alessandro. In fact, he sometimes wondered of what this bond had been made. He had himself seen the greater part of their intercourse with each other; nothing could have been farther removed from anything like love-making. There had been no crisis of incident, or marked moments of experience such as in Felipe's imaginations of love were essential to the fulness of its growth. This is a common mistake on the part of those who have never felt love's true bonds. Once in those chains, one perceives that they are not of the sort full forged in a day. They are made as the great iron cables are made, on which bridges are swung across the widest water-channels,--not of single huge rods, or bars, which would be stronger, perhaps, to look at, but of myriads of the finest wires, each one by itself so fine, so frail, it would barely hold a child's kite in the wind: by hundreds, hundreds of thousands of such, twisted, re-twisted together, are made the mighty cables, which do not any more swerve from their place in the air, under the weight and jar of the ceaseless traffic and tread of two cities, than the solid earth swerves under the same ceaseless weight and jar. Such cables do not break.
Even Ramona herself would have found it hard to tell why she thus loved Alessandro; how it began, or by what it grew. It had not been a sudden adoration, like his passion for her; it was, in the beginning, simply a response; but now it was as strong a love as his,--as strong, and as unchangeable. The Senora's harsh words had been like a forcing-house air to it, and the sudden knowledge of the fact of her own Indian descent seemed to her like a revelation, pointing out the path in which destiny called her to walk. She thrilled with pleasure at the thought of the joy with which Alessandro would hear this,--the joy and the surprise. She imagined to herself, in hundreds of ways, the time, place, and phrase in which she would tell him. She could not satisfy herself as to the best; as to which would give keenest pleasure to him and to her. She would tell him, as soon as she saw him; it should be her first word of greeting. No! There would be too much of trouble and embarrassment then. She would wait till they were far away, till they were alone, in the wilderness; and then she would turn to him, and say, “Alessandro, my people are your people!” Or she would wait, and keep her secret until she had reached Temecula, and they had begun their life there, and Alessandro had been astonished to see how readily and kindly she took to all the ways of the Indian village; and then, when he expressed some such emotion, she would quietly say, “But I too am an Indian, Alessandro!”
Strange, sad bride's dreams these; but they made Ramona's heart beat with happiness as she dreamed them.
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
14
|
None
|
THE first day had gone, it was near night of the second, and not a word had passed between Felipe and Ramona, except in the presence of the Senora. It would have been beautiful to see, if it had not been so cruel a thing, the various and devious methods by which the Senora had brought this about. Felipe, oddly enough, was more restive under it than Ramona. She had her dreams. He had nothing but his restless consciousness that he had not done for her what he hoped; that he must seem to her to have been disloyal; this, and a continual wonder what she could be planning or expecting which made her so placid, kept Felipe in a fever of unrest, of which his mother noted every sign, and redoubled her vigilance.
Felipe thought perhaps he could speak to Ramona in the night, through her window. But the August heats were fierce now; everybody slept with wide-open windows; the Senora was always wakeful; if she should chance to hear him thus holding secret converse with Ramona, it would indeed make bad matters worse. Nevertheless, he decided to try it. At the first sound of his footsteps on the veranda floor, “My son, are you ill? Can I do anything?” came from the Senora's window. She had not been asleep at all. It would take more courage than Felipe possessed, to try that plan again; and he lay on his veranda bed, this afternoon, tossing about with sheer impatience at his baffled purpose. Ramona sat at the foot of the bed, taking the last stitches in the nearly completed altar-cloth. The Senora sat in her usual seat, dozing, with her head thrown back. It was very hot; a sultry south-wind, with dust from the desert, had been blowing all day, and every living creature was more or less prostrated by it.
As the Senora's eyes closed, a sudden thought struck Felipe. Taking out a memorandum-book in which he kept his accounts, he began rapidly writing. Looking up, and catching Ramona's eye, he made a sign to her that it was for her. She glanced apprehensively at the Senora. She was asleep. Presently Felipe, folding the note, and concealing it in his hand, rose, and walked towards Ramona's window, Ramona terrifiedly watching him; the sound of Felipe's steps roused the Senora, who sat up instantly, and gazed about her with that indescribable expression peculiar to people who hope they have not been asleep, but know they have. “Have I been asleep?” she asked.
“About one minute, mother,” answered Felipe, who was leaning, as he spoke, against Ramona's open window, his arms crossed behind him. Stretching them out, and back and forth a few times, yawning idly, he said, “This heat is intolerable!” Then he sauntered leisurely down the veranda steps into the garden-walk, and seated himself on the bench under the trellis there.
The note had been thrown into Ramona's room. She was hot and cold with fear lest she might not be able to get it unobserved. What if the Senora were to go first into the room! She hardly dared look at her. But fortune is not always on the side of tyrants. The Senora was fast dozing off again, relieved that Felipe was out of speaking distance of Ramona. As soon as her eyes were again shut, Ramona rose to go. The Senora opened her eyes. Ramona was crossing the threshold of the door; she was going into the house. Good! Still farther away from Felipe.
“Are you going to your room, Ramona?” said the Senor.
“I was,” replied Ramona, alarmed. “Did you want me here?”
“No,” said the Senora; and she closed her eyes again.
In a second more the note was safe in Ramona's hands.
“Dear Ramona,” Felipe had written, “I am distracted because I cannot speak with you alone. Can you think of any way? I want to explain things to you. I am afraid you do not understand. Don't be unhappy. Alessandro will surely be back in four days. I want to help you all I can, but you saw I could not do much. Nobody will hinder your doing what you please; but, dear, I wish you would not go away from us!”
Tearing the paper into small fragments, Ramona thrust them into her bosom, to be destroyed later. Then looking out of the window, and seeing that the Senora was now in a sound sleep, she ventured to write a reply to Felipe, though when she would find a safe opportunity to give it to him, there was no telling. “Thank you, dear Felipe. Don't be anxious. I am not unhappy. I understand all about it. But I must go away as soon as Alessandro comes.” Hiding this also safe in her bosom, she went back to the veranda. Felipe rose, and walked toward the steps. Ramona, suddenly bold, stooped, and laid her note on the second step. Again the tired eyes of the Senora opened. They had not been shut five minutes; Ramona was at her work; Felipe was coming up the steps from the garden. He nodded laughingly to his mother, and laid his finger on his lips. All was well. The Senora dozed again. Her nap had cost her more than she would ever know. This one secret interchange between Felipe and Ramona then, thus making, as it were, common cause with each other as against her, and in fear of her, was a step never to be recalled,--a step whose significance could scarcely be overestimated. Tyrants, great and small, are apt to overlook such possibilities as this; to forget the momentousness which the most trivial incident may assume when forced into false proportions and relations. Tyranny can make liars and cheats out of the honestest souls. It is done oftener than any except close students of human nature realize. When kings and emperors do this, the world cries out with sympathy, and holds the plotters more innocent than the tyrant who provoked the plot. It is Russia that stands branded in men's thoughts, and not Siberia.
The Senora had a Siberia of her own, and it was there that Ramona was living in these days. The Senora would have been surprised to know how little the girl felt the cold. To be sure, it was not as if she had ever felt warmth in the Senora's presence; yet between the former chill and this were many degrees, and except for her new life, and new love, and hope in the thought of Alessandro, Ramona could not have borne it for a day.
The fourth day came; it seemed strangely longer than the others had. All day Ramona watched and listened. Felipe, too; for, knowing what Alessandro's impatience would be, he had, in truth, looked for him on the previous night. The horse he rode was a fleet one, and would have made the journey with ease in half the time. But Felipe reflected that there might be many things for Alessandro to arrange at Temecula. He would doubtless return prepared to take Ramona back with him, in case that proved the only alternative left them. Felipe grew wretched as his fancy dwelt on the picture of Ramona's future. He had been in the Temecula village. He knew its poverty; the thought of Ramona there was monstrous, To the indolent, ease-loving Felipe it was incredible that a girl reared as Ramona had been, could for a moment contemplate leading the life of a poor laboring man's wife. He could not conceive of love's making one undertake any such life. Felipe had much to learn of love. Night came; no Alessandro. Till the darkness settled down, Ramona sat, watching the willows. When she could no longer see, she listened. The Senora, noting all, also listened. She was uneasy as to the next stage of affairs, but she would not speak. Nothing should induce her to swerve from the line of conduct on which she had determined. It was the full of the moon. When the first broad beam of its light came over the hill, and flooded the garden and the white front of the little chapel, just as it had done on that first night when Alessandro watched with Felipe on the veranda, Ramona pressed her face against the window-panes, and gazed out into the garden. At each flickering, motion of the shadows she saw the form of a man approaching. Again and again she saw it. Again and again the breeze died, and the shadow ceased. It was near morning before, weary, sad, she crept to bed; but not to sleep. With wide-open, anxious eyes, she still watched and listened. Never had the thought once crossed her mind that Alessandro might not come at the time Felipe had said. In her childlike simplicity she had accepted this as unquestioningly as she had accepted other facts in her life. Now that he did not come, unreasoning and unfounded terror took possession of her, and she asked herself continually, “Will he ever come! They sent him away; perhaps he will be too proud to come back!” Then faith would return, and saying to herself, “He would never, never forsake me; he knows I have no one in the whole world but him; he knows how I love him,” she would regain composure, and remind herself of the many detentions which might have prevented his coming at the time set. Spite of all, however, she was heavy at heart; and at breakfast her anxious eyes and absent look were sad to see. They hurt Felipe. Too well he knew what it meant. He also was anxious. The Senora saw it in his face, and it vexed her. The girl might well pine, and be mortified if her lover did not appear. But why should Felipe disquiet himself? The Senora disliked it. It was a bad symptom. There might be trouble ahead yet. There was, indeed, trouble ahead,--of a sort the Senora's imaginings had not pictured.
Another day passed; another night; another, and another. One week now since Alessandro, as he leaped on his horse, had grasped Felipe's hand, and said: “You will tell the Senorita; you will make sure that she understands why I go; and in four days I will be back.” One week, and he had not come. The three who were watching and wondering looked covertly into each other's faces, each longing to know what the others thought.
Ramona was wan and haggard. She had scarcely slept. The idea had taken possession of her that Alessandro was dead. On the sixth and seventh days she had walked each afternoon far down the river road, by which he would be sure to come; down the meadows, and by the cross-cut, out to the highway; at each step straining her tearful eyes into the distance,--the cruel, blank, silent distance. She had come back after dark, whiter and more wan than she went out. As she sat at the supper-table, silent, making no feint of eating, only drinking glass after glass of milk, in thirsty haste, even Margarita pitied her. But the Senora did not. She thought the best thing which could happen, would be that the Indian should never come back. Ramona would recover from it in a little while; the mortification would be the worst thing, but even that, time would heal. She wondered that the girl had not more pride than to let her wretchedness be so plainly seen. She herself would have died before she would go about with such a woe-begone face, for a whole household to see and gossip about.
On the morning of the eighth day, Ramona, desperate, waylaid Felipe, as he was going down the veranda steps. The Senora was in the garden, and saw them; but Ramona did not care. “Felipe!” she cried, “I must, I must speak to you! Do you think Alessandro is dead? What else could keep him from coming?” Her lips were dry, her cheeks scarlet, her voice husky. A few more days of this, and she would be in a brain fever, Felipe thought, as he looked compassionately at her.
“Oh, no, no, dear! Do not think that!” he replied. “A thousand things might have kept him.”
“Ten thousand things would not! Nothing could!” said Ramona. “I know he is dead. Can't you send a messenger, Felipe, and see?”
The Senora was walking toward them. She overheard the last words. Looking toward Felipe, no more regarding Ramona than if she had not been within sight or hearing, the Senora said, “It seems to me that would not be quite consistent with dignity. How does it strike you, Felipe' If you thought best, we might spare a man as soon as the vintage is done, I suppose.”
Ramona walked away. The vintage would not be over for a week. There were several vineyards yet which had not been touched; every hand on the place was hard at work, picking the grapes, treading them out in tubs, emptying the juice into stretched raw-hides swung from cross-beams in a long shed. In the willow copse the brandy-still was in full blast; it took one man to watch it; this was Juan Can's favorite work; for reasons of his own he liked best to do it alone; and now that he could no longer tread grapes in the tubs, he had a better chance for uninterrupted work at the still. “No ill but has its good,” he thought sometimes, as he lay comfortably stretched out in the shade, smoking his pipe day after day, and breathing the fumes of the fiery brandy.
As Ramona disappeared in the doorway, the Senora, coming close to Felipe, and laying her hand on his arm, said in a confidential tone, nodding her head in the direction in which Ramona had vanished: “She looks badly, Felipe. I don't know what we can do. We surely cannot send to summon back a lover we do not wish her to marry, can we? It is very perplexing. Most unfortunate, every way. What do you think, my son?” There was almost a diabolical art in the manner in which the Senora could, by a single phrase or question, plant in a person's mind the precise idea she wished him to think he had originated himself.
“No; of course we can't send for him,” replied Felipe, angrily; “unless it is to send him to marry her; I wish he had never set foot on the place. I am sure I don't know what to do. Ramona's looks frighten me. I believe she will die.”
“I cannot wish Alessandro had never set foot on the place,” said the Senora, gently, “for I feel that I owe your life to him, my Felipe; and he is not to blame for Ramona's conduct. You need not fear her dying, She may be ill; but people do not die of love like hers for Alessandro.”
“Of what kind do they die, mother?” asked Felipe, impatiently.
The Senora looked reproachfully at him. “Not often of any,” she said; “but certainly not of a sudden passion for a person in every way beneath them, in position, in education, in all points which are essential to congeniality of tastes or association of life.”
The Senora spoke calmly, with no excitement, as if she were discussing an abstract case. Sometimes, when she spoke like this, Felipe for the moment felt as if she were entirely right, as if it were really a disgraceful thing in Ramona to have thus loved Alessandro. It could not be gainsaid that there was this gulf, of which she spoke. Alessandro was undeniably Ramona's inferior in position, education, in all the external matters of life; but in nature, in true nobility of soul, no! Alessandro was no man's inferior in these; and in capacity to love,--Felipe sometimes wondered whether he had ever known Alessandro's equal in that. This thought had occurred to him more than once, as from his sick-bed he had, unobserved, studied the expression with which Alessandro gazed at Ramona. But all this made no difference in the perplexity of the present dilemma, in the embarrassment of his and his mother's position now. Send a messenger to ask why Alessandro did not return! Not even if he had been an accepted and publicly recognized lover, would Felipe do that! Ramona ought to have more pride. She ought of herself to know that. And when Felipe, later in the day, saw Ramona again, he said as much to her. He said it as gently as he could; so gently that she did not at first comprehend his idea. It was so foreign, so incompatible with her faith, how could she?
When she did understand, she said slowly: “You mean that it will not do to send to find out if Alessandro is dead, because it will look as if I wished him to marry me whether he wished it or not?” and she fixed her eyes on Felipe's, with an expression he could not fathom.
“Yes, dear,” he answered, “something like that, though you put it harshly.”
“Is it not true,” she persisted, “that is what you mean?”
Reluctantly Felipe admitted that it was.
Ramona was silent for some moments; then she said, speaking still more slowly, “If you feel like that, we had better never talk about Alessandro again. I suppose it is not possible that you should know, as I do, that nothing but his being dead would keep him from coming back. Thanks, dear Felipe;” and after this she did not speak again of Alessandro.
Days went by; a week. The vintage was over. The Senora wondered if Ramona would now ask again for a messenger to go to Temecula. Almost even the Senora relented, as she looked into the girl's white and wasted face, as she sat silent, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on the willows. The altar-cloth was done, folded and laid away. It would never hang in the Moreno chapel. It was promised, in Ramona's mind, to Father Salvierderra. She had resolved to go to him; if he, a feeble old man, could walk all the way between Santa Barbara and their home, she could surely do the same. She would not lose the way. There were not many roads; she could ask. The convent, the bare thought of which had been so terrible to Ramona fourteen days ago, when the Senora had threatened her with it, now seemed a heavenly refuge, the only shelter she craved. There was a school for orphans attached to the convent at San Juan Bautista, she knew; she would ask the Father to let her go there, and she would spend the rest of her life in prayer, and in teaching the orphan girls. As hour after hour she sat revolving this plan, her fancy projected itself so vividly into the future, that she lived years of her life. She felt herself middle-aged, old. She saw the procession of nuns, going to vespers, leading the children by the hand; herself wrinkled and white-haired, walking between two of the little ones. The picture gave her peace. As soon as she grew a little stronger, she would set off on her journey to the Father; she could not go just yet, she was too weak; her feet trembled if she did but walk to the foot of the garden. Alessandro was dead; there could be no doubt of that. He was buried in that little walled graveyard of which he had told her. Sometimes she thought she would try to go there and see his grave, perhaps see his father; if Alessandro had told him of her, the old man would be glad to see her; perhaps, after all, her work might lie there, among Alessandro's people. But this looked hard: she had not courage for it; shelter and rest were what she wanted,--the sound of the Church's prayers, and the Father's blessing every day. The convent was the best.
She thought she was sure that Alessandro was dead; but she was not, for she still listened, still watched. Each day she walked out on the river road, and sat waiting till dusk. At last came a day when she could not go; her strength failed her. She lay all day on her bed. To the Senora, who asked frigidly if she were ill, she answered: “No, Senora, I do not think I am ill, I have no pain, but I cannot get up. I shall be better to-morrow.”
“I will send you strong broth and a medicine,” the Senora said; and sent her both by the hands of Margarita, whose hatred and jealousy broke down at the first sight of Ramona's face on the pillow; it looked so much thinner and sharper there than it had when she was sitting up. “Oh, Senorita! Senorita!” she cried, in a tone of poignant grief, “are you going to die? Forgive me, forgive me!”
“I have nothing to forgive you, Margarita,” replied Ramona, raising herself on her elbow, and lifting her eyes kindly to the girl's face as she took the broth from her hands. “I do not know why you ask me to forgive you.”
Margarita flung herself on her knees by the bed, in a passion of weeping. “Oh, but you do know, Senorita, you do know! Forgive me!”
“No, I know nothing,” replied Ramona; “but if you know anything, it is all forgiven. I am not going to die, Margarita. I am going away,” she added, after a second's pause. Her inmost instinct told her that she could trust Margarita now. Alessandro being dead, Margarita would no longer be her enemy, and Margarita could perhaps help her. “I am going away, Margarita, as soon as I feel a little stronger. I am going to a convent; but the Senora does not know. You will not tell?”
“No, Senorita!” whispered Margarita,--thinking in her heart, “Yes, she is going away, but it will be with the angels.” --“No, Senorita, I will not tell. I will do anything you want me to.”
“Thanks, Margarita mia,” replied Ramona. “I thought you would;” and she lay back on her pillow, and closed her eyes, looking so much more like death than like life that Margarita's tears flowed faster than before, and she ran to her mother, sobbing out, “Mother, mother! the Senorita is ill to death. I am sure she is. She has taken to her bed; and she is as white as Senor Felipe was at the worst of the fever.”
“Ay,” said old Marda, who had seen all this for days back; “ay, she has wasted away, this last week, like one in a fever, sure enough; I have seen it. It must be she is starving herself to death.”
“Indeed, she has not eaten for ten days,--hardly since that day;” and Margarita and her mother exchanged looks. It was not necessary to further define the day.
“Juan Can says he thinks he will never be seen here again,” continued Margarita.
“The saints grant it, then,” said Marda, hotly, “if it is he has cost the Senorita all this! I am that turned about in my head with it all, that I've no thoughts to think; but plain enough it is, he is mixed up with whatever 'tis has gone wrong.”
“I could tell what it is,” said Margarita, her old pertness coming uppermost for a moment; “but I've got no more to say, now the Senorita's lying on her bed, with the face she's got. It's enough to break your heart to look at her. I could just go down on my knees to her for all I've said; and I will, and to Saint Francis too! She's going to be with him before long; I know she is.”
“No,” said the wiser, older Marda. “She is not so ill as you think. She is young. It's the heart's gone out of her; that's all. I've been that way myself. People are, when they're young.”
“I'm young!” retorted Margarita. “I've never been that way.”
“There's many a mile to the end of the road, my girl,” said Marda, significantly; “and 'It's ill boasting the first day out,' was a proverb when I was your age!”
Marda had never been much more than half-way fond of this own child of hers. Their natures were antagonistic. Traits which, in Margarita's father, had embittered many a day of Marda's early married life, were perpetually cropping out in Margarita, making between the mother and daughter a barrier which even parental love was not always strong enough to surmount. And, as was inevitable, this antagonism was constantly leading to things which seemed to Margarita, and in fact were, unjust and ill-founded.
“She's always flinging out at me, whatever I do,” thought Margarita. “I know one thing; I'll never tell her what the Senorita's told me; never,--not till after she's gone.”
A sudden suspicion flashed into Margarita's mind. She seated herself on the bench outside the kitchen door, to wrestle with it. What if it were not to a convent at all, but to Alessandro, that the Senorita meant to go! No; that was preposterous. If it had been that, she would have gone with him in the outset. Nobody who was plotting to run away with a lover ever wore such a look as the Senorita wore now. Margarita dismissed the thought; yet it left its trace. She would be more observant for having had it; her resuscitated affection far her young mistress was not yet so strong that it would resist the assaults of jealousy, if that passion were to be again aroused in her fiery soul. Though she had never been deeply in love with Alessandro herself, she had been enough so, and she remembered him vividly enough, to feel yet a sharp emotion of displeasure at the recollection of his devotion to the Senorita. Now that the Senorita seemed to be deserted, unhappy, prostrated, she had no room for anything but pity for her; but let Alessandro come on the stage again, and all would be changed. The old hostility would return. It was but a dubious sort of ally, after all, that Ramona had so unexpectedly secured in Margarita. She might prove the sharpest of broken reeds.
It was sunset of the eighteenth day since Alessandro's departure. Ramona had lain for four days well-nigh motionless on her bed. She herself began to think she must be going to die. Her mind seemed to be vacant of all thought. She did not even sorrow for Alessandro's death; she seemed torpid, body and soul. Such prostrations as these are Nature's enforced rests. It is often only by help of them that our bodies tide over crises, strains, in which, if we continued to battle, we should be slain.
As Ramona lay half unconscious,--neither awake nor yet asleep,--on this evening, she was suddenly aware of a vivid impression produced upon her; it was not sound, it was not sight. She was alone; the house was still as death; the warm September twilight silence reigned outside, She sat up in her bed, intent--half alarmed--half glad--bewildered--alive. What had happened? Still there was no sound, no stir. The twilight was fast deepening; not a breath of air moving. Gradually her bewildered senses and faculties awoke from their long-dormant condition; she looked around the room; even the walls seemed revivified; she clasped her hands, and leaped from the bed. “Alessandro is not dead!” she said aloud; and she laughed hysterically. “He is not dead!” she repeated. “He is not dead! He is somewhere near!”
With quivering hands she dressed, and stole out of the house. After the first few seconds she found herself strangely strong; she did not tremble; her feet trod firm on the ground. “Oh, miracle!” she thought, as she hastened down the garden-walk; “I am well again! Alessandro is near!” So vivid was the impression, that when she reached the willows and found the spot silent, vacant, as when she had last sat there, hopeless, broken-hearted, she experienced a revulsion of disappointment. “Not here!” she cried; “not here!” and a swift fear shook her. “Am I mad? Is it this way, perhaps, people lose their senses, when they are as I have been!”
But the young, strong blood was running swift in her veins. No! this was no madness; rather a newly discovered power; a fulness of sense; a revelation. Alessandro was near.
Swiftly she walked down the river road. The farther she went, the keener grew her expectation, her sense of Alessandro's nearness. In her present mood she would have walked on and on, even to Temecula itself, sure that she was at each step drawing nearer to Alessandro.
As she approached the second willow copse, which lay perhaps a quarter of a mile west of the first, she saw the figure of a man, standing, leaning against one of the trees. She halted. It could not be Alessandro. He would not have paused for a moment so near the house where he was to find her. She was afraid to go on. It was late to meet a stranger in this lonely spot. The figure was strangely still; so still that, as she peered through the dusk, she half fancied it might be an optical illusion. She advanced a few steps, hesitatingly, then stopped. As she did so, the man advanced a few steps, then stopped. As he came out from the shadows of the trees, she saw that he was of Alessandro's height. She quickened her steps, then suddenly stopped again. What did this mean? It could not be Alessandro. Ramona wrung her hands in agony of suspense. An almost unconquerable instinct urged her forward; but terror held her back. After standing irresolute for some minutes, she turned to walk back to the house, saying, “I must not run the risk of its being a stranger. If it is Alessandro, he will come.”
But her feet seemed to refuse to move in the opposite direction. Slower and slower she walked for a few paces, then turned again. The man had returned to his former place, and stood as at first, leaning against the tree.
“It may be a messenger from him,” she said; “a messenger who has been told not to come to the house until after dark.”
Her mind was made up. She quickened her pace to a run. A few moments more brought her so near that she could see distinctly. It was--yes, it was Alessandro. He did not see her. His face was turned partially away, his head resting against the tree; he must be ill. Ramona flew, rather than ran. In a moment more, Alessandro had heard the light steps, turned, saw Ramona, and, with a cry, bounded forward, and they were clasped in each other's arms before they had looked in each other's faces. Ramona spoke first. Disengaging herself gently, and looking up, she began: “Alessandro--” But at the first sight of his face she shrieked. Was this Alessandro, this haggard, emaciated, speechless man, who gazed at her with hollow eyes, full of misery, and no joy! “O God,” cried Ramona, “You have been ill! you are ill! My God, Alessandro, what is it?”
Alessandro passed his hand slowly over his forehead, as if trying to collect his thoughts before speaking, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on Ramona, with the same anguished look, convulsively holding both her hands in his.
“Senorita,” he said, “my Senorita!” Then he stopped. His tongue seemed to refuse him utterance; and this voice,--this strange, hard, unresonant voice,--whose voice was it? Not Alessandro's.
“My Senorita,” he began again, “I could not go without one sight of your face; but when I was here, I had not courage to go near the house. If you had not come, I should have gone back without seeing you.”
Ramona heard these words in fast-deepening terror, What did they mean? Her look seemed to suggest a new thought to Alessandro.
“Heavens, Senorita!” he cried, “have you not heard? Do you not know what has happened?”
“I know nothing, love,” answered Ramona. “I have heard nothing since you went away. For ten days I have been sure you were dead; but to-night something told me that you were near, and I came to meet you.”
At the first words of Ramona's sentence, Alessandro threw his arms around her again. As she said “love,” his whole frame shook with emotion.
“My Senorita!” he whispered, “my Senorita! how shall I tell you! How shall I tell you!”
“What is there to tell, Alessandro?” she said. “I am afraid of nothing, now that you are here, and not dead, as I thought.”
But Alessandro did not speak. It seemed impossible. At last, straining her closer to his breast, he cried: “Dearest Senorita! I feel as if I should die when I tell you,--I have no home; my father is dead; my people are driven out of their village. I am only a beggar now, Senorita; like those you used to feed and pity in Los Angeles convent!” As he spoke the last words, he reeled, and, supporting himself against the tree, added: “I am not strong, Senorita; we have been starving.”
Ramona's face did not reassure him. Even in the dusk he could see its look of incredulous horror. He misread it.
“I only came to look at you once more,” he continued. “I will go now. May the saints bless you, my Senorita, always. I think the Virgin sent you to me to-night. I should never have seen your face if you had not come.”
While he was speaking, Ramona had buried her face in his bosom. Lifting it now, she said, “Did you mean to leave me to think you were dead, Alessandro?”
“I thought that the news about our village must have reached you,” he said, “and that you would know I had no home, and could not come, to seem to remind you of what you had said. Oh, Senorita, it was little enough I had before to give you! I don't know how I dared to believe that you could come to be with me; but I loved you so much, I had thought of many things I could do; and--” lowering his voice and speaking almost sullenly--“it is the saints, I believe, who have punished me thus for having resolved to leave my people, and take all I had for myself and you. Now they have left me nothing;” and he groaned.
“Who?” cried Ramona. “Was there a battle? Was your father killed?” She was trembling with horror.
“No,” answered Alessandro. “There was no battle. There would have been, if I had had my way; but my father implored me not to resist. He said it would only make it worse for us in the end. The sheriff, too, he begged me to let it all go on peaceably, and help him keep the people quiet. He felt terribly to have to do it. It was Mr. Rothsaker, from San Diego. We had often worked for him on his ranch. He knew all about us. Don't you recollect, Senorita, I told you about him,--how fair he always was, and kind too? He has the biggest wheat-ranch in Cajon; we've harvested miles and miles of wheat for him. He said he would have rather died, almost, than have had it to do; but if we resisted, he would have to order his men to shoot. He had twenty men with him. They thought there would be trouble; and well they might,--turning a whole village full of men and women and children out of their houses, and driving them off like foxes. If it had been any man but Mr. Rothsaker, I would have shot him dead, if I had hung for it; but I knew if he thought we must go, there was no help for us.”
“But, Alessandro,” interrupted Ramona, “I can't understand. Who was it made Mr. Rothsaker do it? Who has the land now?”
“I don't know who they are,” Alessandro replied, his voice full of anger and scorn. “They're Americans--eight or ten of them. They all got together and brought a suit, they call it, up in San Francisco; and it was decided in the court that they owned all our land. That was all Mr. Rothsaker could tell about it. It was the law, he said, and nobody could go against the law.”
“Oh,” said Ramona, “that's the way the Americans took so much of the Senora's land away from her. It was in the court up in San Francisco; and they decided that miles and miles of her land, which the General had always had, was not hers at all. They said it belonged to the United States Government.”
“They are a pack of thieves and liars, every one of them!” cried Alessandro. “They are going to steal all the land in this country; we might all just as well throw ourselves into the sea, and let them have it. My father had been telling me this for years. He saw it coming; but I did not believe him. I did not think men could be so wicked; but he was right. I am glad he is dead. That is the only thing I have to be thankful for now. One day I thought he was going to get well, and I prayed to the Virgin not to let him. I did not want him to live. He never knew anything clear after they took him out of his house. That was before I got there. I found him sitting on the ground outside. They said it was the sun that had turned him crazy; but it was not. It was his heart breaking in his bosom. He would not come out of his house, and the men lifted him up and carried him out by force, and threw him on the ground; and then they threw out all the furniture we had; and when he saw them doing that, he put his hands up to his head, and called out, 'Alessandro! Alessandro!' and I was not there! Senorita, they said it was a voice to make the dead hear, that he called with; and nobody could stop him. All that day and all the night he kept on calling. God! Senorita, I wonder I did not die when they told me! When I got there, some one had built up a little booth of tule over his head, to keep the sun off. He did not call any more, only for water, water. That was what made them think the sun had done it. They did all they could; but it was such a dreadful time, nobody could do much; the sheriff's men were in great hurry; they gave no time. They said the people must all be off in two days. Everybody was running hither and thither. Everything out of the houses in piles on the ground. The people took all the roofs off their houses too. They were made of the tule reeds; so they would do again. Oh, Senorita, don't ask me to tell you any more! It is like death. I can't!”
Ramona was crying bitterly. She did not know what to say. What was love, in face of such calamity? What had she to give to a man stricken like this.'
“Don't weep, Senorita,” said Alessandro, drearily. “Tears kill one, and do no good.”
“How long did your father live?” asked Ramona, clasping her arms closer around his neck. They were sitting on the ground now, and Ramona, yearning over Alessandro, as if she were the strong one and he the one to be sheltered, had drawn his head to her bosom, caressing him as if he had been hers for years. Nothing could have so clearly shown his enfeebled and benumbed condition, as the manner in which he received these caresses, which once would have made him beside himself with joy. He leaned against her breast as a child might.
“He! He died only four days ago. I stayed to bury him, and then I came away. I have been three days on the way; the horse, poor beast, is almost weaker than I. The Americans took my horse,” Alessandro said.
“Took your horse!” cried Ramona, aghast. “Is that the law, too?”
“So Mr. Rothsaker told me. He said the judge had said he must take enough of our cattle and horses to pay all it had cost for the suit up in San Francisco. They didn't reckon the cattle at what they were worth, I thought; but they said cattle were selling very low now. There were not enough in all the village to pay it, so we had to make it up in horses; and they took mine. I was not there the day they drove the cattle away, or I would have put a ball into Benito's head before any American should ever have had him to ride. But I was over in Pachanga with my father. He would not stir a step for anybody but me; so I led him all the way; and then after he got there he was so ill I never left him a minute. He did not know me any more, nor know anything that had happened. I built a little hut of tule, and he lay on the ground till he died. When I put him in his grave, I was glad.”
“In Temecula?” asked Ramona.
“In Temecula.” exclaimed Alessandro, fiercely. “You don't seem to understand, Senorita. We have no right in Temecula, not even to our graveyard full of the dead. Mr. Rothsaker warned us all not to be hanging about there; for he said the men who were coming in were a rough set, and they would shoot any Indian at sight, if they saw him trespassing on their property.”
“Their property!” ejaculated Ramona.
“Yes; it is theirs,” said Alessandro, doggedly. “That is the law. They've got all the papers to show it. That is what my father always said,--if the Senor Valdez had only given him a paper! But they never did in those days. Nobody had papers. The American law is different.”
“It's a law of thieves!” cried Ramona.
“Yes, and of murderers too,” said Alessandro. “Don't you call my father murdered just as much as if they had shot him? I do! and, O Senorita, my Senorita, there was Jose! You recollect Jose, who went for my violin? But, my beloved one, I am killing you with these terrible things! I will speak no more.”
“No, no, Alessandro. Tell me all, all. You must have no grief I do not share. Tell me about Jose,” cried Ramona, breathlessly.
“Senorita, it will break your heart to hear. Jose was married a year ago. He had the best house in Temecula, next to my father's. It was the only other one that had a shingled roof. And he had a barn too, and that splendid horse he rode, and oxen, and a flock of sheep. He was at home when the sheriff came. A great many of the men were away, grapepicking. That made it worse. But Jose was at home; for his wife had a little baby only a few weeks old, and the child seemed sickly and not like to live, and Jose would not leave it. Jose was the first one that saw the sheriff riding into the village, and the band of armed men behind him, and Jose knew what it meant. He had often talked it over with me and with my father, and now he saw that it had come; and he went crazy in one minute, and fell on the ground all froth at his mouth. He had had a fit like that once before; and the doctor said if he had another, he would die. But he did not. They picked him up, and presently he was better; and Mr. Rothsaker said nobody worked so well in the moving the first day as Jose did. Most of the men would not lift a hand. They sat on the ground with the women, and covered up their faces, and would not see. But Jose worked; and, Senorita, one of the first things he did, was to run with my father's violin to the store, to Mrs. Hartsel, and ask her to hide it for us; Jose knew it was worth money. But before noon the second day he had another fit, and died in it,--died right in his own door, carrying out some of the things; and after Carmena--that's his wife's name--saw he was dead, she never spoke, but sat rocking back and forth on the ground, with the baby in her arms. She went over to Pachanga at the same time I did with my father. It was a long procession of us.”
“Where is Pachanga?” asked Ramona.
“About three miles from Temecula, a little sort of canon. I told the people they'd better move over there; the land did not belong to anybody, and perhaps they could make a living there. There isn't any water; that's the worst of it.”
“No water!” cried Ramona.
“No running water. There is one little spring, and they dug a well by it as soon as they got there; so there was water to drink, but that is all. I saw Carmena could hardly keep up, and I carried the baby for her on one arm, while I led my father with the other hand; but the baby cried, so she took it back. I thought then it wouldn't live the day out; but it did live till the morning of the day my father died. Just a few hours before he died, Carmena came along with the baby rolled up in her shawl, and sat down by me on the ground, and did not speak. When I said, 'How is the little one?' she opened her shawl and showed it to me, dead. 'Good, Carmena!' said I. 'It is good! My father is dying too. We will bury them together.' So she sat by me all that morning, and at night she helped me dig the graves. I wanted to put the baby on my father's breast; but she said, no, it must have a little grave. So she dug it herself; and we put them in; and she never spoke, except that once. She was sitting there by the grave when I came away. I made a cross of two little trees with the boughs chopped off, and set it up by the graves. So that is the way our new graveyard was begun,--my father and the little baby; it is the very young and the very old that have the blessed fortune to die. I cannot die, it seems!”
“Where did they bury Jose?” gasped Ramona.
“In Temecula,” said Alessandro. “Mr. Rothsaker made two of his men dig a grave in our old graveyard for Jose. But I think Carmena will go at night and bring his body away. I would! But, my Senorita, it is very dark, I can hardly see your beloved eyes. I think you must not stay longer. Can I go as far as the brook with you, safely, without being seen? The saints bless you, beloved, for coming. I could not have lived, I think, without one more sight of your face;” and, springing to his feet, Alessandro stood waiting for Ramona to move. She remained still. She was in a sore strait. Her heart held but one impulse, one desire,--to go with Alessandro; nothing was apparently farther from his thoughts than this. Could she offer to go? Should she risk laying a burden on him greater than he could bear? If he were indeed a beggar, as he said, would his life be hindered or helped by her? She felt herself strong and able. Work had no terrors for her; privations she knew nothing of, but she felt no fear of them.
“Alessandro!” she said, in a tone which startled him.
“My Senorita!” he said tenderly.
“You have never once called me Ramona.”
“I cannot, Senorita!” he replied.
“Why not?”
“I do not know. I sometimes think 'Ramona,'” he added faintly; “but not often. If I think of you by any other name than as my Senorita, it is usually by a name you never heard.”
“What is it?” exclaimed Ramona, wonderingly.
“An Indian word, my dearest one, the name of the bird you are like,--the wood-dove. In the Luiseno tongue that is Majel; that was what I thought my people would have called you, if you had come to dwell among us. It is a beautiful name, Senorita, and is like you.”
Alessandro was still standing. Ramona rose; coming close to him, she laid both her hands on his breast, and her head on her hands, and said: “Alessandro, I have something to tell you. I am an Indian. I belong to your people.”
Alessandro's silence astonished her. “You are surprised,” she said. “I thought you would be glad.”
“The gladness of it came to me long ago, my Senorita,” he said. “I knew it!”
“How?” cried Ramona. “And you never told me, Alessandro!”
“How could I?” he replied. “I dared not. Juan Canito, it was told me.”
“Juan Canito!” said Ramona, musingly. “How could he have known?” Then in a few rapid words she told Alessandro all that the Senora had told her. “Is that what Juan Can said?” she asked.
“All except the father's name,” stammered Alessandro.
“Who did he say was my father?” she asked.
Alessandro was silent.
“It matters not,” said Ramona. “He was wrong. The Senora, of course, knew. He was a friend of hers, and of the Senora Ortegna, to whom he gave me. But I think, Alessandro, I have more of my mother than of my father.”
“Yes, you have, my Senorita,” replied Alessandro, tenderly. “After I knew it, I then saw what it was in your face had always seemed to me like the faces of my own people.”
“Are you not glad, Alessandro?”
“Yes, my Senorita.”
What more should Ramona say? Suddenly her heart gave way; and without premeditation, without resolve, almost without consciousness of what she was doing, she flung herself on Alessandro's breast, and cried: “Oh, Alessandro, take me with you! take me with you! I would rather die than have you leave me again!”
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
15
|
None
|
ALESSANDRO'S first answer to this cry of Ramona's was a tightening of his arms around her; closer and closer he held her, till it was almost pain; she could hear the throbs of his heart, but he did not speak. Then, letting his arms fall, taking her hand in his, he laid it on his forehead reverently, and said, in a voice which was so husky and trembling she could barely understand his words: “My Senorita knows that my life is hers. She can ask me to go into the fire or into the sea, and neither the fire nor the sea would frighten me; they would but make me glad for her sake. But I cannot take my Senorita's life to throw it away. She is tender; she would die; she cannot lie on the earth for a bed, and have no food to eat. My Senorita does not know what she says.”
His solemn tone; this third-person designation, as if he were speaking of her, not with her, almost as if he were thinking aloud to God rather than speaking to her, merely calmed and strengthened, did not deter Ramona. “I am strong; I can work too, Alessandro. You do not know. We can both work. I am not afraid to lie on the earth; and God will give us food,” she said.
“That was what I thought, my Senorita, until now. When I rode away that morning, I had it in my thoughts, as you say, that if you were not afraid, I would not be; and that there would at least always be food, and I could make it that you should never suffer; but, Senorita, the saints are displeased. They do not pray for us any more. It is as my father said, they have forsaken us. These Americans will destroy us all. I do not know but they will presently begin to shoot us and poison us, to get us all out of the country, as they do the rabbits and the gophers; it would not be any worse than what they have done. Would not you rather be dead, Senorita, than be as I am to-day?”
Each word he spoke but intensified Ramona's determination to share his lot. “Alessandro,” she interrupted, “there are many men among your people who have wives, are there not?”
“Yes, Senorita!” replied Alessandro, wonderingly.
“Have their wives left them and gone away, now that this trouble has come?”
“No, Senorita.” still more wonderingly; “how could they?”
“They are going to stay with them, help them to earn money, try to make them happier, are they not?”
“Yes, Senorita.” Alessandro began to see whither these questions tended. It was not unlike the Senora's tactics, the way in which Ramona narrowed in her lines of interrogation.
“Do the women of your people love their husbands very much?”
“Very much, Senorita.” A pause. It was very dark now. Alessandro could not see the hot currents running swift and red over Ramona's face; even her neck changed color as she asked her last question. “Do you think any one of them loves her husband more than I love you, Alessandro?”
Alessandro's arms were again around her, before the words were done. Were not such words enough to make a dead man live? Almost; but not enough to make such a love as Alessandro's selfish. Alessandro was silent.
“You know there is not one!” said Ramona, impetuously.
“Oh, it is too much!” cried Alessandro, throwing his arms up wildly. Then, drawing her to him again, he said, the words pouring out breathless: “My Senorita, you take me to the door of heaven, but I dare not go in. I know it would kill you, Senorita, to live the life we must live. Let me go, dearest Senorita; let me go! It had been better if you had never seen me.”
“Do you know what I was going to do, Alessandro, if you had not come?” said Ramona. “I was going to run away from the Senora's house, all alone, and walk all the way to Santa Barbara, to Father Salvierderra, and ask him to put me in the convent at San Juan Bautista; and that is what I will do now if you leave me!”
“Oh, no, no, Senorita, my Senorita, you will not do that! My beautiful Senorita in the convent! No, no!” cried Alessandro, greatly agitated.
“Yes, if you do not let me come with you, I shall do it. I shall set out to-morrow.”
Her words carried conviction to Alessandro's soul. He knew she would do as she said. “Even that would not be so dreadful as to be hunted like a wild beast, Senorita; as you may be, if you come with me.”
“When I thought you were dead, Alessandro, I did not think the convent would be dreadful at all. I thought it would be peace; and I could do good, teaching the children. But if I knew you were alive, I could never have peace; not for one minute have peace, Alessandro! I would rather die, than not be where you are. Oh, Alessandro, take me with you!”
Alessandro was conquered. “I will take you, my most beloved Senorita,” he said gravely,--no lover's gladness in his tone, and his voice was hollow; “I will take you. Perhaps the saints will have mercy on you, even if they have forsaken me and my people!”
“Your people are my people, dearest; and the saints never forsake any one who does not forsake them. You will be glad all our lives long, Alessandro,” cried Ramona; and she laid her head on his breast in solemn silence for a moment, as if registering a vow.
Well might Felipe have said that he would hold himself fortunate if any woman ever loved him as Ramona loved Alessandro.
When she lifted her head, she said timidly, now that she was sure, “Then you will take your Ramona with you, Alessandro?”
“I will take you with me till I die; and may the Madonna guard you, my Ramona,” replied Alessandro, clasping her to his breast, and bowing his head upon hers. But there were tears in his eyes, and they were not tears of joy; and in his heart he said, as in his rapturous delight when he first saw Ramona bending over the brook under the willows he had said aloud, “My God! what shall I do!”
It was not easy to decide on the best plan of procedure now. Alessandro wished to go boldly to the house, see Senor Felipe, and if need be the Senora. Ramona quivered with terror at the bare mention of it. “You do not know the Senora, Alessandro,” she cried, “or you would never think of it. She has been terrible all this time. She hates me so that she would kill me if she dared. She pretends that she will do nothing to prevent my going away; but I believe at the last minute she would throw me in the well in the court-yard, rather than have me go with you.”
“I would never let her harm you,” said Alessandro. “Neither would Senor Felipe.”
“She turns Felipe round her finger as if he were soft wax,” answered Ramona. “She makes him of a hundred minds in a minute, and he can't help himself. Oh, I think she is in league with the fiends, Alessandro! Don't dare to come near the house; I will come here as soon as every one is asleep. We must go at once.”
Ramona's terrors overruled Alessandro's judgment, and he consented to wait for her at the spot where they now stood. She turned back twice to embrace him again. “Oh, my Alessandro, promise me that you will not stir from this place till I come,” she said.
“I will be here when you come,” he said.
“It will not be more than two hours,” she said, “or three, at the utmost. It must be nine o'clock now.”
She did not observe that Alessandro had evaded the promise not to leave the spot. That promise Alessandro would not have given. He had something to do in preparation for this unexpected flight of Ramona. In her innocence, her absorption in her thoughts of Alessandro and of love, she had never seemed to consider how she would make this long journey. As Alessandro had ridden towards Temecula, eighteen days ago, he had pictured himself riding back on his fleet, strong Benito, and bringing Antonio's matchless little dun mare for Ramona to ride. Only eighteen short days ago; and as he was dreaming that very dream, he had looked up and seen Antonio on the little dun mare, galloping towards him like the wind, the overridden creature's breath coming from her like pants of a steam-engine, and her sides dripping blood, where Antonio, who loved her, had not spared the cruel spurs; and Antonio, seeing him, had uttered a cry, and flinging himself off, came with a bound to his side, and with gasps between his words told him. Alessandro could not remember the words, only that after them he set his teeth, and dropping the bridle, laid his head down between Benito's ears, and whispered to him; and Benito never stopped, but galloped on all that day, till he came into Temecula; and there Alessandro saw the roofless houses, and the wagons being loaded, and the people running about, the women and children wailing; and then they showed him the place where his father lay on the ground, under the tule, and jumping off Benito he let him go, and that was the last he ever saw of him. Only eighteen days ago! And now here he was, under the willows,--the same copse where he first halted, at his first sight of Ramona; and it was night, dark night, and Ramona had been there, in his arms; she was his; and she was going back presently to go away with him,--where! He had no home in the wide world to which to take her,--and this poor beast he had ridden from Temecula, had it strength enough left to carry her? Alessandro doubted. He had himself walked more than half the distance, to spare the creature, and yet there had been good pasture all the way; but the animal had been too long starved to recover quickly. In the Pachanga canon, where they had found refuge, the grass was burned up by the sun, and the few horses taken over there had suffered wretchedly; some had died. But Alessandro, even while his arms were around Ramona, had revolved in his mind a project he would not have dared to confide to her. If Baba, Ramona's own horse, was still in the corral, Alessandro could without difficulty lure him out. He thought it would be no sin. At any rate, if it were, it could not be avoided. The Senorita must have a horse, and Baba had always been her own; had followed her about like a dog ever since he could run; in fact, the only taming he had ever had, had been done by Ramona, with bread and honey. He was intractable to others; but Ramona could guide him by a wisp of his silky mane. Alessandro also had nearly as complete control over him; for it had been one of his greatest pleasures, during the summer, when he could not see Ramona, to caress and fondle her horse, till Baba knew and loved him next to his young mistress. If only Baba were in the corral, all would be well. As soon as the sound of Ramona's footsteps had died away, Alessandro followed with quick but stealthy steps; keeping well down in the bottom, below the willows, he skirted the terrace where the artichoke-patch and the sheepfolds lay, and then turned up to approach the corral from the farther side. There was no light in any of the herdsmen's huts. They were all asleep. That was good. Well Alessandro knew how sound they slept; many a night while he slept there with them he had walked twice over their bodies as they lay stretched on skins on the floor,--out and in without rousing them. If only Baba would not give a loud whinny. leaning on the corral-fence, Alessandro gave a low, hardly audible whistle. The horses were all in a group together at the farther end of the corral. At the sound there was a slight movement in the group; and one of them turned and came a pace or two toward Alessandro.
“I believe that is Baba himself,” thought Alessandro; and he made another low sound. The horse quickened his steps; then halted, as if he suspected some mischief.
“Baba,” whispered Alessandro. The horse knew his name as well as any dog; knew Alessandro's voice too; but the sagacious creature seemed instinctively to know that here was an occasion for secrecy and caution. If Alessandro whispered, he, Baba, would whisper back; and it was little more than a whispered whinny which he gave, as he trotted quickly to the fence, and put his nose to Alessandro's face, rubbing and kissing and giving soft whinnying sighs.
“Hush! hush! Baba,” whispered Alessandro, as if he were speaking to a human being. “Hush!” and he proceeded cautiously to lift off the upper rails and bushes of the fence. The horse understood instantly; and as soon as the fence was a little lowered, leaped over it and stood still by Alessandro's side, while he replaced the rails, smiling to himself, spite of his grave anxiety, to think of Juan Can's wonder in the morning as to how Baba had managed to get out of the corral.
This had taken only a few moments. It was better luck than Alessandro had hoped for; emboldened by it, he began to wonder if he could not get the saddle too. The saddles, harnesses, bridles, and all such things hung on pegs in an open barn, such as is constantly to be seen in Southern California; as significant a testimony, in matter of climate, as any Signal Service Report could be,--a floor and a roof; no walls, only corner posts to hold the roof. Nothing but summerhouses on a large scale are the South California barns. Alessandro stood musing. The longer he thought, the greater grew his desire for that saddle.
“Baba, if only you knew what I wanted of you, you'd lie down on the ground here and wait while I got the saddle. But I dare not risk leaving you. Come, Baba!” and he struck down the hill again, the horse following him softly. When he got down below the terrace, he broke into a run, with his hand in Baba's mane, as if it were a frolic; and in a few moments they were safe in the willow copse, where Alessandro's poor pony was tethered. Fastening Baba with the same lariat, Alessandro patted him on the neck, pressed his face to his nose, and said aloud, “Good Baba, stay here till the Senorita comes.” Baba whinnied.
“Why shouldn't he know the Senorita's name! I believe he does!” thought Alessandro, as he turned and again ran swiftly back to the corral. He felt strong now,--felt like a new man. Spite of all the terror, joy thrilled him. When he reached the corral, all was yet still. The horses had not moved from their former position. Throwing himself flat on the ground, Alessandro crept on his breast from the corral to the barn, several rods' distance. This was the most hazardous part of his adventure; every other moment he paused, lay motionless for some seconds, then crept a few paces more. As he neared the corner where Ramona's saddle always hung, his heart beat. Sometimes, of a warm night, Luigo slept on the barn floor. If he were there to-night, all was lost. Groping in the darkness, Alessandro pulled himself up on the post, felt for the saddle, found it, lifted it, and in a trice was flat on the ground again, drawing the saddle along after him. Not a sound had he made, that the most watchful of sheep-dogs could hear.
“Ha, old Capitan, caught you napping this time!” said Alessandro to himself, as at last he got safe to the bottom of the terrace, and, springing to his feet, bounded away with the saddle on his shoulders. It was a weight for a starving man to carry, but he felt it not, for the rejoicing he had in its possession. Now his Senorita would go in comfort. To ride Baba was to be rocked in a cradle. If need be, Baba would carry them both, and never know it; and it might come to that, Alessandro thought, as he knelt by the side of his poor beast, which was stretched out on the ground exhausted; Baba standing by, looking down in scornful wonder at this strange new associate.
“The saints be praised!” thought Alessandro, as he seated himself to wait. “This looks as if they would not desert my Senorita.”
Thoughts whirled in his brain. Where should they go first? What would be best? Would they be pursued? Where could they hide? Where should he seek a new home?
It was bootless thinking, until Ramona was by his side. He must lay each plan before her. She must decide. The first thing was to get to San Diego, to the priest, to be married. That would be three days' hard ride; five for the exhausted Indian pony. What should they eat on the ways Ah! Alessandro bethought him of the violin at Hartsel's. Mr. Hartsel would give him money on that; perhaps buy it. Then Alessandro remembered his own violin. He had not once thought of it before. It lay in its case on a table in Senor Felipe's room when he came away, Was it possible? No, of course it could not be possible that the Senorita would think to bring it. What would she bring? She would be wise, Alessandro was sure.
How long the hours seemed as he sat thus plotting and conjecturing; more and more thankful, as each hour went by, to see the sky still clouded, the darkness dense. “It must have been the saints, too, that brought me on a night when there was no moon,” he thought; and then he said again, devout and simple-minded man that he was. “They mean to protect my Senorita; they will let me take care of her.”
Ramona was threading a perilous way, through great difficulties. She had reached her room unobserved, so far as she could judge. Luckily for her, Margarita was in bed with a terrible toothache, for which her mother had given her a strong sleeping-draught. Margarita was disposed of. If she had not been, Ramona would never have got away, for Margarita would have known that she had been out of the house for two hours, and would have watched to see what it meant.
Ramona came in through the court-yard; she dared not go by the veranda, sure that Felipe and his mother were sitting there still, for it was not late.
As she entered her room, she heard them talking. She closed one of her windows, to let them know she was there. Then she knelt at the Madonna's feet, and in an inaudible whisper told her all she was going to do, and prayed that she would watch over her and Alessandro, and show them where to go.
“I know she will! I am sure she will!” whispered Ramona to herself as she rose from her knees.
Then she threw herself on her bed, to wait till the Senora and Felipe should be asleep. Her brain was alert, clear. She knew exactly what she wished to do. She had thought that all out, more than two weeks ago, when she was looking for Alessandro hour by hour.
Early in the summer Alessandro had given to her, as curiosities, two of the large nets which the Indian women use for carrying all sorts of burdens. They are woven out of the fibres of a flax-like plant, and are strong as iron. The meshes being large, they are very light; are gathered at each end, and fastened to a band which goes around the forehead. In these can be carried on the back, with comparative ease, heavier loads than could be lifted in any other way. Until Ramona recollected these, she had been perplexed to know how she should carry the things which she had made up her mind it would be right for her to take,--only a few; simply necessaries; one stuff gown and her shawls; the new altar-cloth, and two changes of clothes; that would not be a great deal; she had a right to so much, she thought, now that she had seen the jewels in the Senora's keeping. “I will tell Father Salvierderra exactly what I took,” she thought, “and ask him if it was too much.” She did not like to think that all these clothes she must take had been paid for with the Senora Moreno's money.
And Alessandro's violin. Whatever else she left, that must go. What would life be to Alessandro without a violin! And if they went to Los Angeles, he might earn money by playing at dances. Already Ramona had devised several ways by which they could both earn money.
There must be also food for the journey. And it must be good food, too; wine for Alessandro. Anguish filled her heart as she recalled how gaunt he looked. “Starving,” he said they had been. Good God! Starving! And she had sat down each day at loaded tables, and seen, each day, good food thrown to the dogs to eat.
It was long before the Senora went to her room; and long after that before Felipe's breathing had become so deep and regular that Ramona dared feel sure that he was asleep. At last she ventured out. All was dark; it was past midnight.
“The violin first!” she said; and creeping into the dining-room, and through the inner door to Felipe's room, she brought it out, rolled it in shawl after shawl, and put it in the net with her clothes. Then she stole out, with this net on her back, “like a true Indian woman as I am,” she said, almost gayly, to herself,--through the court-yard, around the southeast corner of the house, past the garden, down to the willows, where she laid down her load, and went back for the second.
This was harder. Wine she was resolved to have and bread and cold meat. She did not know so well where to put her hand on old Marda's possessions as on her own, and she dared not strike a light. She made several journeys to the kitchen and pantry before she had completed her store. Wine, luckily, she found in the dining-room,--two full bottles; also milk, which she poured into a leathern flask which hung on the wall in the veranda.
Now all was ready. She leaned from her window, and listened to Felipe's breathing. “How can I go without bidding him good-by?” she said. “How can I?” and she stood irresolute.
“Dear Felipe! Dear Felipe! He has always been so good to me! He has done all he could for me. I wish I dared kiss him. I will leave a note for him.”
Taking a pencil and paper, and a tiny wax taper, whose light would hardly be seen across a room, she slipped once more into the dining-room, knelt on the floor behind the door, lighted her taper, and wrote:-- “DEAR FELIPE,--Alessandro has come, and I am going away with him to-night. Don't let anything be done to us, if you can help it. I don't know where we are going. I hope, to Father Salvierderra. I shall love you always. Thank you, dear Felipe, for all your kindness.
“RAMONA.”
It had not taken a moment. She blew out her taper, and crept back into her room. Felipe's bed was now moved close to the wall of the house. From her window she could reach its foot. Slowly, cautiously, she stretched out her arm and dropped the little paper on the coverlet, just over Felipe's feet. There was a risk that the Senora would come out in the morning, before Felipe awaked, and see the note first; but that risk she would take.
“Farewell, dear Felipe!” she whispered, under her breath, as she turned from the window.
The delay had cost her dear. The watchful Capitan, from his bed at the upper end of the court, had half heard, half scented, something strange going on. As Ramona stepped out, he gave one short, quick bark, and came bounding down.
“Holy Virgin, I am lost!” thought Ramona; but, crouching on the ground, she quickly opened her net, and as Capitan came towards her, gave him a piece of meat, fondling and caressing him. While he ate it, wagging his tail, and making great demonstrations of joy, she picked up her load again, and still fondling him, said, “Come on, Capitan!” It was her last chance. If he barked again, somebody would be waked; if he went by her side quietly, she might escape. A cold sweat of terror burst on her forehead as she took her first step cautiously. The dog followed. She quickened her pace; he trotted along, still smelling the meat in the net. When she reached the willows, she halted, debating whether she should give him a large piece of meat, and try to run away while he was eating it, or whether she should let him go quietly along. She decided on the latter course; and, picking up her other net, walked on. She was safe now. She turned, and looked back towards the house; all was dark and still. She could hardly see its outline. A great wave of emotion swept over her. It was the only home she had ever known. All she had experienced of happiness, as well as of bitter pain, had been there,--Felipe, Father Salvierderra, the servants, the birds, the garden, the dear chapel! Ah, if she could have once more prayed in the chapel! Who would put fresh flowers and ferns in the chapel now? How Felipe would miss her, when he knelt before the altar! For fourteen years she had knelt by his side. And the Senora,--the hard, cold Senora! She would alone be glad. Everybody else would be sorry. “They will all be sorry I have gone,--all but the Senora! I wish it had been so that I could have bidden them all good-by, and had them all bid me good-by, and wish us good fortune!” thought the gentle, loving girl, as she drew a long sigh, and, turning her back on her home, went forward in the path she had chosen.
She stooped and patted Capitan on the head. “Will you come with me, Capitan?” she said; and Capitan leaped up joyfully, giving two or three short, sharp notes of delight. “Good Capitan, come! They will not miss him out of so many,” she thought, “and it will always seem like something from home, as long as I have Capitan.”
When Alessandro first saw Ramona's figure dimly in the gloom, drawing slowly nearer, he did not recognize it, and he was full of apprehension at the sight. What stranger could it be, abroad in these lonely meadows at this hour of the night? Hastily he led the horses farther back into the copse, and hid himself behind a tree, to watch. In a few moments more he thought he recognized Capitan, bounding by the side of this bent and slow-moving figure. Yet this was surely an Indian woman toiling along under a heavy load. But what Indian woman would have so superb a collie as Capitan? Alessandro strained his eyes through the darkness. Presently he saw the figure halt,--drop part of its burden.
“Alessandro!” came in a sweet, low call.
He bounded like a deer, crying, “My Senorita! my Senorita! Can that be you? To think that you have brought these heavy loads!”
Ramona laughed. “Do you remember the day you showed me how the Indian women carried so much on their backs, in these nets? I did not think then I would use it so soon. But it hurts my forehead, Alessandro. It isn't the weight, but the strings cut. I couldn't have carried them much farther!”
“Ah, you had no basket to cover the head,” replied Alessandro, as he threw up the two nets on his shoulders as if they had been feathers. In doing so, he felt the violin-case.
“Is it the violin?” he cried. “My blessed one, where did you get it?”
“Off the table in Felipe's room,” she answered. “I knew you would rather have it than anything else. I brought very little, Alessandro; it seemed nothing while I was getting it; but it is very heavy to carry. Will it be too much for the poor tired horse? You and I can walk. And see, Alessandro, here is Capitan. He waked up, and I had to bring him, to keep him still. Can't he go with us?”
Capitan was leaping up, putting his paws on Alessandro's breast, licking his face, yelping, doing all a dog could do, to show welcome and affection.
Alessandro laughed aloud. Ramona had not more than two or three times heard him do this. It frightened her. “Why do you laugh, Alessandro?” she said.
“To think what I have to show you, my Senorita,” he said. “Look here;” and turning towards the willows, he gave two or three low whistles, at the first note of which Baba came trotting out of the copse to the end of his lariat, and began to snort and whinny with delight as soon as he perceived Ramona.
Ramona burst into tears. The surprise was too great.
“Are you not glad, Senorita?” cried Alessandro, aghast. “Is it not your own horse? If you do not wish to take him, I will lead him back. My pony can carry you, if we journey very slowly. But I thought it would be joy to you to have Baba.”
“Oh, it is! it is!” sobbed Ramona, with her head on Baba's neck. “It is a miracle,--a miracle. How did he come here? And, the saddle too!” she cried, for the first time observing that. “Alessandro,” in an awe-struck whisper, “did the saints send him? Did you find him here?” It would have seemed to Ramona's faith no strange thing, had this been so.
“I think the saints helped me to bring him,” answered Alessandro, seriously, “or else I had not done it so easily. I did but call, near the corral-fence, and he came to my hand, and leaped over the rails at my word, as quickly as Capitan might have done. He is yours, Senorita. It is no harm to take him?”
“Oh, no!” answered Ramona. “He is more mine than anything else I had; for it was Felipe gave him to me when he could but just stand on his legs; he was only two days old; and I have fed him out of my hand every day till now; and now he is five. Dear Baba, we will never be parted, never!” and she took his head in both her hands, and laid her cheek against it lovingly.
Alessandro was busy, fastening the two nets on either side of the saddle. “Baba will never know he has a load at all; they are not so heavy as my Senorita thought,” he said. “It was the weight on the forehead, with nothing to keep the strings from the skin, which gave her pain.”
Alessandro was making all haste. His hands trembled. “We must make all the speed we can, dearest Senorita,” he said, “for a few hours. Then we will rest. Before light, we will be in a spot where we can hide safely all day. We will journey only by night, lest they pursue us.”
“They will not,” said Ramona. “There is no danger. The Senora said she should do nothing. 'Nothing!'” she repeated, in a bitter tone. “That is what she made Felipe say, too. Felipe wanted to help us. He would have liked to have you stay with us; but all he could get was, that she would do 'nothing!' But they will not follow us. They will wish never to hear of me again. I mean, the Senora will wish never to hear of me. Felipe will be sorry. Felipe is very good, Alessandro.”
They were all ready now,--Ramona on Baba, the two packed nets swinging from her saddle, one on either side. Alessandro, walking, led his tired pony. It was a sad sort of procession for one going to be wed, but Ramona's heart was full of joy.
“I don't know why it is, Alessandro,” she said; “I should think I would be afraid, but I have not the least fear,--not the least; not of anything that can come, Alessandro,” she reiterated with emphasis. “Is it not strange?”
“Yes, Senorita,” he replied solemnly, laying his hand on hers as he walked close at her side. “It is strange. I am afraid,--afraid for you, my Senorita! But it is done, and we will not go back; and perhaps the saints will help you, and will let me take care of you. They must love you, Senorita; but they do not love me, nor my people.”
“Are you never going to call me by my name?” asked Ramona. “I hate your calling me Senorita. That was what the Senora always called me when she was displeased.”
“I will never speak the word again!” cried Alessandro. “The saints forbid I should speak to you in the words of that woman!”
“Can't you say Ramona?” she asked.
Alessandro hesitated. He could not have told why it seemed to him difficult to say Ramona.
“What was that other name, you said you always thought of me by?” she continued. “The Indian name,--the name of the dove?”
“Majel,” he said. “It is by that name I have oftenest thought of you since the night I watched all night for you, after you had kissed me, and two wood-doves were calling and answering each other in the dark; and I said to myself, that is what my love is like, the wood-dove: the wood-dove's voice is low like hers, and sweeter than any other sound in the earth; and the wood-dove is true to one mate always--” He stopped.
“As I to you, Alessandro,” said Ramona, leaning from her horse, and resting her hand on Alessandro's shoulder.
Baba stopped. He was used to knowing by the most trivial signs what his mistress wanted; he did not understand this new situation; no one had ever before, when Ramona was riding him, walked by his side so close that he touched his shoulders, and rested his hand in his mane. If it had been anybody else than Alessandro, Baba would not have permitted it even now. But it must be all right, since Ramona was quiet; and now she had stretched out her hand and rested it on Alessandro's shoulder. Did that mean halt for a moment? Baba thought it might, and acted accordingly; turning his head round to the right, and looking back to see what came of it.
Alessandro's arms around Ramona, her head bent down to his, their lips together,--what could Baba think? As mischievously as if he had been a human being or an elf, Baba bounded to one side and tore the lovers apart. They both laughed, and cantered on,--Alessandro running; the poor Indian pony feeling the contagion, and loping as it had not done for many a day.
“Majel is my name, then,” said Ramona, “is it? It is a sweet sound, but I would like it better Majella. Call me Majella.”
“That will be good,” replied Alessandro, “for the reason that never before had any one the same name. It will not be hard for me to say Majella. I know not why your name of Ramona has always been hard to my tongue.”
“Because it was to be that you should call me Majella,” said Ramona. “Remember, I am Ramona no longer. That also was the name the Senora called me by--and dear Felipe too,” she added thoughtfully. “He would not know me by my new name. I would like to have him always call me Ramona. But for all the rest of the world I am Majella, now,--Alessandro's Majel!”
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
16
|
None
|
AFTER they reached the highway, and had trotted briskly on for a mile, Alessandro suddenly put out his hand, and taking Baba by the rein, began turning him round and round in the road.
“We will not go any farther in the road,” he said, “but I must conceal our tracks here. We will go backwards for a few paces.” The obedient Baba backed slowly, half dancing, as if he understood the trick; the Indian pony, too, curvetted awkwardly, then by a sudden bound under Alessandro's skilful guidance, leaped over a rock to the right, and stood waiting further orders. Baba followed, and Capitan; and there was no trail to show where they had left the road.
After trotting the pony round and round again in ever-widening circles, cantering off in one direction after another, then backing over the tracks for a few moments, Ramona docilely following, though much bewildered as to what it all meant, Alessandro said: “I think now they will never discover where we left the road. They will ride along, seeing our tracks plain, and then they will be so sure that we would have kept straight on, that they will not notice for a time; and when they do, they will never be able to see where the trail ended. And now my Majella has a very hard ride before her. Will she be afraid?”
“Afraid.” laughed Ramona. “Afraid,--on Baba, and with you!”
But it was indeed a hard ride. Alessandro had decided to hide for the day in a canon he knew, from which a narrow trail led direct to Temecula,--a trail which was known to none but Indians. Once in this canon, they would be safe from all possible pursuit. Alessandro did not in the least share Ramona's confidence that no effort would be made to overtake them. To his mind, it appeared certain that the Senora would never accept the situation without making an attempt to recover at least the horse and the dog. “She can say, if she chooses, that I have stolen one of her horses,” he thought to himself bitterly; “and everybody would believe her. Nobody would believe us, if we said it was the Senorita's own horse.”
The head of the canon was only a couple of miles from the road; but it was in a nearly impenetrable thicket of chaparral, where young oaks had grown up so high that their tops made, as it were, a second stratum of thicket. Alessandro had never ridden through it; he had come up on foot once from the other side, and, forcing his way through the tangle had found, to his surprise, that he was near the highway. It was from this canon that he had brought the ferns which it had so delighted Ramona to arrange for the decoration of the chapel. The place was filled with them, growing almost in tropical luxuriance; but this was a mile or so farther down, and to reach that spot from above, Alessandro had had to let himself down a sheer wall of stone. The canon at its head was little more than a rift in the rocks, and the stream which had its rise in it was only a trickling spring at the beginning. It was this precious water, as well as the inaccessibility of the spot, which had decided Alessandro to gain the place at all hazards and costs. But a wall of granite would not have seemed a much more insuperable obstacle than did this wall of chaparral, along which they rode, vainly searching for a break in it. It appeared to Alessandro to have thickened and knit even since the last spring. At last they made their way down a small side canon,--a sort of wing to the main canon; a very few rods down this, and they were as hidden from view from above as if the earth had swallowed them. The first red tints of the dawn were coming. From the eastern horizon to the zenith, the whole sky was like a dappled crimson fleece.
“Oh, what a lovely place.” exclaimed Ramona. “I am sure this was not a hard ride at all, Alessandro! Is this where we are to stay?”
Alessandro turned a compassionate look upon her. “How little does the wood-dove know of rough places!” he said. “This is only the beginning; hardly is it even the beginning.”
Fastening his pony to a bush, he reconnoitred the place, disappearing from sight the moment he entered the chaparral in any direction. Returning at last, with a grave face, he said, “Will Majella let me leave her here for a little time? There is a way, but I can find it only on foot. I will not be gone long. I know it is near.”
Tears came into Ramona's eyes. The only thing she dreaded was the losing sight of Alessandro. He gazed at her anxiously. “I must go, Majella,” he said with emphasis. “We are in danger here.”
“Go! go! Alessandro,” she cried. “But, oh, do not be long!”
As he disappeared in the thicket, the tough boughs crackling and snapping before him, it seemed to Ramona that she was again alone in the world. Capitan, too, bounded after Alessandro, and did not return at her call. All was still. Ramona laid her head on Baba's neck. The moments seemed hours. At last, just as the yellow light streamed across the sky, and the crimson fleeces turned in one second to gold, she heard Alessandro's steps, the next moment saw his face. It was aglow with joy.
“I have found the trail!” he exclaimed; “but we must climb up again out of this; and it is too light. I like it not.”
With fear and trembling they urged their horses up and out into the open again, and galloped a half-mile farther west, still keeping as close to the chaparral thicket as possible. Here Alessandro, who led the way, suddenly turned into the very thicket itself; no apparent opening; but the boughs parted and closed, and his head appeared above them; still the little pony was trotting bravely along. Baba snorted with displeasure as he plunged into the same bristling pathway. The thick-set, thorny branches smote Ramona's cheeks. What was worse, they caught the nets swung on Baba's sides; presently these were held fast, and Baba began to rear and kick. Here was a real difficulty. Alessandro dismounted, cut the strings, and put both the packages securely on the back of his own pony. “I will walk,” he said. “It was only a little way longer I would have ridden. I shall lead Baba, where it is narrow.”
“Narrow,” indeed. It was from sheer terror, soon, that Ramona shut her eyes. A path, it seemed to her only a hand's-breadth wide,--a stony, crumbling path,--on the side of a precipice, down which the stones rolled, and rolled, and rolled, echoing, far out of sight, as they passed; at each step the beasts took, the stones rolled and fell. Only the yucca-plants, with their sharp bayonet-leaves, had made shift to keep foothold on this precipice. Of these there were thousands; and their tall flower-stalks, fifteen, twenty feet high, set thick with the shining, smooth seed-cups, glistened like satin chalices in the sun. Below--hundreds of feet below--lay the canon bottom, a solid bed of chaparral, looking soft and even as a bed of moss. Giant sycamore-trees lifted their heads, at intervals, above this; and far out in the plain glistened the loops of the river, whose sources, unknown to the world, seen of but few human eyes, were to be waters of comfort to these fugitives this day.
Alessandro was cheered. The trail was child's play to him. At the first tread of Baba's dainty steps on the rolling stones, he saw that the horse was as sure-footed as an Indian pony. In a few short hours, now, they would be all at rest. He knew where, under a sycamore-clump, there was running water, clear as crystal, and cold,--almost colder than one could drink,--and green grass too; plenty for two days' feed for the horses, or even three; and all California might be searched over in vain for them, once they were down this trail. His heart full of joy at these thoughts, he turned, to see Ramona pallid, her lips parted, her eyes full of terror. He had forgotten that her riding had hitherto been only on the smooth ways of the valley and the plain, There she was so fearless, that he had had no misgiving about her nerves here; but she had dropped the reins, was clutching Baba's mane with both hands, and sitting unsteadily in her saddle. She had been too proud to cry out; but she was nearly beside herself with fright. Alessandro halted so suddenly that Baba, whose nose was nearly on his shoulder, came to so sharp a stop that Ramona uttered a cry. She thought he had lost his footing.
Alessandro looked at her in dismay. To dismount on that perilous trail was impossible; moreover, to walk there would take more nerve than to ride. Yet she looked as if she could not much longer keep her seat.
“Carita,” he cried, “I was stupid not to have told you how narrow the way is; but it is safe. I can run in it. I ran all this way with the ferns on my back I brought for you.”
“Oh, did you?” gasped Ramona, diverted, for the moment, from her contemplation of the abyss, and more reassured by that change of her thoughts than she could have been by anything else. “Did you? It is frightful, Alessandro. I never heard of such a trail. I feel as if I were on a rope in the air. If I could get down and go on my hands and knees, I think I would like it better. Could I?”
“I would not dare to have you get off, just here, Majella,” answered Alessandro, sorrowfully. “It is dreadful to me to see you suffer so; I will go very slowly. Indeed, it is safe; we all came up here, the whole band, for the sheep-shearing,--old Fernando on his horse all the way.”
“Really,” said Ramona, taking comfort at each word, “I will try not to be so silly. Is it far, dearest Alessandro?”
“Not much more as steep as this, dear, nor so narrow; but it will be an hour yet before we stop.”
But the worst was over for Ramona now, and long before they reached the bottom of the precipice she was ready to laugh at her fears; only, as she looked back at the zigzag lines of the path over which she had come,--little more than a brown thread, they seemed, flung along the rock,--she shuddered.
Down in the bottom of the canon it was still the dusky gloaming when they arrived. Day came late to this fairy spot. Only at high noon did the sun fairly shine in. As Ramona looked around her, she uttered an exclamation of delight, which satisfied Alessandro. “Yes,” he said, “when I came here for the ferns, I wished to myself many times that you could see it. There is not in all this country so beautiful a place. This is our first home, my Majella,” he added, in a tone almost solemn; and throwing his arms around her, he drew her to his breast, with the first feeling of joy he had experienced.
“I wish we could live here always,” cried Ramona.
“Would Majella be content?” said Alessandro.
“Very,” she answered.
He sighed. “There would not be land enough, to live here,” he said. “If there were, I too would like to stay here till I died, Majella, and never see the face of a white man again!” Already the instinct of the hunted and wounded animal to seek hiding, was striving in Alessandro's blood. “But there would be no food. We could not live here.” Ramona's exclamation had set Alessandro to thinking, however. “Would Majella be content to stay here three days now?” he asked. “There is grass enough for the horses for that time. We should be very safe here; and I fear very much we should not be safe on any road. I think, Majella, the Senora will send men after Baba.”
“Baba!” cried Ramona, aghast at the idea. “My own horse! She would not dare to call it stealing a horse, to take my own Baba!” But even as she spoke, her heart misgave her. The Senora would dare anything; would misrepresent anything; only too well Ramona knew what the very mention of the phrase “horse-stealing” meant all through the country. She looked piteously at Alessandro. He read her thoughts.
“Yes, that is it, Majella,” he said. “If she sent men after Baba, there is no knowing what they might do. It would not do any good for you to say he was yours. They would not believe you; and they might take me too, if the Senora had told them to, and put me into Ventura jail.”
“She's just wicked enough to do it!” cried Ramona. “Let us not stir out of this spot, Alessandro,--not for a week! Couldn't we stay a week? By that time she would have given over looking for us.”
“I am afraid not a week. There is not feed for the horses; and I do not know what we could eat. I have my gun, but there is not much, now, to kill.”
“But I have brought meat and bread, Alessandro,” said Ramona, earnestly, “and we could eat very little each day, and make it last!” She was like a child, in her simplicity and eagerness. Every other thought was for the time being driven out of her mind by the terror of being pursued. Pursuit of her, she knew, would not be in the Senora's plan; but the reclaiming of Baba and Capitan, that was another thing. The more Ramona thought of it, the more it seemed to her a form of vengeance which would be likely to commend itself to the Senora's mind. Felipe might possibly prevent it. It was he who had given Baba to her. He would feel that it would be shameful to recall or deny the gift. Only in Felipe lay Ramona's hope.
If she had thought to tell Alessandro that in her farewell note to Felipe she had said that she supposed they were going to Father Salvierderra, it would have saved both her and Alessandro much disquietude. Alessandro would have known that men pursuing them, on that supposition, would have gone straight down the river road to the sea, and struck northward along the coast. But it did not occur to Ramona to mention this; in fact, she hardly recollected it after the first day. Alessandro had explained to her his plan, which was to go by way of Temecula to San Diego, to be married there by Father Gaspara, the priest of that parish, and then go to the village or pueblo of San Pasquale, about fifteen miles northwest of San Diego. A cousin of Alessandro's was the head man of this village, and had many times begged him to come there to live; but Alessandro had steadily refused, believing it to be his duty to remain at Temecula with his father. San Pasquale was a regularly established pueblo, founded by a number of the Indian neophytes of the San Luis Rey Mission at the time of the breaking up of that Mission. It was established by a decree of the Governor of California, and the lands of the San Pasquale Valley given to it. A paper recording this establishment and gift, signed by the Governor's own hand, was given to the Indian who was the first Alcalde of the pueblo. He was Chief Pablo's brother. At his death the authority passed into the hands of his son, Ysidro, the cousin of whom Alessandro had spoken.
“Ysidro has that paper still,” Alessandro said, “and he thinks it will keep them their village. Perhaps it will; but the Americans are beginning to come in at the head of the valley, and I do not believe, Majella, there is any safety anywhere. Still, for a few years we can perhaps stay there. There are nearly two hundred Indians in the valley; it is much better than Temecula, and Ysidro's people are much better off than ours were. They have splendid herds of cattle and horses, and large wheat-fields. Ysidro's house stands under a great fig-tree; they say it is the largest fig-tree in the country.”
“But, Alessandro,” cried Ramona, “why do you think it is not safe there, if Ysidro has the paper? I thought a paper made it all right.”
“I don't know,” replied Alessandro. “Perhaps it may be; but I have got the feeling now that nothing will be of any use against the Americans. I don't believe they will mind the paper.”
“They didn't mind the papers the Senora had for all that land of hers they took away,” said Ramona, thoughtfully. “But Felipe said that was because Pio Pico was a bad man, and gave away lands he had no right to give away.”
“That's just it,” said Alessandro. “Can't they say that same thing about any governor, especially if he has given lands to us? If the Senora couldn't keep hers, with Senor Felipe to help her, and he knows all about the law, and can speak the American language, what chance is there for us? We can't take care of ourselves any better than the wild beasts can, my Majella. Oh, why, why did you come with me? Why did I let you?”
After such words as these, Alessandro would throw himself on the ground, and for a few moments not even Ramona's voice would make him look up. It was strange that the gentle girl, unused to hardship, or to the thought of danger, did not find herself terrified by these fierce glooms and apprehensions of her lover. But she was appalled by nothing. Saved from the only thing in life she had dreaded, sure that Alessandro lived, and that he would not leave her, she had no fears. This was partly from her inexperience, from her utter inability to conceive of the things Alessandro's imagination painted in colors only too true; but it was also largely due to the inalienable loyalty and quenchless courage of her soul,--qualities in her nature never yet tested; qualities of which she hardly knew so much as the name, but which were to bear her steadfast and buoyant through many sorrowful years.
Before nightfall of this their first day in the wilderness, Alessandro had prepared for Ramona a bed of finely broken twigs of the manzanita and ceanothus, both of which grew in abundance all through the canon. Above these he spread layers of glossy ferns, five and six feet long; when it was done, it was a couch no queen need have scorned. As Ramona seated herself on it, she exclaimed: “Now I shall see how it feels to lie and look up at the stars at night! Do you recollect, Alessandro, the night you put Felipe's bed on the veranda, when you told me how beautiful it was to lie at night out of doors and look up at the stars?”
Indeed did Alessandro remember that night,--the first moment he had ever dared to dream of the Senorita Ramona as his own. “Yes, I remember it, my Majella,” he answered slowly; and in a moment more added, “That was the day Juan Can had told me that your mother was of my people; and that was the night I first dared in my thoughts to say that perhaps you might some day love me.”
“But where are you going to sleep, Alessandro?” said Ramona, seeing that he spread no more boughs. “You have made yourself no bed.”
Alessandro laughed. “I need no bed,” he said. “We think it is on our mother's lap we lie, when we lie on the ground. It is not hard, Majella. It is soft, and rests one better than beds. But to-night I shall not sleep. I will sit by this tree and watch.”
“Why, what are you afraid of?” asked Ramona.
“It may grow so cold that I must make a fire for Majella,” he answered. “It sometimes gets very cold before morning in these canons; so I shall feel safer to watch to-night.”
This he said, not to alarm Ramona. His real reason for watching was, that he had seen on the edge of the stream tracks which gave him uneasiness. They were faint and evidently old; but they looked like the tracks of a mountain lion. As soon as it was dark enough to prevent the curl of smoke from being seen from below, he would light a fire, and keep it blazing all night, and watch, gun in hand, lest the beast return.
“But you will be dead, Alessandro, if you do not sleep. You are not strong,” said Ramona, anxiously.
“I am strong now, Majella,” answered Alessandro. And indeed he did already look like a renewed man, spite of all his fatigue and anxiety. “I am no longer weak; and to-morrow I will sleep, and you shall watch.”
“Will you lie on the fern-bed then?” asked Ramona, gleefully.
“I would like the ground better,” said honest Alessandro.
Ramona looked disappointed. “That is very strange,” she said. “It is not so soft, this bed of boughs, that one need fear to be made tender by lying on it,” she continued, throwing herself down; “but oh, how sweet, how sweet it smells!”
“Yes, there is spice-wood in it,” he answered. “I put it in at the head, for Majella's pillow.”
Ramona was very tired, and she was happy. All night long she slept like a child. She did not hear Alessandro's steps. She did not hear the crackling of the fire he lighted. She did not hear the barking of Capitan, who more than once, spite of all Alessandro could do to quiet him, made the canon echo with sharp, quick notes of warning, as he heard the stealthy steps of wild creatures in the chaparral. Hour after hour she slept on. And hour after hour Alessandro sat leaning against a huge sycamore-trunk, and watched her. As the fitful firelight played over her face, he thought he had never seen it so beautiful, Its expression of calm repose insensibly soothed and strengthened him. She looked like a saint, he thought; perhaps it was as a saint of help and guidance, the Virgin was sending her to him and his people. The darkness deepened, became blackness; only the red gleams from the fire broke it, in swaying rifts, as the wind makes rifts in black storm-clouds in the heavens. With the darkness, the stillness also deepened. Nothing broke that, except an occasional motion of Baba or the pony, or an alert signal from Capitan; then all seemed stiller than ever. Alessandro felt as if God himself were in the canon. Countless times in his life before he had lain in lonely places under the sky and watched the night through, but he never felt like this. It was ecstasy, and yet it was pain. What was to come on the morrow, and the next morrow, and the next, and the next, all through the coming years? What was to come to this beloved and loving woman who lay there sleeping, so confident, so trustful, guarded only by him,--by him, Alessandro, the exile, fugitive, homeless man?
Before the dawn, wood-doves began their calling. The canon was full of them, no two notes quite alike, it seemed to Alessandro's sharpened sense; pair after pair, he fancied that he recognized, speaking and replying, as did the pair whose voices had so comforted him the night he watched under the geranium hedge by the Moreno chapel,--“Love?” “Here!” “Love?” “Here!” They comforted him still more now. “They too have only each other,” he thought, as he bent his eyes lovingly on Ramona's face.
It was dawn, and past dawn, on the plains, before it was yet morning twilight in the canon; but the birds in the upper boughs' of the sycamores caught the tokens of the coming day, and began to twitter in the dusk. Their notes fell on Ramona's sleeping ear, like the familiar sound of the linnets in the veranda-thatch at home, and waked her instantly. Sitting up bewildered, and looking about her, she exclaimed, “Oh, is it morning already, and so dark? The birds can see more sky than we! Sing, Alessandro,” and she began the hymn:-- “'Singers at dawn From the heavens above People all regions; Gladly we too sing.'”
Never went up truer invocation, from sweeter spot.
“Sing not so loud, my Majel,” whispered Alessandro, as her voice went carolling like a lark's in the pure ether. “There might be hunters near who would hear;” and he joined in with low and muffled tones.
As she dropped her voice at this caution, it seemed even sweeter than before:-- “'Come, O sinners, Come, and we will sing Tender hymns To our refuge,'” “Ah, Majella, there is no sinner here, except me!” said Alessandro. “My Majella is like one of the Virgin's own saints.” And indeed he might have been forgiven the thought as he gazed at Ramona, sitting there in the shimmering light, her face thrown out into relief by the gray wall of fern-draped rock behind her; her splendid hair, unbound, falling in tangled masses to her waist; her cheeks flushed, her face radiant with devout and fervent supplication, her eyes uplifted to the narrow belt of sky overhead, where filmy vapors were turning to gold, touched by a sun she could not see.
“Hush, my love,” she breathed rather than said. “That would be a sin, if you really thought it. ' O beautiful Queen, Princess of Heaven,'” she continued, repeating the first lines of the song; and then, sinking on her knees, reached out one hand for Alessandro's, and glided, almost without a break in the melodious sound, into a low recitative of the morning-prayers. Her rosary was of fine-chased gold beads, with an ivory crucifix; a rare and precious relic of the Missions' olden times. It had belonged to Father Peyri himself, was given by him to Father Salvierderra, and by Father Salvierderra to the “blessed child,” Ramona, at her confirmation. A warmer token of his love and trust he could not have bestowed upon her, and to Ramona's religious and affectionate heart it had always seemed a bond and an assurance, not only of Father Salvierderra's love, but of the love and protection of the now sainted Peyri.
As she pronounced the last words of her trusting prayer, and slipped the last of the golden beads along on its string, a thread of sunlight shot into the canon through a deep narrow gap in its rocky eastern crest,--shot in for a second, no more; fell aslant the rosary, lighted it; by a flash as if of fire, across the fine-cut facets of the beads, on Ramona's hands, and on the white face of the ivory Christ. Only a flash, and it was gone! To both Ramona and Alessandro it came like an omen,--like a message straight from the Virgin. Could she choose better messenger,--she, the compassionate one, the loving woman in heaven; mother of the Christ to whom they prayed, through her,--mother, for whose sake He would regard their least cry,--could she choose better messenger, or swifter, than the sunbeam, to say that she heard and would help them in these sore straits.
Perhaps there were not, in the whole great world, at that moment to be found, two souls who were experiencing so vivid a happiness as thrilled the veins of these two friendless ones, on their knees, alone in the wilderness, gazing half awe-stricken at the shining rosary.
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
17
|
None
|
BEFORE the end of their second day in the canon, the place had become to Ramona so like a friendly home, that she dreaded to leave its shelter. Nothing is stronger proof of the original intent of Nature to do more for man than the civilization in its arrogance will long permit her to do, than the quick and sure way in which she reclaims his affection, when by weariness, idle chance, or disaster, he is returned, for an interval, to her arms. How soon he rejects the miserable subterfuges of what he had called habits; sheds the still more miserable pretences of superiority, makeshifts of adornment, and chains of custom! “Whom the gods love, die young,” has been too long carelessly said. It is not true, in the sense in which men use the words. Whom the gods love, dwell with nature; if they are ever lured away, return to her before they are old. Then, however long they live before they die, they die young. Whom the gods love, live young--forever.
With the insight of a lover added to the instinct of the Indian, Alessandro saw how, hour by hour, there grew in Ramona's eyes the wonted look of one at home; how she watched the shadows, and knew what they meant.
“If we lived here, the walls would be sun-dials for us, would they not?” she said, in a tone of pleasure. “I see that yon tall yucca has gone in shadow sooner than it did yesterday.”
And, “What millions of things grow here, Alessandro! I did not know there were so many. Have they all names? The nuns taught us some names; but they were hard, and I forgot them, We might name them for ourselves, if we lived here. They would be our relations.”
And, “For one year I should lie and look up at the sky, my Alessandro, and do nothing else. It hardly seems as if it would be a sin to do nothing for a year, if one gazed steadily at the sky all the while.”
And, “Now I know what it is I have always seen in your face, Alessandro. It is the look from the sky. One must be always serious and not unhappy, but never too glad, I think, when he lives with nothing between him and the sky, and the saints can see him every minute.”
And, “I cannot believe that it is but two days I have lived in the air, Alessandro. This seems to me the first home I have ever had. Is it because I am Indian, Alessandro, that it gives me such joy?”
It was strange how many more words Ramona spoke than Alessandro, yet how full she felt their intercourse to be. His silence was more than silent; it was taciturn. Yet she always felt herself answered. A monosyllable of Alessandro's, nay, a look, told what other men took long sentences to say, and said less eloquently.
After long thinking over this, she exclaimed, “You speak as the trees speak, and like the rock yonder, and the flowers, without saying anything!”
This delighted Alessandro's very heart. “And you, Majella,” he exclaimed; “when you say that, you speak in the language of our people; you are as we are.”
And Ramona, in her turn, was made happy by his words,--happier than she would have been made by any other praise or fondness.
Alessandro found himself regaining all his strength as if by a miracle. The gaunt look had left his face. Almost it seemed that its contour was already fuller. There is a beautiful old Gaelic legend of a Fairy who wooed a Prince, came again and again to him, and, herself invisible to all but the Prince, hovered in the air, sang loving songs to draw him away from the crowd of his indignant nobles, who heard her voice and summoned magicians to rout her by all spells and enchantments at their command. Finally they succeeded in silencing her and driving her off; but as she vanished from the Prince's sight she threw him an apple,--a magic golden apple. Once having tasted of this, he refused all other food. Day after day, night after night, he ate only this golden apple; and yet, morning after morning, evening after evening, there lay the golden fruit, still whole and shining, as if he had not fed upon it; and when the Fairy came the next time, the Prince leaped into her magic boat, sailed away with her, and never was seen in his kingdom again. It was only an allegory, this legend,--a beautiful allegory, and true,--of love and lovers. The food on which Alessandro was, hour by hour, now growing strong, was as magic and invisible as Prince Connla's apple, and just as strength-giving.
“My Alessandro, how is it you look so well, so soon?” said Ramona, studying his countenance with loving care. “I thought that night you would die. Now you look nearly strong as ever; your eyes shine, and your hand is not hot! It is the blessed air; it has cured you, as it cured Felipe of the fever.”
“If the air could keep me well, I had not been ill, Majella,” replied Alessandro. “I had been under no roof except the tule-shed, till I saw you. It is not the air;” and he looked at her with a gaze that said the rest.
At twilight of the third day, when Ramona saw Alessandro leading up Baba, saddled ready for the journey, the tears filled her eyes. At noon Alessandro had said to her: “To-night, Majella, we must go. There is not grass enough for another day. We must go while the horses are strong. I dare not lead them any farther down the canon to graze, for there is a ranch only a few miles lower. To-day I found one of the man's cows feeding near Baba.”
Ramona made no remonstrance. The necessity was too evident; but the look on her face gave Alessandro a new pang. He, too, felt as if exiled afresh in leaving the spot. And now, as he led the horses slowly up, and saw Ramona sitting in a dejected attitude beside the nets in which were again carefully packed their small stores, his heart ached anew. Again the sense of his homeless and destitute condition settled like an unbearable burden on his soul. Whither and to what was he leading his Majella?
But once in the saddle, Ramona recovered cheerfulness. Baba was in such gay heart, she could not be wholly sad. The horse seemed fairly rollicking with satisfaction at being once more on the move. Capitan, too, was gay. He had found the canon dull, spite of its refreshing shade and cool water. He longed for sheep. He did not understand this inactivity. The puzzled look on his face had made Ramona laugh more than once, as he would come and stand before her, wagging his tail and fixing his eyes intently on her face, as if he said in so many words, “What in the world are you about in this canon, and do not you ever intend to return home? Or if you will stay here, why not keep sheep? Do you not see that I have nothing to do?”
“We must ride all night, Majella,” said Alessandro, “and lose no time. It is a long way to the place where we shall stay to-morrow.”
“Is it a canon?” asked Ramona, hopefully.
“No,” he replied, “not a canon; but there are beautiful oak-trees. It is where we get our acorns for the winter. It is on the top of a high hill.”
“Will it be safe there?” she asked.
“I think so,” he replied; “though not so safe as here. There is no such place as this in all the country.”
“And then where shall we go next?” she asked.
“That is very near Temecula,” he said. “We must go into Temecula, dear Majella. I must go to Mr. Hartsel's. He is friendly. He will give me money for my father's violin. If it were not for that, I would never go near the place again.”
“I would like to see it, Alessandro,” she said gently.
“Oh, no, no, Majella!” he cried; “you would not. It is terrible; the houses all unroofed,--all but my father's and Jose's. They were shingled roofs; they will be just the same; all the rest are only walls. Antonio's mother threw hers down; I don't know how the old woman ever had the strength; they said she was like a fury. She said nobody should ever live in those walls again; and she took a pole, and made a great hole in one side, and then she ran Antonio's wagon against it with all her might, till it fell in. No, Majella. It will be dreadful.”
“Wouldn't you like to go into the graveyard again, Alessandro?” she said timidly.
“The saints forbid!” he said solemnly. “I think it would make me a murderer to stand in that graveyard! If I had not you, my Majel, I should kill some white man when I came out. Oh, do not speak of it!” he added, after a moment's silence; “it takes the strength all out of my blood again, Majella. It feels as if I should die!”
And the word “Temecula” was not mentioned between them again until dusk the next day, when, as they were riding slowly along between low, wooded hills, they suddenly came to an opening, a green, marshy place, with a little thread of trickling water, at which their horses stopped, and drank thirstily; and Ramona, looking ahead, saw lights twinkling in the distance. “Lights, Alessandro, lights!” she exclaimed, pointing to them.
“Yes, Majella,” he replied, “it is Temecula,” and springing off his pony he came to her side, and putting both his hands on hers, said: “I have been thinking, for a long way back, Carita, what is to be done here. I do not know. What does Majella think will be wise? If men have been sent out to pursue us, they may be at Hartsel's. His store is the place where everybody stops, everybody goes. I dare not have you go there, Majella; yet I must go. The only way I can get any money is from Mr. Hartsel.”
“I must wait somewhere while you go!” said Ramona, her heart beating as she gazed ahead into the blackness of the great plain. It looked vast as the sea. “That is the only safe thing, Alessandro.”
“I think so too,” he said; “but, oh, I am afraid for you; and will not you be afraid?”
“Yes,” she replied, “I am afraid. But it is not so dangerous as the other.”
“If anything were to happen to me, and I could not come back to you, Majella, if you give Baba his reins he will take you safe home,--he and Capitan.”
Ramona shrieked aloud. She had not thought of this possibility. Alessandro had thought of everything. “What could happen?” she cried.
“I mean if the men were there, and if they took me for stealing the horse,” he said.
“But you would not have the horse with you,” she said. “How could they take you?”
“That mightn't make any difference,” replied Alessandro. “They might take me, to make me tell where the horse was.”
“Oh, Alessandro,” sobbed Ramona, “what shall we do!” Then in another second, gathering her courage, she exclaimed, “Alessandro, I know what I will do. I will stay in the graveyard. No one will come there. Shall I not be safest there?”
“Holy Virgin! would my Majel stay there?” exclaimed Alessandro.
“Why not?” she said. “It is not the dead that will harm us. They would all help us if they could. I have no fear. I will wait there while you go; and if you do not come in an hour, I will come to Mr. Hartsel's after you. If there are men of the Senora's there, they will know me; they will not dare to touch me. They will know that Felipe would punish them. I will not be afraid. And if they are ordered to take Baba, they can have him; we can walk when the pony is tired.”
Her confidence was contagious. “My wood-dove has in her breast the heart of the lion,” said Alessandro, fondly. “We will do as she says. She is wise;” and he turned their horses' heads in the direction of the graveyard. It was surrounded by a low adobe wall, with one small gate of wooden paling. As they reached it, Alessandro exclaimed, “The thieves have taken the gate!”
“What could they have wanted with that?” said Ramona “To burn,” he said doggedly, “It was wood; but it was very little. They might have left the graves safe from wild beasts and cattle!”
As they entered the enclosure, a dark figure rose from one of the graves. Ramona started.
“Fear nothing,” whispered Alessandro. “It must be one of our people. I am glad; now you will not be alone. It is Carmena, I am sure. That was the corner where they buried Jose. I will speak to her;” and leaving Ramona at the gate, he went slowly on, saying in a low voice, in the Luiseno language, “Carmena, is that you? Have no fear. It is I, Alessandro!”
It was Carmena. The poor creature, nearly crazed with grief, was spending her days by her baby's grave in Pachanga, and her nights by her husband's in Temecula. She dared not come to Temecula by day, for the Americans were there, and she feared them. After a short talk with her, Alessandro returned, leading her along. Bringing her to Ramona's side, he laid her feverish hand in Ramona's, and said: “Majella, I have told her all. She cannot speak a word of Spanish, but she is very glad, she says, that you have come with me, and she will stay close by your side till I come back.”
Ramona's tender heart ached with desire to comfort the girl; but all she could do was to press her hand in silence. Even in the darkness she could see the hollow, mournful eyes and the wasted cheek. Words are less needful to sorrow than to joy. Carmena felt in every fibre how Ramona was pitying her. Presently she made a gentle motion, as if to draw her from the saddle. Ramona bent down and looked inquiringly into her face. Again she drew her gently with one hand, and with the other pointed to the corner from which she had come. Ramona understood. “She wants to show me her husband's grave,” she thought. “She does not like to be away from it. I will go with her.”
Dismounting, and taking Baba's bridle over her arm, she bowed her head assentingly, and still keeping firm hold of Carmena's hand, followed her. The graves were thick, and irregularly placed, each mound marked by a small wooden cross. Carmena led with the swift step of one who knew each inch of the way by heart. More than once Ramona stumbled and nearly fell, and Baba was impatient and restive at the strange inequalities under his feet. When they reached the corner, Ramona saw the fresh-piled earth of the new grave. Uttering a wailing cry, Carmena, drawing Ramona to the edge of it, pointing down with her right hand, then laid both hands on her heart, and gazed at Ramona piteously. Ramona burst into weeping, and again clasping Carmena's hand, laid it on her own breast, to show her sympathy. Carmena did not weep. She was long past that; and she felt for the moment lifted out of herself by the sweet, sudden sympathy of this stranger,--this girl like herself, yet so different, so wonderful, so beautiful, Carmena was sure she must be. Had the saints sent her from heaven to Alessandro? What did it mean? Carmena's bosom was heaving with the things she longed to say and to ask; but all she could do was to press Ramona's hand again and again, and occasionally lay her soft cheek upon it.
“Now, was it not the saints that put it into my head to come to the graveyard?” thought Ramona. “What a comfort to this poor heart-broken thing to see Alessandro! And she keeps me from all fear. Holy Virgin! but I had died of terror here all alone. Not that the dead would harm me; but simply from the vast, silent plain, and the gloom.”
Soon Carmena made signs to Ramona that they would return to the gate. Considerate and thoughtful, she remembered that Alessandro would expect to find them there. But it was a long and weary watch they had, waiting for Alessandro to come.
After leaving them, and tethering his pony, he had struck off at a quick run for Hartsel's, which was perhaps an eighth of a mile from the graveyard. His own old home lay a little to the right. As he drew near, he saw a light in its windows. He stopped as if shot. “A light in our house!” he exclaimed; and he clenched his hands. “Those cursed robbers have gone into it to live already!” His blood seemed turning to fire. Ramona would not have recognized the face of her Alessandro now. It was full of implacable vengeance. Involuntarily he felt for his knife. It was gone. His gun he had left inside the graveyard, leaning against the wall. Ah! in the graveyard! Yes, and there also was Ramona waiting for him. Thoughts of vengeance fled. The world held now but one work, one hope, one passion, for him. But he would at least see who were these dwellers in his father's house. A fierce desire to see their faces burned within him. Why should he thus torture himself? Why, indeed? But he must. He would see the new home-life already begun on the grave of his. Stealthily creeping under the window from which the light shone, he listened. He heard children's voices; a woman's voice; at intervals the voice of a man, gruff and surly; various household sounds also. It was evidently the supper-hour. Cautiously raising himself till his eyes were on a level with the lowest panes in the window, he looked in.
A table was set in the middle of the floor, and there were sitting at it a man, woman, and two children. The youngest, little more than a baby, sat in its high chair, drumming with a spoon on the table, impatient for its supper. The room was in great confusion,--beds made on the floor, open boxes half unpacked, saddles and harness thrown down in the corners; evidently there were new-comers into the house. The window was open by an inch. It had warped, and would not shut down. Bitterly Alessandro recollected how he had put off from day to day the planing of that window to make it shut tight. Now, thanks to the crack, he could hear all that was said. The woman looked weary and worn. Her face was a sensitive one, and her voice kindly; but the man had the countenance of a brute,--of a human brute. Why do we malign the so-called brute creation, making their names a unit of comparison for base traits which never one of them possessed?
“It seems as if I never should get to rights in this world!” said the woman. Alessandro understood enough English to gather the meaning of what she said. He listened eagerly. “When will the next wagon get here?”
“I don't know,” growled her husband. “There's been a slide in that cursed canon, and blocked the road. They won't be here for several days yet. Hain't you got stuff enough round now? If you'd clear up what's here now, then 'twould be time enough to grumble because you hadn't got everything.”
“But, John,” she replied, “I can't clear up till the bureau comes, to put the things away in, and the bedstead. I can't seem to do anything.”
“You can grumble, I take notice,” he answered. “That's about all you women are good for, anyhow. There was a first-rate raw-hide bedstead in here. If Rothsaker hadn't been such a fool's to let those dogs of Indians carry off all their truck, we might have had that!”
The woman looked at him reproachfully, but did not speak for a moment. Then her cheeks flushed, and seeming unable to repress the speech, she exclaimed, “Well, I'm thankful enough he did let the poor things take their furniture. I'd never have slept a wink an that bedstead, I know, if it had ha' been left here. It's bad enough to take their houses this way!”
“Oh, you shut up your head for a blamed fool, will you!” cried the man. He was half drunk, his worst and most dangerous state. She glanced at him half timorously, half indignantly, and turning to the children, began feeding the baby. At that second the other child looked up, and catching sight of the outline of Alessandro's head, cried out, “There's a man there! There, at the window!”
Alessandro threw himself flat on the ground, and held his breath. Had he imperilled all, brought danger on himself and Ramona, by yielding to this mad impulse to look once more inside the walls of his home? With a fearful oath, the half-drunken man exclaimed, “One of those damned Indians, I expect. I've seen several hangin' round to-day. We'll have to shoot two or three of 'em yet, before we're rid of 'em!” and he took his gun down from the pegs above the fireplace, and went to the door with it in his hand.
“Oh, don't fire, father, don't.” cried the woman. “They'll come and murder us all in our sleep if you do! Don't fire!” and she pulled him back by the sleeve.
Shaking her off, with another oath, he stepped across the threshold, and stood listening, and peering into the darkness. Alessandro's heart beat like a hammer in his breast. Except for the thought of Ramona, he would have sprung on the man, seized his gun, and killed him.
“I don't believe it was anybody, after all, father,” persisted the woman. “Bud's always seein' things. I don't believe there was anybody there. Come in; supper's gettin' all cold.”
“Well, I'll jest fire, to let 'em know there's powder 'n shot round here,” said the fiend. “If it hits any on 'em roamin' round, he won't know what hurt him;” and levelling his gun at random, with his drunken, unsteady hand he fired. The bullet whistled away harmlessly into the empty darkness. Hearkening a few moments, and hearing no cry, he hiccuped, “Mi-i-issed him that time,” and went in to his supper.
Alessandro did not dare to stir for a long time. How he cursed his own folly in having brought himself into this plight! What needless pain of waiting he was inflicting on the faithful one, watching for him in that desolate and fearful place of graves! At last he ventured,--sliding along on his belly a few inches at a time, till, several rods from the house, he dared at last to spring to his feet and bound away at full speed for Hartsel's.
Hartsel's was one of those mongrel establishments to be seen nowhere except in Southern California. Half shop, half farm, half tavern, it gathered up to itself all the threads of the life of the whole region. Indians, ranchmen, travellers of all sorts, traded at Hartsel's, drank at Hartsel's, slept at Hartsel's. It was the only place of its kind within a radius of twenty miles; and it was the least bad place of its kind within a much wider radius.
Hartsel was by no means a bad fellow--when he was sober; but as that condition was not so frequent as it should have been, he sometimes came near being a very bad fellow indeed. At such times everybody was afraid of him,--wife, children, travellers, ranchmen, and all. “It was only a question of time and occasion,” they said, “Hartsel's killing somebody sooner or later;” and it looked as if the time were drawing near fast. But, out of his cups, Hartsel was kindly, and fairly truthful; entertaining, too, to a degree which held many a wayfarer chained to his chair till small hours of the morning, listening to his landlord's talk. How he had drifted from Alsace to San Diego County, he could hardly have told in minute detail himself, there had been so many stages and phases of the strange journey; but he had come to his last halt now. Here, in this Temecula, he would lay his bones. He liked the country. He liked the wild life, and, for a wonder, he liked the Indians. Many a good word he spoke for them to travellers who believed no good of the race, and evidently listened with polite incredulity when he would say, as he often did: “I've never lost a dollar off these Indians yet. They do all their trading with me. There's some of them I trust as high's a hundred dollars. If they can't pay this year, they'll pay next; and if they die, their relations will pay their debts for them, a little at a time, till they've got it all paid off. They'll pay in wheat, or bring a steer, maybe, or baskets or mats the women make; but they'll pay. They're honester 'n the general run of Mexicans about paying; I mean Mexicans that are as poor's they are.”
Hartsel's dwelling-house was a long, low adobe building, with still lower flanking additions, in which were bedrooms for travellers, the kitchen, and storerooms. The shop was a separate building, of rough planks, a story and a half high, the loft of which was one great dormitory well provided with beds on the floor, but with no other article of bedroom furniture. They who slept in this loft had no fastidious standards of personal luxury. These two buildings, with some half-dozen out-houses of one sort and another, stood in an enclosure surrounded by a low white picket fence, which gave to the place a certain home-like look, spite of the neglected condition of the ground, which was bare sand, or sparsely tufted with weeds and wild grass. A few plants, parched and straggling, stood in pots and tin cans around the door of the dwelling-house. One hardly knew whether they made the place look less desolate or more so. But they were token of a woman's hand, and of a nature which craved something more than the unredeemed wilderness around her afforded.
A dull and lurid light streamed out from the wide-open door of the store. Alessandro drew cautiously near. The place was full of men, and he heard loud laughing and talking. He dared not go in. Stealing around to the rear, he leaped the fence, and went to the other house and opened the kitchen door. Here he was not afraid. Mrs. Hartsel had never any but Indian servants in her employ. The kitchen was lighted only by one dim candle. On the stove were sputtering and hissing all the pots and frying-pans it would hold. Much cooking was evidently going on for the men who were noisily rollicking in the other house.
Seating himself by the fire, Alessandro waited. In a few moments Mrs. Hartsel came hurrying back to her work. It was no uncommon experience to find an Indian quietly sitting by her fire. In the dim light she did not recognize Alessandro, but mistook him, as he sat bowed over, his head in his hands, for old Ramon, who was a sort of recognized hanger-on of the place, earning his living there by odd jobs of fetching and carrying, and anything else he could do.
“Run, Ramon,” she said, “and bring me more wood; this cotton wood is so dry, it burns out like rotten punk; I'm off my feet to-night, with all these men to cook for;” then turning to the table, she began cutting her bread, and did not see how tall and unlike Ramon was the man who silently rose and went out to do her bidding. When, a few moments later, Alessandro re-entered, bringing a huge armful of wood, which it would have cost poor old Ramon three journeys at least to bring, and throwing it down, on the hearth, said, “Will that be enough, Mrs. Hartsel?” she gave a scream of surprise, and dropped her knife. “Why, who--” she began; then, seeing his face, her own lighting up with pleasure, she continued, “Alessandro! Is it you? Why, I took you in the dark for old Ramon! I thought you were in Pachanga.”
“In Pachanga!” Then as yet no one had come from the Senora Moreno's to Hartsel's in search of him and the Senorita Ramona! Alessandro's heart felt almost light in his bosom, From the one immediate danger he had dreaded, they were safe; but no trace of emotion showed on his face, and he did not raise his eyes as he replied; “I have been in Pachanga. My father is dead. I have buried him there.”
“Oh, Alessandro! Did he die?” cried the kindly woman, coming closer to Alessandro, and laying her hand on his shoulder. “I heard he was sick.” She paused; she did not know what to say. She had suffered so at the time of the ejectment of the Indians, that it had made her ill. For two days she had kept her doors shut and her windows close curtained, that she need not see the terrible sights. She was not a woman of many words. She was a Mexican, but there were those who said that some Indian blood ran in her veins. This was not improbable; and it seemed more than ever probable now, as she stood still by Alessandro's side, her hand on his shoulder, her eyes fixed in distress on his face. How he had altered! How well she recollected his lithe figure, his alert motion, his superb bearing, his handsome face, when she last saw him in the spring!
“You were away all summer, Alessandro?” she said at last, turning back to her work.
“Yes,” he said: “at the Senora Moreno's.”
“So I heard,” she said. “That is a fine great place, is it not? Is her son grown a fine man? He was a lad when I saw him. He went through here with a drove of sheep once.”
“Ay, he is a man now,” said Alessandro, and buried his face in his hands again.
“Poor fellow! I don't wonder he does not want to speak,” thought Mrs. Hartsel. “I'll just let him alone;” and she spoke no more for some moments.
Alessandro sat still by the fire. A strange apathy seemed to have seized him; at last he said wearily: “I must be going now. I wanted to see Mr. Hartsel a minute, but he seems to be busy in the store.”
“Yes,” she said, “a lot of San Francisco men; they belong to the company that's coming in here in the valley; they've been here two days. Oh, Alessandro,” she continued, bethinking herself, “Jim's got your violin here; Jose brought it.”
“Yes, I know it,” answered Alessandro. “Jose told me; and that was one thing I stopped for.”
“I'll run and get it,” she exclaimed.
“No,” said Alessandro, in a slow, husky voice. “I do not want it. I thought Mr. Hartsel might buy it. I want some money. It was not mine; it was my father's. It is a great deal better than mine. My father said it would bring a great deal of money. It is very old.”
“Indeed it is,” she replied; “one of those men in there was looking at it last night. He was astonished at it, and he would not believe Jim when he told him about its having come from the Mission.”
“Does he play? Will he buy it?” cried Alessandro.
“I don't know; I'll call Jim,” she said; and running out she looked in at the other door, saying, “Jim! Jim!”
Alas, Jim was in no condition to reply. At her first glance in his face, her countenance hardened into an expression of disgust and defiance. Returning to the kitchen, she said scornfully, disdaining all disguises, “Jim's drunk. No use your talking to him to-night. Wait till morning.”
“Till morning!” A groan escaped from Alessandro, in spite of himself. “I can't!” he cried. “I must go on to-night.”
“Why, what for?” exclaimed Mrs. Hartsel, much astonished. For one brief second Alessandro revolved in his mind the idea of confiding everything to her; only for a second, however. No; the fewer knew his secret and Ramona's, the better.
“I must be in San Diego to-morrow,” he said.
“Got work there?” she said.
“Yes; that is, in San Pasquale,” he said; “and I ought to have been there three days ago.”
Mrs. Hartsel mused. “Jim can't do anything to-night,” she said; “that's certain. You might see the man yourself, and ask him if he'd buy it.”
Alessandro shook his head. An invincible repugnance withheld him. He could not face one of these Americans who were “coming in” to his valley. Mrs. Hartsel understood.
“I'll tell you, Alessandro,” said the kindly woman, “I'll give you what money you need to-night, and then, if you say so, Jim'll sell the violin to-morrow, if the man wants it, and you can pay me back out of that, and when you're along this way again you can have the rest. Jim'll make as good a trade for you's he can. He's a real good friend to all of you, Alessandro, when he's himself.”
“I know it, Mrs. Hartsel. I'd trust Mr. Hartsel more than any other man in this country,” said Alessandro. “He's about the only white man I do trust!”
Mrs. Hartsel was fumbling in a deep pocket in her under-petticoat. Gold-piece after gold-piece she drew out. “Humph! Got more'n I thought I had,” she said. “I've kept all that's been paid in here to-day, for I knew Jim'd be drunk before night.”
Alessandro's eyes fastened on the gold. How he longed for an abundance of those little shining pieces for his Majella! He sighed as Mrs. Hartsel counted them out on the table,--one, two, three, four, bright five-dollar pieces.
“That is as much as I dare take,” said Alessandro, when she put down the fourth. “Will you trust me for so much?” he added sadly. “You know I have nothing left now. Mrs. Hartsel, I am only a beggar, till I get some work to do.”
The tears came into Mrs. Hartsel's eyes. “It's a shame!” she said,--“a shame, Alessandro! Jim and I haven't thought of anything else, since it happened. Jim says they'll never prosper, never. Trust you? Yes, indeed. Jim and I'd trust you, or your father, the last day of our lives.”
“I'm glad he is dead,” said Alessandro, as he knotted the gold into his handkerchief and put it into his bosom. “But he was murdered, Mrs. Hartsel,--murdered, just as much as if they had fired a bullet into him.”
“That's true.” she exclaimed vehemently. “I say so too; and so was Jose. That's just what I said at the time,--that bullets would not be half so inhuman!”
The words had hardly left her lips, when the door from the dining-room burst open, and a dozen men, headed by the drunken Jim, came stumbling, laughing, reeling into the kitchen.
“Where's supper! Give us our supper! What are you about with your Indian here? I'll teach you how to cook ham!” stammered Jim, making a lurch towards the stove. The men behind caught him and saved him. Eyeing the group with scorn, Mrs. Hartsel, who had not a cowardly nerve in her body, said: “Gentlemen, if you will take your seats at the table, I will bring in your supper immediately. It is all ready.”
One or two of the soberer ones, shamed by her tone, led the rest back into the dining-room, where, seating themselves, they began to pound the table and swing the chairs, swearing, and singing ribald songs.
“Get off as quick as you can, Alessandro,” whispered Mrs. Hartsel, as she passed by him, standing like a statue, his eyes, full of hatred and contempt, fixed on the tipsy group. “You'd better go. There's no knowing what they'll do next.”
“Are you not afraid?” he said in a low tone.
“No!” she said. “I'm used to it. I can always manage Jim. And Ramon's round somewhere,--he and the bull-pups; if worse comes to worse, I can call the dogs. These San Francisco fellows are always the worst to get drunk. But you'd better get out of the way!”
“And these are the men that have stolen our lands, and killed my father, and Jose, and Carmena's baby!” thought Alessandro, as he ran swiftly back towards the graveyard. “And Father Salvierderra says, God is good. It must be the saints no longer pray to Him for us!”
But Alessandro's heart was too full of other thoughts, now, to dwell long on past wrongs, however bitter. The present called him too loudly. Putting his hand in his bosom, and feeling the soft, knotted handkerchief, he thought: “Twenty dollars! It is not much! But it will buy food for many days for my Majella and for Baba!”
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
18
|
None
|
EXCEPT for the reassuring help of Carmena's presence by her side, Ramona would never have had courage to remain during this long hour in the graveyard. As it was, she twice resolved to bear the suspense no longer, and made a movement to go. The chance of Alessandro's encountering at Hartsel's the men sent in pursuit of him and of Baba, loomed in her thoughts into a more and more frightful danger each moment she reflected upon it. It was a most unfortunate suggestion for Alessandro to have made. Her excited fancy went on and on, picturing the possible scenes which might be going on almost within stone's-throw of where she was sitting, helpless, in the midnight darkness,--Alessandro seized, tied, treated as a thief, and she, Ramona, not there to vindicate him, to terrify the men into letting him go. She could not bear it; she would ride boldly to Hartsel's door. But when she made a motion as if she would go, and said in the soft Spanish, of which Carmena knew no word, but which yet somehow conveyed Ramona's meaning, “I must go! It is too long! I cannot wait here!” Carmena had clasped her hand tighter, and said in the San Luiseno tongue, of which Ramona knew no word, but which yet somehow conveyed Carmena's meaning, “O beloved lady, you must not go! Waiting is the only safe thing. Alessandro said, to wait here. He will come.” The word “Alessandro” was plain. Yes, Alessandro had said, wait; Carmena was right. She would obey, but it was a fearful ordeal. It was strange how Ramona, who felt herself preternaturally brave, afraid of nothing, so long as Alessandro was by her side, became timorous and wretched the instant he was lost to her sight. When she first heard his steps coming, she quivered with terror lest they might not be his. The next second she knew; and with a glad cry, “Alessandro! Alessandro!” she bounded to him, dropping Baba's reins.
Sighing gently, Carmena picked up the reins, and stood still, holding the horse, while the lovers clasped each other with breathless words. “How she loves Alessandro!” thought the widowed Carmena. “Will they leave him alive to stay with her? It is better not to love!” But there was no bitter envy in her mind for the two who were thus blest while she went desolate. All of Pablo's people had great affection for Alessandro. They had looked forward to his being over them in his father's place. They knew his goodness, and were proud of his superiority to themselves.
“Majella, you tremble,” said Alessandro, as he threw his arms around her. “You have feared! Yet you were not alone.” He glanced at Carmena's motionless figure, standing by Baba.
“No, not alone, dear Alessandro, but it was so long!” replied Ramona; “and I feared the men had taken you, as you feared. Was there any one there?”
“No! No one has heard anything. All was well. They thought I had just come from Pachanga,” he answered.
“Except for Carmena, I should have ridden after you half an hour ago,” continued Ramona. “But she told me to wait.”
“She told you!” repeated Alessandro. “How did you understand her speech?”
“I do not know. Was it not a strange thing?” replied Ramona. “She spoke in your tongue, but I thought I understood her, Ask her if she did not say that I must not go; that it was safer to wait; that you had so said, and you would soon come.”
Alessandro repeated the words to Carmena. “Did you say that?” he asked.
“Yes,” answered Carmena.
“You see, then, she has understood the Luiseno words,” he said delightedly. “She is one of us.”
“Yes,” said Carmena, gravely, “she is one of us.” Then, taking Ramona's hand in both of her own for farewell, she repeated, in a tone as of dire prophecy, “One of us, Alessandro! one of us!” And as she gazed after their retreating forms, almost immediately swallowed and lost in the darkness, she repeated the words again to herself,--“One of us! one of us! Sorrow came to me; she rides to meet it!” and she crept back to her husband's grave, and threw herself down, to watch till the dawn.
The road which Alessandro would naturally have taken would carry them directly by Hartsel's again. But, wishing to avoid all risk of meeting or being seen by any of the men on the place, he struck well out to the north, to make a wide circuit around it. This brought them past the place where Antonio's house had stood. Here Alessandro halted, and putting his hand on Baba's rein, walked the horses close to the pile of ruined walls. “This was Antonio's house, Majella,” he whispered. “I wish every house in the valley had been pulled down like this. Old Juana was right. The Americans are living in my father's house, Majella,” he went on, his whisper growing thick with rage. “That was what kept me so long. I was looking in at the window at them eating their supper. I thought I should go mad, Majella. If I had had my gun, I should have shot them all dead!”
An almost inarticulate gasp was Ramona's first reply to this. “Living in your house!” she said. “You saw them?”
“Yes,” he said; “the man, and his wife, and two little children; and the man came out, with his gun, on the doorstep, and fired it. They thought they heard something moving, and it might be an Indian; so he fired. That was what kept me so long.”
Just at this moment Baba tripped over some small object on the ground. A few steps farther, and he tripped again. “There is something caught round his foot, Alessandro,” said Ramona. “It keeps moving.”
Alessandro jumped off his horse, and kneeling down, exclaimed, “It's a stake,--and the lariat fastened to it. Holy Virgin! what--” The rest of his ejaculation was inaudible. The next Ramona knew, he had run swiftly on, a rod or two. Baba had followed, and Capitan and the pony; and there stood a splendid black horse, as big as Baba, and Alessandro talking under his breath to him, and clapping both his hands over the horse's nose, to stop him, as often as he began whinnying; and it seemed hardly a second more before he had his saddle off the poor little Indian pony, and striking it sharply on its sides had turned it free, had saddled the black horse, and leaping on his back, said, with almost a sob in his voice: “My Majella, it is Benito, my own Benito. Now the saints indeed have helped us! Oh, the ass, the idiot, to stake out Benito with such a stake as that! A jack rabbit had pulled it up. Now, my Majella, we will gallop! Faster! faster! I will not breathe easy till we are out of this cursed valley. When we are once in the Santa Margarita Canon, I know a trail they will never find!”
Like the wind galloped Benito,--Alessandro half lying on his back, stroking his forehead, whispering to him, the horse snorting with joy: which were gladder of the two, horse or man, could not be said. And neck by neck with Benito came Baba. How the ground flew away under their feet! This was companionship, indeed, worthy of Baba's best powers. Not in all the California herds could be found two superber horses than Benito and Baba. A wild, almost reckless joy took possession of Alessandro. Ramona was half terrified as she heard him still talking, talking to Benito. For an hour they did not draw rein. Both Benito and Alessandro knew every inch of the ground. Then, just as they had descended into the deepest part of the canon, Alessandro suddenly reined sharply to the left, and began climbing the precipitous wall. “Can you follow, dearest Majella?” he cried.
“Do you suppose Benito can do anything that Baba cannot?” she retorted, pressing on closely.
But Baba did not like it. Except for the stimulus of Benito ahead, he would have given Ramona trouble.
“There is only a little, rough like this, dear,” called Alessandro, as he leaped a fallen tree, and halted to see how Baba took it. “Good!” he cried, as Baba jumped it like a deer. “Good! Majella! We have got the two best horses in the country. You'll see they are alike, when daylight comes. I have often wondered they were so much alike. They would go together splendidly.”
After a few rods of this steep climbing they came out on the top of the canon's south wall, in a dense oak forest comparatively free from underbrush. “Now,” said Alessandro, “I can go from here to San Diego by paths that no white man knows. We will be near there before daylight.”
Already the keen salt air of the ocean smote their faces. Ramona drank it in with delight. “I taste salt in the air, Alessandro,” she cried.
“Yes, it is the sea,” he said. “This canon leads straight to the sea. I wish we could go by the shore, Majella. It is beautiful there. When it is still, the waves come as gently to the land as if they were in play; and you can ride along with your horse's feet in the water, and the green cliffs almost over your head; and the air off the water is like wine in one's head.”
“Cannot we go there?” she said longingly. “Would it not be safe?”
“I dare not,” he answered regretfully. “Not now, Majella; for on the shore-way, at all times, there are people going and coming.”
“Some other time, Alessandro, we can come, after we are married, and there is no danger?” she asked.
“Yes, Majella,” he replied; but as he spoke the words, he thought, “Will a time ever come when there will be no danger?”
The shore of the Pacific Ocean for many miles north of San Diego is a succession of rounding promontories, walling the mouths of canons, down many of which small streams make to the sea. These canons are green and rich at bottom, and filled with trees, chiefly oak. Beginning as little more than rifts in the ground, they deepen and widen, till at their mouths they have a beautiful crescent of shining beach from an eighth to a quarter of a mile long, The one which Alessandro hoped to reach before morning was not a dozen miles from the old town of San Diego, and commanded a fine view of the outer harbor. When he was last in it, he had found it a nearly impenetrable thicket of young oak-trees. Here, he believed, they could hide safely all day, and after nightfall ride into San Diego, be married at the priest's house, and push on to San Pasquale that same night. “All day, in that canon, Majella can look at the sea,” he thought; “but I will not tell her now, for it may be the trees have been cut down, and we cannot be so close to the shore.”
It was near sunrise when they reached the place. The trees had not been cut down. Their tops, seen from above, looked like a solid bed of moss filling in the canon bottom. The sky and the sea were both red. As Ramona looked down into this soft green pathway, it seemed, leading out to the wide and sparkling sea, she thought Alessandro had brought her into a fairy-land.
“What a beautiful world!” she cried; and riding up so close to Benito that she could lay her hand on Alessandro's, she said solemnly: “Do you not think we ought to be very happy, Alessandro, in such a beautiful world as this? Do you think we might sing our sunrise hymn here?”
Alessandro glanced around. They were alone on the breezy open; it was not yet full dawn; great masses of crimson vapor were floating upward from the hills behind San Diego. The light was still burning in the light-house on the promontory walling the inner harbor, but in a few moments more it would be day. “No, Majella, not here.” he said. “We must not stay. As soon as the sun rises, a man or a horse may be seen on this upper coast-line as far as eye can reach. We must be among the trees with all the speed we can make.”
It was like a house with a high, thick roof of oak tree-tops, the shelter they found. No sun penetrated it; a tiny trickle of water still remained, and some grass along its rims was still green, spite of the long drought,--a scanty meal for Baba and Benito, but they ate it with relish in each other's company.
“They like each other, those two,” said Ramona, laughing, as she watched them. “They will be friends.”
“Ay,” said Alessandro, also smiling. “Horses are friends, like men, and can hate each other, like men, too. Benito would never see Antonio's mare, the little yellow one, that he did not let fly his heels at her; and she was as afraid, at sight of him, as a cat is at a dog. Many a time I have laughed to see it.”
“Know you the priest at San Diego?” asked Ramona.
“Not well,” replied Alessandro. “He came seldom to Temecula when I was there; but he is a friend of Indians. I know he came with the men from San Diego at the time when there was fighting, and the whites were in great terror; and they said, except for Father Gaspara's words, there would not have been a white man left alive in Pala. My father had sent all his people away before that fight began. He knew it was coming, but he would have nothing to do with it. He said the Indians were all crazy. It was no use. They would only be killed themselves. That is the worst thing, my Majella. The stupid Indians fight and kill, and then what can we do? The white men think we are all the same. Father Gaspara has never been to Pala, I heard, since that time. There goes there now the San Juan Capistrano priest. He is a bad man. He takes money from the starving poor.”
“A priest!” ejaculated Ramona, horror-stricken.
“Ay! a priest!” replied Alessandro. “They are not all good,--not like Father Salvierderra.”
“Oh, if we could but have gone to Father Salvierderra!” exclaimed Ramona, involuntarily.
Alessandro looked distressed. “It would have been much more danger, Majella,” he said, “and I had no knowledge of work I could do there.”
His look made Ramona remorseful at once. How cruel to lay one feather-weight of additional burden on this loving man. “Oh, this is much better, really,” she said. “I did not mean what I said. It is only because I have always loved Father Salvierderra so. And the Senora will tell him what is not true. Could we not send him a letter, Alessandro?”
“There is a Santa Inez Indian I know,” replied Alessandro, “who comes down with nets to sell, sometimes, to Temecula. I know not if he goes to San Diego. If I could get speech with him, he would go up from Santa Inez to Santa Barbara for me, I am sure; for once he lay in my father's house, sick for many weeks, and I nursed him, and since then he is always begging me to take a net from him, whenever he comes. It is not two days from Santa Inez to Santa Barbara.”
“I wish it were the olden time now, Alessandro,” sighed Ramona, “when the men like Father Salvierderra had all the country. Then there would be work for all, at the Missions. The Senora says the Missions were like palaces, and that there were thousands of Indians in every one of them; thousands and thousands, all working so happy and peaceful.”
“The Senora does not know all that happened at the Missions,” replied Alessandro. “My father says that at some of them were dreadful things, when bad men had power. Never any such things at San Luis Rey. Father Peyri was like a father to all his Indians. My father says that they would all of them lie down in a fire for him, if he had commanded it. And when he went away, to leave the country, when his heart was broken, and the Mission all ruined, he had to fly by night, Majella, just as you and I have done; for if the Indians had known it, they would have risen up to keep him. There was a ship here in San Diego harbor, to sail for Mexico, and the Father made up his mind to go in it; and it was over this same road we have come, my Majella, that he rode, and by night; and my father was the only one he trusted to know it. My father came with him; they took the swiftest horses, and they rode all night, and my father carried in front of him, on the horse, a box of the sacred things of the altar, very heavy. And many a time my father has told me the story, how they got to San Diego at daybreak, and the Father was rowed out to the ship in a little boat; and not much more than on board was he, my father standing like one dead on the shore, watching, he loved him so, when, lo! he heard a great crying, and shouting, and trampling of horses' feet, and there came galloping down to the water's edge three hundred of the Indians from San Luis Rey, who had found out that the Father had gone to San Diego to take ship, and they had ridden all night on his track, to fetch him back. And when my father pointed to the ship, and told them he was already on board, they set up a cry fit to bring the very sky down; and some of them flung themselves into the sea, and swam out to the ship, and cried and begged to be taken on board and go with him. And Father Peyri stood on the deck, blessing them, and saying farewell, with the tears running on his face; and one of the Indians--how they never knew--made shift to climb up on the chains and ropes, and got into the ship itself; and they let him stay, and he sailed away with the Father. And my father said he was all his life sorry that he himself had not thought to do the same thing; but he was like one dumb and deaf and with no head, he was so unhappy at the Father's going.”
“Was it here, in this very harbor?” asked Ramona, in breathless interest, pointing out towards the blue water of which they could see a broad belt framed by their leafy foreground arch of oak tops.
“Ay, just there he sailed,--as that ship goes now,” he exclaimed, as a white-sailed schooner sailed swiftly by, going out to sea. “But the ship lay at first inside the bar; you cannot see the inside harbor from here. It is the most beautiful water I have ever seen, Majella. The two high lands come out like two arms to hold it and keep it safe, as if they loved it.”
“But, Alessandro,” continued Ramona, “were there really bad men at the other Missions? Surely not the Franciscan Fathers?”
“Perhaps not the Fathers themselves, but the men under them. It was too much power, Majella. When my father has told me how it was, it has seemed to me I should not have liked to be as he was. It is not right that one man should have so much power. There was one at the San Gabriel Mission; he was an Indian. He had been set over the rest; and when a whole band of them ran away one time, and went back into the mountains, he went after them; and he brought back a piece of each man's ear; the pieces were strung on a string; and he laughed, and said that was to know them by again,--by their clipped ears. An old woman, a Gabrieleno, who came over to Temecula, told me she saw that. She lived at the Mission herself. The Indians did not all want to come to the Missions; some of them preferred to stay in the woods, and live as they always had lived; and I think they had a right to do that if they preferred, Majella. It was stupid of them to stay and be like beasts, and not know anything; but do you not think they had the right?”
“It is the command to preach the gospel to every creature,” replied the pious Ramona. “That is what Father Salvierderra said was the reason the Franciscans came here. I think they ought to have made the Indians listen. But that was dreadful about the ears, Alessandro. Do you believe it?”
“The old woman laughed when she told it,” he answered. “She said it was a joke; so I think it was true. I know I would have killed the man who tried to crop my ears that way.”
“Did you ever tell that to Father Salvierderra?” asked Ramona.
“No, Majella. It would not be polite,” said Alessandro.
“Well, I don't believe it,” replied Ramona, in a relieved tone. “I don't believe any Franciscan ever could have permitted such things.”
The great red light in the light-house tower had again blazed out, and had been some time burning before Alessandro thought it prudent to resume their journey. The road on which they must go into old San Diego, where Father Gaspara lived, was the public road from San Diego to San Luis Rey, and they were almost sure to meet travellers on it.
But their fleet horses bore them so well, that it was not late when they reached the town. Father Gaspara's house was at the end of a long, low adobe building, which had served no mean purpose in the old Presidio days, but was now fallen into decay; and all its rooms except those occupied by the Father, had been long uninhabited. On the opposite side of the way, in a neglected, weedy open, stood his chapel,--a poverty-stricken little place, its walls imperfectly whitewashed, decorated by a few coarse pictures and by broken sconces of looking-glass, rescued in their dilapidated condition from the Mission buildings, now gone utterly to ruin. In these had been put handle-holders of common tin, in which a few cheap candles dimly lighted the room. Everything about it was in unison with the atmosphere of the place,--the most profoundly melancholy in all Southern California. Here was the spot where that grand old Franciscan, Padre Junipero Serra, began his work, full of the devout and ardent purpose to reclaim the wilderness and its peoples to his country and his Church; on this very beach he went up and down for those first terrible weeks, nursing the sick, praying with the dying, and burying the dead, from the pestilence-stricken Mexican ships lying in the harbor. Here he baptized his first Indian converts, and founded his first Mission. And the only traces now remaining of his heroic labors and hard-won successes were a pile of crumbling ruins, a few old olive-trees and palms; in less than another century even these would be gone; returned into the keeping of that mother, the earth, who puts no head-stones at the sacredest of her graves.
Father Gaspara had been for many years at San Diego. Although not a Franciscan, having, indeed, no especial love for the order, he had been from the first deeply impressed by the holy associations of the place. He had a nature at once fiery and poetic; there were but three things he could have been,--a soldier, a poet, or a priest. Circumstances had made him a priest; and the fire and the poetry which would have wielded the sword or kindled the verse, had he found himself set either to fight or to sing, had all gathered into added force in his priestly vocation. The look of a soldier he had never quite lost,--neither the look nor the tread; and his flashing dark eyes, heavy black hair and beard, and quick elastic step, seemed sometimes strangely out of harmony with his priest's gown. And it was the sensitive soul of the poet in him which had made him withdraw within himself more and more, year after year, as he found himself comparatively powerless to do anything for the hundreds of Indians that he would fain have seen gathered once more, as of old, into the keeping of the Church. He had made frequent visits to them in their shifting refuges, following up family after family, band after band, that he knew; he had written bootless letter after letter to the Government officials of one sort and another, at Washington. He had made equally bootless efforts to win some justice, some protection for them, from officials nearer home; he had endeavored to stir the Church itself to greater efficiency in their behalf. Finally, weary, disheartened, and indignant with that intense, suppressed indignation which the poetic temperament alone can feel, he had ceased,--had said, “It is of no use; I will speak no word; I am done; I can bear no more!” and settling down into the routine of his parochial duties to the little Mexican and Irish congregation of his charge in San Diego, he had abandoned all effort to do more for the Indians than visit their chief settlements once or twice a year, to administer the sacraments. When fresh outrages were brought to his notice, he paced his room, plucked fiercely at his black beard, with ejaculations, it is to be feared, savoring more of the camp than the altar; but he made no effort to do anything. Lighting his pipe, he would sit down on the old bench in his tile-paved veranda, and smoke by the hour, gazing out on the placid water of the deserted harbor, brooding, ever brooding, over the wrongs he could not redress.
A few paces off from his door stood the just begun walls of a fine brick church, which it had been the dream and pride of his heart to see builded, and full of worshippers. This, too, had failed. With San Diego's repeatedly vanishing hopes and dreams of prosperity had gone this hope and dream of Father Gaspara's. It looked, now, as if it would be indeed a waste of money to build a costly church on this site. Sentiment, however sacred and loving towards the dead, must yield to the demands of the living. To build a church on the ground where Father Junipero first trod and labored, would be a work to which no Catholic could be indifferent; but there were other and more pressing claims to be met first. This was right. Yet the sight of these silent walls, only a few feet high, was a sore one to Father Gaspara,--a daily cross, which he did not find grow lighter as he paced up and down his veranda, year in and year out, in the balmy winter and cool summer of that magic climate.
“Majella, the chapel is lighted; but that is good!” exclaimed Alessandro, as they rode into the silent plaza. “Father Gaspara must be there;” and jumping off his horse, he peered in at the uncurtained window. “A marriage, Majella,--a marriage!” he cried, hastily returning. “This, too, is good fortune. We need not to wait long.”
When the sacristan whispered to Father Gaspara that an Indian couple had just come in, wishing to be married, the Father frowned. His supper was waiting; he had been out all day, over at the old Mission olive-orchard, where he had not found things to his mind; the Indian man and wife whom he hired to take care of the few acres the Church yet owned there had been neglecting the Church lands and trees, to look after their own. The Father was vexed, tired, and hungry, and the expression with which he regarded Alessandro and Ramona, as they came towards him, was one of the least prepossessing of which his dark face was capable. Ramona, who had never knelt to any priest save the gentle Father Salvierderra, and who had supposed that all priests must look, at least, friendly, was shocked at the sight of the impatient visage confronting her. But, as his first glance fell on Ramona, Father Gaspara's expression changed.
“What is all this!” he thought; and as quick as he thought it, he exclaimed, in a severe tone, looking at Ramona, “Woman, are you an Indian?”
“Yes, Father,” answered Ramona, gently. “My mother was an Indian.”
“Ah! half-breed!” thought Father Gaspara. “It is strange how sometimes one of the types will conquer, and sometimes another! But this is no common creature;” and it was with a look of new interest and sympathy on his face that he proceeded with the ceremony,--the other couple, a middle-aged Irishman, with his more than middle-aged bride, standing quietly by, and looking on with a vague sort of wonder in their ugly, impassive faces, as if it struck them oddly that Indians should marry.
The book of the marriage-records was kept in Father Gaspara's own rooms, locked up and hidden even from his old housekeeper. He had had bitter reason to take this precaution. It had been for more than one man's interest to cut leaves out of this old record, which dated back to 1769, and had many pages written full in the hand of Father Junipero himself.
As they came out of the chapel, Father Gaspara leading the way, the Irish couple shambling along shamefacedly apart from each other, Alessandro, still holding Ramona's hand in his, said, “Will you ride, dear? It is but a step.”
“No, thanks, dear Alessandro, I would rather walk,” she replied; and Alessandro slipping the bridles of the two horses over his left arm, they walked on. Father Gaspara heard the question and answer, and was still more puzzled.
“He speaks as a gentleman speaks to a lady,” he mused. “What does it mean? Who are they?”
Father Gaspara was a well-born man, and in his home in Spain had been used to associations far superior to any which he had known in his Californian life, A gentle courtesy of tone and speech, such as that with which Alessandro had addressed Ramona, was not often heard in his parish. When they entered his house, he again regarded them both attentively. Ramona wore on her head the usual black shawl of the Mexican women. There was nothing distinctive, to the Father's eye, in her figure or face. In the dim light of the one candle,--Father Gaspara allowed himself no luxuries,--the exquisite coloring of her skin and the deep blue of her eyes were not to be seen. Alessandro's tall figure and dignified bearing were not uncommon. The Father had seen many as fine-looking Indian men. But his voice was remarkable, and he spoke better Spanish than was wont to be heard from Indians.
“Where are you from?” said the Father, as he held his pen poised in hand, ready to write their names in the old raw-hide-bound book.
“Temecula, Father,” replied Alessandro.
Father Gaspara dropped his pen. “The village the Americans drove out the other day?” he cried.
“Yes, Father.”
Father Gaspara sprang from his chair, took refuge from his excitement, as usual, in pacing the floor. “Go! go! I'm done with you! It's all over,” he said fiercely to the Irish bride and groom, who had given him their names and their fee, but were still hanging about irresolute, not knowing if all were ended or not. “A burning shame! The most dastardly thing I have seen yet in this land forsaken of God!” cried the Father. “I saw the particulars of it in the San Diego paper yesterday.” Then, coming to a halt in front of Alessandro, he exclaimed: “The paper said that the Indians were compelled to pay all the costs of the suit; that the sheriff took their cattle to do it. Was that true?”
“Yes, Father,” replied Alessandro.
The Father strode up and down again, plucking at his beard. “What are you going to do?” he said. “Where have you all gone? There were two hundred in your village the last time I was there.”
“Some have gone over into Pachanga,” replied Alessandro, “some to San Pasquale, and the rest to San Bernardino.”
“Body of Jesus! man! But you take it with philosophy!” stormed Father Gaspara.
Alessandro did not understand the word “philosophy,” but he knew what the Father meant. “Yes, Father,” he said doggedly. “It is now twenty-one days ago. I was not so at first. There is nothing to be done.”
Ramona held tight to Alessandro's hand. She was afraid of this fierce, black-bearded priest, who dashed back and forth, pouring out angry invectives.
“The United States Government will suffer for it!” he continued. “It is a Government of thieves and robbers! God will punish them. You will see; they will be visited with a curse,--a curse in their borders; their sons and their daughters shall be desolate! But why do I prate in these vain words? My son, tell me your names again;” and he seated himself once more at the table where the ancient marriage-record lay open.
After writing Alessandro's name, he turned to Ramona. “And the woman's?” he said.
Alessandro looked at Ramona. In the chapel he had said simply, “Majella.” What name should he give more?
Without a second's hesitation, Ramona answered, “Majella. Majella Phail is my name.”
She pronounced the word “Phail,” slowly. It was new to her. She had never seen it written; as it lingered on her lips, the Father, to whom also it was a new word, misunderstood it, took it to be in two syllables, and so wrote it.
The last step was taken in the disappearance of Ramona. How should any one, searching in after years, find any trace of Ramona Ortegna, in the woman married under the name of “Majella Fayeel”?
“No, no! Put up your money, son,” said Father Gaspara, as Alessandro began to undo the knots of the handkerchief in which his gold was tied. “Put up your money. I'll take no money from a Temecula Indian. I would the Church had money to give you. Where are you going now?”
“To San Pasquale, Father.”
“Ah! San Pasquale! The head man there has the old pueblo paper,” said Father Gaspara. “He was showing it to me the other day. That will, it may be, save you there. But do not trust to it, son. Buy yourself a piece of land as the white man buys his. Trust to nothing.”
Alessandro looked anxiously in the Father's face. “How is that, Father?” he said. “I do not know.”
“Well, their rules be thick as the crabs here on the beach,” replied Father Gaspara; “and, faith, they appear to me to be backwards of motion also, like the crabs: but the lawyers understand. When you have picked out your land, and have the money, come to me, and I will go with you and see that you are not cheated in the buying, so far as I can tell; but I myself am at my wit's ends with their devices. Farewell, son! Farewell, daughter!” he said, rising from his chair. Hunger was again getting the better of sympathy in Father Gaspara, and as he sat down to his long-deferred supper, the Indian couple faded from his mind; but after supper was over, as he sat smoking his pipe on the veranda, they returned again, and lingered in his thoughts,--lingered strangely, it seemed to him; he could not shake off the impression that there was something unusual about the woman. “I shall hear of them again, some day,” he thought. And he thought rightly.
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
19
|
None
|
AFTER leaving Father Gaspara's door, Alessandro and Ramona rode slowly through the now deserted plaza, and turned northward, on the river road, leaving the old Presidio walls on their right. The river was low, and they forded it without difficulty.
“I have seen this river so high that there was no fording it for many days,” said Alessandro; “but that was in spring.”
“Then it is well we came not at that time,” said Ramona, “All the times have fallen out well for us, Alessandro,--the dark nights, and the streams low; but look! as I say it, there comes the moon!” and she pointed to the fine threadlike arc of the new moon, just visible in the sky. “Not big enough to do us any harm, however,” she added. “But, dear Alessandro, do you not think we are safe now?”
“I know not, Majella, if ever we may be safe; but I hope so. I have been all day thinking I had gone foolish last night, when I told Mrs. Hartsel that I was on my way to San Pasquale. But if men should come there asking for us, she would understand, I think, and keep a still tongue. She would keep harm from us if she could.”
Their way from San Diego to San Pasquale lay at first along a high mesa, or table-land, covered with low shrub growths; after some ten or twelve miles of this, they descended among winding ridges, into a narrow valley,--the Poway valley. It was here that the Mexicans made one of their few abortive efforts to repel the American forces.
“Here were some Americans killed, in a fight with the Mexicans, Majella,” said Alessandro. “I myself have a dozen bullets which I picked up in the ground about here. Many a time I have looked at them and thought if there should come another war against the Americans, I would fire them again, if I could. Does Senor Felipe think there is any likelihood that his people will rise against them any more? If they would, they would have all the Indians to help them, now. It would be a mercy if they might be driven out of the land, Majella.”
“Yes,” sighed Majella. “But there is no hope. I have heard the Senora speak of it with Felipe. There is no hope. They have power, and great riches, she said. Money is all that they think of. To get money, they will commit any crime, even murder. Every day there comes the news of their murdering each other for gold. Mexicans kill each other only for hate, Alessandro,--for hate, or in anger; never for gold.”
“Indians, also,” replied Alessandro. “Never one Indian killed another, yet, for money. It is for vengeance, always. For money! Bah! Majella, they are dogs!”
Rarely did Alessandro speak with such vehemence; but this last outrage on his people had kindled in his veins a fire of scorn and hatred which would never die out. Trust in an American was henceforth to him impossible. The name was a synonym for fraud and cruelty.
“They cannot all be so bad, I think, Alessandro,” said Ramona. “There must be some that are honest; do you not think so?”
“Where are they, then,” he cried fiercely,--“the ones who are good? Among my people there are always some that are bad; but they are in disgrace. My father punished them, the whole people punished them. If there are Americans who are good, who will not cheat and kill, why do they not send after these robbers and punish them? And how is it that they make laws which cheat? It was the American law which took Temecula away from us, and gave it to those men! The law was on the side of the thieves. No, Majella, it is a people that steals! That is their name,--a people that steals, and that kills for money. Is not that a good name for a great people to bear, when they are like the sands in the sea, they are so many?”
“That is what the Senora says,” answered Ramona. “She says they are all thieves; that she knows not, each day, but that on the next will come more of them, with new laws, to take away more of her land. She had once more than twice what she has now, Alessandro.”
“Yes,” he replied; “I know it. My father has told me. He was with Father Peyri at the place, when General Moreno was alive. Then all was his to the sea,--all that land we rode over the second night, Majella.”
“Yes,” she said, “all to the sea! That is what the Senora is ever saying: 'To the sea!' Oh, the beautiful sea! Can we behold it from San Pasquale, Alessandro?”
“No, my Majella, it is too far. San Pasquale is in the valley; it has hills all around it like walls. But it is good. Majella will love it; and I will build a house, Majella. All the people will help me. That is the way with our people. In two days it will be done. But it will be a poor place for my Majella,” he said sadly. Alessandro's heart was ill at ease. Truly a strange bride's journey was this; but Ramona felt no fear.
“No place can be so poor that I do not choose it, if you are there, rather than the most beautiful place in the world where you are not, Alessandro,” she said.
“But my Majella loves things that are beautiful,” said Alessandro. “She has lived like a queen.”
“Oh, Alessandro,” merrily laughed Ramona, “how little you know of the way queens live! Nothing was fine at the Senora Moreno's, only comfortable; and any house you will build, I can make as comfortable as that was; it is nothing but trouble to have one so large as the Senora's. Margarita used to be tired to death, sweeping all those rooms in which nobody lived except the blessed old San Luis Rey saints. Alessandro, if we could have had just one statue, either Saint Francis or the Madonna, to bring back to our house! That is what I would like better than all other things in the world. It is beautiful to sleep with the Madonna close to your bed. She speaks often to you in dreams.”
Alessandro fixed serious, questioning eyes on Ramona as she uttered these words. When she spoke like this, he felt indeed as if a being of some other sphere had come to dwell by his side. “I cannot find how to feel towards the saints as you do, my Majella,” he said. “I am afraid of them. It must be because they love you, and do not love us. That is what I believe, Majella. I believe they are displeased with us, and no longer make mention of us in heaven. That is what the Fathers taught that the saints were ever doing,--praying to God for us, and to the Virgin and Jesus. It is not possible, you see, that they could have been praying for us, and yet such things have happened, as happened in Temecula. I do not know how it is my people have displeased them.”
“I think Father Salvierderra would say that it is a sin to be afraid of the saints, Alessandro,” replied Ramona, earnestly. “He has often told me that it was a sin to be unhappy; and that withheld me many times from being wretched because the Senora would not love me. And, Alessandro,” she went on, growing more and more fervent in tone, “even if nothing but misfortune comes to people, that does not prove that the saints do not love them; for when the saints were on earth themselves, look what they suffered: martyrs they were, almost all of them. Look at what holy Saint Catharine endured, and the blessed Saint Agnes. It is not by what happens to us here in this world that we can tell if the saints love us, or if we will see the Blessed Virgin.”
“How can we tell, then?” he asked.
“By what we feel in our hearts, Alessandro,” she replied; “just as I knew all the time, when you did not come,--I knew that you loved me. I knew that in my heart; and I shall always know it, no matter what happens. If you are dead, I shall know that you love me. And you,--you will know that I love you, the same.”
“Yes,” said Alessandro, reflectively, “that is true. But, Majella, it is not possible to have the same thoughts about a saint as about a person that one has seen, and heard the voice, and touched the hand.”
“No, not quite,” said Ramona; “not quite, about a saint; but one can for the Blessed Virgin, Alessandro! I am sure of that. Her statue, in my room at the Senora's, has been always my mother. Ever since I was little I have told her all I did. It was she helped me to plan what I should bring away with us. She reminded me of many things I had forgotten, except for her.”
“Did you hear her speak?” said Alessandro, awe-stricken.
“Not exactly in words; but just the same as in words,” replied Ramona, confidently. “You see when you sleep in the room with her, it is very different from what it is if you only see her in a chapel. Oh, I could never be very unhappy with her in my room!”
“I would almost go and steal it for you, Majella,” cried Alessandro, with sacrilegious warmth.
“Holy Virgin!” cried Ramona, “never speak such a word. You would be struck dead if you laid your hand on her! I fear even the thought was a sin.”
“There was a small figure of her in the wall of our house,” said Alessandro. “It was from San Luis Rey. I do not know what became of it,--if it were left behind, or if they took it with my father's things to Pachanga. I did not see it there. When I go again, I will look.”
“Again!” cried Ramona. “What say you? You go again to Pachanga? You will not leave me, Alessandro?”
At the bare mention of Alessandro's leaving her, Ramona's courage always vanished. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, she was transformed from the dauntless, confident, sunny woman, who bore him up as it were on wings of hope and faith, to a timid, shrinking, despondent child, crying out in alarm, and clinging to the hand.
“After a time, dear Majella, when you are wonted to the place, I must go, to fetch the wagon and the few things that were ours. There is the raw-hide bed which was Father Peyri's, and he gave to my father. Majella will like to lie on that. My father believed it had great virtue.”
“Like that you made for Felipe?” she asked.
“Yes; but it is not so large. In those days the cattle were not so large as they are now: this is not so broad as Senor Felipe's. There are chairs, too, from the Mission, three of them, one almost as fine as those on your veranda at home. They were given to my father. And music-books,--beautiful parchment books! Oh, I hope those are not lost, Majella! If Jose had lived, he would have looked after it all. But in the confusion, all the things belonging to the village were thrown into wagons together, and no one knew where anything was. But all the people knew my father's chairs and the books of the music. If the Americans did not steal them, everything will be safe. My people do not steal. There was never but one thief in our village, and my father had him so whipped, he ran away and never came back. I heard he was living in San Jacinto, and was a thief yet, spite of all that whipping he had. I think if it is in the blood to be a thief, not even whipping will take it out, Majella.”
“Like the Americans,” she said, half laughing, but with tears in the voice. “Whipping would not cure them.”
It wanted yet more than an hour of dawn when they reached the crest of the hill from which they looked down on the San Pasquale valley. Two such crests and valleys they had passed; this was the broadest of the three valleys, and the hills walling it were softer and rounder of contour than any they had yet seen. To the east and northeast lay ranges of high mountains, their tops lost in the clouds. The whole sky was overcast and gray.
“If it were spring, this would mean rain,” said Alessandro; “but it cannot rain, I think, now.”
“No!” laughed Ramona, “not till we get our house done. Will it be of adobe, Alessandro?”
“Dearest Majella, not yet! At first it must be of the tule. They are very comfortable while it is warm, and before winter I will build one of adobe.”
“Two houses! Wasteful Alessandro! If the tule house is good, I shall not let you, Alessandro, build another.”
Ramona's mirthful moments bewildered Alessandro. To his slower temperament and saddened nature they seemed preternatural; as if she were all of a sudden changed into a bird, or some gay creature outside the pale of human life,--outside and above it.
“You speak as the birds sing, my Majella,” he said slowly. “It was well to name you Majel; only the wood-dove has not joy in her voice, as you have. She says only that she loves and waits.”
“I say that, too, Alessandro!” replied Ramona, reaching out both her arms towards him.
The horses were walking slowly, and very close side by side. Baba and Benito were now such friends they liked to pace closely side by side; and Baba and Benito were by no means without instinctive recognitions of the sympathy between their riders. Already Benito knew Ramona's voice, and answered it with pleasure; and Baba had long ago learned to stop when his mistress laid her hand on Alessandro's shoulder. He stopped now, and it was long minutes before he had the signal to go on again.
“Majella! Majella!” cried Alessandro, as, grasping both her hands in his, he held them to his cheeks, to his neck, to his mouth, “if the saints would ask Alessandro to be a martyr for Majella's sake, like those she was telling of, then she would know if Alessandro loved her! But what can Alessandro do now? What, oh, what? Majella gives all; Alessandro gives nothing!” and he bowed his forehead on her hands, before he put them back gently on Baba's neck.
Tears filled Ramona's eyes. How should she win this saddened man, this distrusting lover, to the joy which was his desert? “Alessandro can do one thing,” she said, insensibly falling into his mode of speaking,--“one thing for his Majella: never, never say that he has nothing to give her. When he says that, he makes Majella a liar; for she has said that he is all the world to her,--he himself all the world which she desires. Is Majella a liar?”
But it was even now with an ecstasy only half joy, the other half anguish, that Alessandro replied: “Majella cannot lie. Majella is like the saints. Alessandro is hers.”
When they rode down into the valley, the whole village was astir. The vintage-time had nearly passed; everywhere were to be seen large, flat baskets of grapes drying in the sun. Old women and children were turning these, or pounding acorns in the deep stone bowls; others were beating the yucca-stalks, and putting them to soak in water; the oldest women were sitting on the ground, weaving baskets. There were not many men in the village now; two large bands were away at work,--one at the autumn sheep-shearing, and one working on a large irrigating ditch at San Bernardino.
In different directions from the village slow-moving herds of goats or of cattle could be seen, being driven to pasture on the hills; some men were ploughing; several groups were at work building houses of bundles of the tule reeds.
“These are some of the Temecula people,” said Alessandro; “they are building themselves new houses here. See those piles of bundles darker-colored than the rest. Those are their old roofs they brought from Temecula. There, there comes Ysidro!” he cried joyfully, as a man, well-mounted, who had been riding from point to point in the village, came galloping towards them. As soon as Ysidro recognized Alessandro, he flung himself from his horse. Alessandro did the same, and both running swiftly towards each other till they met, they embraced silently. Ramona, riding up, held out her hand, saying, as she did so, “Ysidro?”
Pleased, yet surprised, at this confident and assured greeting, Ysidro saluted her, and turning to Alessandro, said in their own tongue, “Who is this woman whom you bring, that has heard my name?”
“My wife!” answered Alessandro, in the same tongue. “We were married last night by Father Gaspara. She comes from the house of the Senora Moreno. We will live in San Pasquale, if you have land for me, as you have said.”
What astonishment Ysidro felt, he showed none. Only a grave and courteous welcome was in his face and in his words as he said, “It is well. There is room. You are welcome.” But when he heard the soft Spanish syllables in which Ramona spoke to Alessandro, and Alessandro, translating her words to him, said, “Majel speaks only in the Spanish tongue, but she will learn ours,” a look of disquiet passed over his countenance. His heart feared for Alessandro, and he said, “Is she, then, not Indian? Whence got she the name of Majel?”
A look of swift intelligence from Alessandro reassured him. “Indian on the mother's side!” said Alessandro, “and she belongs in heart to our people. She is alone, save for me. She is one blessed of the Virgin, Ysidro. She will help us. The name Majel I have given her, for she is like the wood-dove; and she is glad to lay her old name down forever, to bear this new name in our tongue.”
And this was Ramona's introduction to the Indian village,--this and her smile; perhaps the smile did most. Even the little children were not afraid of her. The women, though shy, in the beginning, at sight of her noble bearing, and her clothes of a kind and quality they associated only with superiors, soon felt her friendliness, and, what was more, saw by her every word, tone, look, that she was Alessandro's. If Alessandro's, theirs. She was one of them. Ramona would have been profoundly impressed and touched, could she have heard them speaking among themselves about her; wondering how it had come about that she, so beautiful, and nurtured in the Moreno house, of which they all knew, should be Alessandro's loving wife. It must be, they thought in their simplicity, that the saints had sent it as an omen of good to the Indian people. Toward night they came, bringing in a hand-barrow the most aged woman in the village to look at her. She wished to see the beautiful stranger before the sun went down, they said, because she was now so old she believed each night that before morning her time would come to die. They also wished to hear the old woman's verdict on her. When Alessandro saw them coming, he understood, and made haste to explain it to Ramona. While he was yet speaking, the procession arrived, and the aged woman in her strange litter was placed silently on the ground in front of Ramona, who was sitting under Ysidro's great fig-tree. Those who had borne her withdrew, and seated themselves a few paces off. Alessandro spoke first. In a few words he told the old woman of Ramona's birth, of their marriage, and of her new name of adoption; then he said, “Take her hand, dear Majella, if you feel no fear.”
There was something scarcely human in the shrivelled arm and hand outstretched in greeting; but Ramona took it in hers with tender reverence: “Say to her for me, Alessandro,” she said, “that I bow down to her great age with reverence, and that I hope, if it is the will of God that I live on the earth so long as she has, I may be worthy of such reverence as these people all feel for her.”
Alessandro turned a grateful look on Ramona as he translated this speech, so in unison with Indian modes of thought and feeling. A murmur of pleasure rose from the group of women sitting by. The aged woman made no reply; her eyes still studied Ramona's face, and she still held her hand.
“Tell her,” continued Ramona, “that I ask if there is anything I can do for her. Say I will be her daughter if she will let me.”
“It must be the Virgin herself that is teaching Majella what to say,” thought Alessandro, as he repeated this in the San Luiseno tongue.
Again the women murmured pleasure, but the old woman spoke not. “And say that you will be her son,” added Ramona.
Alessandro said it. It was perhaps for this that the old woman had waited. Lifting up her arm, like a sibyl, she said: “It is well; I am your mother. The winds of the valley shall love you, and the grass shall dance when you come. The daughter looks on her mother's face each day. I will go;” and making a sign to her bearers, she was lifted, and carried to her house.
The scene affected Ramona deeply. The simplest acts of these people seemed to her marvellously profound in their meanings. She was not herself sufficiently educated or versed in life to know why she was so moved,--to know that such utterances, such symbolisms as these, among primitive peoples, are thus impressive because they are truly and grandly dramatic; but she was none the less stirred by them, because she could not analyze or explain them.
“I will go and see her every day,” she said; “she shall be like my mother, whom I never saw.”
“We must both go each day,” said Alessandro. “What we have said is a solemn promise among my people; it would not be possible to break it.”
Ysidro's home was in the centre of the village, on a slightly rising ground; it was a picturesque group of four small houses, three of tule reeds and one of adobe,--the latter a comfortable little house of two rooms, with a floor and a shingled roof, both luxuries in San Pasquale. The great fig-tree, whose luxuriance and size were noted far and near throughout the country, stood half-way down the slope; but its boughs shaded all three of the tule houses. On one of its lower branches was fastened a dove-cote, ingeniously made of willow wands, plastered with adobe, and containing so many rooms that the whole tree seemed sometimes a-flutter with doves and dovelings. Here and there, between the houses, were huge baskets, larger than barrels, woven of twigs, as the eagle weaves its nest, only tighter and thicker. These were the outdoor granaries; in these were kept acorns, barley, wheat, and corn. Ramona thought them, as well she might, the prettiest things she ever saw.
“Are they hard to make?” she asked. “Can you make them, Alessandro? I shall want many.”
“All you want, my Majella,” replied Alessandro. “We will go together to get the twigs; I can, I dare say, buy some in the village. It is only two days to make a large one.”
“No. Do not buy one,” she exclaimed. “I wish everything in our house to be made by ourselves.” In which, again, Ramona was unconsciously striking one of the keynotes of pleasure in the primitive harmonies of existence.
The tule house which stood nearest to the dove-cote was, by a lucky chance, now empty. Ysidro's brother Ramon, who had occupied it, having gone with his wife and baby to San Bernardino, for the winter, to work; this house Ysidro was but too happy to give to Alessandro till his own should be done. It was a tiny place, though it was really two houses joined together by a roofed passage-way. In this passage-way the tidy Juana, Ramon's wife, kept her few pots and pans, and a small stove. It looked to Ramona like a baby-house. Timidly Alessandro said: “Can Majella live in this small place for a time? It will not be very long; there are adobes already made.”
His countenance cleared as Ramona replied gleefully, “I think it will be very comfortable, and I shall feel as if we were all doves together in the dove-cote!”
“Majel!” exclaimed Alessandro; and that was all he said.
Only a few rods off stood the little chapel; in front of it swung on a cross-bar from two slanting posts an old bronze bell which had once belonged to the San Diego Mission. When Ramona read the date, “1790,” on its side, and heard that it was from the San Diego Mission church it had come, she felt a sense of protection in its presence.
“Think, Alessandro,” she said; “this bell, no doubt, has rung many times for the mass for the holy Father Junipero himself. It is a blessing to the village. I want to live where I can see it all the time. It will be like a saint's statue in the house.”
With every allusion that Ramona made to the saints' statues, Alessandro's desire to procure one for her deepened. He said nothing; but he revolved it in his mind continually. He had once gone with his shearers to San Fernando, and there he had seen in a room of the old Mission buildings a dozen statues of saints huddled in dusty confusion. The San Fernando church was in crumbled ruins, and such of the church properties as were left there were in the keeping of a Mexican not over-careful, and not in the least devout. It would not trouble him to part with a saint or two, Alessandro thought, and no irreverence to the saint either; on the contrary, the greatest of reverence, since the statue was to be taken from a place where no one cared for it, and brought into one where it would be tenderly cherished, and worshipped every day. If only San Fernando were not so far away, and the wooden saints so heavy! However, it should come about yet. Majella should have a saint; nor distance nor difficulty should keep Alessandro from procuring for his Majel the few things that lay within his power. But he held his peace about it. It would be a sweeter gift, if she did not know it beforehand. He pleased himself as subtly and secretly as if he had come of civilized generations, thinking how her eyes would dilate, if she waked up some morning and saw the saint by her bedside; and how sure she would be to think, at first, it was a miracle,--his dear, devout Majella, who, with all her superior knowledge, was yet more credulous than he. All her education had not taught her to think, as he, untaught, had learned, in his solitude with nature.
Before Alessandro had been two days in San Pasquale, he had heard of a piece of good-fortune which almost passed his belief, and which startled him for once out of his usual impassive demeanor.
“You know I have a herd of cattle of your father's, and near a hundred sheep?” said Ysidro.
“Holy Virgin!” cried Alessandro, “you do not mean that! How is that? They told me all our stock was taken by the Americans.”
“Yes, so it was, all that was in Temecula,” replied Ysidro; “but in the spring your father sent down to know if I would take a herd for him up into the mountains, with ours, as he feared the Temecula pasture would fall short, and the people there, who could not leave, must have their cattle near home; so he sent a herd over,--I think, near fifty head; and many of the cows have calved; and he sent, also, a little flock of sheep,--a hundred, Ramon said; he herded them with ours all summer, and he left a man up there with them. They will be down next week. It is time they were sheared.”
Before he had finished speaking, Alessandro had vanished, bounding like a deer. Ysidro stared after him; but seeing him enter the doorway of the little tule hut, he understood, and a sad smile passed over his face. He was not yet persuaded that this marriage of Alessandro's would turn out a blessing. “What are a handful of sheep to her!” he thought.
Breathless, panting, Alessandro burst into Ramona's presence. “Majella! my Majella! There are cattle--and sheep,” he cried. “The saints be praised! We are not like the beggars, as I said.”
“I told you that God would give us food, dear Alessandro,” replied Ramona, gently.
“You do not wonder! You do not ask!” he cried, astonished at her calm. “Does Majella think that a sheep or a steer can come down from the skies?”
“Nay, not as our eyes would see,” she answered; “but the holy ones who live in the skies can do anything they like on the earth. Whence came these cattle, and how are they ours?”
When he told her, her face grew solemn. “Do you remember that night in the willows,” she said, “when I was like one dying, because you would not bring me with you? You had no faith that there would be food. And I told you then that the saints never forsook those who loved them, and that God would give food. And even at that moment, when you did not know it, there were your cattle and your sheep feeding in the mountains, in the keeping of God! Will my Alessandro believe after this?” and she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“It is true,” said Alessandro. “I will believe, after this, that the saints love my Majella.”
But as he walked at a slower pace back to Ysidro, he said to himself: “Majella did not see Temecula. What would she have said about the saints, if she had seen that, and seen the people dying for want of food? It is only for her that the saints pray. They are displeased with my people.”
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
20
|
None
|
ONE year, and a half of another year, had passed. Sheep-shearings and vintages had been in San Pasquale; and Alessandro's new house, having been beaten on by the heavy spring rains, looked no longer new. It stood on the south side of the valley,--too far, Ramona felt, from the blessed bell; but there had not been land enough for wheat-fields any nearer, and she could see the chapel, and the posts, and, on a clear day, the bell itself. The house was small. “Small to hold so much joy,” she said, when Alessandro first led her to it, and said, deprecatingly, “It is small, Majella,--too small;” and he recollected bitterly, as he spoke, the size of Ramona's own room at the Senora's house. “Too small,” he repeated.
“Very small to hold so much joy, my Alessandro,” she laughed; “but quite large enough to hold two persons.”
It looked like a palace to the San Pasquale people, after Ramona had arranged their little possessions in it; and she herself felt rich as she looked around her two small rooms. The old San Luis Rey chairs and the raw-hide bedstead were there, and, most precious of all, the statuette of the Madonna. For this Alessandro had built a niche in the wall, between the head of the bed and the one window. The niche was deep enough to hold small pots in front of the statuette; and Ramona kept constantly growing there wild-cucumber plants, which wreathed and re-wreathed the niche till it looked like a bower. Below it hung her gold rosary and the ivory Christ; and many a woman of the village, when she came to see Ramona, asked permission to go into the bedroom and say her prayers there; so that it finally came to be a sort of shrine for the whole village.
A broad veranda, as broad as the Senora's, ran across the front of the little house. This was the only thing for which Ramona had asked. She could not quite fancy life without a veranda, and linnets in the thatch. But the linnets had not yet come. In vain Ramona strewed food for them, and laid little trains of crumbs to lure them inside the posts; they would not build nests inside. It was not their way in San Pasquale. They lived in the canons, but this part of the valley was too bare of trees for them. “In a year or two more, when we have orchards, they will come,” Alessandro said.
With the money from that first sheep-shearing, and from the sale of part of his cattle, Alessandro had bought all he needed in the way of farming implements,--a good wagon and harnesses, and a plough. Baba and Benito, at first restive and indignant, soon made up their minds to work. Ramona had talked to Baba about it as she would have talked to a brother. In fact, except for Ramona's help, it would have been a question whether even Alessandro could have made Baba work in harness. “Good Baba!” Ramona said, as she slipped piece after piece of the harness over his neck,--“Good Baba, you must help us; we have so much work to do, and you are so strong! Good Baba, do you love me?” and with one hand in his mane, and her cheek, every few steps, laid close to his, she led Baba up and down the first furrows he ploughed.
“My Senorita!” thought Alessandro to himself, half in pain, half in pride, as, running behind with the unevenly jerked plough, he watched her laughing face and blowing hair,--“my Senorita!”
But Ramona would not run with her hand in Baba's mane this winter. There was a new work for her, indoors. In a rustic cradle, which Alessandro had made, under her directions, of the woven twigs, like the great outdoor acorn-granaries, only closer woven, and of an oval shape, and lifted from the floor by four uprights of red manzanita stems,--in this cradle, on soft white wool fleeces, covered with white homespun blankets, lay Ramona's baby, six months old, lusty, strong, and beautiful, as only children born of great love and under healthful conditions can be. This child was a girl, to Alessandro's delight; to Ramona's regret,--so far as a loving mother can feel regret connected with her firstborn. Ramona had wished for an Alessandro; but the disappointed wish faded out of her thoughts, hour by hour, as she gazed into her baby-girl's blue eyes,--eyes so blue that their color was the first thing noticed by each person who looked at her.
“Eyes of the sky,” exclaimed Ysidro, when he first saw her.
“Like the mother's,” said Alessandro; on which Ysidro turned an astonished look upon Ramona, and saw for the first time that her eyes, too, were blue.
“Wonderful!” he said. “It is so. I never saw it;” and he wondered in his heart what father it had been, who had given eyes like those to one born of an Indian mother.
“Eyes of the sky,” became at once the baby's name in the village; and Alessandro and Ramona, before they knew it, had fallen into the way of so calling her. But when it came to the christening, they demurred. The news was brought to the village, one Saturday, that Father Gaspara would hold services in the valley the next day, and that he wished all the new-born babes to be brought for christening. Late into the night, Alessandro and Ramona sat by their sleeping baby and discussed what should be her name. Ramona wondered that Alessandro did not wish to name her Majella.
“No! Never but one Majella,” he said, in a tone which gave Ramona a sense of vague fear, it was so solemn.
They discussed “Ramona,” “Isabella.” Alessandro suggested Carmena. This had been his mother's name.
At the mention of it Ramona shuddered, recollecting the scene in the Temecula graveyard. “Oh, no, no! Not that!” she cried. “It is ill-fated;” and Alessandro blamed himself for having forgotten her only association with the name.
At last Alessandro said: “The people have named her, I think, Majella. Whatever name we give her in the chapel, she will never be called anything but 'Eyes of the Sky,' in the village.”
“Let that name be her true one, then,” said Ramona. And so it was settled; and when Father Gaspara took the little one in his arms, and made the sign of the cross on her brow, he pronounced with some difficulty the syllables of the Indian name, which meant “Blue Eyes,” or “Eyes of the Sky.”
Heretofore, when Father Gaspara had come to San Pasquale to say mass, he had slept at Lomax's, the store and post-office, six miles away, in the Bernardo valley. But Ysidro, with great pride, had this time ridden to meet him, to say that his cousin Alessandro, who had come to live in the valley, and had a good new adobe house, begged that the Father would do him the honor to stay with him.
“And indeed, Father,” added Ysidro, “you will be far better lodged and fed than in the house of Lomax. My cousin's wife knows well how all should be done.”
“Alessandro! Alessandro!” said the Father, musingly. “Has he been long married?”
“No, Father,” answered Ysidro. “But little more than two years. They were married by you, on their way from Temecula here.”
“Ay, ay. I remember,” said Father Gaspara. “I will come;” and it was with no small interest that he looked forward to meeting again the couple that had so strongly impressed him.
Ramona was full of eager interest in her preparations for entertaining the priest. This was like the olden time; and as she busied herself with her cooking and other arrangements, the thought of Father Salvierderra was much in her mind. She could, perhaps, hear news of him from Father Gaspara. It was she who had suggested the idea to Alessandro; and when he said, “But where will you sleep yourself, with the child, Majella, if we give our room to the Father? I can lie on the floor outside; but you?” --“I will go to Ysidro's, and sleep with Juana,” she replied. “For two nights, it is no matter; and it is such shame to have the Father sleep in the house of an American, when we have a good bed like this!”
Seldom in his life had Alessandro experienced such a sense of gratification as he did when he led Father Gaspara into his and Ramona's bedroom. The clean whitewashed walls, the bed neatly made, with broad lace on sheets and pillows, hung with curtains and a canopy of bright red calico, the old carved chairs, the Madonna shrine in its bower of green leaves, the shelves on the walls, the white-curtained window,--all made up a picture such as Father Gaspara had never before seen in his pilgrimages among the Indian villages. He could not restrain an ejaculation of surprise. Then his eye falling on the golden rosary, he exclaimed, “Where got you that?”
“It is my wife's,” replied Alessandro, proudly. “It was given to her by Father Salvierderra.”
“Ah!” said the Father. “He died the other day.”
“Dead! Father Salvierderra dead!” cried Alessandro. “That will be a terrible blow. Oh, Father, I implore you not to speak of it in her presence. She must not know it till after the christening. It will make her heart heavy, so that she will have no joy.”
Father Gaspara was still scrutinizing the rosary and crucifix. “To be sure, to be sure,” he said absently; “I will say nothing of it; but this is a work of art, this crucifix; do you know what you have here? And this,--is this not an altar-cloth?” he added, lifting up the beautiful wrought altar-cloth, which Ramona, in honor of his coming, had pinned on the wall below the Madonna's shrine.
“Yes, Father, it was made for that. My wife made it. It was to be a present to Father Salvierderra; but she has not seen him, to give it to him. It will take the light out of the sun for her, when first she hears that he is dead.”
Father Gaspara was about to ask another question, when Ramona appeared in the doorway, flushed with running. She had carried the baby over to Juana's and left her there, that she might be free to serve the Father's supper.
“I pray you tell her not,” said Alessandro, under his breath; but it was too late. Seeing the Father with her rosary in his hand, Ramona exclaimed:-- “That, Father, is my most sacred possession. It once belonged to Father Peyri, of San Luis Rey, and he gave it to Father Salvierderra, who gave it to me, Know you Father Salvierderra? I was hoping to hear news of him through you.”
“Yes, I knew him,--not very well; it is long since I saw him,” stammered Father Gaspara. His hesitancy alone would not have told Ramona the truth; she would have set that down to the secular priest's indifference, or hostility, to the Franciscan order; but looking at Alessandro, she saw terror and sadness on his face. No shadow there ever escaped her eye. “What is it, Alessandro?” she exclaimed. “Is it something about Father Salvierderra? Is he ill?”
Alessandro shook his head. He did not know what to say. Looking from one to the other, seeing the confused pain in both their faces, Ramona, laying both her hands on her breast, in the expressive gesture she had learned from the Indian women, cried out in a piteous tone: “You will not tell me! You do not speak! Then he is dead!” and she sank on her knees.
“Yes, my daughter, he is dead,” said Father Gaspara, more tenderly than that brusque and warlike priest often spoke. “He died a month ago, at Santa Barbara. I am grieved to have brought you tidings to give you such sorrow. But you must not mourn for him. He was very feeble, and he longed to die, I heard. He could no longer work, and he did not wish to live.”
Ramona had buried her face in her hands. The Father's words were only a confused sound in her ears. She had heard nothing after the words, “a month ago.” She remained silent and motionless for some moments; then rising, without speaking a word, or looking at either of the men, she crossed the room and knelt down before the Madonna. By a common impulse, both Alessandro and Father Gaspara silently left the room. As they stood together outside the door, the Father said, “I would go back to Lomax's if it were not so late. I like not to be here when your wife is in such grief.”
“That would but be another grief, Father,” said Alessandro. “She has been full of happiness in making ready for you. She is very strong of soul. It is she who makes me strong often, and not I who give strength to her.”
“My faith, but the man is right,” thought Father Gaspara, a half-hour later, when, with a calm face, Ramona summoned them to supper. He did not know, as Alessandro did, how that face had changed in the half-hour. It wore a look Alessandro had never seen upon it. Almost he dreaded to speak to her.
When he walked by her side, later in the evening, as she went across the valley to Fernando's house, he ventured to mention Father Salvierderra's name. Ramona laid her hand on his lips. “I cannot talk about him yet, dear,” she said. “I never believed that he would die without giving us his blessing. Do not speak of him till to-morrow is over.”
Ramona's saddened face smote on all the women's hearts as they met her the next morning. One by one they gazed, astonished, then turned away, and spoke softly among themselves. They all loved her, and half revered her too, for her great kindness, and readiness to teach and to help them. She had been like a sort of missionary in the valley ever since she came, and no one had ever seen her face without a smile. Now she smiled not. Yet there was the beautiful baby in its white dress, ready to be christened; and the sun shone, and the bell had been ringing for half an hour, and from every corner of the valley the people were gathering, and Father Gaspara, in his gold and green cassock, was praying before the altar; it was a joyous day in San Pasquale. Why did Alessandro and Ramona kneel apart in a corner, with such heart-stricken countenances, not even looking glad when their baby laughed, and reached up her hands? Gradually it was whispered about what had happened. Some one had got it from Antonio, of Temecula, Alessandro's friend. Then all the women's faces grew sad too. They all had heard of Father Salvierderra, and many of them had prayed to the ivory Christ in Ramona's room, and knew that he had given it to her.
As Ramona passed out of the chapel, some of them came up to her, and taking her hand in theirs, laid it on their hearts, speaking no word. The gesture was more than any speech could have been.
When Father Gaspara was taking leave, Ramona said, with quivering lips, “Father, if there is anything you know of Father Salvierderra's last hours, I would be grateful to you for telling me.”
“I heard very little,” replied the Father, “except that he had been feeble for some weeks; yet he would persist in spending most of the night kneeling on the stone floor in the church, praying.”
“Yes,” interrupted Ramona; “that he always did.”
“And the last morning,” continued the Father, “the Brothers found him there, still kneeling on the stone floor, but quite powerless to move; and they lifted him, and carried him to his room, and there they found, to their horror, that he had had no bed; he had lain on the stones; and then they took him to the Superior's own room, and laid him in the bed, and he did not speak any more, and at noon he died.”
“Thank you very much, Father,” said Ramona, without lifting her eyes from the ground; and in the same low, tremulous tone, “I am glad that I know that he is dead.”
“Strange what a hold those Franciscans got on these Indians!” mused Father Gaspara, as he rode down the valley. “There's none of them would look like that if I were dead, I warrant me! There,” he exclaimed, “I meant to have asked Alessandro who this wife of his is! I don't believe she is a Temecula Indian. Next time I come, I will find out. She's had some schooling somewhere, that's plain. She's quite superior to the general run of them. Next time I come, I will find out about her.”
“Next time!” In what calendar are kept the records of those next times which never come? Long before Father Gaspara visited San Pasquale again, Alessandro and Ramona were far away, and strangers were living in their home.
It seemed to Ramona in after years, as she looked back over this life, that the news of Father Salvierderra's death was the first note of the knell of their happiness. It was but a few days afterward, when Alessandro came in one noon with an expression on his face that terrified her; seating himself in a chair, he buried his face in his hands, and would neither look up nor speak; not until Ramona was near crying from his silence, did he utter a word. Then, looking at her with a ghastly face, he said in a hollow voice, “It has begun!” and buried his face again. Finally Ramona's tears wrung from him the following story: Ysidro, it seemed, had the previous year rented a canon, at the head of the valley, to one Doctor Morong. It was simply as bee-pasture that the Doctor wanted it, he said. He put his hives there, and built a sort of hut for the man whom he sent up to look after the honey. Ysidro did not need the land, and thought it a good chance to make a little money. He had taken every precaution to make the transaction a safe one; had gone to San Diego, and got Father Gaspara to act as interpreter for him, in the interview with Morong; it had been a written agreement, and the rent agreed upon had been punctually paid. Now, the time of the lease having expired, Ysidro had been to San Diego to ask the Doctor if he wished to renew it for another year; and the Doctor had said that the land was his, and he was coming out there to build a house, and live.
Ysidro had gone to Father Gaspara for help, and Father Gaspara had had an angry interview with Doctor Morong; but it had done no good. The Doctor said the land did not belong to Ysidro at all, but to the United States Government; and that he had paid the money for it to the agents in Los Angeles, and there would very soon come papers from Washington, to show that it was his. Father Gaspara had gone with Ysidro to a lawyer in San Diego, and had shown to his lawyer Ysidro's paper,--the old one from the Mexican Governor of California, establishing the pueblo of San Pasquale, and saying how many leagues of land the Indians were to have; but the lawyer had only laughed at Father Gaspara for believing that such a paper as that was good for anything. He said that was all very well when the country belonged to Mexico, but it was no good now; that the Americans owned it now; and everything was done by the American law now, not by the Mexican law any more.
“Then we do not own any land in San Pasquale at all,” said Ysidro. “Is that what it means?”
And the lawyer had said, he did not know how it would be with the cultivated land, and the village where the houses were,--he could not tell about that; but he thought it all belonged to the men at Washington.
Father Gaspara was in such rage, Ysidro said, that he tore open his gown on his breast, and he smote himself, and he said he wished he were a soldier, and no priest, that he might fight this accursed United States Government; and the lawyer laughed at him, and told him to look after souls,--that was his business,--and let the Indian beggars alone! “Yes, that was what he said,--'the Indian beggars!' and so they would be all beggars, presently.”
Alessandro told this by gasps, as it were; at long intervals. His voice was choked; his whole frame shook. He was nearly beside himself with rage and despair.
“You see, it is as I said, Majella. There is no place safe. We can do nothing! We might better be dead!”
“It is a long way off, that canon Doctor Morong had,” said Ramona, piteously. “It wouldn't do any harm, his living there, if no more came.”
“Majella talks like a dove, and not like a woman,” said Alessandro, fiercely. “Will there be one to come, and not two? It is the beginning. To-morrow may come ten more, with papers to show that the land is theirs. We can do nothing, any more than the wild beasts. They are better than we.”
From this day Alessandro was a changed man. Hope had died in his bosom. In all the village councils,--and they were many and long now, for the little community had been plunged into great anxiety and distress by this Doctor Morong's affair,--Alessandro sat dumb and gloomy. To whatever was proposed, he had but one reply: “It is of no use. We can do nothing.”
“Eat your dinners to-day, to-morrow we starve,” he said one night, bitterly, as the council broke up. When Ysidro proposed to him that they should journey to Los Angeles, where Father Gaspara had said the headquarters of the Government officers were, and where they could learn all about the new laws in regard to land, Alessandro laughed at him. “What more is it, then, which you wish to know, my brother, about the American laws?” he said. “Is it not enough that you know they have made a law which will take the land from Indians; from us who have owned it longer than any can remember; land that our ancestors are buried in,--will take that land and give it to themselves, and say it is theirs? Is it to hear this again said in your face, and to see the man laugh who says it, like the lawyer in San Diego, that you will journey to Los Angeles? I will not go!”
And Ysidro went alone. Father Gaspara gave him a letter to the Los Angeles priest, who went with him to the land-office, patiently interpreted for him all he had to say, and as patiently interpreted all that the officials had to say in reply. They did not laugh, as Alessandro in his bitterness had said. They were not inhuman, and they felt sincere sympathy for this man, representative of two hundred hard-working, industrious people, in danger of being turned out of house and home. But they were very busy; they had to say curtly, and in few words, all there was to be said: the San Pasquale district was certainly the property of the United States Government, and the lands were in market, to be filed on, and bought, according to the homestead laws, These officials had neither authority nor option in the matter. They were there simply to carry out instructions, and obey orders.
Ysidro understood the substance of all this, though the details were beyond his comprehension. But he did not regret having taken the journey; he had now made his last effort for his people. The Los Angeles priest had promised that he would himself write a letter to Washington, to lay the case before the head man there, and perhaps something would be done for their relief. It seemed incredible to Ysidro, as, riding along day after day, on his sad homeward journey, he reflected on the subject,--it seemed incredible to him that the Government would permit such a village as theirs to be destroyed. He reached home just at sunset; and looking down, as Alessandro and Ramona had done on the morning of their arrival, from the hillcrests at the west end of the valley, seeing the broad belt of cultivated fields and orchards, the peaceful little hamlet of houses, he groaned. “If the people who make these laws could only see this village, they would never turn us out, never! They can't know what is being done. I am sure they can't know.”
“What did I tell you?” cried Alessandro, galloping up on Benito, and reining him in so sharply he reared and plunged. “What did I tell you? I saw by your face, many paces back, that you had come as you went, or worse! I have been watching for you these two days. Another American has come in with Morong in the canon; they are making corrals; they will keep stock. You will see how long we have any pasture-lands in that end of the valley. I drive all my stock to San Diego next week. I will sell it for what it will bring,--both the cattle and the sheep. It is no use. You will see.”
When Ysidro began to recount his interview with the land-office authorities, Alessandro broke in fiercely: “I wish to hear no more of it. Their names and their speech are like smoke in my eyes and my nose. I think I shall go mad, Ysidro. Go tell your story to the men who are waiting to hear it, and who yet believe that an American may speak truth!”
Alessandro was as good as his word. The very next week he drove all his cattle and sheep to San Diego, and sold them at great loss. “It is better than nothing,” he said. “They will not now be sold by the sheriff, like my father's in Temecula.” The money he got, he took to Father Gaspara. “Father,” he said huskily. “I have sold all my stock. I would not wait for the Americans to sell it for me, and take the money. I have not got much, but it is better than nothing. It will make that we do not starve for one year. Will you keep it for me, Father? I dare not have it in San Pasquale. San Pasquale will be like Temecula,--it may be to-morrow.”
To the Father's suggestion that he should put the money in a bank in San Diego, Alessandro cried: “Sooner would I throw it in the sea yonder! I trust no man, henceforth; only the Church I will trust. Keep it for me, Father, I pray you,” and the Father could not refuse his imploring tone.
“What are your plans now?” he asked.
“Plans!” repeated Alessandro,--“plans, Father! Why should I make plans? I will stay in my house so long as the Americans will let me. You saw our little house, Father!” His voice broke as he said this. “I have large wheat-fields; if I can get one more crop off them, it will be something; but my land is of the richest in the valley, and as soon as the Americans see it, they will want it. Farewell, Father. I thank you for keeping my money, and for all you said to the thief Morong. Ysidro told me. Farewell.” And he was gone, and out of sight on the swift galloping Benito, before Father Gaspara bethought himself.
“And I remembered not to ask who his wife was. I will look back at the record,” said the Father. Taking down the old volume, he ran his eye back over the year. Marriages were not so many in Father Gaspara's parish, that the list took long to read. The entry of Alessandro's marriage was blotted. The Father had been in haste that night. “Alessandro Assis. Majella Fa--” No more could be read. The name meant nothing to Father Gaspara. “Clearly an Indian name,” he said to himself; “yet she seemed superior in every way. I wonder where she got it.”
The winter wore along quietly in San Pasquale. The delicious soft rains set in early, promising a good grain year. It seemed a pity not to get in as much wheat as possible; and all the San Pasquale people went early to ploughing new fields,--all but Alessandro.
“If I reap all I have, I will thank the saints,” he said. “I will plough no more land for the robbers.” But after his fields were all planted, and the beneficent rains still kept on, and the hills all along the valley wall began to turn green earlier than ever before was known, he said to Ramona one morning, “I think I will make one more field of wheat. There will be a great yield this year. Maybe we will be left unmolested till the harvest is over.”
“Oh, yes, and for many more harvests, dear Alessandro!” said Ramona, cheerily. “You are always looking on the black side.”
“There is no other but the black side, Majella,” he replied. “Strain my eyes as I may, on all sides all is black. You will see. Never any more harvests in San Pasquale for us, after this. If we get this, we are lucky. I have seen the white men riding up and down in the valley, and I found some of their cursed bits of wood with figures on them set up on my land the other day; and I pulled them up and burned them to ashes. But I will plough one more field this week; though, I know not why it is, my thoughts go against it even now. But I will do it; and I will not come home till night, Majella, for the field is too far to go and come twice. I shall be the whole day ploughing.” So saying, he stooped and kissed the baby, and then kissing Ramona, went out.
Ramona stood at the door and watched him as he harnessed Benito and Baba to the plough. He did not once look back at her; his face seemed full of thought, his hands acting as it were mechanically. After he had gone a few rods from the house, he stopped, stood still for some minutes meditatingly, then went on irresolutely, halted again, but finally went on, and disappeared from sight among the low foothills to the east. Sighing deeply, Ramona turned back to her work. But her heart was too disquieted. She could not keep back the tears.
“How changed is Alessandro!” she thought. “It terrifies me to see him thus. I will tell the Blessed Virgin about it;” and kneeling before the shrine, she prayed fervently and long. She rose comforted, and drawing the baby's cradle out into the veranda, seated herself at her embroidery. Her skill with her needle had proved a not inconsiderable source of income, her fine lace-work being always taken by San Diego merchants, and at fairly good prices.
It seemed to her only a short time that she had been sitting thus, when, glancing up at the sun, she saw it was near noon; at the same moment she saw Alessandro approaching, with the horses. In dismay, she thought, “There is no dinner! He said he would not come!” and springing up, was about to run to meet him, when she observed that he was not alone. A short, thick-set man was walking by his side; they were talking earnestly. It was a white man. What did it bode? Presently they stopped. She saw Alessandro lift his hand and point to the house, then to the tule sheds in the rear. He seemed to be talking excitedly; the white man also; they were both speaking at once. Ramona shivered with fear. Motionless she stood, straining eye and ear; she could hear nothing, but the gestures told much. Had it come,--the thing Alessandro had said would come? Were they to be driven out,--driven out this very day, when the Virgin had only just now seemed to promise her help and protection?
The baby stirred, waked, began to cry. Catching the child up to her breast, she stilled her by convulsive caresses. Clasping her tight in her arms, she walked a few steps towards Alessandro, who, seeing her, made an imperative gesture to her to return. Sick at heart, she went back to the veranda and sat down to wait.
In a few moments she saw the white man counting out money into Alessandro's hand; then he turned and walked away, Alessandro still standing as if rooted to the spot, gazing into the palm of his hand, Benito and Baba slowly walking away from him unnoticed; at last he seemed to rouse himself as from a trance, and picking up the horses' reins, came slowly toward her. Again she started to meet him; again he made the same authoritative gesture to her to return; and again she seated herself, trembling in every nerve of her body. Ramona was now sometimes afraid of Alessandro. When these fierce glooms seized him, she dreaded, she knew not what. He seemed no more the Alessandro she had loved.
Deliberately, lingeringly, he unharnessed the horses and put them in the corral. Then still more deliberately, lingeringly, he walked to the house; walked, without speaking, past Ramona, into the door. A lurid spot on each cheek showed burning red through the bronze of his skin. His eyes glittered. In silence Ramona followed him, and saw him draw from his pocket a handful of gold-pieces, fling them on the table, and burst into a laugh more terrible than any weeping,--a laugh which wrung from her instantly, involuntarily, the cry, “Oh, my Alessandro! my Alessandro! What is it? Are you mad?”
“No, my sweet Majel,” he exclaimed, turning to her, and flinging his arms round her and the child together, drawing them so close to his breast that the embrace hurt,--“no, I am not mad; but I think I shall soon be! What is that gold? The price of this house, Majel, and of the fields,--of all that was ours in San Pasquale! To-morrow we will go out into the world again. I will see if I can find a place the Americans do not want!”
It did not take many words to tell the story. Alessandro had not been ploughing more than an hour, when, hearing a strange sound, he looked up and saw a man unloading lumber a few rods off'. Alessandro stopped midway in the furrow and watched him. The man also watched Alessandro. Presently he came toward him, and said roughly, “Look here! Be off, will you? This is my land. I'm going to build a house here.”
Alessandro had replied, “This was my land yesterday. How comes it yours to-day?”
Something in the wording of this answer, or something in Alessandro's tone and bearing, smote the man's conscience, or heart, or what stood to him in the place of conscience and heart, and he said: “Come, now, my good fellow, you look like a reasonable kind of a fellow; you just clear out, will you, and not make me any trouble. You see the land's mine. I've got all this land round here;” and he waved his arm, describing a circle; “three hundred and twenty acres, me and my brother together, and we're coming in here to settle. We got our papers from Washington last week. It's all right, and you may just as well go peaceably, as make a fuss about it. Don't you see?”
Yes, Alessandro saw. He had been seeing this precise thing for months. Many times, in his dreams and in his waking thoughts, he had lived over scenes similar to this. An almost preternatural calm and wisdom seemed to be given him now.
“Yes, I see, Senor,” he said. “I am not surprised. I knew it would come; but I hoped it would not be till after harvest. I will not give you any trouble, Senor, because I cannot. If I could, I would. But I have heard all about the new law which gives all the Indians' lands to the Americans. We cannot help ourselves. But it is very hard, Senor.” He paused.
The man, confused and embarrassed, astonished beyond expression at being met in this way by an Indian, did not find words come ready to his tongue. “Of course, I know it does seem a little rough on fellows like you, that are industrious, and have done some work on the land. But you see the land's in the market; I've paid my money for it.”
“The Senor is going to build a house?” asked Alessandro.
“Yes,” the man answered. “I've got my family in San Diego, and I want to get them settled as soon as I can. My wife won't feel comfortable till she's in her own house. We're from the States, and she's been used to having everything comfortable.”
“I have a wife and child, Senor,” said Alessandro, still in the same calm, deliberate tone; “and we have a very good house of two rooms. It would save the Senor's building, if he would buy mine.”
“How far is it?” said the man. “I can't tell exactly where the boundaries of my land are, for the stakes we set have been pulled up.”
“Yes, Senor, I pulled them up and burned them. They were on my land,” replied Alessandro. “My house is farther west than your stakes; and I have large wheat-fields there, too,--many acres, Senor, all planted.”
Here was a chance, indeed. The man's eyes gleamed. He would do the handsome thing. He would give this fellow something for his house and wheat-crops. First he would see the house, however; and it was for that purpose he had walked back with Alessandro, When he saw the neat whitewashed adobe, with its broad veranda, the sheds and corrals all in good order, he instantly resolved to get possession of them by fair means or foul.
“There will be three hundred dollars' worth of wheat in July, Senor, you can see for yourself; and a house so good as that, you cannot build for less than one hundred dollars. What will you give me for them?”
“I suppose I can have them without paying you for them, if I choose,” said the man, insolently.
“No, Senor,” replied Alessandro.
“What's to hinder, then, I'd like to know!” in a brutal sneer. “You haven't got any rights here, whatever, according to law.”
“I shall hinder, Senor,” replied Alessandro. “I shall burn down the sheds and corrals, tear down the house; and before a blade of the wheat is reaped, I will burn that.” Still in the same calm tone.
“What'll you take?” said the man, sullenly.
“Two hundred dollars,” replied Alessandro.
“Well, leave your plough and wagon, and I'll give it to you,” said the man; “and a big fool I am, too. Well laughed at, I'll be, do you know it, for buying out an Indian!”
“The wagon, Senor, cost me one hundred and thirty dollars in San Diego. You cannot buy one so good for less. I will not sell it. I need it to take away my things in. The plough you may have. That is worth twenty.”
“I'll do it,” said the man; and pulling out a heavy buckskin pouch, he counted out into Alessandro's hand two hundred dollars in gold.
“Is that all right?” he said, as he put down the last piece.
“That is the sum I said, Senor,” replied Alessandro. “Tomorrow, at noon, you can come into the house.”
“Where will you go?” asked the man, again slightly touched by Alessandro's manner. “Why don't you stay round here? I expect you could get work enough; there are a lot of farmers coming in here; they'll want hands.”
A fierce torrent of words sprang to Alessandro's lips, but he choked them back. “I do not know where I shall go, but I will not stay here,” he said; and that ended the interview.
“I don't know as I blame him a mite for feeling that way,” thought the man from the States, as he walked slowly back to his pile of lumber. “I expect I should feel just so myself.”
Almost before Alessandro had finished this tale, he began to move about the room, taking down, folding up, opening and shutting lids; his restlessness was terrible to see. “By sunrise, I would like to be off,” he said. “It is like death, to be in the house which is no longer ours.” Ramona had spoken no words since her first cry on hearing that terrible laugh. She was like one stricken dumb. The shock was greater to her than to Alessandro. He had lived with it ever present in his thoughts for a year. She had always hoped. But far more dreadful than the loss of her home, was the anguish of seeing, hearing, the changed face, changed voice, of Alessandro. Almost this swallowed up the other. She obeyed him mechanically, working faster and faster as he grew more and more feverish in his haste. Before sundown the little house was dismantled; everything, except the bed and the stove, packed in the big wagon.
“Now, we must cook food for the journey,” said Alessandro.
“Where are we going?” said the weeping Ramona.
“Where?” ejaculated Alessandro, so scornfully that it sounded like impatience with Ramona, and made her tears flow afresh. “Where? I know not, Majella! Into the mountains, where the white men come not! At sunrise we will start.”
Ramona wished to say good-by to their friends. There were women in the village that she tenderly loved. But Alessandro was unwilling. “There will be weeping and crying, Majella; I pray you do not speak to one. Why should we have more tears? Let us disappear. I will say all to Ysidro. He will tell them.”
This was a sore grief to Ramona. In her heart she rebelled against it, as she had never yet rebelled against an act of Alessandro's; but she could not distress him. Was not his burden heavy enough now?
Without a word of farewell to any one, they set off in the gray dawn, before a creature was stirring in the village,--the wagon piled high; Ramona, her baby in her arms, in front; Alessandro walking. The load was heavy. Benito and Baba walked slowly. Capitan, unhappy, looking first at Ramona's face, then at Alessandro's, walked dispiritedly by their side. He knew all was wrong.
As Alessandro turned the horses into a faintly marked road leading in a northeasterly direction, Ramona said with a sob, “Where does this road lead, Alessandro?”
“To San Jacinto,” he said. “San Jacinto Mountain. Do not look back, Majella! Do not look back!” he cried, as he saw Ramona, with streaming eyes, gazing back towards San Pasquale. “Do not look back! It is gone! Pray to the saints now, Majella! Pray! Pray!”
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
21
|
None
|
THE Senora Moreno was dying. It had been a sad two years in the Moreno house. After the first excitement following Ramona's departure had died away, things had settled down in a surface similitude of their old routine. But nothing was really the same. No one was so happy as before. Juan Canito was heart-broken. There had been set over him the very Mexican whose coming to the place he had dreaded. The sheep had not done well; there had been a drought; many had died of hunger,--a thing for which the new Mexican overseer was not to blame, though it pleased Juan to hold him so, and to say from morning till night that if his leg had not been broken, or if the lad Alessandro had been there, the wool-crop would have been as big as ever. Not one of the servants liked this Mexican; he had a sorry time of it, poor fellow; each man and woman on the place had or fancied some reason for being set against him; some from sympathy with Juan Can, some from idleness and general impatience; Margarita, most of all, because he was not Alessandro. Margarita, between remorse about her young mistress and pique and disappointment about Alessandro, had become a very unhappy girl; and her mother, instead of comforting or soothing her, added to her misery by continually bemoaning Ramona's fate. The void that Ramona had left in the whole household seemed an irreparable one; nothing came to fill it; there was no forgetting; every day her name was mentioned by some one; mentioned with bated breath, fearful conjecture, compassion, and regret. Where had she vanished? Had she indeed gone to the convent, as she said, or had she fled with Alessandro?
Margarita would have given her right hand to know. Only Juan Can felt sure. Very well Juan Can knew that nobody but Alessandro had the wit and the power over Baba to lure him out of that corral, “and never a rail out of its place.” And the saddle, too! Ay, the smart lad! He had done the best he could for the Senorita; but, Holy Virgin! what had got into the Senorita to run off like that, with an Indian,--even Alessandro! The fiends had bewitched her. Tirelessly Juan Can questioned every traveller, every wandering herder he saw. No one knew anything of Alessandro, beyond the fact that all the Temecula Indians had been driven out of their village, and that there was now not an Indian in the valley. There was a rumor that Alessandro and his father had both died; but no one knew anything certainly. The Temecula Indians had disappeared, that was all there was of it,--disappeared, like any wild creatures, foxes or coyotes, hunted down, driven out; the valley was rid of them. But the Senorita! She was not with these fugitives. That could not be! Heaven forbid!
“If I'd my legs, I'd go and see for myself.” said Juan Can. “It would be some comfort to know even the worst. Perdition take the Senora, who drove her to it! Ay, drove her to it! That's what I say, Luigo.” In some of his most venturesome wrathy moments he would say: “There's none of you know the truth about the Senorita but me! It's a hard hand the Senora's reared her with, from the first. She's a wonderful woman, our Senora! She gets power over one.”
But the Senora's power was shaken now. More changed than all else in the changed Moreno household, was the relation between the Senora Moreno and her son Felipe. On the morning after Ramona's disappearance, words had been spoken by each which neither would ever forget. In fact, the Senora believed that it was of them she was dying, and perhaps that was not far from the truth; the reason that forces could no longer rally in her to repel disease, lying no doubt largely in the fact that to live seemed no longer to her desirable.
Felipe had found the note Ramona had laid on his bed. Before it was yet dawn he had waked, and tossing uneasily under the light covering had heard the rustle of the paper, and knowing instinctively that it was from Ramona, had risen instantly to make sure of it. Before his mother opened her window, he had read it. He felt like one bereft of his senses as he read. Gone! Gone with Alessandro! Stolen away like a thief in the night, his dear, sweet little sister! Ah, what a cruel shame! Scales seemed to drop from Felipe's eyes as he lay motionless, thinking of it. A shame! a cruel shame! And he and his mother were the ones who had brought it on Ramona's head, and on the house of Moreno. Felipe felt as if he had been under a spell all along, not to have realized this. “That's what I told my mother!” he groaned,--“that it drove her to running away! Oh, my sweet Ramona! what will become of her? I will go after them, and bring them back;” and Felipe rose, and hastily dressing himself, ran down the veranda steps, to gain a little more time to think. He returned shortly, to meet his mother standing in the doorway, with pale, affrighted face.
“Felipe!” she cried, “Ramona is not here.”
“I know it,” he replied in an angry tone. “That is what I told you we should do,--drive her to running away with Alessandro!”
“With Alessandro!” interrupted the Senora.
“Yes,” continued Felipe,--“with Alessandro, the Indian! Perhaps you think it is less disgrace to the names of Ortegna and Moreno to have her run away with him, than to be married to him here under our roof! I do not! Curse the day, I say, when I ever lent myself to breaking the girl's heart! I am going after them, to fetch them back!”
If the skies had opened and rained fire, the Senora had hardly less quailed and wondered than she did at these words; but even for fire from the skies she would not surrender till she must.
“How know you that it is with Alessandro?” she said.
“Because she has written it here!” cried Felipe, defiantly holding up his little note. “She left this, her good-by to me. Bless her! She writes like a saint, to thank me for all my goodness to her,--I, who drove her to steal out of my house like a thief!”
The phrase, “my house,” smote the Senora's ear like a note from some other sphere, which indeed it was,--from the new world into which Felipe had been in an hour born. Her cheeks flushed, and she opened her lips to reply; but before she had uttered a word, Luigo came running round the corner, Juan Can hobbling after him at a miraculous pace on his crutches. “Senor Felipe! Senor Felipe! Oh, Senora!” they cried. “Thieves have been here in the night! Baba is gone,--Baba, and the Senorita's saddle.”
A malicious smile broke over the Senora's countenance, and turning to Felipe, she said in a tone--what a tone it was! Felipe felt as if he must put his hands to his ears to shut it out; Felipe would never forget,--“As you were saying, like a thief in the night!”
With a swifter and more energetic movement than any had ever before seen Senor Felipe make, he stepped forward, saying in an undertone to his mother, “For God's sake, mother, not a word before the men! --What is that you say, Luigo? Baba gone? We must see to our corral. I will come down, after breakfast, and look at it;” and turning his back on them, he drew his mother by a firm grasp, she could not resist, into the house.
She gazed at him in sheer, dumb wonder.
“Ay, mother,” he said, “you may well look thus in wonder; I have been no man, to let my foster-sister, I care not what blood were in her veins, be driven to this pass! I will set out this day, and bring her back.”
“The day you do that, then, I lie in this house dead!” retorted the Senora, at white heat. “You may rear as many Indian families as you please under the Moreno roof, I will at least have my grave!” In spite of her anger, grief convulsed her; and in another second she had burst into tears, and sunk helpless and trembling into a chair. No counterfeiting now. No pretences. The Senora Moreno's heart broke within her, when those words passed her lips to her adored Felipe. At the sight, Felipe flung himself on his knees before her; he kissed the aged hands as they lay trembling in her lap. “Mother mia,” he cried, “you will break my heart if you speak like that! Oh, why, why do you command me to do what a man may not? I would die for you, my mother; but how can I see my sister a homeless wanderer in the wilderness?”
“I suppose the man Alessandro has something he calls a home,” said the Senora, regaining herself a little. “Had they no plans? Spoke she not in her letter of what they would do?”
“Only that they would go to Father Salvierderra first,” he replied.
“Ah!” The Senora reflected. At first startled, her second thought was that this would be the best possible thing which could happen. “Father Salvierderra will counsel them what to do,” she said. “He could no doubt establish them in Santa Barbara in some way. My son, when you reflect, you will see the impossibility of bringing them here. Help them in any way you like, but do not bring them here.” She paused. “Not until I am dead, Felipe! It will not be long.”
Felipe bowed his head in his mother's lap. She laid her hands on his hair, and stroked it with passionate tenderness. “My Felipe!” she said. “It was a cruel fate to rob me of you at the last!”
“Mother! mother!” he cried in anguish. “I am yours,--wholly, devotedly yours! Why do you torture me thus?”
“I will not torture you more,” she said wearily, in a feeble tone. “I ask only one thing of you; let me never hear again the name of that wretched girl, who has brought all this woe on our house; let her name never be spoken on this place by man, woman, or child. Like a thief in the night! Ay, a horse-thief!”
Felipe sprang to his feet.
“Mother.” he said, “Baba was Ramona's own; I myself gave him to her as soon as he was born!”
The Senora made no reply. She had fainted. Calling the maids, in terror and sorrow Felipe bore her to her bed, and she did not leave it for many days. She seemed hovering between life and death. Felipe watched over her as a lover might; her great mournful eyes followed his every motion. She spoke little, partly because of physical weakness, partly from despair. The Senora had got her death-blow. She would die hard. It would take long. Yet she was dying, and she knew it.
Felipe did not know it. When he saw her going about again, with a step only a little slower than before, and with a countenance not so much changed as he had feared, he thought she would be well again, after a time. And now he would go in search of Ramona. How he hoped he should find them in Santa Barbara! He must leave them there, or wherever he should find them; never again would he for a moment contemplate the possibility of bringing them home with him. But he would see them; help them, if need be. Ramona should not feel herself an outcast, so long as he lived.
When he said, agitatedly, to his mother, one night, “You are so strong now, mother, I think I will take a journey; I will not be away long,--not over a week,” she understood, and with a deep sigh replied: “I am not strong; but I am as strong as I shall ever be. If the journey must be taken, it is as well done now.”
How was the Senora changed!
“It must be, mother,” said Felipe, “or I would not leave you. I will set off before sunrise, so I will say farewell tonight.”
But in the morning, at his first step, his mother's window opened, and there she stood, wan, speechless, looking at him. “You must go, my son?” she asked at last.
“I must, mother!” and Felipe threw his arms around her, and kissed her again and again. “Dearest mother! Do smile! Can you not?”
“No, my son, I cannot. Farewell. The saints keep you. Farewell.” And she turned, that she might not see him go.
Felipe rode away with a sad heart, but his purpose did not falter. Following straight down the river road to the sea, he then kept up along the coast, asking here and there, cautiously, if persons answering to the description of Alessandro and Ramona had been seen. No one had seen any such persons.
When, on the night of the second day, he rode up to the Santa Barbara Mission, the first figure he saw was the venerable Father Salvierderra sitting in the corridor. As Felipe approached, the old man's face beamed with pleasure, and he came forward totteringly, leaning on a staff in each hand. “Welcome, my son!” he said. “Are all well? You find me very feeble just now; my legs are failing me sorely this autumn.”
Dismay seized on Felipe at the Father's first words. He would not have spoken thus, had he seen Ramona. Barely replying to the greeting, Felipe exclaimed: “Father, I come seeking Ramona. Has she not been with you?”
Father Salvierderra's face was reply to the question. “Ramona!” he cried. “Seeking Ramona! What has befallen the blessed child?”
It was a bitter story for Felipe to tell; but he told it, sparing himself no shame. He would have suffered less in the telling, had he known how well Father Salvierderra understood his mother's character, and her almost unlimited power over all persons around her. Father Salvierderra was not shocked at the news of Ramona's attachment for Alessandro. He regretted it, but he did not think it shame, as the Senora had done. As Felipe talked with him, he perceived even more clearly how bitter and unjust his mother had been to Alessandro.
“He is a noble young man,” said Father Salvierderra. “His father was one of the most trusted of Father Peyri's assistants. You must find them, Felipe. I wonder much they did not come to me. Perhaps they may yet come. When you find them, bear them my blessing, and say that I wish they would come hither. I would like to give them my blessing before I die. Felipe, I shall never leave Santa Barbara again. My time draws near.”
Felipe was so full of impatience to continue his search, that he hardly listened to the Father's words. “I will not tarry,” he said. “I cannot rest till I find her. I will ride back as far as Ventura to-night.”
“You will send me word by a messenger, when you find them,” said the Father. “God grant no harm has befallen them. I will pray for them, Felipe;” and he tottered into the church.
Felipe's thoughts, as he retraced his road, were full of bewilderment and pain. He was wholly at loss to conjecture what course Alessandro and Ramona had taken, or what could have led them to abandon their intention of going to Father Salvierderra. Temecula seemed the only place, now, to look for them; and yet from Temecula Felipe had heard, only a few days before leaving home, that there was not an Indian left in the valley. But he could at least learn there where the Indians had gone. Poor as the clew seemed, it was all he had. Cruelly Felipe urged his horse on his return journey. He grudged an hour's rest to himself or to the beast; and before he reached the head of the Temecula canon the creature was near spent. At the steepest part he jumped off and walked, to save her strength. As he was toiling slowly up a narrow, rocky pass, he suddenly saw an Indian's head peering over the ledge. He made signs to him to come down. The Indian turned his head, and spoke to some one behind; one after another a score of figures rose. They made signs to Felipe to come up. “Poor things!” he thought; “they are afraid.” He shouted to them that his horse was too tired to climb that wall; but if they would come down, he would give them money, holding up a gold-piece. They consulted among themselves; presently they began slowly descending, still halting at intervals, and looking suspiciously at him. He held up the gold again, and beckoned. As soon as they could see his face distinctly, they broke into a run. That was no enemy's face.
Only one of the number could speak Spanish. On hearing this man's reply to Felipe's first question, a woman, who had listened sharply and caught the word Alessandro, came forward, and spoke rapidly in the Indian tongue.
“This woman has seen Alessandro,” said the man.
“Where?” said Felipe, breathlessly.
“In Temecula, two weeks ago,” he said.
“Ask her if he had any one with him,” said Felipe.
“No,” said the woman. “He was alone.”
A convulsion passed over Felipe's face. “Alone!” What did this mean! He reflected. The woman watched him. “Is she sure he was alone; there was no one with him?”
“Yes.”
“Was he riding a big black horse?”
“No, a white horse,” answered the woman, promptly. “A small white horse.”
It was Carmena, every nerve of her loyal nature on the alert to baffle this pursuer of Alessandro and Ramona. Again Felipe reflected. “Ask her if she saw him for any length of time; how long she saw him.”
“All night,” he answered. “He spent the night where she did.”
Felipe despaired. “Does she know where he is now?” he asked.
“He was going to San Luis Obispo, to go in a ship to Monterey.”
“What to do?”
“She does not know.”
“Did he say when he would come back?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Never! He said he would never set foot in Temecula again.”
“Does she know him well?”
“As well as her own brother.”
What more could Felipe ask? With a groan, wrung from the very depths of his heart, he tossed the man a gold-piece; another to the woman. “I am sorry,” he said. “Alessandro was my friend. I wanted to see him;” and he rode away, Carmena's eyes following him with a covert gleam of triumph.
When these last words of his were interpreted to her, she started, made as if she would run after him, but checked herself. “No,” she thought. “It may be a lie. He may be an enemy, for all that. I will not tell. Alessandro wished not to be found. I will not tell.”
And thus vanished the last chance of succor for Ramona; vanished in a moment; blown like a thistledown on a chance breath,--the breath of a loyal, loving friend, speaking a lie to save her.
Distraught with grief, Felipe returned home. Ramona had been very ill when she left home. Had she died, and been buried by the lonely, sorrowing Alessandro? And was that the reason Alessandro was going away to the North, never to return? Fool that he was, to have shrunk from speaking Ramona's name to the Indians! He would return, and ask again. As soon as he had seen his mother, he would set off again, and never cease searching till he had found either Ramona or her grave. But when Felipe entered his mother's presence, his first look in her face told him that he would not leave her side again until he had laid her at rest in the tomb.
“Thank God! you have come, Felipe,” she said in a feeble voice. “I had begun to fear you would not come in time to say farewell to me. I am going to leave you, my son;” and the tears rolled down her cheeks.
Though she no longer wished to live, neither did she wish to die,--this poor, proud, passionate, defeated, bereft Senora. All the consolations of her religion seemed to fail her. She had prayed incessantly, but got no peace. She fixed her imploring eyes on the Virgin's face and on the saints; but all seemed to her to wear a forbidding look. “If Father Salvierderra would only come!” she groaned. “He could give me peace. If only I can live till he comes again!”
When Felipe told her of the old man's feeble state, and that he would never again make the journey, she turned her face to the wall and wept. Not only for her own soul's help did she wish to see him: she wished to put into his hands the Ortegna jewels. What would become of them? To whom should she transfer the charge? Was there a secular priest within reach that she could trust? When her sister had said, in her instructions, “the Church,” she meant, as the Senora Moreno well knew, the Franciscans. The Senora dared not consult Felipe; yet she must. Day by day these fretting anxieties and perplexities wasted her strength, and her fever grew higher and higher. She asked no questions as to the result of Felipe's journey, and he dared not mention Ramona's name. At last he could bear it no longer, and one day said, “Mother, I found no trace of Ramona. I have not the least idea where she is. The Father had not seen her or heard of her. I fear she is dead.”
“Better so,” was the Senora's sole reply; and she fell again into still deeper, more perplexed thought about the hidden treasure. Each day she resolved, “To-morrow I will tell Felipe;” and when to-morrow came, she put it off again. Finally she decided not to do it till she found herself dying. Father Salvierderra might yet come once more, and then all would be well. With trembling hands she wrote him a letter, imploring him to be brought to her, and sent it by messenger, who was empowered to hire a litter and four men to bring the Father gently and carefully all the way. But when the messenger reached Santa Barbara, Father Salvierderra was too feeble to be moved; too feeble even to write. He could write only by amanuensis, and wrote, therefore, guardedly, sending her his blessing, and saying that he hoped her foster-child might yet be restored to the keeping of her friends. The Father had been in sore straits of mind, as month after month had passed without tidings of his “blessed child.”
Soon after this came the news that the Father was dead. This dealt the Senora a terrible blow. She never left her bed after it. And so the year had worn on; and Felipe, mourning over his sinking and failing mother, and haunted by terrible fears about the lost Ramona, had been tortured indeed.
But the end drew near, now. The Senora was plainly dying. The Ventura doctor had left off coming, saying that he could do no more; nothing remained but to give her what ease was possible; in a day or two more all would be over. Felipe hardly left her bedside. Rarely was mother so loved and nursed by son. No daughter could have shown more tenderness and devotion. In the close relation and affection of these last days, the sense of alienation and antagonism faded from both their hearts.
“My adorable Felipe!” she would murmur. “What a son hast thou been!” And, “My beloved mother! How shall I give you up?” Felipe would reply, bowing his head on her hands,--so wasted now, so white, so weak; those hands which had been cruel and strong little more than one short year ago. Ah, no one could refuse to forgive the Senora now! The gentle Ramona, had she seen her, had wept tears of pity. Her eyes wore at times a look almost of terror. It was the secret. How should she speak it? What would Felipe say? At last the moment came. She had been with difficulty roused from a long fainting; one more such would be the last, she knew,--knew even better than those around her. As she regained consciousness, she gasped, “Felipe! Alone!”
He understood, and waved the rest away.
“Alone!” she said again, turning her eyes to the door.
“Leave the room,” said Felipe; “all--wait outside;” and he closed the door on them. Even then the Senora hesitated. Almost was she ready to go out of life leaving the hidden treasure to its chance of discovery, rather than with her own lips reveal to Felipe what she saw now, saw with the terrible, relentless clear-sightedness of death, would make him, even after she was in her grave, reproach her in his thoughts.
But she dared not withhold it. It must be said. Pointing to the statue of Saint Catharine, whose face seemed, she thought, to frown unforgiving upon her, she said, “Felipe--behind that statue--look!”
Felipe thought her delirious, and said tenderly, “Nothing is there, dearest mother. Be calm. I am here.”
New terror seized the dying woman. Was she to be forced to carry the secret to the grave? to be denied this late avowal? “No! no! Felipe--there is a door there--secret door. Look! Open! I must tell you!”
Hastily Felipe moved the statue. There was indeed the door, as she had said.
“Do not tell me now, mother dear. Wait till you are stronger,” he said. As he spoke, he turned, and saw, with alarm, his mother sitting upright in the bed, her right arm outstretched, her hand pointing to the door, her eyes in a glassy stare, her face convulsed. Before a cry could pass his lips, she had fallen back. The Senora Moreno was dead.
At Felipe's cry, the women waiting in the hall hurried in, wailing aloud as their first glance showed them all was over. In the confusion, Felipe, with a pale, set face, pushed the statue back into its place. Even then a premonition of horror swept over him. What was he, the son, to find behind that secret door, at sight of which his mother had died with that look of anguished terror in her eyes? All through the sad duties of the next four days Felipe was conscious of the undercurrent of this premonition. The funeral ceremonies were impressive. The little chapel could not hold the quarter part of those who came, from far and near. Everybody wished to do honor to the Senora Moreno. A priest from Ventura and one from San Luis Obispo were there. When all was done, they bore the Senora to the little graveyard on the hillside, and laid her by the side of her husband and her children; silent and still at last, the restless, passionate, proud, sad heart! When, the night after the funeral, the servants saw Senor Felipe going into his mother's room, they shuddered, and whispered, “Oh, he must not! He will break his heart, Senor Felipe! How he loved her!”
Old Marda ventured to follow him, and at the threshold said: “Dear Senor Felipe, do not! It is not good to go there! Come away!”
But he put her gently by, saying, “I would rather be here, good Marda;” and went in and locked the door.
It was past midnight when he came out. His face was stern. He had buried his mother again. Well might the Senora have dreaded to tell to Felipe the tale of the Ortegna treasure. Until he reached the bottom of the jewel-box, and found the Senora Ortegna's letter to his mother, he was in entire bewilderment at all he saw. After he had read this letter, he sat motionless for a long time, his head buried in his hands. His soul was wrung.
“And she thought that shame, and not this!” he said bitterly.
But one thing remained for Felipe now, If Ramona lived, he would find her, and restore to her this her rightful property. If she were dead, it must go to the Santa Barbara College.
“Surely my mother must have intended to give it to the Church,” he said. “But why keep it all this time? It is this that has killed her. Oh, shame! oh, disgrace!” From the grave in which Felipe had buried his mother now, was no resurrection.
Replacing everything as before in the safe hiding-place, he sat down and wrote a letter to the Superior of the Santa Barbara College, telling him of the existence of these valuables, which in certain contingencies would belong to the College. Early in the morning he gave this letter to Juan Canito, saying: “I am going away, Juan, on a journey. If anything happens to me, and I do not return, send this letter by trusty messenger to Santa Barbara.”
“Will you be long away, Senor Felipe?” asked the old man, piteously.
“I cannot tell, Juan,” replied Felipe. “It may be only a short time; it may be long. I leave everything in your care. You will do all according to your best judgment, I know. I will say to all that I have left you in charge.”
“Thanks, Senor Felipe! Thanks!” exclaimed Juan, happier than he had been for two years. “Indeed, you may trust me! From the time you were a boy till now, I have had no thought except for your house.”
Even in heaven the Senora Moreno had felt woe as if in hell, had she known the thoughts with which her Felipe galloped this morning out of the gateway through which, only the day before, he had walked weeping behind her body borne to burial.
“And she thought this no shame to the house of Moreno!” he said. “My God!”
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
22
|
None
|
DURING the first day of Ramona's and Alessandro's sad journey they scarcely spoke. Alessandro walked at the horses' heads, his face sunk on his breast, his eyes fixed on the ground. Ramona watched him in anxious fear. Even the baby's voice and cooing laugh won from him no response. After they were camped for the night, she said, “Dear Alessandro, will you not tell me where we are going?”
In spite of her gentleness, there was a shade of wounded feeling in her tone. Alessandro flung himself on his knees before her, and cried: “My Majella! my Majella! it seems to me I am going mad! I cannot tell what to do. I do not know what I think; all my thoughts seem whirling round as leaves do in brooks in the time of the spring rains. Do you think I can be going mad? It was enough to make me!”
Ramona, her own heart wrung with fear, soothed him as best she could. “Dear Alessandro,” she said, “let us go to Los Angeles, and not live with the Indians any more. You could get work there. You could play at dances sometimes; there must be plenty of work. I could get more sewing to do, too. It would be better, I think.”
He looked horror-stricken at the thought. “Go live among the white people!” he cried. “What does Majella think would become of one Indian, or two, alone among whites? If they will come to our villages and drive us out a hundred at a time, what would they do to one man alone? Oh, Majella is foolish!”
“But there are many of your people at work for whites at San Bernardino and other places,” she persisted. “Why could not we do as they do?”
“Yes,” he said bitterly, “at work for whites; so they are, Majella has not seen. No man will pay an Indian but half wages; even long ago, when the Fathers were not all gone, and tried to help the Indians, my father has told me that it was the way only to pay an Indian one-half that a white man or a Mexican had. It was the Mexicans, too, did that, Majella. And now they pay the Indians in money sometimes, half wages; sometimes in bad flour, or things he does not want; sometimes in whiskey; and if he will not take it, and asks for his money, they laugh, and tell him to go, then. One man in San Bernardino last year, when an Indian would not take a bottle of sour wine for pay for a day's work, shot him in the cheek with his pistol, and told him to mind how he was insolent any more! Oh, Majella, do not ask me to go work in the towns! I should kill some man, Majella, if I saw things like that.”
Ramona shuddered, and was silent. Alessandro continued: “If Majella would not be afraid, I know a place, high up on the mountain, where no white man has ever been, or ever will be. I found it when I was following a bear. The beast led me up. It was his home; and I said then, it was a fit hiding-place for a man. There is water, and a little green valley. We could live there; but it would be no more than to live,, it is very small, the valley. Majella would be afraid?”
“Yes, Alessandro, I would be afraid, all alone on a high mountain. Oh, do not let us go there! Try something else first, Alessandro. Is there no other Indian village you know?”
“There is Saboba,” he said, “at foot of the San Jacinto Mountain; I had thought of that. Some of my people went there from Temecula; but it is a poor little village, Majella. Majella would not like to live in it. Neither do I believe it will long be any safer than San Pasquale. There was a kind, good old man who owned all that valley,--Senor Ravallo; he found the village of Saboba there when he came to the country. It is one of the very oldest of all; he was good to all Indians, and he said they should never be disturbed, never. He is dead; but his three sons have the estate yet, and I think they would keep their father's promise to the Indians. But you see, to-morrow, Majella, they may die, or go back to Mexico, as Senor Valdez did, and then the Americans will get it, as they did Temecula. And there are already white men living in the valley. We will go that way, Majella. Majella shall see. If she says stay, we will stay.”
It was in the early afternoon that they entered the broad valley of San Jacinto. They entered it from the west. As they came in, though the sky over their heads was overcast and gray, the eastern and northeastern part of the valley was flooded with a strange light, at once ruddy and golden. It was a glorious sight. The jagged top and spurs of San Jacinto Mountain shone like the turrets and posterns of a citadel built of rubies. The glow seemed preternatural.
“Behold San Jacinto!” cried Alessandro.
Ramona exclaimed in delight. “It is an omen!” she said. “We are going into the sunlight, out of the shadow;” and she glanced back at the west, which was of a slaty blackness.
“I like it not!” said Alessandro. “The shadow follows too fast!”
Indeed it did. Even as he spoke, a fierce wind blew from the north, and tearing off fleeces from the black cloud, sent them in scurrying masses across the sky. In a moment more, snow-flakes began to fall.
“Holy Virgin!” cried Alessandro. Too well he knew what it meant. He urged the horses, running fast beside them. It was of no use. Too much even for Baba and Benito to make any haste, with the heavily loaded wagon.
“There is an old sheep-corral and a hut not over a mile farther, if we could but reach it!” groaned Alessandro. “Majella, you and the child will freeze.”
“She is warm on my breast,” said Ramona; “but, Alessandro, what ice in this wind! It is like a knife at my back!”
Alessandro uttered another ejaculation of dismay. The snow was fast thickening; already the track was covered. The wind lessened.
“Thank God, that wind no longer cuts as it did,” said Ramona, her teeth chattering, clasping the baby closer and closer.
“I would rather it blew than not,” said Alessandro; “it will carry the snow before it. A little more of this, and we cannot see, any more than in the night.”
Still thicker and faster fell the snow; the air was dense; it was, as Alessandro had said, worse than the darkness of night,--this strange opaque whiteness, thick, choking, freezing one's breath. Presently the rough jolting of the wagon showed that they were off the road. The horses stopped; refused to go on.
“We are lost, if we stay here!” cried Alessandro. “Come, my Benito, come!” and he took him by the head, and pulled him by main force back into the road, and led him along. It was terrible. Ramona's heart sank within her. She felt her arms growing numb; how much longer could she hold the baby safe? She called to Alessandro. He did not hear her; the wind had risen again; the snow was being blown in masses; it was like making headway among whirling snow-drifts.
“We will die,” thought Ramona. “Perhaps it is as well!” And that was the last she knew, till she heard a shouting, and found herself being shaken and beaten, and heard a strange voice saying, “Sorry ter handle yer so rough, ma'am, but we've got ter git yer out ter the fire!”
“Fire!” Were there such things as fire and warmth? Mechanically she put the baby into the unknown arms that were reaching up to her, and tried to rise from her seat; but she could not move.
“Set still! set still!” said the strange voice. “I'll jest carry the baby ter my wife, an' come back fur you. I allowed yer couldn't git up on yer feet;” and the tall form disappeared. The baby, thus vigorously disturbed from her warm sleep, began to cry.
“Thank God!” said Alessandro, at the plunging horses' heads. “The child is alive! Majella!” he called.
“Yes, Alessandro,” she answered faintly, the gusts sweeping her voice like a distant echo past him.
It was a marvellous rescue. They had been nearer the old sheep-corral than Alessandro had thought; but except that other storm-beaten travellers had reached it before them, Alessandro had never found it. Just as he felt his strength failing him, and had thought to himself, in almost the same despairing words as Ramona, “This will end all our troubles,” he saw a faint light to the left. Instantly he had turned the horses' heads towards it. The ground was rough and broken, and more than once he had been in danger of overturning the wagon; but he had pressed on, shouting at intervals for help. At last his call was answered, and another light appeared; this time a swinging one, coming slowly towards him,--a lantern, in the hand of a man, whose first words, “Wall, stranger, I allow yer inter trouble,” were as intelligible to Alessandro as if they had been spoken in the purest San Luiseno dialect.
Not so, to the stranger, Alessandro's grateful reply in Spanish.
“Another o' these no-'count Mexicans, by thunder!” thought Jeff Hyer to himself. “Blamed ef I'd lived in a country all my life, ef I wouldn't know better'n to git caught out in such weather's this!” And as he put the crying babe into his wife's arms, he said half impatiently, “Ef I'd knowed 't wuz Mexicans, Ri, I wouldn't ev' gone out ter 'um. They're more ter hum 'n I am, 'n these yer tropicks.”
“Naow, Jeff, yer know yer wouldn't let ennythin' in shape ev a human creetur go perishin' past aour fire sech weather's this,” replied the woman, as she took the baby, which recognized the motherly hand at its first touch, and ceased crying.
“Why, yer pooty, blue-eyed little thing!” she exclaimed, as she looked into the baby's face. “I declar, Jos, think o' sech a mite's this bein' aout'n this weather. I'll jest warm up some milk for it this minnit.”
“Better see't th' mother fust, Ri,” said Jeff, leading, half carrying, Ramona into the hut. “She's nigh abaout froze stiff!”
But the sight of her baby safe and smiling was a better restorative for Ramona than anything else, and in a few moments she had fully recovered. It was in a strange group she found herself. On a mattress, in the corner of the hut, lay a young man apparently about twenty-five, whose bright eyes and flushed cheeks told but too plainly the story of his disease. The woman, tall, ungainly, her face gaunt, her hands hardened and wrinkled, gown ragged, shoes ragged, her dry and broken light hair wound in a careless, straggling knot in her neck, wisps of it flying over her forehead, was certainly not a prepossessing figure. Yet spite of her careless, unkempt condition, there was a certain gentle dignity in her bearing, and a kindliness in her glance, which won trust and warmed hearts at once. Her pale blue eyes were still keen-sighted; and as she fixed them on Ramona, she thought to herself, “This ain't no common Mexican, no how.” “Be ye movers?” she said.
Ramona stared. In the little English she knew, that word was not included. “Ah, Senora,” she said regretfully, “I cannot talk in the English speech; only in Spanish.”
“Spanish, eh? Yer mean Mexican? Jos, hyar, he kin talk thet. He can't talk much, though; 'tain't good fur him; his lungs is out er kilter. Thet's what we're bringin' him hyar fur,--fur warm climate! 'pears like it, don't it?” and she chuckled grimly, but with a side glance of ineffable tenderness at the sick man. “Ask her who they be, Jos,” she added.
Jos lifted himself on his elbow, and fixing his shining eyes on Ramona, said in Spanish, “My mother asks if you are travellers?”
“Yes,” said Ramona. “We have come all the way from San Diego. We are Indians.”
“Injuns!” ejaculated Jos's mother. “Lord save us, Jos! Hev we reelly took in Injuns? What on airth--Well, well, she's fond uv her baby's enny white woman! I kin see thet; an', Injun or no Injun, they've got to stay naow. Yer couldn't turn a dog out 'n sech weather's this. I bet thet baby's father wuz white, then. Look at them blue eyes.”
Ramona listened and looked intently, but could understand nothing. Almost she doubted if the woman were really speaking English. She had never before heard so many English sentences without being able to understand one word. The Tennessee drawl so altered even the commonest words, that she did not recognize them. Turning to Jos, she said gently, “I know very little English. I am so sorry I cannot understand. Will it tire you to interpret to me what your mother said?”
Jos was as full of humor as his mother. “She wants me to tell her what you wuz sayin',” he said, “I allow, I'll only tell her the part on't she'll like best. --My mother says you can stay here with us till the storm is over,” he said to Ramona.
Swifter than lightning, Ramona had seized the woman's hand and carried it to her heart, with an expressive gesture of gratitude and emotion. “Thanks! thanks! Senora!” she cried.
“What is it she calls me, Jos?” asked his mother.
“Senora,” he replied. “It only means the same as lady.”
“Shaw, Jos! You tell her I ain't any lady. Tell her everybody round where we live calls me 'Aunt Ri,' or 'Mis Hyer;' she kin call me whichever she's a mind to. She's reel sweet-spoken.”
With some difficulty Jos explained his mother's disclaimer of the title of Senora, and the choice of names she offered to Ramona.
Ramona, with smiles which won both mother and son, repeated after him both names, getting neither exactly right at first trial, and finally said, “I like 'Aunt Ri' best; she is so kind, like aunt, to every one.”
“Naow, ain't thet queer, Jos,” said Aunt Ri, “aout here 'n thes wilderness to ketch sumbody sayin' thet,--jest what they all say ter hum? I donno's I'm enny kinder'n ennybody else. I don't want ter see ennybody put upon, nor noways sufferin', ef so be's I kin help; but thet ain't ennythin' stronary, ez I know. I donno how ennybody could feel enny different.”
“There's lots doos, mammy,” replied Jos, affectionately. “Yer'd find out fast enuf, ef yer went raound more. There's mighty few's good's you air ter everybody.”
Ramona was crouching in the corner by the fire, her baby held close to her breast. The place which at first had seemed a haven of warmth, she now saw was indeed but a poor shelter against the fearful storm which raged outside. It was only a hut of rough boards, carelessly knocked together for a shepherd's temporary home. It had been long unused, and many of the boards were loose and broken. Through these crevices, at every blast of the wind, the fine snow swirled. On the hearth were burning a few sticks of wood, dead cottonwood branches, which Jef Hyer had hastily collected before the storm reached its height. A few more sticks lay by the hearth. Aunt Ri glanced at them anxiously. A poor provision for a night in the snow. “Be ye warm, Jos?” she asked.
“Not very, mammy,” he said; “but I ain't cold, nuther; an' thet's somethin'.”
It was the way in the Hyer family to make the best of things; they had always possessed this virtue to such an extent, that they suffered from it as from a vice. There was hardly to be found in all Southern Tennessee a more contented, shiftless, ill-bestead family than theirs. But there was no grumbling. Whatever went wrong, whatever was lacking, it was “jest like aour luck,” they said, and did nothing, or next to nothing, about it. Good-natured, affectionate, humorous people; after all, they got more comfort out of life than many a family whose surface conditions were incomparably better than theirs. When Jos, their oldest child and only son, broke down, had hemorrhage after hemorrhage, and the doctor said the only thing that could save him was to go across the plains in a wagon to California, they said, “What good luck 'Lizy was married last year! Now there ain't nuthin' ter hinder sellin' the farm 'n goin' right off.” And they sold their little place for half it was worth, traded cattle for a pair of horses and a covered wagon, and set off, half beggared, with their sick boy on a bed in the bottom of the wagon, as cheery as if they were rich people on a pleasure-trip. A pair of steers “to spell” the horses, and a cow to give milk for Jos, they drove before them; and so they had come by slow stages, sometimes camping for a week at a time, all the way from Tennessee to the San Jacinto Valley. They were rewarded. Jos was getting well. Another six months, they thought, would see him cured; and it would have gone hard with any one who had tried to persuade either Jefferson or Maria Hyer that they were not as lucky a couple as could be found. Had they not saved Joshua, their son?
Nicknames among this class of poor whites in the South seem singularly like those in vogue in New England. From totally opposite motives, the lazy, easy-going Tennesseean and the hurry-driven Vermonter cut down all their family names to the shortest. To speak three syllables where one will answer, seems to the Vermonter a waste of time; to the Tennesseean, quite too much trouble. Mrs. Hyer could hardly recollect ever having heard her name, “Maria,” in full; as a child, and until she was married, she was simply “Ri;” and as soon as she had a house of her own, to become a centre of hospitality and help, she was adopted by common consent of the neighborhood, in a sort of titular and universal aunt-hood, which really was a much greater tribute and honor than she dreamed. Not a man, woman, or child, within her reach, that did not call her or know of her as “Aunt Ri.”
“I donno whether I'd best make enny more fire naow or not,” she said reflectively; “ef this storm's goin' to last till mornin', we'll come short o' wood, thet's clear.” As she spoke, the door of the hut burst open, and her husband staggered in, followed by Alessandro, both covered with snow, their arms full of wood. Alessandro, luckily, knew of a little clump of young cottonwood-trees in a ravine, only a few rods from the house; and the first thing he had thought of, after tethering the horses in shelter between the hut and the wagons, was to get wood. Jeff, seeing him take a hatchet from the wagon, had understood, got his own, and followed; and now there lay on the ground enough to keep them warm for hours. As soon as Alessandro had thrown down his load, he darted to Ramona, and kneeling down, looked anxiously into the baby's face, then into hers; then he said devoutly, “The saints be praised, my Majella! It is a miracle!”
Jos listened in dismay to this ejaculation. “Ef they ain't Catholics!” he thought. “What kind o' Injuns be they I wonder. I won't tell mammy they're Catholics; she'd feel wuss'n ever. I don't care what they be. Thet gal's got the sweetest eyes'n her head ever I saw sence I wuz born.”
By help of Jos's interpreting, the two families soon became well acquainted with each other's condition and plans; and a feeling of friendliness, surprising under the circumstances, grew up between them.
“Jeff,” said Aunt Ri,--“Jeff, they can't understand a word we say, so't's no harm done, I s'pose, to speak afore 'em, though't don't seem hardly fair to take advantage o' their not knowin' any language but their own; but I jest tell you thet I've got a lesson'n the subjeck uv Injuns. I've always hed a reel mean feelin' about 'em; I didn't want ter come nigh 'em, nor ter hev 'em come nigh me. This woman, here, she's ez sweet a creetur's ever I see; 'n' ez bound up 'n thet baby's yer could ask enny woman to be; 'n' 's fur thet man, can't yer see, Jeff, he jest worships the ground she walks on? Thet's a fact, Jeff. I donno's ever I see a white man think so much uv a woman; come, naow, Jeff, d' yer think yer ever did yerself?”
Aunt Ri was excited. The experience was, to her, almost incredible. Her ideas of Indians had been drawn from newspapers, and from a book or two of narratives of massacres, and from an occasional sight of vagabond bands or families they had encountered in their journey across the plains. Here she found herself sitting side by side in friendly intercourse with an Indian man and Indian woman, whose appearance and behavior were attractive; towards whom she felt herself singularly drawn.
“I'm free to confess, Jos,” she said, “I wouldn't ha' bleeved it. I hain't seen nobody, black, white, or gray, sence we left hum, I've took to like these yere folks. An' they're real dark; 's dark's any nigger in Tennessee; 'n' he's pewer Injun; her father wuz white, she sez, but she don't call herself nothin' but an Injun, the same's he is. D' yer notice the way she looks at him, Jos? Don't she jest set a store by thet feller? 'N' I don't blame her.”
Indeed, Jos had noticed. No man was likely to see Ramona with Alessandro without perceiving the rare quality of her devotion to him. And now there was added to this devotion an element of indefinable anxiety which made its vigilance unceasing. Ramona feared for Alessandro's reason. She had hardly put it into words to herself, but the terrible fear dwelt with her. She felt that another blow would be more than he could bear.
The storm lasted only a few hours. When it cleared, the valley was a solid expanse of white, and the stars shone out as if in an Arctic sky.
“It will be all gone by noon to-morrow,” said Alessandro to Jos, who was dreading the next day.
“Not really!” he said.
“You will see,” said Alessandro. “I have often known it thus. It is like death while it lasts; but it is never long.”
The Hyers were on their way to some hot springs on the north side of the valley. Here they proposed to camp for three months, to try the waters for Jos. They had a tent, and all that was necessary for living in their primitive fashion. Aunt Ri was looking forward to the rest with great anticipation; she was heartily tired of being on the move. Her husband's anticipations were of a more stirring nature. He had heard that there was good hunting on San Jacinto Mountain. When he found that Alessandro knew the region thoroughly, and had been thinking of settling there, he was rejoiced, and proposed to him to become his companion and guide in hunting expeditions. Ramona grasped eagerly at the suggestion; companionship, she was sure, would do Alessandro good,--companionship, the outdoor life, and the excitement of hunting, of which he was fond. This hot-spring canon was only a short distance from the Saboba village, of which they had spoken as a possible home; which she had from the first desired to try. She no longer had repugnance to the thought of an Indian village; she already felt a sense of kinship and shelter with any Indian people. She had become, as Carmena had said, “one of them.”
A few days saw the two families settled,--the Hyers in their tent and wagon, at the hot springs, and Alessandro and Ramona, with the baby, in a little adobe house in the Saboba village. The house belonged to an old Indian woman who, her husband having died, had gone to live with a daughter, and was very glad to get a few dollars by renting her own house. It was a wretched place; one small room, walled with poorly made adobe bricks, thatched with tule, no floor, and only one window. When Alessandro heard Ramona say cheerily, “Oh, this will do very well, when it is repaired a little,” his face was convulsed, and he turned away; but he said nothing. It was the only house to be had in the village, and there were few better. Two months later, no one would have known it. Alessandro had had good luck in hunting. Two fine deerskins covered the earth floor; a third was spread over the bedstead; and the horns, hung on the walls, served for hooks to hang clothes upon. The scarlet calico canopy was again set up over the bed, and the woven cradle, on its red manzanita frame, stood near. A small window in the door, and one more cut in the walls, let in light and air. On a shelf near one of these windows stood the little Madonna, again wreathed with vines as in San Pasquale.
When Aunt Ri first saw the room, after it was thus arranged, she put both arms akimbo, and stood in the doorway, her mouth wide open, her eyes full of wonder. Finally her wonder framed itself in an ejaculation: “Wall, I allow yer air fixed up!”
Aunt Ri, at her best estate, had never possessed a room which had the expression of this poor little mud hut of Ramona's. She could not understand it. The more she studied the place, the less she understood it. On returning to the tent, she said to Jos: “It beats all ever I see, the way thet Injun woman's got fixed up out er nothin'. It ain't no more'n a hovel, a mud hovel, Jos, not much bigger'n this yer tent, fur all three on 'em, an' the bed an' the stove an' everythin'; an' I vow, Jos, she's fixed it so't looks jest like a parlor! It beats me, it does. I'd jest like you to see it.”
And when Jos saw it, and Jeff, they were as full of wonder as Aunt Ri had been. Dimly they recognized the existence of a principle here which had never entered into their life. They did not know it by name, and it could not have been either taught, transferred, or explained to the good-hearted wife and mother who had been so many years the affectionate disorderly genius of their home. But they felt its charm; and when, one day, after the return of Alessandro and Jeff from a particularly successful hunt, the two families had sat down together to a supper of Ramona's cooking,--stewed venison and artichokes, and frijoles with chili,--their wonder was still greater.
“Ask her if this is Injun style of cooking, Jos,” said Aunt Ri. “I never thought nothin' o' beans; but these air good, 'n' no mistake!”
Ramona laughed. “No; it is Mexican,” she said. “I learned to cook from an old Mexican woman.”
“Wall, I'd like the receipt on't; but I allow I shouldn't never git the time to fuss with it,” said Aunt Ri; “but I may's well git the rule, naow I'm here.”
Alessandro began to lose some of his gloom. He had earned money. He had been lifted out of himself by kindly companionship; he saw Ramona cheerful, the little one sunny; the sense of home, the strongest passion Alessandro possessed, next to his love for Ramona, began again to awake in him. He began to talk about building a house. He had found things in the village better than he feared. It was but a poverty-stricken little handful, to be sure; still, they were unmolested; the valley was large; their stock ran free; the few white settlers, one at the upper end and two or three on the south side, had manifested no disposition to crowd the Indians; the Ravallo brothers were living on the estate still, and there was protection in that, Alessandro thought. And Majella was content. Majella had found friends. Something, not quite hope, but akin to it, began to stir in Alessandro's heart. He would build a house; Majella should no longer live in this mud hut. But to his surprise, when he spoke of it, Ramona said no; they had all they needed, now. Was not Alessandro comfortable? She was. It would be wise to wait longer before building.
Ramona knew many things that Alessandro did not. While he had been away on his hunts, she had had speech with many a one he never saw. She had gone to the store and post-office several times, to exchange baskets or lace for flour, and she had heard talk there which disquieted her. She did not believe that Saboba was safe. One day she had heard a man say, “If there is a drought we shall have the devil to pay with our stock before winter is over.” “Yes,” said another; “and look at those damned Indians over there in Saboba, with water running all the time in their village! It's a shame they should have that spring!”
Not for worlds would Ramona have told this to Alessandro. She kept it locked in her own breast, but it rankled there like a ceaseless warning and prophecy. When she reached home that day she went down to the spring in the centre of the village, and stood a long time looking at the bubbling water. It was indeed a priceless treasure; a long irrigating ditch led from it down into the bottom, where lay the cultivated fields,--many acres in wheat, barley, and vegetables. Alessandro himself had fields there from which they would harvest all they needed for the horses and their cow all winter, in case pasturage failed. If the whites took away this water, Saboba would be ruined. However, as the spring began in the very heart of the village, they could not take it without destroying the village. “And the Ravallos would surely never let that be done,” thought Ramona. “While they live, it will not happen.”
It was a sad day for Ramona and Alessandro when the kindly Hyers pulled up their tent-stakes and left the valley. Their intended three months had stretched into six, they had so enjoyed the climate, and the waters had seemed to do such good to Jos. But, “We ain't rich folks, yer know, not by a long ways, we ain't,” said Aunt Ri; “an' we've got pretty nigh down to where Jeff an' me's got to begin airnin' suthin'. Ef we kin git settled 'n some o' these towns where there's carpenterin' to be done. Jeff, he's a master hand to thet kind o' work, though yer mightn't think it; 'n I kin airn right smart at weavin'; jest give me a good carpet-loom, 'n I won't be beholden to nobody for vittles. I jest du love weavin'. I donno how I've contented myself this hull year, or nigh about a year, without a loom. Jeff, he sez to me once, sez he, 'Ri, do yer think yer'd be contented in heaven without yer loom?' an' I was free to say I didn't know's I should.”
“Is it hard?” cried Ramona. “Could I learn to do it?” It was wonderful what progress in understanding and speaking English Ramona had made in these six months. She now understood nearly all that was said directly to her, though she could not follow general and confused conversation.
“Wall, 'tis, an' 'tain't,” said Aunt Ri. “I don't s'pose I'm much of a jedge; fur I can't remember when I fust learned it. I know I set in the loom to weave when my feet couldn't reach the floor; an' I don't remember nothin' about fust learnin' to spool 'n' warp. I've tried to teach lots of folks; an' sum learns quick, an' some don't never learn; it's jest 's 't strikes 'em. I should think, naow, thet you wuz one o' the kind could turn yer hands to anythin'. When we get settled in San Bernardino, if yer'll come down thar, I'll teach yer all I know, 'n' be glad ter. I donno's 't 's goin' to be much uv a place for carpet-weavin' though, anywheres raound 'n this yer country; not but what thar's plenty o' rags, but folks seems to be wearin' 'em; pooty gen'ral wear, I sh'd say. I've seen more cloes on folks' backs hyar, thet wan't no more'n fit for carpet-rags, than any place ever I struck. They're drefful sheftless lot, these yere Mexicans; 'n' the Injuns is wuss. Naow when I say Injuns, I don't never mean yeow, yer know thet. Yer ain't ever seemed to me one mite like an Injun.”
“Most of our people haven't had any chance,” said Ramona. “You wouldn't believe if I were to tell you what things have been done to them; how they are robbed, and cheated, and turned out of their homes.”
Then she told the story of Temecula, and of San Pasquale, in Spanish, to Jos, who translated it with no loss in the telling. Aunt Ri was aghast; she found no words to express her indignation.
“I don't bleeve the Guvvermunt knows anything about it.” she said. “Why, they take folks up, n'n penetentiarize 'em fur life, back 'n Tennessee, fur things thet ain't so bad's thet! Somebody ought ter be sent ter tell 'em 't Washington what's goin' on hyar.”
“I think it's the people in Washington that have done it,” said Ramona, sadly. “Is it not in Washington all the laws are made?”
“I bleeve so!” said Aunt Ri, “Ain't it, Jos? It's Congress ain't 't, makes the laws?”
“I bleeve so.” said Jos. “They make some, at any rate. I donno's they make 'em all.”
“It is all done by the American law,” said Ramona, “all these things; nobody can help himself; for if anybody goes against the law he has to be killed or put in prison; that was what the sheriff told Alessandro, at Temecula. He felt very sorry for the Temecula people, the sheriff did; but he had to obey the law himself. Alessandro says there isn't any help.”
Aunt Ri shook her head. She was not convinced. “I sh'll make a business o' findin' out abaout this thing yit,” she said. “I think yer hain't got the rights on't yit. There's cheatin' somewhere!”
“It's all cheating.” said Ramona; “but there isn't any help for it, Aunt Ri. The Americans think it is no shame to cheat for money.”
“I'm an Ummeriken!” cried Aunt Ri; “an' Jeff Hyer, and Jos! We're Ummerikens! 'n' we wouldn't cheat nobody, not ef we knowed it, not out er a doller. We're pore, an' I allus expect to be, but we're above cheatin'; an' I tell you, naow, the Ummeriken people don't want any o' this cheatin' done, naow! I'm going to ask Jeff haow 'tis. Why, it's a burnin' shame to any country! So 'tis! I think something oughter be done abaout it! I wouldn't mind goin' myself, ef thar wan't anybody else!”
A seed had been sown in Aunt Ri's mind which was not destined to die for want of soil. She was hot with shame and anger, and full of impulse to do something. “I ain't nobody,” she said; “I know thet well enough,--I ain't nobody nor nothin'; but I allow I've got suthin' to say abaout the country I live in, 'n' the way things hed oughter be; or 't least Jeff hez; 'n' thet's the same thing. I tell yer, Jos, I ain't goin' to rest, nor ter give yeou 'n' yer father no rest nuther, till yeou find aout what all this yere means she's been tellin' us.”
But sharper and closer anxieties than any connected with rights to lands and homes were pressing upon Alessandro and Ramona. All summer the baby had been slowly drooping; so slowly that it was each day possible for Ramona to deceive herself, thinking that there had been since yesterday no loss, perhaps a little gain; but looking back from the autumn to the spring, and now from the winter to the autumn, there was no doubt that she had been steadily going down. From the day of that terrible chill in the snow-storm, she had never been quite well, Ramona thought. Before that, she was strong, always strong, always beautiful and merry, Now her pinched little face was sad to see, and sometimes for hours she made a feeble wailing cry without any apparent cause. All the simple remedies that Aunt Ri had known, had failed to touch her disease; in fact, Aunt Ri from the first had been baffled in her own mind by the child's symptoms. Day after day Alessandro knelt by the cradle, his hands clasped, his face set. Hour after hour, night and day, indoors and out, he bore her in his arms, trying to give her relief. Prayer after prayer to the Virgin, to the saints, Ramona had said; and candles by the dozen, though money was now scant, she had burned before the Madonna; all in vain. At last she implored Alessandro to go to San Bernardino and see a doctor. “Find Aunt Ri,” she said; “she will go with you, with Jos, and talk to him; she can make him understand. Tell Aunt Ri she seems just as she did when they were here, only weaker and thinner.”
Alessandro found Aunt Ri in a sort of shanty on the outskirts of San Bernardino. “Not to rights yit,” she said,--as if she ever would be. Jeff had found work; and Jos, too, had been able to do a little on pleasant days. He had made a loom and put up a loom-house for his mother,--a floor just large enough to hold the loom, rough walls, and a roof; one small square window,--that was all; but if Aunt Ri had been presented with a palace, she would not have been so well pleased. Already she had woven a rag carpet for herself, was at work on one for a neighbor, and had promised as many more as she could do before spring; the news of the arrival of a rag-carpet weaver having gone with despatch all through the lower walks of San Bernardino life. “I wouldn't hev bleeved they hed so many rags besides what they're wearin',” said Aunt Ri, as sack after sack appeared at her door. Already, too, Aunt Ri had gathered up the threads of the village life; in her friendly, impressionable way she had come into relation with scores of people, and knew who was who, and what was what, and why, among them all, far better than many an old resident of the town.
When she saw Benito galloping up to her door, she sprang down from her high stool at the loom, and ran bareheaded to the gate, and before Alessandro had dismounted, cried: “Ye're jest the man I wanted; I've been tryin' to 'range it so's we could go down 'n' see yer, but Jeff couldn't leave the job he's got; an' I'm druv nigh abaout off my feet, 'n' I donno when we'd hev fetched it. How's all? Why didn't yer come in ther wagon 'n' fetch 'em 'long? I've got heaps ter tell yer. I allowed yer hadn't got the rights o' all them things. The Guvvermunt ain't on the side o' the thieves, as yer said. I knowed they couldn't be,' an' they've jest sent out a man a purpose to look after things fur yer,--to take keer o' the Injuns 'n' nothin' else. That's what he's here fur. He come last month; he's a reel nice man. I seen him 'n' talked with him a spell, last week; I'm gwine to make his wife a rag carpet. 'N' there's a doctor, too, to 'tend ter yer when ye're sick, 'n' the Guvvermunt pays him; yer don't hev to pay nothin'; 'n' I tell yeow, thet's a heap o' savin', to git yer docterin' fur nuthin'!”
Aunt Ri was out of breath. Alessandro had not understood half she said. He looked about helplessly for Jos. Jos was away. In his broken English he tried to explain what Ramona had wished her to do.
“Doctor! Thet's jest what I'm tellin' yer! There is one here's paid by the Guvvermunt to 'tend to the Injuns thet's sick. I'll go 'n' show yer ter his house. I kin tell him jest how the baby is. P'r'aps he'll drive down 'n' see her!”
Ah! if he would! What would Majella say, should she see him enter the door bringing a doctor!
Luckily Jos returned in time to go with them to the doctor's house as interpreter. Alessandro was bewildered. He could not understand this new phase of affairs, Could it be true? As they walked along, he listened with trembling, half-incredulous hope to Jos's interpretation of Aunt Ri's voluble narrative.
The doctor was in his office. To Aunt Ri's statement of Alessandro's errand he listened indifferently, and then said, “Is he an Agency Indian?”
“A what?” exclaimed Aunt Ri.
“Does he belong to the Agency? Is his name on the Agency books?”
“No,” said she; “he never heern uv any Agency till I wuz tellin' him, jest naow. We knoo him, him 'n' her, over 'n San Jacinto. He lives in Saboba. He's never been to San Bernardino sence the Agent come aout.”
“Well, is he going to put his name down on the books?” said the doctor, impatiently. “You ought to have taken him to the Agent first.”
“Ain't you the Guvvermunt doctor for all Injuns?” asked Aunt Ri, wrathfully. “Thet's what I heerd.”
“Well, my good woman, you hear a great deal, I expect, that isn't true;” and the doctor laughed coarsely but not ill-naturedly, Alessandro all the time studying his face with the scrutiny of one awaiting life and death; “I am the Agency physician, and I suppose all the Indians will sooner or later come in and report themselves to the Agent; you'd better take this man over there. What does he want now?”
Aunt Ri began to explain the baby's case. Cutting her short, the doctor said, “Yes, yes, I understand. I'll give him something that will help her;” and going into an inner room, he brought out a bottle of dark-colored liquid, wrote a few lines of prescription, and handed it to Alessandro, saying, “That will do her good, I guess.”
“Thanks, Senor, thanks,” said Alessandro.
The doctor stared. “That's the first Indian's said 'Thank you' in this office,” he said. “You tell the Agent you've brought him a rara avis.”
“What's that, Jos?” said Aunt Ri, as they went out.
“Donno!” said Jos. “I don't like thet man, anyhow, mammy. He's no good.”
Alessandro looked at the bottle of medicine like one in a dream. Would it make the baby well? Had it indeed been given to him by that great Government in Washington? Was he to be protected now? Could this man, who had been sent out to take care of Indians, get back his San Pasquale farm for him? Alessandro's brain was in a whirl.
From the doctor's office they went to the Agent's house. Here, Aunt Ri felt herself more at home.
“I've brought ye thet Injun I wuz tellin' ye uv,” she said, with a wave of her hand toward Alessandro. “We've ben ter ther doctor's to git some metcen fur his baby. She's reel sick, I'm afeerd.”
The Agent sat down at his desk, opened a large ledger, saying as he did so, “The man's never been here before, has he?”
“No,” said Aunt Ri.
“What is his name?”
Jos gave it, and the Agent began to write it in the book. “Stop him.” cried Alessandro, agitatedly to Jos. “Don't let him write, till I know what he puts my name in his book for!”
“Wait,” said Jos. “He doesn't want you to write his name in that book. He wants to know what it's put there for.”
Wheeling his chair with a look of suppressed impatience, yet trying to speak kindly, the Agent said: “There's no making these Indians understand anything. They seem to think if I have their names in my book, it gives me some power over them.”
“Wall, don't it?” said the direct-minded Aunt Ri. “Hain't yer got any power over 'em? If yer hain't got it over them, who have yer got it over? What yer goin' to do for 'em?”
The Agent laughed in spite of himself. “Well, Aunt Ri,”--she was already “Aunt Ri” to the Agent's boys,--“that's just the trouble with this Agency. It is very different from what it would be if I had all my Indians on a reservation.”
Alessandro understood the words “my Indians.” He had heard them before.
“What does he mean by his Indians, Jos?” he asked fiercely. “I will not have my name in his book if it makes me his.”
When Jos reluctantly interpreted this, the Agent lost his temper. “That's all the use there is trying to do anything with them! Let him go, then, if he doesn't want any help from the Government!”
“Oh, no, no.” cried Aunt Ri. “Yeow jest explain it to Jos, an' he'll make him understand.”
Alessandro's face had darkened. All this seemed to him exceedingly suspicious. Could it be possible that Aunt Ri and Jos, the first whites except Mr. Hartsel he had ever trusted, were deceiving him? No; that was impossible. But they themselves might be deceived. That they were simple and ignorant, Alessandro well knew. “Let us go!” he said. “I do not wish to sign any paper.”
“Naow don't be a fool, will yeow? Yeow ain't signin' a thing!” said Aunt Ri. “Jos, yeow tell him I say there ain't anythin' a bindin' him, hevin' his name 'n' thet book, It's only so the Agent kin know what Injuns wants help, 'n' where they air. Ain't thet so?” she added, turning to the Agent. “Tell him he can't hev the Agency doctor, ef he ain't on the Agency books.”
Not have the doctor? Give up this precious medicine which might save his baby's life? No! he could not do that. Majella would say, let the name be written, rather than that.
“Let him write the name, then,” said Alessandro, doggedly; but he went out of the room feeling as if he had put a chain around his neck.
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
23
|
None
|
THE medicine did the baby no good. In fact, it did her harm. She was too feeble for violent remedies. In a week, Alessandro appeared again at the Agency doctor's door. This time he had come with a request which to his mind seemed not unreasonable. He had brought Baba for the doctor to ride. Could the doctor then refuse to go to Saboba? Baba would carry him there in three hours, and it would be like a cradle all the way. Alessandro's name was in the Agency books. It was for this he had written it,--for this and nothing else,--to save the baby's life. Having thus enrolled himself as one of the Agency Indians, he had a claim on this the Agency doctor. And that his application might be all in due form, he took with him the Agency interpreter. He had had a misgiving, before, that Aunt Ri's kindly volubility had not been well timed. Not one unnecessary word, was Alessandro's motto.
To say that the Agency doctor was astonished at being requested to ride thirty miles to prescribe for an ailing Indian baby, would be a mild statement of the doctor's emotion. He could hardly keep from laughing, when it was made clear to him that this was what the Indian father expected.
“Good Lord!” he said, turning to a crony who chanced to be lounging in the office. “Listen to that beggar, will you? I wonder what he thinks the Government pays me a year for doctoring Indians!”
Alessandro listened so closely it attracted the doctor's attention. “Do you understand English?” he asked sharply.
“A very little, Senor,” replied Alessandro.
The doctor would be more careful in his speech, then. But he made it most emphatically clear that the thing Alessandro had asked was not only out of the question, but preposterous. Alessandro pleaded. For the child's sake he could do it. The horse was at the door; there was no such horse in San Bernardino County; he went like the wind, and one would not know he was in motion, it was so easy. Would not the doctor come down and look at the horse? Then he would see what it would be like to ride him.
“Oh, I've seen plenty of your Indian ponies,” said the doctor. “I know they can run.”
Alessandro lingered. He could not give up this last hope. The tears came into his eyes. “It is our only child, Senor,” he said. “It will take you but six hours in all. My wife counts the moments till you come! If the child dies, she will die.”
“No! no!” The doctor was weary of being importuned. “Tell the man it is impossible! I'd soon have my hands full, if I began to go about the country this way. They'd be sending for me down to Agua Caliente next, and bringing up their ponies to carry me.”
“He will not go?” asked Alessandro.
The interpreter shook his head. “He cannot,” he said.
Without a word Alessandro left the room. Presently he returned. “Ask him if he will come for money?” he said. “I have gold at home. I will pay him, what the white men pay him.”
“Tell him no man of any color could pay me for going sixty miles!” said the doctor.
And Alessandro departed again, walking so slowly, however, that he heard the coarse laugh, and the words, “Gold! Looked like it, didn't he?” which followed his departure from the room.
When Ramona saw him returning alone, she wrung her hands. Her heart seemed breaking. The baby had lain in a sort of stupor since noon; she was plainly worse, and Ramona had been going from the door to the cradle, from the cradle to the door, for an hour, looking each moment for the hoped-for aid. It had not once crossed her mind that the doctor would not come. She had accepted in much fuller faith than Alessandro the account of the appointment by the Government of these two men to look after the Indians' interests. What else could their coming mean, except that, at last, the Indians were to have justice? She thought, in her simplicity, that the doctor must have died, since Alessandro was riding home alone.
“He would not come!” said Alessandro, as he threw himself off his horse, wearily.
“Would not!” cried Ramona. “Would not! Did you not say the Government had sent him to be the doctor for Indians?”
“That was what they said,” he replied. “You see it is a lie, like the rest! But I offered him gold, and he would not come then. The child must die, Majella!”
“She shall not die!” cried Ramona. “We will carry her to him!” The thought struck them both as an inspiration. Why had they not thought of it before? “You can fasten the cradle on Baba's back, and he will go so gently, she will think it is but play; and I will walk by her side, or you, all the way!” she continued. “And we can sleep at Aunt Ri's house. Oh, why, why did we not do it before? Early in the morning we will start.”
All through the night they sat watching the little creature. If they had ever seen death, they would have known that there was no hope for the child. But how should Ramona and Alessandro know?
The sun rose bright and warm. Before it was up, the cradle was ready, ingeniously strapped on Baba's back. When the baby was placed in it, she smiled. “The first smile she has given for days,” cried Ramona. “Oh, the air itself will do good to her! Let me walk by her first! Come, Baba! Dear Baba!” and Ramona stepped almost joyfully by the horse's side, Alessandro riding Benito. As they paced along, their eyes never leaving the baby's face, Ramona said, in a low tone, “Alessandro, I am almost afraid to tell you what I have done. I took the little Jesus out of the Madonna's arms and hid it! Did you never hear, that if you do that, the Madonna will grant you anything, to get him back again in her arms' Did you ever hear of it?”
“Never!” exclaimed Alessandro, with horror in his tone. “Never, Majella! How dared you?”
“I dare anything now!” said Ramona. “I have been thinking to do it for some days, and to tell her she could not have him any more till she gave me back the baby well and strong; but I knew I could not have courage to sit and look at her all lonely without him in her arms, so I did not do it. But now we are to be away, I thought, that is the time; and I told her, 'When we come back with our baby well, you shall have your little Jesus again, too; now, Holy Mother, you go with us, and make the doctor cure our baby!' Oh, I have heard, many times, women tell the Senora they had done this, and always they got what they wanted. Never will she let the Jesus be out of her arms more than three weeks before she will grant any prayer one can make. It was that way she brought you to me, Alessandro. I never before told you. I was afraid. I think she had brought you sooner, but I could keep the little Jesus hid from her only at night. In the day I could not, because the Senora would see. So she did not miss him so much; else she had brought you quicker.”
“But, Majella,” said the logical Alessandro, “it was because I could not leave my father that I did not come. As soon as he was buried, I came.”
“If it had not been for the Virgin, you would never have come at all,” said Ramona, confidently.
For the first hour of this sad journey it seemed as if the child were really rallying; the air, the sunlight, the novel motion, the smiling mother by her side, the big black horses she had already learned to love, all roused her to an animation she had not shown for days. But it was only the last flicker of the expiring flame. The eyes drooped, closed; a strange pallor came over the face. Alessandro saw it first. He was now walking, Ramona riding Benito. “Majella!” he cried, in a tone which told her all.
In a second she was at the baby's side, with a cry which smote the dying child's consciousness. Once more the eyelids lifted; she knew her mother; a swift spasm shook the little frame; a convulsion as of agony swept over the face, then it was at peace. Ramona's shrieks were heart-rending. Fiercely she put Alessandro away from her, as he strove to caress her. She stretched her arms up towards the sky. “I have killed her! I have killed her!” she cried. “Oh, let me die!”
Slowly Alessandro turned Baba's head homeward again.
“Oh, give her to me! Let her lie on my breast! I will hold her warm!” gasped Ramona.
Silently Alessandro laid the body in her arms. He had not spoken since his first cry of alarm, If Ramona had looked at him, she would have forgotten her grief for her dead child. Alessandro's face seemed turned to stone.
When they reached the house, Ramona, laying the child on the bed, ran hastily to a corner of the room, and lifting the deerskin, drew from its hiding-place the little wooden Jesus. With tears streaming, she laid it again in the Madonna's arms, and flinging herself on her knees, sobbed out prayers for forgiveness. Alessandro stood at the foot of the bed, his arms folded, his eyes riveted on the child. Soon he went out, still without speaking. Presently Ramona heard the sound of a saw. She groaned aloud, and her tears flowed faster: Alessandro was making the baby's coffin. Mechanically she rose, and, moving like one half paralyzed, she dressed the little one in fresh white clothes for the burial; then laying her in the cradle, she spread over it the beautiful lace-wrought altar-cloth. As she adjusted its folds, her mind was carried back to the time when she embroidered it, sitting on the Senora's veranda; the song of the finches, the linnets; the voice and smile of Felipe; Alessandro sitting on the steps, drawing divine music from his violin. Was that she,--that girl who sat there weaving the fine threads in the beautiful altar-cloth? Was it a hundred years ago? Was it another world? Was it Alessandro yonder, driving those nails into a coffin? How the blows rang, louder and louder! The air seemed deafening full of sound. With her hands pressed to her temples, Ramona sank to the floor. A merciful unconsciousness set her free, for an interval, from her anguish.
When she opened her eyes, she was lying on the bed. Alessandro had lifted her and laid her there, making no effort to rouse her. He thought she would die too; and even that thought did not stir him from his lethargy. When she opened her eyes, and looked at him, he did not speak. She closed them. He did not move. Presently she opened them again. “I heard you out there,” she said.
“Yes,” he replied. “It is done.” And he pointed to a little box of rough boards by the side of the cradle.
“Is Majella ready to go to the mountain now?” he asked.
“Yes, Alessandro, I am ready,” she said.
“We will hide forever,” he said.
“It makes no difference,” she replied.
The Saboba women did not know what to think of Ramona now. She had never come into sympathetic relations with them, as she had with the women of San Pasquale. Her intimacy with the Hyers had been a barrier the Saboba people could not surmount. No one could be on such terms with whites, and be at heart an Indian, they thought; so they held aloof from Ramona. But now in her bereavement they gathered round her. They wept at sight of the dead baby's face, lying in its tiny white coffin. Ramona had covered the box with white cloth, and the lace altar-cloth thrown over it fell in folds to the floor. “Why does not this mother weep? Is she like the whites, who have no heart?” said the Saboba mothers among themselves; and they were embarrassed before her, and knew not what to say. Ramona perceived it, but had no life in her to speak to them. Benumbing terrors, which were worse than her grief, were crowding Ramona's heart now. She had offended the Virgin; she had committed a blasphemy: in one short hour the Virgin had punished her, had smitten her child dead before her eyes. And now Alessandro was going mad; hour by hour Ramona fancied she saw changes in him. What form would the Virgin's vengeance take next? Would she let Alessandro become a raging madman, and finally kill both himself and her? That seemed to Ramona the most probable fate in store for them. When the funeral was over, and they returned to their desolate home, at the sight of the empty cradle Ramona broke down.
“Oh, take me away, Alessandro! Anywhere! I don't care where! anywhere, so it is not here!” she cried.
“Would Majella be afraid, now, on the high mountain, the place I told her of?” he said.
“No!” she replied earnestly. “No! I am afraid of nothing! Only take me away!”
A gleam of wild delight flitted across Alessandro's face. “It is well,” he said. “My Majella, we will go to the mountain; we will be safe there.”
The same fierce restlessness which took possession of him at San Pasquale again showed itself in his every act. His mind was unceasingly at work, planning the details of their move and of the new life. He mentioned them one after another to Ramona. They could not take both horses; feed would be scanty there, and there would be no need of two horses. The cow also they must give up. Alessandro would kill her, and the meat, dried, would last them for a long time. The wagon he hoped he could sell; and he would buy a few sheep; sheep and goats could live well in these heights to which they were going. Safe at last! Oh, yes, very safe; not only against whites, who, because the little valley was so small and bare, would not desire it, but against Indians also. For the Indians, silly things, had a terror of the upper heights of San Jacinto; they believed the Devil lived there, and money would not hire one of the Saboba Indians to go so high as this valley which Alessandro had discovered. Fiercely he gloated over each one of these features of safety in their hiding-place. “The first time I saw it, Majella,--I believe the saints led me there,--I said, it is a hiding-place. And then I never thought I would be in want of such,--of a place to keep my Majella safe! safe! Oh, my Majel!” And he clasped her to his breast with a terrifying passion.
For an Indian to sell a horse and wagon in the San Jacinto valley was not an easy thing, unless he would give them away. Alessandro had hard work to give civil answers to the men who wished to buy Benito and the wagon for quarter of their value. He knew they would not have dared to so much as name such prices to a white man. Finally Ramona, who had felt unconquerable misgivings as to the wisdom of thus irrevocably parting from their most valuable possessions, persuaded him to take both horses and wagon to San Bernardino, and offer them to the Hyers to use for the winter.
It would be just the work for Jos, to keep him in the open air, if he could get teaming to do; she was sure he would be thankful for the chance. “He is as fond of the horses as we are ourselves, Alessandro,” she said. “They would be well cared for; and then, if we did not like living on the mountain, we could have the horses and wagon again when we came down, or Jos could sell them for us in San Bernardino. Nobody could see Benito and Baba working together, and not want them.”
“Majella is wiser than the dove!” cried Alessandro. “She has seen what is the best thing to do. I will take them.”
When he was ready to set off, he implored Ramona to go with him; but with a look of horror she refused. “Never,” she cried, “one step on that accursed road! I will never go on that road again unless it is to be carried, as we brought her, dead.”
Neither did Ramona wish to see Aunt Ri. Her sympathy would be intolerable, spite of all its affectionate kindliness. “Tell her I love her,” she said, “but I do not want to see a human being yet; next year perhaps we will go down,--if there is any other way besides that road.”
Aunt Ri was deeply grieved. She could not understand Ramona's feeling. It rankled deep. “I allow I'd never hev bleeved it uv her, never,” she said. “I shan't never think she wuz quite right 'n her head, to do 't! I allow we shan't never set eyes on ter her, Jos. I've got jest thet feelin' abaout it. 'Pears like she'd gone klar out 'er this yer world inter anuther.”
The majestic bulwark of San Jacinto Mountain looms in the southern horizon of the San Bernardino valley. It was in full sight from the door of the little shanty in which Aunt Ri's carpet-loom stood. As she sat there hour after hour, sometimes seven hours to the day, working the heavy treadle, and slipping the shuttle back and forth, she gazed with tender yearnings at the solemn, shining summit. When sunset colors smote it, it glowed like fire; on cloudy days, it was lost in the clouds.
“'Pears like 'twas next door to heaven, up there, Jos,” Aunt Ri would say. “I can't tell yer the feelin' 't comes over me, to look up 't it, ever sence I knowed she wuz there. ' T shines enuf to put yer eyes aout, sometimes; I allow 'tain't so light's thet when you air into 't; 't can't be; ther couldn't nobody stan' it, ef 't wuz. I allow 't must be like bein' dead, Jos, don't yer think so, to be livin' thar? He sed ther couldn't nobody git to 'em. Nobody ever seed the place but hisself. He found it a huntin'. Thar's water thar, 'n' thet's abaout all thar is, fur's I cud make aout; I allow we shan't never see her agin.”
The horses and the wagon were indeed a godsend to Jos. It was the very thing he had been longing for; the only sort of work he was as yet strong enough to do, and there was plenty of it to be had in San Bernardino. But the purchase of a wagon suitable for the purpose was at present out of their power; the utmost Aunt Ri had hoped to accomplish was to have, at the end of a year, a sufficient sum laid up to buy one. They had tried in vain to exchange their heavy emigrant-wagon for one suitable for light work. “'Pears like I'd die o' shame,” said Aunt Ri, “sometimes when I ketch myself er thinkin' what luck et's ben to Jos, er gettin' thet Injun's hosses an' waggin. But ef Jos keeps on, airnin' ez much ez he hez so fur, he's goin' ter pay the Injun part on 't, when he cums. I allow ter Jos 'tain't no more'n fair. Why, them hosses, they'll dew good tew days' work'n one. I never see sech hosses; 'n' they're jest like kittens; they've ben drefful pets, I allow. I know she set all the world, 'n' more tew, by thet nigh one. He wuz hern, ever sence she wuz a child. Pore thing,--'pears like she hedn't hed no chance!”
Alessandro had put off, from day to day, the killing of the cow. It went hard with him to slaughter the faithful creature, who knew him, and came towards him at the first sound of his voice. He had pastured her, since the baby died, in a canon about three miles northeast of the village,--a lovely green canon with oak-trees and a running brook. It was here that he had thought of building his house if they had stayed in Saboba. But Alessandro laughed bitterly to himself now, as he recalled that dream. Already the news had come to Saboba that a company had been formed for the settling up of the San Jacinto valley; the Ravallo brothers had sold to this company a large grant of land. The white ranchmen in the valley were all fencing in their lands; no more free running of stock. The Saboba people were too poor to build miles of fencing; they must soon give up keeping stock; and the next thing would be that they would be driven out, like the people of Temecula. It was none too soon that he had persuaded Majella to flee to the mountain. There, at least, they could live and die in peace,--a poverty-stricken life, and the loneliest of deaths; but they would have each other. It was well the baby had died; she was saved all this misery. By the time she had grown to be a woman, if she had lived, there would be no place in all the country where an Indian could find refuge. Brooding over such thoughts as these, Alessandro went up into the canon one morning. It must be done. Everything was ready for their move; it would take many days to carry even their few possessions up the steep mountain trail to their new home; the pony which had replaced Benito and Baba could not carry a heavy load. While this was being done, Ramona would dry the beef which would be their supply of meat for many months. Then they would go.
At noon he came down with the first load of the meat, and Ramona began cutting it into long strips, as is the Mexican fashion of drying. Alessandro returned for the remainder. Early in the afternoon, as Ramona went to and fro about her work, she saw a group of horsemen riding from house to house, in the upper part of the village; women came running out excitedly from each house as the horsemen left it; finally one of them darted swiftly up the hill to Ramona. “Hide it! hide it!” she cried, breathless; “hide the meat! It is Merrill's men, from the end of the valley. They have lost a steer, and they say we stole it. They found the place, with blood on it, where it was killed; and they say we did it. Oh, hide the meat! They took all that Fernando had; and it was his own, that he bought; he did not know anything about their steer!”
“I shall not hide it!” cried Ramona, indignantly. “It is our own cow. Alessandro killed it to-day.”
“They won't believe you!” said the woman, in distress. “They'll take it all away. Oh, hide some of it!” And she dragged a part of it across the floor, and threw it under the bed, Ramona standing by, stupefied.
Before she had spoken again, the forms of the galloping riders darkened the doorway; the foremost of them, leaping off his horse, exclaimed: “By God! here's the rest of it. If they ain't the damnedest impudent thieves! Look at this woman, cutting it up! Put that down, will you? We'll save you the trouble of dryin' our meat for us, besides killin' it! Fork over, now, every bit you've got, you--” And he called Ramona by a vile epithet.
Every drop of blood left Ramona's face. Her eyes blazed, and she came forward with the knife uplifted in her hand. “Out of my house, you dogs of the white color!” she said. “This meat is our own; my husband killed the creature but this morning.”
Her tone and bearing surprised them. There were six of the men, and they had all swarmed into the little room.
“I say, Merrill,” said one of them, “hold on; the squaw says her husband only jest killed it to-day. It might be theirs.”
Ramona turned on him like lightning. “Are you liars, you all,” she cried, “that you think I lie? I tell you the meat is ours; and there is not an Indian in this village would steal cattle!”
A derisive shout of laughter from all the men greeted this speech; and at that second, the leader, seeing the mark of blood where the Indian woman had dragged the meat across the ground, sprang to the bed, and lifting the deerskin, pointed with a sneer to the beef hidden there. “Perhaps, when you know Injun's well's I do,” he said, “you won't be for believin' all they say! What's she got it hid under the bed for, if it was their own cow?” and he stooped to drag the meat out. “Give us a hand here, Jake!”
“If you touch it, I will kill you!” cried Ramona, beside herself with rage; and she sprang between the men, her uplifted knife gleaming.
“Hoity-toity!” cried Jake, stepping back; “that's a handsome squaw when she's mad! Say, boys, let's leave her some of the meat. She wasn't to blame; of course, she believes what her husband told her.”
“You go to grass for a soft-head, you Jake!” muttered Merrill, as he dragged the meat out from beneath the bed.
“What is all this?” said a deep voice in the door; and Ramona, turning, with a glad cry, saw Alessandro standing there, looking on, with an expression which, even in her own terror and indignation, gave her a sense of dread, it was so icily defiant. He had his hand on his gun. “What is all this?” he repeated. He knew very well.
“It's that Temecula man,” said one of the men, in a low tone, to Merrill. “If I'd known 't was his house, I wouldn't have let you come here. You're up the wrong tree, sure!”
Merrill dropped the meat he was dragging over the floor, and turned to confront Alessandro's eyes. His countenance fell. Even he saw that he had made a mistake. He began to speak. Alessandro interrupted him. Alessandro could speak forcibly in Spanish. Pointing to his pony, which stood at the door with a package on its back, the remainder of the meat rolled in the hide, he said: “There is the remainder of the beef. I killed the creature this morning, in the canon. I will take Senor Merrill to the place, if he wishes it. Senor Merrill's steer was killed down in the willows yonder, yesterday.”
“That's so!” cried the men, gathering around him. “How did you know? Who did it?”
Alessandro made no reply. He was looking at Ramona. She had flung her shawl over her head, as the other woman had done, and the two were cowering in the corner, their faces turned away. Ramona dared not look on; she felt sure Alessandro would kill some one. But this was not the type of outrage that roused Alessandro to dangerous wrath. He even felt a certain enjoyment in the discomfiture of the self-constituted posse of searchers for stolen goods. To all their questions in regard to the stolen steer, he maintained silence. He would not open his lips. At last, angry, ashamed, with a volley of coarse oaths at him for his obstinacy, they rode away. Alessandro went to Ramona's side. She was trembling. Her hands were like ice.
“Let us go to the mountain to-night!” she gasped. “Take me where I need never see a white face again!”
A melancholy joy gleamed in Alessandro's eyes. Ramona, at last, felt as he did.
“I would not dare to leave Majella there alone, while there is no house,” he said; “and I must go and come many times, before all the things can be carried.”
“It will be less danger there than here, Alessandro,” said Ramona, bursting into violent weeping as she recalled the insolent leer with which the man Jake had looked at her. “Oh! I cannot stay here!”
“It will not be many days, my Majel. I will borrow Fernando's pony, to take double at once; then we can go sooner.”
“Who was it stole that man's steer?” said Ramona. “Why did you not tell them? They looked as if they would kill you.”
“It was that Mexican that lives in the bottom, Jose Castro. I myself came on him, cutting the steer up. He said it was his; but I knew very well, by the way he spoke, he was lying. But why should I tell? They think only Indians will steal cattle. I can tell them, the Mexicans steal more.”
“I told them there was not an Indian in this village would steal cattle,” said Ramona, indignantly.
“That was not true, Majella,” replied Alessandro, sadly. “When they are very hungry, they will steal a heifer or steer. They lose many themselves, and they say it is not so much harm to take one when they can get it. This man Merrill, they say, branded twenty steers for his own, last spring, when he knew they were Saboba cattle!”
“Why did they not make him give them up?” cried Ramona.
“Did not Majella see to-day why they can do nothing? There is no help for us, Majella, only to hide; that is all we can do!”
A new terror had entered into Ramona's life; she dared not tell it to Alessandro; she hardly put it into words in her thoughts. But she was haunted by the face of the man Jake, as by a vision of evil, and on one pretext and another she contrived to secure the presence of some one of the Indian women in her house whenever Alessandro was away. Every day she saw the man riding past. Once he had galloped up to the open door, looked in, spoken in a friendly way to her, and ridden on. Ramona's instinct was right. Jake was merely biding his time. He had made up his mind to settle in the San Jacinto valley, at least for a few years, and he wished to have an Indian woman come to live with him and keep his house. Over in Santa Ysabel, his brother had lived in that way with an Indian mistress for three years; and when he sold out, and left Santa Ysabel, he had given the woman a hundred dollars and a little house for herself and her child. And she was not only satisfied, but held herself, in consequence of this temporary connection with a white man, much above her Indian relatives and friends. When an Indian man had wished to marry her, she had replied scornfully that she would never marry an Indian; she might marry another white man, but an Indian,--never. Nobody had held his brother in any less esteem for this connection; it was quite the way in the country. And if Jake could induce this handsomest squaw he had ever seen, to come and live with him in a smaller fashion, he would consider himself a lucky man, and also think he was doing a good thing for the squaw. It was all very clear and simple in his mind; and when, seeing Ramona walking alone in the village one morning, he overtook her, and walking by her side began to sound her on the subject, he had small misgivings as to the result. Ramona trembled as he approached her. She walked faster, and would not look at him; but he, in his ignorance, misinterpreted these signs egregiously.
“Are you married to your husband?” he finally said. “It is but a poor place he gives you to live in. If you will come and live with me, you shall have the best house in the valley, as good as the Ravallos'; and--” Jake did not finish his sentence. With a cry which haunted his memory for years, Ramona sprang from his side as if to run; then, halting suddenly, she faced him, her eyes like javelins, her breath coming fast. “Beast!” she said, and spat towards him; then turned and fled to the nearest house, where she sank on the floor and burst into tears, saying that the man below there in the road had been rude to her. Yes, the women said, he was a bad man; they all knew it. Of this Ramona said no word to Alessandro. She dared not; she believed he would kill Jake.
When the furious Jake confided to his friend Merrill his repulse, and the indignity accompanying it, Merrill only laughed at him, and said: “I could have told you better than to try that woman. She's married, fast enough. There's plenty you can get, though, if you want 'em. They're first-rate about a house, and jest's faithful's dogs. You can trust 'em with every dollar you've got.”
From this day, Ramona never knew an instant's peace or rest till she stood on the rim of the refuge valley, high on San Jacinto. Then, gazing around, looking up at the lofty pinnacles above, which seemed to pierce the sky, looking down upon the world,--it seemed the whole world, so limitless it stretched away at her feet,--feeling that infinite unspeakable sense of nearness to Heaven, remoteness from earth which comes only on mountain heights, she drew in a long breath of delight, and cried: “At last! at last, Alessandro! Here we are safe! This is freedom! This is joy!”
“Can Majella be content?” he asked.
“I can almost be glad, Alessandro!” she cried, inspired by the glorious scene. “I dreamed not it was like this!”
It was a wondrous valley. The mountain seemed to have been cleft to make it. It lay near midway to the top, and ran transversely on the mountain's side, its western or southwestern end being many feet lower than the eastern. Both the upper and lower ends were closed by piles of rocks and tangled fallen trees; the rocky summit of the mountain itself made the southern wall; the northern was a spur, or ridge, nearly vertical, and covered thick with pine-trees. A man might roam years on the mountain and not find this cleft. At the upper end gushed out a crystal spring, which trickled rather than ran, in a bed of marshy green, the entire length of the valley, disappeared in the rocks at the lower end, and came out no more; many times Alessandro had searched for it lower down, but could find no trace of it. During the summer, when he was hunting with Jeff, he had several times climbed the wall and descended it on the inner side, to see if the rivulet still ran; and, to his joy, had found it the same in July as in January. Drought could not harm it, then. What salvation in such a spring! And the water was pure and sweet as if it came from the skies.
A short distance off was another ridge or spur of the mountain, widening out into almost a plateau. This was covered with acorn-bearing oaks; and under them were flat stones worn into hollows, where bygone generations of Indians had ground the nuts into meal. Generations long bygone indeed, for it was not in the memory of the oldest now living, that Indians had ventured so high up as this on San Jacinto. It was held to be certain death to climb to its summit, and foolhardy in the extreme to go far up its sides.
There was exhilaration in the place. It brought healing to both Alessandro and Ramona. Even the bitter grief for the baby's death was soothed. She did not seem so far off, since they had come so much nearer to the sky. They lived at first in a tent; no time to build a house, till the wheat and vegetables were planted. Alessandro was surprised, when he came to the ploughing, to see how much good land he had. The valley thrust itself, in inlets and coves, into the very rocks of its southern wall; lovely sheltered nooks these were, where he hated to wound the soft, flower-filled sward with his plough. As soon as the planting was done, he began to fell trees for the house. No mournful gray adobe this time, but walls of hewn pine, with half the bark left on; alternate yellow and brown, as gay as if glad hearts had devised it. The roof, of thatch, tule, and yucca-stalks, double laid and thick, was carried out several feet in front of the house, making a sort of bower-like veranda, supported by young fir-tree stems, left rough. Once more Ramona would sit under a thatch with birds'-nests in it. A little corral for the sheep, and a rough shed for the pony, and the home was complete: far the prettiest home they had ever had. And here, in the sunny veranda, when autumn came, sat Ramona, plaiting out of fragrant willow twigs a cradle. The one over which she had wept such bitter tears in the valley, they had burned the night before they left their Saboba home. It was in early autumn she sat plaiting this cradle. The ground around was strewn with wild grapes drying; the bees were feasting on them in such clouds that Ramona rose frequently from her work to drive them away, saying, as she did so, “Good bees, make our honey from something else; we gain nothing if you drain our grapes for it; we want these grapes for the winter;” and as she spoke, her imagination sped fleetly forward to the winter, The Virgin must have forgiven her, to give her again the joy of a child in her arms. Ay, a joy! Spite of poverty, spite of danger, spite of all that cruelty and oppression could do, it would still be a joy to hold her child in her arms.
The baby was born before winter came. An old Indian woman, the same whose house they had hired in Saboba, had come up to live with Ramona. She was friendless now, her daughter having died, and she thankfully came to be as a mother to Ramona. She was ignorant and feeble but Ramona saw in her always the picture of what her own mother might perchance be, wandering, suffering, she knew not what or where; and her yearning, filial instinct found sad pleasure in caring for this lonely, childless, aged one.
Ramona was alone with her on the mountain at the time of the baby's birth. Alessandro had gone to the valley, to be gone two days; but Ramona felt no fear. When Alessandro returned, and she laid the child in his arms, she said with a smile, radiant once more, like the old smiles, “See, beloved! The Virgin has forgiven me; she has given us a daughter again!”
But Alessandro did not smile. Looking scrutinizingly into the baby's face, he sighed, and said, “Alas, Majella, her eyes are like mine, not yours!”
“I am glad of it,” cried Ramona. “I was glad the first minute I saw it.”
He shook his head. “It is an ill fate to have the eyes of Alessandro,” he said. “They look ever on woe;” and he laid the baby back on Ramona's breast, and stood gazing sadly at her.
“Dear Alessandro,” said Ramona, “it is a sin to always mourn. Father Salvierderra said if we repined under our crosses, then a heavier cross would be laid on us. Worse things would come.”
“Yes,” he said. “That is true. Worse things will come.” And he walked away, with his head sunk deep on his breast.
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
24
|
None
|
THERE was no real healing for Alessandro. His hurts had gone too deep. His passionate heart, ever secretly brooding on the wrongs he had borne, the hopeless outlook for his people in the future, and most of all on the probable destitution and suffering in store for Ramona, consumed itself as by hidden fires. Speech, complaint, active antagonism, might have saved him; but all these were foreign to his self-contained, reticent, repressed nature. Slowly, so slowly that Ramona could not tell on what hour or what day her terrible fears first changed to an even more terrible certainty, his brain gave way, and the thing, in dread of which he had cried out the morning they left San Pasquale, came upon him. Strangely enough, and mercifully, now that it had really come, he did not know it. He knew that he suddenly came to his consciousness sometimes, and discovered himself in strange and unexplained situations; had no recollection of what had happened for an interval of time, longer or shorter. But he thought it was only a sort of sickness; he did not know that during those intervals his acts were the acts of a madman; never violent, aggressive, or harmful to any one; never destructive. It was piteous to see how in these intervals his delusions were always shaped by the bitterest experiences of his life. Sometimes he fancied that the Americans were pursuing him, or that they were carrying off Ramona, and he was pursuing them. At such times he would run with maniac swiftness for hours, till he fell exhausted on the ground, and slowly regained true consciousness by exhaustion. At other times he believed he owned vast flocks and herds; would enter any enclosure he saw, where there were sheep or cattle, go about among them, speaking of them to passers-by as his own. Sometimes he would try to drive them away; but on being remonstrated with, would bewilderedly give up the attempt. Once he suddenly found himself in the road driving a small flock of goats, whose he knew not, nor whence he got them. Sitting down by the roadside, he buried his head in his hands. “What has happened to my memory?” he said. “I must be ill of a fever!” As he sat there, the goats, of their own accord, turned and trotted back into a corral near by, the owner of which stood, laughing, on his doorsill; and when Alessandro came up, said goodnaturedly, “All right, Alessandro! I saw you driving off my goats, but I thought you'd bring 'em back.”
Everybody in the valley knew him, and knew his condition. It did not interfere with his capacity as a worker, for the greater part of the time. He was one of the best shearers in the region, the best horse-breaker; and his services were always in demand, spite of the risk there was of his having at any time one of these attacks of wandering. His absences were a great grief to Ramona, not only from the loneliness in which it left her, but from the anxiety she felt lest his mental disorder might at any time take a more violent and dangerous shape. This anxiety was all the more harrowing because she must keep it locked in her own breast, her wise and loving instinct telling her that nothing could be more fatal to him than the knowledge of his real condition. More than once he reached home, breathless, panting, the sweat rolling off his face, crying aloud, “The Americans have found us out, Majella! They were on the trail! I baffled them. I came up another way.” At such times she would soothe him like a child; persuade him to lie down and rest; and when he waked and wondered why he was so tired, she would say, “You were all out of breath when you came in, dear. You must not climb so fast; it is foolish to tire one's self so.”
In these days Ramona began to think earnestly of Felipe. She believed Alessandro might be cured. A wise doctor could surely do something for him. If Felipe knew what sore straits she was in, Felipe would help her. But how could she reach Felipe without the Senora's knowing it? And, still more, how could she send a letter to Felipe without Alessandro's knowing what she had written? Ramona was as helpless in her freedom on this mountain eyrie as if she had been chained hand and foot.
And so the winter wore away, and the spring. What wheat grew in their fields in this upper air! Wild oats, too, in every nook and corner. The goats frisked and fattened, and their hair grew long and silky; the sheep were already heavy again with wool, and it was not yet midsummer. The spring rains had been good; the stream was full, and flowers grew along its edges thick as in beds.
The baby had thrived; as placid, laughing a little thing as if its mother had never known sorrow. “One would think she had suckled pain,” thought Ramona, “so constantly have I grieved this year; but the Virgin has kept her well.”
If prayers could compass it, that would surely have been so; for night and day the devout, trusting, and contrite Ramona had knelt before the Madonna and told her golden beads, till they were wellnigh worn smooth of all their delicate chasing.
At midsummer was to be a fete in the Saboba village, and the San Bernardino priest would come there. This would be the time to take the baby down to be christened; this also would be the time to send the letter to Felipe, enclosed in one to Aunt Ri, who would send it for her from San Bernardino. Ramona felt half guilty as she sat plotting what she should say and how she should send it,--she, who had never had in her loyal, transparent breast one thought secret from Alessandro since they were wedded. But it was all for his sake. When he was well, he would thank her.
She wrote the letter with much study and deliberation; her dread of its being read by the Senora was so great, that it almost paralyzed her pen as she wrote. More than once she destroyed pages, as being too sacred a confidence for unloving eyes to read. At last, the day before the fete, it was done, and safely hidden away. The baby's white robe, finely wrought in open-work, was also done, and freshly washed and ironed. No baby would there be at the fete so daintily wrapped as hers; and Alessandro had at last given his consent that the name should be Majella. It was a reluctant consent, yielded finally only to please Ramona; and, contrary to her wont, she had been willing in this instance to have her own wish fulfilled rather than his. Her heart was set upon having the seal of baptism added to the name she so loved; and, “If I were to die,” she thought, “how glad Alessandro would be, to have still a Majella!”
All her preparations were completed, and it was yet not noon. She seated herself on the veranda to watch for Alessandro, who had been two days away, and was to have returned the previous evening, to make ready for the trip to Saboba. She was disquieted at his failure to return at the appointed time. As the hours crept on and he did not come, her anxiety increased. The sun had gone more than an hour past the midheavens before he came. He had ridden fast; she had heard the quick strokes of the horse's hoofs on the ground before she saw him. “Why comes he riding like that?” she thought, and ran to meet him. As he drew near, she saw to her surprise that he was riding a new horse. “Why, Alessandro!” she cried. “What horse is this?”
He looked at her bewilderedly, then at the horse. True; it was not his own horse! He struck his hand on his forehead, endeavoring to collect his thoughts. “Where is my horse, then?” he said.
“My God! Alessandro,” cried Ramona. “Take the horse back instantly. They will say you stole it.”
“But I left my pony there in the corral,” he said. “They will know I did not mean to steal it. How could I ever have made the mistake? I recollect nothing, Majella. I must have had one of the sicknesses.”
Ramona's heart was cold with fear. Only too well she knew what summary punishment was dealt in that region to horse-thieves. “Oh, let me take it back, dear!” she cried, “Let me go down with it. They will believe me.”
“Majella!” he exclaimed, “think you I would send you into the fold of the wolf? My wood-dove! It is in Jim Farrar's corral I left my pony. I was there last night, to see about his sheep-shearing in the autumn. And that is the last I know. I will ride back as soon as I have rested. I am heavy with sleep.”
Thinking it safer to let him sleep for an hour, as his brain was evidently still confused, Ramona assented to this, though a sense of danger oppressed her. Getting fresh hay from the corral, she with her own hands rubbed the horse down. It was a fine, powerful black horse; Alessandro had evidently urged him cruelly up the steep trail, for his sides were steaming, his nostrils white with foam. Tears stood in Ramona's eyes as she did what she could for him. He recognized her good-will, and put his nose to her face. “It must be because he was black like Benito, that Alessandro took him,” she thought. “Oh, Mary Mother, help us to get the creature safe back!” she said.
When she went into the house, Alessandro was asleep. Ramona glanced at the sun. It was already in the western sky. By no possibility could Alessandro go to Farrar's and back before dark. She was on the point of waking him, when a furious barking from Capitan and the other dogs roused him instantly from his sleep, and springing to his feet, he ran out to see what it meant. In a moment more Ramona followed,--only a moment, hardly a moment; but when she reached the threshold, it was to hear a gun-shot, to see Alessandro fall to the ground, to see, in the same second, a ruffianly man leap from his horse, and standing over Alessandro's body, fire his pistol again, once, twice, into the forehead, cheek. Then with a volley of oaths, each word of which seemed to Ramona's reeling senses to fill the air with a sound like thunder, he untied the black horse from the post where Ramona had fastened him, and leaping into his saddle again, galloped away, leading the horse. As he rode away, he shook his fist at Ramona, who was kneeling on the ground, striving to lift Alessandro's head, and to stanch the blood flowing from the ghastly wounds. “That'll teach you damned Indians to leave off stealing our horses!” he cried, and with another volley of terrible oaths was out of sight.
With a calmness which was more dreadful than any wild outcry of grief, Ramona sat on the ground by Alessandro's body, and held his hands in hers. There was nothing to be done for him. The first shot had been fatal, close to his heart,--the murderer aimed well; the after-shots, with the pistol, were from mere wanton brutality. After a few seconds Ramona rose, went into the house, brought out the white altar-cloth, and laid it over the mutilated face. As she did this, she recalled words she had heard Father Salvierderra quote as having been said by Father Junipero, when one of the Franciscan Fathers had been massacred by the Indians, at San Diego. “Thank God.” he said, “the ground is now watered by the blood of a martyr!”
“The blood of a martyr!” The words seemed to float in the air; to cleanse it from the foul blasphemies the murderer had spoken. “My Alessandro!” she said. “Gone to be with the saints; one of the blessed martyrs; they will listen to what a martyr says.” His hands were warm. She laid them in her bosom, kissed them again and again. Stretching herself on the ground by his side, she threw one arm over him, and whispered in his ear, “My love, my Alessandro! Oh, speak once to Majella! Why do I not grieve more? My Alessandro! Is he not blest already? And soon we will be with him! The burdens were too great. He could not bear them!” Then waves of grief broke over her, and she sobbed convulsively; but still she shed no tears. Suddenly she sprang to her feet, and looked wildly around. The sun was not many hours high. Whither should she go for help? The old Indian woman had gone away with the sheep, and would not be back till dark. Alessandro must not lie there on the ground. To whom should she go? To walk to Saboba was out of the question. There was another Indian village nearer,--the village of the Cahuillas, on one of the high plateaus of San Jacinto. She had once been there. Could she find that trail now? She must try. There was no human help nearer.
Taking the baby in her arms, she knelt by Alessandro, and kissing him, whispered, “Farewell, my beloved. I will not be long gone. I go to bring friends.” As she set off, swiftly running, Capitan, who had been lying by Alessandro's side, uttering heart-rending howls, bounded to his feet to follow her. “No, Capitan,” she said; and leading him back to the body, she took his head in her hands, looked into his eyes, and said, “Capitan, watch here.” With a whimpering cry, he licked her hands, and stretched himself on the ground. He understood, and would obey; but his eyes followed her wistfully till she disappeared from sight.
The trail was rough, and hard to find. More than once Ramona stopped, baffled, among the rocky ridges and precipices. Her clothes were torn, her face bleeding, from the thorny shrubs; her feet seemed leaden, she made her way so slowly. It was dark in the ravines; as she climbed spur after spur, and still saw nothing but pine forests or bleak opens, her heart sank within her. The way had not seemed so long before. Alessandro had been with her; it was a joyous, bright day, and they had lingered wherever they liked, and yet the way had seemed short. Fear seized her that she was lost. If that were so, before morning she would be with Alessandro; for fierce beasts roamed San Jacinto by night. But for the baby's sake, she must not die. Feverishly she pressed on. At last, just as it had grown so dark she could see only a few hand-breadths before her, and was panting more from terror than from running, lights suddenly gleamed out, only a few rods ahead. It was the Cahuilla village. In a few moments she was there.
It is a poverty-stricken little place, the Cahuilla village,--a cluster of tule and adobe huts, on a narrow bit of bleak and broken ground, on San Jacinto Mountain; the people are very poor, but are proud and high-spirited,--veritable mountaineers in nature, fierce and independent.
Alessandro had warm friends among them, and the news that he had been murdered, and that his wife had run all the way down the mountain, with her baby in her arms, for help, went like wild-fire through the place. The people gathered in an excited group around the house where Ramona had taken refuge. She was lying, half unconscious, on a bed. As soon as she had gasped out her terrible story, she had fallen forward on the floor, fainting, and the baby had been snatched from her arms just in time to save it. She did not seem to miss the child; had not asked for it, or noticed it when it was brought to the bed. A merciful oblivion seemed to be fast stealing over her senses. But she had spoken words enough to set the village in a blaze of excitement. It ran higher and higher. Men were everywhere mounting their horses,--some to go up and bring Alessandro's body down; some organizing a party to go at once to Jim Farrar's house and shoot him: these were the younger men, friends of Alessandro. Earnestly the aged Capitan of the village implored them to refrain from such violence.
“Why should ten be dead instead of one, my sons?” he said. “Will you leave your wives and your children like his? The whites will kill us all if you lay hands on the man. Perhaps they themselves will punish him.”
A derisive laugh rose from the group. Never yet within their experience had a white man been punished for shooting an Indian. The Capitan knew that as well as they did. Why did he command them to sit still like women, and do nothing, when a friend was murdered?
“Because I am old, and you are young. I have seen that we fight in vain,” said the wise old man. “It is not sweet to me, any more than to you. It is a fire in my veins; but I am old. I have seen. I forbid you to go.”
The women added their entreaties to his, and the young men abandoned their project. But it was with sullen reluctance; and mutterings were to be heard, on all sides, that the time would come yet. There was more than one way of killing a man. Farrar would not be long seen in the valley. Alessandro should be avenged.
As Farrar rode slowly down the mountain, leading his recovered horse, he revolved in his thoughts what course to pursue. A few years before, he would have gone home, no more disquieted at having killed an Indian than if he had killed a fox or a wolf. But things were different now. This Agent, that the Government had taken it into its head to send out to look after the Indians, had made it hot, the other day, for some fellows in San Bernardino who had maltreated an Indian; he had even gone so far as to arrest several liquor-dealers for simply selling whiskey to Indians. If he were to take this case of Alessandro's in hand, it might be troublesome. Farrar concluded that his wisest course would be to make a show of good conscience and fair-dealing by delivering himself up at once to the nearest justice of the peace, as having killed a man in self-defence, Accordingly he rode straight to the house of a Judge Wells, a few miles below Saboba, and said that he wished to surrender himself as having committed “justifiable homicide” on an Indian, or Mexican, he did net know which, who had stolen his horse. He told a plausible story. He professed not to know the man, or the place; but did not explain how it was, that, knowing neither, he had gone so direct to the spot.
He said: “I followed the trail for some time, but when I reached a turn, I came into a sort of blind trail, where I lost the track. I think the horse had been led up on hard sod, to mislead any one on the track. I pushed on, crossed the creek, and soon found the tracks again in soft ground. This part of the mountain was perfectly unknown to me, and very wild. Finally I came to a ridge, from which I looked down on a little ranch. As I came near the house, the dogs began to bark, just as I discovered my horse tied to a tree. Hearing the dogs, an Indian, or Mexican, I could not tell which, came out of the house, flourishing a large knife. I called out to him, 'Whose horse is that?' He answered in Spanish, 'It is mine.' 'Where did you get it?' I asked. 'In San Jacinto,' was his reply. As he still came towards me, brandishing the knife, I drew my gun, and said, 'Stop, or I'll shoot!' He did not stop, and I fired; still he did not stop, so I fired again; and as he did not fall, I knocked him down with the butt of my gun. After he was down, I shot him twice with my pistol.”
The duty of a justice in such a case as this was clear. Taking the prisoner into custody, he sent out messengers to summon a jury of six men to hold inquest on the body of said Indian, or Mexican; and early the next morning, led by Farrar, they set out for the mountain. When they reached the ranch, the body had been removed; the house was locked; no signs left of the tragedy of the day before, except a few blood-stains on the ground, where Alessandro had fallen. Farrar seemed greatly relieved at this unexpected phase of affairs. However, when he found that Judge Wells, instead of attempting to return to the valley that night, proposed to pass the night at a ranch only a few miles from the Cahuilla village, he became almost hysterical with fright. He declared that the Cahuillas would surely come and murder him in the night, and begged piteously that the men would all stay with him to guard him.
At midnight Judge Wells was roused by the arrival of the Capitan and head men of the Cahuilla village. They had heard of his arrival with his jury, and they had come to lead them to their village, where the body of the murdered man lay. They were greatly distressed on learning that they ought not to have removed the body from the spot where the death had taken place, and that now no inquest could be held.
Judge Wells himself, however, went back with them, saw the body, and heard the full account of the murder as given by Ramona on her first arrival. Nothing more could now be learned from her, as she was in high fever and delirium; knew no one, not even her baby when they laid it on her breast. She lay restlessly tossing from side to side, talking incessantly, clasping her rosary in her hands, and constantly mingling snatches of prayers with cries for Alessandro and Felipe; the only token of consciousness she gave was to clutch the rosary wildly, and sometimes hide it in her bosom, if they attempted to take it from her.
Judge Wells was a frontiersman, and by no means sentimentally inclined; but the tears stood in his eyes as he looked at the unconscious Ramona.
Farrar had pleaded that the preliminary hearing might take place immediately; but after this visit to the village, the judge refused his request, and appointed the trial a week from that day, to give time for Ramona to recover, and appear as a witness. He impressed upon the Indians as strongly as he could the importance of having her appear. It was evident that Farrar's account of the affair was false from first to last. Alessandro had no knife. He had not had time to go many steps from the door; the volley of oaths, and the two shots almost simultaneously, were what Ramona heard as she ran to the door. Alessandro could not have spoken many words.
The day for the hearing came. Farrar had been, during the interval, in a merely nominal custody; having been allowed to go about his business, on his own personal guarantee of appearing in time for the trial. It was with a strange mixture of regret and relief that Judge Wells saw the hour of the trial arrive, and not a witness on the ground except Farrar himself. That Farrar was a brutal ruffian, the whole country knew. This last outrage was only one of a long series; the judge would have been glad to have committed him for trial, and have seen him get his deserts. But San Jacinto Valley, wild, sparsely settled as it was, had yet as fixed standards and criterions of popularity as the most civilized of communities could show; and to betray sympathy with Indians was more than any man's political head was worth. The word “justice” had lost its meaning, if indeed it ever had any, so far as they were concerned. The valley was a unit on that question, however divided it might be upon others. On the whole, the judge was relieved, though it was not without a bitter twinge, as of one accessory after the deed, and unfaithful to a friend; for he had known Alessandro well. Yet, on the whole, he was relieved when he was forced to accede to the motion made by Farrar's counsel, that “the prisoner be discharged on ground of justifiable homicide, no witnesses having appeared against him.”
He comforted himself by thinking--what was no doubt true--that even if the case had been brought to a jury trial, the result would have been the same; for there would never have been found a San Diego County jury that would convict a white man of murder for killing an Indian, if there were no witnesses to the occurrence except the Indian wife. But he derived small comfort from this. Alessandro's face haunted him, and also the memory of Ramona's, as she lay tossing and moaning in the wretched Cahuilla hovel. He knew that only her continued illness, or her death, could explain her not having come to the trial. The Indians would have brought her in their arms all the way, if she had been alive and in possession of her senses.
During the summer that she and Alessandro had lived in Saboba he had seen her many times, and had been impressed by her rare quality. His children knew her and loved her; had often been in her house; his wife had bought her embroidery. Alessandro also had worked for him; and no one knew better than Judge Wells that Alessandro in his senses was as incapable of stealing a horse as any white man in the valley. Farrar knew it; everybody knew it. Everybody knew, also, about his strange fits of wandering mind; and that when these half-crazed fits came on him, he was wholly irresponsible. Farrar knew this. The only explanation of Farrar's deed was, that on seeing his horse spent and exhausted from having been forced up that terrible trail, he was seized by ungovernable rage, and fired on the second, without knowing what he did. “But he wouldn't have done it, if it hadn't been an Indian!” mused the judge. “He'd ha' thought twice before he shot any white man down, that way.”
Day after day such thoughts as these pursued the judge, and he could not shake them off. An uneasy sense that he owed something to Ramona, or, if Ramona were dead, to the little child she had left, haunted him. There might in some such way be a sort of atonement made to the murdered, unavenged Alessandro. He might even take the child, and bring it up in his own house. That was by no means an uncommon thing in the valley. The longer he thought, the more he felt himself eased in his mind by this purpose; and he decided that as soon as he could find leisure he would go to the Cahuilla village and see what could be done.
But it was not destined that stranger hands should bring succor to Ramona. Felipe had at last found trace of her. Felipe was on the way.
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
25
|
None
|
EFFECTUALLY misled by the faithful Carmena, Felipe had begun his search for Alessandro by going direct to Monterey. He found few Indians in the place, and not one had ever heard Alessandro's name. Six miles from the town was a little settlement of them, in hiding, in the bottoms of the San Carlos River, near the old Mission. The Catholic priest advised him to search there; sometimes, he said, fugitives of one sort and another took refuge in this settlement, lived there for a few months, then disappeared as noiselessly as they had come. Felipe searched there also; equally in vain.
He questioned all the sailors in port; all the shippers. No one had heard of an Indian shipping on board any vessel; in fact, a captain would have to be in straits before he would take an Indian in his crew.
“But this was an exceptionally good worker, this Indian; he could turn his hand to anything; he might have gone as ship's carpenter.”
“That might be,” they said; “nobody had ever heard of any such thing, however;” and very much they all wondered what it was that made the handsome, sad Mexican gentleman so anxious to find this Indian.
Felipe wasted weeks in Monterey. Long after he had ceased to hope, he lingered. He felt as if he would like to stay till every ship that had sailed out of Monterey in the last three years had returned. Whenever he heard of one coming into harbor, he hastened to the shore, and closely watched the disembarking. His melancholy countenance, with its eager, searching look, became a familiar sight to every one; even the children knew that the pale gentleman was looking for some one he could not find. Women pitied him, and gazed at him tenderly, wondering if a man could look like that for anything save the loss of a sweetheart. Felipe made no confidences. He simply asked, day after day, of every one he met, for an Indian named Alessandro Assis.
Finally he shook himself free from the dreamy spell of the place, and turned his face southward again. He went by the route which the Franciscan Fathers used to take, when the only road on the California coast was the one leading from Mission to Mission. Felipe had heard Father Salvierderra say that there were in the neighborhood of each of the old Missions Indian villages, or families still living. He thought it not improbable that, from Alessandro's father's long connection with the San Luis Rey Mission, Alessandro might be known to some of these Indians. He would leave no stone unturned; no Indian village unsearched; no Indian unquestioned.
San Juan Bautista came first; then Soledad, San Antonio, San Miguel, San Luis Obispo, Santa Inez; and that brought him to Santa Barbara. He had spent two months on the journey. At each of these places he found Indians; miserable, half-starved creatures, most of them. Felipe's heart ached, and he was hot with shame, at their condition. The ruins of the old Mission buildings were sad to see, but the human ruins were sadder. Now Felipe understood why Father Salvierderra's heart had broken, and why his mother had been full of such fierce indignation against the heretic usurpers and despoilers of the estates which the Franciscans once held. He could not understand why the Church had submitted, without fighting, to such indignities and robberies. At every one of the Missions he heard harrowing tales of the sufferings of those Fathers who had clung to their congregations to the last, and died at their posts. At Soledad an old Indian, weeping, showed him the grave of Father Sarria, who had died there of starvation. “He gave us all he had, to the last,” said the old man. “He lay on a raw-hide on the ground, as we did; and one morning, before he had finished the mass, he fell forward at the altar and was dead. And when we put him in the grave, his body was only bones, and no flesh; he had gone so long without food, to give it to us.”
At all these Missions Felipe asked in vain for Alessandro. They knew very little, these northern Indians, about those in the south, they said. It was seldom one from the southern tribes came northward. They did not understand each other's speech. The more Felipe inquired, and the longer he reflected, the more he doubted Alessandro's having ever gone to Monterey. At Santa Barbara he made a long stay. The Brothers at the College welcomed him hospitably. They had heard from Father Salvierderra the sad story of Ramona, and were distressed, with Felipe, that no traces had been found of her. It grieved Father Salvierderra to the last, they said; he prayed for her daily, but said he could not get any certainty in his spirit of his prayers being heard. Only the day before he died, he had said this to Father Francis, a young Brazilian monk, to whom he was greatly attached.
In Felipe's overwrought frame of mind this seemed to him a terrible omen; and he set out on his journey with a still heavier heart than before. He believed Ramona was dead, buried in some unknown, unconsecrated spot, never to be found; yet he would not give up the search. As he journeyed southward, he began to find persons who had known of Alessandro; and still more, those who had known his father, old Pablo. But no one had heard anything of Alessandro's whereabouts since the driving out of his people from Temecula; there was no knowing where any of those Temecula people were now. They had scattered “like a flock of ducks,” one Indian said,--“like a flock of ducks after they are fired into. You'd never see all those ducks in any one place again. The Temecula people were here, there, and everywhere, all through San Diego County. There was one Temecula man at San Juan Capistrano, however. The Senor would better see him. He no doubt knew about Alessandro. He was living in a room in the old Mission building. The priest had given it to him for taking care of the chapel and the priest's room, and a little rent besides. He was a hard man, the San Juan Capistrano priest; he would take the last dollar from a poor man.”
It was late at night when Felipe reached San Juan Capistrano; but he could not sleep till he had seen this man. Here was the first clew he had gained. He found the man, with his wife and children, in a large corner room opening on the inner court of the Mission quadrangle. The room was dark and damp as a cellar; a fire smouldered in the enormous fireplace; a few skins and rags were piled near the hearth, and on these lay the woman, evidently ill. The sunken tile floor was icy cold to the feet; the wind swept in at a dozen broken places in the corridor side of the wall; there was not an article of furniture. “Heavens!” thought Felipe, as he entered, “a priest of our Church take rent for such a hole as this!”
There was no light in the place, except the little which came from the fire. “I am sorry I have no candle, Senor,” said the man, as he came forward. “My wife is sick, and we are very poor.”
“No matter,” said Felipe, his hand already at his purse. “I only want to ask you a few questions. You are from Temecula, they tell me.”
“Yes, Senor,” the man replied in a dogged tone,--no man of Temecula could yet hear the word without a pang,--“I was of Temecula.”
“I want to find one Alessandro Assis who lived there. You knew him, I suppose,” said Felipe, eagerly.
At this moment a brand broke in the smouldering fire, and for one second a bright blaze shot up; only for a second, then all was dark again. But the swift blaze had fallen on Felipe's face, and with a start which he could not control, but which Felipe did not see, the Indian had recognized him. “Ha, ha!” he thought to himself. “Senor Felipe Moreno, you come to the wrong house asking for news of Alessandro Assis!”
It was Antonio,--Antonio, who had been at the Moreno sheep-shearing; Antonio, who knew even more than Carmena had known, for he knew what a marvel and miracle it seemed that the beautiful Senorita from the Moreno house should have loved Alessandro, and wedded him; and he knew that on the night she went away with him, Alessandro had lured out of the corral a beautiful horse for her to ride. Alessandro had told him all about it,--Baba, fiery, splendid Baba, black as night, with a white star in his forehead. Saints! but it was a bold thing to do, to steal such a horse as that, with a star for a mark; and no wonder that even now, though near three years afterwards, Senor Felipe was in search of him. Of course it could be only the horse he wanted. Ha! much help might he get from Antonio!
“Yes, Senor, I knew him,” he replied.
“Do you know where he is now?”
“No, Senor.”
“Do you know where he went, from Temecula?”
“No, Senor.”
“A woman told me he went to Monterey. I have been there looking for him.”
“I heard, too, he had gone to Monterey.”
“Where did you see him last?”
“In Temecula.”
“Was he alone?”
“Yes, Senor.”
“Did you ever hear of his being married?”
“No, Senor.”
“Where are the greater part of the Temecula people now?”
“Like this, Senor,” with a bitter gesture, pointing to his wife. “Most of us are beggars. A few here, a few there. Some have gone to Capitan Grande, some way down into Lower California.”
Wearily Felipe continued his bootless questioning. No suspicion that the man was deceiving him crossed his mind. At last, with a sigh, he said, “I hoped to have found Alessandro by your means. I am greatly disappointed.
“I doubt not that, Senor Felipe Moreno,” thought Antonio. “I am sorry, Senor,” he said.
It smote his conscience when Felipe laid in his hand a generous gold-piece, and said, “Here is a bit of money for you. I am sorry to see you so poorly off.”
The thanks which he spoke sounded hesitating and gruff, so remorseful did he feel. Senor Felipe had always been kind to them. How well they had fared always in his house! It was a shame to lie to him; yet the first duty was to Alessandro. It could not be avoided. And thus a second time help drifted away from Ramona.
At Temecula, from Mrs. Hartsel, Felipe got the first true intelligence of Alessandro's movements; but at first it only confirmed his worst forebodings. Alessandro had been at Mrs. Hartsel's house; he had been alone, and on foot; he was going to walk all the way to San Pasquale, where he had the promise of work.
How sure the kindly woman was that she was telling the exact truth. After long ransacking of her memory and comparing of events, she fixed the time so nearly to the true date, that it was to Felipe's mind a terrible corroboration of his fears. It was, he thought, about a week after Ramona's flight from home that Alessandro had appeared thus, alone, on foot, at Mrs. Hartsel's. In great destitution, she said; and she had lent him money on the expectation of selling his violin; but they had never sold it; there it was yet. And that Alessandro was dead, she had no more doubt than that she herself was alive; for else, he would have come back to pay her what he owed. The honestest fellow that ever lived, was Alessandro. Did not the Senor Moreno think so? Had he not found him so always? There were not many such Indians as Alessandro and his father. If there had been, it would have been better for their people. “If they'd all been like Alessandro, I tell you,” she said, “it would have taken more than any San Diego sheriff to have put them out of their homes here.”
“But what could they do to help themselves, Mrs. Hartsel?” asked Felipe. “The law was against them. We can't any of us go against that. I myself have lost half my estate in the same way.”
“Well, at any rate they wouldn't have gone without fighting!” she said. “'If Alessandro had been here!' they all said.”
Felipe asked to see the violin. “But that is not Alessandro's,” he exclaimed. “I have seen his.”
“No!” she said. “Did I say it was his? It was his father's. One of the Indians brought it in here to hide it with us at the time they were driven out. It is very old, they say, and worth a great deal of money, if you could find the right man to buy it. But he has not come along yet. He will, though. I am not a bit afraid but that we'll get our money back on it. If Alessandro was alive, he'd have been here long before this.”
Finding Mrs. Hartsel thus friendly, Felipe suddenly decided to tell her the whole story. Surprise and incredulity almost overpowered her at first. She sat buried in thought for some minutes; then she sprang to her feet, and cried: “If he's got that girl with him, he's hiding somewhere. There's nothing like an Indian to hide; and if he is hiding, every other Indian knows it, and you just waste your breath asking any questions of any of them. They will die before they will tell you one thing. They are as secret as the grave. And they, every one of them, worshipped Alessandro. You see they thought he would be over them, after Pablo, and they were all proud of him because he could read and write, and knew more than most of them. If I were in your place,” she continued, “I would not give it up yet. I should go to San Pasquale. Now it might just be that she was along with him that night he stopped here, hid somewhere, while he came in to get the money. I know I urged him to stay all night, and he said he could not do it. I don't know, though, where he could possibly have left her while he came here.”
Never in all her life had Mrs. Hartsel been so puzzled and so astonished as now. But her sympathy, and her confident belief that Alessandro might yet be found, gave unspeakable cheer to Felipe.
“If I find them, I shall take them home with me, Mrs. Hartsel,” he said as he rode away; “and we will come by this road and stop to see you.” And the very speaking of the words cheered him all the way to San Pasquale.
But before he had been in San Pasquale an hour, he was plunged into a perplexity and disappointment deeper than he had yet felt. He found the village in disorder, the fields neglected, many houses deserted, the remainder of the people preparing to move away. In the house of Ysidro, Alessandro's kinsman, was living a white family,--the family of a man who had pre-empted the greater part of the land on which the village stood. Ysidro, profiting by Alessandro's example, when he found that there was no help, that the American had his papers from the land-office, in all due form, certifying that the land was his, had given the man his option of paying for the house or having it burned down. The man had bought the house; and it was only the week before Felipe arrived, that Ysidro had set off, with all his goods and chattels, for Mesa Grande. He might possibly have told the Senor more, the people said, than any one now in the village could; but even Ysidro did not know where Alessandro intended to settle. He told no one. He went to the north. That was all they knew.
To the north! That north which Felipe thought he had thoroughly searched. He sighed at the word. The Senor could, if he liked, see the house in which Alessandro had lived. There it was, on the south side of the valley, just in the edge of the foothills; some Americans lived in it now. Such a good ranch Alessandro had; the best wheat in the valley. The American had paid Alessandro something for it,--they did not know how much; but Alessandro was very lucky to get anything. If only they had listened to him. He was always telling them this would come. Now it was too late for most of them to get anything for their farms. One man had taken the whole of the village lands, and he had bought Ysidro's house because it was the best; and so they would not get anything. They were utterly disheartened, broken-spirited.
In his sympathy for them, Felipe almost forgot his own distresses. “Where are you going?” he asked of several.
“Who knows, Senor?” was their reply. “Where can we go? There is no place.”
When, in reply to his questions in regard to Alessandro's wife, Felipe heard her spoken of as “Majella,” his perplexity deepened. Finally he asked if no one had ever heard the name Ramona.
“Never.”
What could it mean? Could it be possible that this was another Alessandro than the one of whom he was in search? Felipe bethought himself of a possible marriage-record. Did they know where Alessandro had married this wife of his, of whom every word they spoke seemed both like and unlike Ramona?
Yes. It was in San Diego they had been married, by Father Gaspara.
Hoping against hope, the baffled Felipe rode on to San Diego; and here, as ill-luck would have it, he found, not Father Gaspara, who would at his first word have understood all, but a young Irish priest, who had only just come to be Father Gaspara's assistant. Father Gaspara was away in the mountains, at Santa Ysabel. But the young assistant would do equally well, to examine the records. He was courteous and kind; brought out the tattered old book, and, looking over his shoulder, his breath coming fast with excitement and fear, there Felipe read, in Father Gaspara's hasty and blotted characters, the fatal entry of the names, “Alessandro Assis and Majella Fa--” Heart-sick, Felipe went away. Most certainly Ramona would never have been married under any but her own name. Who, then, was this woman whom Alessandro Assis had married in less than ten days from the night on which Ramona had left her home? Some Indian woman for whom he felt compassion, or to whom he was bound by previous ties? And where, in what lonely, forever hidden spot, was the grave of Ramona?
Now at last Felipe felt sure that she was dead. It was useless searching farther. Yet, after he reached home, his restless conjectures took one more turn, and he sat down and wrote a letter to every priest between San Diego and Monterey, asking if there were on his books a record of the marriage of one Alessandro Assis and Ramona Ortegna.
It was not impossible that there might be, after all, another Alessandro Assis, The old Fathers, in baptizing their tens of thousands of Indian converts, were sore put to it to make out names enough. There might have been another Assis besides old Pablo, and of Alessandros there were dozens everywhere.
This last faint hope also failed. No record anywhere of an Alessandro Assis, except in Father Gaspara's book.
As Felipe was riding out of San Pasquale, he had seen an Indian man and woman walking by the side of mules heavily laden. Two little children, two young or too feeble to walk, were so packed in among the bundles that their faces were the only part of them in sight. The woman was crying bitterly. “More of these exiles. God help the poor creatures!” thought Felipe; and he pulled out his purse, and gave the woman a piece of gold. She looked up in as great astonishment as if the money had fallen from the skies. “Thanks! Thanks, Senor!” she exclaimed; and the man coming up to Felipe said also, “God reward you, Senor! That is more money than I had in the world! Does the Senor know of any place where I could get work?”
Felipe longed to say, “Yes, come to my estate; there you shall have work!” In the olden time he would have done it without a second thought, for both the man and the woman had good faces,--were young and strong. But the pay-roll of the Moreno estate was even now too long for its dwindled fortunes. “No, my man, I am sorry to say I do not,” he answered. “I live a long way from here. Where were you thinking of going?”
“Somewhere in San Jacinto,” said the man. “They say the Americans have not come in there much yet. I have a brother living there. Thanks, Senor; may the saints reward you!”
“San Jacinto!” After Felipe returned home, the name haunted his thoughts. The grand mountain-top bearing that name he had known well in many a distant horizon. “Juan Can,” he said one day, “are there many Indians in San Jacinto?”
“The mountain?” said Juan Can.
“Ay, I suppose, the mountain,” said Felipe. “What else is there?”
“The valley, too,” replied Juan. “The San Jacinto Valley is a fine, broad valley, though the river is not much to be counted on. It is mostly dry sand a good part of the year. But there is good grazing. There is one village of Indians I know in the valley; some of the San Luis Rey Indians came from there; and up on the mountain is a big village; the wildest Indians in all the country live there. Oh, they are fierce, Senor!”
The next morning Felipe set out for San Jacinto. Why had no one mentioned, why had he not himself known, of these villages? Perhaps there were yet others he had not heard of. Hope sprang in Felipe's impressionable nature as easily as it died. An hour, a moment, might see him both lifted up and cast down. When he rode into the sleepy little village street of San Bernardino, and saw, in the near horizon, against the southern sky, a superb mountain-peak, changing in the sunset lights from turquoise to ruby, and from ruby to turquoise again, he said to himself, “She is there! I have found her!”
The sight of the mountain affected him, as it had always affected Aunt Ri, with an indefinable, solemn sense of something revealed, yet hidden. “San Jacinto?” he said to a bystander, pointing to it with his whip.
“Yes, Senor,” replied the man. As he spoke, a pair of black horses came whirling round the corner, and he sprang to one side, narrowly escaping being knocked down. “That Tennessee fellow'll run over somebody yet, with those black devils of his, if he don't look out,” he muttered, as he recovered his balance.
Felipe glanced at the horses, then driving his spurs deep into his horse's sides, galloped after them. “Baba! by God!” he cried aloud in his excitement and forgetful of everything, he urged his horse faster, shouting as he rode, “Stop that man! Stop that man with the black horses!”
Jos, hearing his name called on all sides, reined in Benito and Baba as soon as he could, and looked around in bewilderment to see what had happened. Before he had time to ask any questions, Felipe had overtaken him, and riding straight to Baba's head, had flung himself from his own horse and taken Baba by the rein, crying, “Baba! Baba!” Baba knew his voice, and began to whinny and plunge. Felipe was nearly unmanned. For the second, he forgot everything. A crowd was gathering around them. It had never been quite clear to the San Bernardino mind that Jos's title to Benito and Baba would bear looking into; and it was no surprise, therefore, to some of the on-lookers, to hear Felipe cry in a loud voice, looking suspiciously at Jos, “How did you get him?”
Jos was a wag, and Jos was never hurried. The man did not live, nor could the occasion arrive, which would quicken his constitutional drawl. Before even beginning his answer he crossed one leg over the other and took a long, observant look at Felipe; then in a pleasant voice he said: “Wall, Senor,--I allow yer air a Senor by yer color,--it would take right smart uv time tew tell yeow haow I cum by thet hoss, 'n' by the other one tew. They ain't mine, neither one on 'em.”
Jos's speech was as unintelligible to Felipe as it had been to Ramona, Jos saw it, and chuckled.
“Mebbe 't would holp yer tew understand me ef I wuz tew talk Mexican,” he said, and proceeded to repeat in tolerably good Spanish the sum and substance of what he had just said, adding: “They belong to an Indian over on San Jacinto; at least, the off one does; the nigh one's his wife's; he wouldn't ever call thet one anything but hers. It had been hers ever sence she was a girl, they said, I never saw people think so much of hosses as they did.”
Before Jos had finished speaking, Felipe had bounded into the wagon, throwing his horse's reins to a boy in the crowd, and crying, “Follow along with my horse, will you? I must speak to this man.”
Found! Found,--the saints be praised,--at last! How should he tell this man fast enough? How should he thank him enough?
Laying his hand on Jos's knee, he cried: “I can't explain to you; I can't tell you. Bless you forever,--forever! It must be the saints led you here!”
“Oh, Lawd!” thought Jos; “another o' them 'saint' fellers! I allow not, Senor,” he said, relapsing into Tennesseean. “It wur Tom Wurmsee led me; I wuz gwine ter move his truck fur him this arternoon.”
“Take me home with you to your house,” said Felipe, still trembling with excitement; “we cannot talk here in the street. I want to hear all you can tell me about them. I have been searching for them all over California.”
Jos's face lighted up. This meant good fortune for that gentle, sweet Ramona, he was sure. “I'll take you straight there,” he said; “but first I must stop at Tom's. He will be waiting for me.”
The crowd dispersed, disappointed; cheated out of their anticipated scene of an arrest for horse-stealing. “Good for you, Tennessee!” and, “Fork over that black horse, Jos!” echoed from the departing groups. Sensations were not so common in San Bernardino that they could afford to slight so notable an occasion as this.
As Jos turned the corner into the street where he lived, he saw his mother coming at a rapid run towards them, her sun-bonnet half off her head, her spectacles pushed up in her hair.
“Why, thar's mammy!” he exclaimed. “What ever hez gone wrong naow?”
Before he finished speaking, she saw the black horses, and snatching her bonnet from her head waved it wildly, crying, “Yeow Jos! Jos, hyar! Stop! I wuz er comin' ter hunt yer!”
Breathlessly she continued talking, her words half lost in the sound of the wheels. Apparently she did not see the stranger sitting by Jos's side. “Oh, Jos, thar's the terriblest news come! Thet Injun Alessandro's got killed; murdered; jest murdered, I say; 'tain't no less. Thar wuz an Injun come down from ther mounting with a letter to the Agent.”
“Good God! Alessandro killed!” burst from Felipe's lips in a heart-rending voice.
Jos looked bewilderedly from his mother to Felipe; the complication was almost beyond him. “Oh, Lawd!” he gasped. Turning to Felipe, “Thet's mammy,” he said. “She wuz real fond o' both on 'em.” Turning to his mother, “This hyar's her brother,” he said. “He jest knowed me by Baba, hyar on ther street. He's been huntin' 'em everywhar.”
Aunt Ri grasped the situation instantly. Wiping her streaming eyes, she sobbed out: “Wall, I'll allow, arter this, thar is sech a thing ez a Providence, ez they call it. 'Pears like ther couldn't ennythin' less brung yer hyar jest naow. I know who yer be; ye're her brother Feeleepy, ain't yer? Menny's ther time she's tolt me about yer! Oh, Lawd! How air we ever goin' to git ter her? I allow she's dead! I allow she'd never live arter seein' him shot down dead! He tolt me thar couldn't nobody git up thar whar they'd gone; no white folks, I mean. Oh, Lawd, Lawd!”
Felipe stood paralyzed, horror-stricken. He turned in despair to Jos. “Tell me in Spanish,” he said. “I cannot understand.”
As Jos gradually drew out the whole story from his mother's excited and incoherent speech, and translated it, Felipe groaned aloud, “Too late! Too late!” He too felt, as Aunt Ri had, that Ramona never could have survived the shock of seeing her husband murdered. “Too late! Too late!” he cried, as he staggered into the house. “She has surely died of the sight.”
“I allow she didn't die, nuther,” said Jos; “not ser long ez she hed thet young un to look arter!”
“Yer air right, Jos!” said Aunt Ri. “I allow yer air right. Thar couldn't nothin' kill her, short er wild beasts, ef she hed ther baby 'n her arms! She ain't dead, not ef the baby ez erlive, I allow. Thet's some comfort.”
Felipe sat with his face buried in his hands. Suddenly looking up, he said, “How far is it?”
“Thirty miles 'n' more inter the valley, where we wuz,” said Jos; “'n' the Lawd knows how fur 'tis up on ter the mounting, where they wuz livin'. It's like goin' up the wall uv a house, goin' up San Jacinto Mounting, daddy sez. He wuz thar huntin' all summer with Alessandro.”
How strange, how incredible it seemed, to hear Alessandro's name thus familiarly spoken,--spoken by persons who had known him so recently, and who were grieving, grieving as friends, to hear of his terrible death! Felipe felt as if he were in a trance. Rousing himself, he said, “We must go. We must start at once. You will let me have the horses?”
“Wall, I allow yer've got more right ter 'em 'n--” began Jos, energetically, forgetting himself; then, dropping Tennesseean, he completed in Spanish his cordial assurances that the horses were at Felipe's command.
“Jos! He's got ter take me!” cried Aunt Ri. “I allow I ain't never gwine ter set still hyar, 'n' thet girl inter sech trouble; 'n' if so be ez she is reely dead, thar's the baby. He hadn't orter go alone by hisself.”
Felipe was thankful, indeed, for Aunt Ri's companionship, and expressed himself in phrases so warm, that she was embarrassed.
“Yeow tell him, Jos,” she said, “I can't never git used ter bein' called Senory. Yeow tell him his' sister allers called me Aunt Ri, 'n' I jest wish he would. I allow me 'n' him'll git along all right. 'Pears like I'd known him all my days, jest ez 't did with her, arter the fust. I'm free to confess I take more ter these Mexicans than I do ter these low-down, driven Yankees, ennyhow,--a heap more; but I can't stand bein' Senory'd! Yeow tell him, Jos. I s'pose thar's a word for 'aunt' in Mexican, ain't there? 'Pears like thar couldn't be no langwedge 'thout sech a word! He'll know what it means! I'd go off with him a heap easier ef he'd call me jest plain Aunt Ri, ez I'm used ter, or Mis Hyer, either un on 'em; but Aunt Ri's the nateralest.”
Jos had some anxiety about his mother's memory of the way to San Jacinto. She laughed.
“Don't yeow be a mite oneasy,” she said. “I bet yeow I'd go clean back ter the States ther way we cum. I allow I've got every mile on 't 'n my hed plain's a turnpike. Yeow nor yer dad, neiry one on yer, couldn't begin to do 't. But what we air gwine ter do, fur gettin' up the mounting, thet's another thing. Thet's more 'n I dew know. But thar'll be a way pervided, Jos, sure's yeow're bawn. The Lawd ain't gwine to get hisself hindered er holpin' Ramony this time; I ain't a mite afeerd.”
Felipe could not have found a better ally. The comparative silence enforced between them by reason of lack of a common vehicle for their thoughts was on the whole less of a disadvantage than would have at first appeared. They understood each other well enough for practical purposes, and their unity in aim, and in affection for Ramona, made a bond so strong, it could not have been enhanced by words.
It was past sundown when they left San Bernardino, but a full moon made the night as good as day for their journey. When it first shone out, Aunt Ri, pointing to it, said curtly, “Thet's lucky.”
“Yes,” replied Felipe, who did not know either of the words she had spoken, “it is good. It shows to us the way.”
“Thar, naow, say he can't understand English!” thought Aunt Ri.
Benito and Baba travelled as if they knew the errand on which they were hurrying. Good forty miles they had gone without flagging once, when Aunt Ri, pointing to a house on the right hand of the road, the only one they had seen for many miles, said: “We'll hev to sleep hyar. I donno the road beyant this. I allow they're gone ter bed; but they'll hev to git up 'n' take us in. They're used ter doin' it. They dew consid'able business keepin' movers. I know 'em. They're reel friendly fur the kind o' people they air. They're druv to death. It can't be far frum their time to git up, ennyhow. They're up every mornin' uv thar lives long afore daylight, a feedin' their stock, an' gittin' ready fur the day's work. I used ter hear 'em 'n' see 'em, when we wuz campin' here. The fust I saw uv it, I thought somebody wuz sick in the house, to git 'em up thet time o' night; but arterwards we found out 't wan't nothin' but thar reggerlar way. When I told dad, sez I, 'Dad, did ever yer hear sech a thing uz gittin' up afore light to feed stock?' 'n' ter feed theirselves tew. They'd their own breakfast all clared away, 'n' dishes washed, too, afore light; 'n' prayers said beside; they're Methodys, terrible pious. I used ter tell dad they talked a heap about believin' in God; I don't allow but what they dew believe in God, tew, but they don't worship Him so much's they worship work; not nigh so much. Believin' 'n' worshippin' 's tew things. Yeow wouldn't see no sech doin's in Tennessee. I allow the Lawd meant some time fur sleepin'; 'n' I'm satisfied with his times o' lightin' up. But these Merrills air reel nice folks, fur all this I've ben tellin' yer! --Lawd! I don't believe he's understood a word I've said, naow!” thought Aunt Ri to herself, suddenly becoming aware of the hopeless bewilderment on Felipe's face. “'Tain't much use sayin' anything more'n plain yes 'n' no, between folks thet can't understand each other's langwedge; 'n' s' fur's thet goes, I allow thar ain't any gret use'n the biggest part o' what's sed between folks thet doos!”
When the Merrill family learned Felipe's purpose of going up the mountain to the Cahuilla village, they attempted to dissuade him from taking his own horses. He would kill them both, high-spirited horses like those, they said, if he took them over that road. It was a cruel road. They pointed out to him the line where it wound, doubling and tacking on the sides of precipices, like a path for a goat or chamois. Aunt Ri shuddered at the sight, but said nothing.
“I'm gwine whar he goes,” she said grimly to herself. “I ain't a gwine ter back daown naow; but I dew jest wish Jeff Hyer wuz along.”
Felipe himself disliked what he saw and heard of the grade. The road had been built for bringing down lumber, and for six miles it was at perilous angles. After this it wound along on ridges and in ravines till it reached the heart of a great pine forest, where stood a saw-mill. Passing this, it plunged into still darker, denser woods, some fifteen miles farther on, and then came out among vast opens, meadows, and grassy foot-hills, still on the majestic mountain's northern or eastern slopes. From these, another steep road, little more than a trail, led south, and up to the Cahuilla village. A day and a half's hard journey, at the shortest, it was from Merrill's; and no one unfamiliar with the country could find the last part of the way without a guide. Finally it was arranged that one of the younger Merrills should go in this capacity, and should also take two of his strongest horses, accustomed to the road. By the help of these the terrible ascent was made without difficulty, though Baba at first snorted, plunged, and resented the humiliation of being harnessed with his head at another horse's tail.
Except for their sad errand, both Felipe and Aunt Ri would have experienced a keen delight in this ascent. With each fresh lift on the precipitous terraces, the view off to the south and west broadened, until the whole San Jacinto Valley lay unrolled at their feet. The pines were grand; standing, they seemed shapely columns; fallen, the upper curve of their huge yellow disks came above a man's head, so massive was their size. On many of them the bark had been riddled from root to top, as by myriads of bullet-holes. In each hole had been cunningly stored away an acorn,--the woodpeckers' granaries.
“Look at thet, naow!” exclaimed the observant Aunt Ri; “an' thar's folk's thet sez dumb critters ain't got brains. They ain't noways dumb to each other, I notice; an' we air dumb aourselves when we air ketched with furriners. I allow I'm next door to dumb myself with this hyar Mexican I'm er travellin' with.”
“That's so!” replied Sam Merrill. “When we fust got here, I thought I'd ha' gone clean out o' my head tryin' to make these Mexicans sense my meanin'; my tongue was plaguy little use to me. But now I can talk their lingo fust-rate; but pa, he can't talk to 'em nohow; he hain't learned the fust word; 'n' he's ben here goin' on two years longer'n we have.”
The miles seemed leagues to Felipe. Aunt Ri's drawling tones, as she chatted volubly with young Merrill, chafed him. How could she chatter! But when he thought this, it would chance that in a few moments more he would see her clandestinely wiping away tears, and his heart would warm to her again.
They slept at a miserable cabin in one of the clearings, and at early dawn pushed on, reaching the Cahuilla village before noon. As their carriage came in sight, a great running to and fro of people was to be seen. Such an event as the arrival of a comfortable carriage drawn by four horses had never before taken place in the village. The agitation into which the people had been thrown by the murder of Alessandro had by no means subsided; they were all on the alert, suspicious of each new occurrence. The news had only just reached the village that Farrar had been set at liberty, and would not be punished for his crime, and the flames of indignation and desire for vengeance, which the aged Capitan had so much difficulty in allaying in the outset, were bursting forth again this morning. It was therefore a crowd of hostile and lowering faces which gathered around the carriage as it stopped in front of the Capitan's house.
Aunt Ri's face was a ludicrous study of mingled terror, defiance, and contempt. “Uv all ther low-down, no-'count, beggarly trash ever I laid eyes on,” she said in a low tone to Merrill, “I allow these yere air the wust! But I allow they'd flatten us all aout in jest abaout a minnit, if they wuz to set aout tew! Ef she ain't hyar, we air in a scrape, I allow.”
“Oh, they're friendly enough,” laughed Merrill. “They're all stirred up, now, about the killin' o' that Injun; that's what makes 'em look so fierce. I don't wonder! 'Twas a derned mean thing Jim Farrar did, a firin' into the man after he was dead. I don't blame him for killin' the cuss, not a bit; I'd have shot any man livin' that 'ad taken a good horse o' mine up that trail. That's the only law we stock men've got out in this country. We've got to protect ourselves. But it was a mean, low-lived trick to blow the feller's face to pieces after he was dead; but Jim's a rough feller, 'n' I expect he was so mad, when he see his horse, that he didn't know what he did.”
Aunt Ri was half paralyzed with astonishment at this speech. Felipe had leaped out of the carriage, and after a few words with the old Capitan, had hurried with him into his house. Felipe had evidently forgotten that she was still in the carriage. His going into the house looked as if Ramona was there. Aunt Ri, in all her indignation and astonishment, was conscious of this train of thought running through her mind; but not even the near prospect of seeing Ramona could bridle her tongue now, or make her defer replying to the extraordinary statements she had just heard. The words seemed to choke her as she began. “Young man,” she said, “I donno much abaout yeour raisin'. I've heered yeour folks wuz great on religion. Naow, we ain't, Jeff 'n' me; we warn't raised thet way; but I allow ef I wuz ter hear my boy, Jos,--he's jest abaout yeour age, 'n' make tew, though he's narrerer chested,--ef I should hear him say what yeou've jest said, I allow I sh'd expect to see him struck by lightnin'; 'n' I sh'dn't think he hed got more 'n his deserts, I allow I sh'dn't!”
What more Aunt Ri would have said to the astounded Merrill was never known, for at that instant the old Capitan, returning to the door, beckoned to her; and springing from her seat to the ground, sternly rejecting Sam's offered hand, she hastily entered the house. As she crossed the threshold, Felipe turned an anguished face toward her, and said, “Come, speak to her.” He was on his knees by a wretched pallet on the floor. Was that Ramona,--that prostrate form; hair dishevelled, eyes glittering, cheeks scarlet, hands playing meaninglessly, like the hands of one crazed, with a rosary of gold beads? Yes, it was Ramona; and it was like this she had lain there now ten days; and the people had exhausted all their simple skill for her in vain.
Aunt Ri burst into tears. “Oh, Lawd!” she said. “Ef I had some 'old man' hyar, I'd bring her aout er thet fever! I dew bleeve I seed some on 't growin' not more'n er mile back.” And without a second look, or another word, she ran out of the door, and springing into the carriage, said, speaking faster than she had been heard to speak for thirty years: “Yeow jest turn raound 'n' drive me back a piece, the way we come. I allow I'll git a weed thet'll break thet fever. Faster, faster! Run yer hosses. 'Tain't above er mile back, whar I seed it,” she cried, leaning out, eagerly scrutinizing each inch of the barren ground. “Stop! Here 'tis!” she cried. “I knowed I smelt the bitter on 't somewhars along hyar;” and in a few minutes more she had a mass of the soft, shining, gray, feathery leaves in her hands, and was urging the horses fiercely on their way back. “This'll cure her, ef ennything will,” she said, as she entered the room again; but her heart sank as she saw Ramona's eyes roving restlessly over Felipe's face, no sign of recognition in them. “She's bad,” she said, her lips trembling; “but, 'never say die!' ez allers our motto; 'tain't never tew late fur ennything but oncet, 'n' yer can't tell when thet time's come till it's past 'n' gone.”
Steaming bowls of the bitterly odorous infusion she held at Ramona's nostrils; with infinite patience she forced drop after drop of it between the unconscious lips; she bathed the hands and head, her own hands blistered by the heat. It was a fight with death; but love and life won. Before night Ramona was asleep.
Felipe and Aunt Ri sat by her, strange but not uncongenial watchers, each taking heart from the other's devotion. All night long Ramona slept. As Felipe watched her, he remembered his own fever, and how she had knelt by his bed and prayed there. He glanced around the room. In a niche in the mud wall was a cheap print of the Madonna, one candle just smouldering out before it. The village people had drawn heavily on their poverty-stricken stores, keeping candles burning for Alessandro and Ramona during the past ten days. The rosary had slipped from Ramona's hold; taking it cautiously in his hand, Felipe went to the Madonna's picture, and falling on his knees, began to pray as simply as if he were alone. The Indians, standing on the doorway, also fell on their knees, and a low-whispered murmur was heard.
For a moment Aunt Ri looked at the kneeling figures with contempt. “Oh, Lawd!” she thought, “the pore heathen, prayin' ter a picter!” Then a sudden revulsion seized her. “I allow I ain't gwine ter be the unly one out er the hull number thet don't seem to hev nothin' ter pray ter; I allow I'll jine in prayer, tew, but I shan't say mine ter no picter!” And Aunt Ri fell on her knees; and when a young Indian woman by her side slipped a rosary into her hand, Aunt Ri did not repulse it, but hid it in the folds of her gown till the prayers were done. It was a moment and a lesson Aunt Ri never forgot.
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
26
|
None
|
THE Capitan's house faced the east. Just as day broke, and the light streamed in at the open door, Ramona's eyes unclosed. Felipe and Aunt Ri were both by her side. With a look of bewildered terror, she gazed at them.
“Thar, thar, naow! Yer jest shet yer eyes 'n' go right off ter sleep agin, honey,” said Aunt Ri, composedly, laying her hand on Ramona's eyelids, and compelling them down. “We air hyar, Feeleepy 'n' me, 'n' we air goin' ter stay. I allow yer needn't be afeerd o' nothin'. Go ter sleep, honey.”
The eyelids quivered beneath Aunt Ri's fingers. Tears forced their way, and rolled slowly down the cheeks. The lips trembled; the voice strove to speak, but it was only like the ghost of a whisper, the faint question that came,--“Felipe?”
“Yes, dear! I am here, too,” breathed Felipe; “go to sleep. We will not leave you!”
And again Ramona sank away into the merciful sleep which was saving her life.
“Ther longer she kin sleep, ther better,” said Aunt Ri, with a sigh, deep-drawn like a groan. “I allow I dread ter see her reely come to. 'T'll be wus'n the fust; she'll hev ter live it all over again!”
But Aunt Ri did not know what forces of fortitude had been gathering in Ramona's soul during these last bitter years. Out of her gentle constancy had been woven the heroic fibre of which martyrs are made; this, and her inextinguishable faith, had made her strong, as were those of old, who “had trial of cruel mocking, wandering about, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”
When she waked the second time, it was with a calm, almost beatific smile that she gazed on Felipe, and whispered, “How did you find me, dear Felipe?” It was rather by the motions of her lips than by any sound that he knew the words. She had not yet strength enough to make an audible sound. When they laid her baby on her breast, she smiled again, and tried to embrace her, but was too weak. Pointing to the baby's eyes, she whispered, gazing earnestly at Felipe, “Alessandro.” A convulsion passed over her face as she spoke the word, and the tears flowed.
Felipe could not speak. He glanced helplessly at Aunt Ri, who promptly responded: “Naow, honey, don't yeow talk. 'Tain't good fur ye; 'n' Feeleepy 'n' me, we air in a powerful hurry ter git yer strong 'n' well, 'n' tote ye out er this--” Aunt Ri stopped. No substantive in her vocabulary answered her need at that moment. “I allow ye kin go 'n a week, ef nothin' don't go agin ye more'n I see naow; but ef yer git ter talkin', thar's no tellin' when yer'll git up. Yeow jest shet up, honey. We'll look arter everythin'.”
Feebly Ramona turned her grateful, inquiring eyes on Felipe. Her lips framed the words, “With you?”
“Yes, dear, home with me,” said Felipe, clasping her hand in his. “I have been searching for you all this time.”
An anxious look came into the sweet face. Felipe knew what it meant. How often he had seen it in the olden time. He feared to shock her by the sudden mention of the Senora's death; yet that would harm her less than continued anxiety. “I am alone, dear Ramona,” he whispered. “There is no one now but you, my sister, to take care of me. My mother has been dead a year.”
The eyes dilated, then filled with sympathetic tears. “Dear Felipe!” she sighed; but her heart took courage. Felipe's phrase was like one inspired; another duty, another work, another loyalty, waiting for Ramona. Not only her child to live for, but to “take care of Felipe”! Ramona would not die! Youth, a mother's love, a sister's affection and duty, on the side of life,--the battle was won, and won quickly, too.
To the simple Cahuillas it seemed like a miracle; and they looked on Aunt Ri's weather-beaten face with something akin to a superstitious reverence. They themselves were not ignorant of the value of the herb by means of which she had wrought the marvellous cure; but they had made repeated experiments with it upon Ramona, without success. It must be that there had been some potent spell in Aunt Ri's handling. They would hardly believe her when, in answer to their persistent questioning, she reiterated the assertion that she had used nothing except the hot water and “old man,” which was her name for the wild wormwood; and which, when explained to them, impressed them greatly, as having no doubt some significance in connection with the results of her preparation of the leaves.
Rumors about Felipe ran swiftly throughout the region. The presence in the Cahuilla village of a rich Mexican gentleman who spent gold like water, and kept mounted men riding day and night, after everything, anything, he wanted for his sick sister, was an event which in the atmosphere of that lonely country loomed into colossal proportions. He had travelled all over California, with four horses, in search of her. He was only waiting till she was well, to take her to his home in the south; and then he was going to arrest the man who had murdered her husband, and have him hanged,--yes, hanged! Small doubt about that; or, if the law cleared him, there was still the bullet. This rich Senor would see him shot, if rope were not to be had. Jim Farrar heard these tales, and quaked in his guilty soul. The rope he had small fear of, for well he knew the temper of San Diego County juries and judges; but the bullet, that was another thing; and these Mexicans were like Indians in their vengeance. Time did not tire them, and their memories were long. Farrar cursed the day he had let his temper get the better of him on that lonely mountainside; how much the better, nobody but he himself knew,--nobody but he and Ramona: and even Ramona did not know the bitter whole. She knew that Alessandro had no knife, and had gone forward with no hostile intent; but she knew nothing beyond that. Only the murderer himself knew that the dialogue which he had reported to the judge and jury, to justify his act, was an entire fabrication of his own, and that, instead of it, had been spoken but four words by Alessandro, and those were, “Senor, I will explain;” and that even after the first shot had pierced his lungs, and the blood was choking in his throat, he had still run a step or two farther, with his hand uplifted deprecatingly, and made one more effort to speak before he fell to the ground dead. Callous as Farrar was, and clear as it was in his mind that killing an Indian was no harm, he had not liked to recall the pleading anguish in Alessandro's tone and in his face as he fell. He had not liked to recall this, even before he heard of this rich Mexican brother-in-law who had appeared on the scene; and now, he found the memories still more unpleasant. Fear is a wonderful goad to remorse. There was another thing, too, which to his great wonder had been apparently overlooked by everybody; at least, nothing had been said about it; but the bearing of it on his case, if the case were brought up a second time and minutely investigated, would be most unfortunate. And this was, that the only clew he had to the fact of Alessandro's having taken his horse, was that the poor, half-crazed fellow had left his own well-known gray pony in the corral in place of the horse he took. A strange thing, surely, for a horse-thief to do! Cold sweat burst out on Farrar's forehead, more than once, as he realized how this, coupled with the well-known fact of Alessandro's liability to attacks of insanity, might be made to tell against him, if he should be brought to trial for the murder. He was as cowardly as he was cruel: never yet were the two traits separate in human nature; and after a few days of this torturing suspense and apprehension, he suddenly resolved to leave the country, if not forever, at least for a few years, till this brother-in-law should be out of the way. He lost no time in carrying out his resolution; and it was well he did not, for it was only three days after he had disappeared, that Felipe walked into Judge Wells's office, one morning, to make inquiries relative to the preliminary hearing which had been held there in the matter of the murder of the Indian, Alessandro Assis, by James Farrar. And when the judge, taking down his books, read to Felipe his notes of the case, and went on to say, “If Farrar's testimony is true, Ramona's, the wife's, must be false,” and “at any rate, her testimony would not be worth a straw with any jury,” Felipe sprang to his feet, and cried, “She of whom you speak is my foster-sister; and, by God, Senor, if I can find that man, I will shoot him as I would a dog! And I'll see, then, if a San Diego County jury will hang me for ridding the country of such a brute!” and Felipe would have been as good as his word. It was a wise thing Farrar had done in making his escape.
When Aunt Ri heard that Farrar had fled the country, she pushed up her spectacles and looked reflectively at her informant. It was young Merrill. “Fled ther country, hez he?” she said. “Wall, he kin flee ez many countries ez he likes, an' 't won't dew him no good. I know yeow folks hyar don't seem ter think killin' an Injun's enny murder, but I say 'tis; an' yeow'll all git it brung home ter yer afore yer die: ef 'tain't brung one way, 't'll be anuther; yeow jest mind what I say, 'n' don't yeow furgit it. Naow this miser'ble murderer, this Farrar, thet's lighted out er hyar, he's nothin' more'n a skunk, but he's got the Lawd arter him, naow. It's jest's well he's gawn; I never did b'leeve in hangin'. I never could. It's jest tew men dead 'stead o' one. I don't want to see no man hung, no marter what he's done, 'n' I don't want to see no man shot down, nuther, no marter what he's done; 'n' this hyar Feeleepy, he's thet highstrung, he'd ha' shot thet Farrar, any minnit, quicker'n lightnin', ef he'd ketched him; so it's better all raound he's lit aout. But I tell yeow, naow, he hain't made much by goin'! Thet Injun he murdered 'll foller him night 'n' day, till he dies, 'n' long arter; he'll wish he wuz dead afore he doos die, I allow he will, naow. He'll be jest like a man I knowed back in Tennessee. I wa'n't but a mite then, but I never forgot it. 'Tis a great country fur gourds, East Tennessee is, whar I wuz raised; 'n' thar wuz two houses, 'n' a fence between 'em, 'n' these gourds a runnin' all over the fence; 'n' one o' ther childun picked one o' them gourds, an' they fit abaout it; 'n' then the women took it up,--ther childun's mothers, yer know,--'n' they got fightin' abaout it; 'n' then 't the last the men took it up, 'n' they fit; 'n' Rowell he got his butcher-knife, 'n' he ground it up, 'n' he picked a querril with Claiborne, 'n' he cut him inter pieces. They hed him up for 't, 'n' somehow they clared him. I don't see how they ever did, but they put 't off, 'n' put 't off, 'n' 't last they got him free; 'n' he lived on thar a spell, but he couldn't stan' it; 'peared like he never hed no peace; 'n' he came over ter our 'us, 'n' sed he, 'Jake,'--they allers called daddy 'Jake,' or 'Uncle Jake,'--'Jake,' sed he, 'I can't stan' it, livin' hyar.' 'Why,' sez daddy, 'the law o' the country's clar'd ye.' 'Yes,' sez he, 'but the law o' God hain't; 'n' I've got Claiborne allers with me. Thar ain't any path so narrer, but he's a walkin' in it, by my side, all day; 'n' come night, I sleep with him ter one side, 'n' my wife 't other; 'n' I can't stan' it.' Them's ther very words I heered him say, 'n' I wuzn't ennythin' but a mite, but I didn't furgit it. Wall, sir, he went West, way aout hyar to Californy, 'n' he couldn't stay thar nuther, 'n' he came back hum agin; 'n' I wuz bigger then, a gal grown, 'n' daddy sez to him,--I heern him,--'Wal,' sez he, 'did Claiborne foller yer?' 'Yes,' sez he, 'he follered me. I'll never git shet o' him in this world. He's allers clost to me everywhar.' Yer see, 'twas jest his conscience er whippin' him. Thet's all 't wuz. ' T least, thet's all I think 't wuz; though thar wuz those thet said 't wuz Claiborne's ghost. 'N' thet'll be the way 't 'll be with this miser'ble Farrar. He'll live ter wish he'd let hisself be hanged er shot, er erry which way, ter git out er his misery.”
Young Merrill listened with unwonted gravity to Aunt Ri's earnest words. They reached a depth in his nature which had been long untouched; a stratum, so to speak, which lay far beneath the surface. The character of the Western frontiersman is often a singular accumulation of such strata,--the training and beliefs of his earliest days overlain by successions of unrelated and violent experiences, like geological deposits. Underneath the exterior crust of the most hardened and ruffianly nature often remains--its forms not yet quite fossilized--a realm full of the devout customs, doctrines, religious influences, which the boy knew, and the man remembers, By sudden upheaval, in some great catastrophe or struggle in his mature life, these all come again into the light. Assembly Catechism definitions, which he learned in his childhood, and has not thought of since, ring in his ears, and he is thrown into all manner of confusions and inconsistencies of feeling and speech by this clashing of the old and new man within him. It was much in this way that Aunt Ri's words smote upon young Merrill. He was not many years removed from the sound of a preaching of the straitest New England Calvinism. The wild frontier life had drawn him in and under, as in a whirlpool; but he was New Englander yet at heart.
“That's so, Aunt Ri!” he exclaimed. “That's so! I don't s'pose a man that's committed murder 'll ever have any peace in this world, nor in the next nuther, without he repents; but ye see this horse-stealin' business is different. 'Tain't murder to kill a hoss-thief, any way you can fix it; everybody admits that. A feller that's caught horse-stealin' had ought to be shot; and he will be, too, I tell you, in this country!”
A look of impatient despair spread over Aunt Ri's face. “I hain't no patience left with yer,” she said, “er talkin' abaout stealin' hosses ez ef hosses wuz more'n human bein's! But lettin' thet all go, this Injun, he wuz crazy. Yer all knowed it. Thet Farrar knowed it. D'yer think ef he'd ben stealin' the hoss, he'd er left his own hoss in the corral, same ez, yer might say, leavin' his kyerd to say 't wuz he done it; 'n' the hoss er tied in plain sight 'n front uv his house fur ennybody ter see?”
“Left his own horse, so he did!” retorted Merrill. “A poor, miserable, knock-kneed old pony, that wa'n't worth twenty dollars; 'n' Jim's horse was worth two hundred, 'n' cheap at that.”
“Thet ain't nuther here nor thar in what we air sayin',” persisted Aunt Ri. “I ain't a speakin' on 't ez a swap er hosses. What I say is, he wa'n't tryin' to cover 't up thet he'd tuk the hoss. We air sum used ter hoss-thieves in Tennessee; but I never heered o' one yit thet left his name fur a refference berhind him, ter show which road he tuk, 'n' fastened ther stolen critter ter his front gate when he got hum! I allow me 'n' yeow hedn't better say anythin' much more on ther subjeck, fur I allow we air bound to querril ef we dew;” and nothing that Merrill said could draw another word out of Aunt Ri in regard to Alessandro's death. But there was another subject on which she was tireless, and her speech eloquent. It was the kindness and goodness of the Cahuilla people. The last vestige of her prejudice against Indians had melted and gone, in the presence of their simple-hearted friendliness. “I'll never hear a word said agin 'em, never, ter my longest day,” she said. “The way the pore things hed jest stripped theirselves, to git things fur Ramony, beat all ever I see among white folks, 'n' I've ben raound more'n most. 'N' they wa'n't lookin' fur no pay, nuther; fur they didn't know, till Feeleepy 'n' me cum, thet she had any folks ennywhar, 'n' they'd ha' taken care on her till she died, jest the same. The sick allers ez took care on among them, they sed, 's long uz enny on em hez got a thing left. Thet's ther way they air raised; I allow white folks might take a lesson on 'em, in thet; 'n' in heaps uv other things tew. Oh, I'm done talkin' again Injuns, naow, don't yeow furgit it! But I know, fur all thet, 't won't make any difference; 'pears like there cuddn't nobody b'leeve ennythin' 'n this world 'thout seein' 't theirselves. I wuz thet way tew; I allow I hain't got no call ter talk; but I jest wish the hull world could see what I've seen! Thet's all!”
It was a sad day in the village when Ramona and her friends departed. Heartily as the kindly people rejoiced in her having found such a protector for herself and her child, and deeply as they felt Felipe's and Aunt Ri's good-will and gratitude towards them, they were yet conscious of a loss,--of a void. The gulf between them and the rest of the world seemed defined anew, their sense of isolation deepened, their hopeless poverty emphasized. Ramona, wife of Alessandro, had been as their sister,--one of them; as such, she would have had share in all their life had to offer. But its utmost was nothing, was but hardship and deprivation; and she was being borne away from it, like one rescued, not so much from death, as from a life worse than death.
The tears streamed down Ramona's face as she bade them farewell. She embraced again and again the young mother who had for so many days suckled her child, even, it was said, depriving her own hardier babe that Ramona's should not suffer. “Sister, you have given me my child,” she cried; “I can never thank you; I will pray for you all my life.”
She made no inquiries as to Felipe's plans. Unquestioningly, like a little child, she resigned herself into his hands. A power greater than hers was ordering her way; Felipe was its instrument. No other voice spoke to guide her. The same old simplicity of acceptance which had characterized her daily life in her girlhood, and kept her serene and sunny then,--serene under trials, sunny in her routine of little duties,--had kept her serene through all the afflictions, and calm, if not sunny, under all the burdens of her later life; and it did not desert her even now.
Aunt Ri gazed at her with a sentiment as near to veneration as her dry, humorous, practical nature was capable of feeling. “I allow I donno but I sh'd cum ter believin' in saints tew,” she said, “ef I wuz ter live 'long side er thet gal. 'Pears like she wuz suthin' more 'n human. ' T beats me plum out, ther way she takes her troubles. Thar's sum would say she hedn't no feelin'; but I allow she hez more 'n most folks. I kin see, 'tain't thet. I allow I didn't never expect ter think 's well uv prayin' to picters, 'n' strings er beads, 'n' sech; but ef 't 's thet keeps her up ther way she's kept up, I allow thar's more in it 'n it's hed credit fur. I ain't gwine ter say enny more agin it' nor agin Injuns. 'Pears like I'm gittin' heaps er new idears inter my head, these days. I'll turn Injun, mebbe, afore I git through!”
The farewell to Aunt Ri was hardest of all. Ramona clung to her as to a mother. At times she felt that she would rather stay by her side than go home with Felipe; then she reproached herself for the thought, as for a treason and ingratitude. Felipe saw the feeling, and did not wonder at it. “Dear girl,” he thought; “it is the nearest she has ever come to knowing what a mother's love is like!” And he lingered in San Bernardino week after week, on the pretence that Ramona was not yet strong enough to bear the journey home, when in reality his sole motive for staying was his reluctance to deprive her of Aunt Ri's wholesome and cheering companionship.
Aunt Ri was busily at work on a rag carpet for the Indian Agent's wife. She had just begun it, had woven only a few inches, on that dreadful morning when the news of Alessandro's death reached her. It was of her favorite pattern, the “hit-er-miss” pattern, as she called it; no set stripes or regular alternation of colors, but ball after ball of the indiscriminately mixed tints, woven back and forth, on a warp of a single color. The constant variety in it, the unexpectedly harmonious blending of the colors, gave her delight, and afforded her a subject, too, of not unphilosophical reflection.
“Wall,” she said, “it's called ther 'hit-er-miss' pattren; but it's 'hit' oftener'n 'tis 'miss.' Thar ain't enny accountin' fur ther way ther breadths'll come, sometimes; 'pears like 't wuz kind er magic, when they air sewed tergether; 'n' I allow thet's ther way it's gwine ter be with heaps er things in this life. It's jest a kind er 'hit-er-miss' pattren we air all on us livin' on; 'tain't much use tryin' ter reckon how 't 'll come aout; but the breadths doos fit heaps better 'n yer'd think; come ter sew 'em, 'tain't never no sech colors ez yer thought 't wuz gwine ter be; but it's allers pooty, allers; never see a 'hit-er-miss' pattren 'n my life yit, thet wa'n't pooty. 'N' ther wa'n't never nobody fetched me rags, 'n' hed 'em all planned aout, 'n' jest ther way they wanted ther warp, 'n' jest haow ther stripes wuz ter come, 'n' all, thet they wa'n't orful diserpynted when they cum ter see 't done. It don't never look's they thought 't would, never! I larned thet lesson airly; 'n' I allers make 'em write aout on a paper, jest ther wedth er every stripe, 'n' each er ther colors, so's they kin see it's what they ordered; 'r else they'd allers say I hedn't wove 't's I wuz told ter. I got ketched thet way oncet! I allow ennybody's a bawn fool gits ketched twice runnin' ther same way. But fur me, I'll take ther 'hit-er-miss' pattren, every time, sir, straight along.”
When the carpet was done, Aunt Ri took the roll in her own independent arms, and strode with it to the Agent's house. She had been biding the time when she should have this excuse for going there. Her mind was burdened with questions she wished to ask, information she wished to give, and she chose an hour when she knew she would find the Agent himself at home.
“I allow yer heered why I wuz behind time with this yere carpet,” she said; “I wuz up ter San Jacinto Mounting, where thet Injun wuz murdered. We brung his widder 'n' ther baby daown with us, me 'n' her brother. He's tuk her home ter his house ter live. He's reel well off.”
Yes, the Agent had heard this; he had wondered why the widow did not come to see him; he had expected to hear from her.
“Wall, I did hent ter her thet p'raps yer could dew something, ef she wuz ter tell yer all abaout it; but she allowed thar wa'n't enny use in talkin'. Ther jedge, he sed her witnessin' wouldn't be wuth nuthin' to no jury; 'n' thet wuz what I wuz a wantin' to ask yeow, ef thet wuz so.”
“Yes, that is what the lawyers here told me,” said the Agent. “I was going to have the man arrested, but they said it would be folly to bring the case to trial. The woman's testimony would not be believed.”
“Yeow've got power ter git a man punished fur sellin' whiskey to Injuns, I notice,” broke in Aunt Ri; “hain't yer? I see yeour man 'n' the marshal here arrestin' 'em pooty lively last month; they sed 'twas yeour doin'; yeow was a gwine ter prossacute every livin' son o' hell--them wuz thar words--thet sold whiskey ter Injuns.”
“That's so!” said the Agent. “So I am; I am determined to break up this vile business of selling whiskey to Indians. It is no use trying to do anything for them while they are made drunk in this way; it's a sin and a shame.”
“Thet's so, I allow ter yeow,” said Aunt Ri. “Thar ain't any gainsayin' thet. But ef yeow've got power ter git a man put in jail fur sellin' whiskey 't 'n Injun, 'n' hain't got power to git him punished ef he goes 'n' kills thet Injun, 't sems ter me thar's suthin' cur'us abaout thet.”
“That is just the trouble in my position here, Aunt Ri,” he said. “I have no real power over my Indians, as I ought to have.”
“What makes yer call 'em yeour Injuns?” broke in Aunt Ri.
The Agent colored. Aunt Ri was a privileged character, but her logical method of questioning was inconvenient.
“I only mean that they are under my charge,” he said. “I don't mean that they belong to me in any way.”
“Wall, I allow not,” retorted Aunt Ri, “enny more 'n I dew. They air airnin' their livin', sech 's 'tis, ef yer kin call it a livin'. I've been 'mongst 'em, naow, they hyar last tew weeks, 'n' I allow I've had my eyes opened ter some things. What's thet docter er yourn, him thet they call the Agency doctor,--what's he got ter do?”
“To attend to the Indians of this Agency when they are sick,” replied the Agent, promptly.
“Wall, thet's what I heern; thet's what yeow sed afore, 'n' thet's why Alessandro, the Injun thet wuz murdered,--thet's why he put his name down 'n yeour books, though 't went agin him orful ter do it. He wuz high-spereted, 'n' 'd allers took keer er hisself; but he'd ben druv out er fust one place 'n' then another, tell he'd got clar down, 'n' pore; 'n' he jest begged thet doctor er yourn to go to see his little gal, 'n' the docter wouldn't; 'n' more'n thet, he laughed at him fur askin.' 'N' they set the little thing on the hoss ter bring her here, 'n' she died afore they'd come a mile with her; 'n' 't wuz thet, on top er all the rest druv Alessandro crazy. He never hed none er them wandrin' spells till arter thet. Naow I allow thet wa'n't right eh thet docter. I wouldn't hev no sech docter's thet raound my Agency, ef I wuz yeow. Pr'aps yer never heered uv thet. I told Ramony I didn't bleeve yer knowed it, or ye'd hev made him go.”
“No, Aunt Ri,” said the Agent; “I could not have done that; he is only required to doctor such Indians as come here.”
“I allow, then, thar ain't any gret use en hevin' him at all,” said Aunt Ri; “'pears like thar ain't more'n a harndful uv Injuns raound here. I expect he gits well paid?” and she paused for an answer. None came. The Agent did not feel himself obliged to reveal to Aunt Ri what salary the Government paid the San Bernardino doctor for sending haphazard prescriptions to Indians he never saw.
After a pause Aunt Ri resumed: “Ef it ain't enny offence ter yeow, I allow I'd like ter know jest what 'tis yeow air here ter dew fur these Injuns. I've got my feelin's considdable stirred up, bein' among 'em 'n' knowing this hyar one, thet's ben murdered. Hev ye got enny power to giv' 'em ennything,--food or sech? They air powerful pore, most on 'em.”
“I have had a little fund for buying supplies for them in times of special suffering;” replied the Agent, “a very little; and the Department has appropriated some money for wagons and ploughs; not enough, however, to supply every village; you see these Indians are in the main self-supporting.”
“Thet's jest it,” persisted Aunt Ri. “Thet's what I've ben seein'; 'n' thet's why I want so bad ter git at what 'tis the Guvvermunt means ter hev yeow dew fur 'em. I allow ef yeow ain't ter feed 'em, an' ef yer can't put folks inter jail fur robbin' 'n' cheatin' 'em, not ter say killin' 'em,--ef yer can't dew ennythin' more 'n keep 'em from gettin' whiskey, wall, I'm free ter say--” Aunt Ri paused; she did not wish to seem to reflect on the Agent's usefulness, and so concluded her sentence very differently from her first impulse,--“I'm free ter say I shouldn't like ter stan' in yer shoes.”
“You may very well say that, Aunt Ri,” laughed the Agent, complacently. “It is the most troublesome Agency in the whole list, and the least satisfactory.”
“Wall, I allow it mought be the least satisfyin',” rejoined the indefatigable Aunt Ri; “but I donno whar the trouble comes in, ef so be's thar's no more kin be done than yer wuz er tellin'.” And she looked honestly puzzled.
“Look there, Aunt Ri!” said he, triumphantly, pointing to a pile of books and papers. “All those to be gone through with, and a report to be made out every month, and a voucher to be sent for every lead-pencil I buy. I tell you I work harder than I ever did in my life before, and for less pay.”
“I allow yer hev hed easy times afore, then,” retorted Aunt Ri, good-naturedly satirical, “ef yeow air plum tired doin' thet!” And she took her leave, not a whit clearer in her mind as to the real nature and function of the Indian Agency than she was in the beginning.
Through all of Ramona's journey home she seemed to herself to be in a dream. Her baby in her arms; the faithful creatures, Baba and Benito, gayly trotting along at a pace so swift that the carriage seemed gliding; Felipe by her side,--the dear Felipe,--his eyes wearing the same bright and loving look as of old,--what strange thing was it which had happened to her to make it all seem unreal? Even the little one in her arms,--she too, seemed unreal! Ramona did not know it, but her nerves were still partially paralyzed. Nature sends merciful anaesthetics in the shocks which almost kill us. In the very sharpness of the blow sometimes lies its own first healing. It would be long before Ramona would fully realize that Alessandro was dead. Her worst anguish was yet to come.
Felipe did not know and could not have understood this; and it was with a marvelling gratitude that he saw Ramona, day after day, placid, always ready with a smile when he spoke to her. Her gratitude for each thoughtfulness of his smote him like a reproach; all the more that he knew her gentle heart had never held a thought of reproach in it towards him. “Grateful to me!” he thought. “To me, who might have spared her all this woe if I had been strong!”
Never would Felipe forgive himself,--no, not to the day of his death. His whole life should be devoted to her and her child; but what a pitiful thing was that to render!
As they drew near home, he saw Ramona often try to conceal from him that she had shed tears. At last he said to her: “Dearest Ramona, do not fear to weep before me. I would not be any constraint on you. It is better for you to let the tears come freely, my sister. They are healing to wounds.”
“I do not think so, Felipe,” replied Ramona. “Tears are only selfish and weak. They are like a cry because we are hurt. It is not possible always to keep them back; but I am ashamed when I have wept, and think also that I have sinned, because I have given a sad sight to others. Father Salvierderra always said that it was a duty to look happy, no matter how much we might be suffering.”
“That is more than human power can do!” said Felipe.
“I think not,” replied Ramona. “If it were, Father Salvierderra would not have commanded it. And do you not recollect, Felipe, what a smile his face always wore? and his heart had been broken for many, many years before he died. Alone, in the night, when he prayed, he used to weep, from the great wrestling he had with God, he told me; but we never saw him except with a smile. When one thinks in the wilderness, alone, Felipe, many things become clear. I have been learning, all these years in the wilderness, as if I had had a teacher. Sometimes I almost thought that the spirit of Father Salvierderra was by my side putting thoughts into my mind. I hope I can tell them to my child when she is old enough. She will understand them quicker than I did, for she has Alessandro's soul; you can see that by her eyes. And all these things of which I speak were in his heart from his childhood. They belong to the air and the sky and the sun, and all trees know them.”
When Ramona spoke thus of Alessandro, Felipe marvelled in silence. He himself had been afraid to mention Alessandro's name; but Ramona spoke it as if he were yet by her side. Felipe could not fathom this. There were to be many things yet which Felipe could not fathom in this lovely, sorrowing, sunny sister of his.
When they reached the house, the servants, who had been on the watch for days, were all gathered in the court-yard, old Marda and Juan Can heading the group; only two absent,--Margarita and Luigo. They had been married some months before, and were living at the Ortegas ranch, where Luigo, to Juan Can's scornful amusement, had been made head shepherd.
On all sides were beaming faces, smiles, and glad cries of greeting. Underneath these were affectionate hearts quaking with fear lest the home-coming be but a sad one after all. Vaguely they knew a little of what their dear Senorita had been through since she left them; it seemed that she must be sadly altered by so much sorrow, and that it would be terrible to her to come back to the place so full of painful associations. “And the Senora gone, too,” said one of the outdoor hands, as they were talking it over; “it's not the same place at all that it was when the Senora was here.”
“Humph!” muttered Juan Can, more consequential and overbearing than ever, for this year of absolute control of the estate. “Humph! that's all you know. A good thing the Senora died when she did, I can tell you! We'd never have seen the Senorita back here else; I can tell you that, my man! And for my part, I'd much rather be under Senor Felipe and the Senorita than under the Senora, peace to her ashes! She had her day. They can have theirs now.”
When these loving and excited retainers saw Ramona--pale, but with her own old smile on her face--coming towards them with her babe in her arms, they broke into wild cheering, and there was not a dry eye in the group.
Singling out old Marda by a glance, Ramona held out the baby towards her, and said in her old gentle, affectionate voice, “I am sure you will love my baby, Marda!”
“Senorita! Senorita! God bless you, Senorita!” they cried; and closed up their ranks around the baby, touching her, praising her, handing her from one to another.
Ramona stood for a few seconds watching them; then she said, “Give her to me, Marda. I will myself carry her into the house;” and she moved toward the inner door.
“This way, dear; this way,” cried Felipe. “It is Father Salvierderra's room I ordered to be prepared for you, because it is so sunny for the baby!”
“Thanks, kind Felipe!” cried Ramona, and her eyes said more than her words. She knew he had divined the one thing she had most dreaded in returning,--the crossing again the threshold of her own room. It would be long now before she would enter that room. Perhaps she would never enter it. How tender and wise of Felipe!
Yes; Felipe was both tender and wise, now. How long would the wisdom hold the tenderness in leash, as he day after day looked upon the face of this beautiful woman,--so much more beautiful now than she had been before her marriage, that Felipe sometimes, as he gazed at her, thought her changed even in feature? But in this very change lay a spell which would for a long time surround her, and set her as apart from lover's thoughts as if she were guarded by a cordon of viewless spirits. There was a rapt look of holy communion on her face, which made itself felt by the dullest perception, and sometimes overawed even where it attracted. It was the same thing which Aunt Ri had felt, and formulated in her own humorous fashion. But old Marda put it better, when, one day, in reply to a half-terrified, low-whispered suggestion of Juan Can, to the effect that it was “a great pity that Senor Felipe hadn't married the Senorita years ago,--what if he were to do it yet?” she said, also under her breath. “It is my opinion he'd as soon think of Saint Catharine herself! Not but that it would be a great thing if it could be!”
And now the thing that the Senora had imagined to herself so often had come about,--the presence of a little child in her house, on the veranda, in the garden, everywhere; the sunny, joyous, blest presence. But how differently had it come! Not Felipe's child, as she proudly had pictured, but the child of Ramona: the friendless, banished Ramona returned now into full honor and peace as the daughter of the house,--Ramona, widow of Alessandro. If the child had been Felipe's own, he could not have felt for it a greater love. From the first, the little thing had clung to him as only second to her mother. She slept hours in his arms, one little hand hid in his dark beard, close to his lips, and kissed again and again when no one saw. Next to Ramona herself in Felipe's heart came Ramona's child; and on the child he could lavish the fondness he felt that he could never dare to show to the mother, Month by month it grew clearer to Felipe that the mainsprings of Ramona's life were no longer of this earth; that she walked as one in constant fellowship with one unseen. Her frequent and calm mention of Alessandro did not deceive him. It did not mean a lessening grief: it meant an unchanged relation.
One thing weighed heavily on Felipe's mind,--the concealed treasure. A sense of humiliation withheld him, day after day, from speaking of it. But he could have no peace until Ramona knew it. Each hour that he delayed the revelation he felt himself almost as guilty as he had held his mother to be. At last he spoke. He had not said many words, before Ramona interrupted him. “Oh, yes!” she said. “I knew about those things; your mother told me. When we were in such trouble, I used to wish sometimes we could have had a few of the jewels. But they were all given to the Church. That was what the Senora Ortegna said must be done with them if I married against your mother's wishes.”
It was with a shame-stricken voice that Felipe replied: “Dear Ramona, they were not given to the Church. You know Father Salvierderra died; and I suppose my mother did not know what to do with them. She told me about them just as she was dying.”
“But why did you not give them to the Church, dear?” asked Ramona, simply.
“Why?” cried Felipe. “Because I hold them to be yours, and yours only. I would never have given them to the Church, until I had sure proof that you were dead and had left no children.”
Ramona's eyes were fixed earnestly on Felipe's face. “You have not read the Senora Ortegna's letter?” she said.
“Yes, I have,” he replied, “every word of it.”
“But that said I was not to have any of the things if I married against the Senora Moreno's will.”
Felipe groaned. Had his mother lied? “No, dear,” he said, “that was not the word. It was, if you married unworthily.”
Ramona reflected. “I never recollected the words,” she said. “I was too frightened; but I thought that was what it meant. I did not marry unworthily. Do you feel sure, Felipe, that it would be honest for me to take them for my child?”
“Perfectly,” said Felipe.
“Do you think Father Salvierderra would say I ought to keep them?”
“I am sure of it, dear.”
“I will think about it, Felipe. I cannot decide hastily. Your mother did not think I had any right to them, if I married Alessandro. That was why she showed them to me. I never knew of them till then. I took one thing,--a handkerchief of my father's. I was very glad to have it; but it got lost when we went from San Pasquale. Alessandro rode back a half-day's journey to find it for me; but it had blown away. I grieved sorely for it.”
The next day Ramona said to Felipe: “Dear Felipe, I have thought it all over about those jewels. I believe it will be right for my daughter to have them. Can there be some kind of a paper written for me to sign, to say that if she dies they are all to be given to the Church,--to Father Salvierderra's College, in Santa Barbara? That is where I would rather have them go.”
“Yes, dear,” said Felipe; “and then we will put them in some safer place. I will take them to Los Angeles when I go. It is wonderful no one has stolen them all these years!”
And so a second time the Ortegna jewels were passed on, by a written bequest, into the keeping of that mysterious, certain, uncertain thing we call the future, and delude our selves with the fancy that we can have much to do with its shaping.
***** Life ran smoothly in the Moreno household,--smoothly to the eye. Nothing could be more peaceful, fairer to see, than the routine of its days, with the simple pleasures, light tasks, and easy diligence of all. Summer and winter were alike sunny, and had each its own joys. There was not an antagonistic or jarring element; and, flitting back and forth, from veranda to veranda, garden to garden, room to room, equally at home and equally welcome everywhere, there went perpetually, running, frisking, laughing, rejoicing, the little child that had so strangely drifted into this happy shelter,--the little Ramona. As unconscious of aught sad or fateful in her destiny as the blossoms with which it was her delight to play, she sometimes seemed to her mother to have been from the first in some mysterious way disconnected from it, removed, set free from all that could ever by any possibility link her to sorrow.
Ramona herself bore no impress of sorrow; rather her face had now an added radiance. There had been a period, soon after her return, when she felt that she for the first time waked to the realization of her bereavement; when every sight, sound, and place seemed to cry out, mocking her with the name and the memory of Alessandro. But she wrestled with this absorbing grief as with a sin; setting her will steadfastly to the purposes of each day's duty, and, most of all, to the duty of joyfulness. She repeated to herself Father Salvierderra's sayings, till she more than knew them by heart; and she spent long hours of the night in prayer, as it had been his wont to do.
No one but Felipe dreamed of these vigils and wrestlings. He knew them; and he knew, too, when they ceased, and the new light of a new victory diffused itself over Ramona's face: but neither did the first dishearten, nor the latter encourage him. Felipe was a clearer-sighted lover now than he had been in his earlier youth. He knew that into the world where Ramona really lived he did not so much as enter; yet her every act, word, look, was full of loving thoughtfulness of and for him, loving happiness in his companionship. And while this was so, all Felipe's unrest could not make him unhappy.
There were other causes entering into this unrest besides his yearning desire to win Ramona for his wife. Year by year the conditions of life in California were growing more distasteful to him. The methods, aims, standards of the fast incoming Americans were to him odious. Their boasted successes, the crowding of colonies, schemes of settlement and development,--all were disagreeable and irritating. The passion for money and reckless spending of it, the great fortunes made in one hour, thrown away in another, savored to Felipe's mind more of brigandage and gambling than of the occupations of gentlemen. He loathed them. Life under the new government grew more and more intolerable to him; both his hereditary instincts and prejudices, and his temperament, revolted. He found himself more and more alone in the country. Even the Spanish tongue was less and less spoken. He was beginning to yearn for Mexico,--for Mexico, which he had never seen, yet yearned for like an exile. There he might yet live among men of his own race and degree, and of congenial beliefs and occupations. Whenever he thought of this change, always came the quick memory of Ramona. Would she be willing to go? Could it be that she felt a bond to this land, in which she had known nothing but sufferings.
At last he asked her. To his unutterable surprise, Ramona cried: “Felipe! The saints be praised! I should never have told you. I did not think that you could wish to leave this estate. But my most beautiful dream for Ramona would be, that she should grow up in Mexico.”
And as she spoke, Felipe understood by a lightning intuition, and wondered that he had not foreknown it, that she would spare her daughter the burden she had gladly, heroically borne herself, in the bond of race.
The question was settled. With gladness of heart almost more than he could have believed possible, Felipe at once communicated with some rich American proprietors who had desired to buy the Moreno estate. Land in the valley had so greatly advanced in value, that the sum he received for it was larger than he had dared to hope; was ample for the realization of all his plans for the new life in Mexico. From the hour that this was determined, and the time for their sailing fixed, a new expression came into Ramona's face. Her imagination was kindled. An untried future beckoned,--a future which she would embrace and conquer for her daughter. Felipe saw the look, felt the change, and for the first time hoped. It would be a new world, a new life; why not a new love? She could not always be blind to his devotion; and when she saw it, could she refuse to reward it? He would be very patient, and wait long, he thought. Surely, since he had been patient so long without hope, he could be still more patient now that hope had dawned! But patience is not hope's province in breasts of lovers. From the day when Felipe first thought to himself, “She will yet be mine,” it grew harder, and not easier, for him to refrain from pouring out his love in words. Her tender sisterliness, which had been such balm and comfort to him, grew at times intolerable; and again and again her gentle spirit was deeply disquieted with the fear that she had displeased him, so strangely did he conduct himself.
He had resolved that nothing should tempt him to disclose to her his passion and its dreams, until they had reached their new home. But there came a moment which mastered him, and he spoke.
It was in Monterey. They were to sail on the morrow; and had been on board the ship to complete the last arrangements. They were rowed back to shore in a little boat. A full moon shone. Ramona sat bareheaded in the end of the boat, and the silver radiance from the water seemed to float up around her, and invest her as with a myriad halos. Felipe gazed at her till his senses swam; and when, on stepping from the boat, she put her hand in his, and said, as she had said hundreds of times before, “Dear Felipe, how good you are!” he clasped her hands wildly, and cried, “Ramona, my love! Oh, can you not love me?”
The moonlight was bright as day. They were alone on the shore. Ramona gazed at him for one second, in surprise. Only for a second; then she knew all. “Felipe! My brother!” she cried, and stretched out her hands as if in warning.
“No! I am not your brother!” he cried. “I will not be your brother! I would rather die!”
“Felipe!” cried Ramona again. This time her voice recalled him to himself. It was a voice of terror and of pain.
“Forgive me, my sweet one!” he exclaimed. “I will never say it again. But I have loved you so long--so long!”
Ramona's head had fallen forward on her breast, her eyes fixed on the shining sands; the waves rose and fell, rose and fell, at her feet gently as sighs. A great revelation had come to Ramona. In this supreme moment of Felipe's abandonment of all disguises, she saw his whole past life in a new light. Remorse smote her. “Dear Felipe,” she said, clasping her hands, “I have been very selfish. I did not know--” “Of course you did not, love,” said Felipe. “How could you? But I have never loved any one else. I have always loved you. Can you not learn to love me? I did not mean to tell you for a long time yet. But now I have spoken; I cannot hide it any more.”
Ramona drew nearer to him, still with her hands clasped. “I have always loved you,” she said. “I love no other living man; but, Felipe,”--her voice sank to a solemn whisper,--“do you not know, Felipe, that part of me is dead,--dead? can never live again? You could not want me for your wife, Felipe, when part of me is dead!”
Felipe threw his arms around her. He was beside himself with joy. “You would not say that if you did not think you could be my wife,” he cried. “Only give yourself to me, my love, I care not whether you call yourself dead or alive!”
Ramona stood quietly in his arms. Ah, well for Felipe that he did not know, never could know, the Ramona that Alessandro had known. This gentle, faithful, grateful Ramona, asking herself fervently now if she would do her brother a wrong, yielding up to him what seemed to her only the broken fragment of a life; weighing his words, not in the light of passion, but of calmest, most unselfish action,--ah, how unlike was she to that Ramona who flung herself on Alessandro's breast, crying, “Take me with you! I would rather die than have you leave me!”
Ramona had spoken truth. Part of her was dead. But Ramona saw now, with infallible intuition, that even as she had loved Alessandro, so Felipe loved her. Could she refuse to give Felipe happiness, when he had saved her, saved her child? What else now remained for them, these words having been spoken? “I will be your wife, dear Felipe,” she said, speaking solemnly, slowly, “if you are sure it will make you happy, and if you think it is right.”
“Right!” ejaculated Felipe, mad with the joy unlooked for so soon. “Nothing else would be right! My Ramona, I will love you so, you will forget you ever said that part of you was dead!”
A strange look which startled Felipe swept across Ramona's face; it might have been a moonbeam. It passed. Felipe never saw it again.
General Moreno's name was still held in warm remembrance in the city of Mexico, and Felipe found himself at once among friends. On the day after their arrival he and Ramona were married in the cathedral, old Marda and Juan Can, with his crutches, kneeling in proud joy behind them. The story of the romance of their lives, being widely rumored, greatly enhanced the interest with which they were welcomed. The beautiful young Senora Moreno was the theme of the city; and Felipe's bosom thrilled with pride to see the gentle dignity of demeanor by which she was distinguished in all assemblages. It was indeed a new world, a new life. Ramona might well doubt her own identity. But undying memories stood like sentinels in her breast. When the notes of doves, calling to each other, fell on her ear, her eyes sought the sky, and she heard a voice saying, “Majella!” This was the only secret her loyal, loving heart had kept from Felipe. A loyal, loving heart indeed it was,--loyal, loving, serene. Few husbands so blest as the Senor Felipe Moreno.
Sons and daughters came to bear his name. The daughters were all beautiful; but the most beautiful of them all, and, it was said, the most beloved by both father and mother, was the eldest one: the one who bore the mother's name, and was only step-daughter to the Senor,--Ramona,--Ramona, daughter of Alessandro the Indian.
|
{
"id": "2802"
}
|
1
|
COMING HOME
|
Three young men stood together on a wharf one bright October day awaiting the arrival of an ocean steamer with an impatience which found a vent in lively skirmishes with a small lad, who pervaded the premises like a will-o'-the-wisp and afforded much amusement to the other groups assembled there.
“They are the Campbells, waiting for their cousin, who has been abroad several years with her uncle, the doctor,” whispered one lady to another as the handsomest of the young men touched his hat to her as he passed, lugging the boy, whom he had just rescued from a little expedition down among the piles.
“Which is that?” asked the stranger.
“Prince Charlie, as he's called a fine fellow, the most promising of the seven, but a little fast, people say,” answered the first speaker with a shake of the head.
“Are the others his brothers?”
“No, cousins. The elder is Archie, a most exemplary young man. He has just gone into business with the merchant uncle and bids fair to be an honor to his family. The other, with the eyeglasses and no gloves, is Mac, the odd one, just out of college.”
“And the boy?”
“Oh, he is Jamie, the youngest brother of Archibald, and the pet of the whole family. Mercy on us he'll be in if they don't hold on to him!”
The ladies' chat came to a sudden end just there, for by the time Jamie had been fished out of a hogshead, the steamer hove in sight and everything else was forgotten. As it swung slowly around to enter the dock, a boyish voice shouted, “There she is! I see her and Uncle and Phebe! Hooray for Cousin Rose!” And three small cheers were given with a will by Jamie as he stood on a post waving his arms like a windmill while his brother held onto the tail of his jacket.
Yes, there they were Uncle Alec swinging his hat like a boy, with Phebe smiling and nodding on one side and Rose kissing both hands delightedly on the other as she recognized familiar faces and heard familiar voices welcoming her home.
“Bless her dear heart, she's bonnier than ever! Looks like a Madonna doesn't she? with that blue cloak round her, and her bright hair flying in the wind!” said Charlie excitedly as they watched the group upon the deck with eager eyes.
“Madonnas don't wear hats like that. Rose hasn't changed much, but Phebe has. Why, she's a regular beauty!” answered Archie, staring with all his might at the dark-eyed young woman with the brilliant color and glossy black braids shining in the sun.
“Dear old Uncle! Doesn't it seem good to have him back?” was all Mac said, but he was not looking at “dear old uncle” as he made the fervent remark, for he saw only the slender blond girl nearby and stretched out his hands to meet hers, forgetful of the green water tumbling between them.
During the confusion that reigned for a moment as the steamer settled to her moorings, Rose looked down into the four faces upturned to hers and seemed to read in them something that both pleased and pained her. It was only a glance, and her own eyes were full, but through the mist of happy tears she received the impression that Archie was about the same, that Mac had decidedly improved, and that something was amiss with Charlie. There was no time for observation, however, for in a moment the shoreward rush began, and before she could grasp her traveling bag, Jamie was clinging to her like an ecstatic young bear. She was with difficulty released from his embrace to fall into the gentler ones of the elder cousins, who took advantage of the general excitement to welcome both blooming girls with affectionate impartiality. Then the wanderers were borne ashore in a triumphal procession, while Jamie danced rapturous jigs before them even on the gangway.
Archie remained to help his uncle get the luggage through the Custom House, and the others escorted the damsels home. No sooner were they shut up in a carriage, however, than a new and curious constraint seemed to fall upon the young people, for they realized, all at once, that their former playmates were men and women now. Fortunately, Jamie was quite free from this feeling of restraint and, sitting bodkinwise between the ladies, took all sorts of liberties with them and their belongings.
“Well, my mannikin, what do you think of us?” asked Rose, to break an awkward pause.
“You've both grown so pretty, I can't decide which I like best. Phebe is the biggest and brightest-looking, and I was always fond of Phebe, but somehow you are so kind of sweet and precious, I really think I must hug you again,” and the small youth did it tempestuously.
“If you love me best, I shall not mind a bit about your thinking Phebe the handsomest, because she is. Isn't she, boys?” asked Rose, with a mischievous look at the gentlemen opposite, whose faces expressed a respectful admiration which much amused her.
“I'm so dazzled by the brilliancy and beauty that has suddenly burst upon me, I have no words to express my emotions,” answered Charlie, gallantly dodging the dangerous question.
“I can't say yet, for I have not had time to look at anyone. I will now, if you don't mind.” And, to the great amusement of the rest, Mac gravely adjusted his eyeglasses and took an observation.
“Well?” said Phebe, smiling and blushing under his honest stare, yet seeming not to resent it as she did the lordly sort of approval which made her answer the glance of Charlie's audacious blue eyes with a flash of her black ones.
“I think if you were my sister, I should be very proud of you, because your face shows what I admire more than its beauty truth and courage, Phebe,” answered Mac with a little bow full of such genuine respect that surprise and pleasure brought a sudden dew to quench the fire of the girl's eyes and soothe the sensitive pride of the girl's heart.
Rose clapped her hands just as she used to do when anything delighted her, and beamed at Mac approvingly as she said: “Now that's a criticism worth having, and we are much obliged. I was sure you'd admire my Phebe when you knew her, but I didn't believe you would be wise enough to see it at once, and you have gone up many pegs in my estimation, I assure you.”
“I was always fond of mineralogy you remember, and I've been tapping round a good deal lately, so I've learned to know precious metals when I see them,” Mac said with his shrewd smile.
“That is the latest hobby, then? Your letters have amused us immensely, for each one had a new theory or experiment, and the latest was always the best. I thought Uncle would have died of laughter over the vegetarian mania it was so funny to imagine you living on bread and milk, baked apples, and potatoes roasted in your own fire,” continued Rose, changing the subject again.
“This old chap was the laughingstock of his class. They called him Don Quixote, and the way he went at windmills of all sorts was a sight to see,” put in Charlie, evidently feeling that Mac had been patted on the head quite as much as was good for him.
“But in spite of that the Don got through college with all the honors. Oh, wasn't I proud when Aunt Jane wrote to us about it and didn't she rejoice that her boy kept at the head of his class and won the medal!” cried Rose, shaking Mac by both hands in a way that caused Charlie to wish “the old chap” had been left behind with Dr. Alec.
“Oh, come, that's all Mother's nonsense. I began earlier than the other fellows and liked it better, so I don't deserve any praise. Prince is right, though. I did make a regular jack of myself, but on the whole I'm not sure that my wild oats weren't better than some I've seen sowed. Anyway, they didn't cost much, and I'm none the worse for them,” said Mac placidly.
“I know what 'wild oats' means. I heard Uncle Mac say Charlie was sowing 'em too fast, and I asked Mama, so she told me. And I know that he was suspelled or expended, I don't remember which, but it was something bad, and Aunt Clara cried,” added Jamie all in one breath, for he possessed a fatal gift of making malapropos remarks, which caused him to be a terror to his family.
“Do you want to go on the box again?” demanded Prince with a warning frown.
“No, I don't.”
“Then hold your tongue.”
“Well, Mac needn't kick me, for I was only...” began the culprit, innocently trying to make a bad matter worse.
“That will do,” interrupted Charlie sternly, and James subsided, a crushed boy, consoling himself with Rose's new watch for the indignities he suffered at the hands of the “old fellows” as he vengefully called his elders.
Mac and Charlie immediately began to talk as hard as their tongues could wag, bringing up all sorts of pleasant subjects so successfully that peals of laughter made passersby look after the merry load with sympathetic smiles.
An avalanche of aunts fell upon Rose as soon as she reached home, and for the rest of the day the old house buzzed like a beehive. Evening found the whole tribe collected in the drawing rooms, with the exception of Aunt Peace, whose place was empty now.
Naturally enough, the elders settled into one group after a while, and the young fellows clustered about the girls like butterflies around two attractive flowers. Dr. Alec was the central figure in one room and Rose in the other, for the little girl, whom they had all loved and petted, had bloomed into a woman, and two years of absence had wrought a curious change in the relative positions of the cousins, especially the three elder ones, who eyed her with a mixture of boyish affection and manly admiration that was both new and pleasant.
Something sweet yet spirited about her charmed them and piqued their curiosity, for she was not quite like other girls, and rather startled them now and then by some independent little speech or act which made them look at one another with a sly smile, as if reminded that Rose was “Uncle's girl.”
Let us listen, as in duty bound, to what the elders are saying first, for they are already building castles in air for the boys and girls to inhabit.
“Dear child how nice it is to see her safely back, so well and happy and like her sweet little self!” said Aunt Plenty, folding her hands as if giving thanks for a great happiness.
“I shouldn't wonder if you found that you'd brought a firebrand into the family, Alec. Two, in fact, for Phebe is a fine girl, and the lads have found it out already if I'm not mistaken,” added Uncle Mac, with a nod toward the other room.
All eyes followed his, and a highly suggestive tableau presented itself to the paternal and maternal audience in the back parlor.
Rose and Phebe, sitting side by side on the sofa, had evidently assumed at once the places which they were destined to fill by right of youth, sex, and beauty, for Phebe had long since ceased to be the maid and become the friend, and Rose meant to have that fact established at once.
Jamie occupied the rug, on which Will and Geordie stood at ease, showing their uniforms to the best advantage, for they were now in a great school, where military drill was the delight of their souls. Steve posed gracefully in an armchair, with Mac lounging over the back of it, while Archie leaned on one corner of the low chimneypiece, looking down at Phebe as she listened to his chat with smiling lips and cheeks almost as rich in color as the carnations in her belt.
But Charlie was particularly effective, although he sat upon a music stool, that most trying position for any man not gifted with grace in the management of his legs. Fortunately Prince was, and had fallen into an easy attitude, with one arm over the back of the sofa, his handsome head bent a little, as he monopolized Rose, with a devoted air and a very becoming expression of contentment on his face.
Aunt Clara smiled as if well pleased; Aunt Jessie looked thoughtful; Aunt Jane's keen eyes went from dapper Steve to broad-shouldered Mac with an anxious glance; Mrs. Myra murmured something about her “blessed Caroline”; and Aunt Plenty said warmly, “Bless the dears! Anyone might be proud of such a bonny flock of bairns as that.”
“I am all ready to play chaperon as soon as you please, Alec, for I suppose the dear girl will come out at once, as she did not before you went away. My services won't be wanted long, I fancy, for with her many advantages she will be carried off in her first season or I'm much mistaken,” said Mrs. Clara, with significant nods and smiles.
“You must settle all those matters with Rose. I am no longer captain, only first mate now, you know,” answered Dr. Alec, adding soberly, half to himself, half to his brother, “I wonder people are in such haste to 'bring out' their daughters, as it's called. To me there is something almost pathetic in the sight of a young girl standing on the threshold of the world, so innocent and hopeful, so ignorant of all that lies before her, and usually so ill prepared to meet the ups and downs of life. We do our duty better by the boys, but the poor little women are seldom provided with any armor worth having, and sooner or later they are sure to need it, for every one must fight her own battle, and only the brave and strong can win.”
“You can't reproach yourself with neglect of that sort, Alec, for you have done your duty faithfully by George's girl, and I envy you the pride and happiness of having such a daughter, for she is that to you,” answered old Mac, unexpectedly betraying the paternal sort of tenderness men seldom feel for their sons.
“I've tried, Mac, and I am both proud and happy, but with every year my anxiety seems to increase. I've done my best to fit Rose for what may come, as far as I can foresee it, but now she must stand alone, and all my care is powerless to keep her heart from aching, her life from being saddened by mistakes, or thwarted by the acts of others. I can only stand ready to share her joy and sorrow and watch her shape her life.”
“Why, Alec, what is the child going to do that you need look so solemn?” exclaimed Mrs. Clara, who seemed to have assumed a sort of right to Rose already.
“Hark! And let her tell you herself,” answered Dr. Alec, as Rose's voice was heard saying very earnestly, “Now, you have all told your plans for the future, why don't you ask us ours?”
“Because we know that there is only one thing for a pretty girl to do break a dozen or so hearts before she finds one to suit, then marry and settle,” answered Charlie, as if no other reply was possible.
“That may be the case with many, but not with us, for Phebe and I believe that it is as much a right and a duty for women to do something with their lives as for men, and we are not going to be satisfied with such frivolous parts as you give us,” cried Rose with kindling eyes. “I mean what I say, and you cannot laugh me down. Would you be contented to be told to enjoy yourself for a little while, then marry and do nothing more till you die?” she added, turning to Archie.
“Of course not that is only a part of a man's life,” he answered decidedly.
“A very precious and lovely part, but not all,” continued Rose. “Neither should it be for a woman, for we've got minds and souls as well as hearts; ambition and talents as well as beauty and accomplishments; and we want to live and learn as well as love and be loved. I'm sick of being told that is all a woman is fit for! I won't have anything to do with love till I prove that I am something besides a housekeeper and baby-tender!”
“Heaven preserve us! Here's woman's rights with a vengeance!” cried Charlie, starting up with mock horror, while the others regarded Rose with mingled surprise and amusement, evidently fancying it all a girlish outbreak.
“Ah, you needn't pretend to be shocked you will be in earnest presently, for this is only the beginning of my strong-mindedness,” continued Rose, nothing daunted by the smiles of good-natured incredulity or derision on the faces of her cousins. “I have made up my mind not to be cheated out of the real things that make one good and happy and, just because I'm a rich girl, fold my hands and drift as so many do. I haven't lived with Phebe all these years in vain. I know what courage and self-reliance can do for one, and I sometimes wish I hadn't a penny in the world so that I could go and earn my bread with her, and be as brave and independent as she will be pretty soon.”
It was evident that Rose was in earnest now, for as she spoke she turned to her friend with such respect as well as love in her face that the look told better than any words how heartily the rich girl appreciated the virtues hard experience had given the poor girl, and how eagerly she desired to earn what all her fortune could not buy for her.
Something in the glance exchanged between the friends impressed the young men in spite of their prejudices, and it was in a perfectly serious tone that Archie said, “I fancy you'll find your hands full, Cousin, if you want work, for I've heard people say that wealth has its troubles and trials as well as poverty.”
“I know it, and I'm going to try and fill my place well. I've got some capital little plans all made, and have begun to study my profession already,” answered Rose with an energetic nod.
“Could I ask what it is to be?” inquired Charlie in a tone of awe.
“Guess!” and Rose looked up at him with an expression half-earnest, half-merry.
“Well, I should say that you were fitted for a beauty and a belle, but as that is evidently not to your taste, I am afraid you are going to study medicine and be a doctor. Won't your patients have a heavenly time though? It will be easy dying with an angel to poison them.”
“Now, Charlie, that's base of you, when you know how well women have succeeded in this profession and what a comfort Dr. Mary Kirk was to dear Aunt Peace. I did want to study medicine, but Uncle thought it wouldn't do to have so many M.D.'s in one family, since Mac thinks of trying it. Besides, I seem to have other work put into my hands that I am better fitted for.”
“You are fitted for anything that is generous and good, and I'll stand by you, no matter what you've chosen,” cried Mac heartily, for this was a new style of talk from a girl's lips, and he liked it immensely.
“Philanthropy is a generous, good, and beautiful profession, and I've chosen it for mine because I have much to give. I'm only the steward of the fortune Papa left me, and I think, if I use it wisely for the happiness of others, it will be more blest than if I keep it all for myself.”
Very sweetly and simply was this said, but it was curious to see how differently the various hearers received it.
Charlie shot a quick look at his mother, who exclaimed, as if in spite of herself, “Now, Alec, are you going to let that girl squander a fine fortune on all sorts of charitable nonsense and wild schemes for the prevention of pauperism and crime?”
“'They who give to the poor lend to the Lord,' and practical Christianity is the kind He loves the best,” was all Dr. Alec answered, but it silenced the aunts and caused even prudent Uncle Mac to think with sudden satisfaction of certain secret investments he had made which paid him no interest but the thanks of the poor.
Archie and Mac looked well pleased and promised their advice and assistance with the enthusiasm of generous young hearts. Steve shook his head, but said nothing, and the lads on the rug at once proposed founding a hospital for invalid dogs and horses, white mice, and wounded heroes.
“Don't you think that will be a better way for a woman to spend her life than in dancing, dressing, and husband-hunting, Charlie?” asked Rose, observing his silence and anxious for his approval.
“Very pretty for a little while, and very effective too, for I don't know anything more captivating than a sweet girl in a meek little bonnet going on charitable errands and glorifying poor people's houses with a delightful mixture of beauty and benevolence. Fortunately, the dear souls soon tire of it, but it's heavenly while it lasts.”
Charlie spoke in a tone of mingled admiration and contempt, and smiled a superior sort of smile, as if he understood all the innocent delusions as well as the artful devices of the sex and expected nothing more from them. It both surprised and grieved Rose, for it did not sound like the Charlie she had left two years ago. But she only said, with a reproachful look and a proud little gesture of head and hand, as if she put the subject aside since it was not treated with respect: “I am sorry you have so low an opinion of women. There was a time when you believed in them sincerely.”
“I do still, upon my word I do! They haven't a more devoted admirer and slave in the world than I am. Just try me and see,” cried Charlie, gallantly kissing his hand to the sex in general.
But Rose was not appeased, and gave a disdainful shrug as she answered with a look in her eyes that his lordship did not like, “Thank you. I don't want admirers or slaves, but friends and helpers. I've lived so long with a wise, good man that I am rather hard to suit, perhaps, but I don't intend to lower my standard, and anyone who cares for my regard must at least try to live up to it.”
“Whew! Here's a wrathful dove! Come and smooth her ruffled plumage, Mac. I'll dodge before I do further mischief,” and Charlie strolled away into the other room, privately lamenting that Uncle Alec had spoiled a fine girl by making her strong-minded.
He wished himself back again in five minutes, for Mac said something that produced a gale of laughter, and when he took a look over his shoulder the “wrathful dove” was cooing so peacefully and pleasantly he was sorely tempted to return and share the fun. But Charlie had been spoiled by too much indulgence, and it was hard for him to own himself in the wrong even when he knew it. He always got what he wanted sooner or later, and having long ago made up his mind that Rose and her fortune were to be his, he was secretly displeased at the new plans and beliefs of the young lady, but flattered himself that they would soon be changed when she saw how unfashionable and inconvenient they were.
Musing over the delightful future he had laid out, he made himself comfortable in the sofa corner near his mother till the appearance of a slight refection caused both groups to melt into one. Aunt Plenty believed in eating and drinking, so the slightest excuse for festivity delighted her hospitable soul, and on this joyful occasion she surpassed herself.
It was during this informal banquet that Rose, roaming about from one admiring relative to another, came upon the three younger lads, who were having a quiet little scuffle in a secluded corner.
“Come out here and let me have a look at you,” she said enticingly, for she predicted an explosion and public disgrace if peace was not speedily restored.
Hastily smoothing themselves down, the young gentlemen presented three flushed and merry countenances for inspection, feeling highly honored by the command.
“Dear me, how you two have grown! You big things how dare you get head of me in this way!” she said, standing on tiptoe to pat the curly pates before her, for Will and Geordie had shot up like weeds, and now grinned cheerfully down upon her as she surveyed them in comic amazement.
“The Campbells are all fine, tall fellows, and we mean to be the best of the lot. Shouldn't wonder if we were six-footers like Grandpa,” observed Will proudly, looking so like a young Shanghai rooster, all legs and an insignificant head, that Rose kept her countenance with difficulty.
“We shall broaden out when we get our growth. We are taller than Steve now, a half a head, both of us,” added Geordie, with his nose in the air.
Rose turned to look at Steve and, with a sudden smile, beckoned to him. He dropped his napkin and flew to obey the summons, for she was queen of the hour, and he had openly announced his deathless loyalty.
“Tell the other boys to come here. I've a fancy to stand you all in a row and look you over, as you did me that dreadful day when you nearly frightened me out of my wits,” she said, laughing at the memory of it as she spoke.
They came in a body and, standing shoulder to shoulder, made such an imposing array that the young commander was rather daunted for a moment. But she had seen too much of the world lately to be abashed by a trifle, and the desire to see a girlish test gave her courage to face the line of smiling cousins with dignity and spirit.
“Now, I'm going to stare at you as you stared at me. It is my revenge on you seven bad boys for entrapping one poor little girl and enjoying her alarm. I'm not a bit afraid of you now, so tremble and beware!”
As she spoke, Rose looked up into Archie's face and nodded approvingly, for the steady gray eyes met hers fairly and softened as they did so a becoming change, for naturally they were rather keen than kind.
“A true Campbell, bless you!” she said, and shook his hand heartily as she passed on.
Charlie came next, and here she felt less satisfied, though scarcely conscious why, for, as she looked, there came a defiant sort of flash, changing suddenly to something warmer than anger, stronger than pride, making her shrink a little and say, hastily, “I don't find the Charlie I left, but the Prince is there still, I see.”
Turning to Mac with a sense of relief, she gently took off his “winkers,” as Jamie called them, and looked straight into the honest blue eyes that looked straight back at her, full of a frank and friendly affection that warmed her heart and made her own eyes brighten as she gave back the glasses, saying, with a look and tone of cordial satisfaction, “You are not changed, my dear old Mac, and I'm so glad of that!”
“Now say something extra sweet to me, because I'm the flower of the family,” said Steve, twirling the blond moustache, which was evidently the pride of his life.
Rose saw at a glance that Dandy deserved his name more than ever, and promptly quenched his vanities by answering, with a provoking laugh, “Then the name of the flower of the family is Cockscomb.”
“Ah, ha! who's got it now?” jeered Will.
“Let us off easy, please,” whispered Geordie, mindful that their turn came next.
“You blessed beanstalks! I'm proud of you only don't grow quite out of sight, or even be ashamed to look a woman in the face,” answered Rose, with a gentle pat on the cheek of either bashful young giant, for both were red as peonies, though their boyish eyes were as clear and calm as summer lakes.
“Now me!” and Jamie assumed his manliest air, feeling that he did not appear to advantage among his tall kinsmen. But he went to the head of the class in everyone's opinion when Rose put her arms around him, saying, with a kiss, “You must be my boy now, for all the others are too old, and I want a faithful little page to do my errands for me.”
“I will, I will I'll marry you too, if you'll just hold on till I grow up!” cried Jamie, rather losing his head at this sudden promotion.
“Bless the baby, what is he talking about?” laughed Rose, looking down at her little knight as he clung about her with grateful ardor.
“Oh, I heard the aunts say that you'd better marry one of us, and keep the property in the family, so I speak first, because you are very fond of me, and I do love curls.”
Alas for Jamie! This awful speech had hardly left his innocent lips when Will and Geordie swept him out of the room like a whirlwind, and the howls of that hapless boy were heard from the torture hall, where being shut into the skeleton case was one of the mildest punishments inflicted upon him.
Dismay fell upon the unfortunates who remained, but their confusion was soon ended, for Rose, with a look which they had never seen upon her face before, dismissed them with the brief command, “Break ranks the review is over,” and walked away to Phebe.
“Confound that boy! You ought to shut him up or gag him!” fumed Charlie irritably.
“He shall be attended to,” answered poor Archie, who was trying to bring up the little marplot with the success of most parents and guardians.
“The whole thing was deuced disagreeable,” growled Steve, who felt that he had not distinguished himself in the late engagement.
“Truth generally is,” observed Mac dryly as he strolled away with his odd smile.
As if he suspected discord somewhere, Dr. Alec proposed music at this crisis, and the young people felt that it was a happy thought.
“I want you to hear both my birds, for they have improved immensely, and I am very proud of them,” said the doctor, twirling up the stool and pulling out the old music books.
“I had better come first, for after you have heard the nightingale you won't care for the canary,” added Rose, wishing to put Phebe at her ease, for she sat among them looking like a picture, but rather shy and silent, remembering the days when her place was in the kitchen.
“I'll give you some of the dear old songs you used to like so much. This was a favorite, I think,” and sitting down she sang the first familiar air that came, and sang it well in a pleasant, but by no means finished, manner.
It chanced to be “The Birks of Aberfeldie,” and vividly recalled the time when Mac was ill and she took care of him. The memory was sweet to her, and involuntarily her eye wandered in search of him. He was not far away, sitting just as he used to sit when she soothed his most despondent moods astride of a chair with his head down on his arms, as if the song suggested the attitude. Her heart quite softened to him as she looked, and she decided to forgive him if no one else, for she was sure that he had no mercenary plans about her tiresome money.
Charlie had assumed a pensive air and fixed his fine eyes upon her with an expression of tender admiration, which made her laugh in spite of all her efforts to seem unconscious of it. She was both amused and annoyed at his very evident desire to remind her of certain sentimental passages in the last year of their girl- and boy-hood, and to change what she had considered a childish joke into romantic earnest. Rose had very serious ideas of love and had no intention of being beguiled into even a flirtation with her handsome cousin.
So Charlie attitudinized unnoticed and was getting rather out of temper when Phebe began to sing, and he forgot all about himself in admiration of her. It took everyone by surprise, for two years of foreign training added to several at home had worked wonders, and the beautiful voice that used to warble cheerily over pots and kettles now rang out melodiously or melted to a mellow music that woke a sympathetic thrill in those who listened. Rose glowed with pride as she accompanied her friend, for Phebe was in her own world now a lovely world where no depressing memory of poorhouse or kitchen, ignorance or loneliness, came to trouble her, a happy world where she could be herself and rule others by the magic of her sweet gift.
Yes, Phebe was herself now, and showed it in the change that came over her at the first note of music. No longer shy and silent, no longer the image of a handsome girl but a blooming woman, alive and full of the eloquence her art gave her, as she laid her hands softly together, fixed her eye on the light, and just poured out her song as simply and joyfully as the lark does soaring toward the sun.
“My faith, Alec that's the sort of voice that wins a man's heart out of his breast!” exclaimed Uncle Mac, wiping his eyes after one of the plaintive ballads that never grow old.
“So it would!” answered Dr. Alec delightedly.
“So it has,” added Archie to himself; and he was right, for just at that moment he fell in love with Phebe. He actually did, and could fix the time almost to a second, for at a quarter past nine, he merely thought her a very charming young person; at twenty minutes past, he considered her the loveliest woman he ever beheld; at five and twenty minutes past, she was an angel singing his soul away; and at half after nine he was a lost man, floating over a delicious sea to that temporary heaven on earth where lovers usually land after the first rapturous plunge.
If anyone had mentioned this astonishing fact, nobody would have believed it; nevertheless, it was quite true, and sober, businesslike Archie suddenly discovered a fund of romance at the bottom of his hitherto well-conducted heart that amazed him. He was not quite clear what had happened to him at first, and sat about in a dazed sort of way, seeing, hearing, knowing nothing but Phebe, while the unconscious idol found something wanting in the cordial praise so modestly received because Mr. Archie never said a word.
This was one of the remarkable things which occurred that evening. Another was that Mac paid Rose a compliment, which was such an unprecedented fact, it produced a great sensation, though only one person heard it.
Everybody had gone but Mac and his father, who was busy with the doctor. Aunt Plenty was counting the teaspoons in the dining room, and Phebe was helping her as of old. Mac and Rose were alone he apparently in a brown study, leaning his elbows on the chimneypiece, and she lying back in a low chair looking thoughtfully at the fire. She was tired, and the quiet was grateful to her, so she kept silence and Mac respectfully held his tongue. Presently, however, she became conscious that he was looking at her as intently as eyes and glasses could do it, and without stirring from her comfortable attitude, she said, smiling up at him, “He looks as wise as an owl I wonder what he's thinking about?”
“You, Cousin.”
“Something good, I hope?”
“I was thinking Leigh Hunt was about right when he said, 'A girl is the sweetest thing God ever made.'”
“Why, Mac!” and Rose sat bolt upright with an astonished face this was such an entirely unexpected sort of remark for the philosopher to make.
Evidently interested in the new discovery, Mac placidly continued, “Do you know, it seems as if I never really saw a girl before, or had any idea what agreeable creatures they could be. I fancy you are a remarkably good specimen, Rose.”
“No, indeed! I'm only hearty and happy, and being safe at home again may make me look better than usual perhaps, but I'm no beauty except to Uncle.”
“'Hearty and happy' that must be it,” echoed Mac, soberly investigating the problem. “Most girls are sickly or silly, I think I have observed, and that is probably why I am so struck with you.”
“Of all the queer boys you are the queerest! Do you really mean that you don't like or notice girls?” asked Rose, much amused at this new peculiarity of her studious cousin.
“Well, no, I am only conscious of two sorts noisy and quiet ones. I prefer the latter, but, as a general thing, I don't notice any of them much more than I do flies, unless they bother me, then I'd like to flap them away, but as that won't do, I hide.”
Rose leaned back and laughed until her eyes were full. It was so comical to hear Mac sink his voice to a confidential whisper at the last words and see him smile with sinful satisfaction at the memory of the tormentors he had eluded.
“You needn't laugh it's a fact, I assure you. Charlie likes the creatures, and they spoil him. Steve follows suit, of course. Archie is a respectful slave when he can't help himself. As for me, I don't often give them a chance, and when I get caught I talk science and dead languages till they run for their lives. Now and then I find a sensible one, and then we get on excellently.”
“A sad prospect for Phebe and me,” sighed Rose, trying to keep sober.
“Phebe is evidently a quiet one. I know she is sensible, or you wouldn't care for her. I can see that she is pleasant to look at, so I fancy I shall like her. As for you, I helped bring you up, therefore I am a little anxious to see how you turn out. I was afraid your foreign polish might spoil you, but I think it has not. In fact, I find you quite satisfactory so far, if you don't mind my saying it. I don't quite know what the charm is, though. Must be the power of inward graces, since you insist that you have no outer ones.”
Mac was peering at her with a shrewd smile on his lips, but such a kindly look behind the glasses that she found both words and glance very pleasant and answered merrily, “I am glad you approve of me, and much obliged for your care of my early youth. I hope to be a credit to you and depend on your keeping me straight, for I'm afraid I shall be spoilt among you all.”
“I'll keep my eye on you upon one condition,” replied the youthful mentor.
“Name it.”
“If you are going to have a lot of lovers around, I wash my hands of you. If not, I'm your man.”
“You must be sheep dog and help keep them away, for I don't want any yet awhile and, between ourselves, I don't believe I shall have any if it is known that I am strong-minded. That fact will scare most men away like a yellow flag,” said Rose, for, thanks to Dr. Alec's guardianship, she had wasted neither heart nor time in the foolish flirtations so many girls fritter away their youth upon.
“Hum! I rather doubt that,” muttered Mac as he surveyed the damsel before him.
She certainly did not look unpleasantly strong-minded, and she was beautiful in spite of her modest denials. Beautiful with the truest sort of beauty, for nobility of character lent its subtle charm to the bloom of youth, the freshness of health, the innocence of a nature whose sweet maidenliness Mac felt but could not describe. Gentle yet full of spirit, and all aglow with the earnestness that suggests lovely possibilities and makes one hope that such human flowers may have heaven's purest air and warmest sunshine to blossom in.
“Wait and see,” answered Rose; then, as her uncle's voice was heard in the hall, she held out her hand, adding pleasantly, “The old times are to begin again, so come soon and tell me all your doings and help me with mine just as you used to do.”
“You really mean it?” And Mac looked much pleased.
“I really do. You are so little altered, except to grow big, that I don't feel at all strange with you and want to begin where we left off.”
“That will be capital. Good night, Cousin,” and to her great amazement, he gave her a hearty kiss.
“Oh, but that is not the old way at all!” cried Rose, stepping back in merry confusion while the audacious youth assumed an air of mild surprise as he innocently asked: “Didn't we always say good night in that way? I had an impression that we did and were to begin just as we left off.”
“Of course not. No power on earth would have bribed you to do it, as you know well enough. I don't mind the first night, but we are too old for that sort of thing now.”
“I'll remember. It was the force of habit, I suppose, for I'm sure I must have done it in former times, it seemed so natural. Coming, Father!” and Mac retired, evidently convinced he was right.
“Dear old thing! He is as much a boy as ever, and that is such a comfort, for some of the others have grown up very fast,” said Rose to herself, recalling Charlie's sentimental airs and Archie's beatified expression while Phebe sang.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
2
|
OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES
|
“It is so good to be home again! I wonder how we ever made up our minds to go away!” exclaimed Rose as she went roaming about the old house next morning, full of the satisfaction one feels at revisiting familiar nooks and corners and finding them unchanged.
“That we might have the pleasure of coming back again,” answered Phebe, walking down the hall beside her little mistress, as happy as she.
“Everything seems just as we left it, even to the rose leaves we used to tuck in here,” continued the younger girl, peeping into one of the tall India jars that stood about the hall.
“Don't you remember how Jamie and Pokey used to play Forty Thieves with them, and how you tried to get into that blue one and got stuck, and the other boys found us before I could pull you out?” asked Phebe, laughing.
“Yes, indeed, and speaking of angels, one is apt to hear the rustling of their wings,” added Rose, as a shrill whistle came up the avenue accompanied by the clatter of hoofs.
“It is the circus!” cried Phebe gaily as they both recalled the red cart and the charge of the clan.
There was only one boy now, alas, but he made noise enough for half a dozen, and before Rose could run to the door, Jamie came bouncing in with a “shining morning face,” a bat over his shoulder, a red and white jockey cap on his head, one pocket bulging with a big ball, the other overflowing with cookies, and his mouth full of the apple he was just finishing off in hot haste.
“Morning! I just looked in to make sure you'd really come and see that you were all right,” he observed, saluting with bat and doffing the gay cap with one effective twitch.
“Good morning, dear. Yes, we really are here, and getting to rights as fast as possible. But it seems to me you are rather gorgeous, Jamie. What do you belong to a fire company or a jockey club?” asked Rose, turning up the once chubby face, which now was getting brown and square about the chin.
“No, ma'am! Why, don't you know? I'm captain of the Base Ball Star Club. Look at that, will you?” And, as if the fact were one of national importance, Jamie flung open his jacket to display upon his proudly swelling chest an heart-shaped red flannel shield decorated with a white cotton star the size of a tea plate.
“Superb! I've been away so long I forgot there was such a game. And you the captain?” cried Rose, deeply impressed by the high honor to which her kinsman had arrived.
“I just am, and it's no joke you'd better believe, for we knock our teeth out, black our eyes, and split our fingers almost as well as the big fellows. You come down to the Common between one and two and see us play a match, then you'll understand what hard work it is. I'll teach you to bat now if you'll come out on the lawn,” added Jamie, fired with a wish to exhibit his prowess.
“No, thank you, captain. The grass is wet, and you'll be late at school if you stay for us.”
“I'm not afraid. Girls are not good for much generally, but you never used to mind a little wet and played cricket like a good one. Can't you ever do that sort of thing now?” asked the boy, with a pitying look at these hapless creatures debarred from the joys and perils of manly sports.
“I can run still and I'll get to the gate before you, see if I don't.” And, yielding to the impulse of the moment, Rose darted down the steps before astonished Jamie could mount and follow.
He was off in a moment, but Rose had the start, and though old Sheltie did his best, she reached the goal just ahead, and stood there laughing and panting, all rosy with fresh October air, a pretty picture for several gentlemen who were driving by.
“Good for you, Rose!” said Archie, jumping out to shake hands while Will and Geordie saluted and Uncle Mac laughed at Jamie, who looked as if girls had risen slightly in his opinion.
“I'm glad it is you, because you won't be shocked. But I'm so happy to be back I forgot I was not little Rose still,” said Atalanta, smoothing down her flying hair.
“You look very like her, with the curls on your shoulders in the old way. I missed them last night and wondered what it was. How are Uncle and Phebe?” asked Archie, whose eyes had been looking over Rose's head while he spoke toward the piazza, where a female figure was visible among the reddening woodbines.
“All well, thanks. Won't you come up and see for yourselves?”
“Can't, my dear, can't possibly. Business, you know, business. This fellow is my right-hand man, and I can't spare him a minute. Come, Arch, we must be off, or these boys will miss their train,” answered Uncle Mac, pulling out his watch.
With a last look from the light-haired figure at the gate to the dark-haired one among the vines, Archie drove away and Jamie cantered after, consoling himself for his defeat with apple number two.
Rose lingered a moment, feeling much inclined to continue her run and pop in upon all the aunts in succession, but, remembering her uncovered head, was about to turn back when a cheerful “Ahoy! ahoy!” made her look up to see Mac approaching at a great pace, waving his hat as he came.
“The Campbells are coming, thick and fast this morning, and the more the merrier,” she said, running to meet him. “You look like a good boy going to school, and virtuously conning your lesson by the way,” she added, smiling to see him take his finger out of the book he had evidently been reading, and tuck it under his arm, just as he used to do years ago.
“I am a schoolboy, going to the school I like best,” he answered, waving a plumy spray of asters as if pointing out the lovely autumn world about them, full of gay hues, fresh airs, and mellow sunshine.
“That reminds me that I didn't get a chance to hear much about your plans last night the other boys all talked at once, and you only got a word now and then. What have you decided to be, Mac?” asked Rose as they went up the avenue side by side.
“A man first, and a good one if possible. After that, what God pleases.”
Something in the tone, as well as the words, made Rose look up quickly into Mac's face to see a new expression there. It was indescribable, but she felt as she had often done when watching the mists part suddenly, giving glimpses of some mountaintop, shining serene and high against the blue.
“I think you will be something splendid, for you really look quite glorified, walking under this arch of yellow leaves with the sunshine on your face,” she exclaimed, conscious of a sudden admiration never felt before, for Mac was the plainest of all the cousins.
“I don't know about that, but I have my dreams and aspirations, and some of them are pretty high ones. Aim at the best, you know, and keep climbing if you want to get on,” he said, looking at the asters with an inward sort of smile, as if he and they had some sweet secret between them.
“You are queerer than ever. But I like your ambition, and hope you will get on. Only mustn't you begin at something soon? I fancied you would study medicine with Uncle that used to be our plan, you know.”
“I shall, for the present at least, because I quite agree with you that it is necessary to have an anchor somewhere and not go floating off into the world of imagination without ballast of the right sort. Uncle and I had some talk about it last night and I'm going to begin as soon as possible, for I've mooned long enough,” and giving himself a shake, Mac threw down the pretty spray, adding half aloud: “Chide me not, laborious band, For the idle flowers I brought: Every aster in my hand Goes home laden with a thought.”
Rose caught the words and smiled, thinking to herself, “Oh, that's it he is getting into the sentimental age and Aunt Jane has been lecturing him. Dear me, how we are growing up!”
“You look as if you didn't like the prospect very well,” she said aloud, for Mac had rammed the volume of Shelley into his pocket and the glorified expression was so entirely gone, Rose fancied she had been mistaken about the mountaintop behind the mists.
“Yes, well enough I always thought the profession a grand one, and where could I find a better teacher than Uncle? I've got into lazy ways lately, and it is high time I went at something useful, so here I go,” and Mac abruptly vanished into the study while Rose joined Phebe in Aunt Plenty's room.
The dear old lady had just decided, after long and earnest discussion, which of six favorite puddings should be served for dinner, and thus had a few moments to devote to sentiment, so when Rose came in she held out her arms, saying fondly: “I shall not feel as if I'd got my child back again until I have her in my lap a minute. No, you're not a bit too heavy, my rheumatism doesn't begin much before November, so sit here, darling, and put your two arms round my neck.”
Rose obeyed, and neither spoke for a moment as the old woman held the young one close and appeased the two years' longing of a motherly heart by the caresses women give the creatures dearest to them. Right in the middle of a kiss, however, she stopped suddenly and, holding out one arm, caught Phebe, who was trying to steal away unobserved.
“Don't go there's room for both in my love, though there isn't in my lap. I'm so grateful to get my dear girls safely home again that I hardly know what I'm about,” said Aunt Plenty, embracing Phebe so heartily that she could not feel left out in the cold and stood there with her black eyes shining through the happiest tears.
“There, now I've had a good hug, and feel as if I was all right again. I wish you'd set that cap in order, Rose I went to bed in such a hurry, I pulled the strings off it and left it all in a heap. Phebe, dear, you shall dust round a mite, just as you used to, for I haven't had anyone to do it as I like since you've been gone, and it will do me good to see all my knickknacks straightened out in your tidy way,” said the elder lady, getting up with a refreshed expression on her rosy old face.
“Shall I dust in here too?” asked Phebe, glancing toward an inner room which used to be her care.
“No, dear, I'd rather do that myself. Go in if you like, nothing is changed. I must go and see to my pudding.” And Aunt Plenty trotted abruptly away with a quiver of emotion in her voice which made even her last words pathetic.
Pausing on the threshold as if it was a sacred place, the girls looked in with eyes soon dimmed by tender tears, for it seemed as if the gentle occupant was still there. Sunshine shone on the old geraniums by the window; the cushioned chair stood in its accustomed place, with the white wrapper hung across it and the faded slippers lying ready. Books and basket, knitting and spectacles, were all just as she had left them, and the beautiful tranquility that always filled the room seemed so natural, both lookers turned involuntarily toward the bed, where Aunt Peace used to greet them with a smile. There was no sweet old face upon the pillow now, yet the tears that wet the blooming cheeks were not for her who had gone, but for her who was left, because they saw something which spoke eloquently of the love which outlives death and makes the humblest things beautiful and sacred.
A well-worn footstool stood beside the bed, and in the high-piled whiteness of the empty couch there was a little hollow where a gray head nightly rested while Aunt Plenty said the prayers her mother taught her seventy years ago.
Without a word, the girls softly shut the door. And while Phebe put the room in the most exquisite order, Rose retrimmed the plain white cap, where pink and yellow ribbons never rustled now, both feeling honored by their tasks and better for their knowledge of the faithful love and piety which sanctified a good old woman's life.
“You darling creature, I'm so glad to get you back! I know it's shamefully early, but I really couldn't keep away another minute. Let me help you I'm dying to see all your splendid things. I saw the trunks pass and I know you've quantities of treasures,” cried Annabel Bliss all in one breath as she embraced Rose an hour later and glanced about the room bestrewn with a variety of agreeable objects.
“How well you are looking! Sit down and I'll show you my lovely photographs. Uncle chose all the best for me, and it's a treat to see them,” answered Rose, putting a roll on the table and looking about for more.
“Oh, thanks! I haven't time now one needs hours to study such things. Show me your Paris dresses, there's a dear I'm perfectly aching to see the last styles,” and Annabel cast a hungry eye toward certain large boxes delightfully suggestive of French finery.
“I haven't got any,” said Rose, fondly surveying the fine photographs as she laid them away.
“Rose Campbell! You don't mean to say that you didn't get one Paris dress at least?” cried Annabel, scandalized at the bare idea of such neglect.
“Not one for myself. Aunt Clara ordered several, and will be charmed to show them when her box comes.”
“Such a chance! Right there and plenty of money! How could you love your uncle after such cruelty?” sighed Annabel, with a face full of sympathy.
Rose looked puzzled for a minute, then seemed to understand, and assumed a superior air which became her very well as she said, good-naturedly opening a box of laces, “Uncle did not forbid my doing it, and I had money enough, but I chose not to spend it on things of that sort.”
“Could and didn't! I can't believe it!” And Annabel sank into a chair, as if the thought was too much for her.
“I did rather want to at first, just for the fun of the thing. In fact, I went and looked at some amazing gowns. But they were very expensive, very much trimmed, and not my style at all, so I gave them up and kept what I valued more than all the gowns Worth every made.”
“What in the world was it?” cried Annabel, hoping she would say diamonds.
“Uncle's good opinion,” answered Rose, looking thoughtfully into the depths of a packing case, where lay the lovely picture that would always remind her of the little triumph over girlish vanity, which not only kept but increased “Uncle's good opinion.”
“Oh, indeed!” said Annabel blankly, and fell to examining Aunt Plenty's lace while Rose went on with a happy smile in her eyes as she dived into another trunk.
“Uncle thinks one has no right to waste money on such things, but he is very generous and loves to give useful, beautiful, or curious gifts. See, all these pretty ornaments are for presents, and you shall choose first whatever you like.”
“He's a perfect dear!” cried Annabel, reveling in the crystal, filigree, coral, and mosaic trinkets spread before her while Rose completed her rapture by adding sundry tasteful trifles fresh from Paris.
“Now tell me, when do you mean to have your coming-out party? I ask because I've nothing ready and want plenty of time, for I suppose it will be the event of the season,” asked Annabel a few minutes later as she wavered between a pink coral and a blue lava set.
“I came out when I went to Europe, but I suppose Aunty Plen will want to have some sort of merry-making to celebrate our return. I shall begin as I mean to go on, and have a simple, sociable sort of party and invite everyone whom I like, no matter in what 'set' they happen to belong. No one shall ever say I am aristocratic and exclusive so prepare yourself to be shocked, for old friends and young, rich and poor, will be asked to all my parties.”
“Oh, my heart! You are going to be odd, just as Mama predicted!” sighed Annabel, clasping her hands in despair and studying the effect of three bracelets on her chubby arm in the midst of her woe.
“In my own house I'm going to do as I think best, and if people call me odd, I can't help it. I shall endeavor not to do anything very dreadful, but I seem to inherit Uncle's love for experiments and mean to try some. I daresay they will fail and I shall get laughed at. I intend to do it nevertheless, so you had better drop me now before I begin,” said Rose with an air of resolution that was rather alarming.
“What shall you wear at this new sort of party of yours?” asked Annabel, wisely turning a deaf ear to all delicate or dangerous topics and keeping to matters she understood.
“That white thing over there. It is fresh and pretty, and Phebe has one like it. I never want to dress more than she does, and gowns of that sort are always most becoming and appropriate to girls of our age.”
“Phebe! You don't mean to say you are going to make a lady of her!” gasped Annabel, upsetting her treasures as she fell back with a gesture that made the little chair creak again, for Miss Bliss was as plump as a partridge.
“She is one already, and anybody who slights her slights me, for she is the best girl I know and the dearest,” cried Rose warmly.
“Yes, of course I was only surprised you are quite right, for she may turn out to be somebody, and then how glad you'll feel that you were so good to her!” said Annabel, veering around at once, seeing which way the wind blew.
Before Rose could speak again, a cheery voice called from the hall, “Little mistress, where are you?”
“In my room, Phebe, dear,” and up came the girl Rose was going to “make a lady of,” looking so like one that Annabel opened her china-blue eyes and smiled involuntarily as Phebe dropped a little curtsey in playful imitation of her old manner and said quietly: “How do you do, Miss Bliss?”
“Glad to see you back, Miss Moore,” answered Annabel, shaking hands in a way that settled the question of Phebe's place in her mind forever, for the stout damsel had a kind heart in spite of a weak head and was really fond of Rose. It was evidently “Love me, love my Phebe,” so she made up her mind on the spot that Phebe was somebody, and that gave an air of romance even to the poorhouse.
She could not help staring a little as she watched the two friends work together and listened to their happy talk over each new treasure as it came to light, for every look and word plainly showed that years of close companionship had made them very dear to one another. It was pretty to see Rose try to do the hardest part of any little job herself still prettier to see Phebe circumvent her and untie the hard knots, fold the stiff papers, or lift the heavy trays with her own strong hands, and prettiest of all to hear her say in a motherly tone, as she put Rose into an easy chair: “Now, my deary, sit and rest, for you will have to see company all day, and I can't let you get tired out so early.”
“That is no reason why I should let you either. Call Jane to help or I'll bob up again directly,” answered Rose, with a very bad assumption of authority.
“Jane may take my place downstairs, but no one shall wait on you here except me, as long as I'm with you,” said stately Phebe, stooping to put a hassock under the feet of her little mistress.
“It is very nice and pretty to see, but I don't know what people will say when she goes into society with the rest of us. I do hope Rose won't be very odd,” said Annabel to herself as she went away to circulate the depressing news that there was to be no grand ball and, saddest disappointment of all, that Rose had not a single Paris costume with which to refresh the eyes and rouse the envy of her amiable friends.
“Now I've seen or heard from all the boys but Charlie, and I suppose he is too busy. I wonder what he is about,” thought Rose, turning from the hall door, whither she had courteously accompanied her guest.
The wish was granted a moment after, for, going into the parlor to decide where some of her pictures should hang, she saw a pair of brown boots at one end of the sofa, a tawny-brown head at the other, and discovered that Charlie was busily occupied in doing nothing.
“The voice of the Bliss was heard in the land, so I dodged till she went upstairs, and then took a brief siesta while waiting to pay my respects to the distinguished traveler, Lady Hester Stanhope,” he said, leaping up to make his best bow.
“The voice of the sluggard would be a more appropriate quotation, I think. Does Annabel still pine for you?” asked Rose, recalling certain youthful jokes upon the subject of unrequited affections.
“Not a bit of it. Fun has cut me out, and the fair Annabella will be Mrs. Tokio before the winter is over if I'm not much mistaken.”
“What, little Fun See? How droll it seems to think of him grown up and married to Annabel of all people! She never said a word about him, but this accounts for her admiring my pretty Chinese things and being so interested in Canton.”
“Little Fun is a great swell now, and much enamored of our fat friend, who will take to chopsticks whenever he says the word. I needn't ask how you do, Cousin, for you beat that Aurora all hollow in the way of color. I should have been up before, but I thought you'd like a good rest after your voyage.”
“I was running a race with Jamie before nine o'clock. What were you doing, young man?”
“'Sleeping I dreamed, love, dreamed, love, of thee,'” began Charlie, but Rose cut him short by saying as reproachfully as she could, while the culprit stood regarding her with placid satisfaction: “You ought to have been up and at work like the rest of the boys. I felt like a drone in a hive of very busy bees when I saw them all hurrying off to their business.”
“But, my dear girl, I've got no business. I'm making up my mind, you see, and do the ornamental while I'm deciding. There always ought to be one gentleman in a family, and that seems to be rather my line,” answered Charlie, posing for the character with an assumption of languid elegance which would have been very effective if his twinkling eyes had not spoilt it.
“There are none but gentlemen in our family, I hope,” answered Rose, with the proud air she always wore when anything was said derogatory to the name of Campbell.
“Of course, of course. I should have said gentleman of leisure. You see it is against my principles to slave as Archie does. What's the use? Don't need the money, got plenty, so why not enjoy it and keep jolly as long as possible? I'm sure cheerful people are public benefactors in this world of woe.”
It was not easy to object to this proposition, especially when made by a comely young man who looked the picture of health and happiness as he sat on the arm of the sofa smiling at his cousin in the most engaging manner. Rose knew very well that the Epicurean philosophy was not the true one to begin life upon, but it was difficult to reason with Charlie because he always dodged sober subjects and was so full of cheery spirits, one hated to lessen the sort of sunshine which certainly is a public benefactor.
“You have such a clever way of putting things that I don't know how to contradict you, though I still think I'm right,” she said gravely. “Mac likes to idle as well as you, but he is not going to do it because he knows it's bad for him to fritter away his time. He is going to study a profession like a wise boy, though he would much prefer to live among his beloved books or ride his hobbies in peace.”
“That's all very well for him, because he doesn't care for society and may as well be studying medicine as philandering about the woods with his pockets full of musty philosophers and old-fashioned poets,” answered Charlie with a shrug which plainly expressed his opinion of Mac.
“I wonder if musty philosophers, like Socrates and Aristotle, and old-fashioned poets, like Shakespeare and Milton, are not safer company for him to keep than some of the more modern friends you have?” said Rose, remembering Jamie's hints about wild oats, for she could be a little sharp sometimes and had not lectured “the boys” for so long it seemed unusually pleasant.
But Charlie changed the subject skillfully by exclaiming with an anxious expression: “I do believe you are going to be like Aunt Jane, for that's just the way she comes down on me whenever she gets the chance! Don't take her for a model, I beg she is a good woman but a mighty disagreeable one in my humble opinion.”
The fear of being disagreeable is a great bugbear to a girl, as this artful young man well knew, and Rose fell into the trap at once, for Aunt Jane was far from being her model, though she could not help respecting her worth.
“Have you given up your painting?” she asked rather abruptly, turning to a gilded Fra Angelico angel which leaned in the sofa corner.
“Sweetest face I ever saw, and very like you about the eyes, isn't it?” said Charlie, who seemed to have a Yankee trick of replying to one question with another.
“I want an answer, not a compliment,” and Rose tried to look severe as she put away the picture more quickly than she had taken it up.
“Have I given up painting? Oh, no! I daub a little in oils, slop a little in watercolors, sketch now and then, and poke about the studios when the artistic fit comes on.”
“How is the music?”
“More flourishing. I don't practice much, but sing a good deal in company. Set up a guitar last summer and went troubadouring round in great style. The girls like it, and it's jolly among the fellows.”
“Are you studying anything?”
“Well, I have some lawbooks on my table good, big, wise-looking chaps and I take a turn at them semioccasionally when pleasure palls or parents chide. But I doubt if I do more than learn what 'a allybi' is this year,” and a sly laugh in Charlie's eye suggested that he sometimes availed himself of this bit of legal knowledge.
“What do you do then?”
“Fair catechist, I enjoy myself. Private theatricals have been the rage of late, and I have won such laurels that I seriously think of adopting the stage as my profession.”
“Really!” cried Rose, alarmed.
“Why not? If I must go to work, isn't that as good as anything?”
“Not without more talent than I think you possess. With genius one can do anything without it one had better let the stage alone.”
“There's a quencher for the 'star of the goodlie companie' to which I belong. Mac hasn't a ray of genius for anything, yet you admire him for trying to be an M.D.,” cried Charlie, rather nettled at her words.
“It is respectable, at all events, and I'd rather be a second-rate doctor than a second-rate actor. But I know you don't mean it, and only say so to frighten me.”
“Exactly. I always bring it up when anyone begins to lecture and it works wonders. Uncle Mac turns pale, the aunts hold up their hands in holy horror, and a general panic ensues. Then I magnanimously promise not to disgrace the family and in the first burst of gratitude the dear souls agree to everything I ask, so peace is restored and I go on my way rejoicing.”
“Just the way you used to threaten to run off to sea if your mother objected to any of your whims. You are not changed in that respect, though you are in others. You had great plans and projects once, Charlie, and now you seem to be contented with being a 'jack of all trades and master of none'”.
“Boyish nonsense! Time has brought wisdom, and I don't see the sense of tying myself down to one particular thing and grinding away at it year after year. People of one idea get so deucedly narrow and tame, I've no patience with them. Culture is the thing, and the sort one gets by ranging over a wide field is the easiest to acquire, the handiest to have, and the most successful in the end. At any rate, it is the kind I like and the only kind I intend to bother myself about.”
With this declaration, Charlie smoothed his brow, clasped his hands over his head, and, leaning back, gently warbled the chorus of a college song as if it expressed his views of life better than he could: “While our rosy fillets shed Blushes o'er each fervid head, With many a cup and many a smile The festal moments we beguile.”
“Some of my saints here were people of one idea, and though they were not very successful from a worldly point of view while alive, they were loved and canonized when dead,” said Rose, who had been turning over a pile of photographs on the table and just then found her favorite, St. Francis, among them.
“This is more to my taste. Those worn-out, cadaverous fellows give me the blues, but here's a gentlemanly saint who takes things easy and does good as he goes along without howling over his own sins or making other people miserable by telling them of theirs.” And Charlie laid a handsome St. Martin beside the brown-frocked monk.
Rose looked at both and understood why her cousin preferred the soldierly figure with the sword to the ascetic with his crucifix. One was riding bravely through the world in purple and fine linen, with horse and hound and squires at his back; and the other was in a lazar-house, praying over the dead and dying. The contrast was a strong one, and the girl's eyes lingered longest on the knight, though she said thoughtfully, “Yours is certainly the pleasantest and yet I never heard of any good deed he did, except divide his cloak with a beggar, while St. Francis gave himself to charity just when life was most tempting and spent years working for God without reward. He's old and poor, and in a dreadful place, but I won't give him up, and you may have your gay St. Martin if you want him.”
“No, thank you, saints are not in my line but I'd like the golden-haired angel in the blue gown if you'll let me have her. She shall be my little Madonna, and I'll pray to her like a good Catholic,” answered Charlie, turning to the delicate, deep-eyed figure with the lilies in its hand.
“With all my heart, and any others that you like. Choose some for your mother and give them to her with my love.”
So Charlie sat down beside Rose to turn and talk over the pictures for a long and pleasant hour. But when they went away to lunch, if there had been anyone to observe so small but significant a trifle, good St. Francis lay face downward behind the sofa, while gallant St. Martin stood erect upon the chimneypiece.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
3
|
MISS CAMPBELL
|
While the travelers unpack their trunks, we will pick up, as briefly as possible, the dropped stitches in the little romance we are weaving.
Rose's life had been a very busy and quiet one for the four years following the May day when she made her choice. Study, exercise, housework, and many wholesome pleasures kept her a happy, hearty creature, yearly growing in womanly graces, yet always preserving the innocent freshness girls lose so soon when too early set upon the world's stage and given a part to play.
Not a remarkably gifted girl in any way, and far from perfect; full of all manner of youthful whims and fancies; a little spoiled by much love; rather apt to think all lives as safe and sweet as her own; and, when want or pain appealed to her, the tender heart overflowed with a remorseful charity which gave of its abundance recklessly. Yet, with all her human imperfections, the upright nature of the child kept her desires climbing toward the just and pure and true, as flowers struggle to the light; and the woman's soul was budding beautifully under the green leaves behind the little thorns.
At seventeen, Dr. Alec pronounced her ready for the voyage around the world, which he considered a better finishing off than any school could give her. But just then Aunt Peace began to fail and soon slipped quietly away to rejoin the lover she had waited for so long. Youth seemed to come back in a mysterious way to touch the dead face with lost loveliness, and all the romance of her past to gather around her memory. Unlike most aged women, her friends were among the young, and at her funeral the grayheads gave place to the band of loving girls who made the sweet old maiden ready for her rest, bore her pall, and covered her grave with the white flowers she had never worn.
When this was over poor Aunt Plenty seemed so lost without her lifelong charge that Dr. Alec would not leave her, and Rose gladly paid the debt she owed by the tender service which comforts without words. But Aunt Plenty, having lived for others all her days, soon rebelled against this willing sacrifice, soon found strength in her own sincere piety, solace in cheerful occupation, and amusement in nursing Aunt Myra, who was a capital patient, as she never died and never got well.
So at last the moment came when, with free minds, the travelers could set out, and on Rose's eighteenth birthday, with Uncle Alec and the faithful Phebe, she sailed away to see and study the big, beautiful world which lies ready for us all if we only know how to use and enjoy it.
Phebe was set to studying music in the best schools, and while she trained her lovely voice with happy industry, Rose and her uncle roamed about in the most delightful way till two years were gone like a dream and those at home clamored for their return.
Back they came, and now the heiress must make ready to take her place, for at twenty-one she came into possession of the fortune she had been trying to learn how to use well. Great plans fermented in her brain, for, though the heart was as generous as ever, time had taught her prudence and observation shown her that the wisest charity is that which helps the poor to help themselves.
Dr. Alec found it a little difficult to restrain the ardor of this young philanthropist who wanted to begin at once to endow hospitals, build homes, adopt children, and befriend all mankind.
“Take a little time to look about you and get your bearings, child. The world you have been living in is a much simpler, honester one than that you are now to enter. Test yourself a bit and see if the old ways seem best after all, for you are old enough to decide, and wise enough to discover, what is for your truest good, I hope,” he said, trying to feel ready to let the bird escape from under his wing and make little flights alone.
“Now, Uncle, I'm very much afraid you are going to be disappointed in me,” answered Rose with unusual hesitation yet a very strong desire visible in her eyes. “You like to have me quite honest, and I've learned to tell you all my foolish thoughts so I'll speak out, and if you find my wish very wrong and silly, please say so, for I don't want you to cast me off entirely, though I am grown up. You say, wait a little, test myself, and try if the old ways are best. I should like to do that, and can I in a better way than leading the life other girls lead? Just for a little while,” she added, as her uncle's face grew grave.
He was disappointed, yet acknowledged that the desire was natural and in a moment saw that a trial of this sort might have its advantages. Nevertheless, he dreaded it, for he had intended to choose her society carefully and try to keep her unspoiled by the world as long as possible, like many another fond parent and guardian. But the spirit of Eve is strong in all her daughters forbidden fruit will look rosier to them than any in their own orchards, and the temptation to take just one little bite proves irresistible to the wisest. So Rose, looking out from the safe seclusion of her girlhood into the woman's kingdom which she was about to take possession of, felt a sudden wish to try its pleasures before assuming its responsibilities, and was too sincere to hide the longing.
“Very well, my dear, try it if you like, only take care of your health be temperate in your gaiety and don't lose more than you gain, if that is possible,” he added under his breath, endeavoring to speak cheerfully and not look anxious.
“I know it is foolish, but I do want to be a regular butterfly for a little while and see what it is like. You know I couldn't help seeing a good deal of fashionable life abroad, though we were not in it, and here at home the girls tell me about all sorts of pleasant things that are to happen this winter, so if you won't despise me very much, I should like to try it.”
“For how long?”
“Would three months be too long? New Year is a good time to take a fresh start. Everyone is going to welcome me, so I must be gay in spite of myself, unless I'm willing to seem very ungrateful and morose,” said Rose, glad to have so good a reason to offer for her new experiment.
“You may like it so well that the three months may become years. Pleasure is very sweet when we are young.”
“Do you think it will intoxicate me?”
“We shall see, my dear.”
“We shall!” And Rose marched away, looking as if she had taken a pledge of some sort, and meant to keep it.
It was a great relief to the public mind when it became known that Miss Campbell was really coming out at last, and invitations to Aunt Plenty's party were promptly accepted. Aunt Clara was much disappointed about the grand ball she had planned, but Rose stood firm, and the dear old lady had her way about everything.
The consequence was a delightfully informal gathering of friends to welcome the travelers home. Just a good, old-fashioned, hospitable housewarming, so simple, cordial, and genuine that those who came to criticize remained to enjoy, and many owned the charm they could neither describe nor imitate.
Much curiosity was felt about Phebe, and much gossip went on behind fans that evening, for those who had known her years ago found it hard to recognize the little housemaid in the handsome young woman who bore herself with such quiet dignity and charmed them all with her fine voice. “Cinderella has turned out a princess,” was the general verdict, and Rose enjoyed the little sensation immensely, for she had had many battles to fight for her Phebe since she came among them, and now her faith was vindicated.
Miss Campbell herself was in great demand and did the honors so prettily that even Miss Bliss forgave her for her sad neglect of Worth, though she shook her head over the white gowns, just alike except that Phebe wore crimson and Rose, blue trimmings.
The girls swarmed eagerly around their recovered friend, for Rose had been a favorite before she went away and found her throne waiting for her now. The young men privately pronounced Phebe the handsomest “But then you know there's neither family nor money, so it's no use.” Phebe, therefore, was admired as one of the ornamental properties belonging to the house and left respectfully alone.
But bonny Rose was “all right,” as these amiable youths expressed it, and many a wistful eye followed the bright head as it flitted about the rooms as if it were a second Golden Fleece to be won with difficulty, for stalwart kinsmen hedged it round, and watchful aunts kept guard.
Little wonder that the girl found her new world an enchanting one and that her first sip of pleasure rather went to her head, for everybody welcomed and smiled on her, flattered and praised, whispered agreeable prophecies in her ear, and looked the compliments and congratulations they dared not utter till she felt as if she must have left her old self somewhere abroad and suddenly become a new and wonderfully gifted being.
“It is very nice, Uncle, and I'm not sure I mayn't want another three months of it when the first are gone,” she whispered to Dr. Alec as he stood watching the dance she was leading with Charlie in the long hall after supper.
“Steady, my lass, steady, and remember that you are not really a butterfly but a mortal girl with a head that will ache tomorrow,” he answered, watching the flushed and smiling face before him. “I almost wish there wasn't any tomorrow, but that tonight would last forever it is so pleasant, and everyone so kind,” she said with a little sigh of happiness as she gathered up her fleecy skirts like a white bird pluming itself for flight.
“I'll ask your opinion about that at two A.M.,” began her uncle with a warning nod.
“I'll give it honestly,” was all Rose had time to say before Charlie swept her away into the particolored cloud before them.
“It's no use, Alec train a girl as wisely as you choose, she will break loose when the time comes and go in for pleasure as eagerly as the most frivolous, for ''tis their nature to,'” said Uncle Mac, keeping time to the music as if he would not mind “going in” for a bit of pleasure himself.
“My girl shall taste and try, but unless I'm much mistaken, a little bit of it will satisfy her. I want to see if she will stand the test, because if not, all my work is a failure and I'd like to know it,” answered the doctor with a hopeful smile on his lips but an anxious look in his eyes.
“She will come out all right bless her heart! so let her sow her innocent wild oats and enjoy herself till she is ready to settle down. I wish all our young folks were likely to have as small a crop and get through as safely as she will,” added Uncle Mac with a shake of the head as he glanced at some of the young men revolving before him.
“Nothing amiss with your lads, I hope?”
“No, thank heaven! So far I've had little trouble with either, though Mac is an odd stick and Steve a puppy. I don't complain, for both will outgrow that sort of thing and are good fellows at heart, thanks to their mother. But Clara's boy is in a bad way, and she will spoil him as a man as she has as a boy if his father doesn't interfere.”
“I told brother Stephen all about him when I was in Calcutta last year, and he wrote to the boy, but Clara has got no end of plans in her head and so she insisted on keeping Charlie a year longer when his father ordered him off to India,” replied the doctor as they walked away.
“It is too late to 'order' Charlie is a man now, and Stephen will find he has been too easy with him all these years. Poor fellow, it has been hard lines for him, and is likely to be harder, I fancy, unless he comes home and straightens things out.”
“He won't do that if he can help it. He has lost all his energy living in that climate and hates worry more than ever, so you can imagine what an effort it would be to manage a foolish woman and a headstrong boy. We must lend a hand, Mac, and do our best for poor old Steve.”
“The best we can do for the lad is to marry and settle him as soon as possible.”
“My dear fellow, he is only three and twenty,” began the doctor, as if the idea was preposterous. Then a sudden change came over him as he added with a melancholy smile, “I forget how much one can hope and suffer, even at twenty-three.”
“And be all the better for, if bravely outlived,” said Uncle Mac, with his hand on his brother's shoulder and the sincerest approval in his voice. Then, kindly returning to the younger people, he went on inquiringly, “You don't incline to Clara's view of a certain matter, I fancy?”
“Decidedly not. My girl must have the best, and Clara's training would spoil an angel,” answered Dr. Alec quickly.
“But we shall find it hard to let our little Rose go out of the family. How would Archie do? He has been well brought up and is a thoroughly excellent lad.”
The brothers had retired to the study by this time and were alone, yet Dr. Alec lowered his voice as he said with a tender sort of anxiety pleasant to see: “You know I do not approve of cousins marrying, so I'm in a quandary, Mac, for I love the child as if she were my own and feel as if I could not give her up to any man whom I did not know and trust entirely. It is of no use for us to plan, for she must choose for herself yet I do wish we could keep her among us and give one of our boys a wife worth having.”
“We must, so never mind your theories but devote yourself to testing our elder lads and making one of them a happy fellow. All are heart-whole, I believe, and, though young still for this sort of thing, we can be gently shaping matters for them, since no one knows how soon the moment may come. My faith it is like living in a powder mill to be among a lot of young folks nowadays! All looks as calm as possible till a sudden spark produces an explosion, and heaven only knows where we find ourselves after it is over.”
And Uncle Mac sat himself comfortably down to settle Rose's fate while the doctor paced the room, plucking at his beard and knitting his brows as if he found it hard to see his way.
“Yes, Archie is a good fellow,” he said, answering the question he had ignored before. “An upright, steady, intelligent lad who will make an excellent husband if he ever finds out that he has a heart. I suppose I'm an old fool, but I do like a little more romance in a young man than he seems to have more warmth and enthusiasm, you know. Bless the boy! He might be forty instead of three or four and twenty, he's so sober, calm, and cool. I'm younger than he is, and could go a-wooing like a Romeo if I had any heart to offer a woman.”
The doctor looked rather shamefaced as he spoke, and his brother burst out laughing. “See here, Alec, it's a pity so much romance and excellence as yours should be lost, so why don't you set these young fellows an example and go a-wooing yourself? Jessie has been wondering how you have managed to keep from falling in love with Phebe all this time, and Clara is quite sure that you waited only till she was safe under Aunt Plenty's wing to offer yourself in the good old-fashioned style.”
“I!” And the doctor stood aghast at the mere idea, then he gave a resigned sort of sigh and added like a martyr, “If those dear women would let me alone, I'd thank them forever. Put the idea out of their minds for heaven's sake, Mac, or I shall be having that poor girl flung at my head and her comfort destroyed. She is a fine creature and I'm proud of her, but she deserves a better lot than to be tied to an old fellow like me whose only merit is his fidelity.”
“As you please, I was only joking,” and Uncle Mac dropped the subject with secret relief. The excellent man thought a good deal of family and had been rather worried at the hints of the ladies. After a moment's silence he returned to a former topic, which was rather a pet plan of his. “I don't think you do Archie justice, Alec. You don't know him as well as I do, but you'll find that he has heart enough under his cool, quiet manner. I've grown very fond of him, think highly of him, and don't see how you could do better for Rose than to give her to him.”
“If she will go,” said the doctor, smiling at his brother's businesslike way of disposing of the young people.
“She'll do anything to please you,” began Uncle Mac in perfect good faith, for twenty-five years in the society of a very prosaic wife had taken nearly all the romance out of him.
“It is of no use for us to plan, and I shall never interfere except to advise, and if I were to choose one of the boys, I should incline to my godson,” answered the doctor gravely.
“What, my Ugly Duckling!” exclaimed Uncle Mac in great surprise.
“The Ugly Duckling turned out a swan, you remember. I've always been fond of the boy because he's so genuine and original. Crude as a green apple now, but sound at the core, and only needs time to ripen. I'm sure he'll turn out a capital specimen of the Campbell variety.”
“Much obliged, Alec, but it will never do at all. He's a good fellow, and may do something to be proud of by and by, but he's not the mate for our Rose. She needs someone who can manage her property when we are gone, and Archie is the man for that, depend upon it.”
“Confound the property!” cried Dr. Alec impetuously. “I want her to be happy, and I don't care how soon she gets rid of her money if it is going to be a millstone round her neck. I declare to you, I dreaded the thought of this time so much that I've kept her away as long as I could and trembled whenever a young fellow joined us while we were abroad. Had one or two narrow escapes, and now I'm in for it, as you can see by tonight's 'success' as Clara calls it. Thank heaven I haven't many daughters to look after!”
“Come, come, don't be anxious take Archie and settle it right up safely and happily. That's my advice, and you'll find it sound,” replied the elder conspirator, like one having experience.
“I'll think of it, but mind you, Mac, not a word of this to the sisters. We are a couple of old fools to be matchmaking so soon but I see what is before me and it's a comfort to free my mind to someone.”
“So it is. Depend on me not a breath even to Jane,” answered Uncle Mac, with a hearty shake and a sympathetic slap on the shoulder.
“Why, what dark and awful secrets are going on here? Is it a Freemason's Lodge and those the mystic signs?” asked a gay voice at the door; and there stood Rose, full of smiling wonder at the sight of her two uncles hand in hand, whispering and nodding to one another mysteriously.
They stared like schoolboys caught plotting mischief and looked so guilty that she took pity on them, innocently imagining the brothers were indulging in a little sentiment on this joyful occasion, so she added quickly, as she beckoned, without crossing the threshold, “Women not allowed, of course, but both of you dear Odd Fellows are wanted, for Aunt Plenty begs we will have an old-fashioned contra dance, and I'm to lead off with Uncle Mac. I chose you, sir, because you do it in style, pigeon wings and all. So, please come and Phebe is waiting for you, Uncle Alec. She is rather shy you know, but will enjoy it with you to take care of her.”
“Thank you, thank you!” cried both gentlemen, following with great alacrity.
Unconscious, Rose enjoyed that Virginia reel immensely, for the pigeon wings were superb, and her partner conducted her through the convolutions of the dance without a fault, going down the middle in his most gallant style. Landing safely at the bottom, she stood aside to let him get his breath, for stout Uncle Mac was bound to do or die on that occasion and would have danced his pumps through without a murmur if she had desired it.
Leaning against the wall with his hair in his eyes, and a decidedly bored expression of countenance, was Mac, Jr., who had been surveying the gymnastics of his parent with respectful astonishment.
“Come and take a turn, my lad. Rose is fresh as a daisy, but we old fellows soon get enough of it, so you shall have my place,” said his father, wiping his face, which glowed like a cheerful peony.
“No, thank you, sir I can't stand that sort of thing. I'll race you round the piazza with pleasure, Cousin, but his oven is too much for me,” was Mac's uncivil reply as he backed toward the open window, as if glad of an excuse to escape.
“Fragile creature, don't stay on my account, I beg. I can't leave my guests for a moonlight run, even if I dared to take it on a frosty night in a thin dress,” said Rose, fanning herself and not a bit ruffled by Mac's refusal, for she knew his ways and they amused her.
“Not half so bad as all this dust, gas, heat, and noise. What do you suppose lungs are made of?” demanded Mac, ready for a discussion then and there.
“I used to know, but I've forgotten now. Been so busy with other things that I've neglected the hobbies I used to ride five or six years ago,” she said, laughing.
“Ah, those were times worth having! Are you going in for much of this sort of thing, Rose?” he asked with a disapproving glance at the dancers.
“About three months of it, I think.”
“Then good-bye till New Year.” And Mac vanished behind the curtains.
“Rose, my dear, you really must take that fellow in hand before he gets to be quite a bear. Since you have been gone he has lived in his books and got on so finely that we have let him alone, though his mother groans over his manners. Polish him up a bit, I beg of you, for it is high time he mended his odd ways and did justice to the fine gifts he hides behind them,” said Uncle Mac, scandalized at the bluntness of his son.
“I know my chestnut burr too well to mind his prickles. But others do not, so I will take him in hand and make him a credit to his family,” answered Rose readily.
“Take Archie for your model he's one of a thousand, and the girl who gets him gets a prize, I do assure you,” added Uncle Mac, who found matchmaking to his taste and thought that closing remark a deep one.
“Oh, me, how tired I am!” cried Rose, dropping into a chair as the last carriage rolled away somewhere between one and two.
“What is your opinion now, Miss Campbell?” asked the doctor, addressing her for the first time by the name which had been uttered so often that night.
“My opinion is that Miss Campbell is likely to have a gay life if she goes on as she has begun, and that she finds it very delightful so far,” answered the girl, with lips still smiling from their first taste of what the world calls pleasure.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
4
|
THORNS AMONG THE ROSES
|
For a time everything went smoothly, and Rose was a happy girl. The world seemed a beautiful and friendly place, and fulfillment of her brightest dreams appeared to be a possibility. Of course this could not last, and disappointment was inevitable, because young eyes look for a Paradise and weep when they find a workaday world which seems full of care and trouble till one learns to gladden and glorify it with high thoughts and holy living.
Those who loved her waited anxiously for the disillusion which must come in spite of all their cherishing, for till now Rose had been so busy with her studies, travels, and home duties that she knew very little of the triumphs, trials, and temptations of fashionable life. Birth and fortune placed her where she could not well escape some of them, and Dr. Alec, knowing that experience is the best teacher, wisely left her to learn this lesson as she must many another, devoutly hoping that it would not be a hard one.
October and November passed rapidly, and Christmas was at hand, with all its merry mysteries, home gatherings, and good wishes.
Rose sat in her own little sanctum, opening from the parlor, busily preparing gifts for the dear five hundred friends who seemed to grow fonder and fonder as the holidays drew near. The drawers of her commode stood open, giving glimpses of dainty trifles, which she was tying up with bright ribbons.
A young girl's face at such moments is apt to be a happy one, but Rose's was very grave as she worked, and now and then she threw a parcel into the drawer with a careless toss, as if no love made the gift precious. So unusual was this expression that it struck Dr. Alec as he came in and brought an anxious look to his eyes, for any cloud on that other countenance dropped its shadow over his.
“Can you spare a minute from your pretty work to take a stitch in my old glove?” he asked, coming up to the table strewn with ribbon, lace, and colored papers.
“Yes, Uncle, as many as you please.”
The face brightened with sudden sunshine; both hands were put out to receive the shabby driving glove, and the voice was full of that affectionate alacrity which makes the smallest service sweet.
“My Lady Bountiful is hard at work, I see. Can I help in any way?” he asked, glancing at the display before him.
“No, thank you, unless you can make me as full of interest and pleasure in these things as I used to be. Don't you think preparing presents a great bore, except for those you love and who love you?” she added in a tone which had a slight tremor in it as she uttered the last words.
“I don't give to people whom I care nothing for. Can't do it, especially at Christmas, when goodwill should go into everything one does. If all these 'pretties' are for dear friends, you must have a great many.”
“I thought they were friends, but I find many of them are not, and that's the trouble, sir.”
“Tell me all about it, dear, and let the old glove go,” he said, sitting down beside her with his most sympathetic air.
But she held the glove fast, saying eagerly, “No, no, I love to do this! I don't feel as if I could look at you while I tell what a bad, suspicious girl I am,” she added, keeping her eyes on her work.
“Very well, I'm ready for confessions of any iniquity and glad to get them, for sometimes lately I've seen a cloud in my girl's eyes and caught a worried tone in her voice. Is there a bitter drop in the cup that promised to be so sweet, Rose?”
“Yes, Uncle. I've tried to think there was not, but it is there, and I don't like it. I'm ashamed to tell, and yet I want to, because you will show me how to make it sweet or assure me that I shall be the better for it, as you used to do when I took medicine.”
She paused a minute, sewing swiftly; then out came the trouble all in one burst of girlish grief and chagrin.
“Uncle, half the people who are so kind to me don't care a bit for me, but for what I can give them, and that makes me unhappy, because I was so glad and proud to be liked. I do wish I hadn't a penny in the world, then I should know who my true friends were.”
“Poor little lass! She has found out that all that glitters is not gold, and the disillusion has begun,” said the doctor to himself, adding aloud, smiling yet pitiful, “And so all the pleasure is gone out of the pretty gifts and Christmas is a failure?”
“Oh, no not for those whom nothing can make me doubt! It is sweeter than ever to make these things, because my heart is in every stitch and I know that, poor as they are, they will be dear to you, Aunty Plen, Aunt Jessie, Phebe, and the boys.”
She opened a drawer where lay a pile of pretty gifts, wrought with loving care by her own hands, touching them tenderly as she spoke and patting the sailor's knot of blue ribbon on one fat parcel with a smile that told how unshakable her faith in someone was. “But these,” she said, pulling open another drawer and tossing over its gay contents with an air half sad, half scornful, “these I bought and give because they are expected. These people care only for a rich gift, not one bit for the giver, whom they will secretly abuse if she is not as generous as they expect. How can I enjoy that sort of thing, Uncle?”
“You cannot, but perhaps you do some of them injustice, my dear. Don't let the envy or selfishness of a few poison your faith in all. Are you sure that none of these girls care for you?” he asked, reading a name here and there on the parcels scattered about.
“I'm afraid I am. You see I heard several talking together the other evening at Annabel's, only a few words, but it hurt me very much, for nearly everyone was speculating on what I would give them and hoping it would be something fine. 'She's so rich she ought to be generous,' said one. 'I've been perfectly devoted to her for weeks and hope she won't forget it,' said another. 'If she doesn't give me some of her gloves, I shall think she's very mean, for she has heaps, and I tried on a pair in fun so she could see they fitted and take a hint,' added a third. I did take the hint, you see.” And Rose opened a handsome box in which lay several pairs of her best gloves, with buttons enough to satisfy the heart of the most covetous.
“Plenty of silver paper and perfume, but not much love went into that bundle, I fancy?” And Dr. Alec could not help smiling at the disdainful little gesture with which Rose pushed away the box.
“Not a particle, nor in most of these. I have given them what they wanted and taken back the confidence and respect they didn't care for. It is wrong, I know, but I can't bear to think all the seeming goodwill and friendliness I've been enjoying was insincere and for a purpose. That's not the way I treat people.”
“I am sure of it. Take things for what they are worth, dear, and try to find the wheat among the tares, for there is plenty if one knows how to look. Is that all the trouble?”
“No, sir, that is the lightest part of it. I shall soon get over my disappointment in those girls and take them for what they are worth as you advise, but being deceived in them makes me suspicious of others, and that is hateful. If I cannot trust people I'd rather keep by myself and be happy. I do detest maneuvering and underhanded plots and plans!”
Rose spoke petulantly and twitched her silk till it broke, while regret seemed to give place to anger as she spoke.
“There is evidently another thorn pricking. Let us have it out, and then I'll kiss the place to make it well as I used to do when I took the splinters from the fingers you are pricking so unmercifully,” said the doctor, anxious to relieve his pet patient as soon as possible.
Rose laughed, but the color deepened in her cheeks as she answered with a pretty mixture of maidenly shyness and natural candor.
“Aunt Clara worries me by warning me against half the young men I meet and insisting that they want only my money. Now that is dreadful, and I won't listen, but I can't help thinking of it sometimes, for they are very kind to me and I'm not vain enough to think it is my beauty. I suppose I am foolish, but I do like to feel that I am something besides an heiress.”
The little quiver was in Rose's voice again as she ended, and Dr. Alec gave a quick sigh as he looked at the downcast face so full of the perplexity ingenuous spirits feel when doubt first mars their faith and dims the innocent beliefs still left from childhood. He had been expecting this and knew that what the girl just began to perceive and try modestly to tell had long ago been plain to worldlier eyes. The heiress was the attraction to most of the young men whom she met. Good fellows enough, but educated, as nearly all are nowadays, to believe that girls with beauty or money are brought to market to sell or buy as the case may be.
Rose could purchase anything she liked, as she combined both advantages, and was soon surrounded by many admirers, each striving to secure the prize. Not being trained to believe that the only end and aim of a woman's life was a good match, she was a little disturbed, when the first pleasing excitement was over, to discover that her fortune was her chief attraction.
It was impossible for her to help seeing, hearing, guessing this from a significant glance, a stray word, a slight hint here and there, and the quick instinct of a woman felt even before it understood the self-interest which chilled for her so many opening friendships. In her eyes love was a very sacred thing, hardly to be thought of till it came, reverently received and cherished faithfully to the end. Therefore, it is not strange that she shrank from hearing it flippantly discussed and marriage treated as a bargain to be haggled over, with little thought of its high duties, great responsibilities, and tender joys. Many things perplexed her, and sometimes a doubt of all that till now she had believed and trusted made her feel as if at sea without a compass, for the new world was so unlike the one she had been living in that it bewildered while it charmed the novice.
Dr. Alec understood the mood in which he found her and did his best to warn without saddening by too much worldly wisdom.
“You are something besides an heiress to those who know and love you, so take heart, my girl, and hold fast to the faith that is in you. There is a touchstone for all these things, and whatever does not ring true, doubt and avoid. Test and try men and women as they come along, and I am sure conscience, instinct, and experience will keep you from any dire mistake,” he said, with a protecting arm about her and a trustful look that was very comforting.
After a moment's pause she answered, while a sudden smile dimpled around her mouth and the big glove went up to hide her telltale cheeks: “Uncle, if I must have lovers, I do wish they'd be more interesting. How can I like or respect men who go on as some of them do and then imagine women can feel honored by the offer of their hands? Hearts are out of fashion, so they don't say much about them.”
“Ah, ha! That is the trouble, is it? And we begin to have delicate distresses, do we?” said Dr. Alec, glad to see her brightening and full of interest in the new topic, for he was a romantic old fellow, as he had confessed to his brother.
Rose put down the glove and looked up with a droll mixture of amusement and disgust in her face. “Uncle, it is perfectly disgraceful! I've wanted to tell you, but I was ashamed, because I never could boast of such things as some girls do, and they were so absurd I couldn't feel as if they were worth repeating even to you. Perhaps I ought, though, for you may think it proper to command me to make a good match, and of course I should have to obey,” she added, trying to look meek.
“Tell, by all means. Don't I always keep your secrets and give you the best advice, like a model guardian? You must have a confidant, and where find a better one than here?” he asked, tapping his waistcoat with an inviting gesture.
“Nowhere so I'll tell all but the names. I'd best be prudent, for I'm afraid you may get a little fierce you do sometimes when people vex me,” began Rose, rather liking the prospect of a confidential chat with Uncle, for he had kept himself a good deal in the background lately.
“You know our ideas are old-fashioned, so I was not prepared to have men propose at all times and places with no warning but a few smiles and soft speeches. I expected things of that sort would be very interesting and proper, not to say thrilling, on my part but they are not, and I find myself laughing instead of crying, feeling angry instead of glad, and forgetting all about it very soon. Why, Uncle, one absurd boy proposed when we'd met only half a dozen times. But he was dreadfully in debt, so that accounted for it perhaps.” And Rose dusted her fingers, as if she had soiled them.
“I know him, and I thought he'd do it,” observed the doctor with a shrug.
“You see and know everything, so there's no need of going on, is there?”
“Do, do! Who else? I won't even guess.”
“Well, another went down upon his knees in Mrs. Van's greenhouse and poured forth his passion manfully, with a great cactus pricking his poor legs all the while. Kitty found him there, and it was impossible to keep sober, so he has hated me ever since.”
The doctor's “Ha! Ha!” was good to hear, and Rose joined him, for it was impossible to regard these episodes seriously, since no true sentiment redeemed them from absurdity.
“Another sent me reams of poetry and went on so Byronically that I began to wish I had red hair and my name was Betsy Ann. I burnt all the verses, so don't expect to see them, and he, poor fellow, is consoling himself with Emma. But the worst of all was the one who would make love in public and insisted on proposing in the middle of a dance. I seldom dance round dances except with our boys, but that night I did because the girls laughed at me for being so 'prudish,' as they called it. I don't mind them now, for I found I was right, and felt that I deserved my fate.”
“Is that all?” asked her uncle, looking “fierce,” as she predicted, at the idea of his beloved girl obliged to listen to a declaration, twirling on the arm of a lover.
“One more but him I shall not tell about, for I know he was in earnest and really suffered, though I was as kind as I knew how to be. I'm young in these things yet, so I grieved for him, and treat his love with the tenderest respect.”
Rose's voice sank almost to a whisper as she ended, and Dr. Alec bent his head, as if involuntarily saluting a comrade in misfortune. Then he got up, saying with a keen look into the face he lifted by a finger under the chin: “Do you want another three months of this?”
“I'll tell you on New Year's Day, Uncle.”
“Very well. Try to keep a straight course, my little captain, and if you see dirty weather ahead, call on your first mate.”
“Aye, aye, sir. I'll remember.”
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
5
|
PRINCE CHARMING
|
The old glove lay upon the floor forgotten while Rose sat musing, till a quick step sounded in the hall and a voice drew near, tunefully humming.
“As he was walkin' doun the street The city for to view, Oh, there he spied a bonny lass, The window lookin' through.”
“Sae licht he jumpèd up the stair, And tirled at the pin; Oh, wha sae ready as hersel' To let the laddie in?”
sang Rose as the voice paused and a tap came at the door.
“Good morning, Rosamunda, here are your letters, and your most devoted ready to execute any commissions you may have for him,” was Charlie's greeting as he came in looking comely, gay, and debonair as usual.
“Thanks. I've no errands unless you mail my replies, if these need answering, so by your leave, Prince,” and Rose began to open the handful of notes he threw into her lap.
“Ha! What sight is this to blast mine eyes?” ejaculated Charlie, as he pointed to the glove with a melodramatic start, for, like most accomplished amateur actors, he was fond of introducing private theatricals into his daily talk and conversation.
“Uncle left it.”
“'Tis well. Methought perchance a rival had been here,” and, picking it up, Charlie amused himself with putting it on the head of a little Psyche which ornamented the mantelpiece, softly singing as he did so, another verse of the old song: “He set his Jenny on his knee, All in his Highland dress; For brawly well he kenned the way To please a bonny lass.”
Rose went on reading her letters, but all the while was thinking of her conversation with her uncle as well as something else suggested by the newcomer and his ditty.
During the three months since her return she had seen more of this cousin than any of the others, for he seemed to be the only one who had leisure to “play with Rose,” as they used to say years ago. The other boys were all at work, even little Jamie, many of whose play hours were devoted to manful struggles with Latin grammar, the evil genius of his boyish life. Dr. Alec had many affairs to arrange after his long absence; Phebe was busy with her music; and Aunt Plenty still actively superintended her housekeeping. Thus it fell out, quite naturally, that Charlie should form the habit of lounging in at all hours with letters, messages, bits of news, and agreeable plans for Rose. He helped her with her sketching, rode with her, sang with her, and took her to parties as a matter of course, for Aunt Clara, being the gaiest of the sisters, played chaperon on all occasions.
For a time it was very pleasant, but, by and by, Rose began to wish Charlie would find something to do like the rest and not make dawdling after her the business of his life. The family was used to his self-indulgent ways, and there was an amiable delusion in the minds of the boys that he had a right to the best of everything, for to them he was still the Prince, the flower of the flock, and in time to be an honor to the name. No one exactly knew how, for, though full of talent, he seemed to have no especial gift or bias, and the elders began to shake their heads because, in spite of many grand promises and projects, the moment for decisive action never came.
Rose saw all this and longed to inspire her brilliant cousin with some manful purpose which should win for him respect as well as admiration. But she found it very hard, for though he listened with imperturbable good humor, and owned his shortcomings with delightful frankness, he always had some argument, reason, or excuse to offer and out-talked her in five minutes, leaving her silenced but unconvinced.
Of late she had observed that he seemed to feel as if her time and thoughts belonged exclusively to him and rather resented the approach of any other claimant. This annoyed her and suggested the idea that her affectionate interest and efforts were misunderstood by him, misrepresented and taken advantage of by Aunt Clara, who had been most urgent that she should “use her influence with the dear boy,” though the fond mother resented all other interference. This troubled Rose and made her feel as if caught in a snare, for, while she owned to herself that Charlie was the most attractive of her cousins, she was not ready to be taken possession of in this masterful way, especially since other and sometimes better men sought her favor more humbly.
These thoughts were floating vaguely in her mind as she read her letters and unconsciously influenced her in the chat that followed.
“Only invitations, and I can't stop to answer them now or I shall never get through this job,” she said, returning to her work.
“Let me help. You do up, and I'll direct. Have a secretary, do now, and see what a comfort it will be,” proposed Charlie, who could turn his hand to anything and had made himself quite at home in the sanctum.
“I'd rather finish this myself, but you may answer the notes if you will. Just regrets to all but two or three. Read the names as you go along and I'll tell you which.”
“To hear is to obey. Who says I'm a 'frivolous idler' now?” And Charlie sat down at the writing table with alacrity, for these hours in the little room were his best and happiest.
“Order is heaven's first law, and the view a lovely one, but I don't see any notepaper,” he added, opening the desk and surveying its contents with interest.
“Right-hand drawer violet monogram for the notes, plain paper for the business letter. I'll see to that, though,” answered Rose, trying to decide whether Annabel or Emma should have the laced handkerchief.
“Confiding creature! Suppose I open the wrong drawer and come upon the tender secrets of your soul?” continued the new secretary, rummaging out the delicate notepaper with masculine disregard of order.
“I haven't got any,” answered Rose demurely.
“What, not one despairing scrawl, one cherished miniature, one faded floweret, etc., etc.? I can't believe it, Cousin,” and he shook his head incredulously.
“If I had, I certainly should not show them to you, impertinent person! There are a few little souvenirs in that desk, but nothing very sentimental or interesting.”
“How I'd like to see 'em! But I should never dare to ask,” observed Charlie, peering over the top of the half-open lid with a most persuasive pair of eyes.
“You may if you want to, but you'll be disappointed, Paul Pry. Lower left-hand drawer with the key in it.”
“'Angel of goodness, how shall I requite thee? Interesting moment, with what palpitating emotions art thou fraught!'” And, quoting from the “Mysteries of Udolpho,” he unlocked and opened the drawer with a tragic gesture.
“Seven locks of hair in a box, all light, for 'here's your straw color, your orange tawny, your French crown color, and your perfect yellow' Shakespeare. They look very familiar, and I fancy I know the heads they thatched.”
“Yes, you all gave me one when I went away, you know, and I carried them round the world with me in that very box.”
“I wish the heads had gone too. Here's a jolly little amber god with a gold ring in his back and a most balmy breath,” continued Charlie, taking a long sniff at the scent bottle.
“Uncle brought me that long ago, and I'm very fond of it.”
“This now looks suspicious man's ring with a lotus cut on the stone and a note attached. I tremble as I ask, who, when, and where?”
“A gentleman, on my birthday, in Calcutta.”
“I breathe again it was my sire?”
“Don't be absurd. Of course it was, and he did everything to make my visit pleasant. I wish you'd go and see him like a dutiful son, instead of idling here.”
“That's what Uncle Mac is eternally telling me, but I don't intend to be lectured into the treadmill till I've had my fling first,” muttered Charlie rebelliously.
“If you fling yourself in the wrong direction, you may find it hard to get back again,” began Rose gravely.
“No fear, if you look after me as you seem to have promised to do, judging by the thanks you get in this note. Poor old governor! I should like to see him, for it's almost four years since he came home last and he must be getting on.”
Charlie was the only one of the boys who ever called his father “governor,” perhaps because the others knew and loved their fathers, while he had seen so little of his that the less respectful name came more readily to his lips, since the elder man in truth seemed a governor issuing requests or commands, which the younger too often neglected or resented.
Long ago Rose had discovered that Uncle Stephen found home made so distasteful by his wife's devotion to society that he preferred to exile himself, taking business as an excuse for his protracted absences.
The girl was thinking of this as she watched her cousin turn the ring about with a sudden sobriety which became him well; and, believing that the moment was propitious, she said earnestly: “He is getting on. Dear Charlie, do think of duty more than pleasure in this case and I'm sure you never will regret it.”
“Do you want me to go?” he asked quickly.
“I think you ought.”
“And I think you'd be much more charming if you wouldn't always be worrying about right and wrong! Uncle Alec taught you that along with the rest of his queer notions.”
“I'm glad he did!” cried Rose warmly, then checked herself and said with a patient sort of sigh, “You know women always want the men they care for to be good and can't help trying to make them so.”
“So they do, and we ought to be a set of angels, but I've a strong conviction that, if we were, the dear souls wouldn't like us half as well. Would they now?” asked Charlie with an insinuating smile.
“Perhaps not, but that is dodging the point. Will you go?” persisted Rose unwisely.
“No, I will not.”
That was sufficiently decided and an uncomfortable pause followed, during which Rose tied a knot unnecessarily tight and Charlie went on exploring the drawer with more energy than interest.
“Why, here's an old thing I gave you ages ago!” he suddenly exclaimed in a pleased tone, holding up a little agate heart on a faded blue ribbon. “Will you let me take away the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh?” he asked, half in earnest, half in jest, touched by the little trinket and the recollections it awakened.
“No, I will not,” answered Rose bluntly, much displeased by the irreverent and audacious question.
Charlie looked rather abashed for a moment, but his natural lightheartedness made it easy for him to get the better of his own brief fits of waywardness and put others in good humor with him and themselves.
“Now we are even let's drop the subject and start afresh,” he said with irresistible affability as he coolly put the little heart in his pocket and prepared to shut the drawer. But something caught his eye, and exclaiming, “What's this? What's this?” he snatched up a photograph which lay half under a pile of letters with foreign postmarks.
“Oh! I forgot that was there,” said Rose hastily.
“Who is the man?” demanded Charlie, eyeing the good-looking countenance before him with a frown.
“That is the Honorable Gilbert Murray, who went up the Nile with us and shot crocodiles and other small game, being a mighty hunter, as I told you in my letters,” answered Rose gaily, though ill pleased at the little discovery just then, for this had been one of the narrow escapes her uncle spoke of.
“And they haven't eaten him yet, I infer from the pile of letters?” said Charlie jealously.
“I hope not. His sister did not mention it when she wrote last.”
“Ah! Then she is your correspondent? Sisters are dangerous things sometimes.” And Charlie eyed the packet suspiciously.
“In this case, a very convenient thing, for she tells me all about her brother's wedding, as no one else would take the trouble to do.”
“Oh! Well, if he's married, I don't care a straw about him. I fancied I'd found out why you are such a hard-hearted charmer. But if there is no secret idol, I'm all at sea again.” And Charlie tossed the photograph into the drawer as if it no longer interested him.
“I'm hard-hearted because I'm particular and, as yet, do not find anyone at all to my taste.”
“No one?” with a tender glance.
“No one” with a rebellious blush, and the truthful addition “I see much to admire and like in many persons, but none quite strong and good enough to suit me. My heroes are old-fashioned, you know.”
“Prigs, like Guy Carleton, Count Altenberg, and John Halifax I know the pattern you goody girls like,” sneered Charlie, who preferred the Guy Livingston, Beauclerc, and Rochester style.
“Then I'm not a 'goody girl,' for I don't like prigs. I want a gentleman in the best sense of the word, and I can wait, for I've seen one, and know there are more in the world.”
“The deuce you have! Do I know him?” asked Charlie, much alarmed.
“You think you do,” answered Rose with a mischievous sparkle in her eye.
“If it isn't Pem, I give it up. He's the best-bred fellow I know.”
“Oh, dear, no! Far superior to Mr. Pemberton and many years older,” said Rose, with so much respect that Charlie looked perplexed as well as anxious.
“Some apostolic minister, I fancy. You pious creatures always like to adore a parson. But all we know are married.”
“He isn't.”
“Give a name, for pity's sake I'm suffering tortures of suspense,” begged Charlie.
“Alexander Campbell.”
“Uncle? Well, upon my word, that's a relief, but mighty absurd all the same. So, when you find a young saint of that sort, you intend to marry him, do you?” demanded Charlie much amused and rather disappointed.
“When I find any man half as honest, good, and noble as Uncle, I shall be proud to marry him if he asks me,” answered Rose decidedly.
“What odd tastes women have!” And Charlie leaned his chin on his hand to muse pensively for a moment over the blindness of one woman who could admire an excellent old uncle more than a dashing young cousin.
Rose, meanwhile, tied up her parcels industriously, hoping she had not been too severe, for it was very hard to lecture Charlie, though he seemed to like it sometimes and came to confession voluntarily, knowing that women love to forgive when the sinners are of his sort.
“It will be mail time before you are done,” she said presently, for silence was less pleasant than his rattle.
Charlie took the hint and dashed off several notes in his best manner. Coming to the business letter, he glanced at it and asked, with a puzzled expression: “What is all this? Cost of repairs, etc., from a man named Buffum?”
“Never mind that I'll see to it by and by.”
“But I do mind, for I'm interested in all your affairs, and though you think I've no head for business, you'll find I have if you'll try me.”
“This is only about my two old houses in the city, which are being repaired and altered so that the rooms can be let singly.”
“Going to make tenement houses of them? Well, that's not a bad idea such places pay well, I've heard.”
“That is just what I'm not going to do. I wouldn't have a tenement house on my conscience for a million dollars not as they are now,” said Rose decidedly.
“Why, what do you know about it, except that people live in them and the owners turn a pretty penny on the rents?”
“I know a good deal about them, for I've seen many such, both here and abroad. It was not all pleasure with us, I assure you. Uncle was interested in hospitals and prisons, and I sometimes went with him, but they made me sad so he suggested other charities that I could be of help about when we came home. I visited infant schools, working women's homes, orphan asylums, and places of that sort. You don't know how much good it did me and how glad I am that I have the means of lightening a little some of the misery in the world.”
“But, my dear girl, you needn't make ducks and drakes of your fortune trying to feed and cure and clothe all the poor wretches you see. Give, of course everyone should do something in that line and no one likes it better than I. But don't, for mercy's sake, go at it as some women do and get so desperately earnest, practical, and charity-mad that there is no living in peace with you,” protested Charlie, looking alarmed at the prospect.
“You can do as you please. I intend to do all the good I can by asking the advice and following the example of the most 'earnest,' 'practical,' and 'charitable' people I know so, if you don't approve, you can drop my acquaintance,” answered Rose, emphasizing the obnoxious words and assuming the resolute air she always wore when defending her hobbies.
“You'll be laughed at.”
“I'm used to that.”
“And criticized and shunned.”
“Not by people whose opinion I value.”
“Women shouldn't go poking into such places.”
“I've been taught that they should.”
“Well, you'll get some dreadful disease and lose your beauty, and then where are you?” added Charlie, thinking that might daunt the young philanthropist.
But it did not, for Rose answered, with a sudden kindling of the eyes as she remembered her talk with Uncle Alec: “I shouldn't like it. But there would be one satisfaction in it, for when I'd lost my beauty and given away my money, I should know who really cared for me.”
Charlie nibbled his pen in silence for a moment, then asked, meekly, “Could I respectfully inquire what great reform is to be carried on in the old houses which their amiable owner is repairing?”
“I am merely going to make them comfortable homes for poor but respectable women to live in. There is a class who cannot afford to pay much, yet suffer a great deal from being obliged to stay in noisy, dirty, crowded places like tenement houses and cheap lodgings. I can help a few of them and I'm going to try.”
“May I humbly ask if these decayed gentlewomen are to inhabit their palatial retreat rent-free?”
“That was my first plan, but Uncle showed me that it was wiser not make genteel paupers of them, but let them pay a small rent and feel independent. I don't want the money, of course, and shall use it in keeping the houses tidy or helping other women in like case,” said Rose, entirely ignoring her cousin's covert ridicule.
“Don't expect any gratitude, for you won't get it; nor much comfort with a lot of forlornities on your hands, and be sure that when it is too late you will tire of it all and wish you had done as other people do.”
“Thanks for your cheerful prophecies, but I think I'll venture.”
She looked so undaunted that Charlie was a little nettled and fired his last shot rather recklessly: “Well, one thing I do know you'll never get a husband if you go on in this absurd way, and by Jove! you need one to take care of you and keep the property together!”
Rose had a temper, but seldom let it get the better of her; now, however, it flashed up for a moment. Those last words were peculiarly unfortunate, because Aunt Clara had used them more than once when warning her against impecunious suitors and generous projects. She was disappointed in her cousin, annoyed at having her little plans laughed at, and indignant with him for his final suggestion.
“I'll never have one, if I must give up the liberty of doing what I know is right, and I'd rather go into the poorhouse tomorrow than 'keep the property together' in the selfish way you mean!”
That was all but Charlie saw that he had gone too far and hastened to make his peace with the skill of a lover, for, turning to the little cabinet piano behind him, he sang in his best style the sweet old song: “Oh were thou in the cauld blast,” dwelling with great effect, not only upon the tender assurance that “My plaid should shelter thee,” but also that, even if a king, “The brightest jewel in my crown Wad be my queen, wad be my queen.”
It was very evident that Prince Charming had not gone troubadouring in vain, for Orpheus himself could not have restored harmony more successfully. The tuneful apology was accepted with a forgiving smile and a frank “I'm sorry I was cross, but you haven't forgotten how to tease, and I'm rather out of sorts today. Late hours don't agree with me.”
“Then you won't feel like going to Mrs. Hope's tomorrow, I'm afraid,” and Charlie took up the last note with an expression of regret which was very flattering.
“I must go, because it is made for me, but I can come away early and make up lost sleep. I do hate to be so fractious,” and Rose rubbed the forehead that ached with too much racketing.
“But the German does not begin till late I'm to lead and depend upon you. Just stay this once to oblige me,” pleaded Charlie, for he had set his heart on distinguishing himself.
“No I promised Uncle to be temperate in my pleasures and I must keep my word. I'm so well now, it would be very foolish to get ill and make him anxious not to mention losing my beauty, as you are good enough to call it, for that depends on health, you know.”
“But the fun doesn't begin till after supper. Everything will be delightful, I assure you, and we'll have a gay old time as we did last week at Emma's.”
“Then I certainly will not, for I'm ashamed of myself when I remember what a romp that was and how sober Uncle looked as he let me in at three in the morning, all fagged out my dress in rags, my head aching, my feet so tired that I could hardly stand, and nothing to show for five hours' hard work but a pocketful of bonbons, artificial flowers, and tissue-paper fool's caps. Uncle said I'd better put one on and go to bed, for I looked as though I'd been to a French bal masque. I never want to hear him say so again, and I'll never let dawn catch me out in such a plight anymore.”
“You were all right enough, for mother didn't object and I got you both home before daylight. Uncle is notional about such things, so I shouldn't mind, for we had a jolly time and we were none the worse for it.”
“Indeed we were, every one of us! Aunt Clara hasn't gotten over her cold yet. I slept all the next day, and you looked like a ghost, for you'd been out every night for weeks, I think.”
“Oh, nonsense! Everyone does it during the season, and you'll get used to the pace very soon,” began Charlie, bent on making her go, for he was in his element in a ballroom and never happier than when he had his pretty cousin on his arm.
“Ah! But I don't want to get used to it, for it costs too much in the end. I don't wish to get used to being whisked about a hot room by men who have taken too much wine, to turn day into night, wasting time that might be better spent, and grow into a fashionable fast girl who can't get along without excitement. I don't deny that much of it is pleasant, but don't try to make me too fond of gaiety. Help me to resist what I know is hurtful, and please don't laugh me out of the good habits Uncle has tried so hard to give me.”
Rose was quite sincere in her appeal, and Charlie knew she was right, but he always found it hard to give up anything he had set his heart on, no matter how trivial, for the maternal indulgence which had harmed the boy had fostered the habit of self-indulgence, which was ruining the man. So when Rose looked up at him, with a very honest desire to save him as well as herself from being swept into the giddy vortex which keeps so many young people revolving aimlessly, till they go down or are cast upon the shore, wrecks of what they might have been, he gave a shrug and answered briefly: “As you please. I'll bring you home as early as you like, and Effie Waring shall take your place in the German. What flowers shall I send you?”
Now, that was an artful speech of Charlie's, for Miss Waring was a fast and fashionable damsel who openly admired Prince Charming and had given him the name. Rose disliked her and was sure her influence was bad, for youth made frivolity forgivable, wit hid want of refinement, and beauty always covers a multitude of sins in a man's eyes. At the sound of Effie's name, Rose wavered, and would have yielded but for the memory of the “first mate's” last words. She did desire to “keep a straight course”; so, though the current of impulse set strongly in a southerly direction, principle, the only compass worth having, pointed due north, and she tried to obey it like a wise young navigator, saying steadily, while she directed to Annabel the parcel containing a capacious pair of slippers intended for Uncle Mac: “Don't trouble yourself about me. I can go with Uncle and slip away without disturbing anybody.”
“I don't believe you'll have the heart to do it,” said Charlie incredulously as he sealed the last note.
“Wait and see.”
“I will, but I shall hope to the last.” And kissing his hand to her, he departed to post her letters, quite sure that Miss Waring would not lead the German.
It certainly looked for a moment as if Miss Campbell would, because she ran to the door with the words “I'll go” upon her lips. But she did not open it till she had stood a minute staring hard at the old glove on Psyche's head; then like one who had suddenly gotten a bright idea, she gave a decided nod and walked slowly out of the room.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
6
|
POLISHING MAC
|
“Please could I say one word?” was the question three times repeated before a rough head bobbed out from the grotto of books in which Mac usually sat when he studied.
“Did anyone speak?” he asked, blinking in the flood of sunshine that entered with Rose.
“Only three times, thank you. Don't disturb yourself, I beg, for I merely want to say a word,” answered Rose as she prevented him from offering the easy chair in which he sat.
“I was rather deep in a compound fracture and didn't hear. What can I do for you, Cousin?” And Mac shoved a stack of pamphlets off the chair near him with a hospitable wave of the hand that sent his papers flying in all directions.
Rose sat down, but did not seem to find her “word” an easy one to utter, for she twisted her handkerchief about her fingers in embarrassed silence till Mac put on his glasses and, after a keen look, asked soberly: “Is it a splinter, a cut, or a whitlow, ma'am?”
“It is neither. Do forget your tiresome surgery for a minute and be the kindest cousin that ever was,” answered Rose, beginning rather sharply and ending with her most engaging smile.
“Can't promise in the dark,” said the wary youth.
“It is a favor, a great favor, and one I don't choose to ask any of the other boys,” answered the artful damsel.
Mac looked pleased and leaned forward, saying more affably, “Name it, and be sure I'll grant it if I can.”
“Go with me to Mrs. Hope's party tomorrow night.”
“What!” And Mac recoiled as if she had put a pistol to his head.
“I've left you in peace a long time, but it is your turn now, so do your duty like a man and a cousin.”
“But I never go to parties!” cried the unhappy victim in great dismay.
“High time you began, sir.”
“But I don't dance fit to be seen.”
“I'll teach you.”
“My dress coat isn't decent, I know.”
“Archie will lend you one he isn't going.”
“I'm afraid there's a lecture that I ought not to cut.”
“No, there isn't I asked Uncle.”
“I'm always so tired and dull in the evening.”
“This sort of thing is just what you want to rest and freshen up your spirits.”
Mac gave a groan and fell back vanquished, for it was evident that escape was impossible.
“What put such a perfectly wild idea into your head?” he demanded, rather roughly, for hitherto he had been left in peace and this sudden attack decidedly amazed him.
“Sheer necessity, but don't do it if it is so very dreadful to you. I must go to several more parties, because they are made for me, but after that I'll refuse, and then no one need be troubled with me.”
Something in Rose's voice made Mac answer penitently, even while he knit his brows in perplexity. “I don't mean to be rude, and of course I'll go anywhere if I'm really needed. But I don't understand where the sudden necessity is, with three other fellows at command, all better dancers and beaus than I am.”
“I don't want them, and I do want you, for I haven't the heart to drag Uncle out anymore, and you know I never go with any gentleman but those of my own family.”
“Now look here, Rose if Steve has been doing anything to tease you, just mention it and I'll attend to him,” cried Mac, plainly seeing that something was amiss and fancying that Dandy was at the bottom of it, as he had done escort duty several times lately.
“No, Steve has been very good, but I know he had rather be with Kitty Van, so of course I feel like a marplot, though he is too polite to hint it.”
“What a noodle that boy is! But there's Archie he's steady as a church and has no sweetheart to interfere,” continued Mac, bound to get at the truth and half suspecting what it was.
“He is on his feet all day, and Aunt Jessie wants him in the evening. He does not care for dancing as he used, and I suppose he really does prefer to rest and read.” Rose might have added, “And hear Phebe sing,” for Phebe did not go out as much as Rose did, and Aunt Jessie often came to sit with the old lady when the young folks were away and, of course, dutiful Archie came with her, so willingly of late!
“What's amiss with Charlie? I thought he was the prince of cavaliers. Annabel says he dances 'like an angel,' and I know a dozen mothers couldn't keep him at home of an evening. Have you had a tiff with Adonis and so fall back on poor me?” asked Mac, coming last to the person of whom he thought first but did not mention, feeling shy about alluding to a subject often discussed behind her back.
“Yes, I have, and I don't intend to go with him any more for some time. His ways do not suit me, and mine do not suit him, so I want to be quite independent, and you can help me if you will,” said Rose, rather nervously spinning the big globe close by.
Mac gave a low whistle, looking wide awake all in a minute as he said with a gesture, as if he brushed a cobweb off his face: “Now, see here, Cousin, I'm not good at mysteries and shall only blunder if you put me blindfold into any nice maneuver. Just tell me straight out what you want and I'll do it if I can. Play I'm Uncle and free your mind come now.”
He spoke so kindly, and the honest eyes were so full of merry goodwill, that Rose thought she might confide in him and answered as frankly as he could desire: “You are right, Mac, and I don't mind talking to you almost as freely as to Uncle, because you are such a reliable fellow and won't think me silly for trying to do what I believe to be right. Charlie does, and so makes it hard for me to hold to my resolutions. I want to keep early hours, dress simply, and behave properly no matter what fashionable people do. You will agree to that, I'm sure, and stand by me through thick and thin for principle's sake.”
“I will, and begin by showing you that I understand the case. I don't wonder you are not pleased, for Charlie is too presuming, and you do need someone to help you head him off a bit. Hey, Cousin?”
“What a way to put it!” And Rose laughed in spite of herself, adding with an air of relief, “That is it, and I do want someone to help me make him understand that I don't choose to be taken possession of in that lordly way, as if I belonged to him more than to the rest of the family. I don't like it, for people begin to talk, and Charlie won't see how disagreeable it is to me.”
“Tell him so,” was Mac's blunt advice.
“I have, but he only laughs and promises to behave, and then he does it again when I am so placed that I can't say anything. You will never understand, and I cannot explain, for it is only a look, or a word, or some little thing but I won't have it, and the best way to cure him is to put it out of his power to annoy me so.”
“He is a great flirt and wants to teach you how, I suppose. I'll speak to him if you like and tell him you don't want to learn. Shall I?” asked Mac, finding the case rather an interesting one.
“No, thank you that would only make trouble. If you will kindly play escort a few times, it will show Charlie that I am in earnest without more words and put a stop to the gossip,” said Rose, coloring like a poppy at the recollection of what she heard one young man whisper to another as Charlie led her through a crowded supper room with his most devoted air, “Lucky dog! He is sure to get the heiress, and we are nowhere.”
“There's no danger of people gossiping about us, is there?” And Mac looked up with the oddest of all his odd expressions.
“Of course not you're only a boy.”
“I'm twenty-one, thank you, and Prince is but a couple of years older,” said Mac, promptly resenting the slight put upon his manhood.
“Yes, but he is like other young men, while you are a dear old bookworm. No one would ever mind what you did, so you may go to parties with me every night and not a word would be said or, if there was, I shouldn't mind since it is 'only Mac,'” answered Rose, smiling as she quoted a household phrase often used to excuse his vagaries.
“Then I am nobody?” he said, lifting his brows as if the discovery surprised and rather nettled him.
“Nobody in society as yet, but my very best cousin in private, and I've just proved my regard by making you my confidant and choosing you for my knight,” said Rose, hastening to soothe the feelings her careless words seemed to have ruffled slightly.
“Much good that is likely to do me,” grumbled Mac.
“You ungrateful boy, not to appreciate the honor I've conferred upon you! I know a dozen who would be proud of the place, but you only care for compound fractures, so I won't detain you any longer, except to ask if I may consider myself provided with an escort for tomorrow night?” said Rose, a trifle hurt at his indifference, for she was not used to refusals.
“If I may hope for the honor.” And, rising, he made her a bow which was such a capital imitation of Charlie's grand manner that she forgave him at once, exclaiming with amused surprise: “Why, Mac! I didn't know you could be so elegant!”
“A fellow can be almost anything he likes if he tries hard enough,” he answered, standing very straight and looking so tall and dignified that Rose was quite impressed, and with a stately courtesy she retired, saying graciously: “I accept with thanks. Good morning, Dr. Alexander Mackenzie Campbell.”
When Friday evening came and word was sent up that her escort had arrived, Rose ran down, devoutly hoping that he had not come in a velveteen jacket, top-boots, black gloves, or made any trifling mistake of that sort. A young gentleman was standing before the long mirror, apparently intent upon the arrangement of his hair, and Rose paused suddenly as her eye went from the glossy broadcloth to the white-gloved hands, busy with an unruly lock that would not stay in place.
“Why, Charlie, I thought--” she began with an accent of surprise in her voice, but got no further, for the gentleman turned and she beheld Mac in immaculate evening costume, with his hair parted sweetly on his brow, a superior posy at his buttonhole, and the expression of a martyr on his face.
“Ah, don't you wish it was? No one but yourself to thank that it isn't he. Am I right? Dandy got me up, and he ought to know what is what,” demanded Mac, folding his hands and standing as stiff as a ramrod.
“You are so regularly splendid that I don't know you.”
“Neither do I.” “I really had no idea you could look so like a gentleman,” added Rose, surveying him with great approval.
“Nor that I could feel so like a fool.”
“Poor boy! He does look rather miserable. What can I do to cheer him up in return for the sacrifice he is making?”
“Stop calling me a boy. It will soothe my agony immensely and give me courage to appear in a low-necked coat and curl on my forehead, for I'm not used to such elegancies and I find them no end of a trial.”
Mac spoke in such a pathetic tone, and gave such a gloomy glare at the aforesaid curl, that Rose laughed in his face and added to his woe by handing him her cloak. He surveyed it gravely for a minute, then carefully put it on wrong side out and gave the swan's-down hood a good pull over the head, to the utter destruction of all smoothness to the curls inside.
Rose uttered a cry and cast off the cloak, bidding him learn to do it properly, which he meekly did and then led her down the hall without walking on her skirts more than three times on the way. But at the door she discovered that she had forgotten her furred overshoes and bade Mac get them.
“Never mind it's not wet,” he said, pulling his cap over his eyes and plunging into his coat, regardless of the “elegancies” that afflicted him.
“But I can't walk on cold stones with thin slippers, can I?” began Rose, showing him a little white foot.
“You needn't, for there you are, my lady.” And, unceremoniously picking her up, Mac landed her in the carriage before she could say a word.
“What an escort!” she exclaimed in comic dismay, as she rescued her delicate dress from a rug in which he was about to tuck her up like a mummy.
“It's 'only Mac,' so don't mind,” and he cast himself into an opposite corner with the air of a man who had nerved himself to the accomplishment of many painful duties and was bound to do them or die.
“But gentlemen don't catch up ladies like bags of meal and poke them into carriages in this way. It is evident that you need looking after, and it is high time I undertook your society manners. Now, do mind what you are about and don't get yourself or me into a scrape if you can help it,” besought Rose, feeling that on many accounts she had gone further and fared worse.
“I'll behave like a Turveydrop see if I don't.”
Mac's idea of the immortal Turveydrop's behavior seemed to be a peculiar one; for, after dancing once with his cousin, he left her to her own devices and soon forgot all about her in a long conversation with Professor Stumph, the learned geologist. Rose did not care, for one dance proved to her that that branch of Mac's education had been sadly neglected, and she was glad to glide smoothly about with Steve, though he was only an inch or two taller than herself. She had plenty of partners, however, and plenty of chaperons, for all the young men were her most devoted, and all the matrons beamed upon her with maternal benignity.
Charlie was not there, for when he found that Rose stood firm, and had moreover engaged Mac as a permanency, he would not go at all and retired in high dudgeon to console himself with more dangerous pastimes. Rose feared it would be so, and even in the midst of the gaiety about her an anxious mood came over her now and then and made her thoughtful for a moment. She felt her power and wanted to use it wisely, but did not know how to be kind to Charlie without being untrue to herself and giving him false hopes.
“I wish we were all children again, with no hearts to perplex us and no great temptations to try us,” she said to herself as she rested a minute in a quiet nook while her partner went to get a glass of water. Right in the midst of this half-sad, half-sentimental reverie, she heard a familiar voice behind her say earnestly: “And allophite is the new hydrous silicate of alumina and magnesia, much resembling pseudophite, which Websky found in Silesia.”
“What is Mac talking about!” she thought, and, peeping behind a great azalea in full bloom, she saw her cousin in deep conversation with the professor, evidently having a capital time, for his face had lost its melancholy expression and was all alive with interest, while the elder man was listening as if his remarks were both intelligent and agreeable.
“What is it?” asked Steve, coming up with the water and seeing a smile on Rose's face.
She pointed out the scientific tete-a-tete going on behind the azalea, and Steve grinned as he peeped, then grew sober and said in a tone of despair: “If you had seen the pains I took with that fellow, the patience with which I brushed his wig, the time I spent trying to convince him that he must wear thin boots, and the fight I had to get him into that coat, you'd understand my feelings when I see him now.”
“Why, what's the matter with him?” asked Rose.
“Will you take a look and see what a spectacle he has made of himself. He'd better be sent home at once or he will disgrace the family by looking as if he'd been in a row.”
Steve spoke in such a tragic tone that Rose took another peep and did sympathize with Dandy, for Mac's elegance was quite gone. His tie was under one ear, his posy hung upside down, his gloves were rolled into a ball, which he absently squeezed and pounded as he talked, and his hair looked as if a whirlwind had passed over it, for his ten fingers set it on end now and then, as they had a habit of doing when he studied or talked earnestly. But he looked so happy and wide awake, in spite of his dishevelment, that Rose gave an approving nod and said behind her fan: “It is a trying spectacle, Steve yet, on the whole, I think his own odd ways suit him best and I fancy we shall be proud of him, for he knows more than all the rest of us put together. Hear that now.” And Rose paused that they might listen to the following burst of eloquence from Mac's lips: “You know Frenzal has shown that the globular forms of silicate of bismuth at Schneeburg and Johanngeorgenstadt are not isometric, but monoclinic in crystalline form, and consequently he separates them from the old eulytite and gives them the new name Agricolite.”
“Isn't it awful? Let us get out of this before there's another avalanche or we shall be globular silicates and isometric crystals in spite of ourselves,” whispered Steve with a panic-stricken air, and they fled from the hailstorm of hard words that rattled about their ears, leaving Mac to enjoy himself in his own way.
But when Rose was ready to go home and looked about for her escort, he was nowhere to be seen, for the professor had departed, and Mac with him, so absorbed in some new topic that he entirely forgot his cousin and went placidly home, still pondering on the charms of geology. When this pleasing fact dawned upon Rose her feelings may be imagined. She was both angry and amused it was so like Mac to go mooning off and leave her to her fate. Not a hard one, however; for, though Steve was gone with Kitty before her plight was discovered, Mrs. Bliss was only too glad to take the deserted damsel under her wing and bear her safely home.
Rose was warming her feet and sipping the chocolate which Phebe always had ready for her, as she never ate supper, when a hurried tap came at the long window whence the light streamed and Mac's voice was heard softly asking to be let in “just for one minute.”
Curious to know what had befallen him, Rose bade Phebe obey his call and the delinquent cavalier appeared, breathless, anxious, and more dilapidated than ever, for he had forgotten his overcoat; his tie was at the back of his neck now; and his hair as rampantly erect as if all the winds of heaven had been blowing freely through it, as they had, for he had been tearing to and fro the last half hour, trying to undo the dreadful deed he had so innocently committed.
“Don't take any notice of me, for I don't deserve it. I only came to see that you were safe, Cousin, and then go hang myself, as Steve advised,” he began in a remorseful tone that would have been very effective if he had not been obliged to catch his breath with a comical gasp now and then.
“I never thought you would be the one to desert me,” said Rose with a reproachful look, thinking it best not to relent too soon, though she was quite ready to do it when she saw how sincerely distressed he was.
“It was that confounded man! He was a regular walking encyclopedia, and, finding I could get a good deal out of him, I went in for general information, as the time was short. You know I always forget everything else when I get hold of such a fellow.”
“That is evident. I wonder how you came to remember me at all,” answered Rose, on the brink of a laugh it was so absurd.
“I didn't till Steve said something that reminded me then it burst upon me, in one awful shock, that I'd gone and left you, and you might have knocked me down with a feather,” said honest Mac, hiding none of his iniquity.
“What did you do then?”
“Do! I went off like a shot and never stopped till I reached the Hopes'” “You didn't walk all the way?” cried Rose.
“Bless you, no I ran. But you were gone with Mrs. Bliss, so I pelted back again to see with my own eyes that you were safe at home,” answered Mac with a sigh of relief, wiping his hot forehead.
“But it is three miles at least each way, and twelve o'clock, and dark and cold. Oh, Mac! How could you!” exclaimed Rose, suddenly realizing what he had done as she heard his labored breathing, saw the state of the thin boots, and detected the absence of an overcoat.
“Couldn't do less, could I?” asked Mac, leaning up against the door and trying not to pant.
“There was no need of half killing yourself for such a trifle. You might have known I could take care of myself for once, at least, with so many friends about. Sit down this minute. Bring another cup, please, Phebe this boy isn't going home till he is rested and refreshed after such a run as that,” commanded Rose.
“Don't be good to me I'd rather take a scolding than a chair, and drink hemlock instead of chocolate if you happen to have any ready,” answered Mac with a pathetic puff as he subsided onto the sofa and meekly took the draft Phebe brought him.
“If you had anything the matter with your heart, sir, a race of this sort might be the death of you so never do it again,” said Rose, offering her fan to cool his heated countenance.
“Haven't got any heart.”
“Yes, you have, for I hear it beating like a trip-hammer, and it is my fault I ought to have stopped as we went by and told you I was all right.”
“It's the mortification, not the miles, that upsets me. I often take that run for exercise and think nothing of it but tonight I was so mad I made extra-good time, I fancy. Now don't you worry, but compose your mind and 'sip your dish of tea,' as Evelina says,” answered Mac, artfully turning the conversation from himself.
“What do you know about Evelina?” asked Rose in great surprise.
“All about her. Do you suppose I never read a novel?”
“I thought you read nothing but Greek and Latin, with an occasional glance at Websky's pseudophites and the monoclinics of Johanngeorgenstadt.”
Mac opened his eyes wide at this reply, then seemed to see the joke and joined in the laugh with such heartiness that Aunt Plenty's voice was heard demanding from above with sleepy anxiety: “Is the house afire?”
“No, ma'am, everything is safe, and I'm only saying good night,” answered Mac, diving for his cap.
“Then go at once and let that child have her sleep,” added the old lady, retiring to her bed.
Rose ran into the hall, and catching up her uncle's fur coat, met Mac as he came out of the study, absently looking about for his own.
“You haven't any, you benighted boy! So take this, and have your wits about you next time or I won't let you off so easily,” she said, holding up the heavy garment and peeping over it, with no sign of displeasure in her laughing eyes.
“Next time! Then you do forgive me? You will try me again, and give me a chance to prove that I'm not a fool?” cried Mac, embracing the big coat with emotion.
“Of course I will, and, so far from thinking you a fool, I was much impressed with your learning tonight and told Steve that we ought to be proud of our philosopher.”
“Learning be hanged! I'll show you that I'm not a bookworm but as much a man as any of them, and then you may be proud or not, as you like!” cried Mac with a defiant nod that caused the glasses to leap wildly off his nose as he caught up his hat and departed as he came.
A day or two later Rose went to call upon Aunt Jane, as she dutifully did once or twice a week. On her way upstairs she heard a singular sound in the drawing room and involuntarily stopped to listen.
“One, two, three, slide! One, two, three, turn! Now, then, come on!” said one voice impatiently.
“It's very easy to say 'come on,' but what the dickens do I do with my left leg while I'm turning and sliding with my right?” demanded another voice in a breathless and mournful tone.
Then the whistling and thumping went on more vigorously than before, and Rose, recognizing the voices, peeped through the half-open door to behold a sight which made her shake with suppressed laughter. Steve, with a red tablecloth tied around his waist, languished upon Mac's shoulder, dancing in perfect time to the air he whistled, for Dandy was proficient in the graceful art and plumed himself upon his skill. Mac, with a flushed face and dizzy eye, clutched his brother by the small of his back, vainly endeavoring to steer him down the long room without entangling his own legs in the tablecloth, treading on his partner's toes, or colliding with the furniture. It was very droll, and Rose enjoyed the spectacle till Mac, in a frantic attempt to swing around, dashed himself against the wall and landed Steve upon the floor. Then it was impossible to restrain her laughter any longer and she walked in upon them, saying merrily: “It was splendid! Do it again, and I'll play for you.”
Steve sprang up and tore off the tablecloth in great confusion, while Mac, still rubbing his head, dropped into a chair, trying to look quite calm and cheerful as he gasped out: “How are you, Cousin? When did you come? John should have told us.”
“I'm glad he didn't, for then I should have missed this touching tableau of cousinly devotion and brotherly love. Getting ready for our next party, I see.”
“Trying to, but there are so many things to remember all at once keep time, steer straight, dodge the petticoats, and manage my confounded legs that it isn't easy to get on at first,” answered Mac with a sigh of exhaustion, wiping his hot forehead.
“Hardest job I ever undertook and, as I'm not a battering ram, I decline to be knocked round any longer,” growled Steve, dusting his knees and ruefully surveying the feet that had been trampled on till they tingled, for his boots and broadcloth were dear to the heart of the dapper youth.
“Very good of you, and I'm much obliged. I've got the pace, I think, and can practice with a chair to keep my hand in,” said Mac with such a comic mixture of gratitude and resignation that Rose went off again so irresistibly that her cousins joined her with a hearty roar.
“As you are making a martyr of yourself in my service, the least I can do is lend a hand. Play for us, Steve, and I'll give Mac a lesson, unless he prefers the chair.” And, throwing off her hat and cloak, Rose beckoned so invitingly that the gravest philosopher would have yielded.
“A thousand thanks, but I'm afraid I shall hurt you,” began Mac, much gratified, but mindful of past mishaps.
“I'm not. Steve didn't manage his train well, for good dancers always loop theirs up. I have none at all, so that trouble is gone and the music will make it much easier to keep step. Just do as I tell you, and you'll go beautifully after a few turns.”
“I will, I will! Pipe up, Steve! Now, Rose!” And, brushing his hair out of his eyes with an air of stern determination, Mac grasped Rose and returned to the charge bent on distinguishing himself if he died in the attempt.
The second lesson prospered, for Steve marked the time by a series of emphatic bangs; Mac obeyed orders as promptly as if his life depended on it; and, after several narrow escapes at exciting moments, Rose had the satisfaction of being steered safely down the room and landed with a grand pirouette at the bottom. Steve applauded, and Mac, much elated, exclaimed with artless candor: “There really is a sort of inspiration about you, Rose. I always detested dancing before, but now, do you know, I rather like it.”
“I knew you would, only you mustn't stand with your arm round your partner in this way when you are done. You must seat and fan her, if she likes it,” said Rose, anxious to perfect a pupil who seemed so lamentably in need of a teacher.
“Yes, of course, I know how they do it.” And, releasing his cousin, Mac raised a small whirlwind around her with a folded newspaper, so full of zeal that she had not the heart to chide him again.
“Well done, old fellow. I begin to have hopes of you and will order you a new dress coat at once, since you are really going in for the proprieties of life,” said Steve from the music stool, with the approving nod of one who was a judge of said proprieties. “Now, Rose, if you will just coach him a little in his small talk, he won't make a laughingstock of himself as he did the other night,” added Steve. “I don't mean his geological gabble that was bad enough, but his chat with Emma Curtis was much worse. Tell her, Mac, and see if she doesn't think poor Emma had a right to think you a first-class bore.”
“I don't see why, when I merely tried to have a little sensible conversation,” began Mac with reluctance, for he had been unmercifully chaffed by his cousins, to whom his brother had betrayed him.
“What did you say? I won't laugh if I can help it,” said Rose, curious to hear, for Steve's eyes were twinkling with fun.
“Well, I knew she was fond of theaters, so I tried that first and got on pretty well till I began to tell her how they managed those things in Greece. Most interesting subject, you know?”
“Very. Did you give her one of the choruses or a bit of Agamemnon, as you did when you described it to me?” asked Rose, keeping sober with difficulty as she recalled that serio-comic scene.
“Of course not, but I was advising her to read Prometheus when she gaped behind her fan and began to talk about Phebe. What a 'nice creature' she was, 'kept her place,' dressed according to her station, and that sort of twaddle. I suppose it was rather rude, but being pulled up so short confused me a bit, and I said the first thing that came into my head, which was that I thought Phebe the best-dressed woman in the room because she wasn't all fuss and feathers like most of the girls.”
“Oh, Mac! That to Emma, who makes it the labor of her life to be always in the height of fashion and was particularly splendid that night. What did she say?” cried Rose, full of sympathy for both parties.
“She bridled and looked daggers at me.”
“And what did you do?”
“I bit my tongue and tumbled out of one scrape into another. Following her example, I changed the subject by talking about the charity concert for the orphans, and when she gushed about the 'little darlings,' I advised her to adopt one and wondered why young ladies didn't do that sort of thing, instead of cuddling cats and lapdogs.”
“Unhappy boy! Her pug is the idol of her life, and she hates babies,” said Rose.
“More fool she! Well, she got my opinion on the subject, anyway, and she's very welcome, for I went on to say that I thought it would not only be a lovely charity, but excellent training for the time when they had little darlings of their own. No end of poor things die through the ignorance of mothers, you know,” added Mac, so seriously that Rose dared not smile at what went before.
“Imagine Emma trotting round with a pauper baby under her arm instead of her cherished Toto,” said Steve with an ecstatic twirl on the stool.
“Did she seem to like your advice, Monsieur Malapropos?” asked Rose, wishing she had been there.
“No, she gave a little shriek and said, 'Good gracious, Mr. Campbell, how droll you are! Take me to Mama, please,' which I did with a thankful heart. Catch me setting her pug's leg again,” ended Mac with a grim shake of the head.
“Never mind. You were unfortunate in your listener that time. Don't think all girls are so foolish. I can show you a dozen sensible ones who would discuss dress reform and charity with you and enjoy Greek tragedy if you did the chorus for them as you did for me,” said Rose consolingly, for Steve would only jeer.
“Give me a list of them, please, and I'll cultivate their acquaintance. A fellow must have some reward for making a teetotum of himself.”
“I will with pleasure; and if you dance well they will make it very pleasant for you, and you'll enjoy parties in spite of yourself.”
“I cannot be a 'glass of fashion and a mold of form' like Dandy here, but I'll do my best: only, if I had my choice, I'd much rather go round the streets with an organ and a monkey,” answered Mac despondently.
“Thank you kindly for the compliment,” and Rose made him a low courtesy, while Steve cried, “Now you have done it!” in a tone of reproach which reminded the culprit, all too late, that he was Rose's chosen escort.
“By the gods, so I have!” And casting away the newspaper with a gesture of comic despair, Mac strode from the room, chanting tragically the words of Cassandra, “'Woe! woe! O Earth! O Apollo! I will dare to die; I will accost the gates of Hades, and make my prayer that I may receive a mortal blow!'”
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
7
|
PHEBE
|
While Rose was making discoveries and having experiences, Phebe was doing the same in a quieter way, but though they usually compared notes during the bedtime tete-a-tete which always ended their day, certain topics were never mentioned, so each had a little world of her own into which even the eye of friendship did not peep.
Rose's life just now was the gaiest but Phebe's the happiest. Both went out a good deal, for the beautiful voice was welcomed everywhere, and many were ready to patronize the singer who would have been slow to recognize the woman. Phebe knew this and made no attempt to assert herself, content to know that those whose regard she valued felt her worth and hopeful of a time when she could gracefully take the place she was meant to fill.
Proud as a princess was Phebe about some things, though in most as humble as a child; therefore, when each year lessened the service she loved to give and increased the obligations she would have refused from any other source, dependence became a burden which even the most fervent gratitude could not lighten. Hitherto the children had gone on together, finding no obstacles to their companionship in the secluded world in which they lived. Now that they were women their paths inevitably diverged, and both reluctantly felt that they must part before long.
It had been settled, when they were abroad, that on their return Phebe should take her one gift in her hand and try her fortunes. On no other terms would she accept the teaching which was to fit her for the independence she desired. Faithfully had she used the facilities so generously afforded both at home and abroad and now was ready to prove that they had not been in vain. Much encouraged by the small successes she won in drawing rooms, and the praise bestowed by interested friends, she began to feel that she might venture on a larger field and begin her career as a concert singer, for she aimed no higher.
Just at this time much interest was felt in a new asylum for orphan girls, which could not be completed for want of funds. The Campbells well had borne their part and still labored to accomplish the much-needed charity. Several fairs had been given for this purpose, followed by a series of concerts. Rose had thrown herself into the work with all her heart and now proposed that Phebe should make her debut at the last concert, which was to be a peculiarly interesting one, as all the orphans were to be present and were expected to plead their own cause by the sight of their innocent helplessness as well as touch hearts by the simple airs they were to sing.
Some of the family thought Phebe would object to so humble a beginning, but Rose knew her better and was not disappointed, for when she made her proposal Phebe answered readily: “Where could I find a fitter time and place to come before the public than here among my little sisters in misfortune? I'll sing for them with all my heart only I must be one of them and have no flourish made about me.”
“You shall arrange it as you like, and as there is to be little vocal music but yours and the children's, I'll see that you have everything as you please,” promised Rose.
It was well she did, for the family got much excited over the prospect of “our Phebe's debut” and would have made a flourish if the girls had not resisted. Aunt Clara was in despair about the dress because Phebe decided to wear a plain claret-colored merino with frills at neck and wrists so that she might look, as much as possible, like the other orphans in their stuff gowns and white aprons. Aunt Plenty wanted to have a little supper afterward in honor of the occasion, but Phebe begged her to change it to a Christmas dinner for the poor children. The boys planned to throw bushels of flowers, and Charlie claimed the honor of leading the singer in. But Phebe, with tears in her eyes, declined their kindly offers, saying earnestly: “I had better begin as I am to go on and depend upon myself entirely. Indeed, Mr. Charlie, I'd rather walk in alone, for you'd be out of place among us and spoil the pathetic effect we wish to produce.” And a smile sparkled through the tears as Phebe looked at the piece of elegance before her and thought of the brown gowns and pinafores.
So, after much discussion, it was decided that she should have her way in all things and the family content themselves with applauding from the front.
“We'll blister our hands every man of us, and carry you home in a chariot and four see if we don't, you perverse prima donna!” threatened Steve, not at all satisfied with the simplicity of the affair.
“A chariot and two will be very acceptable as soon as I'm done. I shall be quite steady till my part is all over, and then I may feel a little upset, so I'd like to get away before the confusion begins. Indeed, I don't mean to be perverse, but you are all so kind to me, my heart is full whenever I think of it, and that wouldn't do if I'm to sing,” said Phebe, dropping one of the tears on the little frill she was making.
“No diamond could have adorned it better,” Archie thought as he watched it shine there for a moment, and felt like shaking Steve for daring to pat the dark head with an encouraging “All right. I'll be on hand and whisk you away while the rest are splitting their gloves. No fear of your breaking down. If you feel the least bit like it, though, just look at me and I'll glare at you and shake my fist, since kindness upsets you.”
“I wish you would, because one of my ballads is rather touching and I always want to cry when I sing it. The sight of you trying to glare will make me want to laugh and that will steady me nicely, so sit in front, please, ready to slip out when I come off the last time.”
“Depend upon me!” And the little man departed, taking great credit to himself for his influence over tall, handsome Phebe.
If he had known what was going on in the mind of the silent young gentleman behind the newspaper, Steve would have been much astonished, for Archie, though apparently engrossed by business, was fathoms deep in love by this time. No one suspected this but Rose, for he did his wooing with his eyes, and only Phebe knew how eloquent they could be. He had discovered what the matter was long ago had made many attempts to reason himself out of it, but, finding it a hopeless task, had given up trying and let himself drift deliciously. The knowledge that the family would not approve only seemed to add ardor to his love and strength to his purpose, for the same energy and persistence which he brought to business went into everything he did, and having once made up his mind to marry Phebe, nothing could change this plan except a word from her.
He watched and waited for three months, so that he might not be accused of precipitation, though it did not take him one to decide that this was the woman to make him happy. Her steadfast nature, quiet, busy ways, and the reserved power and passion betrayed sometimes by a flash of the black eyes, a quiver of the firm lips, suited Archie, who possessed many of the same attributes himself. The obscurity of her birth and isolation of her lot, which would have deterred some lovers, not only appealed to his kindly heart, but touched the hidden romance which ran like a vein of gold through his strong common sense and made practical, steady-going Archie a poet when he fell in love. If Uncle Mac had guessed what dreams and fancies went on in the head bent over his ledgers, and what emotions were fermenting in the bosom of his staid “right-hand man,” he would have tapped his forehead and suggested a lunatic asylum. The boys thought Archie had sobered down too soon. His mother began to fear that the air of the counting room did not suit him, and Dr. Alec was deluded into the belief that the fellow really began to “think of Rose,” he came so often in the evening, seeming quite content to sit beside her worktable and snip tape or draw patterns while they chatted.
No one observed that, though he talked to Rose on these occasions, he looked at Phebe, in her low chair close by, busy but silent, for she always tried to efface herself when Rose was near and often mourned that she was too big to keep out of sight. No matter what he talked about, Archie always saw the glossy black braids on the other side of the table, the damask cheek curving down into the firm white throat, and the dark lashes, lifted now and then, showing eyes so deep and soft he dared not look into them long. Even the swift needle charmed him, the little brooch which rose and fell with her quiet breath, the plain work she did, and the tidy way she gathered her bits of thread into a tiny bag. He seldom spoke to her; never touched her basket, though he ravaged Rose's if he wanted string or scissors; very rarely ventured to bring her some curious or pretty thing when ships came in from China only sat and thought of her, imagined that this was his parlor, this her worktable, and they two sitting there alone a happy man and wife.
At this stage of the little evening drama he would be conscious of such a strong desire to do something rash that he took refuge in a new form of intoxication and proposed music, sometimes so abruptly that Rose would pause in the middle of a sentence and look at him, surprised to meet a curiously excited look in the usually cool gray eyes.
Then Phebe, folding up her work, would go to the piano, as if glad to find a vent for the inner life which she seemed to have no power of expressing except in song. Rose would follow to accompany her, and Archie, moving to a certain shady corner whence he could see Phebe's face as she sang, would give himself up to unmitigated rapture for half an hour. Phebe never sang so well as at such times, for the kindly atmosphere was like sunshine to a bird, criticisms were few and gentle, praises hearty and abundant, and she poured out her soul as freely as a spring gushes up when its hidden source is full.
In moments such as these Phebe was beautiful with the beauty that makes a man's eye brighten with honest admiration and fills his heart with a sense of womanly nobility and sweetness. Little wonder, then, that the chief spectator of this agreeable tableau grew nightly more enamored, and while the elders were deep in whist, the young people were playing that still more absorbing game in which hearts are always trumps.
Rose, having Dummy for a partner, soon discovered the fact and lately had begun to feel as she fancied Wall must have done when Pyramus wooed Thisbe through its chinks. She was a little startled at first, then amused, then anxious, then heartily interested, as every woman is in such affairs, and willingly continued to be a medium, though sometimes she quite tingled with the electricity which seemed to pervade the air. She said nothing, waiting for Phebe to speak, but Phebe was silent, seeming to doubt the truth till doubt became impossible, then to shrink as if suddenly conscious of wrongdoing and seize every possible pretext for absenting herself from the “girls' corner,” as the pretty recess was called.
The concert plan afforded excellent opportunities for doing this, and evening after evening she slipped away to practice her songs upstairs while Archie sat staring disconsolately at the neglected work basket and mute piano. Rose pitied him and longed to say a word of comfort, but felt shy he was such a reserved fellow so left him to conduct his quiet wooing in his own way, feeling that the crisis would soon arrive.
She was sure of this as she sat beside him on the evening of the concert, for while the rest of the family nodded and smiled, chatted and laughed in great spirits, Archie was as mute as a fish and sat with his arms tightly folded, as if to keep in any unruly emotions which might attempt to escape. He never looked at the program, but Rose knew when Phebe's turn came by the quick breath he drew and the intent look, so absent before, that came into his eyes.
But her own excitement prevented much notice of his, for Rose was in a flutter of hope and fear, sympathy and delight, about Phebe and her success. The house was crowded; the audience sufficiently mixed to make the general opinion impartial; and the stage full of little orphans with shining faces, a most effective reminder of the object in view.
“Little dears, how nice they look!” “Poor things, so young to be fatherless and motherless.” “It will be a disgrace to the city if those girls are not taken proper care of.” “Subscriptions are always in order, you know, and pretty Miss Campbell will give you her sweetest smile if you hand her a handsome check.” “I've heard this Phebe Moore, and she really has a delicious voice such a pity she won't fit herself for opera!” “Only sings three times tonight; that's modest, I'm sure, when she's the chief attraction, so we must give her an encore after the Italian piece.” “The orphans lead off, I see. Stop your ears if you like, but don't fail to applaud or the ladies will never forgive you.”
Chat of this sort went on briskly while fans waved, programs rustled, and ushers flew about distractedly, till an important gentleman appeared, made his bow, skipped upon the leader's stand, and with a wave of his baton caused a general uprising of white pinafores as the orphans led off with that much-enduring melody “America” in shrill small voices, but with creditable attention to time and tune. Pity and patriotism produced a generous round of applause, and the little girls sat down, beaming with innocent satisfaction.
An instrumental piece followed, and then a youthful gentleman, with his hair in picturesque confusion, and what his friends called a “musical brow,” bounded up the steps and, clutching a roll of music with a pair of tightly gloved hands, proceed to inform the audience, in a husky tenor voice, that “It was a lovely violet.”
What else the song contained in the way of sense or sentiment it was impossible to discover as the three pages of music appeared to consist of variations upon that one line, ending with a prolonged quaver which flushed the musical brow and left the youth quite breathless when he made his bow.
“Now she's coming! Oh, Uncle, my heart beats as if it were myself!” whispered Rose, clutching Dr. Alec's arm with a little gasp as the piano was rolled forward, the leader's stand pushed back, and all eyes turned toward the anteroom door.
She forgot to glance at Archie, and it was as well perhaps, for his heart was thumping almost audibly as he waited for his Phebe. Not from the anteroom, but out among the children, where she had sat unseen in the shadow of the organ, came stately Phebe in her wine-colored dress, with no ornament but her fine hair and a white flower at her throat. Very pale, but quite composed, apparently, for she stepped slowly through the narrow lane of upturned faces, holding back her skirts lest they should rudely brush against some little head. Straight to the front she went, bowed hastily, and, with a gesture to the accompanist, stood waiting to begin, her eyes fixed on the great gilt clock at the opposite end of the hall.
They never wandered from that point while she sang, but as she ended they dropped for an instant on an eager, girlish countenance bending from a front seat; then, with her hasty little bow, she went quickly back among the children, who clapped and nodded as she passed, well pleased with the ballad she had sung.
Everyone courteously followed their example, but there was no enthusiasm, and it was evident that Phebe had not produced a particularly favorable impression.
“Never sang so badly in her life,” muttered Charlie irefully.
“She was frightened, poor thing. Give her time, give her time,” said Uncle Mac kindly.
“I know she was, and I glared like a gorgon, but she never looked at me,” added Steve, smoothing his gloves and his brows at the same time.
“That first song was the hardest, and she got through much better than I expected,” put in Dr. Alec, bound not to show the disappointment he felt.
“Don't be troubled. Phebe has courage enough for anything, and she'll astonish you before the evening's over,” prophesied Mac with unabated confidence, for he knew something the rest did not.
Rose said nothing, but under cover of her burnous gave Archie's hand a sympathetic squeeze, for his arms were unfolded now, as if the strain was over, and one lay on his knee while with the other he wiped his hot forehead with an air of relief.
Friends about them murmured complimentary fibs and affected great delight and surprise at Miss Moore's “charming style,” “exquisite simplicity,” and “undoubted talent.” But strangers freely criticized, and Rose was so indignant at some of their remarks, she could not listen to anything on the stage, though a fine overture was played, a man with a remarkable bass voice growled and roared melodiously, and the orphans sang a lively air with a chorus of “Tra, la, la,” which was a great relief to little tongues unused to long silence.
“I've often heard that women's tongues were hung in the middle and went at both ends now I'm sure of it,” whispered Charlie, trying to cheer her up by pointing out the comical effect of some seventy-five open mouths in each of which the unruly member was wagging briskly.
Rose laughed and let him fan her, leaning from his seat behind with the devoted air he always assumed in public, but her wounded feelings were not soothed and she continued to frown at the stout man on the left who had dared to say with a shrug and a glance at Phebe's next piece, “That young woman can no more sing this Italian thing than she can fly, and they ought not to let her attempt it.”
Phebe did, however, and suddenly changed the stout man's opinion by singing it grandly, for the consciousness of her first failure pricked her pride and spurred her to do her best with the calm sort of determination which conquers fear, fires ambition, and changes defeat to success. She looked steadily at Rose now, or the flushed, intent face beside her, and throwing all her soul into the task, let her voice ring out like a silver clarion, filling the great hall and setting the hearers' blood a-tingle with the exulting strain.
That settled Phebe's fate as a cantatrice. The applause was genuine and spontaneous this time and broke out again and again with the generous desire to atone for former coldness. But she would not return, and the shadow of the great organ seemed to have swallowed her up, for no eye could find her, no pleasant clamor win her back.
“Now I can die content,” said Rose, beaming with heartfelt satisfaction while Archie looked steadfastly at his program, trying to keep his face in order, and the rest of the family assumed a triumphant air, as if they had never doubted from the first.
“Very well, indeed,” said the stout man with an approving nod. “Quite promising for a beginner. Shouldn't wonder if in time they made a second Cary or Kellogg of her.”
“Now you'll forgive him, won't you?” murmured Charlie in his cousin's ear.
“Yes, and I'd like to pat him on the head. But take warning and never judge by first appearances again,” whispered Rose, at peace now with all mankind.
Phebe's last song was another ballad; she meant to devote her talent to that much neglected but always attractive branch of her art. It was a great surprise, therefore, to all but one person in the hall when, instead of singing “Auld Robin Grey,” she placed herself at the piano, and, with a smiling glance over her shoulder at the children, broke out in the old bird song which first won Rose. But the chirping, twittering, and cooing were now the burden to three verses of a charming little song, full of springtime and the awakening life that makes it lovely. A rippling accompaniment flowed through it all, and a burst of delighted laughter from the children filled up the first pause with a fitting answer to the voices that seemed calling to them from the vernal woods.
It was very beautiful, and novelty lent its charm to the surprise, for art and nature worked a pretty miracle and the clever imitation, first heard from a kitchen hearth, now became the favorite in a crowded concert room. Phebe was quite herself again; color in the cheeks now; eyes that wandered smiling to and fro; and lips that sang as gaily and far more sweetly than when she kept time to her blithe music with a scrubbing brush.
This song was evidently intended for the children, and they appreciated the kindly thought, for as Phebe went back among them, they clapped ecstatically, flapped their pinafores, and some caught her by the skirts with audible requests to “Do it again, please; do it again.”
But Phebe shook her head and vanished, for it was getting late for such small people, several of whom “lay sweetly slumbering there” till roused by the clamor round them. The elders, however, were not to be denied and applauded persistently, especially Aunt Plenty, who seized Uncle Mac's cane and pounded with it as vigorously as “Mrs. Nubbles” at the play.
“Never mind your gloves, Steve; keep it up till she comes,” cried Charlie, enjoying the fun like a boy while Jamie lost his head with excitement and, standing up, called “Phebe! Phebe!” in spite of his mother's attempts to silence him.
Even the stout man clapped, and Rose could only laugh delightedly as she turned to look at Archie, who seemed to have let himself loose at last and was stamping with a dogged energy funny to see.
So Phebe had to come, and stood there meekly bowing, with a moved look on her face that showed how glad and grateful she was, till a sudden hush came; then, as if inspired by the memory of the cause that brought her there, she looked down into the sea of friendly faces before her, with no trace of fear in her own, and sang the song that never will grow old.
That went straight to the hearts of those who heard her, for there was something inexpressibly touching in the sight of this sweet-voiced woman singing of home for the little creatures who were homeless, and Phebe made her tuneful plea irresistible by an almost involuntary gesture of the hands which had hung loosely clasped before her till, with the last echo of the beloved word, they fell apart and were half outstretched, as if pleading to be filled.
It was the touch of nature that works wonders, for it made full purses suddenly weigh heavily in pockets slow to open, brought tears to eyes unused to weep, and caused that group of red-gowned girls to grow very pathetic in the sight of fathers and mothers who had left little daughters safe asleep at home. This was evident from the stillness that remained unbroken for an instant after Phebe ended; and before people could get rid of their handkerchiefs she would have been gone if the sudden appearance of a mite in a pinafore, climbing up the stairs from the anteroom with a great bouquet grasped in both hands, had not arrested her.
Up came the little creature, intent on performing the mission for which rich bribes of sugarplums had been promised, and trotting bravely across the stage, she held up the lovely nosegay, saying in her baby voice, “Dis for you, ma'am.” Then, startled by the sudden outburst of applause, she hid her face in Phebe's gown and began to sob with fright.
An awkward minute for poor Phebe, but she showed unexpected presence of mind and left behind her a pretty picture of the oldest and youngest orphan as she went quickly down the step, smiling over the great bouquet with the baby on her arm.
Nobody minded the closing piece, for people began to go, sleepy children to be carried off, and whispers grew into a buzz of conversation. In the general confusion Rose looked to see if Steve had remembered his promise to help Phebe slip away before the rush began. No, there he was putting on Kitty's cloak, quite oblivious to any other duty. Turning to ask Archie to hurry out, Rose found that he had already vanished, leaving his gloves behind him.
“Have you lost anything?” asked Dr. Alec, catching a glimpse of her face.
“No, sir, I've found something,” she whispered back, giving him the gloves to pocket along with her fan and glass, adding hastily as the concert ended, “Please, Uncle, tell them all not to come with us. Phebe has had enough excitement and ought to rest.”
Rose's word was law to the family in all things concerning Phebe. So word was passed that there were to be no congratulations until tomorrow, and Dr. Alec got his party off as soon as possible. But all the way home, while he and Aunt Plenty were prophesying a brilliant future for the singer, Rose sat rejoicing over the happy present of the woman. She was sure that Archie had spoken and imagined the whole scene with feminine delight how tenderly he had asked the momentous question, how gratefully Phebe had given the desired reply, and now how both were enjoying that delicious hour which Rose had been given to understand never came but once. Such a pity to shorten it, she thought, and begged her uncle to go home the longest way the night was so mild, the moonlight so clear, and herself so in need of fresh air after the excitement of the evening.
“I thought you would want to rush into Phebe's arms the instant she got done,” said Aunt Plenty, innocently wondering at the whims girls took into their heads.
“So I should if I consulted my own wishes, but as Phebe asked to be let alone I want to gratify her,” answered Rose, making the best excuse she could.
“A little piqued,” thought the doctor, fancying he understood the case.
As the old lady's rheumatism forbade their driving about till midnight, home was reached much too soon, Rose thought, and tripped away to warn the lovers the instant she entered the house. But study, parlor, and boudoir were empty; and, when Jane appeared with cake and wine, she reported that “Miss Phebe went right upstairs and wished to be excused, please, being very tired.”
“That isn't at all like Phebe I hope she isn't ill,” began Aunt Plenty, sitting down to toast her feet.
“She may be a little hysterical, for she is a proud thing and represses her emotions as long as she can. I'll step up and see if she doesn't need a soothing draft of some sort.” And Dr. Alec threw off his coat as he spoke.
“No, no, she's only tired. I'll run up to her she won't mind me and I'll report if anything is amiss.”
Away went Rose, quite trembling with suspense, but Phebe's door was shut, no light shone underneath, and no sound came from the room within. She tapped and receiving no answer, went on to her own chamber, thinking to herself: “Love always makes people queer, I've heard, so I suppose they settled it all in the carriage and the dear thing ran away to think about her happiness alone. I'll not disturb her. Why, Phebe!” said Rose, surprised, for, entering her room, there was the cantatrice, busy about the nightly services she always rendered her little mistress.
“I'm waiting for you, dear. Where have you been so long?” asked Phebe, poking the fire as if anxious to get some color into cheeks that were unnaturally pale.
The instant she spoke Rose knew that something was wrong, and a glance at her face confirmed the fear. It was like a dash of cold water and quenched her happy fancies in a moment; but being a delicate-minded girl, she respected Phebe's mood and asked no questions, made no comments, and left her friend to speak or be silent as she chose.
“I was so excited I would take a turn in the moonlight to calm my nerves. Oh, dearest Phebe, I am so glad, so proud, so full of wonder at your courage and skill and sweet ways altogether that I cannot half tell you how I love and honor you!” she cried, kissing the white cheeks with such tender warmth they could not help glowing faintly as Phebe held her little mistress close, sure that nothing could disturb this innocent affection.
“It is all your work, dear, because but for you I might still be scrubbing floors and hardly dare to dream of anything like this,” she said in her old grateful way, but in her voice there was a thrill of something deeper than gratitude, and at the last two words her head went up with a gesture of soft pride as if it had been newly crowned.
Rose heard and saw and guessed at the meaning of both tone and gesture, feeling that her Phebe deserved both the singer's laurel and the bride's myrtle wreath. But she only looked up, saying very wistfully: “Then it has been a happy night for you as well as for us.”
“The happiest of my life, and the hardest,” answered Phebe briefly as she looked away from the questioning eyes.
“You should have let us come nearer and help you through. I'm afraid you are very proud, my Jenny Lind.”
“I have to be, for sometimes I feel as if I had nothing else to keep me up.” She stopped short there, fearing that her voice would prove traitorous if she went on. In a moment she asked in a tone that was almost hard: “You think I did well tonight?”
“They all think so, and were so delighted they wanted to come in a body and tell you so, but I sent them home because I knew you'd be tired out. Perhaps I ought not to have done it and you'd rather have had a crowd about you than just me?”
“It was the kindest thing you ever did, and what could I like better than 'just you,' my darling?”
Phebe seldom called her that, and when she did her heart was in the little word, making it so tender that Rose thought it the sweetest in the world, next to Uncle Alec's “my little girl.” Now it was almost passionate, and Phebe's face grew rather tragical as she looked down at Rose. It was impossible to seem unconscious any longer, and Rose said, caressing Phebe's cheek, which burned with a feverish color now: “Then don't shut me out if you have a trouble, but let me share it as I let you share all mine.”
“I will! Little mistress, I've got to go away, sooner even than we planned.”
“Why, Phebe?”
“Because Archie loves me.”
“That's the very reason you should stay and make him happy.”
“Not if it caused dissension in the family, and you know it would.”
Rose opened her lips to deny this impetuously, but checked herself and answered honestly: “Uncle and I would be heartily glad, and I'm sure Aunt Jessie never could object if you loved Archie as he does you.”
“She has other hopes, I think, and kind as she is, it would be a disappointment if he brought me home. She is right, they all are, and I alone am to blame. I should have gone long ago I knew I should, but it was so pleasant, I couldn't bear to go away alone.”
“I kept you, and I am to blame if anyone, but indeed, dear Phebe, I cannot see why you should care even if Aunt Myra croaks and Aunt Clara exclaims or Aunt Jane makes disagreeable remarks. Be happy, and never mind them,” cried Rose, so much excited by all this that she felt the spirit of revolt rise up within her and was ready to defy even that awe-inspiring institution “the family” for her friend's sake.
But Phebe shook her head with a sad smile and answered, still with the hard tone in her voice as if forcing back all emotion that she might see her duty clearly: “You could do that, but I never can. Answer me this, Rose, and answer truly as you love me. If you had been taken into a house, a friendless, penniless, forlorn girl, and for years been heaped with benefits, trusted, taught, loved, and made, oh, so happy! could you think it right to steal away something that these good people valued very much? To have them feel that you had been ungrateful, had deceived them, and meant to thrust yourself into a high place not fit for you when they had been generously helping you in other ways, far more than you deserved. Could you then say as you do now, 'Be happy, and never mind them'?”
Phebe held Rose by the shoulders now and searched her face so keenly that the other shrank a little, for the black eyes were full of fire and there was something almost grand about this girl who seemed suddenly to have become a woman. There was no need for words to answer the question so swiftly asked, for Rose put herself in Phebe's place in the drawing of a breath, and her own pride made her truthfully reply: “No I could not!”
“I knew you'd say that, and help me do my duty.” And all the coldness melted out of Phebe's manner as she hugged her little mistress close, feeling the comfort of sympathy even through the blunt sincerity of Rose's words.
“I will if I know how. Now, come and tell me all about it.” And, seating herself in the great chair which had often held them both, Rose stretched out her hands as if glad and ready to give help of any sort.
But Phebe would not take her accustomed place, for, as if coming to confession, she knelt down upon the rug and, leaning on the arm of the chair, told her love story in the simplest words.
“I never thought he cared for me until a little while ago. I fancied it was you, and even when I knew he liked to hear me sing I supposed it was because you helped, and so I did my best and was glad you were to be a happy girl. But his eyes told the truth. Then I saw what I had been doing and was frightened. He did not speak, so I believed, what is quite true, that he felt I was not a fit wife for him and would never ask me. It was right I was glad of it, yet I was proud and, though I did not ask or hope for anything, I did want him to see that I respected myself, remembered my duty, and could do right as well as he. I kept away. I planned to go as soon as possible and resolved that at this concert I would do so well, he should not be ashamed of poor Phebe and her one gift.”
“It was this that made you so strange, then, preferring to go alone and refusing every little favor at our hands?” asked Rose, feeling very sure now about the state of Phebe's heart.
“Yes, I wanted to do everything myself and not owe one jot of my success, if I had any, to even the dearest friend I've got. It was bad and foolish of me, and I was punished by the first dreadful failure. I was so frightened, Rose! My breath was all gone, my eyes so dizzy I could hardly see, and that great crowd of faces seemed so near, I dared not look. If it had not been for the clock I never should have gotten through, and when I did, not knowing in the least how I'd sung, one look at your distressed face told me I'd failed.”
“But I smiled, Phebe indeed I did as sweetly as I could, for I was sure it was only fright,” protested Rose eagerly.
“So you did, but the smile was full of pity, not of pride, as I wanted it to be, and I rushed into a dark place behind the organ, feeling ready to kill myself. How angry and miserable I was! I set my teeth, clenched my hands, and vowed that I would do well next time or never sing another note. I was quite desperate when my turn came, and felt as if I could do almost anything, for I remembered that he was there. I'm not sure how it was, but it seemed as if I was all voice, for I let myself go, trying to forget everything except that two people must not be disappointed, though I died when the song was done.”
“Oh, Phebe, it was splendid! I nearly cried, I was so proud and glad to see you do yourself justice at last.”
“And he?” whispered Phebe, with her face half hidden on the arm of the chair.
“Said not a word, but I saw his lips tremble and his eyes shine and I knew he was the happiest creature there, because I was sure he did think you fit to be his wife and did mean to speak very soon.”
Phebe made no answer for a moment, seeming to forget the small success in the greater one which followed and to comfort her sore heart with the knowledge that Rose was right.
“He sent the flowers, he came for me, and, on the way home, showed me how wrong I had been to doubt him for an hour. Don't ask me to tell that part, but be sure I was the happiest creature in the world then.”
And Phebe hid her face again, all wet with tender tears that fell soft and sudden as a summer shower.
Rose let them flow undisturbed while she silently caressed the bent head, wondering, with a wistful look in her own wet eyes, what this mysterious passion was which could so move, ennoble, and beautify the beings whom it blessed.
An impertinent little clock upon the chimneypiece striking eleven broke the silence and reminded Phebe that she could not indulge in love dreams there. She started up, brushed off her tears, and said resolutely: “That is enough for tonight. Go happily to bed, and leave the troubles for tomorrow.”
“But, Phebe, I must know what you said,” cried Rose, like a child defrauded of half its bedtime story.
“I said, 'No.'”
“Ah! But it will change to 'yes' by and by, I'm sure of that so I'll let you go to dream of him. The Campbells are rather proud of being descendants of Robert the Bruce, but they have common sense and love you dearly, as you'll see tomorrow.”
“Perhaps.” And with a good night kiss, poor Phebe went away, to lie awake till dawn.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
8
|
BREAKERS AHEAD
|
Anxious to smooth the way for Phebe, Rose was up betimes and slipped into Aunt Plenty's room before the old lady had gotten her cap on.
“Aunty, I've something pleasant to tell you, and while you listen, I'll brush your hair, as you like to have me,” she began, well aware that the proposed process was a very soothing one.
“Yes, dear only don't be too particular, because I'm late and must hurry down or Jane won't get things straight, and it does fidget me to have the saltcellars uneven, the tea strainer forgotten, and your uncle's paper not aired,” returned Miss Plenty, briskly unrolling the two gray curls she wore at her temples.
Then Rose, brushing away at the scanty back hair, led skillfully up to the crisis of her tale by describing Phebe's panic and brave efforts to conquer it; all about the flowers Archie sent her; and how Steve forgot, and dear, thoughtful Archie took his place. So far it went well and Aunt Plenty was full of interest, sympathy, and approbation, but when Rose added, as if it was quite a matter of course, “So, on the way home, he told her he loved her,” a great start twitched the gray locks out of her hands as the old lady turned around, with the little curls standing erect, exclaiming, in undisguised dismay: “Not seriously, Rose?”
“Yes, Aunty, very seriously. He never jokes about such things.”
“Mercy on us! What shall we do about it?”
“Nothing, ma'am, but be as glad as we ought and congratulate him as soon as she says 'yes.' ?
“Do you mean to say she didn't accept at once?”
“She never will if we don't welcome her as kindly as if she belonged to one of our best families, and I don't blame her.”
“I'm glad the girl has so much sense. Of course we can't do anything of the sort, and I'm surprised at Archie's forgetting what he owes to the family in this rash manner. Give me my cap, child I must speak to Alec at once.” And Aunt Plenty twisted her hair into a button at the back of her head with one energetic twirl.
“Do speak kindly, Aunty, and remember that it was not Phebe's fault. She never thought of this till very lately and began at once to prepare for going away,” said Rose pleadingly.
“She ought to have gone long ago. I told Myra we should have trouble somewhere as soon as I saw what a good-looking creature she was, and here it is as bad as can be. Dear, dear! Why can't young people have a little prudence?”
“I don't see that anyone need object if Uncle Jem and Aunt Jessie approve, and I do think it will be very, very unkind to scold poor Phebe for being well-bred, pretty, and good, after doing all we could to make her so.”
“Child, you don't understand these things yet, but you ought to feel your duty toward your family and do all you can to keep the name as honorable as it always has been. What do you suppose our blessed ancestress Lady Marget would say to our oldest boy taking a wife from the poorhouse?”
As she spoke, Miss Plenty looked up, almost apprehensively, at one of the wooden-faced old portraits with which her room was hung, as if asking pardon of the severe-nosed matron who stared back at her from under the sort of blue dish cover which formed her headgear.
“As Lady Marget died about two hundred years ago, I don't care a pin what she would say, especially as she looks like a very narrow-minded, haughty woman. But I do care very much what Miss Plenty Campbell says, for she is a very sensible, generous, discreet, and dear old lady who wouldn't hurt a fly, much less a good and faithful girl who has been a sister to me. Would she?” entreated Rose, knowing well that the elder aunt led all the rest more or less.
But Miss Plenty had her cap on now and consequently felt herself twice the woman she was without it, so she not only gave it a somewhat belligerent air by setting it well up, but she shook her head decidedly, smoothed down her stiff white apron, and stood up as if ready for battle.
“I shall do my duty, Rose, and expect the same of others. Don't say any more now I must turn the matter over in my mind, for it has come upon me suddenly and needs serious consideration.”
With which unusually solemn address she took up her keys and trotted away, leaving her niece to follow with an anxious countenance, uncertain whether her championship had done good or ill to the cause she had at heart.
She was much cheered by the sound of Phebe's voice in the study, for Rose was sure that if Uncle Alec was on their side all would be well. But the clouds lowered again when they came in to breakfast, for Phebe's heavy eyes and pale cheeks did not look encouraging, while Dr. Alec was as sober as a judge and sent an inquiring glance toward Rose now and then as if curious to discover how she bore the news.
An uncomfortable meal, though all tried to seem as usual and talked over last night's events with all the interest they could. But the old peace was disturbed by a word, as a pebble thrown into a quiet pool sends telltale circles rippling its surface far and wide. Aunt Plenty, while “turning the subject over in her mind,” also seemed intent on upsetting everything she touched and made sad havoc in her tea tray; Dr. Alec unsociably read his paper; Rose, having salted instead of sugared her oatmeal, absently ate it, feeling that the sweetness had gone out of everything; and Phebe, after choking down a cup of tea and crumbling a roll, excused herself and went away, sternly resolving not to be a bone of contention to this beloved family.
As soon as the door was shut Rose pushed away her plate and, going to Dr. Alec, she peeped over the paper with such an anxious face that he put it down at once.
“Uncle, this is a serious matter, and we must take our stand at once, for you are Phebe's guardian and I am her sister,” began Rose with pretty solemnity. “You have often been disappointed in me,” she continued, “but I know I never shall be in you because you are too wise and good to let any worldly pride or prudence spoil your sympathy with Archie and our Phebe. You won't desert them, will you?”
“Never!” answered Dr. Alec with gratifying energy.
“Thank you! Thank you!” cried Rose. “Now, if I have you and Aunty on my side, I'm not afraid of anybody.”
“Gently, gently, child. I don't intend to desert the lovers, but I certainly shall advise them to consider well what they are about. I'll own I am rather disappointed, because Archie is young to decide his life in this way and Phebe's career seemed settled in another fashion. Old people don't like to have their plans upset, you know,” he added more lightly, for Rose's face fell as he went on.
“Old people shouldn't plan too much for the young ones, then. We are very grateful, I'm sure, but we cannot always be disposed of in the most prudent and sensible way, so don't set your hearts on little arrangements of that sort, I beg,” And Rose looked wondrous wise, for she could not help suspecting even her best uncle of “plans” in her behalf.
“You are quite right-we shouldn't, yet it is very hard to help it,” confessed Dr. Alec with a conscious air, and, returning hastily to the lovers, he added kindly: “I was much pleased with the straightforward way in which Phebe came to me this morning and told me all about it, as if I really was her guardian. She did not own it in words, but it was perfectly evident that she loves Archie with all her heart, yet, knowing the objections which will be made, very sensibly and bravely proposes to go away at once and end the matter as if that were possible, poor child.” And the tenderhearted man gave a sigh of sympathy that did Rose good to hear and mollified her rising indignation at the bare idea of ending Phebe's love affairs in such a summary way.
“You don't think she ought to go, I hope?”
“I think she will go.”
“We must not let her.”
“We have no right to keep her.”
“Oh, Uncle, surely we have! Our Phebe, whom we all love so much.”
“You forget that she is a woman now, and we have no claim on her. Because we've befriended her for years is the very reason we should not make our benefits a burden, but leave her free, and if she chooses to do this in spite of Archie, we must let her with a Godspeed.”
Before Rose could answer, Aunt Plenty spoke out like one having authority, for old-fashioned ways were dear to her soul and she thought even love affairs should be conducted with a proper regard to the powers that be.
“The family must talk the matter over and decide what is best for the children, who of course will listen to reason and do nothing ill advised. For my part, I am quite upset by the news, but shall not commit myself till I've seen Jessie and the boy. Jane, clear away, and bring me the hot water.”
That ended the morning conference. And, leaving the old lady to soothe her mind by polishing spoons and washing cups, Rose went away to find Phebe while the doctor retired to laugh over the downfall of brother Mac's matchmaking schemes.
The Campbells did not gossip about their concerns in public, but being a very united family, it had long been the custom to “talk over” any interesting event which occurred to any member thereof, and everyone gave his or her opinion, advice, or censure with the utmost candor. Therefore the first engagement, if such it could be called, created a great sensation, among the aunts especially, and they were in as much of a flutter as a flock of maternal birds when their young begin to hop out of the nest. So at all hours the excellent ladies were seen excitedly nodding their caps together as they discussed the affair in all its bearings, without ever arriving at any unanimous decision.
The boys took it much more calmly. Mac was the only one who came out strongly in Archie's favor. Charlie thought the Chief ought to do better and called Phebe “a siren who had bewitched the sage youth.” Steve was scandalized and delivered long orations upon one's duty to society, keeping the old name up, and the danger of mésalliances, while all the time he secretly sympathized with Archie, being much smitten with Kitty Van himself. Will and Geordie, unfortunately home for the holidays, considered it “a jolly lark,” and little Jamie nearly drove his elder brother distracted by curious inquiries as to “how folks felt when they were in love.”
Uncle Mac's dismay was so comical that it kept Dr. Alec in good spirits, for he alone knew how deep was the deluded man's chagrin at the failure of the little plot which he fancied was prospering finely.
“I'll never set my heart on anything of the sort again, and the young rascals may marry whom they like. I'm prepared for anything now--so if Steve brings home the washerwoman's daughter, and Mac runs away with our pretty chambermaid, I shall say, 'Bless you my children,' with mournful resignation, for, upon my soul, that is all that's left for a modern parent to do.”
With which tragic burst, poor Uncle Mac washed his hands of the whole affair and buried himself in the countinghouse while the storm raged.
About this time Archie might have echoed Rose's childish wish, that she had not quite so many aunts, for the tongues of those interested relatives made sad havoc with his little romance and caused him to long fervently for a desert island where he could woo and win his love in delicious peace. That nothing of the sort was possible soon became evident, since every word uttered only confirmed Phebe's resolution to go away and proved to Rose how mistaken she had been in believing that she could bring everyone to her way of thinking.
Prejudices are unmanageable things, and the good aunts, like most women, possessed a plentiful supply, so Rose found it like beating her head against a wall to try and convince them that Archie was wise in loving poor Phebe. His mother, who had hoped to have Rose for her daughter not because of her fortune, but the tender affection she felt for her put away her disappointment without a word and welcomed Phebe as kindly as she could for her boy's sake. But the girl felt the truth with the quickness of a nature made sensitive by love and clung to her resolve all the more tenaciously, though grateful for the motherly words that would have been so sweet if genuine happiness had prompted them.
Aunt Jane called it romantic nonsense and advised strong measures “kind, but firm, Jessie.” Aunt Clara was sadly distressed about “what people would say” if one of “our boys” married a nobody's daughter. And Aunt Myra not only seconded her views by painting portraits of Phebe's unknown relations in the darkest colors but uttered direful prophecies regarding the disreputable beings who would start up in swarms the moment the girl made a good match.
These suggestions so wrought upon Aunt Plenty that she turned a deaf ear to the benevolent emotions native to her breast and, taking refuge behind “our blessed ancestress, Lady Marget,” refused to sanction any engagement which could bring discredit upon the stainless name which was her pride.
So it all ended where it began, for Archie steadily refused to listen to anyone but Phebe, and she as steadily reiterated her bitter “No!” fortifying herself half unconsciously with the hope that, by and by, when she had won a name, fate might be kinder.
While the rest talked, she had been working, for every hour showed her that her instinct had been a true one and pride would not let her stay, though love pleaded eloquently. So, after a Christmas anything but merry, Phebe packed her trunks, rich in gifts from those who generously gave her all but the one thing she desired, and, with a pocketful of letters to people who could further her plans, she went away to seek her fortune, with a brave face and a very heavy heart.
“Write often, and let me know all you do, my Phebe, and remember I shall never be contented till you come back again,” whispered Rose, clinging to her till the last.
“She will come back, for in a year I'm going to bring her home, please God,” said Archie, pale with the pain of parting but as resolute as she.
“I'll earn my welcome then perhaps it will be easier for them to give and me to receive it,” answered Phebe, with a backward glance at the group of caps in the hall as she went down the steps on Dr. Alec's arm.
“You earned it long ago, and it is always waiting for you while I am here. Remember that, and God bless you, my good girl,” he said, with a paternal kiss that warmed her heart.
“I never shall forget it!” And Phebe never did.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
9
|
NEW YEAR'S CALLS
|
“Now I'm going to turn over a new leaf, as I promised. I wonder what I shall find on the next page?” said Rose, coming down on New Year's morning with a serious face and a thick letter in her hand.
“Tired of frivolity, my dear?” asked her uncle, pausing in his walk up and down the hall to glance at her with a quick, bright look she liked to bring into his eyes.
“No, sir, and that's the sad part of it, but I've made up my mind to stop while I can because I'm sure it is not good for me. I've had some very sober thoughts lately, for since my Phebe went away I've had no heart for gaiety, so it is a good place to stop and make a fresh start,” answered Rose, taking his arm and walking on with him.
“An excellent time! Now, how are you going to fill the aching void?” he asked, well pleased.
“By trying to be as unselfish, brave, and good as she is.” And Rose held the letter against her bosom with a tender touch, for Phebe's strength had inspired her with a desire to be as self-reliant. “I'm going to set about living in earnest, as she has; though I think it will be harder for me than for her, because she stands alone and has a career marked out for her. I'm nothing but a commonplace sort of girl, with no end of relations to be consulted every time I wink and a dreadful fortune hanging like a millstone round my neck to weigh me down if I try to fly. It is a hard case, Uncle, and I get low in my mind when I think about it,” sighed Rose, oppressed with her blessings.
“Afflicted child! How can I relieve you?” And there was amusement as well as sympathy in Dr. Alec's face as he patted the hand upon his arm.
“Please don't laugh, for I really am trying to be good. In the first place, help me to wean myself from foolish pleasures and show me how to occupy my thoughts and time so that I may not idle about and dream instead of doing great things.”
“Good! We'll begin at once. Come to town with me this morning and see your houses. They are all ready, and Mrs. Gardner has half a dozen poor souls waiting to go in as soon as you give the word,” answered the doctor promptly, glad to get his girl back again, though not surprised that she still looked with regretful eyes at the Vanity Fair, always so enticing when we are young.
“I'll give it today, and make the new year a happy one to those poor souls at least. I'm so sorry that it's impossible for me to go with you, but you know I must help Aunty Plen receive. We haven't been here for so long that she had set her heart on having a grand time today, and I particularly want to please her because I have not been as amiable as I ought lately. I really couldn't forgive her for siding against Phebe.”
“She did what she thought was right, so we must not blame her. I am going to make my New Year's calls today and, as my friends live down that way, I'll get the list of names from Mrs. G. and tell the poor ladies, with Miss Campbell's compliments, that their new home is ready. Shall I?”
“Yes, Uncle, but take all the credit to yourself, for I never should have thought of it if you had not proposed the plan.”
“Bless your heart! I'm only your agent, and suggest now and then. I've nothing to offer but advice, so I lavish that on all occasions.”
“You have nothing because you've given your substance all away as generously as you do your advice. Never mind you shall never come to want while I live. I'll save enough for us two, though I do make 'ducks and drakes of my fortune.'”
Dr. Alec laughed at the toss of the head with which she quoted Charlie's offensive words, then offered to take the letter, saying, as he looked at his watch: “I'll post that for you in time for the early mail. I like a run before breakfast.”
But Rose held her letter fast, dimpling with sudden smiles, half merry and half shy.
“No thank you, sir. Archie likes to do that, and never fails to call for all I write. He gets a peep at Phebe's in return and I cheer him up a bit, for, though he says nothing, he has a hard time of it, poor fellow.”
“How many letters in five days?”
“Four, sir, to me. She doesn't write to him, Uncle.”
“As yet. Well, you show hers, so it's all right and you are a set of sentimental youngsters.” And the doctor walked away, looking as if he enjoyed the sentiment as much as any of them.
Old Miss Campbell was nearly as great a favorite as young Miss Campbell, so a succession of black coats and white gloves flowed in and out of the hospitable mansion pretty steadily all day. The clan was out in great force, and came by in installments to pay their duty to Aunt Plenty and wish the compliments of the season to “our cousin.” Archie appeared first, looking sad but steadfast, and went away with Phebe's letter in his left breast pocket feeling that life was still endurable, though his love was torn from him, for Rose had many comfortable things to say and read him delicious bits from the voluminous correspondence lately begun.
Hardly was he gone when Will and Geordie came marching in, looking as fine as gray uniforms with much scarlet piping could make them and feeling peculiarly important, as this was their first essay in New Year's call-making. Brief was their stay, for they planned to visit every friend they had, and Rose could not help laughing at the droll mixture of manly dignity and boyish delight with which they drove off in their own carriage, both as erect as ramrods, arms folded, and caps stuck at exactly the same angle on each blond head.
“Here comes the other couple Steve, in full feather, with a big bouquet for Kitty, and poor Mac, looking like a gentleman and feeling like a martyr, I'm sure,” said Rose, watching one carriage turn in as the other turned out of the great gate, with its arch of holly, ivy, and evergreen.
“Here he is. I've got him in tow for the day and want you to cheer him up with a word of praise, for he came without a struggle though planning to bolt somewhere with Uncle,” cried Steve, falling back to display his brother, who came in looking remarkably well in his state and festival array, for polishing had begun to tell.
“A happy New Year, Aunty, same to you, Cousin, and best wishes for as many more as you deserve,” said Mac, heeding Steve no more than if he had been a fly as he gave the old lady a hearty kiss and offered Rose a quaint little nosegay of pansies.
“Heart's-ease do you think I need it?” she asked, looking up with sudden sobriety.
“We all do. Could I give you anything better on a day like this?”
“No thank you very much.” And a sudden dew came to Rose's eyes, for, though often blunt in speech, when Mac did do a tender thing, it always touched her because he seemed to understand her moods so well.
“Has Archie been here? He said he shouldn't go anywhere else, but I hope you talked that nonsense out of his head,” said Steve, settling his tie before the mirror.
“Yes, dear, he came but looked so out of spirits I really felt reproached. Rose cheered him up a little, but I don't believe he will feel equal to making calls and I hope he won't, for his face tells the whole story much too plainly,” answered Aunty Plenty, rustling about her bountiful table in her richest black silk with all her old lace on.
“Oh, he'll get over it in a month or two, and Phebe will soon find another lover, so don't be worried about him, Aunty,” said Steve, with the air of a man who knew all about that sort of thing.
“If Archie does forget, I shall despise him, and I know Phebe won't try to find another lover, though she'll probably have them she is so sweet and good!” cried Rose indignantly, for, having taken the pair under her protection, she defended them valiantly.
“Then you'd have Arch hope against hope and never give up, would you?” asked Mac, putting on his glasses to survey the thin boots which were his especial abomination.
“Yes, I would, for a lover is not worth having if he's not in earnest!”
“Exactly. So you'd like them to wait and work and keep on loving till they made you relent or plainly proved that it was no use.”
“If they were good as well as constant, I think I should relent in time.”
“I'll mention that to Pemberton, for he seemed to be hit the hardest, and a ray of hope will do him good, whether he is equal to the ten years' wait or not,” put in Steve, who liked to rally Rose about her lovers.
“I'll never forgive you if you say a word to anyone. It is only Mac's odd way of asking questions, and I ought not to answer them. You will talk about such things and I can't stop you, but I don't like it,” said Rose, much annoyed.
“Poor little Penelope! She shall not be teased about her suitors but left in peace till her Ulysses comes home,” said Mac, sitting down to read the mottoes sticking out of certain fanciful bonbons on the table.
“It is this fuss about Archie which has demoralized us all. Even the owl waked up and hasn't got over the excitement yet, you see. He's had no experience, poor fellow, so he doesn't know how to behave,” observed Steve, regarding his bouquet with tender interest.
“That's true, and I asked for information because I may be in love myself someday and all this will be useful, don't you see?”
“You in love!” And Steve could not restrain a laugh at the idea of the bookworm a slave to the tender passion.
Quite unruffled, Mac leaned his chin in both hands, regarding them with a meditative eye as he answered in his whimsical way: “Why not? I intend to study love as well as medicine, for it is one of the most mysterious and remarkable diseases that afflict mankind, and the best way to understand it is to have it. I may catch it someday, and then I should like to know how to treat and cure it.”
“If you take it as badly as you did measles and whooping cough, it will go hard with you, old fellow,” said Steve, much amused with the fancy.
“I want it to. No great experience comes or goes easily, and this is the greatest we can know, I believe, except death.”
Something in Mac's quiet tone and thoughtful eyes made Rose look at him in surprise, for she had never heard him speak in that way before. Steve also stared for an instant, equally amazed, then said below his breath, with an air of mock anxiety: “He's been catching something at the hospital, typhoid probably, and is beginning to wander. I'll take him quietly away before he gets any wilder. Come, old lunatic, we must be off.”
“Don't be alarmed. I'm all right and much obliged for your advice, for I fancy I shall be a desperate lover when my time comes, if it ever does. You don't think it impossible, do you?” And Mac put the question so soberly that there was a general smile.
“Certainly not you'll be a regular Douglas, tender and true,” answered Rose, wondering what queer question would come next.
“Thank you. The fact is, I've been with Archie so much in his trouble lately that I've gotten interested in this matter and very naturally want to investigate the subject as every rational man must, sooner or later, that's all. Now, Steve, I'm ready.” And Mac got up as if the lesson was over.
“My dear, that boy is either a fool or a genius, and I'm sure I should be glad to know which,” said Aunt Plenty, putting her bonbons to rights with a puzzled shake of her best cap.
“Time will show, but I incline to think that he is not a fool by any means,” answered the girl, pulling a cluster of white roses out of her bosom to make room for the pansies, though they did not suit the blue gown half so well.
Just then Aunt Jessie came in to help them receive, with Jamie to make himself generally useful, which he proceeded to do by hovering around the table like a fly about a honey pot when not flattening his nose against the windowpanes to announce excitedly, “Here's another man coming up the drive!”
Charlie arrived next in his most sunshiny humor, for anything social and festive was his delight, and when in this mood the Prince was quite irresistible. He brought a pretty bracelet for Rose and was graciously allowed to put it on while she chid him gently for his extravagance.
“I am only following your example, for you know 'nothing is too good for those we love, and giving away is the best thing one can do,'” he retorted, quoting words of her own.
“I wish you would follow my example in some other things as well as you do in this,” said Rose soberly as Aunt Plenty called him to come and see if the punch was right.
“Must conform to the customs of society. Aunty's heart would be broken if we did not drink her health in the good old fashion. But don't be alarmed I've a strong head of my own, and that's lucky, for I shall need it before I get through,” laughed Charlie, showing a long list as he turned away to gratify the old lady with all sorts of merry and affectionate compliments as the glasses touched.
Rose did feel rather alarmed, for if he drank the health of all the owners of those names, she felt sure that Charlie would need a very strong head indeed. It was hard to say anything then and there without seeming disrespect to Aunt Plenty, yet she longed to remind her cousin of the example she tried to set him in this respect, for Rose never touched wine, and the boys knew it. She was thoughtfully turning the bracelet, with its pretty device of turquoise forget-me-nots, when the giver came back to her, still bubbling over with good spirits.
“Dear little saint, you look as if you'd like to smash all the punch bowls in the city, and save us jolly young fellows from tomorrow's headache.”
“I should, for such headaches sometimes end in heartaches, I'm afraid. Dear Charlie, don't be angry, but you know better than I that this is a dangerous day for such as you so do be careful for my sake,” she added, with an unwonted touch of tenderness in her voice, for, looking at the gallant figure before her, it was impossible to repress the womanly longing to keep it always as brave and blithe as now.
Charlie saw that new softness in the eyes that never looked unkindly on him, fancied that it meant more than it did, and, with a sudden fervor in his own voice, answered quickly: “My darling, I will!”
The glow which had risen to his face was reflected in hers, for at that moment it seemed as if it would be possible to love this cousin who was so willing to be led by her and so much needed some helpful influence to make a noble man of him. The thought came and went like a flash, but gave her a quick heartthrob, as if the old affection was trembling on the verge of some warmer sentiment, and left her with a sense of responsibility never felt before. Obeying the impulse, she said, with a pretty blending of earnestness and playfulness, “If I wear the bracelet to remember you by, you must wear this to remind you of your promise.”
“And you,” whispered Charlie, bending his head to kiss the hands that put a little white rose in his buttonhole.
Just at that most interesting moment they became aware of an arrival in the front drawing room, whither Aunt Plenty had discreetly retired. Rose felt grateful for the interruption, because, not being at all sure of the state of her heart as yet, she was afraid of letting a sudden impulse lead her too far. But Charlie, conscious that a very propitious instant had been spoiled, regarded the newcomer with anything but a benignant expression of countenance and, whispering, “Good-bye, my Rose, I shall look in this evening to see how you are after the fatigues of the day,” he went away, with such a cool nod to poor Fun See that the amiable Asiatic thought he must have mortally offended him.
Rose had little leisure to analyze the new emotions of which she was conscious, for Mr. Tokio came up at once to make his compliments with a comical mingling of Chinese courtesy and American awkwardness, and before he had got his hat on Jamie shouted with admiring energy: “Here's another! Oh, such a swell!”
They now came thick and fast for many hours, and the ladies stood bravely at their posts till late into the evening. Then Aunt Jessie went home, escorted by a very sleepy little son, and Aunt Plenty retired to bed, used up. Dr. Alec had returned in good season, for his friends were not fashionable ones, but Aunt Myra had sent up for him in hot haste and he had good-naturedly obeyed the summons. In fact, he was quite used to them now, for Mrs. Myra, having tried a variety of dangerous diseases, had finally decided upon heart complaint as the one most likely to keep her friends in a chronic state of anxiety and was continually sending word that she was dying. One gets used to palpitations as well as everything else, so the doctor felt no alarm but always went and prescribed some harmless remedy with the most amiable sobriety and patience.
Rose was tired but not sleepy and wanted to think over several things, so instead of going to bed she sat down before the open fire in the study to wait for her uncle and perhaps Charlie, though she did not expect him so late.
Aunt Myra's palpitations must have been unusually severe, for the clock struck twelve before Dr. Alec came, and Rose was preparing to end her reverie when the sound of someone fumbling at the hall door made her jump up, saying to herself: “Poor man! His hands are so cold he can't get his latchkey in. Is that you, Uncle?” she added, running to admit him, for Jane was slow and the night as bitter as it was brilliant.
A voice answered, “Yes.” And as the door swung open, in walked, not Dr. Alec, but Charlie, who immediately took one of the hall chairs and sat there with his hat on, rubbing his gloveless hands and blinking as if the light dazzled him, as he said in a rapid, abrupt sort of tone, “I told you I'd come left the fellows keeping it up gloriously going to see the old year out, you know. But I promised never break my word and here I am. Angel in blue, did you slay your thousands?”
“Hush! The waiters are still about. Come to the study fire and warm yourself, you must be frozen,” said Rose, going before to roll up the easy chair.
“Not at all never warmer looks very comfortable, though. Where's Uncle?” asked Charlie, following with his hat still on, his hands in his pockets, and his eye fixed steadily on the bright head in front of him.
“Aunt Myra sent for him, and I was waiting up to see how she was,” answered Rose, busily mending the fire.
Charlie laughed and sat down upon a corner of the library table. “Poor old soul! What a pity she doesn't die before he is quite worn out. A little too much ether some of these times would send her off quite comfortably, you know.”
“Don't speak in that way. Uncle says imaginary troubles are often as hard to bear as real ones,” said Rose, turning around displeased.
Till now she had not fairly looked at him, for recollections of the morning made her a little shy. His attitude and appearance surprised her as much as his words, and the quick change in her face seemed to remind him of his manners. Getting up, he hastily took off his hat and stood looking at her with a curiously fixed yet absent look as he said in the same rapid, abrupt way, as if, when once started, he found it hard to stop, “I beg pardon only joking very bad taste I know, and won't do it again. The heat of the room makes me a little dizzy, and I think I got a chill coming out. It is cold I am frozen, I daresay though I drove like the devil.”
“Not that bad horse of yours, I hope? I know it is dangerous, so late and alone,” said Rose, shrinking behind the big chair as Charlie approached the fire, carefully avoiding a footstool in his way.
“Danger is exciting that's why I like it. No man ever called me a coward let him try it once. I never give in and that horse shall not conquer me. I'll break his neck, if he breaks my spirit doing it. No I don't mean that never mind it's all right,” and Charlie laughed in a way that troubled her, because there was no mirth in it.
“Have you had a pleasant day?” asked Rose, looking at him intently as he stood pondering over the cigar and match which he held, as if doubtful which to strike and which to smoke.
“Day? Oh, yes, capital. About two thousand calls, and a nice little supper at the Club. Randal can't sing any more than a crow, but I left him with a glass of champagne upside down, trying to give them my old favorite: “'Tis better to laugh than be sighing,” and Charlie burst forth in that bacchanalian melody at the top of his voice, waving an allumette holder over his head to represent Randal's inverted wineglass.
“Hush! You'll wake Aunty,” cried Rose in a tone so commanding that he broke off in the middle of a roulade to stare at her with a blank look as he said apologetically, “I was merely showing how it should be done. Don't be angry, dearest look at me as you did this morning, and I'll swear never to sing another note if you say so. I'm only a little gay we drank your health handsomely, and they all congratulated me. Told 'em it wasn't out yet. Stop, though I didn't mean to mention that. No matter I'm always in a scrape, but you always forgive me in the sweetest way. Do it now, and don't be angry, little darling.” And, dropping the vase, he went toward her with a sudden excitement that made her shrink behind the chair.
She was not angry, but shocked and frightened, for she knew now what the matter was and grew so pale, he saw it and asked pardon before she could utter a rebuke.
“We'll talk of that tomorrow. It is very late. Go home now, please, before Uncle comes,” she said, trying to speak naturally yet betraying her distress by the tremor of her voice and the sad anxiety in her eyes.
“Yes, yes, I will go you are tired I'll make it all right tomorrow.” And as if the sound of his uncle's name steadied him for an instant, Charlie made for the door with an unevenness of gait which would have told the shameful truth if his words had not already done so. Before he reached it, however, the sound of wheels arrested him and, leaning against the wall, he listened with a look of dismay mingled with amusement creeping over his face. “Brutus has bolted now I am in a fix. Can't walk home with this horrid dizziness in my head. It's the cold, Rose, nothing else, I do assure you, and a chill yes, a chill. See here! Let one of those fellows there lend me an arm no use to go after that brute. Won't Mother be frightened though when he gets home?” And with that empty laugh again, he fumbled for the door handle.
“No, no don't let them see you! Don't let anyone know! Stay here till Uncle comes, and he'll take care of you. Oh, Charlie! How could you do it! How could you when you promised?” And, forgetting fear in the sudden sense of shame and anguish that came over her, Rose ran to him, caught his hand from the lock, and turned the key; then, as if she could not bear to see him standing there with that vacant smile on his lips, she dropped into a chair and covered up her face.
The cry, the act, and, more than all, the sight of the bowed head would have sobered poor Charlie if it had not been too late. He looked about the room with a vague, despairing look, as if to find reason fast slipping from his control, but heat and cold, excitement and reckless pledging of many healths had done their work too well to make instant sobriety possible, and owning his defeat with a groan, he turned away and threw himself face-downward on the sofa, one of the saddest sights the new year looked upon as it came in.
As she sat there with hidden eyes, Rose felt that something dear to her was dead forever. The ideal, which all women cherish, look for, and too often think they have found when love glorifies a mortal man, is hard to give up, especially when it comes in the likeness of the first lover who touches a young girl's heart. Rose had just begun to feel that perhaps this cousin, despite his faults, might yet become the hero that he sometimes looked, and the thought that she might be his inspiration was growing sweet to her, although she had not entertained it until very lately. Alas, how short the tender dream had been, how rude the awakening! How impossible it would be ever again to surround that fallen figure with all the romance of an innocent fancy or gift it with the high attributes beloved by a noble nature!
Breathing heavily in the sudden sleep that kindly brought a brief oblivion of himself, he lay with flushed cheeks, disordered hair, and at his feet the little rose that never would be fresh and fair again a pitiful contrast now to the brave, blithe young man who went so gaily out that morning to be so ignominiously overthrown at night.
Many girls would have made light of a trespass so readily forgiven by the world, but Rose had not yet learned to offer temptation with a smile and shut her eyes to the weakness that makes a man a brute. It always grieved or disgusted her to see it in others, and now it was very terrible to have it brought so near not in its worst form, by any means, but bad enough to wring her heart with shame and sorrow and fill her mind with dark forebodings for the future. So she could only sit mourning for the Charlie that might have been while watching the Charlie that was with an ache in her heart which found no relief till, putting her hands there as if to ease the pain, they touched the pansies, faded but still showing gold among the somber purple, and then two great tears dropped on them as she sighed: “Ah, me! I do need heart's-ease sooner than I thought!”
Her uncle's step made her spring up and unlock the door, showing him such an altered face that he stopped short, ejaculating in dismay, “Good heavens, child! What's the matter?” adding, as she pointed to the sofa in pathetic silence, “Is he hurt? ill? dead?”
“No, Uncle, he is--” She could not utter the ugly word but whispered with a sob in her throat, “Be kind to him,” and fled away to her own room, feeling as if a great disgrace had fallen on the house.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
10
|
THE SAD AND SOBER PART
|
“How will he look? What will he say? Can anything make us forget and be happy again?” were the first questions Rose asked herself as soon as she woke from the brief sleep which followed a long, sad vigil. It seemed as if the whole world must be changed because a trouble darkened it for her. She was too young yet to know how possible it is to forgive much greater sins than this, forget far heavier disappointments, outlive higher hopes, and bury loves compared to which hers was but a girlish fancy. She wished it had not been so bright a day, wondered how her birds could sing with such shrill gaiety, put no ribbon in her hair, and said, as she looked at the reflection of her own tired face in the glass, “Poor thing! You thought the new leaf would have something pleasant on it. The story has been very sweet and easy to read so far, but the sad and sober part is coming now.”
A tap at the door reminded her that, in spite of her afflictions, breakfast must be eaten, and the sudden thought that Charlie might still be in the house made her hurry to the door, to find Dr. Alec waiting for her with his morning smile. She drew him in and whispered anxiously, as if someone lay dangerously ill nearby, “Is he better, Uncle? Tell me all about it I can bear it now.”
Some men would have smiled at her innocent distress and told her this was only what was to be expected and endured, but Dr. Alec believed in the pure instincts that make youth beautiful, desired to keep them true, and hoped his girl would never learn to look unmoved by pain and pity upon any human being vanquished by a vice, no matter how trivial it seemed, how venial it was held. So his face grew grave, though his voice was cheerful as he answered: “All right, I daresay, by this time, for sleep is the best medicine in such cases. I took him home last night, and no one knows he came but you and I.” “No one ever shall. How did you do it, Uncle?”
“Just slipped out of the long study window and got him cannily off, for the air and motion, after a dash of cold water, brought him around, and he was glad to be safely landed at home. His rooms are below, you know, so no one was disturbed, and I left him sleeping nicely.”
“Thank you so much,” sighed Rose. “And Brutus? Weren't they frightened when he got back alone?”
“Not at all. The sagacious beast went quietly to the stable, and the sleepy groom asked no questions, for Charlie often sends the horse round by himself when it is late or stormy. Rest easy, dear no eye but ours saw the poor lad come and go, and we'll forgive it for love's sake.”
“Yes, but not forget it. I never can, and he will never be again to me the Charlie I've been so proud and fond of all these years. Oh, Uncle, such a pity! Such a pity!”
“Don't break your tender heart about it, child, for it is not incurable, thank God! I don't make light of it, but I am sure that under better influences Charlie will redeem himself because his impulses are good and this his only vice. I can hardly blame him for what he is, because his mother did the harm. I declare to you, Rose, I sometimes feel as if I must break out against that woman and thunder in her ears that she is ruining the immortal soul for which she is responsible to heaven!”
Dr. Alec seldom spoke in this way, and when he did it was rather awful, for his indignation was of the righteous sort and such thunder often rouses up a drowsy soul when sunshine has no effect. Rose liked it, and sincerely wished Aunt Clara had been there to get the benefit of the outbreak, for she needed just such an awakening from the self-indulgent dream in which she lived.
“Do it, and save Charlie before it is too late!” she cried, kindling herself as she watched him, for he looked like a roused lion as he walked about the room with his hand clenched and a spark in his eye, evidently in desperate earnest and ready to do almost anything.
“Will you help?” he asked, stopping suddenly with a look that made her stand up straight and strong as she answered with an eager voice: “I will.”
“Then don't love him yet.”
That startled her, but she asked steadily, though her heart began to beat and her color to come: “Why not?”
“Firstly, because no woman should give her happiness into the keeping of a man without fixed principles; secondly, because the hope of being worthy of you will help him more than any prayers or preaching of mine. Thirdly, because it will need all our wit and patience to undo the work of nearly four and twenty years. You understand what I mean?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you say 'no' when he asks you to say 'yes' and wait a little for your happiness?”
“I can.”
“And will you?”
“I will.”
“Then I'm satisfied, and a great weight taken off my heart. I can't help seeing what goes on, or trembling when I think of you setting sail with no better pilot than poor Charlie. Now you answer as I hoped you would, and I am proud of my girl!”
They had been standing with the width of the room between them, Dr. Alec looking very much like a commander issuing orders, Rose like a well-drilled private obediently receiving them, and both wore the air of soldiers getting ready for a battle, with the bracing of nerves and quickening of the blood brave souls feel as they put on their armor. At the last words he went to her, brushed back the hair, and kissed her on the forehead with a tender sort of gravity and a look that made her feel as if he had endowed her with the Victoria Cross for courage on the field.
No more was said then, for Aunt Plenty called them down and the day's duties began. But that brief talk showed Rose what to do and fitted her to do it, for it set her to thinking of the duty one owes one's self in loving as in all the other great passions or experiences which make or mar a life.
She had plenty of time for quiet meditation that day because everyone was resting after yesterday's festivity, and she sat in her little room planning out a new year so full of good works, grand successes, and beautiful romances that if it could have been realized, the Millennium would have begun. It was a great comfort to her, however, and lightened the long hours haunted by a secret desire to know when Charlie would come and a secret fear of the first meeting. She was sure he would be bowed down with humiliation and repentance, and a struggle took place in her mind between the pity she could not help feeling and the disapprobation she ought to show. She decided to be gentle, but very frank; to reprove, but also to console; and to try to improve the softened moment by inspiring the culprit with a wish for all the virtues which make a perfect man.
The fond delusion grew quite absorbing, and her mind was full of it as she sat watching the sun set from her western window and admiring with dreamy eyes the fine effect of the distant hills clear and dark against a daffodil sky when the bang of a door made her sit suddenly erect in her low chair and say with a catch in her breath: “He's coming! I must remember what I promised Uncle and be very firm.”
Usually Charlie announced his approach with music of some sort. Now he neither whistled, hummed, nor sang, but came so quietly Rose was sure that he dreaded this meeting as much as she did and, compassionating his natural confusion, did not look around as the steps drew near. She thought perhaps he would go down upon his knees, as he used to after a boyish offense, but hoped not, for too much humility distressed her, so she waited for the first demonstration anxiously.
It was rather a shock when it came, however, for a great nosegay dropped into her lap and a voice, bold and gay as usual, said lightly: “Here she is, as pretty and pensive as you please. Is the world hollow, our doll stuffed with sawdust, and do we want to go into a nunnery today, Cousin?”
Rose was so taken aback by this unexpected coolness that the flowers lay unnoticed as she looked up with a face so full of surprise, reproach, and something like shame that it was impossible to mistake its meaning. Charlie did not, and had the grace to redden deeply, and his eyes fell as he said quickly, though in the same light tone: “I humbly apologize for coming so late last night. Don't be hard upon me, Cousin. You know America expects every man to do his duty on New Year's Day.”
“I am tired of forgiving! You make and break promises as easily as you did years ago, and I shall never ask you for another,” answered Rose, putting the bouquet away, for the apology did not satisfy her and she would not be bribed to silence.
“But, my dear girl, you are so very exacting, so peculiar in your notions, and so angry about trifles that a poor fellow can't please you, try as he will,” began Charlie, ill at ease, but too proud to show half the penitence he felt, not so much for the fault as for her discovery of it.
“I am not angry I am grieved and disappointed, for I expect every man to do his duty in another way and keep his word to the uttermost, as I try to do. If that is exacting, I'm sorry, and won't trouble you with my old-fashioned notions anymore.”
“Bless my soul! What a rout about nothing! I own that I forgot I know I acted like a fool and I beg pardon. What more can I do?”
“Act like a man, and never let me be so terribly ashamed of you again as I was last night.” And Rose gave a little shiver as she thought of it.
That involuntary act hurt Charlie more than her words, and it was his turn now to feel “terribly ashamed,” for the events of the previous evening were very hazy in his mind and fear magnified them greatly. Turning sharply away, he went and stood by the fire, quite at a loss how to make his peace this time, because Rose was so unlike herself. Usually a word of excuse sufficed, and she seemed glad to pardon and forget; now, though very quiet, there was something almost stern about her that surprised and daunted him, for how could he know that all the while her pitiful heart was pleading for him and the very effort to control it made her a little hard and cold?
As he stood there, restlessly fingering the ornaments upon the chimneypiece, his eye brightened suddenly and, taking up the pretty bracelet lying there, he went slowly back to her, saying in a tone that was humble and serious enough now: “I will act like a man, and you shall never be ashamed again. Only be kind to me. Let me put this on, and promise afresh this time I swear I'll keep it. Won't you trust me, Rose?”
It was very hard to resist the pleading voice and eyes, for this humility was dangerous; and, but for Uncle Alec, Rose would have answered “yes.” The blue forget-me-nots reminded her of her own promise, and she kept it with difficulty now, to be glad always afterward. Putting back the offered trinket with a gentle touch, she said firmly, though she dared not look up into the anxious face bending toward her: “No, Charlie I can't wear it. My hands must be free if I'm to help you as I ought. I will be kind, I will trust you, but don't swear anything, only try to resist temptation, and we'll all stand by you.”
Charlie did not like that and lost the ground he had gained by saying impetuously: “I don't want anyone but you to stand by me, and I must be sure you won't desert me, else, while I'm mortifying soul and body to please you, some stranger will come and steal your heart away from me. I couldn't bear that, so I give you fair warning, in such a case I'll break the bargain, and go straight to the devil.”
The last sentence spoiled it all, for it was both masterful and defiant. Rose had the Campbell spirit in her, though it seldom showed; as yet she valued her liberty more than any love offered her, and she resented the authority he assumed too soon resented it all the more warmly because of the effort she was making to reinstate her hero, who would insist on being a very faulty and ungrateful man. She rose straight out of her chair, saying with a look and tone which rather startled her hearer and convinced him that she was no longer a tenderhearted child but a woman with a will of her own and a spirit as proud and fiery as any of her race: “My heart is my own, to dispose of as I please. Don't shut yourself out of it by presuming too much, for you have no claim on me but that of cousinship, and you never will have unless you earn it. Remember that, and neither threaten nor defy me anymore.”
For a minute it was doubtful whether Charlie would answer this flash with another, and a general explosion ensue, or wisely quench the flame with the mild answer which turneth away wrath. He chose the latter course and made it very effective by throwing himself down before his offended goddess, as he had often done in jest. This time it was not acting, but serious, earnest, and there was real passion in his voice as he caught Rose's dress in both hands, saying eagerly: “No, no! Don't shut your heart against me or I shall turn desperate. I'm not half good enough for such a saint as you, but you can do what you will with me. I only need a motive to make a man of me, and where can I find a stronger one than in trying to keep your love?”
“It is not yours yet,” began Rose, much moved, though all the while she felt as if she were on a stage and had a part to play, for Charlie had made life so like a melodrama that it was hard for him to be quite simple even when most sincere.
“Let me earn it, then. Show me how, and I'll do anything, for you are my good angel, Rose, and if you cast me off, I feel as if I shouldn't care how soon there was an end of me,” cried Charlie, getting tragic in his earnestness and putting both arms around her, as if his only safety lay in clinging to this beloved fellow creature.
Behind footlights it would have been irresistible, but somehow it did not touch the one spectator, though she had neither time nor skill to discover why. For all their ardor the words did not ring quite true. Despite the grace of the attitude, she would have liked him better manfully erect upon his feet, and though the gesture was full of tenderness, a subtle instinct made her shrink away as she said with a composure that surprised herself even more than it did him: “Please don't. No, I will promise nothing yet, for I must respect the man I love.”
That brought Charlie to his feet, pale with something deeper than anger, for the recoil told him more plainly than the words how much he had fallen in her regard since yesterday. The memory of the happy moment when she gave the rose with that new softness in her eyes, the shy color, the sweet “for my sake” came back with sudden vividness, contrasting sharply with the now averted face, the hand outstretched to put him back, the shrinking figure, and in that instant's silence, poor Charlie realized what he had lost, for a girl's first thought of love is as delicate a thing as the rosy morning glory, which a breath of air can shatter. Only a hint of evil, only an hour's debasement for him, a moment's glimpse for her of the coarser pleasures men know, and the innocent heart, just opening to bless and to be blessed, closed again like a sensitive plant and shut him out perhaps forever.
The consciousness of this turned him pale with fear, for his love was deeper than she knew, and he proved this when he said in a tone so full of mingled pain and patience that it touched her to the heart: “You shall respect me if I can make you, and when I've earned it, may I hope for something more?”
She looked up then, saw in his face the noble shame, the humble sort of courage that shows repentance to be genuine and gives promise of success, and, with a hopeful smile that was a cordial to him, answered heartily: “You may.”
“Bless you for that! I'll make no promises, I'll ask for none only trust me, Rose, and while you treat me like a cousin, remember that no matter how many lovers you may have you'll never be to any of them as dear as you are to me.”
A traitorous break in his voice warned Charlie to stop there, and with no other good-bye, he very wisely went away, leaving Rose to put the neglected flowers into water with remorseful care and lay away the bracelet, saying to herself: “I'll never wear it till I feel as I did before. Then he shall put it on and I'll say 'yes.'”
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
11
|
SMALL TEMPTATIONS
|
“Oh, Rose, I've got something so exciting to tell you!” cried Kitty Van Tassel, skipping into the carriage next morning when her friend called for her to go shopping.
Kitty always did have some “perfectly thrilling” communication to make and Rose had learned to take them quietly, but the next demonstration was a new one, for, regardless alike of curious observers outside and disordered hats within, Kitty caught Rose around the neck, exclaiming in a rapturous whisper: “My dearest creature, I'm engaged!”
“I'm so glad! Of course it is Steve?”
“Dear fellow, he did it last night in the nicest way, and Mama is so delighted. Now what shall I be married in?” And Kitty composed herself with a face full of the deepest anxiety.
“How can you talk of that so soon? Why, Kit, you unromantic girl, you ought to be thinking of your lover and not your clothes,” said Rose, amused yet rather scandalized at such want of sentiment.
“I am thinking of my lover, for he says he will not have a long engagement, so I must begin to think about the most important things at once, mustn't I?”
“Ah, he wants to be sure of you, for you are such a slippery creature he is afraid you'll treat him as you did poor Jackson and the rest,” interrupted Rose, shaking her finger at her prospective cousin, who had tried this pastime twice before and was rather proud than otherwise of her brief engagements.
“You needn't scold, for I know I'm right, and when you've been in society as long as I have you'll find that the only way to really know a man is to be engaged to him. While they want you they are all devotion, but when they think they've got you, then you find out what wretches they are,” answered Kitty with an air of worldly wisdom which contrasted oddly with her youthful face and giddy manners.
“A sad prospect for poor Steve, unless I give him a hint to look well to his ways.”
“Oh, my dear child, I'm sure of him, for my experience has made me very sharp and I'm convinced I can manage him without a bit of trouble. We've known each other for ages” Steve was twenty and Kitty eighteen “and always been the best of friends. Besides, he is quite my ideal man. I never could bear big hands and feet, and his are simply adorable. Then he's the best dancer I know and dresses in perfect taste. I really do believe I fell in love with his pocket handkerchiefs first, they were so enchanting I couldn't resist,” laughed Kitty, pulling a large one out of her pocket and burying her little nose in the folds, which shed a delicious fragrance upon the air.
“Now, that looks promising, and I begin to think you have got a little sentiment after all,” said Rose, well pleased, for the merry brown eyes had softened suddenly and a quick color came up in Kitty's cheek as she answered, still half hiding her face in the beloved handkerchief: “Of course I have, lots of it, only I'm ashamed to show it to most people, because it's the style to take everything in the most nonchalant way. My gracious, Rose, you'd have thought me a romantic goose last night while Steve proposed in the back parlor, for I actually cried, he was so dreadfully in earnest when I pretended that I didn't care for him, and so very dear and nice when I told the truth. I didn't know he had it in him, but he came out delightfully and never cared a particle, though I dropped tears all over his lovely shirtfront. Wasn't that good of him? For you know he hates his things to be mussed.”
“He's a true Campbell, and has got a good warm heart of his own under those fine fronts of his. Aunt Jane doesn't believe in sentiment, so he has been trained never to show any, but it is there, and you must encourage him to let it out, not foolishly, but in a way to make him more manly and serious.”
“I will if I can, for though I wouldn't own this to everybody, I like it in him very much and feel as if Steve and I should get on beautifully. Here we are now, be sure not to breathe a word if we meet anyone. I want it to be a profound secret for a week at least,” added Kitty, whisking her handkerchief out of sight as the carriage stopped before the fashionable store they were about to visit.
Rose promised with a smile, for Kitty's face betrayed her without words, so full was it of the happiness which few eyes fail to understand whenever they see it.
“Just a glance at the silks. You ask my opinion about white ones, and I'll look at the colors. Mama says satin, but that is out now, and I've set my heart on the heaviest corded thing I can find,” whispered Kitty as they went rustling by the long counters strewn with all that could delight the feminine eye and tempt the feminine pocket.
“Isn't that opal the loveliest thing you ever saw? I'm afraid I'm too dark to wear it, but it would just suit you. You'll need a variety, you know,” added Kitty in a significant aside as Rose stood among the white silks while her companion affected great interest in the delicate hues laid before her.
“But I have a variety now, and don't need a new dress of any sort.”
“No matter, get it, else it will be gone. You've worn all yours several times already and must have a new one whether you need it or not. Dear me! If I had as much pocket money as you have, I'd come out in a fresh toilet at every party I went to,” answered Kitty, casting an envious eye upon the rainbow piles before her.
The quick-witted shopman saw that a wedding was afoot, for when two pretty girls whisper, smile, and blush over their shopping, clerks scent bridal finery and a transient gleam of interest brightens their imperturbable countenances and lends a brief energy to languid voices weary with crying, “Cash!” Gathering both silks with a practiced turn of the hand, he held them up for inspection, detecting at a glance which was the bride-elect and which the friend, for Kitty fell back to study the effect of silvery white folds with an absorbing interest impossible to mistake while Rose sat looking at the opal as if she scarcely heard a bland voice saying, with the rustle of silk so dear to girlish ears: “A superb thing, just opened; all the rage in Paris; very rare shade; trying to most, as the lady says, but quite perfect for a blonde.”
Rose was not listening to those words but to others which Aunt Clara had lately uttered, laughed at then, but thought over more than once since.
“I'm tired of hearing people wonder why Miss Campbell does not dress more. Simplicity is all very well for schoolgirls and women who can't afford anything better, but you can, and you really ought. Your things are pretty enough in their way, and I rather like you to have a style of your own, but it looks odd and people will think you are mean if you don't make more show. Besides, you don't do justice to your beauty, which would be both peculiar and striking if you'd devote your mind to getting up ravishing costumes.”
Much more to the same effect did her aunt say, discussing the subject quite artistically and unconsciously appealing to several of Rose's ruling passions. One was a love for the delicate fabrics, colors, and ornaments which refined tastes enjoy and whose costliness keeps them from ever growing common; another, her strong desire to please the eyes of those she cared for and gratify their wishes in the smallest matter if she could. And last, but not least, the natural desire of a young and pretty woman to enhance the beauty which she so soon discovers to be her most potent charm for the other sex, her passport to a high place among her maiden peers.
She had thought seriously of surprising and delighting everyone by appearing in a costume which should do justice to the loveliness which was so modest that it was apt to forget itself in admiring others what girls call a “ravishing” dress, such as she could imagine and easily procure by the magic of the Fortunatus' purse in her pocket. She had planned it all, the shimmer of pale silk through lace like woven frostwork, ornaments of some classic pattern, and all the dainty accessories as perfect as time, taste, and money could make them.
She knew that Uncle Alec's healthful training had given her a figure that could venture on any fashion and Nature blessed her with a complexion that defied all hues. So it was little wonder that she felt a strong desire to use these gifts, not for the pleasure of display, but to seem fair in the eyes that seldom looked at her without a tender sort of admiration, all the more winning when no words marred the involuntary homage women love.
These thoughts were busy in Rose's mind as she sat looking at the lovely silk and wondering what Charlie would say if she should some night burst upon him in a pale rosy cloud, like the Aurora to whom he often likened her. She knew it would please him very much and she longed to do all she honestly could to gratify the poor fellow, for her tender heart already felt some remorseful pangs, remembering how severe she had been the night before. She could not revoke her words, because she meant them every one, but she might be kind and show that she did not wholly shut him out from her regard by asking him to go with her to Kitty's ball and gratify his artistic taste by a lovely costume. A very girlish but kindly plan, for that ball was to be the last of her frivolities, so she wanted it to be a pleasant one and felt that “being friends” with Charlie would add much to her enjoyment.
This idea made her fingers tighten on the gleaming fabric so temptingly upheld, and she was about to take it when, “If ye please, sir, would ye kindly tell me where I'd be finding the flannel place?” said a voice behind her, and, glancing up, she saw a meek little Irishwoman looking quite lost and out of place among the luxuries around her.
“Downstairs, turn to the left,” was the clerk's hasty reply, with a vague wave of the hand which left the inquirer more in the dark than ever.
Rose saw the woman's perplexity and said kindly, “I'll show you this way.”
“I'm ashamed to be throublin' ye, miss, but it's strange I am in it, and wouldn't be comin' here at all, at all, barrin' they tould me I'd get the bit I'm wantin' chaper in this big shop than the little ones more becomin' the like o' me,” explained the little woman humbly.
Rose looked again as she led the way through a well-dressed crowd of busy shoppers, and something in the anxious, tired face under the old woolen hood the bare, purple hands holding fast a meager wallet and a faded scrap of the dotted flannel little children's frocks are so often made of touched the generous heart that never could see want without an impulse to relieve it. She had meant only to point the way, but, following a new impulse, she went on, listening to the poor soul's motherly prattle about “me baby” and the “throuble” it was to “find clothes for the growin' childer when me man is out av work and the bit and sup inconvaynient these hard times” as they descended to that darksome lower world where necessities take refuge when luxuries crowd them out from the gayer place above.
The presence of a lady made Mrs. Sullivan's shopping very easy now, and her one poor “bit” of flannel grew miraculously into yards of several colors, since the shabby purse was no lighter when she went away, wiping her eyes on the corner of a big, brown bundle. A very little thing, and no one saw it but a wooden-faced clerk, who never told, yet it did Rose good and sent her up into the light again with a sober face, thinking self-reproachfully, “What right have I to more gay gowns when some poor babies have none, or to spend time making myself fine while there is so much bitter want in the world?”
Nevertheless the pretty things were just as tempting as ever, and she yearned for the opal silk with a renewed yearning when she got back. It is not certain that it would not have been bought in spite of her better self if a good angel in the likeness of a stout lady with silvery curls about the benevolent face, enshrined in a plain bonnet, had not accosted her as she joined Kitty, still brooding over the wedding gowns.
“I waited a moment for you, my dear, because I'm in haste, and very glad to save myself a journey or a note,” began the newcomer in a low tone as Rose shook hands with the most affectionate respect. “You know the great box factory was burned a day or two ago and over a hundred girls thrown out of work. Some were hurt and are in the hospital, many have no homes to go to, and nearly all need temporary help of some sort. We've had so many calls this winter I hardly know which way to turn, for want is pressing, and I've had my finger in so many purses I'm almost ashamed to ask again. Any little contribution ah, thank you, I was sure you wouldn't fail me, my good child,” and Mrs. Gardener warmly pressed the hand that went so quickly into the little porte-monnaie and came out so generously filled.
“Let me know how else I can help, and thank you very much for allowing me to have a share in your good works,” said Rose, forgetting all about gay gowns as she watched the black bonnet go briskly away with an approving smile on the fine old face inside it.
“You extravagant thing! How could you give so much?” whispered Kitty, whose curious eye had seen three figures on the single bill which had so rapidly changed hands.
“I believe if Mrs. Gardener asked me for my head I should give it to her,” answered Rose lightly, then, turning to the silks, she asked, “Which have you decided upon, the yellow white or the blue, the corded or the striped?”
“I've decided nothing; except that you are to have the pink and wear it at my ahem! ball,” said Kitty, who had made up her mind, but could not give her orders till Mama had been consulted.
“No, I can't afford it just yet. I never overstep my allowance, and I shall have to if I get any more finery. Come, we ought not to waste time here if you have all the patterns you want.” And Rose walked quickly away, glad that it was out of her power to break through two resolutions which hitherto had been faithfully kept one to dress simply for example's sake, the other not to be extravagant for charity's sake.
As Rosamond had her day of misfortunes, so this seemed to be one of small temptations to Rose. After she had set Kitty down at home and been to see her new houses, she drove about doing various errands for the aunts and, while waiting in the carriage for the execution of an order, young Pemberton came by.
As Steve said, this gentleman had been “hard hit” and still hovered mothlike about the forbidden light. Being the most eligible parti of the season, his regard was considered a distinction to be proud of, and Rose had been well scolded by Aunt Clara for refusing so honorable a mate. The girl liked him, and he was the suitor of whom she had spoken so respectfully to Dr. Alec because he had no need of the heiress and had sincerely loved Rose. He had been away, and she hoped had gotten over his disappointment as happily as the rest, but now when he saw her, and came hurrying up so hungry for a word, she felt that he had not forgotten and was too kind to chill him with the bow which plainly says “Don't stop.”
A personable youth was Pemberton, and had brought with him from the wilds of Canada a sable-lined overcoat which was the envy of every masculine and the admiration of every feminine friend he had, and as he stood at her carriage window Rose knew that this luxurious garment and its stalwart wearer were objects of interest to the passersby. It chanced that the tide of shoppers flowed in that direction and, as she chatted, familiar faces often passed with glances, smiles, and nods of varying curiosity, significance, and wonder.
She could not help feeling a certain satisfaction in giving him a moment's pleasure, since she could do no more, but it was not that amiable desire alone which made her ignore the neat white parcels which the druggist's boy deposited on the front seat and kept her lingering a little longer to enjoy one of the small triumphs which girls often risk more than a cold in the head to display. The sight of several snowflakes on the broad shoulders which partially obstructed her view, as well as the rapidly increasing animation of Pemberton's chat, reminded her that it was high time to go.
“I mustn't keep you it is beginning to storm,” she said, taking up her muff, much to old Jacob's satisfaction, for small talk is not exciting to a hungry man whose nose feels like an icicle.
“Is it? I thought the sun was shining.” And the absorbed gentleman turned to the outer world with visible reluctance, for it looked very warm and cozy in the red-lined carriage.
“Wise people say we must carry our sunshine with us,” answered Rose, taking refuge in commonplaces, for the face at the window grew pensive suddenly as he answered, with a longing look, “I wish I could.” Then, smiling gratefully, he added, “Thank you for giving me a little of yours.”
“You are very welcome.” And Rose offered him her hand while her eyes mutely asked pardon for withholding her leave to keep it.
He pressed it silently and, shouldering the umbrella which he forgot to open, turned away with an “up again and take another” expression, which caused the soft eyes to follow him admiringly.
“I ought not to have kept him a minute longer than I could help, for it wasn't all pity; it was my foolish wish to show off and do as I liked for a minute, to pay for being good about the gown. Oh, me! How weak and silly I am in spite of all my trying!” And Miss Campbell fell into a remorseful reverie, which lasted till she got home.
“Now, young man, what brought you out in this driving storm?” asked Rose as Jamie came stamping in that same afternoon.
“Mama sent you a new book thought you'd like it. I don't mind your old storms!” replied the boy, wrestling his way out of his coat and presenting a face as round and red and shiny as a well-polished Baldwin apple.
“Much obliged it is just the day to enjoy it and I was longing for something nice to read,” said Rose as Jamie sat down upon the lower stair for a protracted struggle with his rubber boots.
“Here you are, then no yes I do believe I've forgotten it, after all!” cried Jamie, slapping his pockets one after the other with a dismayed expression of countenance.
“Never mind, I'll hunt up something else. Let me help you with those your hands are so cold.” And Rose good-naturedly gave a tug at the boots while Jamie clutched the banisters, murmuring somewhat incoherently as his legs flew up and down: “I'll go back if you want me to. I'm so sorry! It's very good of you, I'm sure. Getting these horrid things on made me forget. Mother would make me wear 'em, though I told her they'd stick like like gumdrops,” he added, inspired by recollections of certain dire disappointments when the above-mentioned sweetmeat melted in his pockets and refused to come out.
“Now what shall we do?” asked Rose when he was finally extricated. “Since I've nothing to read, I may as well play.”
“I'll teach you to pitch and toss. You catch very well for a girl, but you can't throw worth a cent,” replied Jamie, gamboling down the hall in his slippers and producing a ball from some of the mysterious receptacles in which boys have the art of storing rubbish enough to fill a peck measure.
Of course Rose agreed and cheerfully risked getting her eyes blackened and her fingers bruised till her young receptor gratefully observed that “it was no fun playing where you had to look out for windows and jars and things, so I'd like that jolly book about Captain Nemo and the Nautilus, please.”
Being gratified, he spread himself upon the couch, crossed his legs in the air, and without another word dived Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, where he remained for two mortal hours, to the general satisfaction of his relatives.
Bereft both of her unexpected playfellow and the much desired book, Rose went into the parlor, there to discover a French novel which Kitty had taken from a library and left in the carriage among the bundles. Settling herself in her favorite lounging chair, she read as diligently as Jamie while the wind howled and snow fell fast without.
For an hour nothing disturbed the cozy quiet of the house for Aunt Plenty was napping upstairs and Dr. Alec writing in his own sanctum; at least Rose thought so, till his step made her hastily drop the book and look up with very much the expression she used to wear when caught in mischief years ago.
“Did I startle you? Have a screen you are burning your face before this hot fire.” And Dr. Alec pulled one forward.
“Thank you, Uncle. I didn't feel it.” And the color seemed to deepen in spite of the screen while the uneasy eyes fell upon the book in her lap.
“Have you got the Quarterly there? I want to glance at an article in it if you can spare it for a moment,” he said, leaning toward her with an inquiring glance.
“No, sir, I am reading.” And, without mentioning the name, Rose put the book into his hand.
The instant his eye fell on the title he understood the look she wore and knew what “mischief” she had been in. He knit his brows, then smiled, because it was impossible to help it Rose looked so conscience-stricken in spite of her twenty years.
“How do you find it? Interesting?”
“Oh, very! I felt as if I was in another world and forgot all about this.”
“Not a very good world, I fancy, if you were afraid or ashamed to be found in it. Where did this come from?” asked Dr. Alec, surveying the book with great disfavor. Rose told him, and added slowly, “I particularly wanted to read it, and fancied I might, because you did when it was so much talked about the winter we were in Rome.”
“I did read it to see if it was fit for you.”
“And decided that it was not, I suppose, since you never gave it to me!”
“Yes.”
“Then I won't finish it. But, Uncle, I don't see why I should not,” added Rose wistfully, for she had reached the heart of the romance and found it wonderfully fascinating.
“You may not see, but don't you feel why not?” asked Dr. Alec gravely.
Rose leaned her flushed cheek on her hand and thought a minute, then looked up and answered honestly, “Yes, I do, but can't explain it, except that I know something must be wrong, because I blushed and started when you came in.”
“Exactly.” And the doctor gave an emphatic nod, as if the symptoms pleased him.
“But I really don't see any harm in the book so far. It is by a famous author, wonderfully well written, as you know, and the characters so lifelike that I feel as if I should really meet them somewhere.”
“I hope not!” ejaculated the doctor, shutting the book quickly, as if to keep the objectionable beings from escaping.
Rose laughed, but persisted in her defense, for she did want to finish the absorbing story, yet would not without leave.
“I have read French novels before, and you gave them to me. Not many, to be sure, but the best, so I think I know what is good and shouldn't like this if it was harmful.”
Her uncle's answer was to reopen the volume and turn the leaves an instant as if to find a particular place. Then he put it into her hand, saying quietly: “Read a page or two aloud, translating as you go. You used to like that try it again.”
Rose obeyed and went glibly down a page, doing her best to give the sense in her purest English. Presently she went more slowly, then skipped a sentence here and there, and finally stopped short, looking as if she needed a screen again.
“What's the matter?” asked her uncle, who had been watching her with a serious eye.
“Some phrases are untranslatable, and it only spoils them to try. They are not amiss in French, but sound coarse and bad in our blunt English,” she said a little pettishly, for she felt annoyed by her failure to prove the contested point.
“Ah, my dear, if the fine phrases won't bear putting into honest English, the thoughts they express won't bear putting into your innocent mind! That chapter is the key to the whole book, and if you had been led up, or rather down, to it artfully and artistically, you might have read it to yourself without seeing how bad it is. All the worse for the undeniable talent which hides the evil so subtly and makes the danger so delightful.”
He paused a moment, then added with an anxious glance at the book, over which she was still bending, “Finish it if you choose only remember, my girl, that one may read at forty what is unsafe at twenty, and that we never can be too careful what food we give that precious yet perilous thing called imagination.”
And taking his Review, he went away to look over a learned article which interested him much less than the workings of a young mind nearby.
Another long silence, broken only by an occasional excited bounce from Jamie when the sociable cuttlefish looked in at the windows or the Nautilus scuttled a ship or two in its terrific course. A bell rang, and the doctor popped his head out to see if he was wanted. It was only a message for Aunt Plenty, and he was about to pop in again when his eye was caught by a square parcel on the slab.
“What's this?” he asked, taking it up.
“Rose wants me to leave it at Kitty Van's when I go. I forgot to bring her book from Mama, so I shall go and get it as soon as ever I've done this,” replied Jamie from his nest.
As the volume in his hands was a corpulent one, and Jamie only a third of the way through, Dr. Alec thought Rose's prospect rather doubtful and, slipping the parcel into his pocket, he walked away, saying with a satisfied air: “Virtue doesn't always get rewarded, but it shall be this time if I can do it.”
More than half an hour afterward, Rose woke from a little nap and found the various old favorites with which she had tried to solace herself replaced by the simple, wholesome story promised by Aunt Jessie.
“Good boy! I'll go and thank him,” she said half aloud, jumping up, wide awake and much pleased.
But she did not go, for just then she spied her uncle standing on the rug warming his hands with a generally fresh and breezy look about him which suggested a recent struggle with the elements.
“How did this come?” she asked suspiciously.
“A man brought it.”
“This man? Oh, Uncle! Why did you take so much trouble just to gratify a wish of mine?” she cried, taking both the cold hands in hers with a tenderly reproachful glance from the storm without to the ruddy face above her.
“Because, having taken away your French bonbons with the poisonous color on them, I wanted to get you something better. Here it is, all pure sugar, the sort that sweetens the heart as well as the tongue and leaves no bad taste behind.”
“How good you are to me! I don't deserve it, for I didn't resist temptation, though I tried. Uncle, after I'd put the book away, I thought I must just see how it ended, and I'm afraid I should have read it all if it had not been gone,” said Rose, laying her face down on the hands she held as humbly as a repentant child.
But Uncle Alec lifted up the bent head and, looking into the eyes that met his frankly, though either held a tear, he said, with the energy that always made his words remembered: “My little girl, I would face a dozen storms far worse than this to keep your soul as stainless as snow, for it is the small temptations which undermine integrity unless we watch and pray and never think them too trivial to be resisted.”
Some people would consider Dr. Alec an overcareful man, but Rose felt that he was right, and when she said her prayers that night, added a meek petition to be kept from yielding to three of the small temptations which beset a rich, pretty, and romantic girl extravagance, coquetry, and novel reading.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
12
|
AT KITTY'S BALL
|
Rose had no new gown to wear on this festive occasion, and gave one little sigh of regret as she put on the pale blue silk refreshed with clouds of gaze de Chambéry. But a smile followed, very bright and sweet, as she added the clusters of forget-me-not which Charlie had conjured up through the agency of an old German florist, for one part of her plan had been carried out, and Prince was invited to be her escort, much to his delight, though he wisely made no protestations of any sort and showed his gratitude by being a model gentleman. This pleased Rose, for the late humiliation and a very sincere desire to atone for it gave him an air of pensive dignity which was very effective.
Aunt Clara could not go, for a certain new cosmetic, privately used to improve the once fine complexion, which had been her pride till late hours impaired it, had brought out an unsightly eruption, reducing her to the depths of woe and leaving her no solace for her disappointment but the sight of the elegant velvet dress spread forth upon her bed in melancholy state.
So Aunt Jessie was chaperon, to Rose's great satisfaction, and looked as “pretty as a pink,” Archie thought, in her matronly pearl-colored gown with a dainty trifle of rich lace on her still abundant hair. He was very proud of his little mama, and as devoted as a lover, “to keep his hand in against Phebe's return,” she said laughingly when he brought her a nosegay of blush roses to light up her quiet costume.
A happier mother did not live than Mrs. Jessie as she sat contentedly beside Sister Jane (who graced the frivolous scene in a serious black gown with a diadem of purple asters nodding above her severe brow), both watching their boys with the maternal conviction that no other parent could show such remarkable specimens as these. Each had done her best according to her light, and years of faithful care were now beginning to bear fruit in the promise of goodly men, so dear to the hearts of true mothers.
Mrs. Jessie watched her three tall sons with something like wonder, for Archie was a fine fellow, grave and rather stately, but full of the cordial courtesy and respect we see so little of nowadays and which is the sure sign of good home training. “The cadets,” as Will and Geordie called themselves, were there as gorgeous as you please, and the agonies they suffered that night with tight boots and stiff collars no pen can fitly tell. But only to one another did they confide these sufferings and the rare moments of repose when they could stand on one aching foot with heads comfortably sunken inside the excruciating collars, which rasped their ears and made the lobes thereof a pleasing scarlet. Brief were these moments, however, and the Spartan boys danced on with smiling faces, undaunted by the hidden anguish which preyed upon them “fore and aft,” as Will expressed it.
Mrs. Jane's pair were an odd contrast, and even the stern disciplinarian herself could not help smiling as she watched them. Steve was superb, and might have been married on the spot, so superfine was his broad-cloth, glossy his linen, and perfect the fit of his gloves. While pride and happiness so fermented in his youthful bosom, there would have been danger of spontaneous combustion if dancing had not proved a safety valve, for his strong sense of the proprieties would not permit him to vent his emotions in any other way.
Kitty felt no such restraint, and looked like a blissful little gypsy, with her brunet prettiness set off by a dashing costume of cardinal and cream color and every hair on her head curled in a Merry Pecksniffian crop, for youth was her strong point, and she much enjoyed the fact that she had been engaged three times before she was nineteen.
To see her and Steve spin around the room was a sight to bring a smile to the lips of the crustiest bachelor or saddest spinster, for happy lovers are always a pleasing spectacle, and two such merry little grigs as these are seldom seen.
Mac, meantime, with glasses astride his nose, surveyed his brother's performances “on the light fantastic” very much as a benevolent Newfoundland would the gambols of a toy terrier, receiving with thanks the hasty hints for his guidance which Steve breathed into his ear as he passed and forgetting all about them the next minute. When not thus engaged Mac stood about with his thumbs in his vest pockets, regarding the lively crowd like a meditative philosopher of a cheerful aspect, often smiling to himself at some whimsical fancy of his own, knitting his brows as some bit of ill-natured gossip met his ear, or staring with undisguised admiration as a beautiful face or figure caught his eye.
“I hope that girl knows what a treasure she has got. But I doubt if she ever fully appreciates it,” said Mrs. Jane, bringing her spectacles to bear upon Kitty as she whisked by, causing quite a gale with her flying skirts.
“I think she will, for Steve has been so well brought up, she cannot but see and feel the worth of what she has never had, and being so young she will profit by it,” answered Mrs. Jessie softly, thinking of the days when she and her Jem danced together, just betrothed.
“I've done my duty by both the boys, and done it thoroughly, or their father would have spoilt them, for he's no more idea of discipline than a child.” And Aunt Jane gave her own palm a smart rap with her closed fan, emphasizing the word “thoroughly” in a most suggestive manner.
“I've often wished I had your firmness, Jane but after all, I'm not sure that I don't like my own way best, at least with my boys, for plenty of love, and plenty of patience, seem to have succeeded pretty well.” And Aunt Jessie lifted the nosegay from her lap, feeling as if that unfailing love and patience were already blooming into her life as beautifully as the sweet-breathed roses given by her boy refreshed and brightened these long hours of patient waiting in a corner.
“I don't deny that you've done well, Jessie, but you've been let alone and had no one to hold your hand or interfere. If my Mac had gone to sea as your Jem did, I never should have been as severe as I am. Men are so perverse and shortsighted, they don't trouble about the future as long as things are quiet and comfortable in the present,” continued Mrs. Jane, quite forgetting that the shortsighted partner of the firm, physically speaking at least, was herself.
“Ah, yes! We mothers love to foresee and foretell our children's lives even before they are born, and are very apt to be disappointed if they do not turn out as we planned. I know I am yet I really have no cause to complain and am learning to see that all we can do is to give the dear boys good principles and the best training we may, then leave them to finish what we have begun.” And Mrs. Jessie's eye wandered away to Archie, dancing with Rose, quite unconscious what a pretty little castle in the air tumbled down when he fell in love with Phebe.
“Right, quite right on that point we agree exactly. I have spared nothing to give my boys good principles and good habits, and I am willing to trust them anywhere. Nine times did I whip my Steve to cure him of fibbing, and over and over again did Mac go without his dinner rather than wash his hands. But I whipped and starved them both into obedience, and now I have my reward,” concluded the “stern parent” with a proud wave of the fan, which looked very like a ferule, being as big, hard, and uncompromising as such an article could be.
Mrs. Jessie gave a mild murmur of assent, but could not help thinking, with a smile, that in spite of their early tribulations the sins for which the boys suffered had gotten a little mixed in their result, for fibbing Steve was now the tidy one, and careless Mac the truth teller. But such small contradictions will happen in the best-regulated families, and all perplexed parents can do is to keep up a steadfast preaching and practicing in the hope that it will bear fruit sometime, for according to an old proverb, Children pick up words as pigeons pease, To utter them again as God shall please.
“I hope they won't dance the child to death among them, for each one seems bound to have his turn, even your sober Mac,” said Mrs. Jessie a few minutes later as she saw Archie hand Rose over to his cousin, who carried her off with an air of triumph from several other claimants.
“She's very good to him, and her influence is excellent, for he is of an age now when a young woman's opinion has more weight than an old one's. Though he is always good to his mother, and I feel as if I should take great comfort in him. He's one of the sort who will not marry till late, if ever, being fond of books and a quiet life,” responded Mrs. Jane, remembering how often her son had expressed his belief that philosophers should not marry and brought up Plato as an example of the serene wisdom to be attained only by a single man while her husband sided with Socrates, for whom he felt a profound sympathy, though he didn't dare to own it.
“Well, I don't know about that. Since my Archie surprised me by losing his heart as he did, I'm prepared for anything, and advise you to do likewise. I really shouldn't wonder if Mac did something remarkable in that line, though he shows no sign of it yet, I confess,” answered Mrs. Jessie, laughing.
“It won't be in that direction, you may be sure, for her fate is sealed. Dear me, how sad it is to see a superior girl like that about to throw herself away on a handsome scapegrace. I won't mention names, but you understand me.” And Mrs. Jane shook her head, as if she could mention the name of one superior girl who had thrown herself away and now saw the folly of it.
“I'm very anxious, of course, and so is Alec, but it may be the saving of one party and the happiness of the other, for some women love to give more than they receive,” said Mrs. Jessie, privately wondering, for the thousandth time, why brother Mac ever married the learned Miss Humphries.
“You'll see that it won't prosper, and I shall always maintain that a wife cannot entirely undo a mother's work. Rose will have her hands full if she tries to set all Clara's mistakes right,” answered Aunt Jane grimly, then began to fan violently as their hostess approached to have a dish of chat about “our dear young people.”
Rose was in a merry mood that night, and found Mac quite ready for fun, which was fortunate, since her first remark set them off on a droll subject.
“Oh, Mac! Annabel has just confided to me that she is engaged to Fun See! Think of her going to housekeeping in Canton someday and having to order rats, puppies, and bird's-nest soup for dinner,” whispered Rose, too much amused to keep the news to herself.
“By Confucius! Isn't that a sweet prospect?” And Mac burst out laughing, to the great surprise of his neighbors, who wondered what there was amusing about the Chinese sage. “It is rather alarming, though, to have these infants going on at this rate. Seems to be catching, a new sort of scarlet fever, to judge by Annabel's cheeks and Kitty's gown,” he added, regarding the aforesaid ladies with eyes still twinkling with merriment.
“Don't be ungallant, but go and do likewise, for it is all the fashion. I heard Mrs. Van tell old Mrs. Joy that it was going to be a marrying year, so you'll be sure to catch it,” answered Rose, reefing her skirts, for, with all his training, Mac still found it difficult to keep his long legs out of the man-traps.
“It doesn't look like a painful disease, but I must be careful, for I've no time to be ill now. What are the symptoms?” asked Mac, trying to combine business with pleasure and improve his mind while doing his duty.
“If you ever come back I'll tell you,” laughed Rose as he danced away into the wrong corner, bumped smartly against another gentleman, and returned as soberly as if that was the proper figure.
“Well, tell me 'how not to do it,'” he said, subsiding for a moment's talk when Rose had floated to and fro in her turn.
“Oh! You see some young girl who strikes you as particularly charming whether she really is or not doesn't matter a bit and you begin to think about her a great deal, to want to see her, and to get generally sentimental and absurd,” began Rose, finding it difficult to give a diagnosis of the most mysterious disease under the sun.
“Don't think it sounds enticing. Can't I find an antidote somewhere, for if it is in the air this year I'm sure to get it, and it may be fatal,” said Mac, who felt pretty lively and liked to make Rose merry, for he suspected that she had a little trouble from a hint Dr. Alec had given him.
“I hope you will catch it, because you'll be so funny.”
“Will you take care of me as you did before, or have you got your hands full?”
“I'll help, but really with Archie and Steve and Charlie, I shall have enough to do. You'd better take it lightly the first time, and so won't need much care.”
“Very well, how shall I begin? Enlighten my ignorance and start me right, I beg.”
“Go about and see people, make yourself agreeable, and not sit in corners observing other people as if they were puppets dancing for your amusement. I heard Mrs. Van once say that propinquity works wonders, and she ought to know, having married off two daughters, and just engaged a third to 'a most charming young man.' ?
“Good lack! The cure sounds worse than the disease. Propinquity, hey? Why, I may be in danger this identical moment and can't flee for my life,” said Mac, gently catching her round the waist for a general waltz.
“Don't be alarmed, but mind your steps, for Charlie is looking at us, and I want you to do your best. That's perfect take me quite round, for I love to waltz and seldom get a good turn except with you boys,” said Rose, smiling up at him approvingly as his strong arm guided her among the revolving couples and his feet kept time without a fault.
“This certainly is a great improvement on the chair business, to which I have devoted myself with such energy that I've broken the backs of two partners and dislocated the arm of the old rocker. I took an occasional turn with that heavy party, thinking it good practice in case I ever happen to dance with stout ladies.” And Mac nodded toward Annabel, pounding gaily with Mr. Tokio, whose yellow countenance beamed as his beady eyes rested on his plump fiancée.
Pausing in the midst of her merriment at the image of Mac and the old rocking chair, Rose said reprovingly, “Though a heathen Chinee, Fun puts you to shame, for he did not ask foolish questions but went a-wooing like a sensible little man, and I've no doubt Annabel will be very happy.”
“Choose me a suitable divinity and I will try to adore. Can I do more than that to retrieve my character?” answered Mac, safely landing his partner and plying the fan according to instructions.
“How would Emma do?” inquired Rose, whose sense of the ludicrous was strong and who could not resist the temptation of horrifying Mac by the suggestion.
“Never! It sets my teeth on edge to look at her tonight. I suppose that dress is 'a sweet thing just out,' but upon my word she reminds me of nothing but a Harlequin ice,” and Mac turned his back on her with a shudder, for he was sensitive to discords of all kinds.
“She certainly does, and that mixture of chocolate, pea green, and pink is simply detestable, though many people would consider it decidedly 'chic,' to use her favorite word. I suppose you will dress your wife like a Spartan matron of the time of Lycurgus,” added Rose, much tickled by his new conceit.
“I'll wait till I get her before I decide. But one thing I'm sure of she shall not dress like a Greek dancer of the time of Pericles,” answered Mac, regarding with great disfavor a young lady who, having a statuesque figure, affected drapery of the scanty and clinging description.
“Then it is of no use to suggest that classic creature, so as you reject my first attempts, I won't go on but look about me quietly, and you had better do the same. Seriously, Mac, more gaiety and less study would do you good, for you will grow old before your time if you shut yourself up and pore over books so much.”
“I don't believe there is a younger or a jollier-feeling fellow in the room than I am, though I may not conduct myself like a dancing dervish. But I own you may be right about the books, for there are many sorts of intemperance, and a library is as irresistible to me as a barroom to a toper. I shall have to sign a pledge and cork up the only bottle that tempts me my ink-stand.”
“I'll tell you how to make it easier to abstain. Stop studying and write a novel into which you can put all your wise things, and so clear your brains for a new start by and by. Do I should so like to read it,” cried Rose, delighted with the project, for she was sure Mac could do anything he liked in that line.
“First live, then write. How can I go to romancing till I know what romance means?” he asked soberly, feeling that so far he had had very little in his life.
“Then you must find out, and nothing will help you more than to love someone very much. Do as I've advised and be a modern Diogenes going about with spectacles instead of a lantern in search, not of an honest man, but a perfect woman. I do hope you will be successful.” And Rose made her curtsey as the dance ended.
“I don't expect perfection, but I should like one as good as they ever make them nowadays. If you are looking for the honest man, I wish you success in return,” said Mac, relinquishing her fan with a glance of such sympathetic significance that a quick flush of feeling rose to the girl's face as she answered very low, “If honesty was all I wanted, I certainly have found it in you.”
Then she went away with Charlie, who was waiting for his turn, and Mac roamed about, wondering if anywhere in all that crowd his future wife was hidden, saying to himself, as he glanced from face to face, quite unresponsive to the various allurements displayed, “What care I how fair she be, If she be not fair for me?”
Just before supper several young ladies met in the dressing room to repair damages and, being friends, they fell into discourse as they smoothed their locks and had their tattered furbelows sewed or pinned up by the neat-handed Phillis-in-waiting.
When each had asked the other, “How do I look tonight, dear?” and been answered with reciprocal enthusiasm, “Perfectly lovely, darling!” Kitty said to Rose, who was helping her to restore order out of the chaos to which much exercise had reduced her curls: “By the way, young Randal is dying to be presented to you. May I after supper?”
“No, thank you,” answered Rose very decidedly.
“Well, I'm sure I don't see why not,” began Kitty, looking displeased but not surprised.
“I think you do, else why didn't you present him when he asked? You seldom stop to think of etiquette why did you now?”
“I didn't like to do it till I had you are so particular I thought you'd say 'no,' but I couldn't tell him so,” stammered Kitty, feeling that she had better have settled the matter herself, for Rose was very particular and had especial reason to dislike this person because he was not only a dissipated young reprobate himself but seemed possessed of Satan to lead others astray likewise.
“I don't wish to be rude, dear, but I really must decline, for I cannot know such people, even though I meet them here,” said Rose, remembering Charlie's revelations on New Year's night and hardening her heart against the man who had been his undoing on that as well as on other occasions, she had reason to believe.
“I couldn't help it! Old Mr. Randal and Papa are friends, and though I spoke of it, brother Alf wouldn't hear of passing that bad boy over,” explained Kitty eagerly.
“Yet Alf forbade you driving or skating with him, for he knows better than we how unfit he is to come among us.”
“I'd drop him tomorrow if I could, but I must be civil in my own house. His mother brought him, and he won't dare to behave here as he does at their bachelor parties.”
“She ought not to have brought him till he had shown some desire to mend his ways. It is none of my business, I know, but I do wish people wouldn't be so inconsistent, letting boys go to destruction and then expecting us girls to receive them like decent people.” Rose spoke in an energetic whisper, but Annabel heard her and exclaimed, as she turned round with a powder puff in her hand: “My goodness, Rose! What is all that about going to destruction?”
“She is being strong-minded, and I don't very much blame her in this case. But it leaves me in a dreadful scrape,” said Kitty, supporting her spirits with a sniff of aromatic vinegar.
“I appeal to you, since you heard me, and there's no one here but ourselves do you consider young Randal a nice person to know?” And Rose turned to Annabel and Emma with an anxious eye, for she did not find it easy to abide by her principles when so doing annoyed friends.
“No, indeed, he's perfectly horrid! Papa says he and Gorham are the wildest young men he knows, and enough to spoil the whole set. I'm so glad I've got no brothers,” responded Annabel, placidly powdering her pink arms, quite undeterred by the memory of sundry white streaks left on sundry coat sleeves.
“I think that sort of scrupulousness is very ill-bred, if you'll excuse my saying so, Rose. We are not supposed to know anything about fastness, and wildness, and so on, but to treat every man alike and not be fussy and prudish,” said Emma, settling her many-colored streamers with the superior air of a woman of the world, aged twenty.
“Ah! But we do know, and if our silence and civility have no effect, we ought to try something else and not encourage wickedness of any kind. We needn't scold and preach, but we can refuse to know such people and that will do some good, for they don't like to be shunned and shut out from respectable society. Uncle Alec told me not to know that man, and I won't.” Rose spoke with unusual warmth, forgetting that she could not tell the real reason for her strong prejudice against “that man.”
“Well, I know him. I think him very jolly, and I'm engaged to dance the German with him after supper. He leads quite as well as your cousin Charlie and is quite as fascinating, some people think,” returned Emma, tossing her head disdainfully, for Prince Charming did not worship at her shrine and it piqued her vanity.
In spite of her quandary, Rose could not help smiling as she recalled Mac's comparison, for Emma turned so red with spiteful chagrin, she seemed to have added strawberry ice to the other varieties composing the Harlequin.
“Each must judge for herself. I shall follow Aunt Jessie's advice and try to keep my atmosphere as pure as I can, for she says every woman has her own little circle and in it can use her influence for good, if she will. I do will heartily, and I'll prove that I'm neither proud nor fussy by receiving, here or at home, any respectable man you like to present to me, no matter how poor or plain or insignificant he may be.”
With which declaration Rose ended her protest, and the four damsels streamed downstairs together like a wandering rainbow. But Kitty laid to heart what she had said; Annabel took credit herself for siding with her; and Emma owned that she was not trying to keep her atmosphere pure when she came to dance with the objectionable Randal. So Rose's “little circle” was the better for the influence she tried to exert, although she never knew it.
At suppertime Charlie kept near her, and she was quite content with him, for he drank only coffee, and she saw him shake his head with a frown when young Van beckoned him toward an anteroom, from whence the sound of popping corks had issued with increasing frequency as the evening wore on.
“Dear fellow, he does try,” thought Rose, longing to show how she admired his self-denial, but she could only say, as they left the supper room with the aunts, who were going early: “If I had not promised Uncle to get home as soon after midnight as possible, I'd stay and dance the German with you, for you deserve a reward tonight.”
“A thousand thanks, but I am going when you do,” answered Charlie, understanding both her look and words and very grateful for them.
“Really?” cried Rose, delighted.
“Really. I'll be in the hall when you come down.” And Charlie thought the Fra Angelico angel was not half so bright and beautiful as the one who looked back at him out of a pale blue cloud as Rose went upstairs as if on wings.
When she came down again Charlie was not in the hall, however, and, after waiting a few minutes, Mac offered to go and find him, for Aunt Jane was still hunting a lost rubber above.
“Please say I'm ready, but he needn't come if he doesn't want to,” said Rose, not wishing to demand too much of her promising penitent.
“If he has gone into that barroom, I'll have him out, no matter who is there!” growled Mac to himself as he made his way to the small apartment whither the gentlemen retired for a little private refreshment when the spirit moved, as it often did.
The door was ajar, and Charlie seemed to have just entered, for Mac heard a familiar voice call out in a jovial tone: “Come, Prince! You're just in time to help us drink Steve's health with all the honors.”
“Can't stop, only ran in to say good night, Van. Had a capital time, but I'm on duty and must go.”
“That's a new dodge. Take a stirrup cup anyway, and come back in time for a merry-go-rounder when you've disposed of the ladies,” answered the young host, diving into the wine cooler for another bottle.
“Charlie's going in for sanctity, and it doesn't seem to agree with him,” laughed one of the two other young men who occupied several chairs apiece, resting their soles in every sense of the word.
“Apron strings are coming into fashion the bluer the better hey, Prince?” added the other, trying to be witty, with the usual success.
“You'd better go home early yourself, Barrow, or that tongue of yours will get you into trouble,” retorted Charlie, conscious that he ought to take his own advice, yet lingering, nervously putting on his gloves while the glasses were being filled.
“Now, brother-in-law, fire away! Here you are, Prince.” And Steve handed a glass across the table to his cousin, feeling too much elated with various pleasurable emotions to think what he was doing, for the boys all knew Charlie's weakness and usually tried to defend him from it.
Before the glass could be taken, however, Mac entered in a great hurry, delivering his message in an abbreviated and rather peremptory form: “Rose is waiting for you. Hurry up!”
“All right. Good night, old fellows!” And Charlie was off, as if the name had power to stop him in the very act of breaking the promise made to himself.
“Come, Solon, take a social drop, and give us an epithalamium in your best Greek. Here's to you!” And Steve was lifting the wine to his own lips when Mac knocked the glass out of his hand with a flash of the eye that caused his brother to stare at him with his mouth open in an imbecile sort of way, which seemed to excite Mac still more, for, turning to his young host, he said, in a low voice, and with a look that made the gentlemen on the chairs sit up suddenly: “I beg pardon, Van, for making a mess, but I can't stand by and see my own brother tempt another man beyond his strength or make a brute of himself. That's plain English, but I can't help speaking out, for I know not one of you would willingly hurt Charlie, and you will if you don't let him alone.”
“What do you pitch into me for? I've done nothing. A fellow must be civil in his own house, mustn't he?” asked Van good-humoredly as he faced about, corkscrew in hand.
“Yes, but it is not civil to urge or joke a guest into doing what you know and he knows is bad for him. That's only a glass of wine to you, but it is perdition to Charlie, and if Steve knew what he was about, he'd cut his right hand off before he'd offer it.”
“Do you mean to say I'm tipsy?” demanded Steve, ruffling up like a little gamecock, for though he saw now what he had done and was ashamed of it, he hated to have Mac air his peculiar notions before other people.
“With excitement, not champagne, I hope, for I wouldn't own you if you were,” answered Mac, in whom indignation was effervescing like the wine in the forgotten bottle, for the men were all young, friends of Steve's and admirers of Charlie's. “Look here, boys,” he went on more quietly, “I know I ought not to explode in this violent sort of way, but upon my life I couldn't help it when I heard what you were saying and saw what Steve was doing. Since I have begun, I may as well finish and tell you straight out that Prince can't stand this sort of thing. He is trying to flee temptation, and whoever leads him into it does a cowardly and sinful act, for the loss of one's own self-respect is bad enough, without losing the more precious things that make life worth having. Don't tell him I've said this, but lend a hand if you can, and never have to reproach yourselves with the knowledge that you helped to ruin a fellow creature, soul and body.”
It was well for the success of Mac's first crusade that his hearers were gentlemen and sober, so his outburst was not received with jeers or laughter but listened to in silence, while the expression of the faces changed from one of surprise to regret and respect, for earnestness is always effective and championship of this sort seldom fails to touch hearts as yet unspoiled. As he paused with an eloquent little quiver in his eager voice, Van corked the bottle at a blow, threw down the corkscrew, and offered Mac his hand, saying heartily, in spite of his slang: “You are a first-class old brick! I'll lend a hand for one, and do my best to back up Charlie, for he's the finest fellow I know, and shan't go to the devil like poor Randal if I can help it.”
Murmurs of applause from the others seemed to express a general assent to this vigorous statement, and, giving the hand a grateful shake, Mac retreated to the door, anxious to be off now that he had freed his mind with such unusual impetuosity.
“Count on me for anything I can do in return for this, Van. I'm sorry to be such a marplot, but you can take it out in quizzing me after I'm gone. I'm fair game, and Steve can set you going.”
With that, Mac departed as abruptly as he had come, feeling that he had “made a mess” of it, but comforting himself with the thought that perhaps he had secured help for Charlie at his own expense and thinking with a droll smile as he went back to his mother: “My romance begins by looking after other girls' lovers instead of finding a sweetheart for myself, but I can't tell Rose, so she won't laugh at me.”
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
13
|
BOTH SIDES
|
Steve's engagement made a great stir in the family a pleasant one this time, for nobody objected, everything seemed felicitous, and the course of true love ran very smoothly for the young couple, who promised to remove the only obstacle to their union by growing old and wise as soon as possible. If he had not been so genuinely happy, the little lover's airs would have been unbearable, for he patronized all mankind in general, his brother and elder cousins in particular.
“Now, that is the way to manage matters,” he declared, standing before the fire in Aunt Clara's billiard room a day or two after the ball, with his hands behind his back. “No nonsense, no delay, no domestic rows or tragic separations. Just choose with taste and judgment, make yourself agreeable through thick and thin, and when it is perfectly evident that the dear creature adores the ground you walk on, say the word like a man, and there you are.”
“All very easy to do that with a girl like Kitty, who has no confounded notions to spoil her and trip you up every time you don't exactly toe the mark,” muttered Charlie, knocking the balls about as if it were a relief to hit something, for he was in a gloriously bad humor that evening, because time hung heavy on his hands since he had forsworn the company he could not keep without danger to himself.
“You should humor those little notions, for all women have them, and it needs tact to steer clear of them. Kitty's got dozens, but I treat them with respect, have my own way when I can, give in without growling when I can't, and we get on like a couple of--” “Spoons,” put in Charlie, who felt that he had not steered clear and so suffered shipwreck in sight of land.
Steve meant to have said “doves,” but his cousin's levity caused him to add with calm dignity, “reasonable beings,” and then revenged himself by making a good shot which won him the game.
“You always were a lucky little dog, Steve. I don't begrudge you a particle of your happiness, but it does seem as if things weren't quite fair sometimes,” said Archie, suppressing an envious sigh, for, though he seldom complained, it was impossible to contrast his own and his cousin's prospects with perfect equanimity.
“His worth shines forth the brightest who in hope Always confides: the Abject soul despairs,” observed Mac, quoting Euripides in a conversational tone as he lay upon a divan reposing after a hard day's work.
“Thank you,” said Archie, brightening a little, for a hopeful word from any source was very comfortable.
“That's your favorite Rip, isn't it? He was a wise old boy, but you could find advice as good as that nearer home,” put in Steve, who just then felt equal to slapping Plato on the shoulder, so elated was he at being engaged “first of all the lot,” as he gracefully expressed it.
“Don't halloo till you are out of the wood, Dandy Mrs. Kit has jilted two men, and may a third, so you'd better not brag of your wisdom too soon, for she may make a fool of you yet,” said Charlie, cynically, his views of life being very gloomy about this time.
“No, she won't, Steve, if you do your part honestly. There's the making of a good little woman in Kitty, and she has proved it by taking you instead of those other fellows. You are not a Solomon, but you're not spoilt yet, and she had the sense to see it,” said Mac encouragingly from his corner, for he and his brother were better friends than even since the little scene at the Van Tassels'.
“Hear! Hear!” cried Steve, looking more than ever like a cheerful young cockerel trying to crow as he stood upon the hearth rug with his hands under his coat tails, rising and falling alternately upon the toes and heels of his neat little boots.
“Come, you've given them each a pat on the head haven't you got one for me? I need it enough, for if ever there was a poor devil born under an evil star, it is C. C. Campbell,” exclaimed Charlie, leaning his chin on his cue with a discontented expression of countenance, for trying to be good is often very hard work till one gets used to it.
“Oh, yes! I can accommodate you.” And, as if his words suggested the selection, Mac, still lying flat upon his back, repeated one of his favorite bits from Beaumont and Fletcher, for he had a wonderful memory and could reel off poetry by the hour together.
“Man is his own star; and the soul that can Render an honest and a perfect man Commands all light, all influence, all fate. Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are; or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.”
“Confoundedly bad angels they are too,” muttered Charlie ruefully, remembering the one that undid him.
His cousins never knew exactly what occurred on New Year's night, but suspected that something was amiss, for Charlie had the blues, and Rose, though as kind as ever, expressed no surprise at his long absences. They had all observed and wondered at this state of things, yet discreetly made no remark till Steve, who was as inquisitive as a magpie, seized this opportunity to say in a friendly tone, which showed that he bore no malice for the dark prophecy regarding his Kitty's faithfulness: “What's the trouble, Prince? You are so seldom in a bad humor that we don't know what to make of it and all feel out of spirits when you have the blues. Had a tiff with Rose?”
“Never you mind, little boy, but this I will say the better women are, the more unreasonable they are. They don't require us to be saints like themselves, which is lucky, but they do expect us to render an 'honest and a perfect man' sometimes, and that is asking rather too much in a fallen world like this,” said Charlie, glad to get a little sympathy, though he had no intention of confessing his transgressions.
“No, it isn't,” said Mac, decidedly.
“Much you know about it,” began Charlie, ill pleased to be so flatly contradicted.
“Well, I know this much,” added Mac, suddenly sitting up with his hair in a highly disheveled condition. “It is very unreasonable in us to ask women to be saints and then expect them to feel honored when we offer them our damaged hearts or, at best, one not half as good as theirs. If they weren't blinded by love, they'd see what a mean advantage we take of them and not make such bad bargains.”
“Upon my word, the philosopher is coming out strong upon the subject! We shall have him preaching 'Women's Rights' directly,” said Steve, much amazed at this outburst.
“I've begun, you see, and much good may it do you,” answered Mac, laying himself placidly down again.
“Well, but look here, man you are arguing on the wrong side,” put in Archie, quite agreeing with him, but feeling that he must stand by his order at all costs.
“Never mind sides, uphold the right wherever you find it. You needn't stare, Steve I told you I was going to look into this matter, and I am. You think I'm wrapped up in books, but I see a great deal more of what is going on around me than you imagine, and I'm getting on in this new branch, let me tell you, quite as fast as is good for me, I daresay.”
“Going in for perfection, are you?” asked Charlie, both amused and interested, for he respected Mac more than he owned even to himself, and though he had never alluded to the timely warning, neither forgot.
“Yes, I think of it.”
“How will you begin?”
“Do my best all-round keep good company, read good books, love good things, and cultivate soul and body as faithfully and wisely as I can.”
“And you expect to succeed, do you?”
“Please God, I will.”
The quiet energy of Mac's last words produced a momentary silence. Charlie thoughtfully studied the carpet; Archie, who had been absently poking the fire, looked over at Mac as if he thanked him again, and Steve, forgetting his self-conceit, began to wonder if it was not possible to improve himself a little for Kitty's sake. Only a minute, for young men do not give much time to thoughts of this kind, even when love stirs up the noblest impulses within them. To act rather than to talk is more natural to most of them, as Charlie's next question showed, for, having the matter much at heart, he ventured to ask in an offhand way as he laughed and twirled his cue: “Do you intend to reach the highest point of perfection before you address one of the fair saints, or shall you ask her to lend a hand somewhere short of that?”
“As it takes a long lifetime to do what I plan, I think I shall ask some good woman 'to lend a hand' when I've got anything worth offering her. Not a saint, for I never shall be one myself, but a gentle creature who will help me, as I shall try to help her, so that we can go on together and finish our work hereafter, if we haven't time to do it here.”
If Mac had been a lover, he would not have discussed the subject in this simple and sincere fashion, though he might have felt it far more deeply, but being quite heart-free, he frankly showed his interest and, curiously enough, out of his wise young head unconsciously gave the three lovers before him counsel which they valued, because he practiced what he preached.
“Well, I hope you'll find her!” said Charlie heartily as he went back to his game.
“I think I shall.” And while the others played, Mac lay staring at the window curtain as contentedly as if, through it, he beheld “a dream of fair women” from which to choose his future mate.
A few days after this talk in the billiard room, Kitty went to call upon Rose, for as she was about to enter the family she felt it her duty to become acquainted with all its branches. This branch, however, she cultivated more assiduously than any other and was continually running in to confer with “Cousin Rose,” whom she considered the wisest, dearest, kindest girl ever created. And Rose, finding that, in spite of her flighty head, Kitty had a good heart of her own, did her best to encourage all the new hopes and aspirations springing up in it under the warmth of the first genuine affection she had ever known.
“My dear, I want to have some serious conversation with you upon a subject in which I take an interest for the first time in my life,” began Miss Kitty, seating herself and pulling off her gloves as if the subject was one which needed a firm grasp.
“Tell away, and don't mind if I go on working, as I want to finish this job today,” answered Rose, with a long-handled paintbrush in her hand and a great pair of shears at her side.
“You are always so busy! What is it now? Let me help I can talk faster when I'm doing something,” which seemed hardly possible, for Kitty's tongue went like a mill clapper at all hours.
“Making picture books for my sick babies at the hospital. Pretty work, isn't it? You cut out, and I'll paste them on these squares of gay cambric then we just tie up a few pages with a ribbon and there is a nice, light, durable book for the poor dears to look at as they lie in their little beds.”
“A capital idea. Do you go there often? How ever do you find the time for such things?” asked Kitty, busily cutting from a big sheet the touching picture of a parent bird with a red head and a blue tail offering what looked like a small boa constrictor to one of its nestlings, a fat young squab with a green head, yellow body, and no tail at all.
“I have plenty of time now I don't go out so much, for a party uses up two days generally one to prepare for it and one to get over it, you know.”
“People think it is so odd of you to give up society all of a sudden. They say you have 'turned pious' and it is owing to your peculiar bringing-up. I always take your part and say it is a pity other girls haven't as sensible an education, for I don't know one who is as satisfactory on the whole as you are.”
“Much obliged. You may also tell people I gave up gaiety because I value health more. But I haven't forsworn everything of the kind, Kit. I go to concerts and lectures, and all sorts of early things, and have nice times at home, as you know. I like fun as well as ever, but I'm getting on, you see, and must be preparing a little for the serious part of life. One never knows when it may come,” said Rose, thoughtfully as she pasted a squirrel upside down on the pink cotton page before her.
“That reminds me of what I wanted to say. If you'll believe me, my dear, Steve has got that very idea into his head! Did you or Mac put it there?” asked Kitty, industriously clashing her shears.
“No, I've given up lecturing the boys lately they are so big now they don't like it, and I fancy I'd got into a way that was rather tiresome.”
“Well, then, he is 'turning pious' too. And what is very singular, I like it. Now don't smile I really do and I want to be getting ready for the 'serious part of life,' as you call it. That is, I want to grow better as fast as I can, for Steve says he isn't half good enough for me. Just think of that!”
Kitty looked so surprised and pleased and proud that Rose felt no desire to laugh at her sudden fancy for sobriety but said in her most sympathetic tone: “I'm very glad to hear it, for it shows that he loves you in the right way.”
“Is there more than one way?”
“Yes, I fancy so, because some people improve so much after they fall in love, and others do not at all. Have you never observed that?”
“I never learned how to observe. Of course I know that some matches turn out well and some don't, but I never thought much about it.”
“Well, I have, for I was rather interested in the subject lately and had a talk with Aunt Jessie and Uncle about it.”
“Gracious! You don't talk to them about such things, do you?”
“Yes, indeed. I ask any questions I like, and always get a good answer. It is such a nice way to learn, Kitty, for you don't have to pore over books, but as things come along you talk about them and remember, and when they are spoken of afterward you understand and are interested, though you don't say a word,” explained Rose.
“It must be nice, but I haven't anyone to do so for me. Papa is too busy, and Mama always says when I ask question, 'Don't trouble your head with such things, child,' so I don't. What did you learn about matches turning out well? I'm interested in that, because I want mine to be quite perfect in all respects.”
“After thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that Uncle was right, and it is not always safe to marry a person just because you love him,” began Rose, trying to enlighten Kitty without betraying herself.
“Of course not if they haven't money or are bad. But otherwise I don't see what more is needed,” said Kitty wonderingly.
“One should stop and see if it is a wise love, likely to help both parties and wear well, for you know it ought to last all one's lifetime, and it is very sad if it doesn't.”
“I declare it quite scares me to think of it, for I don't usually go beyond my wedding day in making plans. I remember, though, that when I was engaged the first time you don't know the man; it was just after you went away, and I was only sixteen someone very ill-naturedly said I should 'marry in haste and repent at leisure,' and that made me try to imagine how it would seem to go on year after year with Gustavus who had a dreadful temper, by the way and it worried me so to think of it that I broke the engagement, and was so glad ever afterward.”
“You were a wise girl and I hope you'll do it again if you find, after a time, that you and Steve do not truly trust and respect as well as love one another. If you don't, you'll be miserable when it is too late, as so many people are who do marry in haste and have a lifetime to repent it. Aunt Jessie says so, and she knows.”
“Don't be solemn, Rose. It fidgets me to think about life-times, and respecting, and all those responsible things. I'm not used to it, and I don't know how to do it.”
“But you must think, and you must learn how before you take the responsibility upon yourself. That is what your life is for, and you mustn't spoil it by doing a very solemn thing without seeing if you are ready for it.”
“Do you think about all this?” asked Kitty, shrugging up her shoulders as if responsibility of any sort did not sit comfortably on them.
“One has to sometimes, you know. But is that all you wanted to tell me?” added Rose, anxious to turn the conversation from herself.
“Oh, dear, no! The most serious thing of all is this. Steve is putting himself in order generally, and so I want to do my part, and I must begin right away before my thoughts get distracted with clothes and all sorts of dear, delightful, frivolous things that I can't help liking. Now I wish you'd tell me where to begin. Shouldn't I improve my mind by reading something solid?” And Kitty looked over at the well-filled bookcase as if to see if it contained anything large and dry enough to be considered “solid.”
“It would be an excellent plan, and we'll look up something. What do you feel as if you needed most?”
“A little of everything I should say, for when I look into my mind there really doesn't seem to be much there but odds and ends, and yet I'm sure I've read a great deal more than some girls do. I suppose novels don't count, though, and are of no use, for, goodness knows, the people and things they describe aren't a bit like the real ones.”
“Some novels are very useful and do as much good as sermons, I've heard Uncle say, because they not only describe truly, but teach so pleasantly that people like to learn in that way,” said Rose, who knew the sort of books Kitty had read and did not wonder that she felt rather astray when she tried to guide herself by their teaching.
“You pick me out some of the right kind, and I'll apply my mind to them. Then I ought to have some 'serious views' and 'methods' and 'principles.' Steve said 'principles,' good firm ones, you know.” And Kitty gave a little pull at the bit of cambric she was cutting as housewives pull cotton or calico when they want “a good firm article.”
Rose could not help laughing now, though much pleased, for Kitty was so prettily in earnest, and yet so perfectly ignorant how to begin on the self-improvement she very much needed, that it was pathetic as well as comical to see and hear her.
“You certainly want some of those, and must begin at once to get them, but Aunt Jessie can help you there better than I can, or Aunt Jane, for she has very 'firm' ones, I assure you,” said Rose, sobering down as quickly as possible.
“Mercy on us! I should never dare to say a word about it to Mrs. Mac, for I'm dreadfully afraid of her, she is so stern, and how I'm ever to get on when she is my mother-in-law I don't know!” cried Kitty, clasping her hands in dismay at the idea.
“She isn't half as stern as she looks, and if you go to her without fear, you've no idea how sensible and helpful she is. I used to be frightened out of my wits with her, but now I'm not a bit, and we get on nicely. Indeed, I'm fond of her, she is so reliable and upright in all things.”
“She certainly is the straightest woman I ever saw, and the most precise. I never shall forget how scared I was when Steve took me up to see her that first time. I put on all my plainest things, did my hair in a meek knob, and tried to act like a sober, sedate young woman. Steve would laugh at me and say I looked like a pretty nun, so I couldn't be as proper as I wished. Mrs. Mac was very kind, of course, but her eye was so sharp I felt as if she saw right through me, and knew that I'd pinned on my bonnet strings, lost a button off my boot, and didn't brush my hair for ten minutes every night,” said Kitty in an awe-stricken tone.
“She likes you, though, and so does Uncle, and he's set his heart on having you live with them by and by, so don't mind her eyes but look straight up at her, and you'll see how kind they can grow.”
“Mac likes me, too, and that did please me, for he doesn't like girls generally. Steve told me he said I had the 'making of a capital little woman in me.' Wasn't it nice of him? Steve was so proud, though he does laugh at Mac sometimes.”
“Don't disappoint them, dear. Encourage Steve in all the good things he likes or wants, make friends with Mac, love Aunt Jane, and be a daughter to Uncle, and you'll find yourself a very happy girl.”
“I truly will, and thank you very much for not making fun of me. I know I'm a little goose, but lately I've felt as if I might come to something if I had the right sort of help. I'll go up and see Aunt Jessie tomorrow. I'm not a bit afraid of her, and then if you'll just quietly find out from Uncle Doctor what I must read, I'll work as hard as I can. Don't tell anyone, please, they'll think it odd and affected, and I can't bear to be laughed at, though I daresay it is good discipline.”
Rose promised, and both worked in silence for a moment, then Kitty asked rather timidly: “Are you and Charlie trying this plan too? Since you've left off going out so much, he keeps away also, and we don't know what to make of it.”
“He has had what he calls an 'artistic fit' lately, set up a studio, and is doing some crayon sketches of us all. If he'd only finish his things, they would be excellent, but he likes to try a great variety at once. I'll take you in sometime, and perhaps he will do a portrait of you for Steve. He likes girls' faces and gets the likenesses wonderfully well.”
“People say you are engaged but I contradict it, because, of course, I should know if you were.”
“We are not.”
“I'm glad of it, for really, Rose, I'm afraid Charlie hasn't got 'firm principles,' though he is a fascinating fellow and one can't scold him. You don't mind my saying so, do you, dear?” added Kitty, for Rose did not answer at once.
“Not in the least, for you are one of us now, and I can speak frankly and I will, for I think in one way you can help Steve very much. You are right about Charlie, both as to the principles and the fascination. Steve admires him exceedingly, and always from a boy liked to imitate his pleasant ways. Some of them are very harmless and do Steve good, but some are not. I needn't talk about it, only you must show your boy that you depend on him to keep out of harm and help him do it.”
“I will, I will! And then perhaps, when he is a perfect model, Charlie will imitate him. I really begin to feel as if I had a great deal to do.” And Kitty looked as if she was beginning to like it also.
“We all have and the sooner we go to work the better for us and those we love. You wouldn't think now that Phebe was doing anything for Archie, but she is, and writes such splendid letters, they stir him up wonderfully and make us all love and admire her more than ever.”
“How is she getting on?” asked Kitty, who, though she called herself a “little goose,” had tact enough to see that Rose did not care to talk about Charlie.
“Nicely, for you know she used to sing in our choir, so that was a good recommendation for another. She got a fine place in the new church at L----, and that gives her a comfortable salary, though she has something put away. She was always a saving creature and kept her wages carefully. Uncle invested them, and she begins to feel quite independent already. No fear but my Phebe will get on she has such energy and manages so well. I sometimes wish I could run away and work with her.”
“Ah, my dear! We rich girls have our trials as well as poor ones, though we don't get as much pity as they do,” sighed Kitty. “Nobody knows what I suffer sometimes from worries that I can't talk about, and I shouldn't get much sympathy if I did, just because I live in a big house, wear good gowns, and have lots of lovers. Annabel used to say she envied me above all created beings, but she doesn't now, and is perfectly absorbed in her dear little Chinaman. Do you see how she ever could like him?”
So they began to gossip, and the sober talk was over for that time, but when Kitty departed, after criticizing all her dear friends and their respective sweethearts, she had a helpful little book in her muff, a resolute expression on her bright face, and so many excellent plans for self-improvement in her busy brain that she and Steve bid fair to turn out the model couple of the century.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
14
|
AUNT CLARA'S PLAN
|
Being seriously alarmed by the fear of losing the desire of his heart, Charlie had gone resolutely to work and, like many another young reformer, he rather overdid the matter, for in trying to keep out of the way of temptation, he denied himself much innocent enjoyment. The “artistic fit” was a good excuse for the seclusion which he fancied would be a proper penance, and he sat listlessly plying crayon or paintbrush, with daily wild rides on black Brutus, which seemed to do him good, for danger of that sort was his delight.
People were used to his whims and made light of what they considered a new one, but when it lasted week after week and all attempts to draw him out were vain, his jolly comrades gave him up and the family began to say approvingly, “Now he really is going to settle down and do something.” Fortunately, his mother let him alone, for though Dr. Alec had not “thundered in her ear” as he threatened, he had talked with her in a way which first made her very angry, then anxious, and, lastly, quite submissive, for her heart was set on the boy's winning Rose and she would have had him put on sackcloth and ashes if that would have secured the prize. She made light of the cause of Rose's displeasure, considering her extremely foolish and straitlaced, “for all young men of any spirit had their little vices, and came out well enough when the wild oats were sowed.” So she indulged Charlie in his new vagary, as she had in all his others, and treated him like an ill-used being, which was neither an inspiring nor helpful course on her part. Poor soul! She saw her mistake by and by, and when too late repented of it bitterly.
Rose wanted to be kind, and tried in various ways to help her cousin, feeling very sure she should succeed as many another hopeful woman has done, quite unconscious how much stronger an undisciplined will is than the truest love, and what a difficult task the wisest find it to undo the mistakes of a bad education. But it was a hard thing to do, for at the least hint of commendation or encouragement, he looked so hopeful that she was afraid of seeming to promise too much, and, of all things, she desired to escape the accusation of having trifled with him.
So life was not very comfortable to either just then; and while Charlie was “mortifying soul and body” to please her, she was studying how to serve him best. Aunt Jessie helped her very much, and no one guessed, when they saw pretty Miss Campbell going up and down the hill with such a serious face, that she was intent upon anything except taking, with praiseworthy regularity, the constitutionals which gave her such a charming color.
Matters were in this state when one day a note came to Rose from Mrs. Clara.
MY SWEET CHILD, Do take pity on my poor boy and cheer him up with a sight of you, for he is so triste it breaks my heart to see him. He has a new plan in his head, which strikes me as an excellent one, if you will only favor it. Let him come and take you for a drive this fine afternoon and talk things over. It will do him a world of good and deeply oblige Your ever loving AUNT CLARA.
Rose read the note twice and stood a moment pondering, with her eyes absently fixed on the little bay before her window. The sight of several black figures moving briskly to and fro across its frozen surface seemed to suggest a mode of escape from the drive she dreaded in more ways than one. “That will be safer and pleasanter,” she said, and going to her desk wrote her answer.
DEAR AUNTY, I'm afraid of Brutus, but if Charlie will go skating with me, I should enjoy it very much and it would do us both good. I can listen to the new plan with an undivided mind there, so give him my love, please, and say I shall expect him at three.
Affectionately, ROSE.
Punctually at three Charlie appeared with his skates over his arm and with a very contented face, which brightened wonderfully as Rose came downstairs in a sealskin suit and scarlet skirt, so like the one she wore years ago that he involuntarily exclaimed as he took her skates: “You look so like little Rose I hardly know you, and it seems so like old times I feel sixteen again.”
“That is just the way one ought to feel on such a day as this. Now let us be off and have a good spin before anyone comes. There are only a few children there now, but it is Saturday, you know, and everybody will be out before long,” answered Rose, carefully putting on her mittens as she talked, for her heart was not as light as the one little Rose carried under the brown jacket, and the boy of sixteen never looked at her with the love and longing she read in the eyes of the young man before her.
Away they went, and were soon almost as merry and warm as the children around them, for the ice was in good condition, the February sunshine brilliant, and the keen wind set their blood a-tingle with a healthful glow.
“Now tell me the plan your mother spoke of,” began Rose as they went gliding across the wide expanse before them, for Charlie seemed to have forgotten everything but the bliss of having her all to himself for a little while.
“Plan? Oh, yes! It is simply this. I'm going out to Father next month.”
“Really?” and Rose looked both surprised and incredulous, for this plan was not a new one.
“Really. You don't believe it, but I am, and mother means to go with me. We've had another letter from the governor, and he says if she can't part from her big baby to come along too, and all be happy together. What do you think of that?” he asked, eyeing her intently, for they were face to face as she went backward and he held both of her hands to steer and steady her.
“I like it immensely, and do believe it now only it rather takes my breath away to think of Aunty's going, when she never would hear of it before.”
“She doesn't like the plan very well now and consents to go only on one condition.”
“What is that?” asked Rose, trying to free her hands, for a look at Charlie made her suspect what was coming.
“That you go with us.” And, holding the hands fast, he added rapidly, “Let me finish before you speak. I don't mean that anything is to be changed till you are ready, but if you go, I am willing to give up everything else and live anywhere as long as you like. Why shouldn't you come to us for a year or two? We've never had our share. Father would be delighted, mother contented, and I the happiest man alive.”
“Who made this plan?” asked Rose as soon as she got the breath which certainly had been rather taken away by this entirely new and by no means agreeable scheme.
“Mother suggested it I shouldn't have dared even to dream of such richness. I'd made up my mind to go alone, and when I told her, she was in despair till this superb idea came into her head. After that, of course, it was easy enough for me to stick to the resolution I'd made.”
“Why did you decide to go, Charlie?” And Rose looked up into the eyes that were fixed beseechingly on hers.
They wavered and glanced aside, then met hers honestly yet full of humility, which made her own fall as he answered very low: “Because I don't dare to stay.”
“Is it so hard?” she said pitifully.
“Very hard. I haven't the moral courage to own up and face ridicule, and it seems so mean to hide for fear of breaking my word. I will keep it this time, Rose, if I go to the ends of the earth to do it.”
“It is not cowardly to flee temptation, and nobody whose opinion is worth having will ridicule any brave attempt to conquer one's self. Don't mind it, Charlie, but stand fast, and I am sure you will succeed.”
“You don't know what it is, and I can't tell you, for till I tried to give it up I never guessed what a grip it had on me. I thought it was only a habit, easy to drop when I liked, but it is stronger than I, and sometimes I feel as if possessed of a devil that will get the better of me, try as I may.”
He dropped her hands abruptly as he said that, with the energy of despair; and, as if afraid of saying too much, he left her for a minute, striking away at full speed, as if in truth he would “go to the ends of the earth” to escape the enemy within himself.
Rose stood still, appalled by this sudden knowledge of how much greater the evil was than she had dreamed. What ought she to do? Go with her cousin, and by so doing tacitly pledge herself as his companion on that longer journey for which he was as yet so poorly equipped? Both heart and conscience protested against this so strongly that she put the thought away. But compassion pleaded for him tenderly, and the spirit of self-sacrifice, which makes women love to give more than they receive, caused her to feel as if in a measure this man's fate lay in her hands, to be decided for good or ill through her. How should she be true both to him and to herself?
Before this question could be answered, he was back again, looking as if he had left his care behind him, for his moods varied like the wind. Her attitude, as she stood motionless and alone with downcast face, was so unlike the cheerful creature who came to meet him an hour ago, it filled him with self-reproach, and, coming up, he drew one hand through his arm, saying, as she involuntarily followed him, “You must not stand still. Forget my heroics and answer my question. Will you go with us, Rose?”
“Not now that is asking too much, Charlie, and I will promise nothing, because I cannot do it honestly,” she answered, so firmly that he knew appeal was useless.
“Am I to go alone, then, leaving all I care for behind me?”
“No, take your mother with you, and do your best to reunite your parents. You could not give yourself to a better task.”
“She won't go without you.”
“I think she will if you hold fast to your resolution. You won't give that up, I hope?”
“No I must go somewhere, for I can't stay here, and it may as well be India, since that pleases Father,” answered Charlie doggedly.
“It will more than you can imagine. Tell him all the truth, and see how glad he will be to help you, and how sincerely he will respect you for what you've done.”
“If you respect me, I don't care much about the opinion of anyone else,” answered Charlie, clinging with a lover's pertinacity to the hope that was dearest.
“I shall, if you go manfully away and do the duty you owe your father and yourself.”
“And when I've done it, may I come back to be rewarded, Rose?” he asked, taking possession of the hand on his arm as if it was already his.
“I wish I could say what you want me to. But how can I promise when I am not sure of anything? I don't love you as I ought, and perhaps I never shall so why persist in making me bind myself in this way? Be generous, Charlie, and don't ask it,” implored Rose, much afflicted by his persistence.
“I thought you did love me it looked very like it a month ago, unless you have turned coquette, and I can't quite believe that,” he answered bitterly.
“I was beginning to love you, but you made me afraid to go on,” murmured Rose, trying to tell the truth kindly.
“That cursed custom! What can a man do when his hostess asks him to drink wine with her?” And Charlie looked as if he could have cursed himself even more heartily.
“He can say 'no.'”
“I can't.”
“Ah, that's the trouble! You never learned to say it even to yourself, and now it is so hard, you want me to help you.”
“And you won't.”
“Yes, I will, by showing you that I can say it to myself, for your sake.” And Rose looked up with a face so full of tender sorrow he could not doubt the words which both reproached and comforted him.
“My little saint! I don't deserve one half your goodness to me, but I will, and go away without one complaint to do my best, for your sake,” he cried, touched by her grief and stirred to emulation by the example of courage and integrity she tried to set him.
Here Kitty and Steve bore down upon them; and, obeying the impulse to put care behind them, which makes it possible for young hearts to ache one minute and dance the next, Rose and Charlie banished their troubles, joined in the sport that soon turned the lonely little bay into a ballroom, and enjoyed the splendors of a winter sunset forgetful of separation and Calcutta.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
15
|
ALAS FOR CHARLIE!
|
In spite of much internal rebellion, Charlie held fast to his resolution, and Aunt Clara, finding all persuasions vain, gave in and in a state of chronic indignation against the world in general and Rose in particular, prepared to accompany him. The poor girl had a hard time of it and, but for her uncle, would have fared still worse. He was a sort of shield upon which Mrs. Clara's lamentations, reproaches, and irate glances fell unavailingly instead of wounding the heart against which they were aimed.
The days passed very quickly now, for everyone seemed anxious to have the parting over and preparations went on rapidly. The big house was made ready to shut up for a year at least, comforts for the long voyage laid in, and farewell visits paid. The general activity and excitement rendered it impossible for Charlie to lead the life of an artistic hermit any longer and he fell into a restless condition which caused Rose to long for the departure of the Rajah when she felt that he would be safe, for these farewell festivities were dangerous to one who was just learning to say “no.”
“Half the month safely gone. If we can only get well over these last weeks, a great weight will be off my mind,” thought Rose as she went down one wild, wet morning toward the end of February.
Opening the study door to greet her uncle, she exclaimed, “Why, Archie!” then paused upon the threshold, transfixed by fear, for in her cousin's white face she read the tidings of some great affliction.
“Hush! Don't be frightened. Come in and I'll tell you,” he whispered, putting down the bottle he had just taken from the doctor's medicine closet.
Rose understood and obeyed, for Aunt Plenty was poorly with her rheumatism and depended on her morning doze.
“What is it?” she said, looking about the room with a shiver, as if expecting to see again what she saw there New Year's night. Archie was alone, however, and, drawing her toward the closet, answered with an evident effort to be quite calm and steady “Charlie is hurt! Uncle wants more ether and the wide bandages in some drawer or other. He told me, but I forget. You keep this place in order find them for me. Quick!”
Before he had done, Rose was at the drawer, turning over the bandages with hands that trembled as they searched.
“All narrow! I must make some. Can you wait?” And, catching up a piece of old linen, she tore it into wide strips, adding, in the same quick tone, as she began to roll them, “Now, tell me.”
“I can wait those are not needed just yet. I didn't mean anyone should know, you least of all,” began Archie, smoothing out the strips as they lay across the table and evidently surprised at the girl's nerve and skill.
“I can bear it make haste! Is he much hurt?”
“I'm afraid he is. Uncle looks sober, and the poor boy suffers so, I couldn't stay,” answered Archie, turning still whiter about the lips that never had so hard a tale to tell before.
“You see, he went to town last evening to meet the man who is going to buy Brutus.”
“And Brutus did it? I knew he would!” cried Rose, dropping her work to wring her hands, as if she guessed the ending of the story now.
“Yes, and if he wasn't shot already I'd do it myself with pleasure, for he's done his best to kill Charlie,” muttered Charlie's mate with a grim look, then gave a great sigh and added with averted face, “I shouldn't blame the brute, it wasn't his fault. He needed a firm hand and--” He stopped there, but Rose said quickly: “Go on. I must know.”
“Charlie met some of his old cronies, quite by accident; there was a dinner party, and they made him go, just for a good-bye, they said. He couldn't refuse, and it was too much for him. He would come home alone in the storm, though they tried to keep him, as he wasn't fit. Down by the new bridge that high embankment, you know the wind had put the lantern out he forgot or something scared Brutus, and all went down together.”
Archie had spoken fast and brokenly but Rose understood and at the last word hid her face with a little moan, as if she saw it all.
“Drink this and never mind the rest,” he said, dashing into the next room and coming back with a glass of water, longing to be done and away, for this sort of pain seemed almost as bad as that he had left.
Rose drank, but held his arm tightly, as he would have turned away, saying in a tone of command he could not disobey: “Don't keep anything back tell me the worst at once.”
“We knew nothing of it,” he went on obediently. “Aunt Clara thought he was with me, and no one found him till early this morning. A workman recognized him and he was brought home, dead they thought. I came for Uncle an hour ago. Charlie is conscious now, but awfully hurt, and I'm afraid from the way Mac and Uncle looked at one another that Oh! Think of it, Rose! Crushed and helpless, alone in the rain all night, and I never knew, I never knew!”
With that, poor Archie broke down entirely and, flinging himself into a chair, laid his face on the table, sobbing like a girl. Rose had never seen a man cry before, and it was so unlike a woman's gentler grief that it moved her very much. Putting by her own anguish, she tried to comfort his and, going to him, lifted up his head and made him lean on her, for in such hours as this women are the stronger. It was a very little to do, but it did comfort Archie, for the poor fellow felt as if fate was very hard upon him just then, and in this faithful bosom he could pour his brief but pathetic plaint.
“Phebe's gone, and now if Charlie's taken, I don't see how I can bear it!”
“Phebe will come back, dear, and let us hope poor Charlie isn't going to be taken yet. Such things always seem worst at first, I've heard people say, so cheer up and hope for the best,” answered Rose, seeking for some comfortable words to say and finding very few.
They took effect, however, for Archie did cheer up like a man. Wiping away the tears which he so seldom shed that they did not know where to go, he got up, gave himself a little shake, and said with a long breath, as if he had been underwater: “Now I'm all right, thank you. I couldn't help it the shock of being waked suddenly to find the dear old fellow in such a pitiful state upset me. I ought to go are these ready?”
“In a minute. Tell Uncle to send for me if I can be of any use. Oh, poor Aunt Clara! How does she bear it?”
“Almost distracted. I took Mother to her, and she will do all that anybody can. Heaven only knows what Aunt will do if--” “And only heaven can help her,” added Rose as Archie stopped at the words he could not utter. “Now take them, and let me know often.”
“You brave little soul, I will.” And Archie went away through the rain with his sad burden, wondering how Rose could be so calm when the beloved Prince might be dying.
A long dark day followed, with nothing to break its melancholy monotony except the bulletins that came from hour to hour reporting little change either for better or for worse. Rose broke the news gently to Aunt Plenty and set herself to the task of keeping up the old lady's spirits, for, being helpless, the good soul felt as if everything would go wrong without her. At dusk she fell asleep, and Rose went down to order lights and fire in the parlor, with tea ready to serve at any moment, for she felt sure some of the men would come and that a cheerful greeting and creature comforts would suit them better than tears, darkness, and desolation.
Presently Mac arrived, saying the instant he entered the room: “More comfortable, Cousin.”
“Thank heaven!” cried Rose, unclasping her hands. Then seeing how worn out, wet, and weary Mac looked as he came into the light, she added in a tone that was a cordial in itself, “Poor boy, how tired you are! Come here, and let me make you comfortable.”
“I was going home to freshen up a bit, for I must be back in an hour. Mother took my place, so I could be spared, and came off, as Uncle refused to stir.”
“Don't go home, for if Aunty isn't there it will be very dismal. Step into Uncle's room and refresh, then come back and I'll give you your tea. Let me, let me! I can't help in any other way, and I must do something, this waiting is so dreadful.”
Her last words betrayed how much suspense was trying her, and Mac yielded at once, glad to comfort and be comforted. When he came back, looking much revived, a tempting little tea table stood before the fire and Rose went to meet him, saying with a faint smile, as she liberally bedewed him with the contents of a cologne flask: “I can't bear the smell of ether it suggests such dreadful things.”
“What curious creatures women are! Archie told us you bore the news like a hero, and now you turn pale at a whiff of bad air. I can't explain it,” mused Mac as he meekly endured the fragrant shower bath.
“Neither can I, but I've been imagining horrors all day and made myself nervous. Don't let us talk about it, but come and have some tea.”
“That's another queer thing. Tea is your panacea for all human ills yet there isn't any nourishment in it. I'd rather have a glass of milk, thank you,” said Mac, taking an easy chair and stretching his feet to the fire.
She brought it to him and made him eat something; then, as he shut his eyes wearily, she went away to the piano and, having no heart to sing, played softly till he seemed asleep. But at the stroke of six he was up and ready to be off again.
“He gave me that. Take it with you and put some on his hair. He likes it, and I do so want to help a little,” she said, slipping the pretty flagon into his pocket with such a wistful look Mac never thought of smiling at this very feminine request.
“I'll tell him. Is there anything else I can do for you, Cousin?” he asked, holding the cold hand that had been serving him so helpfully.
“Only this if there is any sudden change, promise to send for me, no matter at what hour it is. I must say 'good-bye'”.
“I will come for you. But, Rose, I am sure you may sleep in peace tonight, and I hope to have good news for you in the morning.”
“Bless you for that! Come early, and let me see him soon. I will be very good, and I know it will not do him any harm.”
“No fear of that. The first thing he said when he could speak was 'Tell Rose carefully,' and as I came away he guessed where I was going and tried to kiss his hand in the old way, you know.”
Mac thought it would cheer her to hear that Charlie remembered her, but the sudden thought that she might never see the familiar little gesture anymore was the last drop that made her full heart overflow, and Mac saw the “hero” of the morning sink down at his feet in a passion of tears that frightened him. He took her to the sofa and tried to comfort her, but as soon as the bitter sobbing quieted she looked up and said quite steadily, great drops rolling down her cheeks the while: “Let me cry it is what I need, and I shall be all the better for it by and by. Go to Charlie now and tell him I said with all my heart, 'Good night!' ?
“I will!” And Mac trudged away, marveling in his turn at the curiously blended strength and weakness of womankind.
That was the longest night Rose ever spent, but joy came in the morning with the early message: “He is better. You are to come by and by.” Then Aunt Plenty forgot her lumbago and arose; Aunt Myra, who had come to have a social croak, took off her black bonnet as if it would not be needed at present, and the girl made ready to go and say “Welcome back,” not the hard “Good-bye.”
It seemed very long to wait, for no summons came till afternoon, then her uncle arrived, and at the first sight of his face Rose began to tremble.
“I came for my little girl myself, because we must go back at once,” he said as she hurried toward him hat in hand.
“I'm ready, sir.” But her hands shook as she tried to tie the ribbons, and her eyes never left the face that was full of tender pity for her.
He took her quickly into the carriage and, as they rolled away, said with the quiet directness which soothes such agitation better than any sympathetic demonstration: “Charlie is worse. I feared it when the pain went so suddenly this morning, but the chief injuries are internal and one can never tell what the chances are. He insists that he is better, but he will soon begin to fail, I fear, become unconscious, and slip away without more suffering. This is the time for you to see him, for he has set his heart on it, and nothing can hurt him now. My child, it is very hard, but we must help each other bear it.”
Rose tried to say, “Yes, Uncle” bravely, but the words would not come, and she could only slip her hand into his with a look of mute submission. He laid her head on his shoulder and went on talking so quietly that anyone who did not see how worn and haggard his face had grown with two days and a night of sharp anxiety might have thought him cold.
“Jessie has gone home to rest, and Jane is with poor Clara, who has dropped asleep at last. I've sent for Steve and the other boys. There will be time for them later, but he so begged to see you now, I thought it best to come while this temporary strength keeps him up. I have told him how it is, but he will not believe me. If he asks you, answer honestly and try to fit him a little for this sudden ending of so many hopes.”
“How soon, Uncle?”
“A few hours, probably. This tranquil moment is yours make the most of it and, when we can do no more for him, we'll comfort one another.”
Mac met them in the hall, but Rose hardly saw him. She was conscious only of the task before her and, when her uncle led her to the door, she said quietly, “Let me go in alone, please.”
Archie, who had been hanging over the bed, slipped away into the inner room as she appeared, and Rose found Charlie waiting for her with such a happy face, she could not believe what she had heard and found it easy to say almost cheerfully as she took his eager hand in both of hers: “Dear Charlie, I'm so glad you sent for me. I longed to come, but waited till you were better. You surely are?” she added, as a second glance showed to her the indescribable change which had come upon the face which at first seemed to have both light and color in it.
“Uncle says not, but I think he is mistaken, because the agony is all gone, and except for this odd sinking now and then, I don't feel so much amiss,” he answered feebly but with something of the old lightness in his voice.
“You will hardly be able to sail in the Rajah, I fear, but you won't mind waiting a little while we nurse you,” said poor Rose, trying to talk on quietly, with her heart growing heavier every minute.
“I shall go if I'm carried! I'll keep that promise, though it costs me my life. Oh, Rose! You know? They've told you?” And, with a sudden memory of what brought him there, he hid his face in the pillow.
“You broke no promise, for I would not let you make one, you remember. Forget all that, and let us talk about the better time that may be coming for you.”
“Always so generous, so kind!” he murmured, with her hand against his feverish cheek; then, looking up, he went on in a tone so humbly contrite it made her eyes fill with slow, hot tears.
“I tried to flee temptation I tried to say 'no,' but I am so pitiably weak, I couldn't. You must despise me. But don't give me up entirely, for if I live, I'll do better. I'll go away to Father and begin again.”
Rose tried to keep back the bitter drops, but they would fall, to hear him still speak hopefully when there was no hope. Something in the mute anguish of her face seemed to tell him what she could not speak, and a quick change came over him as he grasped her hand tighter, saying in a sharp whisper: “Have I really got to die, Rose?”
Her only answer was to kneel down and put her arms about him, as if she tried to keep death away a little longer. He believed it then, and lay so still, she looked up in a moment, fearing she knew not what.
But Charlie bore it manfully, for he had the courage which can face a great danger bravely, though not the strength to fight a bosom sin and conquer it. His eyes were fixed, as if trying to look into the unseen world whither he was going, and his lips firmly set that no word of complaint should spoil the proof he meant to give that, though he had not known how to live, he did know how to die. It seemed to Rose as if for one brief instant she saw the man that might have been if early training had taught him how to rule himself; and the first words he uttered with a long sigh, as his eye came back to her, showed that he felt the failure and owned it with pathetic candor.
“Better so, perhaps; better go before I bring any more sorrow to you and shame to myself. I'd like to stay a little longer and try to redeem the past; it seems so wasted now, but if I can't, don't grieve, Rose. I'm no loss to anyone, and perhaps it is too late to mend.”
“Oh, don't say that! No one will find your place among us we never can forget how much we loved you, and you must believe how freely we forgive as we would be forgiven,” cried Rose, steadied by the pale despair that had fallen on Charlie's face with those bitter words.
“'Forgive us our trespasses!' Yes, I should say that. Rose, I'm not ready, it is so sudden. What can I do?” he whispered, clinging to her as if he had no anchor except the creature whom he loved so much.
“Uncle will tell you I am not good enough I can only pray for you.” And she moved as if to call in the help so sorely needed.
“No, no, not yet! Stay by me, darling read something there, in Grandfather's old book, some prayer for such as I. It will do me more good from you than any minister alive.”
She got the venerable book given to Charlie because he bore the good man's name and, turning to the “Prayer for the Dying,” read it brokenly while the voice beside her echoed now and then some word that reproved or comforted.
“The testimony of a good conscience.” “By the sadness of his countenance may his heart be made better.” “Christian patience and fortitude.” “Leave the world in peace.” “Amen.”
There was silence for a little; then Rose, seeing how wan he looked, said softly, “Shall I call Uncle now?”
“If you will. But first don't smile at my foolishness, dear I want my little heart. They took it off please give it back and let me keep it always,” he answered with the old fondness strong as ever, even when he could show it only by holding fast the childish trinket which she found and had given him the old agate heart with the faded ribbon. “Put it on, and never let them take it off,” he said, and when she asked if there was anything else she could do for him, he tried to stretch out his arms to her with a look which asked for more.
She kissed him very tenderly on lips and forehead, tried to say “good-bye,” but could not speak, and groped her way to the door. Turning for a last look, Charlie's hopeful spirit rose for a moment, as if anxious to send her away more cheerful, and he said with a shadow of the old blithe smile, a feeble attempt at the familiar farewell gesture: “Till tomorrow, Rose.”
Alas for Charlie! His tomorrow never came, and when she saw him next, he lay there looking so serene and noble, it seemed as if it must be well with him, for all the pain was past; temptation ended; doubt and fear, hope and love, could no more stir his quiet heart, and in solemn truth he had gone to meet his Father, and begin again.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
16
|
GOOD WORKS
|
The Rajah was delayed awhile, and when it sailed poor Mrs. Clara was on board, for everything was ready. All thought she had better go to comfort her husband, and since her boy died she seemed to care very little what became of her. So, with friends to cheer the long voyage, she sailed away, a heavyhearted woman, yet not quite disconsolate, for she knew her mourning was excessively becoming and felt sure that Stephen would not find her altered by her trials as much as might have been expected.
Then nothing was left of that gay household but the empty rooms, silence never broken by a blithe voice anymore, and pictures full of promise, but all unfinished, like poor Charlie's life.
There was much mourning for the bonny Prince, but no need to tell of it except as it affected Rose, for it is with her we have most to do, the other characters being of secondary importance.
When time had soothed the first shock of sudden loss, she was surprised to find the memory of his faults and failings, short life and piteous death, grew dim, as if a kindly hand had wiped out the record and given him back to her in the likeness of the brave, bright boy she had loved, not as the wayward, passionate young man who had loved her.
This comforted her very much, and folding down the last blotted leaf where his name was written, she gladly turned back to reopen and reread the happier chapters which painted the youthful knight before he went out to fall in his first battle. None of the bitterness of love bereaved marred this memory for Rose, because she found that the warmer sentiment, just budding in her heart, had died with Charlie and lay cold and quiet in his grave. She wondered, yet was glad, though sometimes a remorseful pang smote her when she discovered how possible it was to go on without him, feeling almost as if a burden had been lifted off, since his happiness was taken out of her hands. The time had not yet come when the knowledge that a man's heart was in her keeping would make the pride and joy of her life, and while she waited for that moment she enjoyed the liberty she seemed to have recovered.
Such being her inward state, it much annoyed her to be regarded as a brokenhearted girl and pitied for the loss of her young lover. She could not explain to all the world, so let it pass, and occupied her mind with the good works which always lie ready to be taken up and carried on. Having chosen philanthropy as her profession, she felt that it was high time to begin the task too long neglected.
Her projects were excellent, but did not prosper as rapidly as she hoped, for, having to deal with people, not things, unexpected obstacles were constantly arising. The “Home for Decayed Gentlewomen,” as the boys insisted on calling her two newly repaired houses, started finely and it was a pleasant sight to see the comfortable rooms filled with respectable women busy at their various tasks, surrounded by the decencies and many of the comforts which make life endurable. But, presently, Rose was disturbed to find that the good people expected her to take care of them in a way she had not bargained for. Buffum, her agent, was constantly reporting complaints, new wants, and general discontent if they were not attended to. Things were very neglected, water pipes froze and burst, drains got out of order, yards were in a mess, and rents behind-hand. Worst of all, outsiders, instead of sympathizing, only laughed and said, “We told you so,” which is a most discouraging remark to older and wiser workers than Rose.
Uncle Alec, however, stood by her staunchly and helped her out of many of her woes by good advice and an occasional visit of inspection, which did much to impress upon the dwellers there the fact that, if they did not do their part, their leases would be short ones.
“I didn't expect to make anything out of it, but I did think they would be grateful,” said Rose on one occasion when several complaints had come in at once and Buffum had reported great difficulty in collecting the low rents.
“If you do this thing for the sake of the gratitude, then it is a failure but if it is done for the love of helping those who need help, it is a success, for in spite of their worry every one of these women feel what privileges they enjoy and value them highly,” said Dr. Alec as they went home after one of these unsatisfactory calls.
“Then the least they can do is to say 'thank you.' I'm afraid I have thought more of the gratitude than the work, but if there isn't any, I must make up my mind to go without,” answered Rose, feeling defrauded of her due.
“Favors often separate instead of attracting people nearer to one another, and I've seen many a friendship spoilt by the obligation being all on one side. Can't explain it, but it is so, and I've come to the conclusion that it is as hard to give in the right spirit as it is to receive. Puzzle it out, my dear, while you are learning to do good for its own sake.”
“I know one sort of people who are grateful and I'm going to devote my mind to them. They thank me in many ways, and helping them is all pleasure and no worry. Come into the hospital and see the dear babies, or the Asylum, and carry oranges to Phebe's orphans they don't complain and fidget one's life out, bless their hearts!” cried Rose, cheering up suddenly.
After that she left Buffum to manage the “Retreat,” and devoted her energies to the little folks, always so ready to receive the smallest gift and repay the giver with their artless thanks. Here she found plenty to do, and did it with such sweet goodwill that she won her way like sunshine, making many a little heart dance over splendid dolls, gay picture books, and pots of flowers, as well as food, fire, and clothes for the small bodies pinched with want and pain.
As spring came new plans sprang up as naturally as dandelions. The poor children longed for the country; and, as the green fields could not come to them, Rose carried them to the green fields. Down on the Point stood an old farmhouse, often used by the Campbell tribe for summer holidays. That spring it was set to rights unusually early, several women installed as housekeeper, cook, and nurses, and when the May days grew bright and warm, squads of pale children came to toddle in the grass, run over the rocks, and play upon the smooth sands of the beach. A pretty sight, and one that well repaid those who brought it to pass.
Everyone took an interest in the “Rose Garden,” as Mac named it, and the womenfolk were continually driving over to the Point for something for the “poor dears.” Aunt Plenty sowed gingerbread broadcast; Aunt Jessie made pinafores by the dozen while Aunt Jane “kept her eye” on the nurses, and Aunt Myra supplied medicines so liberally that the mortality would have been awful if Dr. Alec had not taken them in charge. To him this was the most delightful spot in the world and well it might be, for he suggested the idea and gave Rose all the credit of it. He was often there, and his appearance was always greeted with shrieks of rapture, as the children gathered from all quarters creeping, running, hopping on crutches, or carried in arms which they gladly left to sit on “Uncle Doctor's” knee, for that was the title by which he went among them.
He seemed as young as any of his comrades, though the curly head was getting gray, and the frolics that went on when he arrived were better than any medicine to children who had never learned to play. It was a standing joke among the friends that the bachelor brother had the largest family and was the most domestic man of the remaining four, though Uncle Mac did his part manfully and kept Aunt Jane in a constant fidget by his rash propositions to adopt the heartiest boys and prettiest girls to amuse him and employ her.
On one occasion Aunt Jane had a very narrow escape, and the culprit being her son, not her husband, she felt free to repay herself for many scares of this sort by a good scolding, which, unlike many, produced excellent results.
One bright June day, as Rose came cantering home from the Point on her pretty bay pony, she saw a man sitting on a fallen tree beside the road and something in his despondent attitude arrested her attention. As she drew nearer he turned his head, and she stopped short, exclaiming in great surprise: “Why, Mac! What are you doing here?”
“Trying to solve a problem,” he answered, looking up with a whimsical expression of perplexity and amusement in his face which made Rose smile till his next words turned her sober in a twinkling: “I've eloped with a young lady, and don't know what to do with her. I took her home, of course, but mother turned her out of the house, and I'm in a quandary.”
“Is that her baggage?” asked Rose, pointing with her whip to the large bundle which he held while the wild idea flashed through her head that perhaps he really had done some rash deed of this sort.
“No, this is the young lady herself.” And, opening a corner of the brown shawl, he displayed a child of three so pale, so thin and tiny that she looked like a small scared bird just fallen from the nest as she shrank away from the light with great frightened eyes and a hand like a little claw tightly clutched a button of Mac's coat.
“Poor baby! Where did it come from?” cried Rose, leaning down to look.
“I'll tell you the story, and then you shall advise me what to do. At our hospital we've had a poor woman who got hurt and died two days ago. I had nothing to do with her, only took her a bit of fruit once or twice, for she had big, wistful sort of eyes that haunted me. The day she died I stopped a minute, and the nurse said she'd been wanting to speak to me but didn't dare. So I asked if I could do anything for her and, though she could hardly breathe for pain being almost gone she implored me to take care of baby. I found out where the child was, and promised I'd see after her for the poor soul couldn't seem to die till I'd given her that comfort. I never can forget the look in her eyes as I held her hand and said, 'Baby shall be taken care of.' She tried to thank me, and died soon after quite peacefully. Well, I went today and hunted up the poor little wretch. Found her in a miserable place, left in the care of an old hag who had shut her up alone to keep her out of the way, and there this mite was, huddled in a corner, crying 'Marmar, marmar!' fit to touch a heart of stone. I blew up at the woman and took the baby straightaway, for she had been abused. It was high time. Look there, will you?”
Mac turned the little skinny arm and showed a blue mark which made Rose drop her reins and stretch out both hands, crying with a tender sort of indignation: “How dared they do it? Give her to me, poor little motherless thing!”
Mac laid the bundle in her arms, and Rose began to cuddle it in the fond, foolish way women have a most comfortable and effective way, nevertheless and baby evidently felt that things were changing for the better when warm lips touched her cheeks, a soft hand smoothed her tumbled hair, and a womanly face bent over her with the inarticulate cooings and purrings mothers make. The frightened eyes went up to this gentle countenance and rested there as if reassured; the little claw crept to the girl's neck, and poor baby nestled to her with a long sigh and a plaintive murmur of “Marmar, marmar” that certainly would have touched a stony heart.
“Now, go on. No, Rosa, not you,” said the new nurse as the intelligent animal looked around to see if things were all right before she proceeded.
“I took the child home to mother, not knowing what else to do, but she wouldn't have it at any price, even for a night. She doesn't like children, you know, and Father has joked so much about 'the Pointers' that she is quite rampant at the mere idea of a child in the house. She told me to take it to the Rose Garden. I said it was running over now, and no room even for a mite like this. 'Go to the Hospital,' says she. 'Baby isn't ill, ma'am,' says I. 'Orphan Asylum,' says she. 'Not an orphan got a father who can't take care of her,' says I. 'Take her to the Foundling place, or Mrs. Gardener, or someone whose business it is. I will not have the creature here, sick and dirty and noisy. Carry it back, and ask Rose to tell you what to do with it.' So my cruel parent cast me forth but relented as I shouldered baby, gave me a shawl to put her in, a jumble to feed her with, and money to pay her board in some good place. Mother's bark is always worse than her bite, you know.”
“And you were trying to think of the 'good place' as you sat here?” asked Rose, looking down at him with great approval as he stood patting Rosa's glossy neck.
“Exactly. I didn't want to trouble you, for you have your house full already, and I really couldn't lay my hand on any good soul who would be bothered with this little forlornity. She has nothing to recommend her, you see not pretty; feeble; shy as a mouse; no end of care, I daresay yet she needs every bit she can get to keep soul and body together, if I'm any judge.”
Rose opened her lips impulsively, but closed them without speaking and sat a minute looking straight between Rosa's ears, as if forcing herself to think twice before she spoke. Mac watched her out of the corner of his eyes as he said, in a musing tone, tucking the shawl around a pair of shabby little feet the while, “This seems to be one of the charities that no one wants to undertake, yet I can't help feeling that my promise to the mother binds me to something more than merely handing baby over to some busy matron or careless nurse in any of our overcrowded institutions. She is such a frail creature she won't trouble anyone long, perhaps, and I should like to give her just a taste of comfort, if not love, before she finds her 'Marmar' again.”
“Lead Rosa I'm going to take this child home, and if Uncle is willing, I'll adopt her, and she shall be happy!” cried Rose, with the sudden glow of feeling that always made her lovely. And gathering poor baby close, she went on her way like a modern Britomart, ready to redress the wrongs of any who had need of her.
As he led the slowly stepping horse along the quiet road, Mac could not help thinking that they looked a little like the Flight into Egypt, but he did not say so, being a reverent youth only glanced back now and then at the figure above him, for Rose had taken off her hat to keep the light from baby's eyes and sat with the sunshine turning her uncovered hair to gold as she looked down at the little creature resting on the saddle before her with the sweet thoughtfulness one sees in some of Correggio's young Madonnas.
No one else saw the picture, but Mac long remembered it, and ever after there was a touch of reverence added to the warm affection he had always borne his cousin Rose.
“What is the child's name?” was the sudden question which disturbed a brief silence, broken only by the sound of pacing hoofs, the rustle of green boughs overhead, and the blithe caroling of birds.
“I'm sure I don't know,” answered Mac, suddenly aware that he had fallen out of one quandary into another.
“Didn't you ask?”
“No, the mother called her 'Baby,' and the old woman, 'Brat.' And that is all I know of the first name the last is Kennedy. You may christen her what you like.”
“Then I shall name her Dulcinea, as you are her knight, and call her Dulce for short. That is a sweet diminutive, I'm sure,” laughed Rose, much amused at the idea.
Don Quixote looked pleased and vowed to defend his little lady stoutly, beginning his services on the spot by filling the small hands with buttercups, thereby winning for himself the first smile baby's face had known for weeks.
When they got home Aunt Plenty received her new guest with her accustomed hospitality and, on learning the story, was as warmly interested as even enthusiastic Rose could desire, bustling about to make the child comfortable with an energy pleasant to see, for the grandmotherly instincts were strong in the old lady and of late had been beautifully developed.
In less than half an hour from the time baby went upstairs, she came down again on Rose's arm, freshly washed and brushed, in a pink gown much too large and a white apron decidedly too small; an immaculate pair of socks, but no shoes; a neat bandage on the bruised arm, and a string of spools for a plaything hanging on the other. A resigned expression sat upon her little face, but the frightened eyes were only shy now, and the forlorn heart evidently much comforted.
“There! How do you like your Dulce now?” said Rose, proudly displaying the work of her hands as she came in with her habit pinned up and carrying a silver porringer of bread and milk.
Mac knelt down, took the small, reluctant hand, and kissed it as devoutly as ever good Alonzo Quixada did that of the Duchess while he said, merrily quoting from the immortal story: “'High and Sovereign Lady, thine till death, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance.'”
But baby had no heart for play and, withdrawing her hand, pointed to the porringer with the suggestive remark: “Din-din, now.”
So Rose sat down and fed the Duchess while the Don stood by and watched the feast with much satisfaction.
“How nice she looks! Do you consider shoes unhealthy?” he asked, surveying the socks with respectful interest.
“No, her shoes are drying. You must have let her go in the mud.”
“I only put her down for a minute when she howled, and she made for a puddle, like a duck. I'll buy her some new ones clothes too. Where do I go, what do I ask for, and how much do I get?” he said, diving for his pocketbook, amiably anxious but pitiably ignorant.
“I'll see to that. We always have things on hand for the Pointers as they come along and can soon fit Dulce out. You may make some inquiries about the father if you will, for I don't want to have her taken away just as I get fond of her. Do you know anything about him?”
“Only that he is in State Prison for twenty-one years, and not likely to trouble you.”
“How dreadful! I really think Phebe was better off to have none at all. I'll go to work at once, then, and try to bring up the convict's little daughter to be a good woman so that she will have an honest name of her own, since he has nothing but disgrace to give her.”
“Uncle can show you how to do that if you need any help. He has been so successful in his first attempt, I fancy you won't require much,” said Mac, picking up the spools for the sixth time.
“Yes, I shall, for it is a great responsibility, and I do not undertake it lightly,” answered Rose soberly, though the double-barreled compliment pleased her very much.
“I'm sure Phebe has turned out splendidly, and you began very early with her.”
“So I did! That's encouraging. Dear thing, how bewildered she looked when I proposed adopting her. I remember all about it, for Uncle had just come and I was quite crazy over a box of presents and rushed at Phebe as she was cleaning brasses. How little I thought my childish offer would end so well!” And Rose fell a-musing with a happy smile on her face while baby picked the last morsels out of the porringer with her own busy fingers.
It certainly had ended well, for Phebe at the end of six months not only had a good place as choir singer but several young pupils and excellent prospects for the next winter.
“Accept the blessing of a poor young man, Whose lucky steps have led him to your door, and let me help as much as I can. Good-bye, my Dulcinea.”
And, with a farewell stroke of the smooth head, Mac went away to report his success to his mother, who, in spite of her seeming harshness, was already planning how she could best befriend this inconvenient baby.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
17
|
AMONG THE HAYCOCKS
|
Uncle Alec did not object and, finding that no one had any claim upon the child, permitted Rose to keep it for a time at least. So little Dulce, newly equipped even to a name, took her place among them and slowly began to thrive. But she did not grow pretty and never was a gay, attractive child, for she seemed to have been born in sorrow and brought up in misery. A pale, pensive little creature, always creeping into corners and looking timidly out, as if asking leave to live, and, when offered playthings, taking them with a meek surprise that was very touching.
Rose soon won her heart, and then almost wished she had not, for baby clung to her with inconvenient fondness, changing her former wail of “Marmar” into a lament for “Aunty Wose” if separated long. Nevertheless, there was great satisfaction in cherishing the little waif, for she learned more than she could teach and felt a sense of responsibility which was excellent ballast for her enthusiastic nature.
Kitty Van, who made Rose her model in all things, was immediately inspired to go and do likewise, to the great amusement as well as annoyance of her family. Selecting the prettiest, liveliest child in the Asylum, she took it home on trial for a week. “A perfect cherub” she pronounced it the first day, but an “enfant terrible” before the week was over, for the young hero rioted by day, howled by night, ravaged the house from top to bottom, and kept his guardians in a series of panics by his hairbreadth escapes. So early on Saturday, poor exhausted Kitty restored the “cherub” with many thanks, and decided to wait until her views of education were rather more advanced.
As the warm weather came on, Rose announced that Dulce needed mountain air, for she dutifully repeated as many of Dr. Alec's prescriptions as possible and, remembering how much good Cozy Corner did her long ago, resolved to try it on her baby. Aunt Jessie and Jamie went with her, and Mother Atkinson received them as cordially as ever. The pretty daughters were all married and gone, but a stout damsel took their place, and nothing seemed changed except that the old heads were grayer and the young ones a good deal taller than six years ago.
Jamie immediately fraternized with neighboring boys and devoted himself to fishing with an ardor which deserved greater success. Aunt Jessie reveled in reading, for which she had no time at home, and lay in her hammock a happy woman, with no socks to darn, buttons to sew, or housekeeping cares to vex her soul. Rose went about with Dulce like a very devoted hen with one rather feeble chicken, for she was anxious to have this treatment work well and tended her little patient with daily increasing satisfaction. Dr. Alec came up to pass a few days and pronounced the child in a most promising condition. But the grand event of the season was the unexpected arrival of Phebe.
Two of her pupils had invited her to join them in a trip to the mountains, and she ran away from the great hotel to surprise her little mistress with a sight of her, so well and happy that Rose had no anxiety left on her account.
Three delightful days they spent, roaming about together, talking as only girls can talk after a long separation, and enjoying one another like a pair of lovers. As if to make it quite perfect, by one of those remarkable coincidences which sometimes occur, Archie happened to run up for the Sunday, so Phebe had her surprise, and Aunt Jessie and the telegraph kept their secret so well, no one ever knew what maternal machinations brought the happy accident to pass.
Then Rose saw a very pretty, pastoral bit of lovemaking, and long after it was over, and Phebe gone one way, Archie another, the echo of sweet words seemed to linger in the air, tender ghosts to haunt the pine grove, and even the big coffeepot had a halo of romance about it, for its burnished sides reflected the soft glances the lovers interchanged as one filled the other's cup at that last breakfast.
Rose found these reminiscences more interesting than any novel she had read, and often beguiled her long leisure by planning a splendid future for her Phebe as she trotted about after her baby in the lovely July weather.
On one of the most perfect days she sat under an old apple tree on the slope behind the house where they used to play. Before her opened the wide intervale, dotted with haymakers at their picturesque work. On the left flowed the swift river fringed with graceful elms in their bravest greenery; on the right rose the purple hills serene and grand; and overhead glowed the midsummer sky, which glorified it all.
Little Dulce, tired of play, lay fast asleep in the nest she had made in one of the haycocks close by, and Rose leaned against the gnarled old tree, dreaming daydreams with her work at her feet. Happy and absorbing fancies they seemed to be, for her face was beautifully tranquil, and she took no heed of the train which suddenly went speeding down the valley, leaving a white cloud behind. Its rumble concealed the sound of approaching steps, and her eyes never turned from the distant hills till the abrupt appearance of a very sunburned but smiling young man made her jump up, exclaiming joyfully: “Why, Mac! Where did you drop from?”
“The top of Mount Washington. How do you do?”
“Never better. Won't you go in? You must be tired after such a fall.”
“No, thank you. I've seen the old lady. She told me Aunt Jessie and the boy had gone to town and that you were 'settin' round' in the old place. I came on at once and will take a lounge here if you don't mind,” answered Mac, unstrapping his knapsack and taking a haycock as if it were a chair.
Rose subsided into her former seat, surveying her cousin with much satisfaction as she said: “This is the third surprise I've had since I came. Uncle popped in upon us first, then Phebe, and now you. Have you had a pleasant tramp? Uncle said you were off.”
“Delightful! I feel as if I'd been in heaven, or near it, for about three weeks, and thought I'd break the shock of coming down to the earth by calling here on my way home.”
“You look as if heaven suited you. Brown as a berry, but so fresh and happy I should never guess you had been scrambling down a mountain,” said Rose, trying to discover why he looked so well in spite of the blue flannel suit and dusty shoes, for there was a certain sylvan freshness about him as he sat there full of reposeful strength the hills seemed to have given, the wholesome cheerful days of air and sunshine put into a man, and the clear, bright look of one who had caught glimpses of a new world from the mountaintop.
“Tramping agrees with me. I took a dip in the river as I came along and made my toilet in a place where Milton's Sabrina might have lived,” he said, shaking back his damp hair and settling the knot of scarlet bunchberries stuck in his buttonhole.
“You look as if you found the nymph at home,” said Rose, knowing how much he liked the “Comus.”
“I found her here,” and he made a little bow.
“That's very pretty, and I'll give you one in return. You grow more like Uncle Alec every day, and I think I'll call you Alec, Jr.” “Alexander the Great wouldn't thank you for that,” and Mac did not look as grateful as she had expected.
“Very like, indeed, except the forehead. His is broad and benevolent, yours high and arched. Do you know if you had no beard, and wore your hair long, I really think you'd look like Milton,” added Rose, sure that would please him.
It certainly did amuse him, for he lay back on the hay and laughed so heartily that his merriment scared the squirrel on the wall and woke Dulce.
“You ungrateful boy! Will nothing suit you? When I say you look like the best man I know, you gave a shrug, and when I liken you to a great poet, you shout. I'm afraid you are very conceited, Mac.” And Rose laughed, too, glad to see him so gay.
“If I am, it is your fault. Nothing I can do will ever make a Milton of me, unless I go blind someday,” he said, sobering at the thought.
“You once said a man could be what he liked if he tried hard enough, so why shouldn't you be a poet?” asked Rose, liking to trip him up with his own words, as he often did her.
“I thought I was to be an M.D.” “You might be both. There have been poetical doctors, you know.”
“Would you like me to be such a one?” asked Mac, looking at her as seriously as if he really thought of trying it.
“No. I'd rather have you one or the other. I don't care which, only you must be famous in either you choose. I'm very ambitious for you, because, I insist upon it, you are a genius of some sort. I think it is beginning to simmer already, and I've got a great curiosity to know what it will turn out to be.”
Mac's eyes shone as she said that, but before he could speak a little voice said, “Aunty Wose!” and he turned to find Dulce sitting up in her nest staring at the broad blue back before her with round eyes.
“Do you know your Don?” he asked, offering his hand with respectful gentleness, for she seemed a little doubtful whether he was a friend or stranger.
“It is 'Mat,'” said Rose, and that familiar word seemed to reassure the child at once, for, leaning forward, she kissed him as if quite used to doing it.
“I picked up some toys for her, by the way, and she shall have them at once to pay for that. I didn't expect to be so graciously received by this shy mouse,” said Mac, much gratified, for Dulce was very chary of her favors.
“She knew you, for I always carry my home album with me, and when she comes to your picture she always kisses it, because I never want her to forget her first friend,” explained Rose, pleased with her pupil.
“First, but not best,” answered Mac, rummaging in his knapsack for the promised toys, which he set forth upon the hay before delighted Dulce.
Neither picture books nor sweeties, but berries strung on long stems of grass, acorns, and pretty cones, bits of rock shining with mica, several bluebirds' feathers, and a nest of moss with white pebbles for eggs.
“Dearest Nature, strong and kind” knows what children love, and has plenty of such playthings ready for them all, if one only knows how to find them. These were received with rapture. And leaving the little creature to enjoy them in her own quiet way, Mac began to tumble the things back into his knapsack again. Two or three books lay near Rose, and she took up one which opened at a place marked by a scribbled paper.
“Keats? I didn't know you condescended to read anything so modern,” she said, moving the paper to see the page beneath.
Mac looked up, snatched the book out of her hand, and shook down several more scraps, then returned it with a curiously shamefaced expression, saying, as he crammed the papers into his pocket, “I beg pardon, but it was full of rubbish. Oh, yes! I'm fond of Keats. Don't you know him?”
“I used to read him a good deal, but Uncle found me crying over the 'Pot of Basil' and advised me to read less poetry for a while or I should get too sentimental,” answered Rose, turning the pages without seeing them, for a new idea had just popped into her head.
“'The Eve of St. Agnes' is the most perfect love story in the world, I think,” said Mac, enthusiastically.
“Read it to me. I feel just like hearing poetry, and you will do it justice if you are fond of it,” said Rose, handing him the book with an innocent air.
“Nothing I'd like better, but it is rather long.”
“I'll tell you to stop if I get tired. Baby won't interrupt; she will be contented for an hour with those pretty things.”
As if well pleased with his task, Mac laid himself comfortably on the grass and, leaning his head on his hand, read the lovely story as only one could who entered fully into the spirit of it. Rose watched him closely and saw how his face brightened over some quaint fancy, delicate description, or delicious word; heard how smoothly the melodious measures fell from his lips, and read something more than admiration in his eyes as he looked up now and then to mark if she enjoyed it as much as he.
She could not help enjoying it, for the poet's pen painted as well as wrote, and the little romance lived before her, but she was not thinking of John Keats as she listened; she was wondering if this cousin was a kindred spirit, born to make such music and leave as sweet an echo behind him. It seemed as if it might be; and, after going through the rough caterpillar and the pent-up chrysalis changes, the beautiful butterfly would appear to astonish and delight them all. So full of this fancy was she that she never thanked him when the story ended but, leaning forward, asked in a tone that made him start and look as if he had fallen from the clouds: “Mac, do you ever write poetry?”
“Never.”
“What do you call the song Phebe sang with her bird chorus?”
“That was nothing till she put the music to it. But she promised not to tell.”
“She didn't. I suspected, and now I know,” laughed Rose, delighted to have caught him.
Much discomfited, Mac gave poor Keats a fling and, leaning on both elbows, tried to hide his face for it had reddened like that of a modest girl when teased about her lover.
“You needn't look so guilty; it is no sin to write poetry,” said Rose, amused at his confession.
“It's a sin to call that rubbish poetry,” muttered Mac with great scorn.
“It is a greater sin to tell a fib and say you never write it.”
“Reading so much sets one thinking about such things, and every fellow scribbles a little jingle when he is lazy or in love, you know,” explained Mac, looking very guilty.
Rose could not quite understand the change she saw in him till his last words suggested a cause which she knew by experience was apt to inspire young men. Leaning forward again, she asked solemnly, though her eyes danced with fun, “Mac, are you in love?”
“Do I look like it?” And he sat up with such an injured and indignant face that she apologized at once, for he certainly did not look loverlike with hayseed in his hair, several lively crickets playing leapfrog over his back, and a pair of long legs stretching from tree to haycock.
“No, you don't, and I humbly beg your pardon for making such an unwarrantable insinuation. It merely occurred to me that the general upliftedness I observe in you might be owing to that, since it wasn't poetry.”
“It is the good company I've been keeping, if anything. A fellow can't spend 'A Week' with Thoreau and not be the better for it. I'm glad I show it, because in the scramble life is to most of us, even an hour with such a sane, simple, and sagacious soul as his must help one,” said Mac, taking a much worn book out of his pocket with the air of introducing a dear and honored friend.
“I've read bits, and like them they are so original and fresh and sometimes droll,” said Rose, smiling to see what natural and appropriate marks of approbation the elements seemed to set upon the pages Mac was turning eagerly, for one had evidently been rained on, a crushed berry stained another, some appreciative field-mouse or squirrel had nibbled one corner, and the cover was faded with the sunshine, which seemed to have filtered through to the thoughts within.
“Here's a characteristic bit for you: 'I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an oxcart, with free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train, and breathe malaria all the way.'
“I've tried both and quite agree with him,” laughed Mac, and skimming down another page, gave her a paragraph here and there.
“'Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.'
“'We do not learn much from learned books, but from sincere human books: frank, honest biographies.'
“'At least let us have healthy books. Let the poet be as vigorous as the sugar maple, with sap enough to maintain his own verdure, besides what runs into the trough; and not like a vine which, being cut in the spring, bears no fruit, but bleeds to death in the endeavor to heal its wounds.'”
“That will do for you,” said Rose, still thinking of the new suspicion which pleased her by its very improbability.
Mac flashed a quick look at her and shut the book, saying quietly, although his eyes shone, and a conscious smile lurked about his mouth: “We shall see, and no one need meddle, for, as my Thoreau says, “Whate'er we leave to God, God does And blesses us: The work we choose should be our own God lets alone.”
Rose sat silent, as if conscious that she deserved his poetical reproof.
“Come, you have catechized me pretty well; now I'll take my turn and ask you why you look 'uplifted,' as you call it. What have you been doing to make yourself more like your namesake than ever?” asked Mac, carrying war into the enemy's camp with the sudden question.
“Nothing but live, and enjoy doing it. I actually sit here, day after day, as happy and contented with little things as Dulce is and feel as if I wasn't much older than she,” answered the girl, feeling as if some change was going on in that pleasant sort of pause but unable to describe it.
“As if a rose should shut and be a bud again,” murmured Mac, borrowing from his beloved Keats.
“Ah, but I can't do that! I must go on blooming whether I like it or not, and the only trouble I have is to know what leaf I ought to unfold next,” said Rose, playfully smoothing out the white gown, in which she looked very like a daisy among the green.
“How far have you got?” asked Mac, continuing his catechism as if the fancy suited him.
“Let me see. Since I came home last year, I've been gay, then sad, then busy, and now I am simply happy. I don't know why, but seem to be waiting for what is to come next and getting ready for it, perhaps unconsciously,” she said, looking dreamily away to the hills again, is if the new experience was coming to her from afar.
Mac watched her thoughtfully for a minute, wondering how many more leaves must unfold before the golden heart of this human flower would lie open to the sun. He felt a curious desire to help in some way, and could think of none better than to offer her what he had found most helpful to himself. Picking up another book, he opened it at a place where an oak leaf lay and, handing it to her, said, as if presenting something very excellent and precious: “If you want to be ready to take whatever comes in a brave and noble way, read that, and the one where the page is turned down.”
Rose took it, saw the words “Self-Reliance,” and turning the leaves, read here and there a passage which was marked: “'My life is for itself, and not for a spectacle.'
“'Insist on yourself: never imitate. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him.'
“'Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope or dare too much.'”
Then, coming to the folded page, whose title was “Heroism,” she read, and brightened as she read: “'Let the maiden, with erect soul, walk serenely on her way; accept the hint of each new experience; search in turn all the objects that solicit her eye, that she may learn the power and the charm of her newborn being.'
“'The fair girl who repels interference by a decided and proud choice of influences inspires every beholder with something of her own nobleness; and the silent heart encourages her. O friend, never strike sail to a fear! Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas.'”
“You understand that, don't you?” asked Mac as she glanced up with the look of one who had found something suited to her taste and need.
“Yes, but I never dared to read these Essays, because I thought they were too wise for me.”
“The wisest things are sometimes the simplest, I think. Everyone welcomes light and air, and cannot do without them, yet very few could explain them truly. I don't ask you to read or understand all of that don't myself but I do recommend the two essays I've marked, as well as 'Love' and 'Friendship.' Try them, and let me know how they suit. I'll leave you the book.”
“Thanks. I wanted something fine to read up here and, judging by what I see, I fancy this will suit. Only Aunt Jessie may think I'm putting on airs if I try Emerson.”
“Why should she? He has done more to set young men and women thinking than any man in this century at least. Don't you be afraid if it is what you want, take it, and go ahead as he tells you “Without halting, without rest, Lifting Better up to Best.”
“I'll try,” said Rose meekly, feeling that Mac had been going ahead himself much faster than she had any suspicion.
Here a voice exclaimed “Hallo!” and, looking around, Jamie was discovered surveying them critically as he stood in an independent attitude, like a small Colossus of Rhodes in brown linen, with a bundle of molasses candy in one hand, several new fishhooks cherished carefully in the other, and his hat well on the back of his head, displaying as many freckles as one somewhat limited nose could reasonably accommodate.
“How are you, young one?” said Mac, nodding.
“Tip-top. Glad it's you. Thought Archie might have turned up again, and he's no fun. Where did you come from? What did you come for? How long are you going to stay? Want a bit? It's jolly good.”
With which varied remarks Jamie approached, shook hands in a manly way, and, sitting down beside his long cousin, hospitably offered sticks of candy all around.
“Did you get any letters?” asked Rose, declining the sticky treat.
“Lots, but Mama forgot to give 'em to me, and I was rather in a hurry, for Mrs. Atkinson said somebody had come and I couldn't wait,” explained Jamie, reposing luxuriously with his head on Mac's legs and his mouth full.
“I'll step and get them. Aunty must be tired, and we should enjoy reading the news together.”
“She is the most convenient girl that ever was,” observed Jamie as Rose departed, thinking Mac might like some more substantial refreshment than sweetmeats.
“I should think so, if you let her run your errands, you lazy little scamp,” answered Mac, looking after her as she went up the green slope, for there was something very attractive to him about the slender figure in a plain white gown with a black sash about the waist and all the wavy hair gathered to the top of the head with a little black bow.
“Sort of pre-Raphaelite, and quite refreshing after the furbelowed creatures at the hotels,” he said to himself as she vanished under the arch of scarlet runners over the garden gate.
“Oh, well! She likes it. Rose is fond of me, and I'm very good to her when I have time,” continued Jamie, calmly explaining. “I let her cut out a fishhook, when it caught in my leg, with a sharp penknife, and you'd better believe it hurt, but I never squirmed a bit, and she said I was a brave boy. And then, one day I got left on my desert island out in the pond, you know the boat floated off, and there I was for as much as an hour before I could make anyone hear. But Rose thought I might be there, and down she came, and told me to swim ashore. It wasn't far, but the water was horrid cold, and I didn't like it. I started though, just as she said, and got on all right, till about halfway, then cramp or something made me shut up and howl, and she came after me slapdash, and pulled me ashore. Yes, sir, as wet as a turtle, and looked so funny, I laughed, and that cured the cramp. Wasn't I good to mind when she said, 'Come on'?”
“She was, to dive after such a scapegrace. I guess you lead her a life of it, and I'd better take you home with me in the morning,” suggested Mac, rolling the boy over and giving him a good-natured pummeling on the haycock while Dulce applauded from her nest.
When Rose returned with ice-cold milk, gingerbread, and letters, she found the reader of Emerson up in the tree, pelting and being pelted with green apples as Jamie vainly endeavored to get at him. The siege ended when Aunt Jessie appeared, and the rest of the afternoon was spent in chat about home affairs.
Early the next morning Mac was off, and Rose went as far as the old church with him.
“Shall you walk all the way?” she asked as he strode along beside her in the dewy freshness of the young day.
“Only about twenty miles, then take car and whisk back to my work,” he answered, breaking a delicate fern for her.
“Are you never lonely?”
“Never. I take my best friends along, you know,” and he gave a slap to the pocket from which peeped the volume of Thoreau.
“I'm afraid you leave your very best behind you,” said Rose, alluding to the book he had lent her yesterday.
“I'm glad to share it with you. I have much of it here, and a little goes a great way, as you will soon discover,” he answered, tapping his head.
“I hope the reading will do as much for me as it seems to have done for you. I'm happy, but you are wise and good I want to be also.”
“Read away, and digest it well, then write and tell me what you think of it. Will you?” he asked as they paused where the four roads met.
“If you will answer. Shall you have time with all your other work? Poetry I beg pardon medicine is very absorbing, you know,” answered Rose mischievously, for just then, as he stood bareheaded in the shadows of the leaves playing over his fine forehead, she remembered the chat among the haycocks, and he did not look at all like an M.D. “I'll make time.”
“Good-bye, Milton.”
“Good-bye, Sabrina.”
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
18
|
WHICH WAS IT?
|
Rose did read and digest, and found her days much richer for the good company she kept, for an introduction to so much that was wise, beautiful, and true could not but make that month a memorable one. It is not strange that while the young man most admired “Heroism” and “Self-Reliance,” the girl preferred “Love” and “Friendship,” reading them over and over like prose poems, as they are, to the fitting accompaniment of sunshine, solitude, and sympathy, for letters went to and fro with praiseworthy regularity.
Rose much enjoyed this correspondence, and found herself regretting that it was at an end when she went home in September, for Mac wrote better than he talked, though he could do that remarkably well when he chose. But she had no chance to express either pleasure or regret, for the first time she saw him after her return the great change in his appearance made her forget everything else. Some whim had seized him to be shaven and shorn, and when he presented himself to welcome Rose, she hardly knew him. The shaggy hair was nicely trimmed and brushed, the cherished brown beard entirely gone, showing a well-cut mouth and handsome chin and giving a new expression to the whole face.
“Are you trying to look like Keats?” she asked, after a critical glance, which left her undecided whether the change was an improvement or not.
“I am trying not to look like Uncle,” answered Mac coolly.
“And why, if you please?” demanded Rose in great surprise.
“Because I prefer to look like myself, and not resemble any other man, no matter how good or great he may be.”
“You haven't succeeded then, for you look now very much like the young Augustus,” returned Rose, rather pleased on the whole to see what a finely shaped head appeared after the rough thatch was off.
“Trust a woman to find a comparison for everything under the sun!” laughed Mac, not at all flattered by the one just made. “What do you think of me, on the whole?” he asked a minute later, as he found Rose still scrutinizing him with a meditative air.
“Haven't made up my mind. It is such an entire change, I don't know you, and feel as if I ought to be introduced. You certainly look much more tidy, and I fancy I shall like it when I'm used to seeing a somewhat distinguished-looking man about the house instead of my old friend Orson,” answered Rose, with her head on one side to get a profile view.
“Don't tell Uncle why I did it, please he thinks it was for the sake of coolness and likes it, so take no notice. They are all used to me now, and don't mind,” said Mac, roving about the room as if rather ashamed of his whim after all.
“No, I won't, but you mustn't mind if I'm not as sociable as usual for a while. I never can be with strangers, and you really do seem like one. That will be a punishment for your want of taste and love of originality,” returned Rose, resolved to punish him for the slight put upon her beloved uncle.
“As you like. I won't trouble you much anyway, for I'm going to be very busy. May go to L this winter, if Uncle thinks best, and then my 'originality' can't annoy you.”
“I hope you won't go. Why, Mac, I'm just getting to know and enjoy you, and thought we'd have a nice time this winter reading something together. Must you go?” And Rose seemed to forget his strangeness, as she held him still by one button while she talked.
“That would be nice. But I feel as if I must go my plans are all made, and I've set my heart on it,” answered Mac, looking so eager that Rose released him, saying sadly: “I suppose it is natural for you all to get restless and push off, but it is hard for me to let you go one after the other and stay here alone. Charlie is gone, Archie and Steve are wrapped up in their sweethearts, the boys away, and only Jamie left to 'play with Rose.' ?
“But I'll come back, and you'll be glad I went if I bring you my--” began Mac with sudden animation, then stopped abruptly to bite his lips, as if he had nearly said too much.
“Your what?” asked Rose curiously, for he neither looked nor acted like himself.
“I forgot how long it takes to get a diploma,” he said, walking away again.
“There will be one comfort if you go you'll see Phebe and can tell me all about her, for she is so modest, she doesn't half do it. I shall want to know how she gets on, if she is engaged to sing ballads in the concerts they talk of for next winter. You will write, won't you?”
“Oh, yes! No doubt of that,” and Mac laughed low to himself as he stooped to look at the little Psyche on the mantelpiece. “What a pretty thing it is!” he added soberly as he took it up.
“Be careful. Uncle gave it to me last New Year, and I'm very fond of it. She is just lifting her lamp to see what Cupid is like, for she hasn't seen him yet,” said Rose, busy putting her worktable in order.
“You ought to have a Cupid for her to look at. She has been waiting patiently a whole year, with nothing but a bronze lizard in sight,” said Mac with the half-shy, half-daring look which was so new and puzzling.
“Cupid fled away as soon as she woke him, you know, and she had a bad time of it. She must wait longer till she can find and keep him.”
“Do you know she looks like you? Hair tied up in a knot, and a spiritual sort of face. Don't you see it?” asked Mac, turning the graceful little figure toward her.
“Not a bit of it. I wonder whom I shall resemble next! I've been compared to a Fra Angelico angel, Saint Agnes, and now 'Syke,' as Annabel once called her.”
“You'd see what I mean, if you'd ever watched your own face when you were listening to music, talking earnestly, or much moved, then your soul gets into your eyes and you are like Psyche.”
“Tell me the next time you see me in a 'soulful' state, and I'll look in the glass, for I'd like to see if it is becoming,” said Rose merrily as she sorted her gay worsteds.
“Your feet in the full-grown grasses, Moved soft as a soft wind blows; You passed me as April passes, With a face made out of a rose,” murmured Mac under his breath, thinking of the white figure going up a green slope one summer day; then, as if chiding himself for sentimentality, he set Psyche down with great care and began to talk about a course of solid reading for the winter.
After that, Rose saw very little of him for several weeks, as he seemed to be making up for lost time and was more odd and absent than ever when he did appear.
As she became accustomed to the change in his external appearance, she discovered that he was altering fast in other ways and watched the “distinguished-looking gentleman” with much interest, saying to herself, when she saw a new sort of dignity about him alternating with an unusual restlessness of manner, and now and then a touch of sentiment, “Genius is simmering, just as I predicted.”
As the family were in mourning, there were no festivities on Rose's twenty-first birthday, though the boys had planned all sorts of rejoicings. Everyone felt particularly tender toward their girl on that day, remembering how “poor Charlie” had loved her, and they tried to show it in the gifts and good wishes they sent her. She found her sanctum all aglow with autumn leaves, and on her table so many rare and pretty things, she quite forgot she was an heiress and only felt how rich she was in loving friends.
One gift greatly pleased her, though she could not help smiling at the source from whence it came, for Mac sent her a Cupid not the chubby child with a face of naughty merriment, but a slender, winged youth leaning on his unstrung bow, with a broken arrow at his feet. A poem, “To Psyche,” came with it, and Rose was much surprised at the beauty of the lines, for, instead of being witty, complimentary, or gay, there was something nobler than mere sentiment in them, and the sweet old fable lived again in language which fitly painted the maiden Soul looking for a Love worthy to possess it.
Rose read them over and over as she sat among the gold and scarlet leaves which glorified her little room, and each time found new depth and beauty in them, looking from the words that made music in her ear to the lovely shapes that spoke with their mute grace to her eye. The whole thing suited her exactly, it was so delicate and perfect in its way, for she was tired of costly gifts and valued very much this proof of her cousin's taste and talent, seeing nothing in it but an affectionate desire to please her.
All the rest dropped in at intervals through the day to say a loving word, and last of all came Mac. Rose happened to be alone with Dulce, enjoying a splendid sunset from her western window, for October gave her child a beautiful good night.
Rose turned around as he entered and, putting down the little girl, went to him with the evening red shining on her happy face as she said gratefully: “Dear Mac, it was so lovely! I don't know how to thank you for it in any way but this.” And, drawing down his tall head, she gave him the birthday kiss she had given all the others.
But this time it produced a singular effect, for Mac turned scarlet, then grew pale, and when Rose added playfully, thinking to relieve the shyness of so young a poet, “Never again say you don't write poetry, or call your verses rubbish I knew you were a genius, and now I'm sure of it,” he broke out, as if against his will: “No. It isn't genius, it is love!” Then, as she shrank a little, startled at his energy, he added, with an effort at self-control which made his voice sound strange: “I didn't mean to speak, but I can't suffer you to deceive yourself so. I must tell the truth, and not let you kiss me like a cousin when I love you with all my heart and soul!”
“Oh, Mac, don't joke!” cried Rose, bewildered by this sudden glimpse into a heart she thought she knew so well.
“I'm in solemn earnest,” he answered steadily, in such a quiet tone that, but for the pale excitement of his face, she might have doubted his words. “Be angry, if you will. I expect it, for I know it is too soon to speak. I ought to wait for years, perhaps, but you seemed so happy I dared to hope you had forgotten.”
“Forgotten what?” asked Rose sharply.
“Charlie.”
“Ah! You all will insist on believing that I loved him better than I did!” she cried, with both pain and impatience in her voice, for the family delusion tried her very much at times.
“How could we help it, when he was everything women most admire?” said Mac, not bitterly, but as if he sometimes wondered at their want of insight.
“I do not admire weakness of any sort I could never love without either confidence or respect. Do me the justice to believe that, for I'm tired of being pitied.”
She spoke almost passionately, being more excited by Mac's repressed emotion than she had ever been by Charlie's most touching demonstration, though she did not know why.
“But he loved you so!” began Mac, feeling as if a barrier had suddenly gone down but not daring to venture in as yet.
“That was the hard part of it! That was why I tried to love him, why I hoped he would stand fast for my sake, if not for his own, and why I found it so sad sometimes not to be able to help despising him for his want of courage. I don't know how others feel, but, to me, love isn't all. I must look up, not down, trust and honor with my whole heart, and find strength and integrity to lean on. I have had it so far, and I know I could not live without it.”
“Your ideal is a high one. Do you hope to find it, Rose?” Mac asked, feeling, with the humility of a genuine love, that he could not give her all she desired.
“Yes,” she answered, with a face full of the beautiful confidence in virtue, the instinctive desire for the best which so many of us lose too soon, to find again after life's great lessons are well learned. “I do hope to find it, because I try not to be unreasonable and expect perfection. Smile if you will, but I won't give up my hero yet,” and she tried to speak lightly, hoping to lead him away from a more dangerous topic.
“You'll have to look a long while, I'm afraid,” and all the glow was gone out of Mac's face, for he understood her wish and knew his answer had been given.
“I have Uncle to help me, and I think my ideal grew out of my knowledge of him. How can I fail to believe in goodness, when he shows me what it can be and do?”
“It's no use for me to say any more, for I have very little to offer. I did not mean to say a word till I earned a right to hope for something in return. I cannot take it back, but I can wish you success, and I do, because you deserve the very best.” And Mac moved as if he was going away without more words, accepting the inevitable as manfully as he could.
“Thank you that makes me feel very ungrateful and unkind. I wish I could answer you as you want me to for, indeed, dear Mac, I'm very fond of you in my own way,” and Rose looked up with such tender pity and frank affection in her face, it was no wonder the poor fellow caught at a ray of hope and, brightening suddenly, said in his own odd way: “Couldn't you take me on trial while you are waiting for a true hero? It may be years before you find him; meantime, you could be practicing on me in ways that would be useful when you get him.”
“Oh, Mac! What shall I do with you?” exclaimed Rose, so curiously affected by this very characteristic wooing that she did not know whether to laugh or cry, for he was looking at her with his heart in his eyes, though his proposition was the queerest ever made at such a time.
“Just go on being fond of me in your own way, and let me love you as much as I like in mine. I'll try to be satisfied with that.” And he took both her hands so beseechingly that she felt more ungrateful than ever.
“No, it would not be fair, for you would love the most and, if the hero did appear, what would become of you?”
“I should resemble Uncle Alec in one thing at least fidelity, for my first love would be my last.”
That went straight to Rose's heart, and for a minute she stood silent, looking down at the two strong hands that held hers so firmly yet so gently, and the thought went through her mind, “Must he, too, be solitary all his life? I have no dear lover as my mother had, why cannot I make him happy and forget myself?”
It did not seem very hard, and she owned that, even while she told herself that compassion was no equivalent for love. She wanted to give all she could, and keep as much of Mac's affection as she honestly might, because it seemed to grow more sweet and precious when she thought of putting it away.
“You will be like Uncle in happier ways than that, I hope, for you, too, must have a high ideal and find her and be happy,” she said, resolving to be true to the voice of conscience, not be swayed by the impulse of the moment.
“I have found her, but I don't see any prospect of happiness, do you?” he asked wistfully.
“Dear Mac, I cannot give you the love you want, but I do trust and respect you from the bottom of my heart, if that is any comfort,” began Rose, looking up with eyes full of contrition for the pain her reply must give.
She got no further, however, for those last words wrought a marvelous change in Mac. Dropping her hands, he stood erect, as if inspired with sudden energy and hope, while over his face there came a brave, bright look, which for the moment made him a nobler and comelier man than ever handsome Prince had been. “It is a comfort!” he said, in a tone of gratitude that touched her very much. “You said your love must be founded on respect, and that you have given me why can I not earn the rest? I'm nothing now, but everything is possible when one loves with all his heart and soul and strength. Rose, I will be your hero if a mortal man can, even though I have to work and wait for years. I'll make you love me, and be glad to do it. Don't be frightened. I've not lost my wits I've just found them. I don't ask anything I'll never speak of my hope, but it is no use to stop me. I must try it, and I will succeed!”
With the last words, uttered in a ringing voice while his face glowed, his eyes shone, and he looked as if carried out of himself by the passion that possessed him, Mac abruptly left the room, like one eager to change words to deeds and begin his task at once.
Rose was so amazed by all this that she sat down trembling a little, not with fear or anger, but a feeling half pleasure, half pain, and a sense of some new power subtle, strong, and sweet that had come into her life. It seemed as if another Mac had taken the place of the one she had known so long an ardent, ambitious man, ready for any work now that the magical moment had come when everything seems possible to love. If hope could work such a marvelous change for a moment, could not happiness do it for a lifetime? It would be an exciting experiment to try, she thought, remembering the sudden illumination which made that familiar face both beautiful and strange.
She could not help wondering how long this unsuspected sentiment had been growing in his heart and felt perplexed by its peculiar demonstration, for she had never had a lover like this before. It touched and flattered her, nevertheless and she could not but feel honored by a love so genuine and generous, for it seemed to make a man of Mac all at once, and a manly man, too, who was not daunted by disappointment but could “hope against hope” and resolve to make her love him if it took years to do it.
There was the charm of novelty about this sort of wooing, and she tried to guess how he would set about it, felt curious to see how he would behave when next they met, and was half angry with herself for not being able to decide how she ought to act. The more she thought, the more bewildered she grew, for having made up her mind that Mac was a genius, it disturbed all her plans to find him a lover, and such an ardent one. As it was impossible to predict what would come next, she gave up trying to prepare for it and, tired with vain speculations, carried Dulce off to bed, wishing she could tuck away her love troubles as quietly and comfortably as she did her sleepy little charge.
Simple and sincere in all things, Mac gave Rose a new surprise by keeping his promise to the letter asked nothing of her, said nothing of his hope, and went on as if nothing had happened, quite in the old friendly way. No, not quite, for now and then, when she least expected it, she saw again the indescribable expression on his face, a look that seemed to shed a sudden sunshine over her, making her eyes fall involuntarily, her color rise, and her heart beat quicker for a moment. Not a word did he say, but she felt that a new atmosphere surrounded her when he was by, and although he used none of the little devices most lovers employ to keep the flame alight, it was impossible to forget that underneath his quietude there was a hidden world of fire and force ready to appear at a touch, a word from her.
This was rather dangerous knowledge for Rose, and she soon began to feel that there were more subtle temptations than she had expected, for it was impossible to be unconscious of her power, or always to resist the trials of it which daily came unsought. She had never felt this desire before, for Charlie was the only one who had touched her heart, and he was constantly asking as well as giving, and wearied her by demanding too much or oppressed her by offering more than she could accept.
Mac did neither; he only loved her, silently, patiently, hopefully, and this generous sort of fidelity was very eloquent to a nature like hers. She could not refuse or chide, since nothing was asked or urged; there was no need of coldness, for he never presumed; no call for pity, since he never complained. All that could be done was to try and be as just and true as he was, and to wait as trustfully for the end, whatever it was to be.
For a time she liked the new interest it put into her life, yet did nothing to encourage it and thought that if she gave this love no food it would soon starve to death. But it seemed to thrive on air, and presently she began to feel as if a very strong will was slowly but steadily influencing her in many ways. If Mac had never told her that he meant to “make her love him,” she might have yielded unconsciously, but now she mistook the impulse to obey this undercurrent for compassion and resisted stoutly, not comprehending yet the reason for the unrest which took possession of her about this time.
She had as many moods as an April day, and would have much surprised Dr. Alec by her vagaries had he known them all. He saw enough, however, to guess what was the matter, but took no notice, for he knew this fever must run its course, and much medicine only does harm. The others were busy about their own affairs, and Aunt Plenty was too much absorbed in her rheumatism to think of love, for the cold weather set in early, and the poor lady kept her room for days at a time with Rose as nurse.
Mac had spoken of going away in November, and Rose began to hope he would, for she decided that this silent sort of adoration was bad for her, as it prevented her from steadily pursuing the employments she had marked out for that year. What was the use of trying to read useful books when her thoughts continually wandered to those charming essays on “Love” and “Friendship”? To copy antique casts, when all the masculine heads looked like Cupid and the feminine ones like the Psyche on her mantelpiece? To practice the best music if it ended in singing over and over the pretty spring song without Phebe's bird chorus? Dulce's company was pleasantest now, for Dulce seldom talked, so much meditation was possible. Even Aunt Plenty's red flannel, camphor, and Pond's Extract were preferable to general society, and long solitary rides on Rosa seemed the only thing to put her in tune after one of her attempts to find out what she ought to do or leave undone.
She made up her mind at last, and arming herself with an unmade pen, like Fanny Squeers, she boldly went into the study to confer with Dr. Alec at an hour when Mac was usually absent. “I want a pen for marking can you make me one, Uncle?” she asked, popping her head in to be sure he was alone.
“Yes, my dear,” answered a voice so like the doctor's that she entered without delay.
But before she had taken three steps she stopped, looking rather annoyed, for the head that rose from behind the tall desk was not rough and gray, but brown and smooth, and Mac, not Uncle Alec, sat there writing. Late experience had taught her that she had nothing to fear from a tete-a-tete and, having with difficulty taken a resolution, she did not like to fail of carrying it out.
“Don't get up, I won't trouble you if you are busy, there is no hurry,” she said, not quite sure whether it were wiser to stay or run away.
Mac settled the point by taking the pen out of her hand and beginning to cut it, as quietly as Nicholas did on that “thrilling” occasion. Perhaps he was thinking of that, for he smiled as he asked, “Hard or soft?”
Rose evidently had forgotten that the family of Squeers ever existed, for she answered: “Hard, please,” in a voice to match. “I'm glad to see you doing that,” she added, taking courage from his composure and going as straight to her point as could be expected of a woman.
“And I am very glad to do it.”
“I don't mean making pens, but the romance I advised,” and she touched the closely written page before him, looking as if she would like to read it.
“That is my abstract on a lecture on the circulation of the blood,” he answered, kindly turning it so that she could see. “I don't write romances I'm living one,” and he glanced up with the happy, hopeful expression which always made her feel as if he was heaping coals of fire on her head.
“I wish you wouldn't look at me in that way it fidgets me,” she said a little petulantly, for she had been out riding, and knew that she did not present a “spiritual” appearance after the frosty air had reddened nose as well as cheeks.
“I'll try to remember. It does itself before I know it. Perhaps this may mend matters.” And, taking out the blue glasses he sometimes wore in the wind, he gravely put them on.
Rose could not help laughing, but his obedience only aggravated her, for she knew he could observe her all the better behind his ugly screen.
“No, it won't they are not becoming, and I don't want to look blue when I do not feel so,” she said, finding it impossible to guess what he would do next or to help enjoying his peculiarities.
“But you don't to me, for in spite of the goggles everything is rose-colored now.” And he pocketed the glasses without a murmur at the charming inconsistency of his idol.
“Really, Mac, I'm tired of this nonsense, it worries me and wastes your time.”
“Never worked harder. But does it really trouble you to know I love you?” he asked anxiously.
“Don't you see how cross it makes me?” And she walked away, feeling that things were not going as she intended to have them at all.
“I don't mind the thorns if I get the rose at last, and I still hope I may, some ten years hence,” said this persistent suitor, quite undaunted by the prospect of a “long wait.”
“I think it is rather hard to be loved whether I like it or not,” objected Rose, at a loss how to make any headway against such indomitable hopefulness.
“But you can't help it, nor can I so I must go on doing it with all my heart till you marry, and then well, then I'm afraid I may hate somebody instead,” and Mac spoilt the pen by an involuntary slash of his knife.
“Please don't, Mac!”
“Do which, love or hate?”
“Don't do either go and care for someone else; there are plenty of nice girls who will be glad to make you happy,” said Rose, intent upon ending her disquiet in some way.
“That is too easy. I enjoy working for my blessings, and the harder I have to work, the more I value them when they come.”
“Then if I suddenly grew very kind, would you stop caring about me?” asked Rose, wondering if that treatment would free her from a passion which both touched and tormented her.
“Try and see.” But there was a traitorous glimmer in Mac's eyes which plainly showed what a failure it would be.
“No, I'll get something to do, so absorbing I shall forget all about you.”
“Don't think about me if it troubles you,” he said tenderly.
“I can't help it.” Rose tried to catch back the words, but it was too late, and she added hastily, “That is, I cannot help wishing you would forget me. It is a great disappointment to find I was mistaken when I hoped such fine things of you.”
“Yes, you were very sure that it was love when it was poetry, and now you want poetry when I've nothing on hand but love. Will both together please you?”
“Try and see.”
“I'll do my best. Anything else?” he asked, forgetting the small task she had given him in his eagerness to attempt the greater.
“Tell me one thing. I've often wanted to know, and now you speak of it I'll venture to ask. Did you care about me when you read Keats to me last summer?”
“No.”
“When did you begin?” asked Rose, smiling in spite of herself at his unflattering honesty.
“How can I tell? Perhaps it did begin up there, though, for that talk set us writing, and the letters showed me what a beautiful soul you had. I loved that first it was so quick to recognize good things, to use them when they came, and give them out again as unconsciously as a flower does its breath. I longed for you to come home, and wanted you to find me altered for the better in some way as I had found you. And when you came it was very easy to see why I needed you to love you entirely, and to tell you so. That's all, Rose.”
A short story, but it was enough the voice that told it with such simple truth made the few words so eloquent, Rose felt strongly tempted to add the sequel Mac desired. But her eyes had fallen as he spoke, for she knew his were fixed upon her, dark and dilated, with the same repressed emotion that put such fervor into his quiet tones, and just as she was about to look up, they fell on a shabby little footstool. Trifles affect women curiously, and often most irresistibly when some agitation sways them. The sight of the old hassock vividly recalled Charlie, for he had kicked it on the night she never liked to remember. Like a spark it fired a long train of recollections, and the thought went through her mind: “I fancied I loved him, and let him see it, but I deceived myself, and he reproached me for a single look that said too much. This feeling is very different, but too new and sudden to be trusted. I'll neither look nor speak till I am quite sure, for Mac's love is far deeper than poor Charlie's, and I must be very true.”
Not in words did the resolve shape itself, but in a quick impulse, which she obeyed certain that it was right, since it was hard to yield to it. Only an instant's silence followed Mac's answer as she stood looking down with fingers intertwined and color varying in her cheeks. A foolish attitude, but Mac thought it a sweet picture of maiden hesitation and began to hope that a month's wooing was about to end in winning for a lifetime. He deceived himself, however, and cold water fell upon his flame, subduing but by no means quenching it, when Rose looked up with an air of determination which could not escape eyes that were growing wonderfully farsighted lately.
“I came in here to beg Uncle to advise you to go away soon. You are very patient and forbearing, and I feel it more than I can tell. But it is not good for you to depend on anyone so much for your happiness, I think, and I know it is bad for me to feel that I have so much power over a fellow creature. Go away, Mac, and see if this isn't all a mistake. Don't let a fancy for me change or delay your work, because it may end as suddenly as it began, and then we should both reproach ourselves and each other. Please do! I respect and care for you so much, I can't be happy to take all and give nothing. I try to, but I'm not sure I want to think it is too soon to know yet.”
Rose began bravely, but ended in a fluttered sort of way as she moved toward the door, for Mac's face though it fell at first, brightened as she went on, and at the last word, uttered almost involuntarily, he actually laughed low to himself, as if this order into exile pleased him much.
“Don't say that you give nothing, when you've just shown me that I'm getting on. I'll go; I'll go at once, and see if absence won't help you 'to think, to know, and to be sure' as it did me. I wish I could do something more for you. As I can't, good-bye.”
“Are you going now?” And Rose paused in her retreat to look back with a startled face as he offered her a badly made pen and opened the door for her just as Dr. Alec always did; for, in spite of himself, Mac did resemble the best of uncles.
“Not yet, but you seem to be.”
Rose turned as red as a poppy, snatched the pen, and flew upstairs, to call herself hard names as she industriously spoiled all Aunt Plenty's new pocket handkerchiefs by marking them “A.M.C.” Three days later Mac said “good-bye” in earnest, and no one was surprised that he left somewhat abruptly, such being his way, and a course of lectures by a famous physician the ostensible reason for a trip to L----. Uncle Alec deserted most shamefully at the last moment by sending word that he would be at the station to see the traveler off, Aunt Plenty was still in her room, so when Mac came down from his farewell to her, Rose met him in the hall, as if anxious not to delay him. She was a little afraid of another tete-a-tete, as she fared so badly at the last, and had assumed a calm and cousinly air which she flattered herself would plainly show on what terms she wished to part.
Mac apparently understood, and not only took the hint, but surpassed her in cheerful composure, for, merely saying “Good-bye, Cousin; write when you feel like it,” he shook hands and walked out of the house as tranquilly as if only a day instead of three months were to pass before they met again. Rose felt as if a sudden shower bath had chilled her and was about to retire, saying to herself with disdainful decision: “There's no love about it after all, only one of the eccentricities of genius,” when a rush of cold air made her turn to find herself in what appeared to be the embrace of an impetuous overcoat, which wrapped her close for an instant, then vanished as suddenly as it had come, leaving her to hide in the sanctum and confide to Psyche with a tender sort of triumph in her breathless voice: “No, no, it isn't genius that must be love!”
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
19
|
BEHIND THE FOUNTAIN
|
Two days after Christmas a young man of serious aspect might have been seen entering one of the large churches at L----. Being shown to a seat, he joined in the services with praiseworthy devotion, especially the music, to which he listened with such evident pleasure that a gentleman who sat nearby felt moved to address this appreciative stranger after church.
“Fine sermon today. Ever heard our minister before, sir?” he began, as they went down the aisle together among the last, for the young man had lingered as if admiring the ancient building.
“Very fine. No, sir, I have never had that pleasure. I've often wished to see this old place, and am not at all disappointed. Your choir, too, is unusually good,” answered the stranger, glancing up at several bonnets bobbing about behind the half-drawn curtains above.
“Finest in the city, sir. We pride ourselves on our music, and always have the best. People often come for that alone.” And the old gentleman looked as satisfied as if a choir of cherubim and seraphim “continually did cry” in his organ loft.
“Who is the contralto? That solo was beautifully sung,” observed the younger man, pausing to read a tablet on the wall.
“That is Miss Moore. Been here about a year, and is universally admired. Excellent young lady couldn't do without her. Sings superbly in oratorios. Ever heard her?”
“Never. She came from X, I believe?
“Yes, highly recommended. She was brought up by one of the first families there. Campbell is the name. If you come from X, you doubtless know them.”
“I have met them. Good morning.” And with bows the gentlemen parted, for at that instant the young man caught sight of a tall lady going down the church steps with a devout expression in her fine eyes and a prayer-book in her hand.
Hastening after her, the serious-minded young man accosted her just as she turned into a quiet street.
“Phebe!”
Only a word, but it wrought a marvelous change, for the devout expression vanished in the drawing of a breath, and the quiet face blossomed suddenly with color, warmth, and “the light that never was on sea or land” as she turned to meet her lover with an answering word as eloquent as his.
“Archie!”
“The year is out today. I told you I should come. Have you forgotten?”
“No I knew you'd come.”
“And are you glad?”
“How can I help it?”
“You can't don't try. Come into this little park and let us talk.” And drawing her hand through his arm, Archie led her into what to other eyes was a very dismal square, with a boarded-up fountain in the middle, sodden grass plots, and dead leaves dancing in the wintry wind.
But to them it was a summery Paradise, and they walked to and fro in the pale sunshine, quite unconscious that they were objects of interest to several ladies and gentlemen waiting anxiously for their dinner or yawning over the dull books kept for Sunday reading. “Are you ready to come home now, Phebe?” asked Archie tenderly as he looked at the downcast face beside him and wondered why all women did not wear delightful little black velvet bonnets with one deep red flower against their hair.
“Not yet. I haven't done enough,” began Phebe, finding it very hard to keep the resolution made a year ago.
“You have proved that you can support yourself, make friends, and earn a name, if you choose. No one can deny that, and we are all getting proud of you. What more can you ask, my dearest?”
“I don't quite know, but I am very ambitious. I want to be famous, to do something for you all, to make some sacrifice for Rose, and, if I can, to have something to give up for your sake. Let me wait and work longer I know I haven't earned my welcome yet,” pleaded Phebe so earnestly that her lover knew it would be in vain to try and turn her, so wisely contented himself with half, since he could not have the whole.
“Such a proud woman! Yet I love you all the better for it, and understand your feeling. Rose made me see how it seems to you, and I don't wonder that you cannot forget the unkind things that were looked, if not said, by some of my amiable aunts. I'll try to be patient on one condition, Phebe.”
“And what is that?”
“You are to let me come sometimes while I wait, and wear this lest you should forget me,” he said, pulling a ring from his pocket and gently drawing a warm, bare hand out of the muff where it lay hidden.
“Yes, Archie, but not here not now!” cried Phebe, glancing about her as if suddenly aware that they were not alone.
“No one can see us here I thought of that. Give me one happy minute, after this long, long year of waiting,” answered Archie, pausing just where the fountain hid them from all eyes, for there were houses only on one side.
Phebe submitted and never did a plain gold ring slip more easily to its place than the one he put on in such a hurry that cold December day. Then one hand went back into the muff red with the grasp he gave it, and the other to its old place on his arm with a confiding gesture, as if it had a right there.
“Now I feel sure of you,” said Archie as they went on again, and no one the wiser for that tender transaction behind the ugly pyramid of boards. “Mac wrote me that you were much admired by your church people, and that certain wealthy bachelors evidently had designs on the retiring Miss Moore. I was horribly jealous, but now I defy every man of them.”
Phebe smiled with the air of proud humility that was so becoming and answered briefly: “There was no danger kings could not change me, whether you ever came or not. But Mac should not have told you.”
“You shall be revenged on him, then, for, as he told secrets about you, I'll tell you one about him. Phebe, he loves Rose!” And Archie looked as if he expected to make a great sensation with his news.
“I know it.” And Phebe laughed at his sudden change of countenance as he added inquiringly, “She told you, then?”
“Not a word. I guessed it from her letters, for lately she says nothing about Mac, and before there was a good deal, so I suspected what the silence meant and asked no questions.”
“Wise girl! Then you think she does care for the dear old fellow?”
“Of course she does. Didn't he tell you so?”
“No, he only said when he went away, 'Take care of my Rose, and I'll take care of your Phebe,' and not another thing could I get out of him, for I did ask questions. He stood by me like a hero, and kept Aunt Jane from driving me stark mad with her 'advice.' I don't forget that, and burned to lend him a hand somewhere, but he begged me to let him manage his wooing in his own way. And from what I see, I should say he knew how to do it,” added Archie, finding it very delightful to gossip about love affairs with his sweetheart.
“Dear little mistress! How does she behave?” asked Phebe, longing for news, but too grateful to ask at headquarters, remembering how generously Rose had tried to help her, even by silence, the greatest sacrifice a woman can make at such interesting periods.
“Very sweet and shy and charming. I try not to watch but upon my word I cannot help it sometimes, she is so 'cunning,' as you girls say. When I carry her a letter from Mac she tries so hard not to show how glad she is that I want to laugh and tell her I know all about it. But I look as sober as a judge and as stupid as an owl by daylight, and she enjoys her letters in peace and thinks I'm so absorbed in my own passion that I'm blind to hers.”
“But why did Mac come away? He says lectures brought him, and he goes, but I am sure something else is in his mind, he looks so happy at times. I don't see him very often, but when I do I'm conscious that he isn't the Mac I left a year ago,” said Phebe, leading Archie away, for inexorable propriety forbade a longer stay, even if prudence and duty had not given her a reminding nudge, as it was very cold, and afternoon church came in an hour.
“Well, you see Mac was always peculiar, and he cannot even grow up like other fellows. I don't understand him yet, and am sure he's got some plan in his head that no one suspects, unless it is Uncle Alec. Love makes us all cut queer capers, and I've an idea that the Don will distinguish himself in some uncommon way. So be prepared to applaud whatever it is. We owe him that, you know.”
“Indeed we do! If Rose ever speaks of him to you, tell her I shall see that he comes to no harm, and she must do the same for my Archie.”
That unusual demonstration of tenderness from reserved Phebe very naturally turned the conversation into a more personal channel, and Archie devoted himself to building castles in the air so successfully that they passed the material mansion without either being aware of it.
“Will you come in?” asked Phebe when the mistake was rectified and she stood on her own steps looking down at her escort, who had discreetly released her before a pull at the bell caused five heads to pop up at five different windows.
“No, thanks. I shall be at church this afternoon, and the oratorio this evening. I must be off early in the morning, so let me make the most of precious time and come home with you tonight as I did before,” answered Archie, making his best bow, and quite sure of consent.
“You may.” And Phebe vanished, closing the door softly, as if she found it hard to shut out so much love and happiness as that in the heart of the sedate young gentleman who went briskly down the street humming a verse of old “Clyde” like a tuneful bass viol: “Oh, let our mingling voices rise In grateful rapture to the skies, Where love has had its birth.
Let songs of joy this day declare That spirits come their bliss to share With all the sons of earth.”
That afternoon Miss Moore sang remarkably well, and that evening quite electrified even her best friends by the skill and power with which she rendered “Inflammatus” in the oratorio.
“If that is not genius, I should like to know what it is?” said one young man to another as they went out just before the general crush at the end.
“Some genius and a great deal of love. They are a grand team, and, when well driven, astonish the world by the time they make in the great race,” answered the second young man with the look of one inclined to try his hand at driving that immortal span.
“Daresay you are right. Can't stop now she's waiting for me. Don't sit up, Mac.”
“The gods go with you, Archie.”
And the cousins separated one to write till midnight, the other to bid his Phebe good-bye, little dreaming how unexpectedly and successfully she was to earn her welcome home.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
20
|
WHAT MAC DID
|
Rose, meantime, was trying to find out what the sentiment was with which she regarded her cousin Mac. She could not seem to reconcile the character she had known so long with the new one lately shown her, and the idea of loving the droll, bookish, absentminded Mac of former times appeared quite impossible and absurd, but the new Mac, wide awake, full of talent, ardent and high-handed, was such a surprise to her, she felt as if her heart was being won by a stranger, and it became her to study him well before yielding to a charm which she could not deny.
Affection came naturally, and had always been strong for the boy; regard for the studious youth easily deepened to respect for the integrity of the young man, and now something warmer was growing up within her; but at first she could not decide whether it was admiration for the rapid unfolding of talent of some sort or love answering to love.
As if to settle that point, Mac sent her on New Year's Day a little book plainly bound and modestly entitled Songs and Sonnets. After reading this with ever-growing surprise and delight, Rose never had another doubt about the writer's being a poet, for though she was no critic, she had read the best authors and knew what was good. Unpretentious as it was, this had the true ring, and its very simplicity showed conscious power for, unlike so many first attempts, the book was not full of “My Lady,” neither did it indulge in Swinburnian convulsions about “The lilies and languors of peace, The roses and raptures of love.” ; or contain any of the highly colored medieval word pictures so much in vogue. “My book should smell of pines, and resound with the hum of insects,” might have been its motto, so sweet and wholesome was it with a springlike sort of freshness which plainly betrayed that the author had learned some of Nature's deepest secrets and possessed the skill to tell them in tuneful words. The songs went ringing through one's memory long after they were read, and the sonnets were full of the subtle beauty, insight, and half-unconscious wisdom, which seem to prove that “genius is divine when young.”
Many faults it had, but was so full of promise that it was evident Mac had not “kept good company, read good books, loved good things, and cultivated soul and body as faithfully as he could” in vain. It all told now, for truth and virtue had blossomed into character and had a language of their own more eloquent than the poetry to which they were what the fragrance is to the flower. Wiser critics than Rose felt and admired this; less partial ones could not deny their praise to a first effort, which seemed as spontaneous and aspiring as a lark's song; and, when one or two of these Jupiters had given a nod of approval, Mac found himself, not exactly famous, but much talked about. One set abused, the other set praised, and the little book was sadly mauled among them, for it was too original to be ignored, and too robust to be killed by hard usage, so it came out of the fray none the worse but rather brighter, if anything, for the friction which proved the gold genuine.
This took time, however, and Rose could only sit at home reading all the notices she could get, as well as the literary gossip Phebe sent her, for Mac seldom wrote, and never a word about himself, so Phebe skillfully extracted from him in their occasional meetings all the personal news her feminine wit could collect and faithfully reported it.
It was a little singular that without a word of inquiry on either side, the letters of the girls were principally filled with tidings of their respective lovers. Phebe wrote about Mac; Rose answered with minute particulars about Archie; and both added hasty items concerning their own affairs, as if these were of little consequence.
Phebe got the most satisfaction out of the correspondence, for soon after the book appeared Rose began to want Mac home again and to be rather jealous of the new duties and delights that kept him. She was immensely proud of her poet, and had little jubilees over the beautiful fulfillment of her prophecies, for even Aunt Plenty owned now with contrition that “the boy was not a fool.” Every word of praise was read aloud on the housetops, so to speak, by happy Rose; every adverse criticism was hotly disputed; and the whole family was in a great state of pleasant excitement over this unexpectedly successful first flight of the Ugly Duckling, now generally considered by his relatives as the most promising young swan of the flock.
Aunt Jane was particularly funny in her new position of mother to a callow poet and conducted herself like a proud but bewildered hen when one of her brood takes to the water. She pored over the poems, trying to appreciate them but quite failing to do so, for life was all prose to her, and she vainly tried to discover where Mac got his talent from. It was pretty to see the new respect with which she treated his possessions now; the old books were dusted with a sort of reverence; scraps of paper were laid carefully by lest some immortal verse be lost; and a certain shabby velvet jacket fondly smoothed when no one was by to smile at the maternal pride with filled her heart and caused her once severe countenance to shine with unwonted benignity.
Uncle Mac talked about “my son” with ill-concealed satisfaction, and evidently began to feel as if his boy was going to confer distinction upon the whole race of Campbell, which had already possessed one poet. Steve exulted with irrepressible delight and went about quoting Songs and Sonnets till he bored his friends dreadfully by his fraternal raptures.
Archie took it more quietly, and even suggested that it was too soon to crow yet, for the dear old fellow's first burst might be his last, since it was impossible to predict what he would do next. Having proved that he could write poetry, he might drop it for some new world to conquer, quoting his favorite Thoreau, who, having made a perfect pencil, gave up the business and took to writing books with the sort of indelible ink which grows clearer with time.
The aunts of course had their “views,” and enjoyed much prophetic gossip as they wagged their caps over many social cups of tea. The younger boys thought it “very jolly,” and hoped the Don would “go ahead and come to glory as soon as possible,” which was all that could by expected of “Young America,” with whom poetry is not usually a passion.
But Dr. Alec was a sight for “sair een,” so full of concentrated contentment was he. No one but Rose, perhaps, knew how proud and pleased the good man felt at this first small success of his godson, for he had always had high hopes of the boy, because in spite of his oddities he had such an upright nature, and promising little, did much, with the quiet persistence which foretells a manly character. All the romance of the doctor's heart was stirred by this poetic bud of promise and the love that made it bloom so early, for Mac had confided his hopes to Uncle, finding great consolation and support in his sympathy and advice. Like a wise man, Dr. Alec left the young people to learn the great lesson in their own way, counseling Mac to work and Rose to wait till both were quite certain that their love was built on a surer foundation than admiration or youthful romance.
Meantime he went about with a well-worn little book in his pocket, humming bits from a new set of songs and repeating with great fervor certain sonnets which seemed to him quite equal, if not superior, to any that Shakespeare ever wrote. As Rose was doing the same thing, they often met for a private “read and warble,” as they called it, and while discussing the safe subject of Mac's poetry, both arrived at a pretty clear idea of what Mac's reward was to be when he came home.
He seemed in no hurry to do this, however, and continued to astonish his family by going into society and coming out brilliantly in that line. It takes very little to make a lion, as everyone knows who has seen what poor specimens are patted and petted every year, in spite of their bad manners, foolish vagaries, and very feeble roaring. Mac did not want to be lionized and took it rather scornfully, which only added to the charm that people suddenly discovered about the nineteenth cousin of Thomas Campbell, the poet. He desired to be distinguished in the best sense of the word, as well as to look so, and thought a little of the polish society gives would not be amiss, remembering Rose's efforts in that line. For her sake he came out of his shell and went about seeing and testing all sorts of people with those observing eyes of his, which saw so much in spite of their nearsightedness. What use he meant to make of these new experiences no one knew, for he wrote short letters and, when questioned, answered with imperturbable patience: “Wait till I get through; then I'll come home and talk about it.”
So everyone waited for the poet, till something happened which produced a greater sensation in the family than if all the boys had simultaneously taken to rhyming.
Dr. Alec got very impatient and suddenly announced that he was going to L to see after those young people, for Phebe was rapidly singing herself into public favor with the sweet old ballads which she rendered so beautifully that hearers were touched as well as ears delighted, and her prospects brightened every month.
“Will you come with me, Rose, and surprise this ambitious pair who are getting famous so fast they'll forget their homekeeping friends if we don't remind them of us now and then?” he said when he proposed the trip one wild March morning.
“No, thank you, sir I'll stay with Aunty; that is all I'm fit for and I should only be in the way among those fine people,” answered Rose, snipping away at the plants blooming in the study window.
There was a slight bitterness in her voice and a cloud on her face, which her uncle heard and saw at once, half guessed the meaning of, and could not rest till he had found out.
“Do you think Phebe and Mac would not care to see you?” he asked, putting down a letter in which Mac gave a glowing account of a concert at which Phebe surpassed herself.
“No, but they must be very busy,” began Rose, wishing she had held her tongue.
“Then what is the matter?” persisted Dr. Alec.
Rose did not speak for a moment, and decapitated two fine geraniums with a reckless slash of her scissors, as if pent-up vexation of some kind must find a vent. It did in words also, for, as if quite against her will, she exclaimed impetuously: “The truth is, I'm jealous of them both!”
“Bless my soul! What now?” ejaculated the doctor in great surprise.
Rose put down her water pot and shears, came and stood before him with her hands nervously twisted together, and said, just as she used to do when she was a little girl confessing some misdeed: “Uncle, I must tell you, for I've been getting very envious, discontented, and bad lately. No, don't be good to me yet, for you don't know how little I deserve it. Scold me well, and make me see how wicked I am.”
“I will as soon as I know what I am to scold about. Unburden yourself, child, and let me see all your iniquity, for if you begin by being jealous of Mac and Phebe, I'm prepared for anything,” said Dr. Alec, leaning back as if nothing could surprise him now.
“But I am not jealous in that way, sir. I mean I want to be or do something splendid as well as they. I can't write poetry or sing like a bird, but I should think I might have my share of glory in some way. I thought perhaps I could paint, and I've tried, but I can only copy I've no power to invent lovely things, and I'm so discouraged, for that is my one accomplishment. Do you think I have any gift that could be cultivated and do me credit like theirs?” she asked so wistfully that her uncle felt for a moment as if he never could forgive the fairies who endow babies in their cradles for being so niggardly to his girl. But one look into the sweet, open face before him reminded him that the good elves had been very generous and he answered cheerfully: “Yes, I do, for you have one of the best and noblest gifts a woman can possess. Music and poetry are fine things, and I don't wonder you want them, or that you envy the pleasant fame they bring. I've felt just so, and been ready to ask why it didn't please heaven to be more generous to some people, so you needn't be ashamed to tell me all about it.”
“I know I ought to be contented, but I'm not. My life is very comfortable, but so quiet and uneventful, I get tired of it and want to launch out as the others have, and do something, or at least try. I'm glad you think it isn't very bad of me, and I'd like to know what my gift is,” said Rose, looking less despondent already.
“The art of living for others so patiently and sweetly that we enjoy it as we do the sunshine, and are not half grateful enough for the great blessing.”
“It is very kind of you to say so, but I think I'd like a little fun and fame nevertheless.” And Rose did not look as thankful as she ought.
“Very natural, dear, but the fun and the fame do not last, while the memory of a real helper is kept green long after poetry is forgotten and music silent. Can't you believe that, and be happy?”
“But I do so little, nobody sees or cares, and I don't feel as if I was really of any use,” sighed Rose, thinking of the long, dull winter, full of efforts that seemed fruitless.
“Sit here, and let us see if you really do very little and if no one cares.” And, drawing her to his knee, Dr. Alec went on, telling off each item on one of the fingers of the soft hand he held.
“First, an infirm old aunt is kept very happy by the patient, cheerful care of this good-for-nothing niece. Secondly, a crotchety uncle, for whom she reads, runs, writes, and sews so willingly that he cannot get on without her. Thirdly, various relations who are helped in various ways. Fourthly, one dear friend never forgotten, and a certain cousin cheered by praise which is more to him than the loudest blast Fame could blow. Fifthly, several young girls find her an example of many good works and ways. Sixthly, a motherless baby is cared for as tenderly as if she were a little sister. Seventhly, half a dozen poor ladies made comfortable; and, lastly, some struggling boys and girls with artistic longings are put into a pleasant room furnished with casts, studies, easels, and all manner of helpful things, not to mention free lessons given by this same idle girl, who now sits upon my knee owning to herself that her gift is worth having after all.”
“Indeed, I am! Uncle, I'd no idea I had done so many things to please you, or that anyone guessed how hard I try to fill my place usefully. I've learned to do without gratitude now I'll learn not to care for praise, but to be contented to do my best, and have only God know.”
“He knows, and He rewards in His own good time. I think a quiet life like this often makes itself felt in better ways than one that the world sees and applauds, and some of the noblest are never known till they end, leaving a void in many hearts. Yours may be one of these if you choose to make it so, and no one will be prouder of this success than I, unless it be Mac.”
The clouds were quite gone now, and Rose was looking straight into her uncle's face with a much happier expression when that last word made it color brightly and the eyes glance away for a second. Then they came back full of a tender sort of resolution as she said: “That will be the reward I work for,” and rose, as if ready to be up and doing with renewed courage.
But her uncle held her long enough to ask quite soberly, though his eyes laughed: “Shall I tell him that?”
“No, sir, please don't! When he is tired of other people's praise, he will come home, and then I'll see what I can do for him,” answered Rose, slipping away to her work with the shy, happy look that sometimes came to give to her face the charm it needed.
“He is such a thorough fellow, he never is in a hurry to go from one thing to another. An excellent habit, but a trifle trying to impatient people like me,” said the doctor and, picking up Dulce, who sat upon the rug with her dolly, he composed his feelings by tossing her till she crowed with delight.
Rose heartily echoed that last remark, but said nothing aloud, only helped her uncle off with dutiful alacrity and, when he was gone, began to count the days till his return, wishing she had decided to go too.
He wrote often, giving excellent accounts of the “great creatures,” as Steve called Phebe and Mac, and seemed to find so much to do in various ways that the second week of absence was nearly over before he set a day for his return, promising to astonish them with the account of his adventures.
Rose felt as if something splendid was going to happen and set her affairs in order so that the approaching crisis might find her fully prepared. She had “found out” now, was quite sure, and put away all doubts and fears to be ready to welcome home the cousin whom she was sure Uncle would bring as her reward. She was thinking of this one day as she got out her paper to write a long letter to poor Aunt Clara, who pined for news far away there in Calcutta.
Something in the task reminded her of that other lover whose wooing ended so tragically, and opening a little drawer of keepsakes, she took out the blue bracelet, feeling that she owed Charlie a tender thought in the midst of her new happiness, for of late she had forgotten him.
She had worn the trinket hidden under her black sleeve for a long time after his death, with the regretful constancy one sometimes shows in doing some little kindness all too late. But her arm had grown too round to hide the ornament, the forget-me-nots had fallen one by one, the clasp had broken, and that autumn she laid the bracelet away, acknowledging that she had outgrown the souvenir as well as the sentiment that gave it.
She looked at it in silence for a moment, then put it softly back and, shutting the drawer, took up the little gray book which was her pride, thinking as she contrasted the two men and their influence on her life the one sad and disturbing, the other sweet and inspiring “Charlie's was passion Mac's is love.”
“Rose! Rose!” called a shrill voice, rudely breaking the pensive reverie, and with a start, she shut the desk, exclaiming as she ran to the door: “They have come! They have come!”
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
21
|
HOW PHEBE EARNED HER WELCOME
|
Dr. Alec had not arrived, but bad tidings had, as Rose guessed the instant her eyes fell upon Aunt Plenty, hobbling downstairs with her cap awry, her face pale, and a letter flapping wildly in her hand as she cried distractedly: “Oh, my boy! My boy! Sick, and I not there to nurse him! Malignant fever, so far away. What can those children do? Why did I let Alec go?”
Rose got her into the parlor, and while the poor old lady lamented, she read the letter which Phebe had sent to her that she might “break the news carefully to Rose.”
DEAR MISS PLENTY, Please read this to yourself first, and tell my little mistress as you think best. The dear doctor is very ill, but I am with him, and shall not leave him day or night till he is safe. So trust me, and do not be anxious, for everything shall be done that care and skill and entire devotion can do. He would not let us tell you before, fearing you would try to come at the risk of your health. Indeed it would be useless, for only one nurse is needed, and I came first, so do not let Rose or anybody else rob me of my right to the danger and the duty. Mac has written to his father, for Dr. Alec is now too ill to know what we do, and we both felt that you ought to be told without further delay. He has a bad malignant fever, caught no one can tell how, unless among some poor emigrants whom he met wandering about quite forlorn in a strange city. He understood Portuguese and sent them to a proper place when they had told their story. But I fear he has suffered for his kindness, for this fever came on rapidly, and before he knew what it was I was there, and it was too late to send me away.
Now I can show you how grateful I am, and if need be give my life so gladly for this friend who has been a father to me. Tell Rose his last conscious word and thought were for her. “Don't let her come; keep my darling safe.” Oh, do obey him! Stay safely at home and, God helping me, I'll bring Uncle Alec back in time. Mac does all I will let him. We have the best physicians, and everything is going as well as can be hoped till the fever turns.
Dear Miss Plenty, pray for him and for me, that I may do this one happy thing for those who have done so much for Your ever dutiful and loving PHEBE As Rose looked up from the letter, half stunned by the sudden news and the great danger, she found that the old lady had already stopped useless bewailing and was praying heartily, like one who knew well where help was to be found. Rose went and knelt down at her knee, laying her face on the clasped hands in her lap, and for a few minutes neither wept nor spoke. Then a stifled sob broke from the girl, and Aunt Plenty gathered the young head in her arms, saying, with the slow tears of age trickling down her own withered cheeks: “Bear up, my lamb, bear up. The good Lord won't take him from us I am sure and that brave child will be allowed to pay her debt to him. I feel she will.”
“But I want to help. I must go, Aunty, I must no matter what the danger is,” cried Rose, full of a tender jealousy of Phebe for being first to brave peril for the sake of him who had been a father to them both.
“You can't go, dear, it's no use now, and she is right to say, 'Keep away.' I know those fevers, and the ones who nurse often take it, and fare worse for the strain they've been through. Good girl to stand by so bravely, to be so sensible, and not let Mac go too near! She's a grand nurse Alec couldn't have a better, and she'll never leave him till he's safe,” said Miss Plenty excitedly.
“Ah, you begin to know her now, and value her as you ought. I think few would have done as she has, and if she does get ill and die, it will be our fault partly, because she'd go through fire and water to make us do her justice and receive her as we ought,” cried Rose, proud of an example which she longed to follow.
“If she brings my boy home, I'll never say another word. She may marry every nephew I've got, if she likes, and I'll give her my blessing,” exclaimed Aunt Plenty, feeling that no price would be too much to pay for such a deed.
Rose was going to clap her hands, but wrung them instead, remembering with a sudden pang that the battle was not over yet, and it was much too soon to award the honors.
Before she could speak Uncle Mac and Aunt Jane hurried in, for Mac's letter had come with the other, and dismay fell upon the family at the thought of danger to the well-beloved Uncle Alec. His brother decided to go at once, and Aunt Jane insisted on accompanying him, though all agreed that nothing could be done but wait, and leave Phebe at her post as long as she held out, since it was too late to save her from danger now and Mac reported her quite equal to the task.
Great was the hurry and confusion till the relief party was off. Aunt Plenty was heartbroken that she could not go with them, but felt that she was too infirm to be useful and, like a sensible old soul, tried to content herself with preparing all sorts of comforts for the invalid. Rose was less patient, and at first had wild ideas of setting off alone and forcing her way to the spot where all her thoughts now centered. But before she could carry out any rash project, Aunt Myra's palpitations set in so alarmingly that they did good service for once and kept Rose busy taking her last directions and trying to soothe her dying bed, for each attack was declared fatal till the patient demanded toast and tea, when hope was again allowable and the rally began.
The news flew fast, as such tidings always do, and Aunt Plenty was constantly employed in answering inquiries, for her knocker kept up a steady tattoo for several days. All sorts of people came: gentlefolk and paupers, children with anxious little faces, old people full of sympathy, pretty girls sobbing as they went away, and young men who relieved their feelings by swearing at all emigrants in general and Portuguese in particular. It was touching and comforting to see how many loved the good man who was known only by his benefactions and now lay suffering far away, quite unconscious how many unsuspected charities were brought to light by this grateful solicitude as hidden flowers spring up when warm rains fall.
If Rose had ever felt that the gift of living for others was a poor one, she saw now how beautiful and blessed it was how rich the returns, how wide the influence, how much more precious the tender tie which knit so many hearts together than any breath of fame or brilliant talent that dazzled but did not win and warm. In after years she found how true her uncle's words had been and, listening to eulogies of great men, felt less moved and inspired by praises of their splendid gifts than by the sight of some good man's patient labor for the poorest of his kind. Her heroes ceased to be the world's favorites and became such as Garrison fighting for his chosen people; Howe restoring lost senses to the deaf, the dumb, and blind; Sumner unbribable, when other men were bought and sold and many a large-hearted woman working as quietly as Abby Gibbons, who for thirty years had made Christmas merry for two hundred little paupers in a city almshouse, besides saving Magdalens and teaching convicts.
The lesson came to Rose when she was ready for it, and showed her what a noble profession philanthropy is, made her glad of her choice, and helped fit her for a long life full of the loving labor and sweet satisfaction unostentatious charity brings to those who ask no reward and are content if “only God knows.”
Several anxious weeks went by with wearing fluctuations of hope and fear, for Life and Death fought over the prize each wanted, and more than once Death seemed to have won. But Phebe stood at her post, defying both danger and Death with the courage and devotion women often show. All her soul and strength were in her work, and when it seemed most hopeless, she cried out with the passionate energy which seems to send such appeals straight up to heaven: “Grant me this one boon, dear Lord, and I will never ask another for myself!”
Such prayers avail much, and such entire devotion often seems to work miracles when other aids are in vain. Phebe's cry was answered, her self-forgetful task accomplished, and her long vigil rewarded with a happy dawn. Dr. Alec always said that she kept him alive by the force of her will, and that, during the hours when he seemed to lie unconscious, he felt a strong, warm hand holding his, as if keeping him away from the swift current trying to sweep him away. The happiest hour of all her life was that in which he knew her, looked up with the shadow of a smile in his hollow eyes, and tried to say in his old cheery way: “Tell Rose I've turned the corner, thanks to you, my child.”
She answered very quietly, smoothed the pillow, and saw him drop asleep again before she stole away into the other room, meaning to write the good news, but could only throw herself down and find relief for a full heart in the first tears she had shed for weeks. Mac found her there, and took such care of her that she was ready to go back to her place now indeed a post of honor while he ran off to send home a telegram which made many hearts sing for joy and caused Jamie, in his first burst of delight, to propose to ring all the city bells and order out the cannon: “Saved thanks to God and Phebe.”
That was all, but everyone was satisfied, and everyone fell a-crying, as if hope needed much salty water to strengthen it. That was soon over, however, and then people went about smiling and saying to one another, with handshakes or embraces, “He is better no doubt of it now!” A general desire to rush away and assure themselves of the truth pervaded the family for some days, and nothing but awful threats from Mac, stern mandates from the doctor, and entreaties from Phebe not to undo her work kept Miss Plenty, Rose, and Aunt Jessie at home.
As the only way in which they could ease their minds and bear the delay, they set about spring cleaning with an energy which scared the spiders and drove charwomen distracted. If the old house had been infected with smallpox, it could not have been more vigorously scrubbed, aired, and refreshed. Early as it was, every carpet was routed up, curtains pulled down, cushions banged, and glory holes turned out till not a speck of dust, a last year's fly, or stray straw could be found. Then they all sat down and rested in such an immaculate mansion that one hardly dared to move for fear of destroying the shining order everywhere visible.
It was late in April before this was accomplished, and the necessary quarantine of the absentees well over. The first mild days seemed to come early, so that Dr. Alec might return with safety from the journey which had so nearly been his last. It was perfectly impossible to keep any member of the family away on that great occasion. They came from all quarters in spite of express directions to the contrary, for the invalid was still very feeble and no excitement must be allowed. As if the wind carried the glad news, Uncle Jem came into port the night before; Will and Geordie got a leave on their own responsibility; Steve would have defied the entire faculty, had it been necessary; and Uncle Mac and Archie said simultaneously, “Business be hanged today.”
Of course the aunts arrived in all their best, all cautioning everybody else to keep quiet and all gabbling excitedly at the least provocation. Jamie suffered the most during that day, so divided was he between the desire to behave well and the frantic impulse to shout at the top of his voice, turn somersaults, and race all over the house. Occasional bolts into the barn, where he let off steam by roaring and dancing jigs, to the great dismay of the fat old horses and two sedate cows, helped him to get through that trying period.
But the heart that was fullest beat and fluttered in Rose's bosom as she went about putting spring flowers everywhere; very silent, but so radiant with happiness that the aunts watched her, saying softly to one another, “Could an angel look sweeter?”
If angels ever wore pale green gowns and snowdrops in their hair, had countenances full of serenest joy, and large eyes shining with an inward light that made them very lovely, then Rose did look like one. But she felt like a woman and well she might, for was not life very rich that day, when Uncle, friend, and lover were coming back to her together? Could she ask anything more, except the power to be to all of them the creature they believed her, and to return the love they gave her with one as faithful, pure, and deep? Among the portraits in the hall hung one of Dr. Alec, done soon after his return by Charlie in one of his brief fits of inspiration. Only a crayon, but wonderfully lifelike and carefully finished, as few of the others were. This had been handsomely framed and now held the place of honor, garlanded with green wreaths, while the great Indian jar below blazed with a pyramid of hothouse flowers sent by Kitty. Rose was giving these a last touch, with Dulce close by, cooing over a handful of sweet “daffydowndillies,” when the sound of wheels sent her flying to the door. She meant to have spoken the first welcome and had the first embrace, but when she saw the altered face in the carriage, the feeble figure being borne up the steps by all the boys, she stood motionless till Phebe caught her in her arms, whispering with a laugh and a cry struggling in her voice: “I did it for you, my darling, all for you!”
“Oh, Phebe, never say again you owe me anything! I never can repay you for this,” was all Rose had time to answer as they stood one instant cheek to cheek, heart to heart, both too full of happiness for many words.
Aunt Plenty had heard the wheels also and, as everybody rose en masse, had said as impressively as extreme agitation would allow, while she put her glasses on upside down and seized a lace tidy instead of her handkerchief: “Stop! All stay here, and let me receive Alec. Remember his weak state, and be calm, quite calm, as I am.'
“Yes, Aunt, certainly,” was the general murmur of assent, but it was as impossible to obey as it would have been to keep feathers still in a gale, and one irresistible impulse carried the whole roomful into the hall to behold Aunt Plenty beautifully illustrating her own theory of composure by waving the tidy wildly, rushing into Dr. Alec's arms, and laughing and crying with a hysterical abandonment which even Aunt Myra could not have surpassed.
The tearful jubilee was soon over, however, and no one seemed the worse for it, for the instant his arms were at liberty, Dr. Alec forgot himself and began to make other people happy by saying seriously, though his thin face beamed paternally, as he drew Phebe forward: “Aunt Plenty, but for this good daughter I never should have come back to be so welcomed. Love her for my sake.”
Then the old lady came out splendidly and showed her mettle, for, turning to Phebe, she bowed her gray head as if saluting an equal and, offering her hand, answered with repentance, admiration, and tenderness trembling in her voice: “I'm proud to do it for her own sake. I ask pardon for my silly prejudices, and I'll prove that I'm sincere by where's that boy?”
There were six boys present, but the right one was in exactly the right place at the right moment, and, seizing Archie's hand, Aunt Plenty put Phebe's into it, trying to say something appropriately solemn, but could not, so hugged them both and sobbed out: “If I had a dozen nephews, I'd give them all to you, my dear, and dance at the wedding, though I had rheumatism in every limb.”
That was better than any oration, for it set them all to laughing, and Dr. Alec was floated to the sofa on a gentle wave of merriment. Once there, everyone but Rose and Aunt Plenty was ordered off by Mac, who was in command now and seemed to have sunk the poet in the physician.
“The house must be perfectly quiet, and he must go to sleep as soon as possible after the journey, so all say 'good-bye' now and call again tomorrow,” he said, watching his uncle anxiously as he leaned in the sofa corner, with four women taking off his wraps, three boys contending for his overshoes, two brothers shaking hands at short intervals, and Aunt Myra holding a bottle of strong salts under his devoted nose every time there was an opening anywhere.
With difficulty the house was partially cleared, and then, while Aunt Plenty mounted guard over her boy, Rose stole away to see if Mac had gone with the rest, for as yet they had hardly spoken in the joyful flurry, though eyes and hands had met.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
22
|
SHORT AND SWEET
|
In the hall she found Steve and Kitty, for he had hidden his little sweetheart behind the big couch, feeling that she had a right there, having supported his spirits during the late anxiety with great constancy and courage. They seemed so cozy, billing and cooing in the shadow of the gay vase, that Rose would have slipped silently away if they had not seen and called to her. “He's not gone I guess you'll find him in the parlor,” said Steve, divining with a lover's instinct the meaning of the quick look she had cast at the hat rack as she shut the study door behind her.
“Mercy, no! Archie and Phebe are there, so he'd have the sense to pop into the sanctum and wait, unless you'd like me to go and bring him out?” added Kitty, smoothing Rose's ruffled hair and settling the flowers on the bosom where Uncle Alec's head had lain until he fell asleep.
“No, thank you, I'll go to him when I've seen my Phebe. She won't mind me,” answered Rose, moving on to the parlor.
“Look here,” called Steve, “do advise them to hurry up and all be married at once. We were just ready when Uncle fell ill, and now we cannot wait a day later than the first of May.”
“Rather short notice,” laughed Rose, looking back with the doorknob in her hand.
“We'll give up all our splendor, and do it as simply as you like, if you will only come too. Think how lovely! Three weddings at once! Do fly round and settle things there's a dear,” implored Kitty, whose imagination was fired with this romantic idea.
“How can I, when I have no bridegroom yet?” began Rose, with conscious color in her telltale face.
“Sly creature! You know you've only got to say a word and have a famous one. Una and her lion will be nothing to it,” cried Steve, bent on hastening his brother's affair, which was much too dilatory and peculiar for his taste.
“He has been in no haste to come home, and I am in no haste to leave it. Don't wait for me, 'Mr. and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Jr.,' I shall be a year at least making up my mind, so you may lead off as splendidly as you like and I'll profit by your experience.” And Rose vanished into the parlor, leaving Steve to groan over the perversity of superior women and Kitty to comfort him by promising to marry him on May Day “all alone.”
A very different couple occupied the drawing room, but a happier one, for they had known the pain of separation and were now enjoying the bliss of a reunion which was to last unbroken for their lives. Phebe sat in an easy chair, resting from her labors, pale and thin and worn, but lovelier in Archie's eyes than ever before. It was very evident that he was adoring his divinity, for, after placing a footstool at her feet, he had forgotten to get up and knelt there with his elbow on the arm of her chair, looking like a thirsty man drinking long drafts of the purest water.
“Shall I disturb you if I pass through?” asked Rose, loath to spoil the pretty tableau.
“Not if you stop a minute on the way and congratulate me, Cousin, for she says 'yes' at last!” cried Archie, springing up to go and bring her to the arms Phebe opened as she appeared.
“I knew she would reward your patience and put away her pride when both had been duly tried,” said Rose, laying the tired head on her bosom with such tender admiration in her eyes that Phebe had to shake some bright drops from her own before she could reply in a tone of grateful humility that showed how much her heart was touched: “How can I help it, when they are all so kind to me? Any pride would melt away under such praise and thanks and loving wishes as I've had today, for every member of the family has taken pains to welcome me, to express far too much gratitude, and to beg me to be one of you. I needed very little urging, but when Archie's father and mother came and called me 'daughter,' I would have promised anything to show my love for them.”
“And him,” added Rose, but Archie seemed quite satisfied and kissed the hand he held as if it had been that of a beloved princess while he said with all the pride Phebe seemed to have lost: “Think what she gives up for me fame and fortune and the admiration of many a better man. You don't know what a splendid prospect she has of becoming one of the sweet singers who are loved and honored everywhere, and all this she puts away for my sake, content to sing for me alone, with no reward but love.”
“I am so glad to make a little sacrifice for a great happiness I never shall regret it or think my music lost if it makes home cheerful for my mate. Birds sing sweetest in their own nests, you know.” And Phebe bent toward him with a look and gesture which plainly showed how willingly she offered up all ambitious hopes upon the altar of a woman's happy love.
Both seemed to forget that they were not alone, and in a moment they were, for a sudden impulse carried Rose to the door of her sanctum, as if the south wind which seemed to have set in was wafting this little ship also toward the Islands of the Blessed, where the others were safely anchored now.
The room was a blaze of sunshine and a bower of spring freshness and fragrance, for here Rose had let her fancy have free play, and each garland, fern, and flower had its meaning. Mac seemed to have been reading this sweet language of symbols, to have guessed why Charlie's little picture was framed in white roses, why pansies hung about his own, why Psyche was half hidden among feathery sprays of maidenhair, and a purple passion flower lay at Cupid's feet. The last fancy evidently pleased him, for he was smiling over it, and humming to himself as if to beguile his patient waiting, the burden of the air Rose had so often sung to him: “Bonny lassie, will ye gang, will ye gang To the birks of Aberfeldie?”
“Yes, Mac, anywhere!”
He had not heard her enter, and wheeling around, looked at her with a radiant face as he said, drawing a long breath, “At last! You were so busy over the dear man, I got no word. But I can wait I'm used to it.”
Rose stood quite still, surveying him with a new sort of reverence in her eyes, as she answered with a sweet solemnity that made him laugh and redden with the sensitive joy of one to whom praise from her lips was very precious: “You forget that you are not the Mac who went away. I should have run to meet my cousin, but I did not dare to be familiar with the poet whom all begin to honor.”
“You like the mixture, then? You know I said I'd try to give you love and poetry together.”
“Like it! I'm so glad, so proud, I haven't any words strong and beautiful enough to half express my wonder and my admiration. How could you do it, Mac?” And a whole face full of smiles broke loose as Rose clapped her hands, looking as if she could dance with sheer delight.
“It did itself, up there among the hills, and here with you, or out alone upon the sea. I could write a heavenly poem this very minute, and put you in as Spring you look like her in that green gown with snowdrops in your bonny hair. Rose, am I getting on a little? Does a hint of fame help me nearer to the prize I'm working for? Is your heart more willing to be won?”
He did not stir a step, but looked at her with such intense longing that his glance seemed to draw her nearer like an irresistible appeal, for she went and stood before him, holding out both hands, as if she offered all her little store, as she said with simplest sincerity: “It is not worth so much beautiful endeavor, but if you still want so poor a thing, it is yours.”
He caught her hands in his and seemed about to take the rest of her, but hesitated for an instant, unable to believe that so much happiness was true.
“Are you sure, Rose very sure? Don't let a momentary admiration blind you I'm not a poet yet, and the best are but mortal men, you know.”
“It is not admiration, Mac.”
“Nor gratitude for the small share I've taken in saving Uncle? I had my debt to pay, as well as Phebe, and was as glad to risk my life.”
“No it is not gratitude.”
“Nor pity for my patience? I've only done a little yet, and I am as far as ever from being like your hero. I can work and wait still longer if you are not sure, for I must have all or nothing.”
“Oh, Mac! Why will you be so doubtful? You said you'd make me love you, and you've done it. Will you believe me now?” And, with a sort of desperation, she threw herself into his arms, clinging there in eloquent silence while he held her close; feeling, with a thrill of tender triumph, that this was no longer little Rose, but a loving woman, ready to live and die for him.
“Now I'm satisfied!” he said presently, when she lifted up her face, full of maidenly shame at the sudden passion which had carried her out of herself for a moment. “No don't slip away so soon. Let me keep you for one blessed minute and feel that I have really found my Psyche.”
“And I my Cupid,” answered Rose, laughing, in spite of her emotion, at the idea of Mac in that sentimental character.
He laughed, too, as only a happy lover could, then said, with sudden seriousness: “Sweet soul! Lift up your lamp and look well before it is too late, for I'm no god, only a very faulty man.”
“Dear love! I will. But I have no fear, except that you will fly too high for me to follow, because I have no wings.”
“You shall live the poetry, and I will write it, so my little gift will celebrate your greater one.”
“No you shall have all the fame, and I'll be content to be known only as the poet's wife.”
“And I'll be proud to own that my best inspiration comes from the beneficent life of a sweet and noble woman.”
“Oh, Mac! We'll work together and try to make the world better by the music and the love we leave behind us when we go.”
“Please God, we will!” he answered fervently and, looking at her as she stood there in the spring sunshine, glowing with the tender happiness, high hopes, and earnest purposes that make life beautiful and sacred, he felt that now the last leaf had folded back, the golden heart lay open to the light, and his Rose had bloomed.
|
{
"id": "2804"
}
|
1
|
None
|
[Illustration: "SNAPPED HIS HALTER AND BROKE AWAY."]
NOW, while Donny stood holding Ben Bow by the bridle, the old horse reared, plunged violently, snapped his halter, and broke away. The boy, at the same instant, was hurled to the ground. The ringing of hoofs and whir of wheels made strange sensations in his ears. He thought what a fool he was to be knocked down by old Ben Bow.
[Illustration: "HE GOT DOWN ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES AND CRAWLED."]
Then he tottered to his feet. Complete darkness had come. There was an unearthly silence. Then a moan, then a howl and a shriek arose which reached from group to group, from house to house, from square to forest. Human and animal cries blended in one piteous appeal for mercy.
Again the unknown power smote the lad to the earth, which had become a raging sea. It rocked--it rolled. Terrified, the child no longer attempted to stand. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled.
[Illustration: "BIRDS SEEMED TO SING THROUGH THE AIR."]
The trees whistled overhead. Flocks of birds seemed to sing through the air, striking against the telegraph wires. The atmosphere, which but a few moments ago reeked with heat, took on a grave-like chill. Again the earth heaved and swayed beneath the frightened youngster, who fell upon his face, vainly clawing the ground for the support which it denied him.
The station was only twenty yards away. There, all the people were in a turmoil. While endeavoring to regain their feet, some were violently thrown upon the wooden platform. Others, holding to the side of the building, felt with stupefaction the boards totter beneath their touch. Was judgment at hand? Had the end of the world come? The terror of a nameless danger unmanned the stoutest heart. Women shrieked and prayed. Men cursed and groaned.
[Illustration: "HAD THE END OF THE WORLD COME?"]
Donny had now joined the stricken group. They huddled together until another shock threw them one upon another. Delicate women became nauseated as if in mid-ocean. Sturdy men who had faced bullets in the Civil War without wincing, lost self-control. They surged; they fought; they comforted each other; they cried aloud.
At this moment a frightful tremor shook the earth. The station building gave sickening creaks; then it toppled with a crash.
Yell now followed yell. The crowd, that but now waited the joyous greetings of friends, was battered by the bruises of the earth and hurried by fright into a contagious state of mania. The bodies and faces of the people changed almost beyond recognition. Maddened with fear, stunned by the last concussion, they stampeded.
The cry rang from mouth to mouth: "To the woods! To the hill! Home! Home!! Home!!!" They swayed; they rushed; they parted; they ran. Struck as by an invisible enemy, they fell prostrate in the powdery dust. They picked themselves up again and panted in their flight. A voice close to Donny's side rang above the uproar: "Good Lord! _It is an earthquake! _" Like birds before a tornado, the people scattered to the right, to the left,--this way, that, and were gone. Donny found himself, dazed and alone, upon the cross-ties, groping toward the oncoming train. He thrust out his hands and stood a moment piteously crying, "Papä! Papä!" the most bewildered little fellow in all that frightened town.
[Illustration: "THEY RAN."]
To crawl up the track, to meet the train, to board her, to shriek at her, to get to his father, to cling to the cow-catcher, perhaps, till the engineer stopped for sheer mercy,--this was the nearest approach to a purpose that the child had, as he beat along the track, stumbling, falling, up again, down again, shaken by the rolling earth, and blinded by darkness more awful than he had ever seen or thought of.
[Illustration: "THE PAUPER DOG."]
A strange, thin dog, without a collar, whined at his feet as he pushed on, and licked his hand and followed him like his own. Huge, dim forms rushed alongside the embankment, making unearthly sounds. Dragons could not have seemed more dreadful; but they were only cows. Huge pine-trees bent to the earth with rapid, vibratory motion as if a giant's hand clutched and shook them by the roots.
[Illustration: "THEY WERE ONLY COWS."]
All the time the awful rumbling of the earth went on; it sounded as if the world were turning herself over, and thrashing to and fro in a fit of anger; before every convulsion she uttered a roar which seemed as if it came from a metal ball bowled along a giant alley beneath. It reached its climax by trilling the letter _=R-r-r-r-r! =_ in a mighty voice. Then came the shock.
Suddenly, as the child was making his way through the horror and desolation of this scene, he felt himself clasped in the outstretched arms of a figure hurrying from the opposite direction. The two came together in the dark with a jolt, and recoiled.
"Goramercy!" said a quavering voice. It was the speech of the old Negro track-walker, taking two days to get to his dying daughter because he could not afford the railroad ticket that would have brought him to her in two hours. Donny recognized the high, cracked, pathetic tones which had addressed him at the station.
"De track's busted!" panted the Negro. "De rails is done gone twist wid de shakes. Dey lays like er heap ob corn-shuck in de win' up yander. Dat ar train don' know hit, an' she'll go to Day ob Jedgment, an' ebery soul aboard ob her! I'se run like de nation fer to warn de town!"
[Illustration: "RUN FOR 'T! RUN!"]
"Oh, there isn't any town to warn!" cried Donny. "It's all run off! There isn't anything left but the earthquake and me--and this pup--and nobody to do anything--and my papä's aboard that train! Oh, what shall we do? What shall we do?"
"Run, honey, run!" said the old man, more hopefully. "Mebbe we'll head her off some ways or 'nuther. Run for 't! Run!"
The dirty old black hand clasped the tender little white one, which nestled into it gratefully. What it meant at that awful time not to be alone,--to feel a human touch, to know that a human heart beat beside you,--one would have to be in the child's place to understand.
|
{
"id": "28059"
}
|
2
|
None
|
[Illustration: "AS THEY CAME ABREAST OF THE SECOND LITTLE STATION."]
THE two ran, plunging up the distorted track which swelled and shook beneath them, toward the coming train. As they came abreast of the second little station, known as the West End station of Summerville, an idea shot like hope itself through the confused brain of the hurrying boy.
"I know where the torpedoes are!" he cried, shrilly. "The torpedoes they put down to stop trains! I've seen 'em. I play with the superintendent's boys sometimes. If I was bigger I could bu'st open the doors and windows and find 'em."
"I'se an ole man," shouted the Negro, "but I'se been a tough one befo' Freedom. I sole for two thousand dollars onct. I kin smash 'most anythin' yer give me, honey, if hi'm put to 't. If der's anythin' wantin' to be bu'sted to stop dat ar train, I reckon I kin bu'st." [Illustration: "I SOLE FOR TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS ONCT."]
Whirling along, in the dark and the uproar, the two panting figures rushed against the little station. It was very dark. In a lull of the raging earth the distant whistle of the train could be distinctly heard.
[Illustration: "THE RAGGED OLD ARM THAT FELLED IT DOWN."]
"In there!" cried the boy. "There! _There! _ Oh, don't you think perhaps my papä took some _other_ train? Oh, she's coming! I'll help. I can help. Oh, the door's too big for me!"
But not too big for the ragged old arm that felled it down as an axe fells the last rings of a stricken tree. Not too big for the remnant of strength in the once muscular slave. Not too big for the fiery old heart that trouble and toil and hunger and loneliness had never quenched.
The door went down--glass crashed--another door yielded--two wild figures fell into the superintendent's private office. The little one climbed like a monkey upon a shelf he knew of, and then the two rushed out of the rocking building into the resounding air, on which human shrieks smote steadily, as it was said they did all that awful night. Again, the whistle of the train--near now--nearer-- [Illustration: "THE LITTLE ONE CLIMBED LIKE A MONKEY UPON A SHELF."]
As the pathetic couple ran up the torn and twisted track, Donny began to sob aloud; but all he said was, "Papä! Papä! Papä!"
"Gib 'em to me, sonny," said the Negro, with the authority of age and danger. "I kin run faster'n you, honey! Goramercy, _dar she am_!"
[Illustration: "THE OLD MAN SEIZED THE TORPEDOES."]
The old man seized the torpedoes, and rushing away with them, vanished in the darkness. The unknown, collarless dog followed him. Donny, sobbing and calling his father's name, pushed on as well as he could by himself. As he ran he tried to say his prayers, but all he could remember was, "Our Father who art in heaven."
[Illustration: "THIS COMFORTED THE LAD INCREDIBLY."]
Then he thought, how soon might his father on earth be father in heaven, too? He could not say that prayer. The boy, like many an older and wiser than Donny, only cried instead of praying. As he ran along in this sad fashion, something hit against him, whinnying in the dark. It was Ben Bow, the horse he had ridden ever since he was a baby. Now, this comforted the lad incredibly, to have one of the family with him.
|
{
"id": "28059"
}
|
3
|
None
|
THE old man and the train were now face to face. The locomotive came cautiously, for the shocks had penetrated far up the road, but too fast--far too fast. Where the track had gone to pieces, a mass of twisted rails and tossing sleepers and furrowed earth, a bank--what is called a high bank in Southern topography--raised itself just in the turn of time to have sent the derailed train plunging down.
The old Negro watched the approaching flare of the head-light as he ran on, with a grim, defiant eye.
"I stump ye!" he said aloud. He shook his trembling, black fist at the locomotive. Stumbling along, his old bundle over one shoulder, and the torpedoes clutched in the other arm, being thus encumbered--for it did not occur to him that he could throw away his bundle, he was so poor--he tripped and fell. His foot caught; it is unknown in what,--in a twisted tie, or perhaps in a crevice of the cracking earth.
When he tried to rise, something held the hero down. He reached his whole length forward flat upon the road-bed, and with great precision and with a coolness that one cannot think of now without emotion, he laid one torpedo on each rail, exactly where it needs must lie to give the warning through the crushing wheel.
[Illustration: "I STUMP YE!"]
[Illustration: "THE STRONG, BLACK FIST WAS CLINCHED."]
Now for the second time the old man and the locomotive regarded each other. Her fiery breath was close upon him. Above the uproar of the reeling earth the shriek of the train sounded in his deafened ears. Once again, the strong, black fist was clinched in the approaching monster's face.
"I dare ye!" he cried. "Come on! I dare ye!" He pulled himself up with a mighty wrench. But the unknown power held him. He felt the claws of the cow-catcher. He gave one low cry: "Lord, I'd like to got dar an' seen Juno Soo afore she died--" Then he closed his eyes, that he might not see what would happen, clasped his hands above his gray head, and gave his manly soul to God.
[Illustration: "HE LAID ONE TORPEDO ON EACH RAIL."]
|
{
"id": "28059"
}
|
4
|
None
|
THE anxious and bewildered passengers heard the snap! snap! of the torpedoes, and half of them rushed to the platforms. The engineer signalled "Down brakes!" and the train, with a mighty jolt, came to a stop. A heavy shock shook the night at that instant. The smell of sulphur was strong in the chilly air. The engineer got out with a lantern. The crowd gathered in a moment. At the brink of the scattered track, at the very edge of wreck and death, the train had come to a stand.
"Who did it?" swept from lip to lip. No one was in sight.
"I thought we hit a man," said the engineer, swinging his lantern far out into the darkness. But no sign, whether of the dead or of the living, was in sight,--nothing except a half-starved, collarless dog, who sat stupidly upon the grass, and who did not even wag his tail when the stoker spoke to him.
"Who saved us? Who saved the train?"
Ask the disappointed vulture and the mouth of the muttering earth to tell you, gentlemen passengers! There is no other lip to answer.
* * * * * Yes, there is one; a little, trembling, ashy lip--a child's--scarcely able to articulate for grief or terror, and pouring forth confused cries that nobody can understand. The passengers have left the train, and are making their way cautiously homeward down the devastated road-bed, where the track had lain. It is hurled now to every point of the compass in the wild night.
They come to a halt suddenly, before a little huddling figure, with its face hidden in its arms, crouched beside a crooked rail. An old horse, with traces hanging and harness a wreck, stands snorting beside the boy.
"Donny! Donny! Why, my sonny boy!"
The crowd parts for a thin, white-faced man,--the passenger who had been heard to say upon the way, "My little son is coming to meet me. I hope these shocks do not extend to the Summerville station."
There is one other little wild call, "Papä! Papä!" --a tremendous effort to be manly, and not cry before strangers--and the boy melts into his father's arms, and wonders whose tears they are which rain upon his cuddling face.
[Illustration: "PAPÄ! PAPÄ!"]
But who saved the train? Where is he? How did he do it? Who took that noble risk? Where is the hero? Here? " _You_, my lad?"
Then Donny raised his awestruck face from his father's quick-beating heart, and standing among the strangers and the neighbors, told the story,--all that he knew; all that he could tell.
[Illustration: "A LITTLE HUDDLING FIGURE."]
"I only remembered the torpedoes, sir. The old man did the rest."
"What old man? Where is he?"
"Why, the old colored man! Haven't you seen him? The old colored man who ran ahead and put them on the track. _He_ saved the train."
The engineer took his lantern and silently went back and swung the spot of fire in the black, cold air. It had not rained, as we have said, for many weeks, but his feet splashed into deep pools and running rivulets, and sank into crevices and gashes in the trembling earth.
A few of the passengers followed the engineer. The locality where the train stood was examined thoroughly. Again, the same result,--no human creature, dead or living, was to be seen. The pauper dog sat just where they had left him. The engineer went up and patted him. At the touch he fell over--dead of fright.
They returned to report what they had found. As they did so, they called and shouted into the darkness, seeking for the brave life that had saved their own. Only the roar of the earthquake answered them.
"But he _must_ be there!" cried the lad, "of course he's there. He's a very shabby old Negro. He is all patches and his knees and hair stick out. His hat looked like a coon-skin hat. His hair is gray hair. He carries a little bundle on his shoulder. He's a very strong old Negro. He smashed the station in like--like blocks. He was a slave, and he was so strong he cost two thousand dollars. He's going to see his daughter in Branchville. She's dying. He's so poor he had to walk from Charleston all the way. _He_ saved the train. You just look and you'll find him."
[Illustration: "THE LOCALITY WHERE THE TRAIN STOOD WAS EXAMINED THOROUGHLY."]
A mighty shock drowned the boy's words at this moment, and seemed to jeer at them. The people huddled together, and looked into each others' appalled faces, and no man said a word. Instinctively they ranged themselves into a mass, as if united humanity could defy aroused and raging Nature,--then broke, and ran for their homes, and wives and babes, and whatever fate had left to them.
|
{
"id": "28059"
}
|
5
|
None
|
BUT where is the hero? Who saved the train? Summerville, to this day, goes seeking him, and her search is a vain thing. Will he not break his long, mysterious silence? Will he not come forth to take the blessing of the grateful people? An obscure old Negro, poor, hungry, and homeless, will he not accept the proffered reward? Where is the hero?
Like Moses of old, hath God buried him? The earth knows, which yawned beside the track--and closed again--when the crushing wheels struck the life from the unknown savior of the excursion train. The earth knows; but she keeps her secret. Her awful lips are dumb.
[Illustration: "HAD THE CURIOSITY TO PICK UP THE RAGS."]
Some weeks after the shock of August 31, a section hand, setting a sleeper, found an old bundle, soiled and wet, tied to a stick and mouldering in the ground. He opened it carelessly, and threw it away, and hardly thought to mention it to his overseer, who had the curiosity to pick up the rags and examine them.
A handkerchief, once red, with polka spots, contained a ragged flannel shirt and a stocking-heel tied with a piece of tape. That was all. This stocking-heel, evidently the wallet of some poor traveller, held one silver piece of the value of ten cents, two coppers, and a newspaper clipping, old and faded. It was a copy of the Proclamation of Emancipation to the Negro slaves of America, beginning, "I, Abraham Lincoln," and bearing date Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-three.
[Illustration]
|
{
"id": "28059"
}
|
1
|
A VIRGINIAN PLANTATION.
|
"I won't have it, Pearson; so it's no use your talking. If I had my way you shouldn't touch any of the field hands. And when I get my way--that won't be so very long--I will take good care you sha'n't. But you sha'n't hit Dan."
"He is not one of the regular house hands," was the reply; "and I shall appeal to Mrs. Wingfield as to whether I am to be interfered with in the discharge of my duties."
"You may appeal to my mother if you like, but I don't think that you will get much by it. I tell you you are a deal too fond of that whip, Pearson. It never was heard of on the estate during my father's time, and it sha'n't be again when it comes to be mine, I can tell you. Come along, Dan; I want you at the stables."
So saying, Vincent Wingfield turned on his heel, and followed by Dan, a negro lad of some eighteen years old, he walked off toward the house, leaving Jonas Pearson, the overseer of the Orangery estate, looking after him with an evil expression of face.
Vincent Wingfield was the son of an English officer, who, making a tour in the States, had fallen in love with and won the hand of Winifred Cornish, a rich Virginian heiress, and one of the belles of Richmond. After the marriage he had taken her home to visit his family in England; but she had not been there many weeks before the news arrived of the sudden death of her father. A month later she and her husband returned to Virginia, as her presence was required there in reference to business matters connected with the estate, of which she was now the mistress.
The Orangery, so called from a large conservatory built by Mrs. Wingfield's grandfather, was the family seat, and the broad lands around it were tilled by upward of two hundred slaves. There were in addition three other properties lying in different parts of the State. Here Vincent, with two sisters, one older and one younger than himself, had been born. When he was eight years old Major and Mrs. Wingfield had gone over with their children to England, and had left Vincent there for four years at school, his holidays being spent at the house of his father's brother, a country gentleman in Sussex. Then he had been sent for unexpectedly; his father saying that his health was not good, and that he should like his son to be with him. A year later his father died.
Vincent was now nearly sixteen years old, and would upon coming of age assume the reins of power at the Orangery, of which his mother, however, would be the actual mistress as long as she lived. The four years Vincent had passed in the English school had done much to render the institution of slavery repugnant to him, and his father had had many serious talks with him during the last year of his life, and had shown him that there was a good deal to be said upon both sides of the subject.
"There are good plantations and bad plantations, Vincent; and there are many more good ones than bad ones. There are brutes to be found everywhere. There are bad masters in the Southern States just as there are bad landlords in every European country. But even from self-interest alone, a planter has greater reason for caring for the health and comfort of his slaves than an English farmer has in caring for the comfort of his laborers. Slaves are valuable property, and if they are overworked or badly cared for they decrease in value. Whereas if the laborer falls sick or is unable to do his work the farmer has simply to hire another hand. It is as much the interest of a planter to keep his slaves in good health and spirits as it is for a farmer to feed and attend to his horses properly.
"Of the two, I consider that the slave with a fairly kind master is to the full as happy as the ordinary English laborer. He certainly does not work so hard, if he is ill he is carefully attended to, he is well fed, he has no cares or anxieties whatever, and when old and past work he has no fear of the workhouse staring him in the face. At the same time I am quite ready to grant that there are horrible abuses possible under the laws connected with slavery.
"The selling of slaves, that is to say, the breaking up of families and selling them separately, is horrible and abominable. If an estate were sold together with all the slaves upon it, there would be no more hardship in the matter than there is when an estate changes hands in England, and the laborers upon it work for the new master instead of the old. Were I to liberate all the slaves on this estate to-morrow and to send them North, I do not think that they would be in any way benefited by the change. They would still have to work for their living as they do now, and being naturally indolent and shiftless would probably fare much worse. But against the selling of families separately and the use of the lash I set my face strongly.
"At the same time, my boy, whatever your sentiments may be on this subject, you must keep your mouth closed as to them. Owing to the attempts of Northern Abolitionists, who have come down here stirring up the slaves to discontent, it is not advisable, indeed it is absolutely dangerous, to speak against slavery in the Southern States. The institution is here, and we must make the best we can of it. People here are very sore at the foul slanders that have been published by Northern writers. There have been many atrocities perpetrated undoubtedly, by brutes who would have been brutes whenever they had been born; but to collect a series of such atrocities, to string them together into a story, and to hold them up, as Mrs. Beecher Stowe has, as a picture of slave-life in the Southern States, is as gross a libel as if any one were to make a collection of all the wife-beatings and assaults of drunken English ruffians, and to publish them as a picture of the average life of English people.
"Such libels as these have done more to embitter the two sections of America against each other than anything else. Therefore, Vincent, my advice to you is, be always kind to your slaves--not over-indulgent, because they are very like children and indulgence spoils them--but be at the same time firm and kind to them, and with other people avoid entering into any discussions or expressing any opinion with regard to slavery. You can do no good and you can do much harm. Take things as you find them and make the best of them. I trust that the time may come when slavery will be abolished; but I hope, for the sake of the slaves themselves, that when this is done it will be done gradually and thoughtfully, for otherwise it would inflict terrible hardship and suffering upon them as well as upon their masters."
There were many such conversations between father and son, for feeling on the subject ran very high in the Southern States, and the former felt that it was of the utmost importance to his son that he should avoid taking any strong line in the matter. Among the old families of Virginia there was indeed far less feeling on this subject than in some of the other States. Knowing the good feeling that almost universally existed between themselves and their slaves, the gentry of Virginia regarded with contempt the calumnies of which they were the subject. Secure in the affection of their slaves, an affection which was afterward abundantly proved during the course of the war, they scarcely saw the ugly side of the question. The worst masters were the smallest ones; the man who owned six slaves was far more apt to extort the utmost possible work from them than the planter who owned three or four hundred. And the worst masters of all were those who, having made a little money in trade or speculation in the towns, purchased a dozen slaves, a small piece of land, and tried to set up as gentry.
In Virginia the life of the large planters was almost a patriarchal one; the indoor slaves were treated with extreme indulgence, and were permitted a far higher degree of freedom of remark and familiarity than is the case with servants in an English household. They had been the nurses or companions of the owners when children, had grown up with them, and regarded themselves, and were regarded by them, as almost part of the family. There was, of course, less connection between the planters and their field hands; but these also had for the most part been born on the estate, had as children been taught to look up to their white masters and mistresses, and to receive many little kindnesses at their hands.
They had been cared for in sickness, and knew that they would be provided for in old age. Each had his little allotment, and could raise fruit, vegetables, and fowls for his own use or for sale in his leisure time. The fear of loss of employment or the pressure of want, ever present to English laborers, had never fallen upon them. The climate was a lovely one, and their work far less severe than that of men forced to toil in cold and wet, winter and summer. The institution of slavery assuredly was capable of terrible abuses, and was marked in many instances by abominable cruelty and oppression; but taken all in all, the negroes on a well-ordered estate, under kind masters, were probably a happier class of people than the laborers upon any estate in Europe.
Jonas Pearson had been overseer in the time of Major Wingfield, but his authority had at that time been comparatively small, for the major himself personally supervised the whole working of the estate, and was greatly liked by the slaves, whose chief affections were, however, naturally bestowed upon their mistress, who had from childhood been brought up in their midst. Major Wingfield had not liked his overseer, but he had never had any ground to justify him making a change. Jonas, who was a Northern man, was always active and energetic; all Major Wingfield's orders were strictly and punctually carried out, and although he disliked the man, his employer acknowledged him to be an excellent servant.
After the major's death, Jonas Pearson had naturally obtained greatly increased power and authority. Mrs. Wingfield had great confidence in him, his accounts were always clear and precise, and although the profits of the estate were not quite so large as they had been in her husband's lifetime, this was always satisfactorily explained by a fall in prices, or by a part of the crops being affected by the weather. She flattered herself that she herself managed the estate, and at times rode over it, made suggestions, and issued orders, but this was only in fits and starts; and although Jonas came up two or three times a week to the house nominally to receive her orders, he managed her so adroitly that while she believed that everything was done by her directions, she in reality only followed out the suggestions which, in the first place, came from him.
She was aware, however, that there was less content and happiness on the estate than there had been in the old times. Complaints had reached her from time to time of overwork and harsh treatment. But upon inquiring into these matters, Jonas had always such plausible reasons to give that she was convinced he was in the right, and that the fault was among the slaves themselves, who tried to take advantage of the fact that they had no longer a master's eye upon them, and accordingly tried to shirk work, and to throw discredit upon the man who looked after the interests of their mistress; and so gradually Mrs. Wingfield left the management of affairs more and more in the hands of Jonas, and relied more implicitly upon him.
The overseer spared no pains to gain the good-will of Vincent. When the latter declared that the horse he rode had not sufficient life and spirit for him, Jonas had set inquiries on foot, and had selected for him a horse which, for speed and bottom, had no superior in the State. One of Mrs. Wingfield's acquaintances, however, upon hearing that she had purchased the animal, told her that it was notorious for its vicious temper, and she spoke angrily to Jonas on the subject in the presence of Vincent. The overseer excused himself by saying that he had certainly heard that the horse was high spirited and needed a good rider, and that he should not have thought of selecting it had he not known that Mr. Vincent was a first-class rider, and would not care to have a horse that any child could manage.
The praise was not undeserved. The gentlemen of Virginia were celebrated as good riders; and Major Wingfield, himself a cavalry man, had been anxious that Vincent should maintain the credit of his English blood, and had placed him on a pony as soon as he was able to sit on one. A pony had been kept for his use during his holidays at his uncle's in England, and upon his return Vincent had, except during the hours he spent with his father, almost lived on horseback, either riding about the estate, or paying visits to the houses of other planters.
For an hour or more every day he exercised his father's horses in a paddock near the house, the major being wheeled down in an easy-chair and superintending his riding. As these horses had little to do and were full of spirit, Vincent's powers were often taxed to the utmost, and he had many falls; but the soil was light, and he had learned the knack of falling easily, and from constant practice was able at the age of fourteen to stick on firmly even without a saddle, and was absolutely fearless as to any animal he mounted.
In the two years which had followed he had kept up his riding. Every morning after breakfast he rode to Richmond, six miles distant, put up his horse at some stable there, and spent three hours at school; the rest of the day was his own, and he would often ride off with some of his schoolfellows who had also come in from a distance, and not return home till late in the evening. Vincent took after his English father rather than his Virginian mother both in appearance and character, and was likely to become as tall and brawny a man as the former had been when he first won the love of the rich Virginian heiress.
He was full of life and energy, and in this respect offered a strong contrast to most of his schoolfellows of the same age. For although splendid riders and keen sportsmen, the planters of Virginia were in other respects inclined to indolence; the result partly of the climate, partly of their being waited upon from childhood by attendants ready to carry out every wish. He had his father's cheerful disposition and good temper, together with the decisive manner so frequently acquired by a service in the army, and at the same time he had something of the warmth and enthusiasm of the Virginian character.
Good rider as he was he was somewhat surprised at the horse the overseer had selected for him. It was certainly a splendid animal, with great bone and power; but there was no mistaking the expression of its turned-back eye, and the ears that lay almost flat on the head when any one approached him.
"It is a splendid animal, no doubt, Jonas," he said the first time he inspected it; "but he certainly looks as if he had a beast of a temper. I fear what was told my mother about him is no exaggeration; for Mr. Markham told me to-day, when I rode down there with his son, and said that we had bought Wildfire, that a friend of his had had him once, and only kept him for a week, for he was the most vicious brute he ever saw."
"I am sorry I have bought him now, sir," Jonas said. "Of course I should not have done so if I had heard these things before; but I was told he was one of the finest horses in the country, only a little tricky, and as his price was so reasonable I thought it a great bargain. But I see now I was wrong, and that it wouldn't be right for you to mount him; so I think we had best send him in on Saturday to the market and let it go for what it will fetch. You see, sir, if you had been three or four years older it would have been different; but naturally at your age you don't like to ride such a horse as that."
"I sha'n't give it up without a trial," Vincent said shortly. "It is about the finest horse I ever saw; and if it hadn't been for its temper, it would be cheap at five times the sum you gave for it. I have ridden a good many bad-tempered horses for my friends during the last year, and the worst of them couldn't get me off."
"Well, sir, of course you will do as you please," Jonas said; "but please to remember if any harm comes of it that I strongly advised you not to have anything to do with it, and I did my best to dissuade you from trying."
Vincent nodded carelessly, and then turned to the black groom.
"Jake, get out that cavalry saddle of my father's, with the high cantle and pommel, and the rolls for the knees. It's like an armchair, and if one can't stick on on that, one deserves to be thrown."
While the groom was putting on the saddle, Vincent stood patting the horse's head and talking to it, and then taking its rein led it down into the inclosure.
"No, I don't want the whip," he said, as Jake offered him one. "I have got the spurs, and likely enough the horse's temper may have been spoiled by knocking it about with a whip; but we will try what kindness will do with it first."
"Me no like his look, Massa Vincent; he debbil ob a hoss dat."
"I don't think he has a nice temper, Jake; but people learn to control their temper, and I don't see why horses shouldn't. At any rate we will have a try at it. He looks as if he appreciates being patted and spoken to already. Of course if you treat a horse like a savage he will become savage. Now, stand out of the way."
Gathering the reins together, and placing one hand upon the pommel, Vincent sprang into the saddle without touching the stirrups; then he sat for a minute or two patting the horse's neck. Wildfire, apparently disgusted at having allowed himself to be mounted so suddenly, lashed out viciously two or three times, and then refused to move. For half an hour Vincent tried the effect of patient coaxing, but in vain.
"Well, if you won't do it by fair means you must by foul," Vincent said at last, and sharply pricked him with his spurs.
Wildfire sprang into the air, and then began a desperate series of efforts to rid himself of his rider, rearing and kicking in such quick succession that he seemed half the time in the air. Finding after awhile that his efforts were unavailing, he subsided at last into sulky immovability. Again Vincent tried coaxing and patting, but as no success attended these efforts, he again applied the spur sharply. This time the horse responded by springing forward like an arrow from a bow, dashed at the top of his speed across the inclosure, cleared the high fence without an effort, and then set off across the country.
He had attempted to take the bit in his teeth, but with a sharp jerk as he drove the spurs in, Vincent had defeated his intention. He now did not attempt to check or guide him, but keeping a light hand on the reins let him go his own course. Vincent knew that so long as the horse was going full speed it could attempt no trick to unseat him, and he therefore sat easily in his saddle.
For six miles Wildfire continued his course, clearing every obstacle without abatement to his speed, and delighting his rider with his power and jumping qualities. Occasionally, only when the course he was taking would have led him to obstacles impossible for the best jumper to surmount, Vincent attempted to put the slightest pressure upon one rein or the other, so as to direct it to an easier point.
At the end of six miles the horse's speed began slightly to abate, and Vincent, abstaining from the use of his spurs, pressed it with his knees and spoke to it cheerfully urging it forward. He now from time to time bent forward and patted it, and for another six miles kept it going at a speed almost as great as that at which it had started. Then he allowed it gradually to slacken its pace, until at last first the gallop and then the trot ceased, and it broke into a walk.
"You have had a fine gallop, old fellow," Vincent said, patting it; "and so have I. There's been nothing for you to lose your temper about, and the next road we come upon we will turn our face homeward. Half a dozen lessons like this, and then no doubt we shall be good friends."
The journey home was performed at a walk, Vincent talking the greater part of the time to the horse. It took a good deal more than six lessons before Wildfire would start without a preliminary struggle with his master, but in the end kindness and patience conquered. Vincent often visited the horse in the stables, and, taking with him an apple or some pieces of sugar, spent some time there talking to and petting it. He never carried a whip, and never used the spurs except in forcing it to make its first start.
Had the horse been naturally ill-tempered Vincent would probably have failed, but, as he happened afterward to learn, its first owner had been a hot-tempered and passionate young planter, who, instead of being patient with it, had beat it about the head, and so rendered it restive and bad-tempered. Had Vincent not laid aside his whip before mounting it for the first time, he probably would never have effected a cure. It was the fact that the animal had no longer a fear of his old enemy the whip as much as the general course of kindness and good treatment that had effected the change in his behavior.
It was just when Vincent had established a good under-standing between himself and Wildfire that he had the altercation with the overseer, whom he found about to flog the young negro Dan. Pearson had sent the lad half an hour before on a message to some slaves at work at the other end of the estate, and had found him sitting on the ground watching a tree in which he had discovered a possum. That Dan deserved punishment was undoubted. He had at present no regular employment upon the estate. Jake, his father, was head of the stables, and Dan had made himself useful in odd jobs about the horses, and expected to become one of the regular stable hands. The overseer was of opinion that there were already more negroes in the stable than could find employment, and had urged upon Mrs. Wingfield that one of the hands there and the boy Dan should be sent out to the fields. She, however, refused.
"I know you are quite right, Jonas, in what you say. But there were always four hands in the stable in my father's time, and there always have been up to now; and though I know they have an easy time of it, I certainly should not like to send any of them out to the fields. As to Dan, we will think about it. When his father was about his age he used to lead my pony when I first took to riding, and when there is a vacancy Dan must come into the stable. I could not think of sending him out as a field hand, in the first place for his father's sake, but still more for that of Vincent. Dan used to be told off to see that he did not get into mischief when he was a little boy, and he has run messages and been his special boy since he came back. Vincent wanted to have him as his regular house servant; but it would have broken old Sam's heart if, after being my father's boy and my husband's, another had taken his place as Vincent's."
And so Dan had remained in the stable, but regarding Vincent as his special master, carrying notes for him to his friends, or doing any odd jobs he might require, and spending no small portion of his time in sleep. Thus he was an object of special dislike to the overseer; in the first place because he had not succeeded in having his way with regard to him, and in the second because he was a useless hand, and the overseer loved to get as much work as possible out of every one on the estate. The message had been a somewhat important one, as he wanted the slaves for some work that was urgently required; and he lost his temper, or he would not have done an act which would certainly bring him into collision with Vincent.
He was well aware that the lad did not really like him, and that his efforts to gain his good-will had failed, and he had foreseen that sooner or later there would be a struggle for power between them. However, he relied upon his influence with Mrs. Wingfield, and upon the fact that she was the life-owner of the Orangery, and believed that he would be able to maintain his position even when Vincent came of age. Vincent on his side objected altogether to the overseer's treatment of the hands, of which he heard a good deal from Dan, and had already remonstrated with his mother on the subject. He, however, gained nothing by this. Mrs. Wingfield had replied that he was too young to interfere in such matters, that his English ideas would not do in Virginia, and that naturally the slaves were set against the overseer; and that now Pearson had no longer a master to support him, he was obliged to be more severe than before to enforce obedience. At the same time it vexed her at heart that there should be any severity on the Orangery estate, where the best relations had always prevailed between the masters and slaves, and she had herself spoken to Jonas on the subject.
He had given her the same answer that she had given her son: "The slaves will work for a master, Mrs. Wingfield, in a way they will not for a stranger. They set themselves against me, and if I were not severe with them I should get no work at all out of them. Of course, if you wish it, they can do as they like; but in that case they must have another overseer. I cannot see a fine estate going to ruin. I believe myself some of these Abolition fellows have been getting among them and doing them mischief, and that there is a bad spirit growing up among them. I can assure you that I am as lenient with them as is possible to be. But if they won't work I must make them, so long as I stay here."
And so the overseer had had his way. She knew that the man was a good servant, and that the estate was kept in excellent order. After all, the severities of which she had heard complaints were by no means excessive; and it was not to be expected that a Northern overseer could rule entirely by kindness, as the owner of an estate could do. A change would be most inconvenient to her, and she would have difficulty in suiting herself so well another time. Besides, the man had been with her sixteen years, and was, as she believed, devoted to her interests. Therefore she turned a deaf ear to Vincent's remonstrances.
She had always been somewhat opposed to his being left in England at school, urging that he would learn ideas there that would clash with those of the people among whom his life was to be spent; and she still considered that her views had been justified by the result.
The overseer was the first to give his version of the story about Dan's conduct; for on going to the house Vincent found his sisters, Rosa and Annie, in the garden, having just returned from a two days' visit to some friends in Richmond, and stayed chatting with them and listening to their news for an hour, and in the meantime Jonas had gone in and seen Mrs. Wingfield and told his story.
"I think, Mrs. Wingfield," he said when he had finished, "that it will be better for me to leave you. It is quite evident that I can have no authority over the hands if your son is to interfere when I am about to punish a slave for an act of gross disobedience and neglect. I found that all the tobacco required turning, and now it will not be done this afternoon owing to my orders not being carried out, and the tobacco will not improbably be injured in quality. My position is difficult enough as it is; but if the slaves see that instead of being supported I am thwarted by your son, my authority is gone altogether. No overseer can carry on his work properly under such circumstances."
"I will see to the matter, Jonas," Mrs. Wingfield said decidedly. "Be assured that you have my entire support, and I will see that my son does not again interfere."
When, therefore, Vincent entered the house and began his complaint he found himself cut short.
"I have heard the story already, Vincent. Dan acted in gross disobedience, and thoroughly deserved the punishment Jonas was about to give him. The work of the estate cannot be carried on if such conduct is to be tolerated; and once for all, I will permit no interference on your part with Jonas. If you have any complaints to make, come to me and make them; but you are not yourself to interfere in any way with the overseer. As for Dan, I have directed Jonas that the next time he gives cause for complaint he is to go into the fields."
Vincent stood silent for a minute, then he said quietly: "Very well, mother. Of course you can do as you like; but at any rate I will not keep my mouth shut when I see that fellow ill-treating the slaves. Such things were never done in my father's time, and I won't see them done now. You said the other day you would get me a nomination to West Point as soon as I was sixteen. I should be glad if you would do so. By the time I have gone through the school, you will perhaps see that I have been right about Jonas."
So saying, he turned and left the room and again joined his sisters in the drawing-room.
"I have just told mother that I will go to West Point, girls," he said. "Father said more than once that he thought it was the best education I could get in America."
"But I thought you had made up your mind that you would rather stop at home, Vincent?"
"So I had, and so I would have done, but mother and I differ in opinion. That fellow Jonas was going to flog Dan, and I stopped him this morning, and mother takes his part against me. You know, I don't like the way he goes on with the slaves. They are not half so merry and happy as they used to be, and I don't like it. We shall have one of them running away next, and that will be a nice thing on what used to be considered one of the happiest plantations in Virginia. I can't make mother out; I should have thought that she would have been the last person in the world to have allowed the slaves to be harshly treated."
"I am sure we don't like Jonas more than you do, Vincent; but you see mamma has to depend upon him so much. No, I don't think she can like it; but you can't have everything you like in a man, and I know she thinks he is a very good overseer. I suppose she could get another?"
Vincent said he thought that there could not be much difficulty about getting an overseer.
"There might be a difficulty in getting one she could rely on so thoroughly," Rosa said. "You see a great deal must be left to him. Jonas has been here a good many years now, and she has learned to trust him. It would be a long time before she had the same confidence in a stranger; and you may be sure that he would have his faults, though, perhaps, not the same as those of Jonas. I think you don't make allowance enough for mamma, Vincent. I quite agree with you as to Jonas, and I don't think mamma can like his harshness to the slaves any more than you do; but every one says what a difficulty it is to get a really trustworthy and capable overseer, and, of course, it is all the harder when there is no master to look after him."
"Well, in a few years I shall be able to look after an overseer," Vincent said.
"You might do so, of course, Vincent, if you liked; but unless you change a good deal, I don't think your supervision would amount to much. When you are not at school you are always on horseback and away, and we see little enough of you, and I do not think you are likely for a long time yet to give up most of your time to looking after the estate."
"Perhaps you are right," Vincent said, after thinking for a minute; "but I think I could settle down too, and give most of my time to the estate, if I was responsible for it. I dare say mother is in a difficulty over it, and I should not have spoken as I did; I will go in and tell her so."
Vincent found his mother sitting as he had left her. Although she had sided with Jonas, it was against her will; for it was grievous to her to hear complaints of the treatment of the slaves at the Orangery. Still, as Rosa had said, she felt every confidence in her overseer, and believed that he was an excellent servant. She was conscious that she herself knew nothing of business, and that she must therefore give her entire confidence to her manager. She greatly disliked the strictness of Jonas; but if, as he said, the slaves would not obey him without, he must do as he thought best.
"I think I spoke too hastily, mother," Vincent said as he entered; "and I am sure that you would not wish the slaves to be ill-treated more than I should. I dare say Jonas means for the best."
"I feel sure that he does, Vincent. A man in his position cannot make himself obeyed like a master. I wish it could be otherwise, and I will speak to him on the subject; but it will not do to interfere with him too much. A good overseer is not easy to get, and the slaves are always ready to take advantage of leniency. An easy master makes bad work, but an easy overseer would mean ruin to an estate. I am convinced that Jonas has our interests at heart, and I will tell him that I particularly wish that he will devise some other sort of punishment, such as depriving men who won't work of some of their privileges instead of using the lash."
"Thank you, mother. At any rate, he might be told that the lash is never to be used without first appealing to you."
"I will see about it, Vincent, and talk it over with him." And with that Vincent was satisfied.
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
2
|
BUYING A SLAVE.
|
Mrs. Wingfield did talk the matter over with the overseer, and things went on in consequence more smoothly. Vincent, however, adhered to his wish, and it was arranged that as soon as he could get a nomination he should go to West Point, which is to the American army what Sandhurst and Woolwich are to England. Before that could be done, however, a great political agitation sprang up. The slave States were greatly excited over the prospect of a Republican president being chosen, for the Republicans were to a great extent identified with the abolition movement; and public feeling, which had for some time run high, became intensified as the time approached for the election of a new president, and threats that if the Democrats were beaten and a Republican elected the slave States would secede from the Union, were freely indulged in.
In Virginia, which was one of the most northern of the slave States, opinion was somewhat divided, there being a strong minority against any extreme measures being taken. Among Vincent's friends, however, who were for the most part the sons of planters, the Democratic feeling was very strongly in the ascendant, and their sympathies were wholly with the Southern States. That these had a right to secede was assumed by them as being unquestionable.
But in point of fact there was a great deal to be said on both sides. The States which first entered the Union in 1776 considered themselves to be separate and sovereign States, each possessing power and authority to manage its own affairs, and forming only a federation in order to construct a central power, and so to operate with more effect against the mother country. Two years later the constitution of the United States was framed, each State giving up a certain portion of its authority, reserving its own self-government and whatever rights were not specifically resigned.
No mention was made in the constitution of the right of a State to secede from the Union, and while those who insisted that each State had a right to secede if it chose to do so declared that this right was reserved, their opponents affirmed that such a case could never have been contemplated. Thus the question of absolute right had never been settled, and it became purely one of force.
Early in November, 1860, it became known that the election of Mr. Lincoln, the Republican candidate, was assured, and on the ninth of that month the representatives of South Carolina met at Charleston, and unanimously authorized the holding of a State convention to meet in the third week in December. The announcement caused great excitement, for it was considered certain that the convention would pass a vote of secession, and thus bring the debated question to an issue. Although opinion in Virginia was less unanimous than in the more southern States, it was generally thought that she would imitate the example of South Carolina.
On the day following the receipt of the news, Vincent, who had ridden over to the plantations of several of his friends to talk the matter over, was returning homeward, when he heard the sound of heavy blows with a whip and loud curses, and a moment later a shrill scream in a woman's voice rose in the air.
Vincent checked his horse mechanically with an exclamation of anger. He knew but too well what was going on beyond the screen of shrubs that grew on the other side of the fence bordering the road. For a moment he hesitated, and then muttering, "What's the use!" was about to touch the horse with the whip and gallop on, when the shriek again rose louder and more agonizing than before. With a cry of rage Vincent leaped from his horse, threw the reins over the top of the fence, climbed over it in a moment, and burst his way through the shrubbery.
Close by a negro was being held by four others, two having hold of each wrist and holding his arms extended to full length, while a white lad, some two years Vincent's senior, was showering blows with a heavy whip upon him. The slave's back was already covered with weals, and the blood was flowing from several places. A few yards distant a black girl, with a baby in her arms, was kneeling on the ground screaming for mercy for the slave. Just as Vincent burst through the bushes, the young fellow, irritated at her cries, turned round and delivered a tremendous blow with the whip on her bare shoulders.
This time no cry came from her lips, but the slave, who had stood immovable while the punishment was being inflicted upon himself, made a desperate effort to break from the men who held him. He was unsuccessful, but before the whip could again fall on the woman's shoulders, Vincent sprang forward, and seizing it, wrested it from the hands of the striker. With an oath of fury and surprise at this sudden interruption, the young fellow turned upon Vincent.
"You are a coward and a blackguard, Andrew Jackson!" Vincent exclaimed, white with auger. "You are a disgrace to Virginia, you ruffian!"
Without a word the young planter, mad with rage at this interference, rushed at Vincent; but the latter had learned the use of his fists at his English school, and riding exercises had strengthened his muscles, and as his opponent rushed at him, he met him with a blow from the shoulder which sent him staggering back with the blood streaming from his lips. He again rushed forward, and heavy blows were exchanged; then they closed and grappled. For a minute they swayed to and from but although much taller, the young planter was no stronger than Vincent, and at last they came to the ground with a crash, Vincent uppermost, Jackson's head as he fell coming with such force against a low stump that he lay insensible.
The contest had been so sudden and furious that none had attempted to interfere. Indeed the negroes were so astonished that they had not moved from the moment when Vincent made his appearance upon the scene. The lad rose to his feet.
"You had better carry him up to the house and throw some water on him," he said to the negroes, and then turned to go away. As he did so, the slave who had been flogged broke from the others, who had indeed loosened their hold, and ran up to Vincent, threw himself on his knees, and taking the lad's hand pressed it to his lips.
"I am afraid I haven't done you much good," Vincent said. "You will be none the better off for my interference; but I couldn't help it." So saying he made his way through the shrubbery, cleared the fence, mounted, and rode homeward.
"I have been a fool," he said to himself as he rode along. "It will be all the worse for that poor beggar afterward; still I could not help it. I wonder will there be any row about it. I don't much expect there will, the Jacksons don't stand well now, and this would not do them any good with the people round; besides I don't think Jackson would like to go into court to complain of being thrashed by a fellow a head shorter than himself. It's blackguards like him who give the Abolitionists a right to hold up the slave-owners as being tyrants and brutes."
The Jacksons were newcomers in Virginia. Six years before, the estate, of which the Cedars, as their place was called, formed a part, was put up for sale. It was a very large one, and having been divided into several portions to suit buyers, the Cedars had been purchased by Jackson, who, having been very successful as a storekeeper at Charleston, had decided upon giving up the business and leaving South Carolina, and settling down as a land-owner in some other State. His antecedents, however, were soon known at Richmond, and the old Virginian families turned a cold shoulder to the newcomer.
Had he been a man of pleasant manners, he would gradually have made his way; but he was evidently not a gentleman. The habits of trade stuck to him, and in a very short time there were rumors that the slaves, whom he had bought with the property, found him a harsh and cruel master. This in itself would have been sufficient to bring him disrepute in Virginia, where as a rule the slaves were treated with great kindness, and indeed considered their position to be infinitely superior to that of the poorer class of whites. Andrew Jackson had been for a few months at school with Vincent; he was unpopular there, and from the rumors current as to the treatment of the slaves on the estate, was known by the nickname of the "slave-driver."
Had Vincent been the son of a white trader, or a small cultivator, he knew well enough that his position would be a very serious one, and that he would have had to ride to the border of the State with all speed. He would have been denounced at once as an Abolitionist, and would have been accused of stirring up the slaves to rebellion against their masters; a crime of the most serious kind in the Southern States. But placed as he was, as the heir of a great estate worked by slaves, such a cry could hardly be raised against him. He might doubtless be fined and admonished for interfering between a master and his slave; but the sympathy of the better classes in Virginia would be entirely with him. Vincent, therefore, was but little concerned for himself; but he doubted greatly whether his interference had not done much more harm than good to the slave and his wife, for upon them Andrew Jackson would vent his fury. He rode direct to the stables instead of alighting as usual at the door. Dan, who had been sitting in the veranda waiting for him, ran down to the stables as he saw him coming.
"Give the horse to one of the others, Dan; I want to speak to you. Dan," he went on when he had walked with him a short distance from the stables, "I suppose you know some of the hands on Jackson's plantation."
Dan grinned, for although there was not supposed to be any communication between the slaves on the different estates, it was notorious that at night they were in the habit of slipping out of their huts and visiting each other.
"I know some ob dem, Massa Vincent. What you want ob dem? Berry bad master, Massa Jackson. Wust master hereabouts."
Vincent related what had happened, to Dan's intense delight.
"Now, Dan," he went on, "I am afraid that after my interference they will treat that poor fellow and his wife worse than before. I want you to find out for me what is going on at Jackson's. I do not know that I can do anything, however badly they treat them; but I have been thinking that if they ill-treat them very grossly, I will get together a party of fifteen or twenty of my friends and we will go in a body to Jackson's, and warn him that if he behaves with cruelty to his slaves, we will make it so hot for him that he will have to leave the state. I don't say that we could do anything; but as we should represent most of the large estates round here, I don't think old Jackson and his son would like being sent to Coventry. The feeling is very strong at present against ill-treatment of the slaves. If these troubles lead to war almost all of us will go into the army, and we do not like the thought of the possibility of troubles among the hands when the whites are all away."
"I will find out all about it for you to-night, sah. I don't suspect dat dey will do nuffin to-day. Andrew Jackson too sick after dat knock against de tump. He keep quiet a day or two."
"Well, Dan, you go over to-night and find out all about it. I expect I had better have left things alone, but now I have interfered I shall go on with it."
Mrs. Wingfield was much displeased when Vincent told her at dinner of his incident at Jackson's plantation and even his sisters were shocked at this interference between a master and his slave.
"You will get yourself into serious trouble with these fanciful notions of yours," Mrs. Wingfield said angrily. "You know as well as I do how easy it is to get up a cry against any one as an Abolitionist and how difficult to disprove the accusation; and just at present, when the passions of every man in the South are inflamed to the utmost, such an accusation will be most serious. In the present instance there does not seem that there is a shadow of excuse for your conduct. You simply heard cries of a slave being flogged. You deliberately leave the road and enter these people's plantation and interfere without, so far as I can see, the least reason for doing so. You did not inquire what the man's offense was; and he may for aught you know have half murdered his master. You simply see a slave being flogged and you assault his owner. If the Jacksons lay complaints against you it is quite probable that you may have to leave the state. What on earth can have influenced you to act in such a mad-brained way?"
"I did not interfere to prevent his flogging the slave, mother, but to prevent his flogging the slave's wife, which was pure wanton brutality. It is not a question of slavery one way or the other. Any one has a right to interfere to put a stop to brutality. If I saw a man brutally treating a horse or a dog I should certainly do so; and if it is right to interfere to save a dumb animal from brutal ill-treatment surely it must be justifiable to save a woman in the same case. I am not an Abolitionist. That is to say, I consider that slaves on a properly managed estate, like ours, for instance, are just as well off as are the laborers on an estate in Europe; but I should certainly like to see laws passed to protect them from ill-treatment. Why, in England there are laws against cruelty to animals; and a man who brutally flogged a dog or a horse would get a month's imprisonment with hard labor. I consider it a disgrace to us that a man may here ill-treat a human being worse than he might in England a dumb animal."
"You know, Vincent," his mother said more quietly, "that I object as much as you do to the ill-treatment of the slaves, and that the slaves here, as on all well-conducted plantations in Virginia, are well treated; but this is not a time for bringing in laws or carrying out reforms. It is bad enough to have scores of Northerners doing their best to stir up mischief between masters and slaves without a Southern gentleman mixing himself up in the matter. We have got to stand together as one people and to protect our State rights from interference."
"I am just as much in favor of State rights as any one else, mother; and if, as seems likely, the present quarrel is to be fought out, I hope I shall do my best for Virginia as well as other fellows of my own age. But just as I protest against any interference by the Northerners with our laws, I say that we ought to amend our laws so as not to give them the shadow of an excuse for interference. It is brutes like the Jacksons who have afforded the materials for libels like 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' upon us as a people; and I can't say that I am a bit sorry for having given that young Jackson what he deserved."
"Well, I hope there will be no trouble come of it," Mrs. Wingfield said. "I shouldn't think the Jacksons would like the exposure of their doings which would be caused by bringing the matter into court; but if they do, you may be quite sure that a jury in Richmond at the present time would find against you."
"I don't suppose that they will do anything, mother. But if they must, they must; and I don't suppose anything serious will come of it any way."
The next morning Vincent went down early to the stables. As he approached them Dan came out to meet him.
"Well, Dan, what's your news?"
"Berry great bobbery ober at Jackson's last night, Massa Vincent. Fust of all I crept round to de huts ob de field hands. Dey all know nuffin bout it; but one of dem he goes off and gets to hab a talk with a gal employed in de house who was in de habit of slipping out to see him. She say when de young un war carried in de old man go on furious; he bring suit against you, he hab you punished berry much--no saying what he not going to do. After a time de young un come round, he listen to what the old man say for some time; den he answer: 'No use going on like dat. Set all de county families against us if we have suit. As to dat infernal young villain, me pay him out some other way.' Den de old man say he cut de flesh off de bones ob dat nigger; but de young one say: 'Mustn't do dat. You sure to hear about it, and make great bobbery. Find some oder way to punish him.' Den dey talk together for some time, but girl not hear any more."
"Well, then, there will be no suit anyhow," Vincent said. "As to paying me out some other way, I will look after myself, Dan. I believe that fellow Jackson is capable of anything, and I will be on the lookout for him."
"Be sure you do, Massa Vincent. You ride about a great deal, dat fellow bery like take a shot at you from behind tree. Don't you go near dat plantation, or sure enuff trouble come."
"I will look out, Dan. There is one thing, I always ride fast; and it wants a very good shot to hit one at a gallop. I don't think they will try that; for if he missed, as he would be almost sure to do, it would be a good deal worse for him than this affair would have been had he brought it into court. You keep your ears open, Dan, and find out how they are thinking of punishing that poor fellow for my interference on his behalf."
After breakfast a negro arrived with a note for Mrs. Wingfield from Mr. Jackson, complaining of the unwarrantable and illegal interference by her son on behalf of a slave who was being very properly punished for gross misconduct; and of the personal assault upon his son. The writer said that he was most reluctant to take legal proceedings against a member of so highly respected a family, but that it was impossible that he could submit to such an outrage as this.
Although Mrs. Wingfield had expressed her disapproval of Vincent's conduct on the evening before, there was no trace of that feeling in her reply to this letter. She wrote in the third person, coldly acknowledging the receipt of Mr. Jackson's letter, and saying that she had heard from her son of his interference to put a stop to one of those brutal scenes which brought discredit upon the Southern States, and that she considered he had most rightly punished Mr. Jackson, jun., for his inhuman and revolting conduct; that she was perfectly aware the interference had been technically illegal, but that her son was fully prepared to defend his conduct if called upon to do so in the courts, and to pay any fine that might be inflicted for his suffering himself to be carried away by his righteous indignation. She ended by saying that as Mr. Jackson was a stranger in Virginia, he was perhaps not aware that the public sentiment of that State was altogether opposed to such acts of brutality as that of which his son had been guilty.
"What have you been doing to that fellow Andrew Jackson?" one of Vincent's friends, a young fellow two years older than himself, said to him a few days later. "There were a lot of us talking over things yesterday, in Richmond, and he came up and joined in. Something was said about Abolitionists, and he said that he should like to see every Abolitionist in the State strung up to a tree. He is always pretty violent, as you know; but on the present occasion he went further than usual, and then went on to say that the worst and most dangerous Abolitionists were not Northern men but Southerners, who were traitors to their State.
"He said: 'For example, there is that young Wingfield. He has been to England, and has come back with his heart filled with Abolitionist notions;' and that such opinions at the present time were a danger to the State.
"Two or three of us took the matter up, as you might guess, and told him he had better mind what he was saying or it would be the worse for him. Harry Furniss went so far as to tell him that he was a liar, and that if he didn't like that he would have satisfaction in the usual way. Master Jackson didn't like it, but muttered something and slunk off. What's the matter between you?"
"I should not have said anything about it," Vincent replied, "if Jackson had chosen to hold his tongue; but as he chooses to go about attacking me, there is no reason why I should keep the matter secret." And he then related what had taken place.
The young Virginian gave a low whistle.
"I don't say I blame you, Wingfield; but I tell you, you might have got yourself into an awful mess if the Jacksons had chosen to take it up. You know how hot the feeling is at present, and it is a serious matter at any time to interfere between a master and his slaves in the Southern States. Of course among us our feelings would be all against Jackson; but among the poorer class of whites, who have been tremendously excited by the speeches, both in the North and here, the cry of Abolitionist at the present moment is like a red rag to a bull. However, I understand now the fellow's enmity to you.
"None of us ever liked him when he was at school with us. He is an evil-tempered brute, and I am afraid you may have some trouble with him. If he goes about talking as he did to us, he would soon get up a feeling against you. Of course it would be nonsense to openly accuse a member of an old Virginian family of being an Abolitionist; but it would be easy enough to set a pack of the rough classes of the town against you, and you might get badly mauled if they caught you alone. The fellow is evidently a coward or he would have taken up what Furniss said; but a coward who is revengeful is a good deal more dangerous than an open foe. However, I will talk it over with some of the others, and we will see if we can't stop Andrew Jackson's mouth."
The result of this was that the next day half a dozen of Vincent's friends wrote a joint letter to Andrew Jackson, saying that they regarded his statements respecting Vincent as false and calumnious, and that if he repeated them they would jointly and severally hold him responsible; and that if, as a result of such accusations, any harm happened to Vincent, they should know where to look for the originator of the mischief, and punish him accordingly.
"You should be more careful, Andrew," his father said, as white with fury, he showed him his letter. "It was you who were preaching prudence the other day, and warning me against taking steps that would set all the whole country against us; and now, you see, you have been letting your tongue run, and have drawn this upon yourself. Keep quiet for the present, my son; all sorts of things may occur before long, and you will get your chance. Let this matter sleep for the present."
A day or two later when Vincent went down to the stables he saw that Dan had something to tell him, and soon found out that he wished to speak to him alone.
"What is your news, Dan?"
"I heard last night, Massa Vincent, that old man Jackson is going to sell Dinah; dat de wife ob de man dey flogged."
"They are going to sell her!" Vincent repeated indignantly. "What are they going to do that for?"
"To punish Tony, sah. Dar am no law against dar selling her. I hear dat dey are going to sell two oder boys, so dat it cannot be said dat dey do it on purpose to spite Tony. I reckon, sah, day calculate dat when dey sell his wife Tony get mad and run away, and den when dey catch him again day flog him pretty near to death. Folk always do dat with runaway slaves; no one can say nuffin agin dem for dat."
"It's an infamous shame that it should be lawful to separate man and wife," Vincent said. "However, we will see what we can do. You manage to pass the word to Tony to keep up his spirits, and not let them drive him to do anything rash. Tell him I will see that his wife does not get into bad hands. I suppose they will sell the baby too?"
"Yes, Massa Vincent. Natural the baby will go wid de modder."
Vincent watched the list of advertisements of slaves to be sold, and a day or two later saw a notice to the effect that Dinah Morris, age twenty-two, with a male baby at her breast, would be sold on the following Saturday. He mounted his horse and rode into Richmond. He had not liked to speak to his mother on the subject, for she had not told him of the letter she had written to Jackson; and he thought that she might disapprove of any interference in the matter, consequently he went down to Mr. Renfrew, the family solicitor.
"Mr. Renfrew," he said, "I want some money; can you lend it me?"
"You want money," the solicitor said in surprise. "What on earth do you want money for? and if you want it, why don't you ask your mother for it? How much do you want?"
"I don't know exactly. About eight hundred dollars, I should think; though it may be a thousand. I want to buy a slave."
"You want to buy a slave!" repeated Mr. Renfrew. "What on earth do you want to buy a slave for? You have more than you want now at the Orangery."
"It's a slave that man Jackson is going to sell next Saturday, on purpose to spite the poor creature's husband and drive him to desperation," and Vincent then repeated the whole story of the circumstances that had led up to the sale.
"It is all very abominable on the part of these Jacksons," Mr. Renfrew said, "but your interference was most imprudent, my young friend; and, as you see, it has done harm rather than good. If you are so quixotic as to become the champion of every ill-treated slave in the State, your work is pretty well cut out for you."
"I know that, sir," Vincent replied, smiling, "and I can assure you I did not intend to enter upon any such crusade; but, you see, I have wrongly or rightly mixed myself up in this, and I want to repair the mischief which, as you say, I have caused. The only way I can see is to buy this negress and her baby."
"But I do not see that you will carry out your object if you do, Vincent. She will be separated just as much from her husband if you buy her as if any one else does. He is at one plantation and she is at another, and were they ten miles apart or a hundred, they are equally separated."
"I quite see that, Mr. Renfrew; but, at least, she will be kindly treated, and his mind will be at rest on that score. Perhaps some day or other the Jacksons may put him up for sale, and then I can buy him, and they will be reunited. At any rate, the first step is to buy her. Can you let me have the money? My mother makes me a very good allowance."
"And I suppose you spend it," the lawyer interrupted.
"Well, yes, I generally spend it; but then, you see, when I come of age I come in for the outlying estates."
"And if you die before, or get shot, or any other accident befalls you," Mr. Renfrew said, "they go to your sisters. However, one must risk something for a client, so I will lend you the money. I had better put somebody up to bid for you, for after what has happened the Jacksons would probably not let her go if they knew that you were going to be the purchaser."
"Thank you very much," Vincent said warmly; "it will be a great weight off my mind," and with a light heart he rode back to the Orangery.
Vincent said nothing during the next two days to any of his friends as to the course the Jacksons were taking in selling Tony's wife; for he thought that if the news got about, some of his friends who had heard the circumstances might go down to the auction and make such a demonstration that Jackson would be obliged to withdraw Dinah from the sale, in which case he would no doubt dispose of her privately. On the Saturday he mounted his horse and rode into Richmond, telling Dan to meet him there. At the hour the sale was announced he went to the yard where it was to take place.
This was a somewhat quiet and secluded place; for although the sale of slaves was permitted by law in Virginia, at any rate these auctions were conducted quietly and with as little publicity as possible. For although the better classes still regarded slavery as a necessary institution, they were conscious that these sales, involving as they did the separation of families, were indefensible, and the more thoughtful would gladly have seen them abolished, and a law passed forbidding the sale of negroes save as part and parcel of the estate upon which they worked, an exception only being made in the case of gross misconduct. Many of the slave-owners, indeed, forbade all flogging upon their estates, and punished refractory slaves, in the first place, by the cutting off of the privileges they enjoyed in the way of holidays, and if this did not answer, threatened to sell them--a threat which was, in the vast majority of cases, quite sufficient to ensure good behavior; for the slaves were well aware of the difference between life in the well-managed establishments in Virginia and that in some of the other Southern States. Handing his horse to Dan, Vincent joined a knot of four or five of his acquaintances who had strolled in from mere curiosity.
There were some thirty or forty men in the yard, a few of whom had come in for the purpose of buying; but the great majority had only attended for the sake of passing an idle hour. Slaves had fallen in value; for although all in the South professed their confidence that the law would never attempt by force of arms to prevent their secession, it was felt that slave property would in future be more precarious, for the North would not improbably repeal the laws for the arrest of fugitive slaves, and consequently all runaways who succeeded in crossing the border would be lost to their masters.
Upon the other side of the yard Vincent saw Andrew Jackson talking to two or three men who were strangers to him, and who, he guessed, were buyers from some of the more southern States There were in all twelve lots to be disposed of. Of these two or three were hands who were no longer fit for field work, and who were bought at very low prices by men who owned but a few acres of land, and who could utilize them for odd jobs requiring but little strength. Then there was a stir of attention. Dinah Moore took her stand upon the platform, with her baby in her arms. The message which Dan had conveyed from Vincent to her husband had given her some hope, and though she looked scared and frightened as she clasped her babe to her breast, she was not filled with such utter despair as would otherwise have been the case.
The auctioneer stated the advantages of the lot in the same business-like tone as if he had been selling a horse: "Lot 6. Negro wench, Dinah; age twenty-two; with male child. Strong and well made, as you see, gentlemen; fit for field work, or could be made a useful hand about a house; said to be handy and good-tempered. Now, gentlemen, what shall we say for this desirable lot?"
One of the men standing by Andrew Jackson bid a hundred dollars. The bid was raised to a hundred and fifty by a rough-looking fellow standing in front of the platform. For some time the bidding was confined to these two, and it rose until it reached seven hundred and fifty, at which point the man near the platform retired, and there was a pause.
Vincent felt uncomfortable. He had already been round to Mr. Renfrew, who had told him that he had deputed an agent to buy; and until the man near the platform stopped he had supposed that he was the solicitor's agent.
"Now, gentlemen," the auctioneer said, "surely you are not going to let this desirable piece of property go for seven fifty? She would be cheap at double the price. I have sold worse articles for three thousand."
"I will go another twenty-five dollars," a tall man in homespun and a broad planter's straw hat said quietly.
The contest now recommenced, and by bids of twenty-five dollars at a time the amount was raised to twelve hundred and fifty dollars.
"That's enough for me," the man standing by Andrew Jackson said; "he may have her at twelve fifty, and dear enough, too, as times go."
"Will any one else make an offer?" the auctioneer asked. There was no response, and the hammer fell.
"What name?"
"Nathaniel Forster," the tall man said; and advancing to the table he counted out a roll of notes and gave them to the auctioneer, who handed to him a formal note certifying to his having duly and legally purchased Dinah Moore and her infant, late the property of Andrew Jackson, Esquire, of the Cedars, State of Virginia.
The purchaser had evidently made up his mind beforehand to secure the lot, for he handed a parcel he had been holding to Dinah, and said briefly, "Slip those things on, my lass."
The poor girl, who had before been simply attired in the scantiest of petticoats, retired to a corner of the yard, and speedily came forward again dressed in a neat cotton gown. There were several joking remarks made by the bystanders, but Dinah's new master took no notice of them, but with a motion of his hand to her to follow him, walked out of the yard.
A minute later Vincent followed, and although he had no doubt that the man was the agent Mr. Renfrew had employed, he did not feel thoroughly satisfied until he saw them enter the lawyer's office. He quickly followed. They had just entered the private room of Mr. Renfrew.
"That's right, Wingfield," the lawyer said. "You see we have settled the business satisfactorily, and I think you have got a fairly cheap bargain. Just wait a moment and we will complete the transaction."
Dinah gave a start as Vincent entered, but with the habitual self-repression of a slave she stood quietly in the corner to which she had withdrawn at the other end of the room.
The lawyer was busy drawing up a document, and touching the bell ordered a clerk to go across to Mr. Rawlins, justice of the peace, and ask him to step across the road.
In a minute Mr. Rawlins entered.
"I want you to witness a deed of sale of a slave," Mr. Renfrew said. "Here are the particulars: 'Nathaniel Forster sells to Vincent Wingfield his slave, Dinah Moore and her male infant, for the sum of fourteen hundred dollars.' These are the parties. Forster sign this receipt."
The man did so. The justice put his signature as witness to the transaction, dropped into his pocket the fee of five dollars that the lawyer handed to him, and without a word strolled out again.
"There, Dinah," Mr. Renfrew said, "Mr. Wingfield is now your master."
The girl ran forward, fell on her knees before Vincent, seized his hand and kissed it, sobbing out her thanks as she did so.
"There, that will do, Dinah," the lawyer said, seeing that Vincent was confused by her greeting. "I think you are a lucky girl, and have made a good exchange for the Orangery instead of the Cedars. I don't suppose you will find Mr. Wingfield a very hard master. What he is going to do with you I am sure I don't know."
Vincent now went to the door and called in Dan and told him to take Dinah to the Orangery, then mounting his horse he rode off home to prepare his mother for the reception of his new purchase.
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
3
|
AIDING A RUNAWAY.
|
"Well, you are an extraordinary boy, Vincent," Mrs. Wingfield said as her son told her the story, while his sisters burst into fits of laughter at the idea of Vincent owning a female slave with a baby. "Why did you not tell me that you wanted the money instead of going to Mr. Renfrew? I shall tell him I am very angry with him for letting you have it for such a purpose."
"I was not sure whether you would let me have it, mother; and if you had refused, and I had got it afterward from Mr. Renfrew, I should not have liked to bring her home here."
"That would have been fun," Annie said. "Fancy Vincent's troubles with a female slave on his hands and nowhere to put her. What would you have done, Vincent?"
"I suppose I could have got a home for her somewhere," Vincent said quietly. "I don't think there would have been any difficulty about that. Still I am glad I didn't have to do so, and one slave more or less can make no difference here."
"Not at all," Mrs. Wingfield said; "I dare say Chloe will find something for her to do in the way of washing, and such other light work that she is fit for about the house. It is not that, but it is years since a slave was brought into the Orangery; never since I can remember. We raise more than we want ourselves; and when I see all those children about, I wonder sometimes what on earth we are to find for them all to do. Still, it was a scandalous thing of that man Jackson selling the girl to punish her husband; and as you say it was your foolish interference in the matter that brought it about, so I do not know that I can blame you for doing what you can to set the matter straight. Still, except that the knowledge that she is here and will be well treated will be a comfort to the man, I do not see that he will be much the better off, unless indeed the Jacksons should try to sell him also, in which case I suppose you would want to buy him."
"I am afraid they won't do that, mother. Still, somehow or other, in time they may come together again."
"I don't see how they can, Vincent. However we need not think of that now. At any rate I hope there will be no further opportunity for your mixing yourself up in this business. You have made two bitter enemies now, and although I do not see that such people as these can do you any harm, it is always well not to make enemies, especially in times like these when no one can foresee exactly what may occur."
And so Dinah Moore became an inmate of the Orangery; and though the girls had laughed at their brother, they were very kind to her when she arrived with Dan, and made much of her and of her baby. The same night Dan went over to the Cedars, and managed to have an interview with Tony, and to tell him that his wife had been bought by Vincent. The joy of the negro was extreme. The previous message had raised his hopes that Vincent would succeed in getting her bought by some one who would be kind to her, but he knew well that she might nevertheless fall to the lot of some higher bidder and be taken hundreds of miles away, and that he might never again get news of her whereabouts. He had then suffered terrible anxiety all day, and the relief of learning that Vincent himself had bought her, and that she was now installed as a house servant at the Orangery, but a few miles away, was quite overpowering, and for some minutes he could only gasp out his joy and thankfulness. He could hope now that when better times came he might be able to steal away some night and meet her, and that some day or other, though how he could not see, they might be reunited. The Jacksons remained in ignorance that their former slave was located so near to them.
It was for this reason that Mr. Renfrew had instructed his agent to buy her in his own name instead of that of Vincent; and the Jacksons, having no idea of the transfer that had subsequently taken place, took no further interest in the matter, believing that they had achieved their object of torturing Tony, and avenging upon him the humiliation that Andrew had suffered at Vincent's hands. Had they questioned their slaves, and had these answered them truly, they would have discovered the facts. For although Tony himself said no word to any one of what he had learned from Dan, the fact that Dinah was at the Orangery was speedily known among the slaves; for the doings at one plantation were soon conveyed to the negroes on the others by the occasional visits which they paid at night to each other's quarters, or to some common rendezvous far removed from interruption.
Occasionally Tony and Dinah met. Dan would come up late in the evening to the house, and a nod to Dinah would be sufficient to send her flying down the garden to a clump of shrubs, where he would be waiting for her. At these stolen meetings they were perfectly happy; for Tony said no word to her of the misery of his life--how he was always put to the hardest work and beaten on the smallest pretext, how in fact his life was made so unendurable that the idea of running away and taking to the swamps was constantly present to him.
As to making his way north, it did not enter his mind as possible. Slaves did indeed at times succeed in traveling through the Northern States and making their way to Canada, but this was only possible by means of the organization known as the underground railway, an association consisting of a number of good people who devoted themselves to the purpose, giving shelter to fugitive slaves during the day, and then passing them on to the next refuge during the night. For in the Northern States as well as the Southern any negro unprovided with papers showing that he was a free man was liable to be arrested and sent back to the South a prisoner, large rewards being given to those who arrested them.
As he was returning from one of these interviews with his wife, Tony was detected by the overseer, who was strolling about round the slaves' quarters, and was next morning flogged until he became insensible. So terrible was the punishment that for some days he was unable to walk. As soon as he could get about he was again set to work, but the following morning he was found to be missing. Andrew Jackson at once rode into Richmond, and in half an hour placards and handbills were printed offering a reward for his capture. These were not only circulated in the neighborhood, but were sent off to all the towns and villages through which Tony might be expected to pass in the endeavor to make his way north. Vincent soon learned from Dan what had taken place.
"You have no idea, I suppose, Dan, as to which way he is likely to go?"
Dan shook his head.
"Me suppose, massa, dat most likely he gone and hidden in de great woods by de James River. Berry difficult to find him dere."
"Difficult to find him, no doubt," Vincent agreed. "But he could not stop there long--he would find nothing to eat in the woods; and though he might perhaps support himself for a time on corn or roots from the clearings scattered about through the James Peninsula, he must sooner or later be caught."
"Dar are runaways in de woods now, Massa Vincent," Dan said; "some ob dem hab been dar for month."
"But how do they live, Dan?"
"Well, sah, you see dey hab friends on de plantations, and sometimes at night one of de slaves will steal away wid a basket ob yams and corn-cakes and oder things and put dem down in a certain place in de forest, and next morning, sure enough, dey will be gone. Dangerous work dat, massa; because if dey caught with food, it known for sure dat dey carry it to runaway, and den you know dey pretty well flog the life out of dem."
"Yes, I know, Dan; it is a very serious matter hiding a runaway slave, and even a white man would be very heavily punished, and perhaps lynched, if caught in the act. Well, make what inquiries you can among the slaves, and find out if you can whether any of those Jacksons have an idea which way Tony has gone. But do not go yourself on to Jackson's place; if you were caught there now it would be an awkward matter for both of us."
"I will find out, Massa Vincent; but I don't s'pose Tony said a word to any of the others. He know well enough dat de Jacksons question ebery one pretty sharp, and perhaps flog dem all round to find out if dey know anything. He keep it to himself about going away for suah."
The Jacksons kept up a vigorous hunt after their slave and day after day parties of men ranged through the woods but without discovering any traces of him. Bloodhounds were employed the first day, but before these could be fetched from Richmond the scent had grown cold; for Tony had gone off as soon as the slaves had been shut up for the night and had, directly he left the hut, wrapped leaves round his feet, therefore the hounds, when they arrived from Richmond, were unable to take up the scent.
A week after Tony's escape, Vincent returned late one evening from a visit to some friends. Dan, as he took his horse, whispered to him: "Stop a little on your way to house, Massa Vincent; me hab something to tell you."
"What is it, Dan?" Vincent asked, as the lad, after putting up his horse in the stable, came running up to him.
"Me have seen Tony, sah. He in de shrubs ober dar. He want to see Dinah, but me no take message till me tell you about him. He half starved, sah; me give him some yams."
"That's right, Dan."
"He pretty nigh desperate, sah; he say dey hunt him like wild beast."
"I will see him, Dan. If I can help him in any way I will do so. Unfortunately I do not know any of the people who help to get slaves away, so I can give him no advice as to the best way to proceed. Still I might talk it over with him. When I have joined him, do you go up to the house and tell Chloe from me to give you a pile of corn-cake--it's no use giving him flour, for he would be afraid to light a fire to cook it. Tell her to give you, too, any cold meat there may be in the house. Don't tell Dinah her husband is here till we have talked the matter over."
Dan led Vincent up to a clump of bushes.
"It am all right, Tony," he said; "here is Massa Vincent come to see you."
The bushes parted and Tony came out into the full moonlight. He looked haggard and worn; his clothes were torn into strips by the bushes.
"My poor fellow," Vincent said kindly, "I am sorry to see you in such a state."
A great sob broke from the black "De Lord bress you, sah, for your goodness and for saving Dinah from de hands of dose debils! Now she safe wid you and de child, Tony no care berry much what come to him--de sooner he dead de better. He wish dat one day when dey flog him dey had kill him altogether; den all de trouble at an end. Dey hunt him ebery day with dogs and guns, and soon dey catch him. No can go on much longer like dis. To-day me nearly gib myself up. Den me thought me like to see Dinah once more to say good-by, so make great effort and ran a bit furder."
"I have been thinking whether it would be possible to plan some way for your escape, Tony."
The negro shook his head.
"Dar never escape, sah, but to get to Canada; dat too far any way. Not possible to walk all dat way and get food by de road. Suah to be caught."
"No, I do not think it will be possible to escape that way, Tony. The only possible plan would be to get you on board some ship going to England."
"Ships not dare take negro on board," Tony said. "Me heard dat said many times--dat against de law."
"Yes, I know it's against the law," Vincent said, "and it's against the law my talking to you here, Tony; but you see it's done. The difficulty is how to do it. All vessels are searched before they start, and an officer goes down with them past Fortress Monroe to see that they take no one on board. Still it is possible. Of course there is risk in the matter; but there is risk in everything. I will think it over. Do not lose heart. Dan will be back directly with enough food to last you for some days. If I were you I would take refuge this time in White Oak Swamp. It is much nearer, and I hear it has already been searched from end to end, so they are not likely to try again; and if you hear them you can, if you are pressed, cross the Chickahominy and make down through the woods. Do you come again on Saturday evening--that will give me four days to see what I can do. I may not succeed, you know; for the penalty is so severe against taking negroes on board that I may not be able to find any one willing to risk it. But it is worth trying."
"De Lord bless you, sah!" Tony said. "I will do juss what you tole me; but don't you run no risks for me, my life ain't worth dat."
"I will take care, Tony. And now here comes Dan with the provisions."
"Can I see Dinah, sah?" Tony pleaded.
"I think you had better not," Vincent replied. "You see the Jacksons might at any moment learn that she is here, and then she might be questioned whether she had seen you since your escape; and it would be much better for her to be able to deny having done so. But you shall see her next time you come, whether I am able to make any arrangements for your escape or not. I will let her know to-morrow morning that I have seen you, and that you are safe at present."
The next morning Vincent rode over to City Point, where ships with a large draught of water generally brought up, either transferring their goods into smaller craft to be sent up by river to Richmond, or to be carried on by rail through the town of Petersburg. Leaving his horse at a house near the river, he crossed the James in a boat to City Point. There were several vessels lying here, and for some hours he hung about the wharf watching the process of discharging. By the end of that time he had obtained a view of all the captains, and had watched them as they gave their orders, and had at last come to the conclusion as to which would be the most likely to suit his purpose. Having made up his mind, he waited until the one he had fixed upon came ashore. He was a man of some five-and-thirty years old, with a pleasant face and good-natured smile. He first went into some offices on the wharf, and half an hour later came out and walked toward the railway-station. Vincent at once followed him, and as he overtook him said: "I want very much to speak to you, sir, if you could spare me a minute or two."
"Certainly," the sailor said with some surprise. "The train for Petersburg does not go for another half hour. What can I do for you?"
"My name is Vincent Wingfield. My father was an English officer, and my mother is the owner of some large estates near Richmond. I am most anxious to get a person in whom I am interested on board ship, and I do not know how to set about it."
"There's no difficulty about that," the captain said smiling; "you have only to go to an office and pay for his passage to where he wants to go."
"I can't do that," Vincent replied; "for unfortunately it is against the law for any captain to take him."
"You mean he is a negro?" the captain asked, stopping short in his walk and looking sharply at Vincent.
"Yes, that is what I mean," Vincent said. "He is a negro who has been brutally ill-treated and has run away from his master, and I would willingly give five hundred dollars to get him safely away."
"This is a very serious business in which you are meddling, young sir," the sailor said. "Putting aside the consequences to yourself, you are asking me to break the law and to run the risk of the confiscation of my ship. Even if I were willing to do what you propose it would be impossible, for the ship will be searched from end to end before the hatches are closed, and an official will be on board until we discharge the pilot after getting well beyond the mouth of the river."
"Yes, I know that," Vincent replied; "but my plan was to take a boat and go out beyond the sight of land, and then to put him on board after you have got well away."
"That might be managed, certainly," the captain said. "It would be contrary to my duty to do anything that would risk the property of my employers; but if when I am out at sea a boat came alongside, and a passenger came on board, it would be another matter. I suppose, young gentleman, that you would not interfere in such a business, and run the risk that you certainly would run if detected, unless you were certain that this was a deserving case, and that the man has committed no sort of crime; for I would not receive on board my ship a fugitive from justice, whether he was black or white."
"It is indeed a deserving case," Vincent said earnestly. "The poor fellow has the misfortune of belonging to one of the worst masters in the State. He has been cruelly flogged on many occasions, and was finally driven to run away by their selling his wife and child."
"The brutes!" the sailor said. "How you people can allow such things to be done is a mystery to me. Well, lad, under those circumstances I will agree to do what you ask me, and if your boat comes alongside when I am so far away from land that it cannot be seen, I will take the man to England."
"Thank you very much indeed," Vincent said; "you will be doing a good action. Upon what day do you sail?"
"I shall drop down on Monday into Hampton Roads, and shall get up sail at daylight next morning. I shall pass Fortress Monroe at about seven in the morning, and shall sail straight out."
"And how shall I know your ship?" Vincent asked. "There may be others starting just about the same time."
The sailor thought for a moment. "When I am four or five miles out I will hoist my owner's flag at the foremast-head. It is a red flag with a white ball, so you will be able to make it out a considerable distance away. You must not be less than ten or twelve miles out, for the pilot often does not leave the ship till she is some miles past Fortress Monroe, and the official will not leave the ship till he does. I will keep a sharp lookout for you, but I cannot lose my time in waiting. If you do not come alongside I shall suppose that you have met with some interruption to your plans."
"Thank you very much, sir. Unless something goes wrong I shall be alongside on Tuesday."
"That's settled, then," the captain said, "and I must be off, or else I shall lose my train. By the way, when you come alongside do not make any sign that you have met me before. It is just as well that none of my crew should know that it is a planned thing, for if we ever happened to put in here again they might blab about it, and it is just as well not to give them the chance. Good-by, my lad; I hope that all will go well. But, you know, you are doing a very risky thing; for the assisting of a runaway slave to escape is about as serious an offense as you can commit in these parts. You might shoot half a dozen men and get off scot free, but if you were caught aiding a runaway to escape there is no saying what might come of it."
After taking leave of the captain, Vincent recrossed the river and rode home. He had friends whose fathers' estates bordered some on the James and others on the York River, and all of these had pleasure-boats. It was obviously better to go down the York River, and thence round to the mouth of the James at Fortress Monroe, as the traffic on the York was comparatively small, and it was improbable that he would be noticed either going down or returning. He had at first thought of hiring a fishing-boat from some of the free negroes who made their living on the river. But he finally decided against this; for the fact of the boat being absent so long would attract its owner's attention, and in case any suspicion arose that the fugitive had escaped by water, the hiring of a boat by one who had already befriended the slave, and its absence for so long a time, would be almost certain to cause suspicion to be directed toward him. He therefore decided upon borrowing a boat from a friend, and next morning rode to the plantation of the father of Harry Furniss, this being situated on a convenient position on the Pamunkey, one of the branches of the York River.
"Are you using that sailing-boat of yours at present, Harry? Because, if not, I wish you would let me have the use of it for a week or so."
"With pleasure, Vincent; and my fishing-lines and nets as well, if you like. We very seldom use the boat. Do you mean to keep it here or move it higher up the river, where it would be more handy for you, perhaps?"
"I think I would rather leave it here, Furniss. A mile or two extra to ride makes no difference. I suppose it's in the water?"
"Yes; at the foot of the boathouse stairs. There is a padlock and chain. I will give you the key, so you can go off whenever you like without bothering to come up to the house. If you just call in at the stable as you ride by, one of the boys will go down with you and take your horse and put him up till you come back again."
"That will do capitally," Vincent replied. "It is some time since I was on the water, and I seem to have a fancy for a change at present. One is sick of riding into Richmond and hearing nothing but politics talked of all day. Don't be alarmed if you hear at any time that the boat has not come back at night, for if tide and wind are unfavorable at any time I might stop at Cumberland for the night."
"I have often had to do that," Furniss said. "Besides, if you took it away for a week, I don't suppose any one would notice it; for no one goes down to the boathouse unless to get the boat ready for a trip."
The next day Vincent rode over to his friend's plantation, sending Dan off an hour beforehand to bail out the boat and get the masts and sails into her from the boathouse. The greater part of the next two days was spent on the water, sometimes sailing, sometimes fishing. The evening of the second of these days was that upon which Vincent had arranged to meet Tony again, and an hour after dark he went down through the garden to the stable; for that was the time the fugitive was to meet him, for he could not leave his place of concealment until night fell. After looking at the horses, and giving some instructions to the negroes in charge, he returned to the shrubbery, and, sending Dan up to summon Dinah, he went to the bushes where he had before met Tony. The negro came out as he approached.
"How are you, Tony?"
"Much better dan I was, massa. I hab not been disturbed since I saw you, and, thanks to dat and to de good food and to massa's kind words, I'm stronger and better now, and ready to do whatever massa think best."
"Well, Tony, I am glad to say that I think I have arranged a plan by which you will be got safely out of the country. Of course, it may fail; but there is every hope of success. I have arranged for a boat, and shall take you down the river, and put you on board a ship bound for England."
The black clapped his hands in delight at the news.
"When you get there you will take another ship out to Canada, and as soon as I learn from you that you are there, and what is your address, I will give Dinah her papers of freedom and send her on to you."
"Oh, massa, it is too much," Tony said, with the tears running down his cheeks; "too much joy altogeder."
"Well, I hope it will all come right, Tony. Dinah will be here in a minute or two. Do not keep her long, for I do not wish her absence from the house to be observed just now. Now, listen to my instructions. Do you know the plantation of Mr. Furniss, on the Pamunkeyunky, near Coal harbor?"
"No, sir; but me can find out."
"No, you can't; because you can't see any one or ask questions. Very well, then, you must be here again to-morrow night at the same hour. Dan will meet you here, and act as your guide. He will presently bring you provisions for to-morrow. Be sure you be careful, Tony, and get back to your hiding-place as soon as you can, and be very quiet to-morrow until it is time to start. It would be terrible if you were to be caught now, just as we have arranged for you to get away."
On the following afternoon Vincent told his mother that he was going over that evening to his friend Furniss, as an early start was to be made next morning; they intended to go down the river as far as Yorktown, if not further; that he certainly should not be back for two days, and probably might be even longer.
"This new boating freak of yours, Vincent, seems to occupy all your thoughts. I wonder how long it will last."
"I don't suppose it will last much longer, mother," Vincent said with a laugh. "Anyhow, it will make a jolly change for a week. One had got so sick of hearing nothing talked about but secession that a week without hearing the word mentioned will do one lots of good, and I am sure I felt that if one had much more of it, one would be almost driven to take up the Northern side just for the sake of a change."
"We should all disown you, Vin," Annie said, laughing; "we should have nothing to say to you, and you would be cut by all your friends."
"Well, you see, a week's sailing and fishing will save me from all that, Annie; and I be all be able to begin again with a fresh stock of patience."
"I believe you are only half in earnest in the cause, Vincent," his mother said gravely.
"I am not indeed, mother. I quite agree with what you and every one say as to the rights of the State of Virginia, and if the North should really try to force us and the other Southern States to remain with them, I shall be just as ready to do everything I can as any one else; but I can't see the good of always talking about it, and I think it's very wrong to ill-treat and abuse those who think the other way. In England in the Civil War the people of the towns almost all thought one way, and almost all those of the counties the other, and even now opinions differ almost as widely as to which was right. I hate to hear people always laying down the law as if there could not possibly be two sides of the case, and as if every one who differed from them must be a rascal and a traitor. Almost all the fellows I know say that if it comes to fighting they shall go into the State army, and I should be quite willing, if they would really take fellows of my age for soldiers, to enlist too; but that is no reason why one should not get sick of hearing nothing but one subject talked of for weeks."
It was nearly dark when Vincent started for his walk of ten miles; for he had decided not to take his horse with him, as he had no means of sending it back, and its stay for three days in his friend's stables would attract attention to the fact of his long absence.
After about three hours' walking he reached the boat house, having seen no one as he passed through the plantation. He took the oars and sails from the boathouse and placed them in the boat, and then sat down in the stern to await the coming of the negroes. In an hour they arrived; Tony carrying a bundle of clothes that Dan had by Vincent's orders bought for him in Richmond, while Dan carried a large basket of provisions. Vincent gave an exclamation of thankfulness as he saw the two figures appear, for the day having been Sunday he knew that a good many men would be likely to join the search parties in hopes of having a share in the reward offered for Tony's capture, and he had felt very anxious all day.
"You sit in the bottom of the boat, Tony, and do you steer, Dan. You make such a splashing with your oar that we should be heard a mile away. Keep us close in shore in the shadow of the trees; the less we are noticed the better at this time of night."
Taking the sculls, Vincent rowed quietly away. He had often been out on boating excursions with his friends, and had learned to row fairly. During the last two days he had diligently instructed Dan, and after two long days' work the young negro had got over the first difficulties, but he was still clumsy and awkward. Vincent did not exert himself. He knew he had a long night's row before him, and he paddled quietly along with the stream. The boat was a good-sized one, and when not under sail was generally rowed by two strong negroes accustomed to the work.
Sometimes for half an hour at a time Vincent ceased rowing, and let the boat drift along quietly. There was no hurry, for he had a day and two nights to get down to the mouth of the river, a distance of some seventy miles, and out to sea far enough to intercept the vessel. At four o'clock they arrived at Cumberland, where the Pamunkey and Mattapony Rivers unite and form the York River. Here they were in tidal waters; and as the tide, though not strong, was flowing up, Vincent tied the boat to the branch of a tree, and lay down in the bottom for an hour's sleep, telling Dan to wake him when the tide turned, or if he heard any noise. Day had broken when the boat drifted round, and Dan aroused him.
The boat was rowed off to the middle of the river, as there could be no longer any attempt at concealment. Dan now took the bow oar, and they rowed until a light breeze sprang up. Vincent then put up the mast, and, having hoisted the sail, took his place at the helm, while Dan went forward into the bow. They passed several fishing-boats, and the smoke was seen curling up from the huts in the clearings scattered here and there along the shore. The sun had now risen, and its heat was pleasant after the damp night air.
Although the breeze was light, the boat made fair way with the tide, and when the ebb ceased at about ten o'clock the mouth of the river was but a few miles away. The mast was lowered and the sails stowed. The boat was then rowed into a little creek and tied up to the bushes. The basket of provisions was opened, and a hearty meal enjoyed, Tony being now permitted for the first time to sit up in the boat. After the meal Vincent and Dan lay down for a long sleep, while Tony, who had slept some hours during the night, kept watch.
At four in the afternoon tide again slackened, and as soon as it had fairly turned they pushed out from the creek and again set sail. In three hours they were at the mouth of the river. A short distance out they saw several boats fishing, and dropping anchor a short distance away from these, they lowered their sail, and taking the fishing-lines from the locker of the boat, set to to fish. As soon as it was quite dark the anchor was hauled up, and Vincent and Dan took the oars, the wind having now completely dropped. For some time they rowed steadily, keeping the land in sight on their right hand.
Tony was most anxious to help, but as he had never had an oar in his hand in his life, Vincent thought that he would do more harm than good. It was, he knew, some ten miles from the mouth of the York River to Fortress Monroe, at the entrance to Hampton Roads, and after rowing for three hours he thought that he could not be far from that point, and therefore turned the boat's head out toward the sea. They rowed until they could no longer make out the land astern, and then laying in their oars waited till the morning, Vincent sitting in the stern and often nodding off to sleep, while the two negroes kept up a constant conversation in the bow.
As soon as it was daylight the oars were again got out. They could clearly make out the outline of the coast, and saw the break in the shore that marked the entrance to Hampton Roads. There was a light breeze now, but Vincent would not hoist the sail lest it might attract the attention of some one on shore. He did not think the boat itself could be seen, as they were some eight or nine miles from the land. They rowed for a quarter of an hour, when Vincent saw the white sails of a ship coming out from the entrance.
The breeze was so light that she would, he thought, be nearly three hours before she reached the spot where they were now, and whether she headed to the right or left of it he would have plenty of time to cut her off. For another two hours he and Dan rowed steadily. The wind had freshened a good deal, and the ship was now coming up fast to them. Two others had come out after her, but were some miles astern. They had already made out that the ship was flying a flag at her masthead, and although they had not been able to distinguish its colors, Vincent felt sure that it was the right ship; for he felt certain that the captain would get up sail as soon as possible, so as to come up with them before any other vessels came out. They had somewhat altered their course, to put themselves in line with the vessel. When she was within a distance of about a mile and a half Vincent was able to make out the flag, and knew that it was the right one.
"There's the ship, Tony," he said; "it is all right, and in a few minutes you will be on your way to England."
Tony had already changed his tattered garments for the suit of sailor's clothes that Dan had bought for him. Vincent had given him full instructions as to the course he was to pursue. The ship was bound for Liverpool; on his arrival there he was at once to go round the docks and take a passage in the steerage of the next steamer going to Canada.
"The fare will be about twenty-five dollars," he said. "When you get to Canada you will land at Quebec, and you had better go on by rail to Montreal, where you will, I think, find it easier to get work than at Quebec. As soon as you get a place you are likely to stop in, get somebody to write for you to me, giving me your address. Here are a hundred dollars, which will be sufficient to pay your expenses to Montreal and leave you about fifty dollars to keep you till you can get something to do."
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
4
|
SAFELY BACK.
|
When the ship came within a few hundred yards, Vincent stood up and waved his cap, and a minute later the ship was brought up into the wind and her sails thrown aback. The captain appeared at the side and shouted to the boat now but fifty yards away: "What do you want there?"
"I have a passenger for England," Vincent replied. "Will you take him?"
"Come alongside," the captain said. "Why didn't he come on board before I started?"
The boat was rowed alongside, and Vincent climbed on board. The captain greeted him as a stranger and led the way to his cabin.
"You have managed that well," he said when they were alone, "and I am heartily glad that you have succeeded. I made you out two hours ago. We will stop here another two or three minutes so that the men may think you are bargaining for a passage for the negro, and then the sooner he is on board and you are on your way back the better, for the wind is rising, and I fancy it is going to blow a good deal harder before night."
"And won't you let me pay for the man's passage, captain? It is only fair anyhow that I should pay for what he will eat."
"Oh, nonsense!" the captain replied. "He will make himself useful and pay for his keep. I am only too glad to get the poor fellow off. Now, we will have a glass of wine together and then say good-by."
Two minutes later they returned to the deck. Vincent went to the side.
"Jump on board, Tony. I have arranged for your passage."
The negro climbed up the side.
"Good-by, captain, and thank you heartily. Good-by, Tony."
The negro could not speak, but he seized the hand Vincent held out to him and pressed it to his lips. Vincent dropped lightly into his boat; and pushed off from the side of the vessel. As he did so he heard orders shouted, the yards swung round, and the vessel almost at once began to move through the water.
"Now, Dan, up with the mast; and sail again; but let me put two reefs in first, the wind is getting up."
In five minutes the sail was hoisted, and with Vincent at the helm and Dan sitting up to windward, was dashing through the water. Although Vincent understood the management of a sailing-boat on the calm waters of the rivers, this was his first experience of sea-sailing; and although the waves were still but small, he felt at first somewhat nervous as the boat dashed through them, sending up at times a sheet of spray from her bows. But he soon got over this sensation, and enjoyed the lively motion and the fresh wind. The higher points of the land were still visible; but even had they not been so it would have mattered little, as he had taken the precaution to bring with him a small pocket-compass. The wind was from the southwest; and he was therefore able, with the sheet hauled in, to make for a point where he judged the mouth of the York River lay.
"Golly, massa! how de boat do jump up and down."
"She is lively, Dan, and it would be just as well if we had some ballast on board; however, she has a good beam and walks along splendidly. If the wind keeps as it is, we shall be back at the mouth of the York in three or four hours. You may as well open that basket again and hand me that cold chicken and a piece of bread; cut the meat off the bones and put it on the bread, for I have only one hand disengaged; and hand me that bottle of cold tea. That's right. Now you had better take something yourself. You must be hungry. We forgot all about the basket in our interest in the ship."
Dan shook his head.
"A little while ago, massa, me seem berry hungry, now me doesn't feel hungry at all."
"That's bad, Dan. I am afraid you are going to be seasick."
"Me no feel seasick, massa; only me don't feel hungry." But in a few minutes Dan was forced to confess that; he did feel ill, and a few moments afterward was groaning in the agonies of seasickness.
"Never mind, Dan," Vincent said cheerfully. "You will be better after this."
"Me not seasick, massa; de sea have nuffin to do with it. It's de boat dat will jump up and down instead of going quiet."
"It's all the same thing, Dan; and I hope she won't jump about more before we get into the river."
But in another half hour Vincent had to bring the boat's head up to the wind, lower the lug, and tie down the last reef.
"There, she goes easier now, Dan," he said, as the boat resumed her course; but Dan, who was leaning helplessly over the side of the boat, could see no difference.
Vincent, however, felt that; under her close sail the boat was doing better, and rising more easily on the waves, which were now higher and farther apart than before. In another hour the whole of the shore-line was visible; but the wind had risen so much that, even under her reduced sail, the boat had as much as she could carry, and often heeled over until her gunwale was nearly under water. Another hour and the shore was but some four miles away, but Vincent felt he could no longer hold on.
In the hands of an experienced sailor, who would have humored the boat and eased her up a little to meet the seas, the entrance to the York River could no doubt have been reached with safety; but Vincent was ignorant of the art of sailing a boat in the sea, and she was shipping water heavily. Dan had for some time been bailing, having only undertaken the work in obedience to Vincent's angry orders, being too ill to care much what became of them.
"Now, Dan, I am going to bring her head up to the wind, so get ready to throw off that halyard and gather in the sail as it; comes down. That's right, man; now down with the mast."
Vincent had read that the best plan when caught in an open boat in a gale, was to tie the oars and mast, if she had one, together, and to throw them overboard with the head rope tied to them, as by that means the boat would ride head to sea. The oars, sculls, mast, and sail were firmly tied together and launched overboard, the rope being first taken off the anchor and tied round the middle of the clump of spars.
Vincent carefully played out the rope till some fifteen yards were over, then he fastened it to the ring of the head rope, and had the satisfaction of finding that the boat rode easily to the floating anchor, rising lightly over the waves, and not shipping a drop of water. He then took the bailer and got rid of the water that had found its way on board, Dan, after getting down the sail, having collapsed utterly.
"Now, Dan, sit up; there, man, the motion is much easier now, and we are taking no water on board. I will give you a glass of rum, that will put new strength into you. It's lucky we put it in the basket in case of emergency."
The negro, whose teeth were chattering from cold, fright, and exhaustion, eagerly drank off the spirit. Vincent, who was wet to the skin with the spray, took a little himself, and then settled himself as comfortably as he could on the floor-boards in the stern of the boat, and quietly thought out the position. The wind was still rising, and a thick haze obscured the land. He had no doubt that by night it would be blowing a gale; but the boat rode so easily and lightly that he believed she would get through it.
They might, it was true, be blown many miles off the shore, and not be able to get back for some time, for the gale might last two or three days. The basket of provisions was, however, a large one. Dan had received orders to bring plenty and had obeyed them literally, and Vincent saw that the supply of food, if carefully husbanded, would last; without difficulty for a week. The supply of liquor was less satisfactory. There was the bottle of rum, two bottles of claret, and a two-gallon jar, nearly half empty, of water. The cold tea was finished.
"That would be a poor supply for a week for two of us," Vincent; muttered, as he removed the contents of the basket and stored them carefully in the locker; "however, if it's going to be a gale there is sure to be some rain with it, so I think we shall manage very well."
By night it was blowing really heavily, but although the waves were high the boat shipped but little water. Dan had fallen off to sleep, and Vincent had been glad to wrap himself in the thick coat he had brought with him as a protection against the heavy dews when sleeping on the river. At times sharp rain squalls burst upon them, and Vincent had no difficulty in filling up the water-bottle again with the bailer.
The water was rather brackish, but not sufficiently so to be of consequence. All night the boat was tossed heavily on the waves. Vincent dozed off at times, rousing himself occasionally and bailing out the water, which came in the shape of spray and rain. The prospect in the morning was not cheering. Gray clouds covered the sky and seemed to come down almost on to the water, the angry sea was crested with white heads, and it seemed to Vincent wonderful that the boat should live in such a sea.
"Now, Dan, wake yourself up and get some breakfast," Vincent said, stirring up the negro with his foot.
"Oh Lor'!" Dan groaned, raising himself into a sitting position from the bottom of the boat, "dis am awful; we neber see the shore no more, massa."
"Nonsense, man," Vincent said cheerily; "we are getting on capitally."
"It hab been an awful night, sah."
"An awful night! You lazy rascal, you slept like a pig all night, while I have been bailing the boat and looking out for you. It is your turn now, I can tell you. Well, do you feel ready for your breakfast?"
Dan, after a moment's consideration, declared that he was. The feeling of seasickness had passed off, and except that he was wet through and miserable, he felt himself again, and could have eaten four times the allowance of food that Vincent handed him. A pannikin of rum and water did much to restore his life and vitality, and he was soon, with the light-heartedness of his race, laughing and chatting cheerfully.
"How long dis go on, you tink, sah?"
"Not long, I hope, Dan. I was afraid last night it was going to be a big gale, but I do not think it is blowing so hard now as it was in the night."
"Where have we get to now, sah?"
"I don't exactly know, Dan; but I do not suppose that we are very many miles away from shore. The mast and oars prevent our drifting fast, and I don't think we are further off now than we were when we left that ship yesterday. But even if we were four or five times as far as that, we should not take very long in sailing back again when the wind drops, and as we have got enough to eat for a week we need not be uncomfortable about that."
"Not much food for a week, Massa Vincent."
"Not a very great deal, Dan; but quite enough to keep us going. You can make up for lost time when you get to shore again."
In a few hours it was certain that the wind was going down. By midday the clouds began to break up, and an hour later the sun was shining brightly. The wind was still blowing strongly, but the sea had a very different appearance in the bright light of the sun to that which it had borne under the canopy of dark gray clouds. Standing up in the boat two hours later, Vincent could see no signs of land.
"How shall we find our way back, Massa Vincent?"
"We have got a compass; besides, we should manage very well even if we had not. Look at the sun, Dan. There it is right ahead of us. So, you know, that's the west--that's the way we have to go."
"That very useful ob de sun, sah; but suppose we not live in de west de sun not point de way den."
"Oh, yes, he would, just the same, Dan. We should know whether to go away from him, or to keep him on the right hand or on the left."
This was beyond Dan. "And I s'pose the moon will show de way at night, massa?"
"The moon would show the way if she were up, but she is not always up; but I have got a compass here, and so whether we have the sun or the moon, or neither of them, I can find my way back to land."
Dan had never seen a compass, and for an hour amused himself turning it round and round and trying to get it to point in some other direction than the north.
"Now, Dan," Vincent said at last, "give me that compass, and get out the food. We will have a better meal than we did this morning, for now that the wind is going down there's no chance of food running short. When we have had dinner we will get up the sail again. The sea is not so rough as it was, and it is certainly not so high as it was before we lowered the sail yesterday."
"De waves berry big, massa."
"They are big, Dan; but they are not so angry. The heads are not breaking over as they did last night, and the boat will go better over those long waves than she did through the choppy sea at the beginning of the gale."
Accordingly the bundle of spars was pulled up alongside and lifted. The mast was set up and the sail hoisted. Dan in a few minutes forgot his fears and lost even his sense of uneasiness as he found the boat mounted wave after wave without shipping water. Several times, indeed, a shower of spray flew high up in the air, but the gusts no longer buried her so that the water came over the gunwale, and it was a long time before there was any occasion to use the bailer. As the sun set it could be seen that there was a dark line between it and the water.
"There is the land, Dan; and I do not suppose it is more than twenty miles away, for most of the coast lies low."
"But how we find de York River, massa? Will de compass tell you dat?"
"No, Dan. I don't know whether we have drifted north or south of it. At ordinary times the current runs up the coast, but the wind this morning was blowing from the north of west, and may have been doing so all through the night for anything I know. Well, the great thing is to make land. We are almost sure to come across some fishing-boats, but, if not, we must run ashore and find a house."
They continued sailing until Vincent's watch told him it was twelve o'clock, by which time the coast was quite close. The wind now almost dropped, and, lowering their sail, they rowed in until, on lowering the anchor, they found that it touched the ground. Then they lay down and slept till morning. Dan was the first to waken.
"Dar are some houses dere close down by the shore, sah, and some men getting out a boat."
"That's all right, Dan," Vincent said as he roused himself and looked over. "We shall learn soon where we are."
In a quarter of an hour the fishing-boat put off, and the lads at once rowed to it.
"How far are we from the mouth of the York River?" Vincent asked the two negroes on board.
"About twenty miles, sah. Where you come from?"
"We were off the mouth of the river, and were blown off in the gale."
"You tink yourself berry lucky you get back," one of them said. "Berry foolish to go out like dat when not know how to get back."
"Well, we have managed to get back now, you see, and none the worse for it. Now, Dan, up with the sail again."
There was a light wind off shore, and all the reefs being shaken out the boat ran along fast.
"I should think we are going about five miles an hour, Dan. We ought to be off the mouth of the river in four hours. We must look out sharp or else we shall pass it, for many of these islets look just like the mouth of the river. However, we are pretty sure to pass several fishing-boats on our way, and we shall be able to inquire from them."
There was no need, however, to do this. It was just the four hours from the time of starting when they saw some eight or ten fishing-boats ahead of them.
"I expect that that is the entrance to the river. When we get half a mile further we shall see it open."
On approaching the fishing-boats they recognized at once the appearance of the shore, as they had noticed it when fishing there before, and were soon in the entrance to the river.
"It will be high tide in about two hours," Vincent said, "according to the time it was the other day. I am afraid when it turns we shall have to get down our sails; there will be no beating against both wind and tide. Then we must get out oars and row. There is very little tide close in by the bank, and every little gain will be a help. We have been out four days. It is Thursday now, and they will be beginning to get very anxious at home, so we must do our best to get back."
Keeping close under the bank, they rowed steadily, making on an average about two miles an hour. After five hours' rowing they tied up to the bank, had a meal, and rested until tide turned; then they again hoisted their sail and proceeded on their way. Tide carried them just up to the junction of the two rivers, and landing at Cumberland they procured beds and slept till morning.
Another long day's work took them up to the plantation of Mr. Furniss, and fastening up the boat, and carrying the sails and oars on shore, they started on their walk home.
"Why, Vincent, where on earth have you been all this time?" Mrs. Wingfield said as her son entered. "You said you might be away a couple of nights; and we expected you back on Wednesday at the latest, and now it is Friday evening."
"Well, mother, we have had great fun. We went sailing about right down to the mouth of the York River. I did not calculate that it would take me more than twice as long to get back as to get down; but as the wind blew right down the river it was precious slow work, and we had to row all the way. However, it has been a jolly trip, and I feel a lot better for it."
"You don't look any better for it," Annie said. "The skin is all off your face, and you are as red as fire. Your clothes look shrunk as well as horribly dirty. You are quite an object, Vincent."
"We got caught in a heavy gale," Vincent said, "and got a thorough ducking. As to my face, a day or two will set it all to rights again; and so they will my hands, I hope, for I have got nicely blistered tugging at those oars. And now, mother, I want some supper, for I am as hungry as a hunter. I told Dan to go into the kitchen and get a good square meal."
The next morning, just after breakfast, there was the sound of horses' hoofs outside the house, and, looking out, Vincent saw Mr. Jackson, with a man he knew to be the sheriff, and four or five others. A minute later one of the servants came in, and said that the sheriff wished to speak to Mrs. Wingfield.
"I will go out to him," Mrs. Wingfield replied. Vincent followed her to the door.
"Mrs. Wingfield," the sheriff said, "I am the holder of a warrant; to search your slave-huts and grounds for a runaway negro named Anthony Moore, the property of Mr. Jackson here."
"Do you suppose, sir," Mrs. Wingfield asked angrily, "that I am the sort of person to give shelter to runaway slaves?"
"No, madam, certainly not," the sheriff replied; "no one would suppose for a moment that Mrs. Wingfield of the Orangery would have anything to do with a runaway, but Mr. Jackson here learned only yesterday that the wife of this slave was here, and every one knows that where the wife is the husband is not likely to be far off."
"I suppose, sir," Mrs. Wingfield said coldly, "that there was no necessity for me to acquaint Mr. Jackson formerly with the fact that I had purchased through my agent the woman he sold to separate her from her husband."
"By no means, madam, by no means; though, had we known it before, it might have been some aid to us in our search. Have we your permission to see this woman and to question her?"
"Certainly not," Mrs. Wingfield said; "but if you have any question to ask I will ask her and give you her answer."
"We want to know whether she has seen her husband since the day of his flight from the plantation?"
"I shall certainly not ask her that question, Mr. Sheriff. I have no doubt that, as the place from which he has escaped is only a few miles from here, he did come to see his wife. It would have been very strange if he did not. I hope that by this time the man is hundreds of miles away. He was brutally treated by a brutal master, who, I believe, deliberately set to work to make him run away, so that he could hunt him down and punish him. I presume, sir, you do not wish to search this house, and you do not suppose that the man is hidden here. As to the slave-huts and the plantation, you can, of course, search them thoroughly; but as it is now more than a fortnight since the man escaped, it is not likely you will find him hiding within a few miles of his master's plantation."
So saying she went into the house and shut the door behind her.
Mr. Jackson ground his teeth with rage, but the sheriff rode off toward the slave-huts without a word. The position of Mrs. Wingfield of the Orangery, connected as she was with half the old families of Virginia, and herself a large slave-owner, was beyond suspicion, and no one would venture to suggest that such a lady could have the smallest sympathy for a runaway slave.
"She was down upon you pretty hot, Mr. Jackson," the sheriff said as they rode off. "You don't seem to be in her good books." Jackson muttered an imprecation.
"It is certainly odd," the sheriff went on, "after what you were telling me about her son pitching into Andrew over flogging this very slave, that she should go and buy his wife. Still, that's a very different thing from hiding a runaway. I dare say that, as she says, the fellow came here to see his wife when he first ran away; but I don't think you will find him anywhere about here now. It's pretty certain from what we hear that he hasn't made for the North, and where the fellow can be hiding I can't think. Still the woods about this country are mighty big, and the fellow can go out on to the farms and pick corn and keep himself going for a long time. Still, he's sure to be brought up sooner or later."
A thorough search was made of the slave-huts, and the slaves were closely questioned, but all denied any knowledge of the runaway. Dan escaped questioning, as he had taken up Vincent's horse to the house in readiness for him to start as soon as he had finished breakfast.
All day the searchers rode about the plantation examining every clump of bushes, and assuring themselves that none of them had been used as a place of refuge for the runaway.
"It's no good, Mr. Jackson," the sheriff said at last. "The man may have been here; he ain't here now. The only place we haven't; searched is the house, and you may be quite sure the slaves dare not conceal him there. Too many would get to know it. No, sir, he's made a bolt of it, and you will have to wait now till he is caught by chance, or shot by some farmer or other in the act of stealing."
"I would lay a thousand dollars," Andrew Jackson exclaimed passionately, "that young Wingfield knows something about his whereabouts, and has lent him a hand!"
"Well, I should advise you to keep your mouth shut about it till you get some positive proof," the sheriff said dryly. "I tell you it's no joke to accuse a member of a family like the Wingfields of helping runaway slaves to escape."
"I will bide my time," the planter said. "You said that some day you would lay hands on Tony dead or alive. You see if some day I don't lay hands on young Wingfield."
"Well, it seems, Mr. Jackson," the sheriff remarked with a sneer, for he was out of temper at the ill success of the day's work, "that he has already laid hands on your son. It seems to me quite as likely that he will lay hands on you as you on him."
Two days afterward as Vincent was riding through the streets of Richmond he saw to his surprise Andrew Jackson in close conversation with Jonas Pearson.
"I wonder what those two fellows are talking about?" he said to himself. "I expect Jackson is trying to pump Pearson as to the doings at the Orangery. I don't like that fellow, and never shall, and he is just the sort of man to do one a bad turn if he had the chance. However, as I have never spoken to him about that affair from beginning to end, I don't see that he can do any mischief if he wants to."
Andrew Jackson, however, had obtained information which he considered valuable. He learned that Vincent had been away in a boat for five days, and that his mother had been very uneasy about him. He also learned that the boat was one belonging to Mr. Furniss, and that it was only quite lately that Vincent had taken to going out sailing.
After considerable trouble he succeeded in getting at one of the slaves upon Mr. Furniss' plantation. But he could only learn from him that Vincent had been unaccompanied when he went out in the boat either by young Furniss or by any of the plantation hands; that he had taken with him only his own slave, and had come and gone as he chose, taking out and fastening up the boat himself, so that no one could say when he had gone out, except that his horse was put up at the stables. The slave said that certainly the horse had only stood there on two or three occasions, and then only for a few hours, and that unless Mr. Wingfield had walked over he could never have had the boat out all night, as the horse certainly had not stood all night in the stables.
Andrew Jackson talked the matter over with his son, and both agreed that Vincent's conduct was suspicious. His own people said he had been away for five days in the boat. The people at Furniss' knew nothing about this, and therefore there must be some mystery about it, and they doubted not that that mystery was connected with the runaway slave, and they guessed that he had either taken Tony and landed him near the mouth of the York River on the northern shore, or that he had put him on board a ship. They agreed, however, that whatever their suspicions, they had not sufficient grounds for openly accusing Vincent of aiding their runaway.
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
5
|
SECESSION.
|
While Vincent had been occupied with the affairs of Tony and his wife, public events had moved forward rapidly. The South Carolina Convention met in the third week in December, and on the 20th of that month the Ordinance of Secession was passed. On the 10th of January, three days after Vincent returned home from his expedition, Florida followed the example of South Carolina and seceded. Alabama and Mississippi passed the Ordinance of Secession on the following day; Georgia on the 18th, Louisiana on the 23d, and Texas on the 1st of February.
In all these States the Ordinance of Session was received with great rejoicing: bonfires were lit, the towns illuminated, and the militia paraded the streets, and in many cases the Federal arsenals were seized and the Federal forts occupied by the State troops. In the meantime the Northern Slave States, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, remained irresolute. The general feeling was strongly in favor of their Southern brethren; but they were anxious for peace, and for a compromise being arrived at. Whether the North would agree to admit the constitutional rights of secession, or whether it would use force to compel the Seceding States to remain in the Union, was still uncertain; but the idea of a civil war was so terrible a one that the general belief was that some arrangement to allow the States to go their own way would probably be arrived at.
For the time the idea of Vincent going to West Point was abandoned. Among his acquaintances were several young men who were already at West Point, and very few of these returned to the academy. The feeling there was very strongly on the side of secession. A great majority of the students came from the Southern States, as while the sons of the Northern men went principally into trade and commerce, the Southern planters sent their sons into the army, and a great proportion of the officers of the army and navy were Southerners.
As the professors at West Point were all military men, the feeling among them, as well as among the students, was in favor of State rights; they considering that, according to the constitution, their allegiance was due first to the States of which they were natives, and in the second place to the Union. Thus, then, many of the professors who were natives of the seven States which had seceded resigned their appointments, and returned home to occupy themselves in drilling the militia and the levies, who were at once called to arms.
Still all hoped that peace would be preserved, until on the 11th of April General Beauregard, who commanded the troops of South Carolina, summoned Major Anderson, who was in command of the Federal troops in Fort Sumter, to surrender, and on his refusal opened fire upon the fort on the following day.
On the 13th, the barracks of the fort being set on fire, and Major Anderson seeing the hopelessness of a prolonged resistance, surrendered. The effect of the news throughout the United States was tremendous, and Mr. Lincoln at once called out 75,000 men of the militia of the various States to put down the rebellion--the border States being ordered to send their proportion. This brought matters to a climax. Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri all refused to furnish contingents to act against the Southern States; and Virginia, North Carolina, and Kansas a few days later passed Ordinances of Secession and joined the Southern States. Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware were divided in their counsels.
The struggle that was about to commence was an uneven one. The white population of the Seceding States was about 8,000,000; while that the Northern States were 19,614,885. The North possessed an immense advantage, inasmuch as they retained the whole of the Federal navy, and were thereby enabled at once to cut off all communication between the Southern States and Europe, while they themselves could draw unlimited supplies of munitions of war of all kinds from across the Atlantic.
Although the people of Virginia had hoped to the last that some peaceful arrangement might be effected, the Act of Secession was received with enthusiasm. The demand of Mr. Lincoln that they should furnish troops to crush their Southern brethren excited the liveliest indignation, and Virginia felt that there was no course open to her now but to throw in her lot with the other Slaves States. Her militia was at once called out, and volunteers called for to form a provisional army to protect the State from invasion by the North.
The appeal was answered with enthusiasm; men of all ages took up arms; the wealthy raised regiments at their own expense, generally handing over the commands to experienced army officers, and themselves taking their places in the ranks; thousand of lads of from fifteen to sixteen years of age enrolled themselves, and men who had never done a day's work in their life prepared to suffer all the hardships of the campaign as private soldiers.
Mrs. Wingfield was an enthusiastic supporter of State rights; and when Vincent told her that numbers of his friends were going to enroll themselves as soon as the lists were opened, she offered no objection to his doing the same.
"Of course you are very young, Vincent; but no one thinks there will be any serious fighting. Now that Virginia and the other four States have cast in their lot with the seven that have seceded, the North can never hope to force the solid South back into the Union. Still it is right you should join. I certainly should not like an old Virginian family like ours to be unrepresented; but I should prefer your joining one of the mounted corps.
"In the first place it will be much less fatiguing than carrying a heavy rifle and knapsack; and in the second place, the cavalry will for the most part be gentlemen. I was speaking only yesterday when I went into Richmond to Mr. Ashley, who is raising a corps. He is one of the best riders in the country, and a splendid specimen of a Virginian gentleman. He tells me that he has already received a large number of applications from young volunteers, and that he thinks he shall be able without any difficulty to get as many as he wants. I said that I had a son who would probably enroll himself, and that I should like to have him in his corps.
"He said that he would be glad to put down your name, and that he had had many applications from lads no older than yourself. He considered that for cavalry work, scouting, and that sort; of thing age mattered little, and that a lad who was at once a light weight, a good rider, and a good shot was of as much good as a man."
"Thank you, mother. I will ride into Richmond to-morrow morning and see Ashley. I have often met him at one house or another, and should like to serve under him very much. I should certainly prefer being in the cavalry to the infantry."
Rosie and Annie, who were of course enthusiastic for the South, were almost as pleased as was Vincent when they heard that their mother had consented to his enrolling himself. So many of the girls of their acquaintance had brothers or cousins who were joining the army, that they would have felt it as something like a slur upon the family name had Vincent remained behind.
On the following morning Vincent rode over and saw Mr. Ashley, who had just received his commission as major. He was cordially received.
"Mrs. Wingfield was speaking to me about you, and I shall be glad to have you with me--the more so as you are a capital rider and a good shot. I shall have a good many in my ranks no older than you are. Did I not hear a few months since that you bought Wildfire? I thought when I heard it; that you would be lucky if you did not get your neck broken in the course of a week. Peters, who owns the next estate to mine, had the horse for about three weeks, and was glad enough to get rid of it for half what he had given for it. He told me the horse was the most savage brute he ever saw. I suppose you did not keep it many days?"
"I have got it still, and mean to ride it with you. The horse was not really savage. It was hot-tempered, and had, I think, been badly treated by its first owner. Who-ever it had belonged to, I found no difficulty with it. It only wanted kindness and a little patience; and as soon as it found that it could not get rid of me, and that I had no intention of ill-treating it, it settled down quietly, after running away a few times and giving me some little trouble at starting. And now I would not change it for any horse in the State."
"You must be a first-rate rider," Major Ashley said, "to be able to tame Wildfire. I never saw the horse, for I was away when Peters had him, but from his description it was a perfect savage."
"Are we allowed to bring a servant with us?" Vincent asked.
"Yes, if you like. I know that a good many are going to do so, but you must not make up your mind that you will get much benefit from one. We shall move rapidly, and each man must shift for himself, but at the same time we shall of course often be stationary; and then servants will be useful. At any rate I can see no objection to men having them. We must be prepared to rough it to any extent when it is necessary, but I see no reason why at other times a man should not make himself comfortable. I expect the order to-morrow or next day to begin formally to enroll volunteers. As I have now put down your name there will be no occasion for you to come in then. You will receive a communication telling you when to report yourself.
"I shall not trouble much about uniform at first. High boots and breeches, a thick felt hat that will turn the edge of a sword, and a loose coat-jacket of dark-gray cloth. That is the name of the tailor who has got the pattern, and will make them. So I should advise you to go to him at once, for he will be so busy soon that; there is no saying when the whole troop will get their uniforms."
Upon his return home Vincent related to his mother and sisters the conversation that he had had with Major Ashley.
"Certainly you had better take a servant with you," his mother said. "I suppose when you are riding about; you will have to clean your horse, and cook your dinner, and do everything for yourself; but when you are in a town you should have these things done for you. Who would you like to take?
"I should like to take Dan, mother, if you have no objection. He is very strong and active, and I think would generally be able to keep up with us; besides, I know he would always stick to me."
"You shall have him certainly, Vincent; I will make him over formally to you."
"Thank you, mother," Vincent said joyfully; for he had often wished that Dan belonged to him, as he would then be able to prevent any interference with him by the overseer or any one else, and could, if he liked, give him his freedom--although this would, he knew, be of very doubtful advantage to the lad as long as he remained in the South.
The next morning the necessary papers were drawn up, and the ownership of Dan was formally transferred to Vincent. Dan was wild with delight when he heard that Vincent was now his master, and that he was to accompany him to the war. It had been known two days before that Vincent was going, and it seemed quite shocking to the negroes that the young master should go as a private soldier, and have to do everything for himself--"just," as they said, "like de poor white trash;" for the slaves were proud to belong to an old family, and looked down with almost contempt upon the poorer class of whites, regarding their own position as infinitely superior.
Four days later Vincent received an official letter saying that the corps would be mustered in two days' time. The next day was spent in a long round of farewell visits, and then Vincent mounted Wildfire, and, with Dan trotting behind, rode off from the Orangery amid a chorus of blessings and good wishes from all the slaves who could on any pretext get away from their duties, and who had assembled in front of the house to see him start.
The place of meeting for the regiment was at Hanover Courthouse--a station on the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railway, close to the Pamunkey River, about eighteen miles from the city.
The Orangery was a mile from the village of Gaines, which lay to the northeast of Richmond, and was some twelve miles from Hanover Courthouse.
A month was spent in drill, and at the end of that time the corps were able to execute any simple maneuver. More than this Major Ashley did not care about their learning. The work in which they were about to engage was that of scouts rather than that of regular cavalry, and the requirements were vigilance and attention to orders, good shooting and a quick eye. Off duty there was but little discipline. Almost the whole of the men were in a good position in life, and many of them very wealthy; and while strict discipline and obedience were expected while on duty, at all other times something like equality existed between officers and men, and all were free to live as they chose.
The rations served out were simple and often scanty, for at present the various departments were not properly organized, and such numbers of men were flocking to the standards that the authorities were at their wit's end to provide them with even the simplest food. This mattered but little, however, to the regiment, whose members were all ready and willing to pay for everything they wanted, and the country people round found a ready market for all their chickens, eggs, fruit, and vegetables at Hanover Courthouse, for here there were also several infantry regiments, and the normally quiet little village was a scene of bustle and confusion.
The arms of the cavalry were of a very varied description. Not more than a dozen had swords; the rest were armed with rifles or shot-guns, with the barrels cut short to enable them to be carried as carbines. Many of them were armed with revolvers, and some carried pistols so antiquated that they might have been used in the revolutionary war. A certain number of tents had been issued for the use of the corps. These, however, were altogether insufficient for the numbers, and most of the men preferred to sleep in shelters composed of canvas, carpets, blankets, or any other material that came to hand, or in arbors constructed of the boughs of trees, for it was now April and warm enough to sleep in the open air.
In the third week in May the order came that the corps was to march at once for Harper's Ferry--an important position at the point where the Shenandoah River runs into the Potomac, at the mouth of the Shenandoah Valley. The order was received with the greatest satisfaction. The Federal forces were gathering rapidly upon the northern banks of the Potomac, and it was believed that, while the main army would march down from Washington through Manassas Junction direct upon Richmond, another would enter by the Shenandoah Valley, and, crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains, come down on the rear of the Confederate army, facing the main force at Manassas. The cavalry marched by road, while the infantry were despatched by rail as far as Manassas Junction, whence they marched to Harper's Ferry. The black servants accompanied the infantry.
The cavalry march was a pleasant one. At every village through which they passed the people flocked out with offerings of milk and fruit. The days were hot, but the mornings and evenings delightful; and as the troops always halted in the shade of a wood for three or four hours in the middle of the day, the marches although long were not fatiguing. At Harper's Ferry General Johnston had just superseded Colonel Jackson in command. The force there consisted of 11 battalions of infantry, 16 guns, and after Ashley's force arrived, 300 cavalry. Among the regiments there Vincent found many friends, and learned what was going on.
He learned that Colonel Jackson had been keeping them hard at work. Some of Vincent's friends had been at the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, where Jackson was professor of natural philosophy and instructor of artillery.
"He was the greatest fun," one of the young men said; "the stiffest and most awkward-looking fellow in the institute. He used to walk about as if he never saw anything or anybody. He was always known as Old Tom, and nobody ever saw him laugh. He was awfully earnest in all he did, and strict, I can tell you, about everything. There was no humbugging him. The fellows liked him because he was really so earnest about everything, and always just and fair. But he didn't look a bit like a soldier except as to his stiffness, and when the fellows who had been at Lexington heard that he was in command here they did not think he would have made much hand at it; but I tell you, he did. You never saw such a fellow to work.
"Everything had to be done, you know. There were the guns, but no horses and no harness. The horses had to be got somehow, and the harness manufactured out of ropes; and you can imagine the confusion of nine battalions of infantry, all recruits, with no one to teach them except a score or two of old army and militia officers. Old Tom has done wonders, I can tell you. You see, he is so fearfully earnest himself every one else has got to be earnest. There has been no playing about anything, but just fifteen hours' hard work a day. Fellows grumbled and growled and said it was absurd, and threatened to do all sorts of things. You see, they had all come out to fight if necessary, but hadn't bargained for such hard work as this.
"However, Jackson had his way, and I don't suppose any one ever told him the men thought they were too hard worked. He is not the sort of man one would care about remonstrating with. I don't know yet whether he is as good at fighting as he is at working and organizing; but I rather expect a fellow who is so earnest about everything else is sure to be earnest about fighting, and I fancy that when he once gets into the thick of it he will go through with it. He had such a reputation as an oddity at Lexington that there were a lot of remarks when he was made colonel and sent here; but there is no doubt that he has proved himself the right man so far, and although his men may grumble they believe in him.
"My regiment is in his brigade, and I will bet any money that we have our share of fighting. What sort of man is Johnston? He is a fine fellow--a soldier, heart and soul. You could tell him anywhere, and we have a first-rate fellow in command of the cavalry--Colonel Stuart--a splendid dashing fellow, full of life and go. His fellows swear by him. I quite envy you, for I expect you will astonish the Yankee horsemen. They are no great riders up there, you know, and I expect the first time you meet them you will astonish them."
Here he suddenly stopped, stood at attention, and saluted.
Vincent at once did the same, although, had he not been set the example by his friend, he would never have thought of doing so to the figure who passed.
"Who is it?" he asked, as his companion resumed his easy attitude.
"Why, that's Old Tom."
"What! Colonel Jackson!" Vincent said in surprise. "Well, he is an odd-looking fellow."
The figure that had passed was that of a tall, gaunt man, leaning awkwardly forward in his saddle. He wore an old gray coat, and there was no sign of rank, nor particle of gold lace upon the uniform. He wore on his head a faded cadet cap, with the rim coming down so far upon his nose that he could only look sideways from under it. He seemed to pay but little attention to what was going on around him, and did not enter into conversation with any of the officers he met.
The brigade commanded by Jackson was the first of the army of the Shenandoah, and consisted of the 2d, 4th, 5th, and 27th Virginians, to which was shortly afterward added the 33d. They were composed of men of all ranks and ages, among them being a great number of lads from fifteen and upward; for every school had been deserted. Every boy capable of carrying a musket had insisted upon joining, and among them were a whole company of cadets from Lexington. The regiments selected their own officers, and among these were many who were still lads. Many of the regiments had no accouterments, and were without uniforms, and numbers carried no better arms than a double-barreled shot-gun; but all were animated with the same spirit of enthusiasm in their cause, and a determination to die rather than to allow the invaders to pass on through the fertile valleys of their native land.
Of all these valleys that of Shenandoah was the richest and most beautiful. It was called the Garden of Virginia; and all writers agreed in their praises of the beauties of its fields and forests, mountains and rivers, its delicious climate, and the general prosperity which prevailed among its population.
It was a pleasant evening that Ashley's horse spent at Harper's Ferry on the day they marched in. All had many friends among the other Virginian regiments, and their camp-fires were the center toward which men trooped by scores. The rest was pleasant after their hard marches; and, although ready to do their own work when necessary, they appreciated the advantage of having their servants again with them to groom their horses and cook their food.
The negroes were not less glad at being again with their masters. Almost all were men who had, like Dan, been brought up with their young owners, and felt for them a strong personal attachment, and, if it had been allowed, would gladly have followed them in the field of battle, and fought by their side against the "Yankees." Their stay at Harper's Ferry was to be a short one. Colonel Stuart, with his 200 horse, was scouting along the whole bank of the Potomac, watching every movement of the enemy, and Ashley's horse was to join them at once.
It was not difficult for even young soldiers to form an idea of the general nature of the operations. They had to protect the Shenandoah Valley, to guard the five great roads by which the enemy would advance against Winchester, and not only to save the loyal inhabitants and rich resources of the valley from falling into the hands of the Federals, but what was of even greater importance, to prevent the latter from marching across the Blue Ridge Mountains, and falling upon the flank of the main Confederate army at Manassas.
The position was a difficult one, for while "the grand army" was assembling at Alexandria to advance against Manassas Junction, McClellan was advancing from the northwest with 20,000 men, and Patterson from Pennsylvania with 18,000.
In the morning before parading his troop, 100 strong, Ashley called them together and told them that, as they would now be constantly on the move and scattered over a long line, it was impossible that they could take their servants with them.
"I should never have allowed them to be brought," he said, "had I known that we should be scouting over such an extensive country; at the same time, if we can manage to take a few on it would certainly add to our comfort. I propose that we choose ten by lot to go on with us. They must be servants of the troop and not of individuals. We can scatter them in pairs at five points, with instructions to forage as well as they can, and to have things in readiness to cook for whoever may come in off duty or may for the time be posted there. Henceforth every man must groom and see to his own horse, but I see no reason, military or otherwise, why we shouldn't get our food cooked for us; and it will be just as well, as long as we can, to have a few bundles of straw for us to lie on instead of sleeping on the ground.
"Another ten men we can also choose by lot to go to Winchester; which is, I imagine, the point we shall move to if the enemy advance, as I fancy they will, from the other side of the Shenandoah Valley. The rest must be sent home."
Each man accordingly wrote his name on a piece of paper, and placed them in a haversack. Ten were then drawn out; and their servants were to accompany the troop at once. The servants of the next ten were to proceed by train to Winchester, while the slaves of all whose names remained in the bag were to be sent home at once, provided with passes permitting them to travel. To Vincent's satisfaction his name was one of the first ten drawn, and Dan was therefore to go forward. The greater part of the men evaded the obligation to send their servants back to Richmond by despatching them to friends who had estates in the Shenandoah Valley, with letters asking them to keep the men for them until the troop happened to come into their neighborhood.
At six o'clock in the morning the troop mounted and rode to Bath, thirty miles away. It was here that Stuart had his headquarters, whence he sent out his patrols up and down the Potomac, between Harper's Ferry on the east and Cumberland on the west. Stuart was away when they arrived, but he rode in a few hours afterward.
"Ah! Ashley, I am glad you have arrived," he said, as he rode up to the troop, who had hastily mounted as he was seen approaching. "There is plenty for you to do, I can tell you; and I only wish that you had brought a thousand men instead of a hundred. I am heartily glad to see you all, gentlemen," he said to the troop. "I am afraid just at first that the brightness of your gray jackets will put my men rather to shame; but we shall soon get rid of that. But dismount your men, Ashley; there is plenty for them and their horses to do without wasting time in parade work. There is very little of that here, I can tell you. I have not seen a score of my men together for the last month."
Vincent gazed with admiration at the young leader, whose name was soon to be celebrated throughout America and Europe. The young Virginian--for he was not yet twenty-eight years old--was the beau ideal of a cavalry officer. He was singularly handsome, and possessed great personal strength and a constitution which enabled him to bear all hardships. He possessed unfailing good spirits, and had a joke and laugh for all he met; and while on the march at the head of his regiment he was always ready to lift up his voice and lead the songs with which the men made the woods resound.
He seemed to live in his saddle, and was present at all hours of the night and day along the line he guarded seeing that the men were watchful and on the alert, instructing the outposts in their duty, and infusing his own spirit and vigilance among them. He had been educated at West Point, and had seen much service with the cavalry against the Indians in the West. Such was the man who was to become the most famous cavalry leader of his time. So far he had not come in contact with the enemy, and his duties were confined to obtaining information regarding their strength and intentions, to watching every road by which they could advance, and to seeing that none passed north to carry information to the enemy as to the Confederate strength and positions, for even in the Shenandoah Valley there were some whose sympathies were with the Federals.
These were principally Northern men settled as traders in the towns, and it was important to prevent them from sending any news to the enemy. So well did Stuart's cavalry perform this service, and so general was the hostility of the population against the North, that throughout the whole of the war in Virginia it was very seldom that the Northern generals could obtain any trustworthy information as to the movements and strength of the Confederates, while the latter were perfectly informed of every detail connected with the intentions of the invaders.
The next morning Ashley's troop took up their share of the work at the front. They were broken up into parties of ten, each of which was stationed at a village near the river, five men being on duty night and day. As it happened that none of the other men in his squad had a servant at the front, Vincent was able without difficulty to have Dan assigned to his party. A house in the village was placed at their disposal, and here the five off duty slept and took their meals while the others were in the saddle. Dan was quite in his element, and turned out an excellent cook, and was soon a general favorite among the mess.
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
6
|
BULL RUN.
|
The next fortnight passed by without adventure. Hard as the work was, Vincent enjoyed it thoroughly. When on duty by day he was constantly on the move, riding through the forest, following country lanes, questioning every one he came across; and as the men always worked in pairs, there was no feeling of loneliness. Sometimes Ashley would draw together a score of troopers, and crossing the river in a ferryboat, would ride twenty miles north, and, dashing into quiet villages, astonish the inhabitants by the sight of the Confederate uniform. Then the villagers would be questioned as to the news that had reached them of the movement of the troops; the post office would be seized and the letters broken open; any useful information contained in them being noted. But in general questions were readily answered; for a considerable portion of the people of Maryland were strongly in favor of the South, and were only prevented from joining it by the strong force that held possession of Baltimore, and by the constant movement of Federal armies through the State. Vincent was often employed in carrying despatches from Major Ashley to Stuart, being selected for that duty as being the best mounted man in the troop. The direction was always a vague one. "Take this letter to Colonel Stuart, wherever he may be," and however early he started, Vincent thought himself fortunate if he carried out his mission before sunset; for Stuart's front covered over fifty miles of ground, and there was no saying where he might be. Sometimes after riding thirty or forty miles, and getting occasional news that Stuart had passed through ahead of him, he would learn from some outpost that the colonel had been there but ten minutes before, and had ridden off before he came, and then Vincent had to turn his horse and gallop back again, seldom succeeding in overtaking his active commander until the latter had halted for his supper at one or other of the villages where his men were stationed. Sometimes by good luck he came upon him earlier, and then, after reading the despatch, Stuart would, if he were riding in the direction where Ashley's command lay, bid him ride on with him, and would chat with him on terms of friendly intimacy about people they both knew at Richmond, or as to the details of his work, and sometimes they would sit down together under the shade of some trees, take out the contents of their haversacks, and share their dinners.
"This is the second time I have had the best of this," the colonel laughed one day; "my beef is as hard as leather, and this cold chicken of yours is as plump and tender as one could wish to eat."
"I have my own boy, colonel, who looks after the ten of us stationed at Elmside, and I fancy that in the matter of cold rations he gives me an undue preference. He always hands me my haversack when I mount with a grin, and I quite understand that it is better I should ask no questions as to its contents."
"You are a lucky fellow," Stuart said. "My own servant is a good man, and would do anything for me; but my irregular hours are too much for him. He never knows when to expect me; and as he often finds that when I do return I have made a meal an hour before at one of the outposts, and do not want the food he has for hours been carefully keeping hot for me, it drives him almost to despair, and I have sometimes been obliged to eat rather than disappoint him. But he certainly has not a genius for cooking, and were it not that this riding gives one the appetite of a hunter, I should often have a good deal of difficulty in devouring the meat he puts into my haversack."
But the enemy were now really advancing, and on the 12th of June a trooper rode in from the extreme left, and handed to Vincent a despatch from Colonel Stuart.
"My orders were," he said, "that, if you were here, you were to carry this on at all speed to General Johnston. If not, some one else was to take it on."
"Any news?" Vincent asked, as aided by Dan he rapidly saddled Wildfire.
"Yes," the soldier said; "2,000 of the enemy have advanced up the Western side and have occupied Romney, and they say that all Patterson's force is on the move."
"So much the better," Vincent replied, as he jumped into the saddle. "We have been doing nothing long enough, and the sooner it comes the better."
It was a fifty-mile ride; but it was done in five hours, and at the end of that time Vincent dismounted in front of General Johnston's quarters.
"Is the general in?" he asked the sentry at the door.
"No, he is not in; but here he comes," the soldier replied, and two minutes later the general, accompanied by three or four officers, rode up.
Vincent saluted, and handed him the despatch. The general opened it and glanced at the contents.
"The storm is going to burst at last, gentlemen," he said to the officers. "Stuart writes me that 2,000 men, supposed to be the advance of McClellan's army, are at Romney, and that he hears Patterson is also advancing from Chambersburg on Williamsport. His despatch is dated this morning at nine o'clock. He writes from near Cumberland. No time has been lost, for that is eighty miles away, and it is but five o'clock now. How far have you brought this despatch, sir?"
"I have brought it from Elmside, general; twenty miles on the other side of Bath. A trooper brought it in just at midday, with orders for me to carry it on at once."
"That is good work," the general said. "You have ridden over fifty miles in five hours. You must be well mounted, sir."
"I do not think there is a better horse in the State," Vincent said, patting Wildfire's neck.
The general called an orderly.
"Let this man picket his horse with those of the staff," he said, "and see that it has forage at once. Take the man to the orderly's quarters, and see that he is well cared for."
Vincent saluted, and, leading Wildfire, followed the orderly. When he had had a meal, he strolled out to see what was going on. Evidently some movement was in contemplation. Officers were riding up or dashing off from the general's headquarters. Two or three regiments were seen marching down from the plateau on which they were encamped into the town. Bells rang and drums beat, and presently long trains of railway wagons, heavily laden, began to make their way across the bridge. Until next morning the movement continued unceasingly; by that time all the military stores and public property, together with as much private property belonging to inhabitants who had decided to forsake their homes for a time rather than to remain there when the town was occupied by the enemy, as could be carried on in the available wagons, had been taken across the bridge. A party of engineers, who had been all night hard at work, then set fire both to the railway bridge across the river and the public buildings in the town. The main body of troops had moved across in the evening. The rear-guard passed when all was in readiness for the destruction of the bridge.
General Johnston had been preparing for the movement for some time; he had foreseen that the position must be evacuated as soon as the enemy began to advance upon either of his flanks, and a considerable portion of his baggage and military stores had some time previously been sent into the interior of Virginia. The troops, formed up on the high grounds south of the river, looked in silence at the dense volumes of smoke rising. This was the reality of war. Hitherto their military work had been no more than that to which many of them were accustomed when called out with the militia of their State; but the scene of destruction on which they now gazed brought home to them that the struggle was a serious one--that it was war in its stern reality which had now begun.
The troops at once set off on their march, and at night bivouacked in the woods around Charlestown. The next day they pushed across the country and took up a position covering Winchester; and then the enemy, finding that Johnston's army was in front of them ready to dispute their advance, recrossed the river, and Johnston concentrated his force round Winchester.
Vincent joined his corps on the same afternoon that the infantry marched out from Harper's Ferry, the general sending him forward with despatches as soon as the troops had got into motion.
"You will find Colonel Stuart in front of the enemy; but more than that I cannot tell you."
This was quite enough for Vincent, who found the cavalry scouting close to Patterson's force, prepared to attack the enemy's cavalry should it advance to reconnoiter the country, and to blow up bridges across streams, fell trees, and take every possible measure to delay the advance of Patterson's army, in its attempt to push on toward Winchester before the arrival of General Johnston's force upon the scene.
"I am glad to see you back, Wingfield," Major Ashley said, as he rode up. "The colonel tells me that in the despatch he got last night from Johnston the general said that Stuart's information had reached in a remarkably short time, having been carried with great speed by the orderly in charge of the duty. We have scarcely been out of our saddles since you left. However, I think we have been of use, for we have been busy all round the enemy since we arrived here in the afternoon, and I fancy he must think us a good deal stronger than we are. At any rate, he has not pushed his cavalry forward at all; and, as you say Johnston will be up to-morrow afternoon. Winchester is safe anyhow."
After the Federals had recrossed the river, and Johnston had taken up his position round Winchester, the cavalry returned to their old work of scouting along the Potomac.
On the 20th of June movements of considerable bodies of the enemy were noticed; and Johnston at once despatched Jackson with his brigade to Martinsburg, with orders to send as much of the rolling-stock of the railroad as could be removed to Winchester, to destroy the rest, and to support Stuart's cavalry when they advanced. A number of locomotives were sent to Winchester along the highroad, drawn by teams of horses. Forty engines and 300 cars were burned or destroyed, and Jackson then advanced and took up his position on the road to Williamsport, the cavalry camp being a little in advance of him. This was pleasant for Vincent, as when off duty he spent his time with his friends and schoolfellows in Jackson's brigade.
On the 2d of July the scouts rode into camp with the news that a strong force was advancing from Williamsport. Jackson at once advanced with the 5th Virginia Infantry, numbering 380 men and one gun, while Stuart, with 100 cavalry, started to make a circuitous route, and harassed the flank and rear of the enemy. There was no intention on the part of Jackson of fighting a battle, his orders being merely to feel the enemy; whose strength was far too great to be withstood even had he brought his whole brigade into action, for they numbered three brigades of infantry, 500 cavalry, and some artillery.
For some hours the little Confederate force skirmished so boldly that they checked the advance of the enemy, whose general naturally supposed that he had before him the advanced guard of a strong force, and therefore moved forward with great caution. Then the Confederates, being threatened on both flanks by the masses of the Federals, fell back in good order. The loss was very trifling on either side, but the fact that so small a force had for hours checked the advance of an army greatly raised the spirits and confidence of the Confederates. Stuart's small cavalry force, coming down upon the enemy's rear, captured a good many prisoners--Colonel Stuart himself capturing forty-four infantry. Riding some distance ahead of his troop to find out the position of the enemy, he came upon a company of Federal infantry sitting down in a field, having no idea whatever that any Confederate force was in the neighborhood. Stuart did not hesitate a moment, but riding up to them shouted the order, "Throw down your arms, or you are all dead men." Believing themselves surrounded, the Federals threw down their arms, and when the Confederate cavalry came up were marched off as prisoners.
Jackson, on reaching his camp, struck his tents and sent them to the rear, and formed up his whole brigade in order of battle. The Federals, however, instead of attacking, continued their flank movement, and Jackson fell back through Martinsburg and halted for the night a mile beyond the town.
Next day he again retired, and was joined six miles further on by Johnston's whole force. For four days the little army held its position, prepared to give battle if the enemy advanced; but the Federals, though greatly superior in numbers, remained immovable at Martinsburg, and Johnston, to the great disgust of his troops, retired to Winchester. The soldiers were longing to meet the invaders in battle, but their general had to bear in mind that the force under his command might at any moment be urgently required to join the main Confederate army and aid in opposing the Northern advance upon Richmond.
Stuart's cavalry kept him constantly informed of the strength of the enemy gathering in his front. Making circuits round Martinsburg, they learned from the farmers what numbers of troops each day came along; and while the Federals knew nothing of the force opposed to them, and believed that it far outnumbered their own, General Johnston knew that Patterson's force numbered about 22,000 men, while he himself had been joined only by some 3,000 men since he arrived at Winchester.
On the 18th of July a telegram from the government at Richmond announced that the Federal grand army had driven in General Beauregard's pickets at Manassas, and had begun to advance, and Johnston was directed if possible to hasten to his assistance. A few earthworks had been thrown up at Winchester, and some guns mounted upon them, and the town was left under the protection of the local militia. Stuart's cavalry was posted in a long line across the country to prevent any news of the movement reaching the enemy. As soon as this was done the infantry, 8,300 strong, marched off. The troops were in high spirits now, for they knew that their long period of inactivity was over, and that, although ignorant when and where, they were on their march to meet the enemy.
They had no wagons or rations, the need for speed was too urgent even to permit of food being cooked. Without a halt they pressed forward steadily, and after two days' march, exhausted and half famished, they reached the Manassas Gap Railroad. There they were put into trains as fast as these could be prepared, and by noon on the 20th joined Beauregard at Manassas. The cavalry had performed their duty of preventing the news of the movement from reaching the enemy until the infantry were nearly a day's march away, and then Stuart reassembled his men and followed Johnston. Thus the Confederate plans had been completely successful. Over 30,000 of the enemy, instead of being in line of battle with the main army, were detained before Winchester, while the little Confederate force who had been facing them had reached Beauregard in time to take part in the approaching struggle.
In the North no doubt as to the power of the grand army to make its way to Richmond was entertained. The troops were armed with the best weapons obtainable, the artillery was numerous and excellent, the army was fed with every luxury, and so confident were the men of success that they regarded the whole affair in the light of a great picnic. The grand army numbered 55,000 men, with 9 regiments of cavalry and 49 rifle-guns. To oppose these, the Confederate force, after the arrival of Johnston's army, numbered 27,833 infantry, 35 smooth-bored guns, and 500 cavalry. Many of the infantry were armed only with shot-guns and old fowling-pieces, and the guns were small and ill-supplied with ammunition. There had been some sharp fighting on the 18th, and the Federal advance across the river of Bull Run had been sharply repulsed; therefore their generals determined, instead of making a direct attack on the 31st against the Confederate position, to take a wide sweep round, cross the river higher up, and falling upon the Confederate left flank, to crumple it up.
All night the Federal troops had marched, and at daybreak on the 21st nearly 40,000 men were in position on the left flank of the Confederates. The latter were not taken by surprise when Stuart's cavalry brought in news of the Federal movement, and General Beauregard, instead of moving his troops toward the threatened point, sent orders to General Longstreet on the right to cross the river as soon as the battle began, and to fall upon the Federal flank and rear.
Had this movement been carried out, the destruction of the Federal army would have been complete; but by one of those unfortunate accidents which so frequently occur in war and upset the best laid plans, the order in some way never came to hand, and when late in the day the error was discovered it was too late to remedy it.
At eight o'clock in the morning two of the Federal divisions reached the river, and while one of them engaged the Confederate force stationed at the bridge, another crossed the river at a ford. Colonel Evans, who commanded the Confederate forces, which numbered but fifteen companies, left 200 men to continue to hold the bridge, while with 800 he hurried to oppose General Hunter's division, which had crossed at the ford.
This consisted of 16,000 infantry, with cavalry and artillery, and another division of equal force had crossed at the Red House ford higher up. To check so great a force with this handful of men seemed all but impossible; but Colonel Evans determined to hold his ground to the last, to enable his general to bring up reinforcements. His force consisted of men of South Carolina and Louisiana, and they contested every foot of the ground.
The regiment which formed the advance of the Federals charged, supported by an artillery fire, but was repulsed. As the heavy Federal line advanced, however, the Confederates were slowly but steadily pressed back, until General Bee, with four regiments and a battery of artillery, came up to their assistance. The newcomers threw themselves into the fight with great gallantry, and maintained their ground until almost annihilated by the fire of the enemy, who outnumbered them by five to one. As, fighting desperately, they fell back before Hunter's division, the Federals who had crossed at Red House Ford suddenly poured down and took them in flank.
Swept by a terrible musketry fire, these troops could no longer resist, and in spite of the efforts of their general, who rode among them imploring them to stand firm until aid arrived, they began to fall back. Neither entreaties nor commands were of avail; the troops had done all that they could, and broken and disheartened they retreated in great confusion. But at this moment, when all seemed lost, a line of glittering bayonets was seen coming over the hill behind, and the general, riding off in haste toward them, found Jackson advancing with the first brigade.
Unmoved by the rush of the fugitives of the brigades of Bee and Evans, Jackson moved steadily forward, and so firm and resolute was their demeanor, that Bee rode after his men, and pointing with his sword to the first brigade, shouted, "Look, there is Jackson standing like a stone wall." The general's words were repeated, and henceforth the brigade was known as the Stonewall Brigade, and their general by the nickname of Stonewall Jackson, by which he was ever afterward known. The greater part of the fugitives rallied, and took up their position on the right of Jackson, and the Federal forces, who were hurrying forward assured of victory, found themselves confronted suddenly by 2,000 bayonets. After a moment's pause they pressed forward again, the artillery preparing a way for them by a tremendous fire.
Jackson ordered his men to lie down until the enemy arrived within fifty yards, and then to charge with the bayonet. Just at this moment Generals Johnston and Beauregard arrived on the spot, and at once seeing the desperate nature of the situation, and the whole Federal army pressing forward against a single brigade, they did their best to prepare to meet the storm. First they galloped up and down the disordered lines of Bee, exhorting the men to stand firm; and seizing the colors of the 4th Alabama, Johnston led them forward and formed them up under fire.
Beauregard hurried up some reinforcements and formed them on the left of Jackson, and thus 6,500 infantry and artillery, and Stuart's two troops of cavalry, stood face to face with more than 20,000 infantry and seven troops of regular cavalry, behind whom at the lower fords were 35,000 men in reserve. While his men were lying down awaiting the attack, Jackson rode backward and forward in front of them as calm and as unconcerned to all appearance as if on the parade ground, and his quiet bravery greatly nerved and encouraged the young troops.
All at once the tremendous artillery fire of the enemy ceased, and their infantry came on in massive lines. The four Confederate guns poured in their fire and then withdrew behind the infantry. When the line came within fifty yards of him, Jackson gave the word, his men sprang to their feet, poured in a heavy volley, and then charged. A wild yell rose from both ranks as they closed, and then they were mingled in a desperate conflict. For a time all was in wild confusion, but the ardor and courage of Jackson's men prevailed, and they burst through the center of the Federal line.
Immediately Jackson had charged, Beauregard sent forward the rest of the troops, and for a time a tremendous struggle took place along the whole line. Generals Bee and Barlow fell mortally wounded at the head of their troops. General Hampton was wounded, and many of the colonels fell. So numerous were the Federals, that although Jackson had pierced their center, their masses drove back his flanks and threatened to surround him. With voice and example he cheered on his men to hold their ground, and the officers closed up their ranks as they were thinned by the enemy's fire, and for an hour the struggle continued without marked advantage on either side.
Jackson's calmness was unshaken even in the excitement of the fight. At one time an officer rode up to him from another portion of the field and exclaimed, "General, I think the day is going against us!" To which Jackson replied in his usual curt manner, "If you think so, sir, you had better not say anything about it."
The resolute stand of the Confederates enabled General Beauregard to bring up fresh troops, and he at last gave the word to advance.
Jackson's brigade rushed forward on receiving the order, burst through the Federals with whom they were engaged, and, supported by the reserves, drove the enemy from the plateau. But the Federals, still vastly superior in force, brought up the reserves, and prepared to renew the attack; but 1,700 fresh men of the army of the Shenandoah came upon the field of battle, Smith and Early brought up their division from the river, and the whole Southern line advanced at the charge, drove the enemy down the slopes and on toward the fords.
A panic seized them, and their regiments broke up and took to headlong flight, which soon became an utter rout. Many of them continued their flight for hours, and for a time the Federal army ceased to exist; and had the Confederates advanced, as Jackson desired that they should do, Washington would have fallen into their hands without a blow being struck in its defense.
This, the first great battle of the war, is sometimes known as the battle of Manassas, but more generally as Bull Run.
With the exception of one or two charges, the little body of Confederate horse did not take any part in the battle of Bull Run. Had they been aware of the utter stampede of the Northern troops, they could safely have pressed forward in hot pursuit as far as Washington, but being numerically so inferior to the Federal cavalry, and in ignorance that the Northern infantry had become a mere panic-stricken mob, it would have been imprudent in the extreme for such a handful of cavalry to undertake the pursuit of an army.
Many of the Confederates were of opinion that this decisive victory would be the end of the war, and that the North, seeing that the South was able as well as willing to defend the position it had taken up, would abandon the idea of coercing it into submission. This hope was speedily dissipated. The North was indeed alike astonished and disappointed at the defeat of their army by a greatly inferior force, but instead of abandoning the struggle, they set to work to retrieve the disaster, and to place in the field a force which would, they believed, prove irresistible.
Vincent Wingfield saw but little of the battle at Bull Run. As they were impatiently waiting the order to charge while the desperate conflict between Jackson's brigade and the enemy was at its fiercest, a shell from one of the Federal batteries burst a few yards in front of the troop, and one of the pieces striking Vincent on the side hurled him insensible from his horse. He was at once lifted and carried by Dan and some of the other men-servants, who had been told off for this duty, to the rear, where the surgeons were busily engaged in dressing the wounds of the men who straggled back from the front. While the conflict lasted those unable to walk lay where they fell, for no provision had at present been made for ambulance corps, and not a single man capable of firing a musket could be spared from the ranks. The tears were flowing copiously down Dan's cheeks as he stood by while the surgeons examined Vincent's wound.
"Is he dead, sah?" he sobbed as they lifted him up from his stooping position.
"Dead." the surgeon repeated. "Can't you see he is breathing, and did you not hear him groan when I examined his side? He is a long way from being a dead man yet. Some of his ribs are broken, and he has had a very nasty blow; but I do not think there is any cause for anxiety about him. Pour a little wine down his throat, and sprinkle his face with water. Raise his head and put a coat under it, and when he opens his eyes and begins to recover, don't let him move. Then you can cut up the side of his jacket and down the sleeve, so as to get it off that side altogether. Cut his shirt open, and bathe the wound with some water and bit of rag of any sort; it is not likely to bleed much. When it has stopped bleeding put a pad of linen upon it, and keep it wet. When we can spare time we will bandage it properly."
But it was not until late at night that the time could be spared for attending to Vincent; for the surgeons were overwhelmed with work, and the most serious cases were, as far as possible, first attended to. He had soon recovered consciousness. At first he looked with a feeling of bewilderment at Dan, who was copiously sprinkling his face with water, sobbing loudly while he did so. As soon as the negro perceived that his master had opened his eyes he gave a cry of delight.
"Tank de Lord, Marse Vincent; dis child tought you dead and gone for sure."
"What's the matter, Dan? What has happened?" Vincent said, trying to move, and then stopping suddenly with a cry of pain.
"You knocked off your horse, sah, wid one of de shells of dem cussed Yanks."
"Am I badly hurt, Dan?"
"Berry bad, sah; great piece of flesh pretty nigh as big as my hand come out ob your side, and doctor says some of de ribs broken. But de doctor not seem to make much ob it; he hard sort ob man dat. Say you get all right again. No time to tend to you now. Hurry away just as if you some poor white trash instead of Massa Wingfield ob de Orangery."
Vincent smiled faintly.
"It doesn't make much difference what a man is in a surgeon's eyes, Dan; the question is how badly he is hurt, and what can be done for him? Well, thank God it's no worse. Wildfire was not hurt, I hope?"
"No, sah; he is standing tied up by dat tree. Now, sah, de doctor say me cut your jacket off and bave de wound."
"All right, Dan; but be a little careful with the water, you seem to be pretty near drowning me as it is. Just wipe my face and hair, and get the handkerchief from the pocket of my jacket, and open the shirt collar and put the handkerchief inside round my neck. How is the battle going on? The roar seems louder than ever."
Dan went forward to the crest a of slight rise of the ground whence he could look down upon the field of battle, and made haste to return.
"Can't see berry well, sah; too much smoke. But dey in de same place still."
"Look round, Dan, and see if there are any fresh troops coming up."
"Yes, sah; lot of men coming ober de hill behind."
"That's all right, Dan. Now you can see about this bathing my side."
As soon as the battle was over Major Ashley rode up to where Vincent and five or six of his comrades of the cavalry were lying wounded.
"How are you getting on, lads? Pretty well I hope?" he asked the surgeon as he dismounted.
"First rate, major," one of the men answered. "We all of us took a turn as soon as we heard that the Yanks were whipped."
"Yes, we have thrashed them handsomely," the major said. "Ah, Wingfield, I am glad to see you are alive. I thought when you fell it was all over with you."
"I am not much hurt, sir," Vincent replied. "A flesh wound and some ribs are broken, I hear; but they won't be long mending I hope."
"It's a nasty wound to look at," the major said, as Dan lifted the pad of wet linen. "But with youth and health you will soon get round it, never fear."
"Ah, my poor lad, yours is a worse case," he said as he bent over a young fellow who was lying a few paces from Vincent.
"It's all up with me, major," he replied faintly; "the doctor said he could do nothing for me. But I don't mind, now we have beaten them. You will send a line to the old people, major, won't you, and say I died doing my duty? I've got two brothers, and I expect they will send one on to take my place."
"I will write to them, my lad," the major said, "and tell them all about you." He could give the lad no false hopes, for already a gray shade was stealing over the white face, and the end was close at hand; in a few minutes he ceased to breathe.
Late in the evening the surgeons, having attended to more urgent cases, came round. Vincent's wound was now more carefully examined than before, but the result was the same. Three of the ribs were badly fractured, but there was no serious danger.
"You will want quiet and good nursing for some time, my lad," the principal surgeon said. "There will be a train of wounded going off for Richmond the first thing in the morning, and you shall go by it. You had better get a door, lads," he said to some of the troopers who had come across from the spot where the cavalry were bivouacked to see how their comrades were getting on, "and carry him down and put him in the train. One has just been sent off, and another will be made up at once, so that the wounded can be put in it as they are taken down. Now I will bandage the wound, and it will not want any more attention until you get home."
A wad of lint was placed upon the wound and bandaged tightly round the body.
"Remember you have got to be perfectly quiet, and not attempt to move till the bones have knit. I am afraid that they are badly fractured, and will require some time to heal up again."
A door was fetched from an out-house near, and Vincent and two of his comrades, who were also ordered to be sent to the rear, were one by one carried down to the nearest point on the railway, where a train stood ready to receive them, and they were then laid on the seats.
All night the wounded kept arriving, and by morning the train was packed as full as it would hold, and with two or three surgeons in charge started for Richmond. Dan was permitted to accompany the train, at Vincent's urgent request, in the character of doctor's assistant, and he went about distributing water to the wounded, and assisting the surgeons in moving such as required it.
It was night before the train reached Richmond. A number of people were at the station to receive it; for as soon as the news of the battle had been received, preparations had been made for the reception of the wounded, several public buildings had been converted into hospitals, and numbers of the citizens had come forward with offers to take one or more of the wounded into their houses. The streets were crowded with people, who were wild with joy at the news of the victory which, as they believed, had secured the State from any further fear of invasion. Numbers of willing hands were in readiness to carry the wounded on stretchers to the hospitals, where all the surgeons of the town were already waiting to attend upon them.
Vincent, at his own request, was only laid upon a bed, as he said that he would go home to be nursed the first thing in the morning. This being the case it was needless to put him to the pain and trouble of being undressed. Dan had started as soon as he saw his master carried into the hospital to take the news to the Orangery, being strictly charged by Vincent to make light of his injury, and on no account whatever to alarm them. He was to ask that the carriage should come to fetch him the first thing in the morning.
It was indeed but just daybreak when Mrs. Wingfield drove up to the hospital. Dan had been so severely cross-examined that he had been obliged to give an accurate account of Vincent's injury. There was bustle and movement even at that early hour, for another train of wounded had just arrived. As she entered the hospital she gave an exclamation of pleasure, for at the door were two gentlemen in conversation, one of whom was the doctor who had long attended the family at the Orangery.
"I am glad you are here, Dr. Mapleston; for I want your opinion before I move Vincent. Have you seen him?"
"No, Mrs. Wingfield; I did not know he was here. I have charge of one of the wards, and have not had time to see who are in the others. I sincerely hope Vincent is not seriously hurt."
"That's want I want to find out, doctor. His boy brought us news late last night that he was here. He said the doctors considered that he was not in any danger; but as it seems that he had three ribs broken and a deep flesh wound from the explosion of a shell, it seems to me that it must be serious."
"I will go up and see him at once, Mrs. Wingfield, and find out from the surgeon in charge of his ward exactly what is the matter with him." Dan led the way to the bed upon which Vincent was lying. He was only dozing, and opened his eyes as they came up.
"My poor boy," Mrs. Wingfield said, struggling with her tears at the sight of his pale face, "this is sad indeed."
"It is nothing very bad, mother," Vincent replied cheerfully; "nothing at all to fret about. The wound is nothing to the injuries of most of those here. I suppose, doctor, I can be moved at once?"
Doctor Mapleston felt his pulse.
"You are feverish, my lad; but perhaps the best thing for you would be to get you home while you can be moved. You will do far better there than here. But I must speak to the surgeon in charge of you first, and hear what he says."
"Yes, I think you can move him," the surgeon of the ward said. "He has got a nasty wound, and the ticket with him said that three ribs were badly fractured; but I made no examination, as he said he would be fetched the first thing this morning. I only put on a fresh dressing and bandaged it. The sooner you get him off the better, if he is to be moved. Fever is setting in, and he will probably be wandering by this evening. He will have a much better chance at home, with cool rooms and quiet and careful nursing, than he can have here; though there would be no lack of either comforts or nurses, for half the ladies in the town have volunteered for the work, and we have offers of all the medical comforts that could be required were the list of wounded ten times as large as it is."
A stretcher was brought in, and Vincent was lifted as gently as possible upon it. Then he was carried down-stairs and the stretcher placed in the carriage, which was a large open one, and afforded just sufficient length for it. Mrs. Wingfield took her seat beside him. Dan mounted the box beside the coachman.
"I will be out in an hour, Mrs. Wingfield," Dr. Mapleston said. "I have to go round the ward again, and will then drive out at once. Give him lemonade and cooling drinks; don't let him talk. Cut his clothes off him, and keep the room somewhat dark, but with a free current of air. I will bring out some medicine with me."
The carriage drove slowly to avoid shaking, and when they approached the house Mrs. Wingfield told Dan to jump down and come to the side of her carriage. Then she told him to run on as fast as he could ahead, and to tell her daughters not to meet them upon their arrival, and that all the servants were to be kept out of the way, except three men to carry Vincent upstairs. The lad was consequently got up to his room without any excitement, and was soon lying on his bed with a sheet thrown lightly over him.
"That is comfortable," he said, as his mother bathed his face and hands and smoothed his hair. "Where are the girls, mother?"
"They will come in to see you now, Vincent; but you are to keep quite quiet you know, and not to talk." The girls stole in and said a few words, and left him alone again with Mrs. Wingfield. He did not look to them so ill as they had expected, for there was a flush of fever on his cheeks. Dr. Mapleston arrived in another half-hour, examined and redressed the wound, and comforted Mrs. Wingfield with the assurance that there was nothing in it likely to prove dangerous to life.
"Our trouble will be rather with the effect of the shock than with the wound itself. He is very feverish now, and you must not be alarmed if by this evening he is delirious. You will give him this cooling draught every three hours; he can have anything in the way of cooling drinks he likes. If he begins to wander, put cloths dipped in cold water and wrung out on his head, and sponge his hands with water with a little eau de Cologne in it. If he seems very hot set one of the women to fan him, but don't let her go on if it seems to worry him. I will come round again at half past nine this evening and will make arrangements to pass the night here. We have telegrams saying that surgeons are coming from Charleston and many other places, so I can very well be spared."
When the doctor returned in the evening, he found, as he had anticipated, that Vincent was in a high state of fever. This continued four or five days, and then gradually passed off; and he woke up one morning perfectly conscious. His mother was sitting on a chair at the bedside.
"What o'clock is it, mother?" he asked. "Have I been asleep long?"
"Some time, dear," she answered gently; "but you must not talk. You are to take this draught and to go off to sleep again; when you wake you may ask any questions you like." She lifted the lad's head, gave him the draught and some cold tea, then darkened the room, and in a few minutes he was asleep again.
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
7
|
THE MERRIMAC AND THE MONITOR.
|
It was some weeks before Vincent was able to walk unaided. His convalescence was somewhat slow, for the shock to the system had been a severe one. The long railway journey had been injurious to him, for the bandage had become somewhat loose and the broken pieces of bone had grated upon each other, and were much longer in knitting together than they would have been had he been treated on the spot.
As soon as he could walk he began to be anxious to rejoin his troop, but the doctor said that many weeks must elapse before he would be ready to undergo the hardships of campaign. He was reconciled to some extent to the delay by letters from his friends with the troop and by the perusal of the papers. There was nothing whatever doing in Virginia. The two armies still faced each other, the Northerners protected by the strong fortifications they had thrown up round Washington--fortifications much too formidable to be attacked by the Confederates, held as they were by a force immensely superior to their own, both in numbers and arms.
The Northerners were indeed hard at work, collecting and organizing an army which was to crush out the rebellion. General Scott had been succeeded by McClellan in the supreme command, and the new general was indefatigable in organizing the vast masses of men raised in the North. So great were the efforts that in a few months after the defeat of Bull Run the North had 650,000 men in arms.
But while no move had at present been made against Virginia there was sharp fighting in some of the border states, especially in Missouri and Kentucky, in both of which public opinion was much divided, and regiments were raised on both sides.
Various operations were now undertaken by the Federal fleet at points along the coast, and several important positions were taken and occupied, it being impossible for the Confederates to defend so long a line of sea-coast. The South had lost rather than gained ground in consequence of their victory at Bull Run. For a time they had been unduly elated, and were disposed altogether to underrate their enemies and to believe that the struggle was as good as over. Thus, then, they made no effort at all corresponding to that of the North; but as time went on, and they saw the vastness of the preparations made for their conquest, the people of the Southern States again bestirred themselves.
Owing to the North having the command of the sea, and shutting up all the principal ports, they had to rely upon themselves for everything, while the North could draw arms and ammunition and all the requisites of war from the markets of Europe. Foundries were accordingly established for the manufacture of artillery, and factories for muskets, ammunition, and percussion caps. The South had, in fact, to manufacture everything down to the cloth for her soldiers uniforms and the leather for their shoes; and, as in the past she had relied wholly upon the North for such goods, it was for a time impossible to supply the troops with even the most necessary articles.
The women throughout the States were set to work, spinning and weaving rough cloth, and making uniforms from it. Leather, however, cannot be produced all at once, and indeed with all their efforts the Confederate authorities were never throughout the war able to provide a sufficient supply of boots for the troops, and many a battle was won by soldiers who fought almost barefooted and who reshod themselves for the most part by stripping the boots from their dead foes. Many other articles could not be produced in the Southern States, and the Confederates suffered much from the want of proper medicines and surgical appliances.
For these and many other necessaries they had to depend solely upon the ships which succeeded in making their way through the enemy's cruisers and running the blockade of the ports. Wine, tea, coffee, and other imported articles soon became luxuries beyond the means of all, even the very wealthy. All sorts of substitutes were used; grain roasted and ground being chiefly used as a substitute for coffee. Hitherto the South had been principally occupied in raising cotton and tobacco, depending chiefly upon the North for food; and it was necessary now to abandon the cultivation of products for which they had no sale, and to devote the land to the growth of maize and other crops for food.
By the time that the long period of inaction came to a close, Vincent had completely recovered his strength, and was ready to rejoin the ranks as soon as the order came from Colonel Stuart, who had promised to send for him directly there was a prospect of active service.
One of Vincent's first questions as soon as he became convalescent was whether a letter had been received from Tony. It had come, he was told, among the last batch of letters that crossed the frontier before the outbreak of hostilities, and Mrs. Wingfield, had, as he had requested, opened it. As had been arranged, it had merely contained Tony's address at a village near Montreal; for Vincent had warned him to say nothing in the letter, for there was no saying, in the troubled times which were approaching when Tony left, into whose hands it might fall.
Vincent had before starting told his mother of the share he had taken in getting the negro safely away, and Mrs. Wingfield, brought up as she had been to regard those who assisted runaway slaves to escape in the same light as those who assisted to steal any other kind of property, was at first greatly shocked when she heard that her son had taken part in such an enterprise, however worthy of compassion the slave might be, and however brutal the master from whose hands he had fled. However, as Vincent was on the point of starting for the war to meet danger, and possibly death, in the defense of Virginia, she had said little, and that little was in reference rather to the imprudence of the course he had taken than to what she regarded in her own mind as its folly, and indeed its criminality.
She had, however, promised that as soon as Tony's letter arrived she would, if it was still possible, forward Dinah and the child to him, supplying her with money for the journey, and giving her the papers freeing her from slavery which Vincent had duly signed in the presence of a justice. When the letter came, however, it was already too late. Fighting was on the point of commencing, all intercourse across the border was stopped, the trains were all taken up for the conveyance of troops, and even a man would have had great difficulty in passing northward, while for an unprotected negress with a baby such a journey would have been impossible.
Mrs. Wingfield had therefore written four times at fort-nightly intervals to Tony, saying that it was impossible to send Dinah off at present, but that she should be despatched as soon as the troubles were over, upon receipt of another letter from him saying that his address was unchanged, or giving a new one. These letters were duly posted, and it was probable that one or other of them would in time reach Tony, as mails were sent off to Europe whenever an opportunity offered for them to be taken by a steamer running the blockade from a Southern port. Dinah, therefore, still remained at the Orangery. She was well and happy, for her life there was a delightful one indeed after her toil and hardship at the Jackson's; and although she was anxious to join her husband, the knowledge that he was well and safe from all pursuit, and that sooner or later she would join him with her child, was sufficient to make her perfectly contented.
During Vincent's illness she had been his most constant attendant; for her child now no longer required her care, and passed much of its time down at the nursery, where the young children of the slaves were looked after by two or three aged negresses past active work. She had therefore begged Mrs. Wingfield to be allowed to take her place by the bedside of her young master, and, after giving her a trial, Mrs. Wingfield found her so quiet, gentle, and patient that she installed her there, and was able to obtain the rest she needed, with a feeling of confidence that Vincent would be well attended to in her absence.
When Vincent was well enough to be about again, his sisters were surprised at the change that had taken place in him since he had started a few months before for the war. It was not so much that he had grown, though he had done so considerably, but that he was much older in manner and appearance. He had been doing man's work: work requiring vigilance, activity, and courage, and they could no longer treat him as a boy. As he became stronger he took to riding about the plantation; but not upon Wildfire, for his horse was still with the troop, Colonel Stuart having promised to see that the animal was well cared for, and that no one should ride upon it but himself.
"I hope you like Jonas Pearson better than you used to do, Vincent," Mrs. Wingfield said a day or two before he started to rejoin his troop.
"I can't say I do, mother," he replied shortly. "The man is very civil to me now--too civil, in fact; but I don't like him, and I don't believe he is honest. I don't mean that he would cheat you, though he may do so for anything I know; but he pretends to be a violent Secessionist, which as he comes from Vermont is not natural, and I imagine he would sing a different tune if the blue coats ever get to Richmond. Still I have nothing particular to say against him, except that I don't like him and I don't trust him. So long as everything goes on well for the Confederacy I don't suppose it matters, but if we should ever get the worst of it you will see that fellow will be mischievous.
"However, I hear that he has obeyed your orders, and that there has been no flogging on the estate since I went away. In fact, as far as I can see, he does not keep anything like such a sharp hand over the slaves as he used to do; and in some of the fields the work seems to be done in a very slovenly way. What his game is I don't know; but I have no doubt whatever that he has some game in his mind."
"You are a most prejudiced boy," Mrs. Wingfield said, laughing. "First of all the man is too strict, and you were furious about it; now you think he's too lenient, and you at once suspect he has what you call a game of some sort or other on. You are hard to please indeed."
Vincent smiled. "Well, as I told you once before, we shall see. I hope I am wrong, and that Pearson is all that you believe him to be. I own that I may be prejudiced against him; but nothing will persuade me that it was not from him that Jackson learned that Dinah was here, and it was to that we owe the visit of the sheriff and the searching the plantation for Tony. However, whatever the man is at heart, he can, as far as I see, do you no injury as long as things go on as they are, and I sincerely trust he will never have an opportunity of doing so."
During the winter Vincent had made the acquaintance of many of the Southern leaders. The town was the center of the movement, the heart of the Confederacy. It was against it, as the capital of the Southern States, that the efforts of the Northerns were principally directed, and to it flocked the leading men from all parts of the country. Although every Virginian family had some of its members at the front, and a feeling of anxiety reigned everywhere, a semblance of gaiety was kept up. The theater was opened, and parties and balls given, in order to keep up the spirits of the people by the example of those of higher rank.
These balls differed widely in appearance from those of eighteen months before. The gentlemen were almost all in uniform, and already calicoes and other cheap fabrics were worn by many of the ladies, as foreign dress materials could no longer be purchased. Mrs. Wingfield made a point of always attending with her daughters at these entertainments, which to the young people afforded a cheerful break in the dullness and monotony of their usual life; for, owing to the absence of almost all the young men with the army, there had been a long cessation of the pleasant interchange of visits, impromptu parties, and social gatherings that had formed a feature in the life in Virginia.
The balls would have been but dull affairs had only the residents of Richmond been present; but leave was granted as much as possible to officers stationed with regiments within a railway run of the town, and as these eagerly availed themselves of the change from the monotony of camp life, the girls had no reason to complain of want of partners. Here and at the receptions given by President Davis, Vincent met all the leaders of the Confederacy, civil and military. Many of them had been personal friends of the Wingfields before the Secession movement began, and among them was General Magruder, who commanded the troops round Richmond.
Early in the winter the general had called at the Orangery. "We are going to make a call upon the patriotism of the planters of this neighborhood, Mrs. Wingfield," he said during lunch time. "You see, our armies are facing those of the Federals opposite Washington, and can offer a firm front to any foe marching down from the North; but, unfortunately they have the command of the sea, and there is nothing to prevent their embarking an army on board ship and landing it in either the James or the York Rivers, and in that case they might make a rush upon Richmond before there would be time to bring down troops to our aid. I am therefore proposing to erect a chain of works between the two rivers, so as to be able to keep even a large army at bay until reinforcements arrive; but to do this a large number of hands will be required, and we are going to ask the proprietors of plantations to place as many negroes as they can spare at our disposal."
"There can be no doubt as to the response your question will meet with, general. At present we have scarce enough work for our slaves to do. I intend to grow no tobacco next year, for it will only rot in the warehouse, and a comparatively small number of hands are required to raise corn crops. I have about a hundred and seventy working hands on the Orangery, and shall be happy to place a hundred at your disposal for as long a time as you may require them. If you want fifty more you can of course have them. Everything else must at present give way to the good of the cause."
"I thank you much, Mrs. Wingfield, for your offers, and will put your name down the first on the list of contributors."
"You seem quite to have recovered now," he said to Vincent a few minutes afterward.
"Yes; I am quite ashamed of staying here so long, general. But I feel some pain at times; and as there is nothing doing at the front, and my doctor says that it is of importance I should have rest as long as possible, I have stayed on. Major Ashley has promised to recall me as soon as there is a prospect of active work."
"I think it is quite likely that there will be active work here as soon as anywhere else," the general said. "We know pretty well what is doing at Washington, and though nothing has been decided upon, there is a party in favor of a landing in force here; and if so, we shall have hot work. What do you say? If you like I will get you a commission and appoint you one of my aides-de-camp. Your knowledge of the country will make you useful, and as Ashley has specially mentioned your name in one of his despatches, you can have your commission by asking for it.
"If there is to be fighting round here, it will be of more interest to you defending your own home than in taking part in general engagements for the safety of the State. It will, too, enable you to be a good deal at home; and although so far the slaves have behaved extremely well, there is no saying exactly what may happen if the Northerners come among us. You can rejoin your own corps afterward, you know, if nothing comes of this."
Vincent was at first inclined to decline the offer, but his mother and sisters were so pleased at having him near them that he finally accepted with thanks, being principally influenced by the general's last argument, that possibly there might be trouble with the slaves in the event of a landing in the James Peninsula by the Northerners. A few days later there came an official intimation that he had received a commission in the cavalry, and had at General Magruder's request been appointed to his staff, and he at once entered upon his new duties.
The fortress of Monroe, at the entrance of Hampton Roads, was still in the hands of the Federals, and a large Federal fleet was assembled here, and was only prevented from sailing up the James River by the Merrimac, a steamer which the Confederates had plated with railway iron. They had also constructed batteries upon some high bluffs on each side of the river. In a short time 5,000 negroes were set to work erecting batteries upon the York River at Yorktown and Gloucester Point, and upon a line of works extending from Warwick upon the James River to Ship Point on the York, through a line of wooded and swampy country intersected by streams emptying themselves into one or other of the rivers.
This line was some thirty miles in length, and would require 25,000 men to guard it; but Magruder hoped that there would be sufficient warning of an attack to enable reinforcements to arrive in time to raise his own command of about 10,000 men to that strength. The negroes worked cheerfully, for they received a certain amount of pay from the State; but the work was heavy and difficult, and different altogether to that which they were accustomed to perform. The batteries by the sides of the rivers made fair progress, but the advance of the long line of works across the peninsula was but slow. Vincent had, upon receiving his appointment, written at once to Major Ashley, sending his letter by Dan, who was ordered to bring back Wildfire. Vincent stated that had he consulted his personal feeling he should have preferred remaining in the ranks of his old corps; but that as the fighting might be close to his home, and there was no saying what might be the behavior of the slave population in the event of a Northern invasion, he had, for the sake of his mother and sisters, accepted the appointment, but as soon as the danger was over he hoped to rejoin the corps and serve under his former commander.
Dan, on his return with Wildfire, brought a letter from the major saying that although he should have been glad to have had him with him, he quite agreed with the decision at which he had, under the circumstances, arrived. Vincent now took up his quarters at the camp formed a short distance from the city, and much of his time was spent in riding to and from the peninsula, seeing that the works were being carried out according to the plan of the general, and reporting upon the manner in which the contractors for the supply of food to the negroes at work there performed their duties. Sometimes he was away for two or three days upon this work; but he generally managed once or twice a week to get home for a few hours.
The inhabitants of Richmond and its neighborhood were naturally greatly interested in the progress of the works for their defense, and parties were often organized to ride or drive to Yorktown, or to the batteries on the James River, to watch the progress made. Upon one occasion Vincent accompanied his mother and sisters, and a party of ladies and gentlemen from the neighboring plantations, to Drury's Bluff, where an entrenched position named Fort Darling had been erected, and preparations made to sink vessels across the river, and close it against the advance of the enemy's fleet should any misfortune happen to the Merrimac.
Several other parties had been made up, and each brought provisions with them. General Magruder and some of his officers received them upon their arrival, and conducted them over the works. After this the whole party sat down to a picnic meal on the ground, and no stranger could have guessed that the merry party formed part of a population threatened with invasion by a powerful foe. There were speeches and toasts, all of a patriotic character, and General Magruder raised the enthusiasm to the highest point by informing them that in a few days--the exact day was a secret, but it would be very shortly--the Merrimac, or, as she had been re-christened, the Virginia, would put out from Norfolk Harbor, and see what she could do to clear Hampton Roads of the fleet that now threatened them. As they were riding back to Richmond the general said to Vincent: "I will tell you a little more than I told the others, Wingfield. I believe the Merrimac will go out the day after to-morrow. I wish I could get away myself to see the affair; but, unfortunately, I cannot do so. However, if you like to be present, I will give you three days' leave, as you have been working very hard lately. You can start early to-morrow, and can get down by train to Norfolk in the evening. I should advise you to take your horse with you, and then you can ride in the morning to some spot from which you will get a fair view of the Roads, and be able to see what is going on."
"Thank you very much, sir," Vincent said. "I should like it immensely."
The next day Vincent went down to Norfolk. Arriving there, he found that although there was a general expectation that the Merrimac would shortly go out to try her strength with the enemy, nothing was known of the fact that the next morning had been fixed for the encounter, the secret being kept to the last lest some spy or adherent of the North might take the news to the fleet. After putting up his horse Vincent went down to the navy yard, off which the Merrimac was lying.
This ship had been sunk by the Federals when at the commencement of hostilities they had evacuated Norfolk. Having been raised by the Confederates, the ship was cut down, and a sort of roof covered with iron was built over it, so that the vessel presented the appearance of a huge sunken house. A ram was fixed to her bow, and she was armed with ten guns. Her steam-power was very insufficient for her size, and she could only move through the water at the rate of five knots an hour.
"She is an ugly-looking thing," a man observed to Vincent as he gazed at the ship.
"Frightfully ugly," Vincent agreed. "She may be a formidable machine in the way of fighting, but one can scarcely call her a ship."
"She is a floating-battery, and if they tried their best to turn out the ugliest thing that ever floated they could not have succeeded better. She is just like a Noah's ark sunk down to the eaves of her roof."
"Yes, she is a good deal like that," Vincent agreed. "The very look of her ought to be enough to frighten the Federals, even if she did nothing else."
"I expect it will not be long before she gives them a taste of her quality," the man said. "She has got her coal and ammunition on board, and there's nothing to prevent her going out this evening if she wants to."
"It will be worth seeing when she does go out to fight the Northerners," Vincent said. "It will be a new experiment in warfare, and, if she turns out a success, I suppose all the navies in the world will be taking to cover themselves up with iron."
The next morning, which was the 8th of March--a date forever memorable in naval annals--smoke was seen pouring out from the funnels of the Merrimac, and there were signs of activity on board the Patrick Henry, of six guns, and the Jamestown, Raleigh, Beaufort, and Teazer, little craft carrying one gun each, and at eleven o'clock they all moved down the inlet on which Norfolk is situated. The news that the Merrimac was going out to attack the enemy had now spread, and the whole population of Norfolk turned out and hastened down toward the mouth of the inlet on horseback, in vehicles, or on foot, while Vincent rode to the batteries on Sewell's Point, nearly facing Fort Monroe.
He left his horse at a farmhouse a quarter of a mile from the battery; for Wildfire was always restless under fire, and it was probable that the batteries would take a share in the affair. At one o'clock some of the small Federal lookout launches were seen to be at work signaling, a bustle could be observed prevailing among the large ships over by the fortress, and it was evident that the Merrimac was visible to them as she came down the inlet. The Cumberland and Congress men-of-war moved out in that direction, and the Minnesota and the St. Lawrence, which were at anchor, got under weigh, assisted by steam-tugs.
The Merrimac and the fleet of little gunboats were now visible from the battery, advancing against the Cumberland and Congress. The former opened fire upon her at a distance of a mile with her heavy pivot guns, but the Merrimac, without replying, continued her slow and steady course toward them. She first approached the Congress, and as she did so a puff of smoke burst from the forward end of her pent-house, and the water round the Congress was churned up by a hail of grape-shot. As they passed each other both vessels fired a broadside. The officers in the fort, provided with glasses, could see the effect of the Merrimac's fire in the light patches that showed on the side of the Congress, but the Merrimac appeared entirely uninjured. She now approached the Cumberland, which poured several broadsides into her, but altogether without effect. The Merrimac, without replying, steamed straight on and struck the Cumberland with great force, knocking a large hole in her side, near the water-line. Then backing off she opened fire upon her.
For half an hour the crew of the Cumberland fought with great bravery. The ships lay about three hundred yards apart, and every shot from the Merrimac told on the wooden vessel. The water was pouring in through the breach. The shells of the Merrimac crushed through her side, and at one time set her on fire; but the crew worked their guns until the vessel sank beneath their feet. Some men succeeded in swimming to land, which was not far distant, others were saved by small boats from the shore, but nearly half of the crew of 400 men were either killed in action or drowned.
The Merrimac now turned her attention to the Congress, which was left to fight the battle alone, as the Minnesota had got aground, and the Roanoake and St. Lawrence could not approach near enough to render them assistance from their draught of water. The Merrimac poured broadside after broadside into her, until the officer in command and many of the crew were killed. The lieutenant who succeeded to the command, seeing there was no prospect of help, and that resistance was hopeless, hauled down the flag. A gunboat was sent alongside, with orders that the crew should leave the Congress and come on board, as the ship was to be burned. But the troops and artillery lining the shore now opened fire on the little gunboat, which consequently hauled off. The Merrimac, after firing several more shells into the Congress, moved away to attack the Minnesota, and the survivors of the 200 men who composed the crew of the Congress were conveyed to shore in small boats. The vessel was set on fire either by her own crew or the shells of the Merrimac, and by midnight blew up.
Owing to the shallowness of the water the Merrimac could not get near enough to the Minnesota to use her own small guns to advantage, and the gunboat was driven off by the heavy ten-inch gun of the Federal frigate, and therefore at seven o'clock the Merrimac and her consorts returned to Norfolk. The greatest delight was felt on shore at the success of the engagement, and on riding back to Norfolk Vincent learned that the ram would go out again next morning to engage the rest of the Federal fleet.
She herself had suffered somewhat in the fight. Her loss in men was only two killed and eight wounded; but two of her guns had the muzzles shot off, the armor was damaged in some places, and most serious of all she had badly twisted her ram in running into the Cumberland. Still it appeared that she was more than a match for the rest of the Federal fleet, and that these must either fly or be destroyed.
As the general had given him three days' leave, Vincent was able to stay to see the close of the affair, and early next morning again rode down to Sewell's Point, as the Merrimac was to start at daybreak. At six o'clock the ironclad came out from the river and made for the Minnesota, which was still aground. The latter was seen to run up a signal, and the spectators saw an object which they had not before perceived coming out as if to meet the ram. The glasses were directed toward it, and a general exclamation of surprise was heard.
"What is the thing? It looks like a raft with two round turrets upon it, and a funnel." A moment's consideration, and the truth burst upon them. It was the ship they had heard of as building at New York, and which had been launched six weeks before. It was indeed the Monitor, which had arrived during the night, just in time to save the rest of the Federal fleet. She was the first regular ironclad ever built. She was a turret ship, carrying two very heavy guns, and showing only between two and three feet above the water.
The excitement upon both shores as these adversaries approached each other was intense. They moved slowly, and not until they were within a hundred yards distance did the Monitor open fire, the Merrimac replying at once. The fire for a time was heavy and rapid, the distance between the combatants varying from fifty to two hundred yards. The Monitor had by far the greatest speed, and was much more easily turned than the Confederate ram, and her guns were very much heavier, and the Merrimac while still keeping up the fight made toward the mouth of the river.
Suddenly she turned and steamed directly at the Monitor, and before the latter could get out of her way struck her on the side; but the ram was bent and her weak engines were insufficient to propel her with the necessary force. Consequently she inflicted no damage on the Monitor, and the action continued, the turret-ship directing her fire at the iron roof of the ram, while the latter pointed her guns especially at the turret and pilot-house of the Monitor. At length, after a battle which had lasted six hours, the Monitor withdrew, one of the plates of her pilot-house being seriously damaged and her commander injured in the eyes.
When her foe drew off the Merrimac steamed back to Norfolk. There were no men killed in either battle, and each side claimed a victory; the Federals upon the ground that they had driven off the Merrimac, the Confederates because the Monitor had retreated from the fight. Each vessel however held the strength of the other in respect, the Monitor remaining as sentinel over the ships and transports at Fortress Monroe, while the Merrimac at Norfolk continued to guard the entrance into the James River.
As soon as the fight was over Vincent Wingfield, greatly pleased that he had witnessed so strange and interesting a combat, rode back to Norfolk, and the same evening reached Richmond, where his description of the fight was received with the greatest interest and excitement.
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
8
|
McCLELLAN'S ADVANCE.
|
It was not until three weeks after the fight between the ironclads that the great army under General McClellan arrived off Fortress Monroe, the greater portion of the troops coming down the Potomac in steam transports. Vast quantities of stores had been accumulated in and around the fortress. Guns of a size never before used in war were lying on the wharfs in readiness to be placed in batteries, while Hampton Roads were crowded with transports and store vessels watched over by the Monitor and the other war ships. McClellan's army was a large one, but not so strong a force as he had intended to have taken with him, and as soon as he arrived at Fortress Monroe he learned that he would not be able to expect much assistance from the fleet. The Merrimac completely closed the James River; and were the more powerful vessels of the fleet to move up the York River, she would be able to sally out and destroy the rest of the fleet and the transports.
As it was most important to clear the peninsula between the two rivers before Magruder should receive strong reinforcements, a portion of the troops were at once landed, and on the 4th of April 56,000 men and 100 guns disembarked and started on their march against Yorktown. As soon as the news of the arrival of the Northern army at Fortress Monroe reached Richmond fresh steps were taken for the defense of the city. Magruder soon found that it would be impossible with the force at his command to hold the line he had proposed, and a large body of negroes and troops were set to work to throw up defenses between Yorktown and a point on the Warwick River thirteen and a half miles away.
A portion of this line was covered by the Warwick Creek, which he dammed up to make it unfordable, and erected batteries to guard the dams. Across the intervening ground a weak earthwork with trenches was constructed, there being no time to raise stronger works; but Magruder relied chiefly upon the swampy and difficult nature of the country, and the concealment afforded by the forest, which rendered it difficult for the enemy to discover the weakness of the defenders.
He posted 6,000 men at Yorktown and Gloucester Point, and the remaining 5,000 troops under his command were scattered along the line of works to the Warwick River. He knew that if McClellan pushed forward with all his force he must be successful; but he knew also that if the enemy could but be held in check for a few days assistance would reach him from General Johnston's army.
Fortunately for the Confederates, the weather, which had been fine and clear during the previous week, changed on the very day that McClellan started. The rain came down in torrents, and the roads became almost impassable. The columns struggled on along the deep and muddy tracks all day, and bivouacked for the night in the forests. The next morning they resumed their march, and on reaching the first line of intrenchments formed by the Confederates found them deserted, and it was not until they approached the Warwick Creek that they encountered serious opposition. Had they pushed forward at once they would have unquestionably captured Richmond. But McClellan's fault was over-caution, and he believed himself opposed by a very much larger force than that under the command of Magruder; consequently, instead of making an attack at once he began regular siege operations against the works on Warwick Creek and those at Yorktown.
The delay saved Richmond. Every day reinforcements arrived, and by the time that McClellan's army, over 100,000 strong, had erected their batteries and got their heavy guns into position, Magruder had been reinforced by some 10,000 men under General Johnston, who now assumed the command, while other divisions were hurrying up from Northern and Western Virginia. Upon the very night before the batteries were ready to open, the Confederates evacuated their positions and fell back, carrying with them all their guns and stores to the Chickahominy River, which ran almost across the peninsula at a distance of six miles only from Richmond.
The Confederates crossed and broke down the bridges, and prepared to make another stand. The disappointment of the Federals was great. After ten days of incessant labor and hardship they had only gained possession of the village of Yorktown and a tract of low swampy country. The divisions in front pressed forward rapidly after the Confederates; but these had managed their plan so well that all were safely across the stream before they were overtaken.
The dismay in Richmond had for a few days been great. Many people left the town for the interior, taking their valuables with them, and all was prepared for the removal of the state papers and documents. But as the Federals went on with their fortifications, and the reinforcements began to arrive, confidence was restored, and all went on as before.
The great Federal army was so scattered through the forests, and the discipline of some of the divisions was so lax that it was some days before McClellan had them ranged in order on the Chickahominy. Another week elapsed before he was in a position to undertake fresh operations; but General Johnston had now four divisions on the spot, and he was too enterprising a general to await the attack. Consequently he crossed the Chickahominy, fell upon one of the Federal divisions and almost destroyed it, and drove back the whole of their left wing. The next morning the battle was renewed, and lasted for five hours.
It was fortunate indeed for the Confederates that the right wing of the Northern army did not, while the action was going on, cross the river and march straight upon Richmond; but communication was difficult from one part of the army to another, owing to the thick forests and the swampy state of the ground, and being without orders they remained inactive all day. The loss on their side had been 7,000 men, while the Confederates had lost 4,500; and General Johnston being seriously wounded, the chief command was given to General Lee, by far the ablest soldier the war produced. Satisfied with the success they had gained, the Confederates fell back across the river again.
On the 4th of June, General Stuart--for he had now been promoted--started with 1,200 cavalry and two guns, and in forty-eight hours made one of the most adventurous reconnaissances ever undertaken. First the force rode out to Hanover Courthouse, where they encountered and defeated, first, a small body of cavalry, and afterward a whole regiment. Then, after destroying the stores there they rode round to the Pamunkey, burned two vessels and a large quantity of stores, captured a train of forty wagons, and burned a railway bridge.
Then they passed right round the Federal rear, crossed the river, and re-entered the city with 165 prisoners and 200 horses, having effected the destruction of vast quantities of stores, besides breaking up the railways and burning bridges.
Toward the end of June McClellan learned that Stonewall Jackson, having struck heavy blows at the two greatly superior armies which were operating against him in the valley of the Shenandoah, had succeeded in evading them, and was marching toward Richmond.
He had just completed several bridges across the river, and was about to move forward to fight a great battle when the news reached him. Believing that he should be opposed by an army of 200,000 men, although, in fact, the Confederate army, after Jackson and all the available reinforcements came up, was still somewhat inferior in strength to his own, he determined to abandon for the present the attempt upon Richmond, and to fall back upon the James River.
Here his ships had already landed stores for his supply, for the river was now open as far as the Confederate defenses at Fort Darling. Norfolk Navy Yard had been captured by the 10,000 men who formed the garrison of Fortress Monroe. No resistance had been offered, as all the Confederate troops had been concentrated for the defense of Richmond. When Norfolk was captured the Merrimac steamed out to make her way out of the river; but the water was low, and the pilot declared that she could not be taken up. Consequently she was set on fire and burned to the water's edge, and thus the main obstacle to the advance of the Federal fleet was removed.
They had advanced as far as Fort Darling and the ironclad gunboats had engaged the batteries there. Their shot, however, did little damage to the defenders upon the lofty bluffs, while the shot from the batteries so injured the gunboats that the attempt to force the passage was abandoned. While falling back to a place called Harrison's Landing on the James River, the Federals were attacked by the Confederates, but after desperate fighting on both sides, lasting for five days, they succeeded in drawing off from the Chickahominy with a loss of fifty guns, thousands of small arms, and the loss of the greater part of their stores.
All idea of a further advance against Richmond was for the present abandoned. President Lincoln had always been opposed to the plan, and a considerable portion of the army was moved round to join the force under General Pope, which was now to march upon Richmond from the north.
From the commencement of the Federal advance to the time when, beaten and dispirited, they regained the James River, Vincent Wingfield had seen little of his family. The Federal lines had at one time been within a mile of the Orangery. The slaves had some days before been all sent into the interior, and Mrs. Wingfield and her daughters had moved into Richmond, where they joined in the work, to which the whole of the ladies of the town and neighborhood devoted themselves, of attending to the wounded, of whom, while the fighting was going on, long trains arrived every day at the city.
Vincent himself had taken no active part in the fighting. Magruder's division had not been engaged in the first attack upon McClellan's force; and although it had taken a share in the subsequent severe fighting, Vincent had been occupied in carrying messages from the general to the leaders of the other divisions, and had only once or twice come under the storm of fire to which the Confederates were exposed as they plunged through the morasses to attack the enemy. As soon as it was certain that the attack was finally abandoned, and that McClellan's troops were being withdrawn to strengthen Pope's army, Vincent resigned his appointment as aide-de-camp, and was appointed to the 7th Virginian Cavalry, stationed at Orange, where it was facing the Federal cavalry. Major Ashley had fallen while protecting the passage of Jackson's division when hard pressed by one of the Federal armies in Western Virginia.
No action in the war had been more brilliant than the manner in which Stonewall Jackson had baffled the two armies--each greatly superior in force to his own--that had been specially appointed to destroy him if possible, or at any rate to prevent his withdrawing from the Shenandoah Valley and marching to aid in the defense of the Confederate capital. His troops had marched almost day and night, without food, and depending entirely upon such supplies as they could obtain from the scattered farmhouses they passed.
Although Richmond was for the present safe, the prospect of the Confederates was by no means bright. New Orleans had been captured; the blockade of the other ports was now so strict that it was difficult in the extreme for a vessel to make her way in or out; and the Northerners had placed flotillas of gunboats on the rivers, and by the aid of these were gradually making their way into the heart of several of the States.
"Are you thinking of going out to the Orangery again soon, mother?" Vincent asked on the evening before setting out on the march north.
"I think not, Vincent. There is so much to do in the hospitals here that I cannot leave. I should be ashamed to be living in luxury at the Orangery with the girls while other women are giving up their whole time nursing the wounded. Besides, although I do not anticipate that after the way they have been hurled back the Northerners will try again for some time, now they are in possession of Harrison's Landing they can at any moment advance. Besides, it is not pleasant being obliged to turn out of one's house and leave everything to their mercy. I wrote yesterday to Pearson to bring the slaves back at once and take up the work, and I shall go over occasionally to see that everything is in order; but at any rate for a time we will stop here."
"I think that is best, mother. Certainly I should feel more comfortable knowing that you are all at Richmond than alone out there."
"We should be no worse off than thousands of ladies all over the State, Vincent. There are whole districts where every white capable of using a gun has gone to the war, leaving nothing but women and slaves behind, and we have not heard of a single case in which there has been trouble."
"Certainly there is no chance of trouble with your slaves, mother; but in some of the other plantations it may not be so. At any rate the quiet conduct of the slaves everywhere is the very best answer that could be given to the accusations that have been made as to their cruel treatment. At present the whole of the property of the slave-owners throughout the Southern States is at their mercy, and they might burn, kill, and destroy; and yet in no single instance have they risen against what are called their oppressors, even when the Federals have been close at hand.
"Please keep your eye on Dinah, mother. I distrust that fellow Jackson so thoroughly that I believe him capable of having her carried off and smuggled away somewhere down south, and sold there if he saw a chance. I wish, instead of sending her to the Orangery, you would keep her as one of your servants here."
"I will if you wish it, Vincent; but I cannot believe for a moment that this Jackson or any one else would venture to meddle with any of my slaves."
"Perhaps not, mother; but it is best to be on the safe side. Anyhow, I shall be glad to know that she is with you. Young Jackson will be away, for I know he is in one of Stuart's troops of horse, though I have never happened to run against him since the war began."
The firing had hardly ceased before Harrison's Landing, when General Jackson, with a force of about 15,000 men, composed of his own division, now commanded by General Winder, General Ewell's division, and a portion of that of General Hill, started for the Rapidan to check General Pope, who, plundering and wasting the country as he advanced, was marching south, his object being to reach Gordonsville, where he would cut the line of railway connecting Richmond with Western Virginia. Vincent was glad that the regiment to which he had been appointed would be under Jackson's command, and that he would be campaigning again with his old division, which consisted largely of Virginian troops and contained so many of his old friends.
With Jackson, too, he was certain to be engaged in stirring service, for that general ever kept his troops upon the march, striking blows where least expected, and traversing such an extent of country by rapid marches that he and his division seemed to the enemy to be almost ubiquitous.
It was but a few hours after he received his appointment that Vincent took train from Richmond to Gordonsville, Dan being in the horse-box with Wildfire in the rear of the train. His regiment was encamped a mile or two away, and he at once rode on and reported himself to Colonel Jones, who commanded it.
"I am glad to have you with me, sir," the colonel said. "I had the pleasure of knowing your father, and am an old friend of your mother's family. As you were in Ashley's horse and have been serving on Magruder's staff, you are well up in your duties; and it is a comfort to me that the vacancy has been filled up by one who knows his work instead of a raw hand. We have had a brush or two already with the enemy; but at present we are watching each other, waiting on both sides till the generals have got their infantry to the front in readiness for an advance. Jackson is waiting for Hill's division to come up, and I believe Pope is expecting great reinforcements from McClellan."
A few days later Colonel Jones was ordered to take charge of the pickets posted on the Rapidan, but before reaching Orange a gentleman rode up at full speed and informed them that the enemy were in possession of that town. Colonel Jones divided his regiment into two parts, and with one charged the Federal cavalry in the main street of Orange, while the other portion of the regiment, under Major Marshall, attacked them on the flank. After a sharp fight the enemy were driven from the place; but they brought up large reinforcements, and, pouring in a heavy fire, attacked the town on both sides, and the Confederates had to fall back. But they made another stand a little way out of the town, and drove back the Federal cavalry who were pressing them.
Although the fight had been but a short one the losses in the cavalry ranks had been serious. Colonel Jones, while charging at the head of his men, had received a saber-wound, and Major Marshall was taken prisoner.
Five days later, on the 7th of August, Jackson received certain intelligence that General Burnside, with a considerable portion of McClellan's force, had embarked, and was on the way to join Pope. He determined to strike a blow at once, and marched with his entire force from Gordonsville for Barnett Ford on the Rapidan.
At daybreak next morning the cavalry crossed the river and attacked and routed a body of Federal cavalry on the road to Culpepper Courthouse. On the following day Jackson came up with his infantry to a point about eight miles from Culpepper, where Pope's army, 32,000 strong, were stationed upon the crest of a hill. General Ewell's division, which was the only one then up, at once advanced, and, after a severe artillery fight, gained a point on a hill where his guns could command the enemy's position.
Jackson's division now came up, and as it was moving into position General Winder was killed by a shell. For some hours Jackson did not attempt to advance, as Hill's division had not come up. Encouraged by this delay, the enemy at five o'clock in the afternoon took the offensive and advanced through some cornfields lying between the two armies and attacked Ewell's division on the Confederate right; while shortly afterward they fell with overwhelming strength on Jackson's left, and, attacking it in front, flank, and rear, drove it back, and pressed upon it with such force that the day appeared lost.
At this moment Jackson himself rode down among the confused and wavering troops, and by his voice and example rallied them. At the same moment the old Stonewall Brigade came up at a run and poured their fire into the advancing enemy. Jackson led the troops he had rallied forward. The Stonewall Brigade fell upon the enemy's flank and drove them back with terrible slaughter. Other brigades came up, and there was a general charge along the whole Confederate line, and the Federals were driven back a mile beyond the position they had occupied at the commencement of the fight to the shelter of some thick woods. Four hundred prisoners were taken and over 5,000 small-arms.
The battle was known as Cedar Run, and it completely checked Pope's advance upon Richmond. The troops were too much exhausted to follow up their victory, but Jackson urged them to press forward. They moved a mile and a half in advance, and then found themselves so strongly opposed that Jackson, believing that the enemy must have received reinforcements, halted his men. Colonel Jones was sent forward to reconnoiter, and discovered that a large force had joined the enemy.
For two days Jackson remained on the field he had won; his troops had been busy in burying the dead, in collecting the wounded and sending them to the rear, and in gathering the arms thrown away by the enemy in their flight. Being assured that the enemy were now too strong to be attacked by the force under his command, Jackson fell back to Orange Courthouse. There was now a few days' delay, while masses of troops were on both sides moving toward the new field of action. McClellan marched his troops across the James Peninsula from Harrison's Landing to Yorktown, and there the greater portion were embarked in transports and taken up the Rappahannock to Aquia Creek, landed there, and marched to Fredericksburg.
Lee, instead of attacking McClellan on his march across the peninsula, determined to take his army north at once to join Jackson and attack Pope before he was joined by McClellan's army. But Pope, although already largely reinforced, retired hastily and took up a new position so strongly fortified that he could not be attacked. General Stuart had come up with Lee, and was in command of all the cavalry.
"We shall see some work now," was the remark round the fires of the 7th Virginian Cavalry. Hitherto, although they had been several times engaged with the Federals, they had been forced to remain for the most part inactive owing to the vast superiority in force of the enemy's cavalry; but now that Stuart had come up they felt certain that, whatever the disparity of numbers, there would soon be some dashing work to be done.
Except when upon actual duty the strict lines of military discipline were much relaxed among the cavalry, the troopers being almost all the sons of farmers and planters and of equal social rank with their officers, many of whom were their personal friends or relatives. Several of Vincent's schoolfellows were in the ranks; two or three of them were fellow officers, and these often gathered together round a camp fire and chatted over old schooldays and mutual friends.
Many of these had already fallen, for the Virginian regiments of Stonewall Jackson's brigade had been terribly thinned; but the loss of so many friends and the knowledge that their own turn might come next did not suffice to lessen the high spirits of the young fellows. The hard work, the rough life, the exposure and hardship, had braced and invigorated them all, and they were attaining a far more vigorous manhood than they would ever have possessed had they grown up in the somewhat sluggish and enervating life led by young planters.
Many of these young men had, until the campaign began, never done half an hour's hard work in their lives. They had been waited upon by slaves, and their only exercise had been riding. For months now they had almost lived in the saddle, had slept in the open air, and had thought themselves lucky if they could obtain a sufficient meal of the roughest food to satisfy their hunger once a day. In this respect, however, the cavalry were better off than their comrades of the infantry, for scouting as they did in small parties over a wide extent of country, they were sure of a meal and a hearty welcome whenever they could spare time to stop for half an hour at the house of a farmer.
"It's a glorious life, Wingfield! When we chatted over the future at school we never dreamed of such a life as this, though some of us did talk of entering the army; but even then an occasional skirmish with Indians was the limit of our ideas."
"Yes, it is a glorious life!" Vincent agreed. "I cannot imagine anything more exciting. Of course, there is the risk of being shot, but somehow one never seems to think of that. There is always something to do and to think about; from the time one starts on a scout at daybreak to that when one lies down at night one's senses are on the stretch. Besides, we are fighting in defense of our country and not merely as a profession, though I don't suppose, after all, that makes much difference when one is once in for it. As far as I have read all soldiers enjoy campaigning, and it does not seem to make any difference to them who are the foe or what they are fighting about. But I should like to feel a little more sure that we shall win in the long run."
There was a chorus of indignant protests against there being any possible doubts as to the issue.
"Why, we have thrashed them every time we have met them, Wingfield."
"That is all very well," Vincent said. "Here in Virginia we have held our own, and more than held it. We have beat back Scott and McClellan, and now we have thrashed Pope; and Stonewall Jackson has won a dozen battles in Western Virginia. But you must remember that in other parts they are gradually closing in; all the ports not already taken are closely blockaded; they are pushing all along the lines of the great rivers; and worst of all, they can fill up their vacancies with Irishmen and Germans, and as fast as one army disappears another takes its place. I believe we shall beat them again and again, and shall prove, as we have proved before, that one Southerner fighting for home and liberty is more than a match for two hired Germans or Irishmen, even with a good large sprinkling of Yankees among them. But in the long run I am not sure that we shall win, for they can go on putting big armies into the field, while some day we must get used up.
"Of course it is possible that we may some day capture Washington, and that the North may get weary of the tremendous drain of money and men caused by their attempt to conquer us. I hope it may be so, for I should like to think that we should win in the long run. I never feel any doubt about our winning a battle when we begin. My only fear is that we may get used up before the North are tired of it."
"I did not expect to hear you talk so, Wingfield, for you always seem to be in capital spirits."
"I am in capital spirits," Vincent replied, "and ready to fight again and again, and always confident we shall lick the Yankees; the fact that I have a doubt whether in the long run we shall outlast them does not interfere in the slightest degree with my comfort at present. I am very sorry though that this fellow Pope is carrying on the war so brutally instead of in the manner in which General McClellan and the other commanders have waged it. His proclamation that the army must subsist upon the country it passes through gives a direct invitation to the soldiers to pillage, and his order that all farmers who refuse to take the oath to the Union are to be driven from their homes and sent down south means ruin to all the peaceful inhabitants, for there is scarcely a man in this part of Virginia who is not heartily with us."
"I hear," one of the other officers said, "that a prisoner who was captured this morning says that Pope already sees that he has made a mistake, and that he yesterday issued a fresh order saying that the proclamation was not meant to authorize pillage. He finds that the inhabitants who before, whatever their private sentiments were, maintained a sort of neutrality, are now hostile, that they drive off their cattle into the woods, and even set fire to their stacks, to prevent anything from being carried off by the Yanks; and his troops find the roads broken up and bridges destroyed and all sorts of difficulties thrown in their way."
"It does not always pay--even in war--to be brutal. I am glad to see he has found out his mistake so soon," another officer said. "McClellan waged war like a gentleman; and if blackguards are to be allowed to carry fire and sword through the land they will soon find it is a game that two can play at, and matters will become horribly embittered."
"We shall never do that," Vincent said. "Our generals are all gentlemen, and Lee and Jackson and many others are true Christians as well as true soldiers, and I am sure they will never countenance that on our side whatever the Northerners may do. We are ready to fight the hordes of Yankees and Germans and Irishmen as often as they advance against us, but I am sure that none of us would fire a homestead or ill-treat defenseless men and women. It is a scandal that such brutalities are committed by the ruffians who call themselves Southerners. The guerrillas in Missouri and Tennessee are equally bad whether on our side or the other, and if I were the president I would send down a couple of regiments, and hunt down the fellows who bring dishonor on our cause. If the South cannot free herself without the aid of ruffians of this kind she had better lay down her arms at once."
"Bravo, Wingfield! spoken like a knight of chivalry!" one of the others laughed. "But many of these bands have done good nevertheless. They have kept the enemy busy there, and occupied the attention of a very large force who might otherwise have been in the woods yonder with Pope. I agree with you, it would be better if the whole thing were fought out with large armies, but there is a good deal to be said for these bands you are so severe upon. They are composed of men who have been made desperate by seeing their farms harried and their buildings burned by the enemy. They have been denounced as traitors by their neighbors on the other side, and if they retaliate I don't know that they are to be altogether blamed. I know that if my place at home were burned down and my people insulted and ill-treated I should be inclined to set off to avenge it."
"So would I," Vincent agreed, "but it should be upon those who did the wrong, not upon innocent people."
"That is all very well, but if the other side destroy your people's farms, it is only by showing them that two can play at the game that you can make them observe the laws of war. I grant it would be very much better that no such thing should take place; but if the Northerners begin this sort of work they may be sure that there will be retaliation. Anyhow, I am glad that I am an officer in the 7th Virginians and not a guerrilla leader in Missouri. Well, all this talking is dry work. Has no one got a full canteen?"
"I have," Vincent said. "Dan managed to buy a gallon of rum at a farmhouse yesterday. I think the farmer was afraid that the enemy might be paying him a visit before many days, and thought it best to get rid of his spirits. Anyhow, Dan got the keg at ordinary city prices, as well as that couple of fine turkeys he is just bringing along for our supper. So you had better each get your ration of bread and fall to."
There was a cheer as Dan placed the turkeys down in the center of the group, and soon the whole party, using their bread as plates, fell to upon them, and afterward joined in many a merry song, while Dan handed round the jar of spirits.
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
9
|
A PRISONER.
|
The party round the fire were just about to disperse when the captain of Vincent's troop approached. He took the horn of spirits and water that Vincent held up to him and tossed it off.
"That is a stirrup-cup, Wingfield."
"What! are we for duty, captain?" Vincent asked as he rose to his feet.
"Yes; our troop and Harper's are to muster. Get the men together quietly. I think it is a serious business; each of the regiments furnish other troops, and I believe Stuart himself takes the command."
"That sounds like work, indeed," Vincent said. "I will get the troop together, sir."
"There are to be no trumpet calls, Wingfield; we are to get off as quietly as possible."
Most of the men were already fast asleep, but as soon as they learned that there was a prospect of active work all were full of life and animation. The girths of the saddles were tightened, swords buckled on, and revolvers carefully examined before being placed in the holsters. Many of the men carried repeating rifles, and the magazines were filled before these were slung across the riders' shoulders.
In a few minutes the three troops were mounted and in readiness for a start, and almost directly afterward Colonel Jones himself rode up and took the command. A thrill of satisfaction ran through the men as he did so, for it was certain that he would not himself be going in command of the detachment unless the occasion was an important one. For a few minutes no move was made.
"I suppose the others are going to join us here," Vincent said to the officer next him.
"I suppose so," he replied. "We lie in the middle of the cavalry brigade with two regiments each side of us, so it is likely enough this is the gathering place. Yes, I can hear the tramping of horses."
"And I felt a spot of rain," Vincent said. "It has been lightning for some time. I fear we are in for a wet ride."
The contingent from the other regiments soon arrived, and just as the last came up General Stuart himself appeared and took his place at the head of the party, now some 500 strong. Short as the time had been since Vincent felt the first drop, the rain was now coming down in torrents. One by one the bright flames of the fires died down, and the darkness became so intense that Vincent could scarcely see the officer on his right hand.
"I hope the man who rode up with the general, and is no doubt to be our guide, knows the country well. It is no joke finding our way through a forest on such a night as this."
"I believe Stuart's got eyes like a cat," the officer said. "Sometimes on a dark night he has come galloping up to a post where I was in command, when one could scarcely see one's hand before one. It never seems to make any difference to him; day or night he rides about at a gallop."
"He trusts his horse," Vincent said. "That's the only way in the dark. They can see a lot better than we can, and if men would but let them go their own way instead of trying to guide them they would seldom run against anything. The only thing is to lie well down on the horse's neck, otherwise one might get swept out of the saddle by a bough. It's a question of nerve, I think not many of us would do as Stuart does, and trust himself entirely to his horse's instinct."
The word was now passed down the line that perfect silence was to be observed, and that they were to move forward in column, the ranks closing up as much as possible so as not to lose touch of each other. With heads bent down, and blankets wrapped round them as cloaks, the cavalry rode off through the pouring rain. The thunder was clashing overhead, and the flashes of the lightning enabled them to keep their places in close column. They went at a rapid trot, and even those who were ready to charge a body of the enemy, however numerous, without a moment's hesitation, experienced a feeling of nervousness as they rode on in the darkness through the thick forest on their unknown errand. That they were going northward they knew, and knew also, after a short time, that they must be entering the lines of the enemy. They saw no signs of watch-fires, for these would long since have been quenched by the downpour. After half an hour's brisk riding all knew by the sharp sound of the beat of the horses' hoofs that they had left the soft track through the forest and were now upon a regular road.
"Thank goodness for that!" Vincent said in a low tone to his next neighbor. "I don't mind a brush with the enemy, but I own I don't like the idea that at any moment my brains may be knocked out by the branch of a tree."
"I quite agree with you," the other replied; "and I fancy every man felt the same."
There was no doubt as to this. Hitherto no sound had been heard save the jingling of accouterments and the dull heavy sound of the horses' tread; but now there could be heard mingled with these the buzz of voices, and occasionally a low laugh. They were so accustomed to wet that the soaking scarce inconvenienced them. They were out of the forest now, and felt sure of their guide; and as to the enemy, they only longed to discover them.
For another hour the rapid advance continued, and all felt sure that they must now have penetrated through the enemy's lines and be well in his rear. At last they heard a challenge of sentry. Then Stuart's voice shouted, "Charge!" and at full gallop they rode into the village at Catlet's Station on the Orange and Alexandria railroad, where General Pope had his headquarters. Another minute and they were in the midst of the enemy's camp, where the wildest confusion reigned. The Federal officers rushed from their tents and made off in the darkness; but the soldiers, who were lying on the line of railroad, leaped to their feet and opened a heavy fire upon their invisible foes. Against this the cavalry, broken up in the camp, with its tents, its animals, and its piles of baggage, could do little, for it was impossible to form them up in the broken and unknown ground.
The quarters of Pope were soon discovered; he himself had escaped, leaving his coat and hat behind. Many of his officers were captured, and in his quarters were found a box of official papers which were invaluable, as among them were copies of his letters asking for reinforcements, lists giving the strength and position of his troops, and other particulars of the greatest value to the Confederates. No time was lost, as the firing would set the whole Federal army on the alert, and they might find their retreat cut off. Therefore placing their prisoners in the center, and taking the box of papers with them, the cavalry were called off from the camp, and without delay started on their return ride.
They did not take the road by which they had come, but made a long detour, and just as daylight was breaking re-entered the Confederate lines without having encountered a foe from the time of their leaving Catlet's Station. Short as their stay in the camp had been, few of the men had returned empty handed. The Northern army was supplied with an abundance of excellent food of all descriptions, forming the strongest possible contrast to the insufficient rations upon which the Confederate troops existed, and the troopers had helped themselves to whatever they could lay hands upon in the darkness and confusion.
Some rode in with a ham slung on each side of their saddle, others had secured a bottle or two of wine or spirits. Some had been fortunate enough to lay hands on some tins of coffee or a canister of tea, luxuries which for months had been unknown to them save when they were captured from the enemy. The only article captured of no possible utility was General Pope's coat, which was sent to Richmond, where it was hung up for public inspection; a wag sticking up a paper beside it, "This is the coat in which General Pope was going to ride in triumph into Richmond. The coat is here, but the general has not yet arrived."
The Confederates had lost but two or three men from the fire of the Federal infantry, and they were in high spirits at the success of their raid. No sooner had General Lee informed himself of the contents of the papers and the position of the enemy's forces than he determined to strike a heavy blow at him; and General Jackson, who had been sharply engaged with the enemy near Warrenton, was ordered to make a long detour, to cross the Blue Ridge mountains through Thoroughfare Gap, to fall upon Pope's rear and cut his communications with Washington, and if possible to destroy the vast depot of stores collected at Manassas.
The cavalry, under Stuart, were to accompany him. The march would be a tremendous one, the danger of thus venturing into the heart of the enemy's country immense, but the results of such an expedition would, if successful, be great; for Lee himself was to advance with his army on Pope's flank, and there was therefore a possibility of the utter defeat of that general before he could be joined by the army marching to reinforce him from Fredericksburg.
It was on Monday the 25th of August that Jackson started on his march, ascending the banks of the Rappahannock, and crossed the river at a ford, dragging his artillery with difficulty up the narrow and rocky road beyond. There was not a moment to be lost, for if the news reached the enemy the gorge known as Thoroughfare Gap would be occupied, and the whole object of the movement be defeated. Onward the force pushed, pressing on through fields and lanes without a single halt, until at night, hungry and weary but full of spirit, they marched into the little town of Salem, twenty miles from their starting-place. They had neither wagons nor provisions with them, and had nothing to eat but some ears of corn and green apples plucked on the road.
It was midnight when they reached Salem, and the inhabitants turned out in blank amazement at the sight of Confederate troops in that region, and welcomed the weary soldiers with the warmest manifestations. At daylight they were again upon the march, with Stuart's cavalry, as before, out upon each flank. Thoroughfare Gap was reached, and found undefended, and after thirty miles' marching the exhausted troops reached the neighborhood of Manassas. The men were faint from want of food, and many of them limped along barefooted; but they were full of enthusiasm.
Just at sunset, Stuart, riding on ahead, captured Bristoe, a station on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad four miles from Manassas. As they reached it a train came along at full speed. It was fired at, but did not stop, and got safely through to Manassas. Two trains that followed were captured; but by this time the alarm had spread, and no more trains arrived. Jackson had gained his point. He had placed himself on the line of communication of the enemy, but his position was a dangerous one indeed. Lee, who was following him, was still far away. An army was marching from Fredericksburg against him, another would be despatched from Washington as soon as the news of his presence was known, and Pope might turn and crush him before Lee could arrive to his assistance.
Worn out as the troops were, it was necessary at once to gain possession of Manassas, and the 21st North Carolina and 21st Georgia volunteered for the service, and, joined by Stuart with a portion of his cavalry, marched against it. After a brief contest the place was taken, the enemy stationed there being all taken prisoners. The amount of arms and stores captured was prodigious: Eight pieces of artillery, 250 horses, 3 locomotives, and tens of thousands of barrels of beef, pork, and flour, with an enormous quantity of public stores and the contents of innumerable sutlers' shops.
The sight of this vast abundance to starving men was tantalizing in the extreme. It was impossible to carry any of it away and all that could be done was to have at least one good meal. The troops therefore were marched in and each helped himself to as much as he could consume, and the ragged and barefooted men feasted upon tinned salmon and lobsters, champagne and dainties of every description forwarded for the use of officers. Then they set to work to pile the enormous mass of stores together and to set it on fire. While they were engaged at this a brigade of New Jersey troops which had come out from Washington to save Manassas was attacked and utterly routed. Ewell's division had remained at Bristoe, while those of Hill and Jackson moved to Manassas, and in the course of the afternoon Ewell saw the whole of Pope's army marching against him.
He held them in check for some hours, and thus gave the troops at Manassas time to destroy completely the vast accumulation of stores, and when Stuart's cavalry, covering the retreat, fell back at nightfall through Manassas, nothing but blackened cinders remained where the Federal depots had been situated. The blow to the Northerners was as heavy as it was unexpected. Pope had no longer either provisions for his men or forage for his cattle, and there was nothing left for him but to force his way past Jackson and retire upon Washington.
Jackson had now the option of falling back and allowing the enemy to pass, or of withstanding the whole Federal army with his own little force until Lee came up to the rescue. He chose the latter course, and took up a strong position. The sound of firing at Thoroughfare Gap was audible, and he knew that Longstreet's division of Lee's army was hotly engaged with a force which, now that it was too late, had been sent to hold the gorge. It was nearly sunset before Pope brought up his men to the attack. Jackson did not stand on the defensive, but rushed down and attacked the enemy--whose object had been to pass the position and press on--with such vigor that at nine o'clock they fell back.
An hour later a horseman rode up with the news that Longstreet had passed the Gap and was pressing on at full speed, and in the morning his forces were seen approaching, the line they were taking bringing them up at an angle to Jackson's position. Thus their formation as they arrived was that of an open V, and it was through the angle of this V that Pope had to force his way. Before Longstreet could arrive, however, the enemy hurled themselves upon Jackson, and for hours the Confederates held their own against the vast Federal army, Longstreet's force being too far away to lend them a hand. Ammunition failed, and the soldiers fought with piles of stones, but night fell without any impression being made upon these veterans. General Lee now came up with General Hood's division, and hurled this against the Federals and drove them back. In the evening Longstreet's force took up the position General Lee had assigned to it, and in the morning all the Confederate army had arrived, and the battle recommenced.
The struggle was long and terrible; but by nightfall every attack had been repulsed, and the Confederates, advancing on all sides, drove the Northerners, a broken and confused crowd, before them, the darkness alone saving them from utter destruction. Had there been but one hour more of daylight the defeat would have been as complete as was that in the battle of Bull Run, which had been fought on precisely the same ground. However, under cover of the darkness the Federals retreated to Centreville, whence they were driven on the following day.
In the tremendous fighting in which Jackson's command had for three long days been engaged, the cavalry bore a comparatively small part. The Federal artillery was too powerful to permit the employment of large bodies of cavalry and although from time to time charges were made when an opportunity seemed to offer itself, the battle was fought out by the infantry and artillery. When the end came Jackson's command was for a time hors de combat. During the long two days' march they had at least gathered corn and apples to sustain life; but during these three days' fighting they had had no food whatever, and many were so weak that they could no longer march.
They had done all that was possible for men to do; had for two days withstood the attack of an enemy of five times their numbers, and had on the final day borne their full share in the great struggle, but now the greater part could do no more, thousands of men were unable to drag themselves a step further, and Lee's army was reduced in strength for the time by nearly 20,000 men. All these afterward rejoined it; some as soon as they recovered limped away to take their places in the ranks again, others made their way to the depot at Warrenton, where Lee had ordered that all unable to accompany his force should rendezvous until he returned and they were able to rejoin their regiments.
Jackson marched away and laid siege to Harper's Ferry, an important depot garrisoned by 11,000 men, who were forced to surrender just as McClellan with a fresh army, 100,000 strong, which was pressing forward to its succor, arrived within a day's march. As soon as Jackson had taken the place he hurried away with his troops to join Lee, who was facing the enemy at the Antietam river. Here upon the following day another terrible battle was fought; the Confederates, though but 39,000 strong, repulsing every attack by the Federals, and driving them with terrible slaughter back across the river.
Their own loss, however, had been very heavy, and Lee, knowing that he could expect no assistance, while the enemy were constantly receiving reinforcements, waited for a day to collect his wounded, bury his dead, and send his stores and artillery to the rear, and then retired unpursued across the Rappahannock. Thus the hard-fought campaign came to an end.
Vincent Wingfield was not with the army that retired across the Rappahannock. A portion of the cavalry had followed the broken Federals to the very edge of the stream, and just as they reined in their horses a round shot from one of the Federal batteries carried away his cap, and he fell as if dead from his horse. During the night some of the Northerners crossed the stream to collect and bring back their own wounded who had fallen near it, and coming across Vincent, and finding that he still breathed, and was apparently without a wound, they carried him back with them across the river as a prisoner.
Vincent had indeed escaped without a wound, having been only stunned by the passage of the shot that had carried away his cap, and missed him but by the fraction of an inch. He had begun to recover consciousness just as his captors came up, and the action of carrying him completely restored him. That he had fallen into the hands of the Northerners he was well aware; but he was unable to imagine how this had happened. He remembered that the Confederates had been, up to the moment when he fell, completely successful, and he could only imagine that in a subsequent attack the Federals had turned the tables upon them.
How he himself had fallen, or what had happened to him, he had no idea. Beyond a strange feeling of numbness in the head he was conscious of no injury, and he could only imagine that his horse had been shot under him, and that he must have fallen upon his head. The thought that his favorite horse was killed afflicted him almost as much as his own capture. As soon as his captors perceived that their prisoner's consciousness had returned they at once reported that an officer of Stuart's cavalry had been taken, and at daybreak next morning General McClellan on rising was acquainted with the fact, and Vincent was conducted to his tent.
"You are unwounded, sir?" the general said in some surprise.
"I am, general," Vincent replied. "I do not know how it happened, but I believe that my horse must have been shot under me, and that I must have been thrown and stunned; however, I remember nothing from the moment when I heard the word halt, just as we reached the side of the stream, to that when I found myself being carried here."
"You belong to the cavalry?"
"Yes, sir."
"Was Lee's force all engaged yesterday?"
"I do not know," Vincent said. "I only came up with Jackson's division from Harper's Ferry the evening before."
"I need not have questioned you," McClellan said. "I know that Lee's whole army, 100,000 strong, opposed me yesterday."
Vincent was silent. He was glad to see that the Federal general, as usual, enormously overrated the strength of the force opposed to him.
"I hear that the whole of the garrison of Harper's Ferry were released on parole not to serve again during the war. If you are ready to give me your promise to the same effect I will allow you to return to your friends; if not, you must remain a prisoner until you are regularly exchanged."
"I must do so, then, general," Vincent said quietly. "I could not return home and remain inactive while every man in the South is fighting for the defense of his country, so I will take my chance of being exchanged."
"I am sorry you choose that alternative," McClellan said. "I hate to see brave men imprisoned if only for a day; and braver men than those across yonder stream are not to be found. My officers and men are astonished. They seem so thin and worn as to be scarce able to lift a musket, their clothes are fit only for a scarecrow, they are indeed pitiful objects to look at; but the way in which they fight is wonderful. I could not have believed had I not seen it, that men could have charged as they did again and again across ground swept by a tremendous artillery and musketry fire; it was wonderful! I can tell you, young sir, that even though you beat us we are proud of you as our countrymen; and I believe that if your General Jackson were to ride through our camp he would be cheered as lustily and heartily by our men as he is by his own."
Some fifty or sixty other prisoners had been taken; they had been captured in the hand-to-hand struggle that had taken place on some parts of the field, having got separated from their corps and mixed up with the enemy, and carried off the field with them as they retired. These for the most part accepted the offered parole; but some fifteen, like Vincent, preferred a Northern prison to promising to abstain from fighting in defense of their country, and in the middle of the day they were placed together in a tent under a guard at the rear of the camp.
The next morning came the news that Lee had fallen back. There was exultation among the Federals, not unmingled with a strong sense of relief; for the heavy losses inflicted in the previous fighting had taken all the ardor of attack out of McClellan's army, and they were glad indeed that they were not to be called upon to make another attempt to drive the Confederates from their position. Vincent was no less pleased at the news. He knew how thin were the ranks of the Confederate fighting men, and how greatly they were worn and exhausted by fatigue and want of food, and that, although they had the day before repulsed the attacks of the masses of well-fed Northerners, such tremendous exertions could not often be repeated, and a defeat, with the river in their rear, approachable only by one rough and narrow road, would have meant a total destruction of the army.
The next morning Vincent and his companions were put into the train and sent to Alexandria. They had no reason to complain of their treatment upon the way. They were well fed, and after their starvation diet for the last six weeks their rations seemed to them actually luxurious. The Federal troops in Alexandria, who were for the most part young recruits who had just arrived from the north and west, looked with astonishment upon these thin and ragged men, several of whom were barefooted. Was it possible that such scarecrows as these could in every battle have driven back the well-fed and cared-for Northern soldiers!
"Are they all like this?" one burly young soldier from a western state asked their guard.
"That's them, sir," the sergeant in charge of the party replied. "Not much to look at, are they? But, by gosh, you should see them fight! You wouldn't think of their looks then."
"If that's soldiering," the young farmer said solemnly, "the sooner I am back home again the better. But it don't seem to me altogether strange as they should fight so hard, because I should say they must look upon it as a comfort to be killed rather than to live like that."
A shout of laughter from the prisoners showed the young rustic that the objects of his pity did not consider life to be altogether intolerable even under such circumstances, and he moved away meditating on the discomforts of war, and upon the remarks that would be made were he to return home in so sorrowful a plight as that of these Confederate prisoners.
"I bargained to fight," he said, "and though I don't expect I shall like it, I sha'n't draw back when the time comes; but as to being starved till you are nigh a skeleton, and going about barefooted and in such rags as a tramp wouldn't look at, it ain't reasonable." And yet, had he known it, among those fifteen prisoners more than half were possessors of wide estates, and had been brought up from their childhood in the midst of luxuries such as the young farmer never dreamed of.
Among many of the soldiers sympathy took a more active form, and men pressed forward and gave packets of tobacco, cigars, and other little presents to them, while two or three pressed rolls of dollar notes into their hands, with words of rough kindness.
"There ain't no ill feeling in us, Rebs. You have done your work like men and no doubt you thinks your cause is right, just as we does; but it's all over now, and maybe our turn will come next to see the inside of one of your prisons down south. So we are just soldiers together, and can feel for each other."
Discipline in small matters was never strictly enforced in the American armies, and the sergeant in charge offered no opposition to the soldiers mingling with the prisoners as they walked along.
Two days later they were sent by railway to the great prison at Elmira, a town in the southwest of the State of New York. When they reached the jail the prisoners were separated, Vincent, who was the only officer, being assigned quarters with some twenty others of the same rank. The prisoners crowded round him as he entered, eager to hear the last news from the front, for they heard from their guards only news of constant victories won by the Northerners; for every defeat was transformed by the Northern papers into a brilliant victory, and it was only when the shattered remains of the various armies returned to Alexandria to be re-formed that the truth gradually leaked out. Thus Antietam had been claimed as a great Northern victory, for although McClellan's troops had in the battle been hurled back shattered and broken across the river, two days afterward Lee had retired.
One of the prisoners, who was also dressed in cavalry uniform, hung back from the rest, and going to the window looked out while Vincent was chatting with the others. Presently he turned round, and Vincent recognized with surprise his old opponent Jackson. After a moment's hesitation he walked across the room to him.
"Jackson," he said, "we have not been friends lately, but I don't see why we should keep up our quarrel any longer; we got on all right at school together; and now we are prisoners together here it would be foolish to continue our quarrel. Perhaps we were both somewhat to blame in that affair. I am quite willing to allow I was, for one, but I think we might well put it all aside now."
Jackson hesitated, and then took the hand Vincent held out to him.
"That's right, young fellows," one of the other officers said. "Now that every Southern gentleman is fighting and giving his life, if need be, for his country, no one has a right to have private quarrels of his own. Life is short enough as it is, certainly too short to indulge in private animosities. A few weeks ago we were fighting side by side, and facing death together; to-day we are prisoners; a week hence we may be exchanged, and soon take our places in the ranks again. It's the duty of all Southerners to stand shoulder to shoulder, and there ought to be no such thing as ill-feeling among ourselves."
Vincent was not previously aware that Jackson had obtained a commission. He now learned that he had been chosen by his comrades to fill a vacancy caused by the death of an officer in a skirmish just before Pope fell back from the Rappahannock, and that he had been made prisoner a few days afterward in a charge against a greatly superior body of Federal cavalry.
The great majority of the officers on both sides were at the commencement of the war chosen by their comrades, the elections at first taking place once a year. This, however, was found to act very badly. In some cases the best men in the regiment were chosen; but too often men who had the command of money, and could afford to stand treat and get in supplies of food and spirits, were elected. The evils of the system were found so great, indeed, that it was gradually abandoned; but in cases of vacancies occurring in the field, and there being a necessity for at once filling them up, the colonels of the regiments had power to make appointments, and if the choice of the men was considered to be satisfactory their nominee would be generally chosen.
In the case of Jackson, the colonel had hesitated in confirming the choice of the men. He did not for a moment suspect him to be wanting in courage; but he regarded him as one who shirked his work, and who won the votes of the men rather by a fluent tongue and by the violence of his expressions of hatred against the North than by any soldierly qualities.
Some of the officers had been months in prison, and they were highly indignant at the delays that had occurred in effecting their exchange. The South, indeed, would have been only too glad to get rid of some of their numerous prisoners, who were simply an expense and trouble to them, and to get their own men back into their ranks. They could ill spare the soldiers required to guard so large a number of prisoners, and a supply of food was in itself a serious matter.
Thus it was that at Harper's Ferry and upon a good many other occasions they released vast numbers of prisoners on their simple paroles not to serve again. The North, however, were in no hurry to make exchange; and moreover, their hands were so full with their enormous preparations that they put aside all matters which had not the claim of urgency.
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
10
|
THE ESCAPE.
|
The discipline in the prison at Elmira was not rigorous. The prisoners had to clean up the cells, halls, and yard, but the rest of their time they could spend as they liked. Some of those whose friends had money were able to live in comparative luxury, and to assist those who had no such resources; for throughout the war there was never any great difficulty in passing letters to and from the South. The line of frontier was enormous, and it was only at certain points that hostilities, were actively carried on; consequently letters and newspapers were freely passed, and money could be sent in the same way from one part of the country to another.
At certain hours of the day hawkers and vendors of such articles as were in most demand by the prisoners were allowed to enter the yard and to sell their wares to the Confederates. Spirits were not allowed to be carried in, but tobacco and all kinds of food were permitted to pass. Vincent had at Alexandria written a letter to his mother, and had given it to a man who represented that he made it his business to forward letters to an agent at Richmond, being paid for each letter the sum of a dollar on its delivery. Vincent therefore felt confident that the anxiety that would be felt at home when they learned that he was among the missing at the battle of Antietam would be relieved.
He was fairly supplied with money. He had, indeed, had several hundred dollars with him at the time he was captured; but these were entirely in Confederate notes, for which he got but half their value in Northern paper at Alexandria. He himself found the rations supplied in the prison ample, and was able to aid any of his fellow-prisoners in purchasing clothes to replace the rags they wore when captured.
One day Vincent strolled down as usual toward the gate, where, under the eye of the guard, a row of men and women, principally negroes and negresses, were sitting on the ground with their baskets in front of them containing tobacco, pipes, fruit, cakes, needles and thread, buttons, and a variety of other articles in demand, while a number of prisoners were bargaining and joking with them. Presently his eye fell upon a negro before whom was a great pile of watermelons. He started as he did so, for he at once recognized the well-known face of Dan. As soon as the negro saw that his master's eye had fallen upon him he began loudly praising the quality of his fruit.
"Here, massa officer, here berry fine melyons, ripe and sweet; no green trash; dis un good right through. Five cents each, sah. Berry cheap dese."
"I expect they cost you nothing, Sambo," one of the Confederate soldiers said as he bought a melon. "Got a neighbor's patch handy, eh?"
Dan grinned at the joke, and then selecting another from the bottom of his pile in the basket, offered it to Vincent.
"Dis fine fruit, sah. Me sure you please with him!"
Vincent took the melon and handed Dan five cents. A momentary glance was exchanged, and then he walked away and sat down in a quiet corner of the yard and cut open the melon. As he expected, he found a note rolled up in the center. A small piece of the rind had been cut out and the pulp removed for its reception. The bit of rind had then been carefully replaced so that the cut would not be noticed without close inspection. It was from one of his fellow-officers, and was dated the day after his capture. He read as follows: "My Dear Wingfield.-We are all delighted this afternoon to hear that instead, as we had believed, of your being knocked on the head you are a prisoner among the Yanks. Several of us noticed you fall just as we halted at the river, and we all thought that from the way in which you fell you had been shot through the head or heart. However, there was no time to inquire in that terrific storm of shot and shell. In the morning when the burying parties went down we could find no signs of you, although we knew almost to a foot where you had fallen.
"We could only conclude at last that you had been carried off in the night by the Yanks, and as they would hardly take the trouble of carrying off a dead body, it occurred to us that you might after all be alive. So the colonel went to Lee, who at once sent a trumpeter with a flag down to the river to inquire, and we were all mightily pleased, as you may imagine, when he came back with the news that you were not only a prisoner, but unwounded, having been only stunned in some way. From the way you fell we suppose a round shot must have grazed your head; at least that is the only way we can account for it.
"Your horse came back unhurt to the troop, and will be well cared for until you rejoin us, which we hope will not be long. Your boy kept the camp awake last night with his howlings, and is at present almost out of his mind with delight. He tells me he has made up his mind to slip across the lines and make his way as a runaway to Alexandria, where you will, of course, be taken in the first place. He says he's got some money of yours; but I have insisted on his taking another fifty dollars, which you can repay me when we next meet. As he will not have to ask for work, he may escape the usual lot of runaways, who are generally pounced upon and set to work on the fortifications of Alexandria and Washington.
"He intends to find out what prison you are taken to, and to follow you, with some vague idea of being able to aid you to escape. As he cannot write, he has asked me to write this letter to you, telling you what his idea is. He will give it to you when he finds an opportunity, and he wishes you to give him an answer, making any suggestion that may occur to you as to the best way of his setting about it. He says that he shall make acquaintances among the negroes North, and will find some one who will read your note to him and write you an answer. I have told him that if he is caught at the game he is likely to be inside a prison a bit longer than you are, even if worse doesn't befall him. However, he makes light of this, and is bent upon carrying out his plans, and I can only hope he will succeed.
"I have just heard that we shall fall back across the Rappahannock to-morrow, and I imagine there will not be much hard fighting again until spring, long before which I hope you will be in your place among us again. We lost twenty-three men and two officers (Ketler and Sumner) yesterday. Good-by, old fellow! I need not say keep up your spirits, for that you are pretty sure to do.
"Yours truly, "James Sinclair."
After the first start at seeing Dan, Vincent was scarcely surprised, for he had often thought over what the boy would do, and had fancied that while, if he supposed him dead, he would go straight back to the Orangery, it was quite possible that, should he hear that he was a prisoner, Dan might take it into his head to endeavor to join him. As to his making his escape, that did not appear to be a very difficult undertaking now that he had a friend outside. The watch kept up was not a very vigilant one, for such numbers of prisoners were taken on both sides that they were not regarded as of very great importance, and, indeed, the difficulty lay rather in making across the country to the Southern border than in escaping from prison; for with a friend outside, with a disguise in readiness, that matter was comparatively easy. All that was required for the adventure was a long rope, a sharp file, and a dark night.
The chief difficulty that occurred to Vincent arose from the fact that there were some twenty other prisoners in the same ward. He could hardly file through the bars of the window unnoticed by them, and they would naturally wish to share in his flight; but where one person might succeed in evading the vigilance of the guard, it was unlikely in the extreme that twenty would do so, and the alarm once given all would be recaptured. He was spared the trouble of making up his mind as to his plans, for by the time he had finished his letter the hour that the hucksters were allowed to sell their goods was passed, and the gates were shut and all was quiet.
After some thought he came to the conclusion that the only plan would be to conceal himself somewhere in the prison just before the hour at which they were locked up in their wards. The alarm would be given, for the list of names was called over before lock-up, and a search would of course be made. Still, if he could find a good place for concealment, it might succeed, since the search after dark would not be so close and minute as that which would be made next morning. The only disadvantage would be that the sentries would be especially on the alert, as, unless the fugitive had succeeded in some way in passing out of the gates in disguise, he must still be within the walls, and might attempt to scale them through the night. This certainty largely increased the danger, and Vincent went to bed that night without finally determining what had better be done.
The next morning while walking in the grounds he quite determined as to the place he would choose for his concealment if he adopted the plan he had thought of the evening before. The lower rooms upon one side of the building were inhabited by the governor and officers of the prison, and if he were to spring through an open window unnoticed just as it became dusk, and hide himself in a cupboard or under a bed there he would be safe for a time, as, however close the search might be in other parts of the building, it would be scarcely suspected, at any rate on the first alarm, that he had concealed himself in the officers' quarters. There would, of course, be the chance of his being detected as he got out of the window again at night, but this would not be a great risk. It was the vigilance of the sentries that he most feared, and the possibility that, as soon as the fact of his being missing was known, a cordon of guards might be stationed outside the wall in addition to those in the yard. The danger appeared to him to be so great that he was half inclined to abandon the enterprise. It would certainly be weary work to be shut up there for perhaps a year while his friends were fighting the battles of his country; but it would be better after all to put up with that than to run any extreme risk of being shot.
When he had arrived at this conclusion he went upstairs to his room to write a line to Dan. The day was a fine one, and he found that the whole of the occupants of the room had gone below. This was an unexpected bit of good fortune, and he at once went to the window and examined the bars. They were thick and of new iron, but had been hastily put up. The building had originally been a large warehouse, and when it had been converted into a prison for the Confederate prisoners the bars had been added to the windows. Instead, therefore, of being built into solid stone and fastened in by lead, they were merely screwed on to the wooden framework of the windows, and by a strong turn-screw a bar could be removed in five minutes. This altogether altered the position. He had only to wait until the rest of the occupants of the room were asleep and then to remove the bar and let himself down.
He at once wrote: "I want twenty yards of strong string, and the same length of rope that will bear my weight; also a strong turn-screw. When I have got this I will let you know night and hour. Shall want disguise ready to put on."
He folded the note up into a small compass, and at the hour at which Dan would be about to enter he sauntered down to the gate. In a short time the vendors entered, and were soon busy selling their wares. Dan had, as before, a basket of melons. Vincent made his way up to him.
"I want another melon," he said, "as good as that you me last night."
"Dey all de same, sah. First-rate melyons dose; just melt away in your mouf like honey."
He held up one of the melons, and Vincent placed in his hands the coppers in payment. Between two of them he had placed the little note. Dan's hands closed quickly on the coins, and dropping them into his pocket he addressed the next customer, while Vincent sauntered away again. This time the melon was a whole one, and Vincent divided it with a couple of other prisoners for the fruit was too large for one person to consume, being quite as large as a man's head.
The next day another melon was bought, but this time Vincent did not open it in public. Examining it closely, he perceived that it had been cut through the middle, and no doubt contained a portion of the rope. He hesitated as to his next step. If he took the melon up to his room he would be sure to find some men there, and would be naturally called upon to divide the fruit; and yet there was nowhere else he could hide it. For a long time he sat with his back to the wall and the melon beside him, abusing himself for his folly in not having told Dan to send the rope in small lengths that he could hide about him. The place where he had sat down was one of the quietest in the yard, but men were constantly strolling up and down. He determined at last that the only possible plan was in the first place to throw his coat over his melon, to tuck it up underneath it, then to get hold of one end of the ball of rope that it doubtless contained and to endeavor to wind it round his body without being observed. It was a risky business, and he would gladly have tossed the melon over the wall had he dared to do so; for if he were detected, not only would he be punished with much more severe imprisonment, but Dan might be arrested and punished most severely.
Unfortunately the weather was by no means hot, and it would look strange to take off his coat, besides, if he did so, how could he coil the rope round him without being observed? So that idea was abandoned. He got up and walked to an angle in the wall, and there sat down again, concealing the melon as well as he could between him and the wall when any one happened to come near him. He pulled the halves apart and found, as he had suspected, it was but a shell, the whole of the fruit having been scooped out. But he gave an exclamation of pleasure on seeing that instead, as he feared, of a large ball of rope being inside, the interior was filled with neatly-made hanks, each containing several yards of thin but strong rope, together with a hank of strong string.
Unbuttoning his coat, he thrust them in; then he took the melon rind and broke it into very small pieces and threw them about. He then went up to his room and thrust the hanks, unobserved, one by one among the straw which, covered by an army blanket, constituted his bed. To-morrow, no doubt, Dan would supply him somehow with a turn-screw. On going down to the gate next day he found that the negro had changed his commodity, and that this time his basket contained very large and fine cucumbers. These were selling briskly, and Vincent saw that Dan was looking round anxiously, and that an expression of relief came over his face as he perceived him. He had, indeed, but eight or ten cucumbers left.
"Cucumbers to-day, sah? Berry fine cucumbers--first-rate cucumbers dese."
"They look rather over-ripe," Vincent said.
"Not a bit, sah; dey just ripe. Dis berry fine one--ten cents dis."
"You are putting up your prices, darkey, and are making a fortune out of us," Vincent said as he took the cucumber, which was a very large and straight one. He had no difficulty with this, as with the melon; a sharp twist broke it in two as he reached the corner he had used the day previously. It had been cut in half, one end had been scooped out for the reception of the handle of the turn-screw, and the metal been driven in to the head in the other half. Hiding it under his jacket, he felt that he was now prepared for escape.
He now asked himself whether he should go alone or take one or more of his comrades into his confidence, and finally determined to give a young Virginian officer named Geary, with whom he had been specially friendly during his imprisonment, and Jackson, a chance of escape. He did not like the latter, but he thought that after the reconciliation that had taken place between them it was only right to take him rather than a stranger. Drawing them aside, then, he told them that he had arranged a mode of escape; it was impossible that all could avail themselves of it, but that they were welcome to accompany him. They thanked him heartily for the offer, and, when he explained the manner in which he intended to make off, agreed to try their fortune with him.
"I propose," he said, "as soon as we are fairly beyond the prison, we separate, and each try to gain the frontier as best he can. The fact that three prisoners have escaped will soon be known all over the country, and there would be no chance whatever for us if we kept together. I will tell my boy to have three disguises ready; and when we once put aside our uniforms I see no reason why, traveling separately, suspicion should fall upon us; we ought to have no difficulty until at any rate we arrive near the border, and there must be plenty of points where we can cross without going anywhere near the Federal camps." The others at once agreed that the chances of making their way separately were much greater than if together. This being arranged, Vincent passed a note next day to Dan, telling him to have three disguises in readiness, and to be at the foot of the western wall, halfway along, at twelve o'clock on the first wet night. A string would be thrown over, with a knife fastened to it. He was to pull on the string till the rope came into his hand, and to hold that tight until they were over. Vincent chose this spot because it was equally removed from the sentry-boxes at the corners of the yard, and because there was a stone seat in the yard to which one end of the rope could be attached.
That night was fine, but the next was thick and misty. At nine o'clock all were in bed, and he lay listening to the clocks in the distance. Ten struck, and eleven, and when he thought it was approaching twelve he got up and crept to the window. He was joined immediately by the others; the turn-screw was set to work; and, as he expected, Vincent found no trouble whatever with the screws, which were not yet rusted in the wood, and turned immediately when the powerful screw-driver was applied to them. When all were out the bar was carefully lifted from its place and laid upon the floor.
The rope was then put round one of the other bars and drawn through it until the two ends came together. These were then dropped to the ground below. Geary went first, Jackson followed, and Vincent was soon standing beside them. Taking one end of the rope, he pulled it until the other passed round the bar and fell at their feet. All three were barefooted, and they stole noiselessly across the yard to the seat, which was nearly opposite their window. Vincent had already fastened his clasp-knife to the end of the string, and he now threw it over the wall, which was about twenty feet high.
He had tied a knot at forty feet from the end, and, standing close to the wall, he drew in the string until the knot was in his hand. Another two yards, and he knew that the knife was hanging a yard from the ground against the wall. He now drew it up and down, hoping that the slight noise the knife made against the wall might aid Dan in finding it. In two or three minutes he felt a jerk, and knew that Dan had got it. He fastened the end of the string to the rope and waited. The rope was gradually drawn up; when it neared the end he fastened it to the stone seat.
"Now," he said, "up you go, Geary."
The order in which they were to ascend had been settled by lot, as Geary insisted that Vincent, who had contrived the whole affair, should be the first to escape; but Vincent declined to accept the advantage, and the three had accordingly tossed up for precedence.
Geary was quickly over, and lowered himself on the opposite side. The others followed safely, but not without a good deal of scraping against the wall, for the smallness of the rope added to the difficulty of climbing it. However, the noise was so slight that they had little fear of attracting attention, especially as the sentries would be standing in their boxes, for the rain was now coming down pretty briskly. As soon as they were down Vincent seized Dan by the hand.
"My brave lad," he said, "I owe you my freedom, and I sha'n't forget it. Now, where are the clothes?"
"Here day are, sah. One is a rough suit, like a workingman's; another is a black-and-white sort of suit--a check-suit; de oder one is for you--a clargy's suit, sir. You make very nice young minister, for sure."
"All right, Dan!" Vincent said laughing; "give me the minister's suit."
"Then I will be the countryman," Geary said.
There was a little suppressed laughter as they changed their clothes in the dark; and then, leaving their uniforms by the wall, they shook hands and started at once in different directions, lest they might come across some one who would, when the escape was known, remember four men having passed him in the dark.
"Now, Dan, what is the next move?" Vincent asked as they walked off. "Have you fixed upon any plan?"
"No special plan, sah, but I have brought a bag; you see I have him in my hand."
"I suppose that's what you carried the clothes in?"
"No, sir; I carried dem in a bundle. Dis bag has got linen, and boots, and oder tings for you, sah. What I tink am de best way is dis. Dar am a train pass trou here at two o'clock and stop at dis station. Some people always get out. Dar is an hotel just opposite the station, and some of de passengers most always go there. I thought the best way for you would be to go outside the station. Just when the train come in we walk across de road wid the others and go to hotel. You say you want bedroom for yo'self, and that your sarvant can sleep in de hall. Den in de morning you get up and breakfast, and go off by de fust train."
"But then they may send down to look at the passengers starting, and I should be taken at once."
"De train go out at seven o'clock, sah. I don't expect dey find dat you have got away before dat."
"No, Dan. We all turn out at seven, and I shall be missed then; but it will be some little time before the alarm is given, and they find out how we got away, and send out search-parties. If the train is anything like punctual we shall be off long before they get to the station."
"Besides, sah, dar are not many people knows your face, and it not likely de bery man dat know you come to the station. Lots of oder places to search, and dey most sure to tink you go right away--not tink you venture to stop in town till the morning."
"That is so, Dan; and I think your plan is a capital one."
Dan's suggestion was carried out, and at seven o'clock next morning they were standing on the platform among a number of other parsons waiting for the train. Just as the locomotive's whistle was heard the sound of a cannon boomed out from the direction of the prison.
"That means some of the prisoners have escaped," one of the porters on the platform said. "There have been five or six of them got away in the last two months, but most of them have been caught again before they have gone far. You see, to have a chance at all, they have got to get rid of their uniforms, and as we are all Unionists about here that ain't an easy job for 'em to manage."
Every one on the platform joined in the conversation, asking which way the fugitive would be likely to go, whether there were any cavalry to send after him, what would be done to him if he were captured, and other questions of the same kind, Vincent joining in the talk. It was a relief to him when the train drew up, and he and Dan took their place in it, traveling, however, in different cars. Once fairly away, Vincent had no fear whatever of being detected, and could travel where he liked, for outside the prison there were not ten people who knew his face throughout the Northern States. It would be difficult for him to make his way down into Virginia from the North as the whole line of frontier there was occupied by troops, and patrols were on the watch night and day to prevent persons from going through the lines. He therefore determined to go west to St. Louis, and from there work his way down through Missouri. After two days' railway traveling they reached St. Louis, a city having a large trade with the South, and containing many sympathizers with the Confederate cause. Vincent, having now no fear of detection, went at once to an hotel, and taking up the newspaper, one of the first paragraphs that met his eye was headed: "Escape of three Confederate officers from Elmira. Great excitement was caused on Wednesday at Elmira by the discovery that three Confederate officers had, during the night, effected their escape from prison. One of the bars of the window of the ward on the first floor in which they were, with fifteen other Confederate officers, confined, had been removed; the screws having been taken out by a large screw-driver which they left behind them. They had lowered themselves to the yard, and climbed over the wall by means of a rope which was found in position in the morning. The rest of the prisoners professed an entire ignorance of the affair, and declare that until they found the beds unoccupied in the morning they knew nothing of the occurrence.
"This is as it may be, but it is certain they must have been aided by traitors outside the prison, for the rope hung loose on the outside of the wall, and must have been held by some one there as they climbed it. The inside end was fastened to a stone seat, and they were thus enabled to slide down it on the other side. Their uniforms were found lying at the foot of the wall, and their accomplice had doubtless disguises ready for them. The authorities of the prison are unable to account for the manner in which the turn-screw and rope were passed in to them, or how they communicated with their friends outside."
Then followed the personal description of each of the fugitives, and a request that all loyal citizens would be on the look-out for them, and would at once arrest any suspicious character unable to give a satisfactory account of himself. As Vincent sat smoking in the hall of the hotel he heard several present discussing the escape of the prisoners.
"It does not matter about them one way or the other," one of the speakers said. "They seem to be mere lads, and whether they escape or not will not make any difference to any one. The serious thing is that there must be some traitors among the prison officials, and that next time, perhaps two or three generals may escape, and that would be a really serious misfortune."
"We need not reckon that out at present," another smoker said. "We haven't got three of the rebel generals yet, and as far as things seem to be going on, we may have to wait some time before we have. They are pretty well able to take care of themselves, I reckon."
"They are good men, some of them, I don't deny," the first speaker said; "but they might as well give up the game. In the spring we shall have an army big enough to eat them up."
"So I have heard two or three times before. Scott was going to eat them up, McClellan was going to eat them up, then Pope was going to make an end of 'em altogether. Now McClellan is having a try again, but somehow or other the eating up hasn't come off yet. It looks to me rather the other way."
There was an angry growl from two or three of those sitting round, while others uttered a cordial "That's so."
"It seems to me, by the way you put it, that you don't wish to see this business come to an end."
"That's where you are wrong now. I do wish to see it come to an end. I don't want to see tens of thousands of men losing their lives because one portion of these States wants to ride roughshod over the other. The sooner the North looks this affair squarely in the face and sees that it has taken up a bigger job than it can carry through, and agrees to let those who wish to leave it go if they like, the better for all parties. That's what I think about it."
"I don't call that Union talk," the other said angrily.
"Union or not Union, I mean to talk it, and I want to know who is going to prevent me?"
The two men rose simultaneously from their chairs, and in a second the crack of two revolvers sounded. As if they had only been waiting for the signal, a score of other men leaped up and sprang at each other. They had, as the altercation grew hotter, joined in with exclamations of anger or approval, and Vincent saw that although the Unionists were the majority the party of sympathizers with the South was a strong one. Having neither arms nor inclination to join in a broil of this kind he made his escape into the street the instant hostilities began, and hurried away from the sound of shouts, oaths, the sharp cracks of pistols, and the breaking of glass. Ten minutes later he returned. The hotel was shut up, but an angry mob were assembled round the door shouting, "Down with the rebels! down with the Secessionists!" and were keeping up a loud knocking at the door. Presently a window upstairs opened, and the proprietor put out his head.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I can assure you that the persons who were the cause of this disturbance all left the hotel by the back way as soon as the affair was over. I have sent for the police commissioner, and upon his arrival he will be free to search the house, and to arrest any one concerned in this affair."
The crowd were not satisfied, and renewed their knocking at the door; but two or three minutes later an officer, with a strong body of police, arrived on the spot. In a few words he told the crowd to disperse, promising that the parties concerned in the affair would be taken in and duly deal with. He then entered the house with four of his men, leaving the rest to wait. Vincent entered with the constables, saying that he was staying at the house. The fumes of gunpowder were still floating about the hall, three bodies were lying on the floor, and several men were binding up their wounds. The police-officer inquired into the origin of the broil, and all present concurred in saying that it arose from some Secessionists speaking insultingly of the army of the Union.
Search was then made in the hotel, and it was found that eight persons were missing. One of the killed was a well-known citizen of the town; he was the speaker on the Union side of the argument. The other two were strangers, and no one could say which side they espoused. All those present declared that they themselves were Union men, and it was supposed that the eight who were missing were the party who had taken the other side of the question. The evidence of each was taken down by the police-officer. Vincent was not questioned, as, having entered with the constables, it was supposed he was not present at the affair.
In the morning Vincent read in the local paper a highly colored account of the fray. After giving a large number of wholly fictitious details of the fray, it went on to say: "The victims were Cyrus D. Jenkins, a much-esteemed citizen and a prominent Unionist; the other two were guests at the hotel; one had registered as P. J. Moore of Vermont, the other James Harvey of Tennessee. Nothing is as yet known as to the persons whose rooms were unoccupied, and who had doubtless made their escape as soon as the affray was over; but the examination of their effects, which will be made by the police in the morning, will doubtless furnish a clew by which they will be brought to justice."
Having read this, Vincent looked for the news as to the escape from Elmira, being anxious to know whether his companions had been as fortunate as himself in getting clear away. He was startled by reading the following paragraph: "We are enabled to state that the police have received a letter stating that one of the officers who escaped from Elmira prison has adopted the disguise of a minister, and is traveling through the country with a black servant. At present the authorities are not disposed to attach much credit to this letter, and are inclined to believe that it has been sent in order to put them on a wrong scent. However a watch will doubtless be kept by the police throughout the country for a person answering to this description."
Accustomed to rise early, Vincent was taking his breakfast almost alone, only two or three of the other guests having made their appearance. He finished his meal hastily, and went out to Dan, who was lounging in front of the hotel.
"Dan, go upstairs at once, pack the bag, bring it down and get out with it immediately. I will pay the bill. Don't stop to ask questions now."
Vincent then walked up to the desk at the end of the hall, at which a clerk was sitting reading the paper. Sincerely hoping that the man's eye had not fallen on this paragraph, he asked if his account was made out. As he had fortunately mentioned on the preceding evening that he should be leaving in the morning, the bill was ready; and the clerk, scarce looking up from the paper, handed it to him. Vincent paid him the amount, saying carelessly, "I think I have plenty of time to catch the train for the east?"
The clerk glanced at the clock.
"Yes, it goes at 8, and you have twenty minutes. It's only five minutes' walk to the station."
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
11
|
FUGITIVES.
|
On leaving the hotel Vincent walked a short distance, and then stopped until Dan came up to him.
"Anyting de matter, sah?"
"Yes, Dan. There is a notice in the paper that the police have obtained information that I am traveling disguised as a minister, and have a negro servant with me. ."
"Who told dem dat?" Dan asked in surprise.
"We can talk about that presently, Dan; the great thing at present is to get away from here. The train for the south starts at ten. Give me the bag, and follow me at a distance. I will get you a ticket for Nashville, and as you pass me in the station I will hand it to you. It must not be noticed that we are traveling together. That is the only clew they have got."
Dan obeyed his instructions. The journey was a long one. The train was slow and stopped frequently; passengers got in and out at every station. The morning's news from the various points at which the respective forces were facing each other was the general topic of conversation, and Vincent was interested in seeing how the tone gradually changed as the passengers from St. Louis one by one left the train and their places were taken by those of the more southern districts. At first the sentiment expressed had been violently Northern, and there was no dissent from the general chorus of hope and expectation that the South were on their last legs and that the rebellion would shortly be stamped out; but gradually, as the train approached the State of Tennessee, the Unionist opinion, although expressed with even greater force and violence, was by no means universal. Many men read their papers in silence and took no part whatever in the conversation, but Vincent could see from the angry glances which they shot at the speakers that the sentiments uttered were distasteful to them. He himself had scarcely spoken during the whole journey. He had for some time devoted himself to the newspaper, and had then purchased a book from the newsboy who perambulated the cars. Presently a rough-looking man who had been among the wildest and most violent in his denunciation of the South said, looking at Vincent: "I see by the papers to-day that one of the cursed rebel officers who gave them the slip at Elmira is traveling in the disguise of a minister. I guess it's mighty unpleasant to know that even if you meet a parson in a train like as not he is a rebel in disguise. Now, mister, may I ask where you have come from and where you are going to?"
"You may ask what you like," Vincent said quietly; "but I am certainly not going to answer impertinent questions."
A hum of approval was heard from several of the passengers.
"If you hadn't got that black coat on," the man said angrily, "I would put you off the car in no time."
"Black coat or no black coat," Vincent said, "you may find it more difficult than you think. My profession is a peaceful one; but even a peaceful man, if assaulted, may defend himself. You say it's unpleasant to know that if you travel with a man in a black coat he may be a traitor. It's quite as unpleasant to me to know that if I travel with a man in a brown one he may be a notorious ruffian, and may as likely as not have just served his time in a penitentiary."
Two or three of the passengers laughed loudly. The man, starting up, crossed the car to where Vincent was sitting and laid his hand roughly on his shoulder.
"You have got to get out!" he said. "No man insults Jim Mullens twice."
"Take your hand off my shoulder," Vincent said quietly, "or you will be sorry for it."
The man shifted his hold to the collar of Vincent's coat amid cries of shame from some of the passengers, while the others were silent, even those of his own party objecting to an assault upon a minister. It was only the fact that the fellow was a notorious local ruffian that prevented their expressing open disapproval of the act. As the man grasped Vincent's collar with his right hand Vincent saw his left go under his coat toward the pocket in the back of the trousers where revolvers were always carried. In an instant he sprang to his feet, and before the man, who was taken by surprise at the suddenness of the movement, could steady himself, he struck him a tremendous blow between the eyes, and at the same moment, springing at his throat, threw him backward on to the floor of the carriage. As he fell the man drew out his revolver, but Vincent grasped his arm and with a sharp twist wrenched the revolver from his grasp, and leaping up, threw it out of the open window. The ruffian rose to his feat, for a moment half dazed by the violence with which he had fallen, and poured out a string of imprecations upon Vincent. The latter stood calmly awaiting a fresh attack. For a moment the ruffian hesitated, and then, goaded to fury by the taunting laughter of the lookers-on, was about to spring upon him when he was seized by two or three of the passengers.
"I reckon you have made a fool enough of yourself already," one of them said; "and we are not going to see a minister ill-treated, not if we know it."
"You need not hold him," Vincent said. "It is not because one wears a black coat and is adverse to fighting that one is not able to defend one's self. We all learn the same things at college whether we are going into the church or any other profession. You can let him alone if he really wants any more, which I do not believe. I should be ashamed of myself if I could not punish a ruffian of his kind."
"Let me get at him!" yelled Mullens; and the men who held him, taking Vincent at his word, released him. He rushed forward, but was received with another tremendous blow on the mouth. He paused a moment in his rush, and Vincent, springing forward, administered another blow upon the same spot, knocking him off his legs on to the floor. On getting up he gave no sign of a desire to renew the conflict. His lips were badly cut and the blood was streaming from his mouth, and he looked at Vincent with an air of absolute bewilderment. The latter, seeing that the conflict was over, quietly resumed his seat; while several of the passengers came up to him, and, shaking him warmly by the hand, congratulated him upon having punished his assailant.
"I wish we had a few more ministers of your sort down this way," one said. "That's the sort of preaching fellows like this understand. It was well you got his six-shooter out of his hand, for he would have used it as sure as fate. He ought to have been lynched long ago, but since the troubles began these fellows have had all their own way. But look to yourself when he gets out; he belongs to a band who call themselves Unionists, but who are nothing but plunderers and robbers. If you take my advice, when you get to the end of your journey you will not leave the station, but take a ticket straight back north. I tell you your life won't be safe five minutes when you once get outside the town. They daren't do anything there, for though folks have had to put up with a good deal they wouldn't stand the shooting of a minister; still, outside the town I would not answer for your life for an hour."
"I have my duties to perform," Vincent said, "and I shall certainly carry them through; but I am obliged to you for your advice. I can quite understand that ruffian," and he looked at Mullens, who, with his handkerchief to his mouth, was sitting alone in a corner--for the rest had all drawn away from him in disgust--and glaring ferociously at him, "will revenge himself if he has the opportunity. However as far as possible I shall be on my guard."
"At any rate," the man said, "I should advise you when you get to Nashville to charge him with assault. We can all testify that he laid hands on you first. That way he will get locked up for some days anyhow, and you can go away about your business, and he won't know where to find you when he gets out."
"Thank you--that would be a very good plan; but I might lose a day or two in having to appear against him; I am pressed for time and have some important business on hand and I have no doubt I shall be able to throw him off my track, finish my business, and be off again before he can come across me."
"Well, I hope no harm will come of it," the other said. "I like you, and I never saw any one hit so quickly and so hard. It's a downright pity you are a preacher. My name's John Morrison, and my farm is ten miles from Nashville, on the Cumberland River. If you should be going in that direction I should be right glad if you would drop in on me."
The real reason that decided Vincent against following the advice to give his assailant in charge was that he feared he himself might be questioned as to the object of his journey and his destination. The fellow would not improbably say that he believed he was the Confederate officer who was trying to escape in the disguise of a clergyman and that he had therefore tried to arrest him. He could of course give no grounds for the accusation, still questions might be asked which would be impossible for him to answer; and, however plausible a story he might invent, the lawyer whom the fellow would doubtless employ to defend him might suggest that the truth of his statements might be easily tested by the despatch of a telegram, in which case he would be placed in a most awkward situation. It was better to run the risk of trouble with the fellow and his gang than to do anything which might lead to inquiries as to his identity.
When the train reached Nashville, Vincent proceeded to an hotel. It was already late in the afternoon, for the journey had occupied more than thirty hours. As soon as it was dark he went out again and joined Dan, whom he had ordered to follow him at a distance and to be at the corner of the first turning to the right of the hotel as soon as it became dark. Dan was at the point agreed upon, and he followed Vincent until the latter stopped in a quiet and badly lighted street.
"Things are going badly, Dan. I had a row with a ruffian in the train, and he has got friends here, and this will add greatly to our danger in getting to our lines. I must get another disguise. What money have you left?"
"Not a cent, sah. I had only a five-cent piece left when we left St. Louis, and I spent him on bread on de journey."
"That is bad, Dan. I did not think your stock was so nearly expended."
"I had to keep myself, sah, and to pay for de railroad, and to buy dem tree suits of clothes, and to make de nigger I lodged with a present to keep him mouth shut."
"Oh, I know you have had lots of expenses, Dan, and I am sure that you have not wasted your money; but I had not thought about it. I have only got ten dollars left, and we may have a hundred and fifty miles to travel before we are safe. Anyhow, you must get another disguise, and trust to luck for the rest. We have tramped a hundred and fifty miles before now without having anything beyond what we could pick up on the road. Here's the money. Get a rough suit of workingman's clothes, and join me here again in an hour's time. Let us find out the name of the street before we separate, for we may miss our way and not be able to meet again."
Passing up into the busy streets, Vincent presently stopped and purchased a paper of a newsboy who was running along shouting, "News from the war. Defeat of the rebels. Fight in a railway car near Nashville; a minister punishes a border ruffian."
"Confound those newspaper fellows!" Vincent muttered to himself as he walked away. "They pick up every scrap of news. I suppose a reporter got hold of some one who was in the car." Turning down a quiet street, he opened the paper and by the light of the lamp read a graphic and minute account of the struggle in the train.
"I won't go back to the hotel," he said to himself. "I shall be having reporters to interview me. I shall be expected to give them a history of my whole life; where I was born, and where I went to school, and whether I prefer beef to mutton, and whether I drink beer, and a thousand other things. No; the sooner I am away the better. As to the hotel, I have only had one meal, and they have got the bag with what clothes there are; that will pay them well." Accordingly when he rejoined Dan he told him that they would start at once.
"It is the best way, anyhow," he said. "To-morrow, no doubt, the fellow I had the row with will be watching the hotel to see which way I go off, but after once seeing me go to the hotel he will not guess that I shall be starting this evening. What have you got left, Dan?"
"I got two dollars, sah."
"That makes us quite rich men. We will stop at the first shop we come to and lay in a stock of bread and a pound or two of ham."
"And a bottle of rum, sah. Berry wet and cold sleeping out of doors now, sah. Want a little comfort anyhow."
"Very well, Dan; I think we can afford that."
"Get one for half a dollar, massa. Could not lay out half a dollar better."
Half an hour later they had left Nashville behind them, and were tramping along the road toward the east, Dan carrying a bundle in which the provisions were wrapped, and the neck of the bottle of rum sticking out of his pocket. As soon as they were well in the country Vincent changed his clothes for those Dan had just bought him, and making the others up into a bundle continued his way.
"Why you not leave dem black clothes behind, sah? What good take dem wid you?"
"I am not going to carry them far, Dan. The first wood or thick clump of bushes we come to I shall hide them away; but if you were to leave them here they would be found the first thing in the morning, and perhaps be carried into the town and handed over to the police, and they might put that and the fact of my not having returned to the hotel--which is sure to be talked about--together, and come to the conclusion that either Mullens was right and that I was an escaped Confederate, or that I had been murdered by Mullens. In either case they might get up a search, and perhaps send telegrams to the troops in the towns beyond us. Anyhow, it's best the clothes should not be found."
All night they tramped along, pausing only for half an hour about midnight, when Dan suggested that as he had only had some bread to eat--and not too much of that--during the last forty-eight hours, he thought that he could do with some supper. Accordingly the bundle was opened, and they sat down and partook of a hearty meal. Dan had wisely taken the precaution of having the cork drawn from the bottle when he bought it, replacing it so that it could be easily extracted when required, and Vincent acknowledged that the spirit was a not unwelcome addition to the meal. When morning broke they had reached Duck's River, a broad stream crossing the road.
Here they drew aside into a thick grove, and determined to get a few hours' sleep before proceeding. It was nearly midday before they woke and proceeded to the edge of the trees. Vincent reconnoitered the position.
"It is just as well we did not try to cross, Dan. I see the tents of at least a regiment on the other bank. No doubt they are stationed there to guard the road and railway bridge. This part of the country is pretty equally divided in opinion, though more of the people are for the South than for the North; but I know there are guerrilla parties on both sides moving about, and if a Confederate band was to pounce down on these bridges and destroy them it would cut the communication with their army in front, and put them in a very ugly position if they were defeated. No doubt that's why they have stationed that regiment there. Anyhow, it makes it awkward for us. We should be sure to be questioned where we are going, and as I know nothing whatever of the geography of the place we should find it very difficult to satisfy them. We must cross the river somewhere else. There are sure to be some boats somewhere along the banks; at any rate, the first thing to do is to move further away from the road."
They walked for two or three miles across the country. The fields for the most part were deserted, and although here and there they saw cultivated patches, it was evident that most of the inhabitants had quitted that part of the country, which had been the scene of almost continued fighting from the commencement of the war; the sufferings of the inhabitants being greatly heightened by the bands of marauders who moved about plundering and destroying under the pretense of punishing those whom they considered hostile to the cause in whose favor--nominally, at least--they had enrolled themselves. The sight of ruined farms and burned houses roused Vincent's indignation; for in Virginia private property had, up to the time of Pope's assuming command of the army, been respected, and this phase of civil war was new and very painful to him.
"It would be a good thing," he said to Dan, "if the generals on both sides in this district would agree to a month's truce, and join each other in hunting down and hanging these marauding scoundrels. On our side Mosby and a few other leaders of bands composed almost entirely of gentlemen, have never been accused of practices of this kind; but, with these exceptions, there is little to choose between them."
After walking for four or five miles they again sat down till evening, and then going down to the river endeavored to find a boat by which they could cross, but to their disappointment no craft of any kind was visible, although in many places there were stages by the riverside, evidently used by farmers for unloading their produce into boats. Vincent concluded at last that at some period of the struggle all the boats must have been collected and either sunk or carried away by one of the parties to prevent the other crossing the river.
Hitherto they had carefully avoided all the farmhouses that appeared to be inhabited; but Vincent now determined to approach one of them and endeavor to gain some information as to the distance from the next bridge, and whether it was guarded by troops, and to find out if possible the position in which the Northern forces in Tennessee were at present posted--all of which points he was at present ignorant of. He passed two or three large farmhouses without entering, for although the greater part of the male population were away with one or other of the armies, he might still find two or three hands in such buildings. Besides, it was now late, and whatever the politics of the inmates they would be suspicious of such late arrivals, and would probably altogether refuse them admittance. Accordingly another night was spent in the wood.
The next morning, after walking a mile or two, they saw a house at which Vincent determined to try their fortune. It was small, but seemed to have belonged to people above the class of farmer. It stood in a little plantation, and was surrounded by a veranda. Most of the blinds were down, and Vincent judged that the inmates could not be numerous.
"You remain here, Dan, and I will go and knock at the door. It is better that we should not be seen together." Vincent accordingly went forward and knocked at the door. An old negress opened it.
"We have nothing for tramps," she said. "De house am pretty well cleared out ob eberyting." She was about to shut the door when Vincent put his foot forward and prevented it closing. "Massa Charles," the negress called out, "bring yo' shot-gun quick; here am tief want to break into the house."
"I am neither a thief nor a tramp," Vincent said; "and I do not want anything, except that I should be glad to buy a loaf of bread if you have one that you could spare. I have lost my way, and I want to ask directions."
"Dat am pretty likely story," the old woman said. "Bring up dat shot-gun quick, Massa Charles."
"What is it, Chloe?" another female voice asked.
"Here am a man pretend he hab lost his way and wants to buy a loaf. You stand back, Miss Lucy, and let your broder shoot de villain dead."
"I can assure you that I am not a robber, madam," Vincent said through the partly opened door. "I am alone, and only beg some information, which I doubt not you can give me."
"Open the door, Chloe," the second voice said inside; "that is not the voice of a robber."
The old woman reluctantly obeyed the order and opened the door, and Vincent saw in the passage a young girl of some sixteen years old. He took off his hat.
"I am very sorry to disturb you," he said; "but I am an entire stranger here, and am most desirous of crossing the river, but can find no boat with which to do so."
"Why did you not cross by the bridge?" the girl asked. "How did you miss the straight road?"
"Frankly, because there were Northern troops there," Vincent said, "and I wish to avoid them if possible."
"You are a Confederate?" the girl asked, when the old negress interrupted her: "Hush! Miss Lucy, don't you talk about dem tings; der plenty of mischief done already. What hab you to do wid one side or do oder?"
The girl paid no attention to her words, but stood awaiting Vincent's answer. He did not hesitate. There was something in her face that told him that, friend or foe, she was not likely to betray a fugitive, and he answered: "I am a Confederate officer, madam. I have made my escape from Elmira prison, and am trying to find my way back into our lines."
"Come in, sir," the girl said, holding out her hand. "We are Secessionists, heart and soul. My father and my brother are with our troops--that is, if they are both alive. I have little to offer you, for the Yankee bands have been here several times, have driven off our cattle, emptied our barns, and even robbed our hen-nests, and taken everything in the house they thought worth carrying away. But whatever there is, sir, you are heartily welcome to. I had a paper yesterday--it is not often I get one--and I saw there that three of our officers had escaped from Elmira. Are you one of them?"
"Yes, madam. I am Lieutenant Wingfield."
"Ah! then you are in the cavalry. You have fought under Stuart," the girl said. "The paper said so. Oh, how I wish we had Stuart and Stonewall Jackson on this side! we should soon drive the Yankees out of Tennessee."
"They would try to, anyhow," Vincent said, smiling, "and if it were possible they would assuredly do it. I was in Ashley's horse with the Stonewall division through the first campaign in the Shenandoah Valley and up to Bull Run, and after that under Stuart. But is not your brother here? Your servant called to him."
"There is no one here but ourselves," the girl replied. "That was a fiction of Chloe's, and it has succeeded sometimes when we have had rough visitors. And now what can I do for you, sir? You said you wanted to buy a loaf of bread, and therefore, I suppose, you are hungry. Chloe, put the bacon and bread on the table, and make some coffee. I am afraid that is all we can do, sir, but such as it is you are heartily welcome to it."
"I thank you greatly," Vincent replied, "and will, if you will allow me, take half my breakfast out to my boy who is waiting over there."
"Why did you not bring him in?" the girl asked. "Of course he will be welcome too."
"I did not bring him in before because two men in these days are likely to alarm a lonely household; and I would rather not bring him in now, because, if by any possibility the searchers, who are no doubt after me, should call and ask you whether two men, one a white and the other a negro, had been here, you could answer no."
"But they cannot be troubling much about prisoners," the girl said. "Why, in the fighting here and in Missouri they have taken many thousands of prisoners, and you have taken still more of them in Virginia; surely they cannot trouble themselves much about one getting away."
"I am not afraid of a search of that kind," Vincent said; "but, unfortunately, on my way down I had a row in the train with a ruffian named Mullens, who is, I understand, connected with one of these bands of brigands, and I feel sure that he will hunt me down if he can."
The girl turned pale.
"Oh!" she said, "I saw that in the paper too, but it said that it was a minister. And it was you who beat that man and threw his revolver out of the window? Oh, then, you are in danger indeed, sir. He is one of the worst ruffians in the State, and is the leader of the party who stripped this house and threatened to burn it to the ground. Luckily I was not at home, having gone away to spend the night with a neighbor. His band have committed murders all over the country, hanging up defenseless people on pretense that they were Secessionists. They will show you no mercy if they catch you."
"No. I should not expect any great mercy if I fell into their hands, Miss Lucy. I don't know your other name."
"My name is Kingston. I ought to have introduced myself to you at once."
"Now you understand, Miss Kingston, how anxious I am to get across the river, and that brings me to the question of the information I want you to give me. How far is it from the next bridge on the south, and are there any Federal troops there?"
"It is about seven miles to the bridge at Williamsport, we are just halfway between that and the railway bridge at Columbus. Yes, there are certainly troops there--" "Then I see no way for it but to make a small raft to carry us across, Miss Kingston. I am a good swimmer, but the river is full and of considerable width; still, I think I can get across. But my boy cannot swim a stroke."
"I know where there is a boat hid in the wood near the river," the girl said. "It belongs to a neighbor of ours, and when the Yankees seized the boats he had his hauled up and hidden in the woods. He was a Southerner, heart and soul, and thought that he might be able sometimes to take useful information across the river to our people; but a few weeks afterward his house was attacked by one of these bands--it was always said it was that of Mullens--and he was killed defending it to the last. He killed several of the band before he fell, and they were so enraged that after plundering it they set it on fire and fastened the door, and his wife and two maid-servants were burned to death."
"I wish instead of throwing his pistol out of the window I had blown his brains out with it," Vincent said; "and I would have done so if I had known what sort of fellow he was. However, as to the boat, can you give me instructions where to find it, and is it light enough for two men to carry?"
"Not to carry, perhaps, but to push along. It is a light boat he had for pleasure. He had a large one, but that was carried away with the others. I cannot give you directions, but I can lead you to the place."
"I should not like you to do that," Vincent said. "We might be caught, and your share in the affair might be suspected."
"Oh! there is no fear of that," the girl said; "besides, I am not afraid of danger."
"I don't think it is right, Miss Kingston, for a young lady like you to be living here alone with an old servant in such times as these. You ought to go into a town until it's all over."
"I have no one to go to," the girl said simply. "My father bought this place and moved here from Georgia only six years ago, and all my friends are in that State. Except our neighbors round here I do not know a soul in Tennessee. Besides, what can I do in a town? We can manage here, because we have a few fowls, and some of our neighbors last spring plowed an acre or two of ground and planted corn for us, and I have a little money left for buying other things; but it would not last us a month if we went into a town. No, I have nothing to do but to stay here until you drive the Yankees back. I will willingly take you down to the boat to-night. Chloe can come with us and keep me company on the way back. Of course it would not be safe to cross in the daytime."
"I thank you greatly, Miss Kingston, and shall always remember your kindness. Now, when I finish my meal I will go out and join my boy, and will come for you at eight o'clock; it will be quite dark then."
"Why should you not stay here till then, Mr. Wingfield? It is very unlikely that any one will come along."
"It is unlikely, but it is quite possible," Vincent replied, "and were I caught here by Mullens, the consequence would be very serious to you as well as to myself. No, I could not think of doing that. I will go out, and come back at eight o'clock. I shall not be far away; but if any one should come and inquire, you can honestly say that you do not know where I am."
"I have two revolvers here, sir; in fact I have three. I always keep one loaded, for there is never any saying whether it may not be wanted; the other two I picked up last spring. There was a fight about a quarter of a mile from here and after it was over and they had moved away, for the Confederates won that time and chased them back toward Nashville, I went out with Chloe with some water and bandages to see if we could do anything for the wounded. We were at work there till evening, and I think we did some good. As we were coming back I saw something in a low bush, and going there found a Yankee officer and his horse both lying dead; they had been killed by a shell, I should think. Stooping over to see if he was quite dead I saw a revolver in his belt and another in the holster of his saddle, so I took them out and brought them home, thinking I might give them to some of our men, for we were then, as we have always been, very short of arms; but I never had an opportunity of giving them away, and I am very glad now that I have not. Here they are, sir, and two packets of cartridges, for they are of the same size as those of the pistol my father gave me when he went away. You are heartily welcome to them."
"Thank you extremely," Vincent said, as he took the pistols and placed the packets of ammunition in his pocket. "We cut two heavy sticks the night we left Nashville so as to be able to make something of a fight; but with these weapons we shall feel a match for any small parties we may meet. Then at eight o'clock I will come back again."
"I shall be ready," the girl said; "but I wish you would have stopped, there are so many things I want to ask you about, and these Yankee papers, which are all we see now, are full of lies."
"They exaggerate their successes and to some extent conceal their defeats," Vincent said; "but I do not think it is the fault of the newspapers, whose correspondents do seem to me to try and tell the truth to their readers, but of the official despatches of the generals. The newspapers tone matters down, no doubt, because they consider it necessary to keep up the public spirit; but at times they speak out pretty strongly too. I am quite as sorry to leave as you can be that I should go, Miss Kingston, but I am quite sure that it is very much the wisest thing for me to do. By the way, if I should not be here by half-past eight I shall not come at all, and you will know that something has occurred to alter our plans. I trust there is no chance of anything doing so, but it is as well to arrange so that you should not sit up expecting me. Should I not come back you will know that I shall be always grateful to you for your kindness, and that when this war is over, if I am alive, I will come back and thank you personally."
"Good-by till this evening!" the girl said. "I will not even let myself think that anything can occur to prevent your return."
"Golly, Massa Vincent, what a time you hab been!" Dan said when Vincent rejoined him. "Dis child began to tink dat somefing had gone wrong, and was going in anoder five minutes to knock at do door to ask what dey had done to you."
"It is all right, Dan, I have had breakfast, and have brought some for you; here is some bread and bacon and a bottle of coffee."
"Dat good, massa; my teeth go chatter chatter wid sleeping in dese damp woods; dat coffee do me good, sah. After dat I shall feel fit for anyting."
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
12
|
THE BUSHWHACKERS.
|
"By the way, Dan," Vincent said when the negro had finished his meal, "we have not talked over that matter of my clothes. I can't imagine how that letter saying that one of us was disguised as a minister and would have a negro servant came to be written. Did you ever tell the people you lodged with anything about the disguise?"
"No, sah, neber said one word to dem about it; dey know nothing whatsoeber. De way me do wid your letter was dis. Me go outside town and wait for long time. At last saw black fellow coming along. Me say to him, 'Can you read?' and he said as he could. I said 'I got a letter, I want to read him, I gib you a quarter to read him to me;' so he said yes, and he read de letter. He a long time of making it out, because he read print but not read writing well. He spell it out word by word, but I don't tink he understand dat it come from prison, only dat it come from some one who wanted some rope and a turn-screw. Me do just de same way wid de second letter. As for de clothes, me buy dem dat day, make dem up in bundle, and not go back to lodging at all. Me not know how any one could know dat I buy dat minister clothes for you, sah. Me told de storekeeper dat dey was for cousin of mine, who preach to de colored folk, and dat I send him suit as present. Onless dat man follow me and watch me all de time till we go off together, sah, me no see how de debbil he guess about it."
"That's quite impossible, Dan; it never could have been that way. It is very strange, for it would really seem that no one but you and I and the other two officers could possibly know about it."
"Perhaps one of dem want to do you bad turn, massa, and write so as to get you caught and shut up again."
Vincent started at the suggestion. Was it possible that Jackson could have done him this bad turn after his having aided him to make his escape It would be a villainous trick; but then he had always thought him capable of villainous tricks, and it was only the fact that they were thrown together in prison that had induced him to make up his quarrel with him; but though Jackson had accepted his advances, it was probable enough that he had retained his bad feeling against him, and had determined, if possible, to have his revenge on the first opportunity.
"The scoundrel," he said to himself, "after my getting him free, to inform against me! Of course I have no proof of it, but I have not the least doubt that it was him. If we ever meet again, Mr. Jackson, I will have it out with you."
"You got two pistols, sah," Dan said presently. "How you get dem?"
"The lady of that house gave them to me, Dan; they are one for you and one for me."
"Dis chile no want him, sah; not know what to do wid him. Go off and shoot myself, for sure."
"Well, I don't suppose you would do much good with it, Dan. As I am a good shot, perhaps I had better keep them both. You might load them for me as I fire them."
"Berry well, sah; you show me how to load, me load."
Vincent showed Dan how to extricate the discharged cartridge-cases and to put in fresh ones, and after a quarter of an hour's practice Dan was able to do this with some speed.
"When we going on, sah?" he said as, having learned the lesson, he handed the pistol back to Vincent.
"We are not going on until the evening, Dan. When it gets dark the lady is going to take us to a place where there is a boat hidden, and we shall then be able to cross the river."
"Den I will hab a sleep, sah. Noting like sleeping when there is a chance."
"I believe you could sleep three-quarters of your time, Dan. However, you may as well sleep now if you can, for there will be nothing to do till night."
Vincent went back to the edge of the wood, and sat down where he could command a view of the cottage. The country was for the most part covered with wood, for it was but thinly inhabited except in the neighborhood of the main roads. Few of the farmers had cleared more than half their ground; many only a few acres. The patch, in which the house with its little clump of trees stood nearly in the center, was of some forty or fifty acres in extent, and though now rank with weeds, had evidently been carefully cultivated, for all the stumps had been removed, and the fence round it was of a stronger and neater character than that which most of the cultivators deemed sufficient.
Presently he heard the sound of horses' feet in the forest behind him, and he made his way back to a road which ran along a hundred yards from the edge of the wood. He reached it before the horsemen came up, and lay down in the underwood a few yards back. In a short time two horsemen came along at a walking pace.
"I call this a fool's errand altogether," one of them said in a grumbling tone. "We don't know that they have headed this way; and if they have, we might search these woods for a month without finding them."
"That's so," the other said; "but Mullens has set his heart on it, and we must try for another day or two. My idea is that when the fellow heard what sort of a chap Mullens was, he took the hack train that night and went up north again."
Vincent heard no more, but it was enough to show him that a sharp hunt was being kept up for him; and although he had no fear of being caught in the woods, he was well pleased at the thought that he would soon be across the water and beyond the reach of his enemy. He went back again to the edge of the clearing and resumed his watch. It was just getting dusk, and he was about to join Dan when he saw a party of twelve men ride out from the other side of the wood and make toward the house. Filled with a vague alarm that possibly some one might have caught sight of him and his follower on the previous day, and might, on being questioned by the searchers, have given them a clew as to the direction in which they were going, Vincent hurried to the spot where he left Dan. The negro jumped up as he approached.
"Me awake long time, sah. Began to wonder where you had got to."
"Take your stick and come along, Dan, as fast as you can."
Without another word Vincent led the way along the edge of the wood to the point where the clump of trees at the back of the house hid it from his view.
"Now, Dan, stoop low and get across to those trees."
Greatly astonished at what was happening, but having implicit faith in his master, Dan followed without a question.
It was but ten minutes since Vincent had seen the horsemen, but the darkness had closed in rapidly, and he had little fear of his approach being seen. He made his way through the trees, and crept up to the house, and then kept close along it until he reached the front. There stood the horses, with the bridles thrown over their neck. The riders were all inside the house.
"Look here, Dan," he whispered, "you keep here perfectly quiet until I join you again or you hear a pistol-shot. If you do hear a shot, rush at the horses with your stick and drive them off at full gallop. Drive them right into the woods if you can and then lie quiet there till you hear me whistle for you. If you don't hear my whistle you will know that something has happened to me, and then you must make your way home as well as you can."
"Oh, Master Vincent," Dan began; but Vincent stopped him.
"It's no use talking, Dan; you must do as I order you. I hope all will be well; but it must be done anyhow."
"Let me come and load your pistol and fight with you, sah."
"You can do more good by stampeding the horses, Dan. Perhaps, after all, there will be no trouble."
So saying, leaving Dan with the tears running down his cheeks, Vincent went to the back of the house and tried the door there. It was fastened. Then he went to the other side; and here, the light streaming through the window, which was open, and the sound of loud voices, showed him the room where the party were. He crept cautiously up and looked in. Mullens was standing facing Lucy Kingston; the rest of the men were standing behind him. The girl was as pale as death, but was quiet and composed.
"Now," Mullens said, "I ask you for the last time. You have admitted that a man has been here to-day, and that you gave him food. You say he is not in the house; and as we have searched it pretty thoroughly, we know that's right enough. You say you don't know where he is, and that may be true enough in a sense; but I have asked you whether he is coming back again, and you won't answer me. I just give you three seconds;" and he held out his arm with a pistol in it. "One!" As the word "Two" left his lips, a pistol cracked, and Mullens fell back with a bullet in his forehead.
At the same time Vincent shouted at the top of his voice, "Come on, lads; wipe 'em out altogether. Don't let one of them escape." As he spoke he discharged his pistol rapidly into the midst of the men, who were for the moment too taken by surprise to move, and every shot took effect upon them. At the same moment there was a great shouting outside, and the trampling of horses' feet. One or two of the men hastily returned Vincent's fire, but the rest made a violent rush to the door. Several fell over the bodies of their comrades, and Vincent had emptied one of his revolvers and fired three shots with the second before the last of those able to escape did so. Five bodies remained on the floor. As they were still seven to one against him, Vincent ran to the corner of the house, prepared to shoot them as they came round; but the ruffians were too scared to think of anything but escape, and they could be heard running and shouting across the fields.
Vincent ran into the house. He had seen Lucy Kingston fall prostrate at the same instant as the ruffian facing her. Strung up to the highest tension, and expecting in another second to be shot, the crack of Vincent's pistol had brought her down as surely as the bullet of Mullens would have done. Even in the excitement of firing, Vincent felt thankful when he saw her fall, and knew that she was safe from the bullets flying about. When he entered the room he found the old negress lying beside her, and thought at first that she had fallen in the fray. He found that she was not only alive, but unhurt, having, the instant she saw her young mistress fall, thrown herself upon her to protect her from harm.
"Am dey all gone, sah?" she asked, as Vincent somewhat roughly pulled her off the girl's body.
"They have all gone, Chloe; but I do not know how soon they may be back again. Get your mistress round as soon as you can. I am sure that she has only fainted, for she fell the instant I fired, before another pistol had gone off."
Leaving the old woman to bring Miss Kingston round, he reloaded his pistols and went to the door. In a few minutes the sound of horses galloping was heard.
"Halt, or I fire!" he shouted.
"Don't shoot, sah! Don't shoot! It am me!" and Dan rode up, holding a second horse by the bridle. "I thought I might as well get two ob dem, so I jump on de back ob one and get hold ob anoder bridle while I was waiting to hear your pistol fire. Den de moment I heard dat I set de oders off, and chased dem to de corner where de gate was where dey came in at, and along de road for half a mile; dey so frightened dey not stop for a long time to come. Den I turn into de wood and went through de trees, so as not to meet dem fellows, and lifted two of de bars of the fence, and here I am. You are not hurt, massa?"
"My left arm is broken, I think, Dan; but that is of no consequence. I have shot five of these fellows--their leader among them--and I expect three of the others have got a bullet somewhere or other in them. There was such a crowd round the door that I don't think one shot missed. It was well I thought of stampeding the horses; that gave them a greater fright than my pistols. No doubt they thought that there was a party of our bushwhackers upon them. Now, Dan, you keep watch, and let me know if you see any signs of their returning. I think they are too shaken up to want any more fighting; but as there are seven of them, and they may guess there are only two or three of us, it is possible they may try again."
"Me don't tink dey try any more, sah. Anyhow, I look out sharp." So saying, Dan, fastening up one of the horses, rode the other in a circle round and round the house and little plantation, so that it would not be possible for any one to cross the clearing without being seen. Vincent returned to the house, and found Miss Kingston just recovering consciousness. She sat upon the ground in a confused way.
"What has happened, nurse?"
"Never mind at present, dearie. Juss you keep yourself quiet, and drink a little water."
The girl mechanically obeyed. The minute she put down the glass her eye fell upon Vincent, who was standing near the door.
"Oh! I remember now!" she said, starting up. "Those men were here and they were going to shoot me. One--two--and then he fired, and it seemed that I fell dead. Am I not wounded?"
"He never fired at all, Miss Kingston; he will never fire again. I shot him as he said 'two,' and no doubt the shock of the sudden shot caused you to faint dead away. You fell the same instant that he did."
"But where are the others?" the girl said with a shudder. "How imprudent of you to come here! I hoped you had seen them coming toward the house."
"I did see them, Miss Kingston, and that was the reason I came. I was afraid they might try rough measures to learn from you where I was hidden. I arrived at the window just as the scoundrel was pointing his pistol toward you, and then there was no time to give myself up, and I had nothing to do for it but to put a bullet through his head in order to save you. Then I opened fire upon the rest, and my boy drove off their horses. They were seized with a panic and bolted, thinking they were surrounded. Of course I kept up my fire, and there are four of them in the next room besides their captain. And now, if you please, I will get you, in the first place, to bind my arm tightly across my chest, for one of their bullets hit me in the left shoulder, and has, I fancy, broken it."
The girl gave an exclamation of dismay.
"Do not be alarmed, Miss Kingston; a broken shoulder is not a very serious matter, only I would rather it had not happened just at the present moment; there are more important affairs in hand. The question is, What is to become of you? It is quite impossible that you should stay here after what has happened. Those scoundrels are sure to come back again."
"What am I to do, Chloe?" the girl asked in perplexity. "I am sure we cannot stay here. We must find our way through the woods to Nashville, and I must try and get something to do there."
"There is another way, Miss Kingston, if you like to try it," Vincent said. "Of course it would be toilsome and unpleasant, but I do not think it would be dangerous, for even if we got caught there would be no fear of your receiving any injury from the Federal troops. My proposal is that you and Chloe should go with us. If we get safely through the Federal lines I will escort you to Georgia and place you with your friends there."
The girl looked doubtful for a moment, and then she shook her head.
"I could not think of that, sir. It would be difficult enough for you to get through the enemy by yourselves It would add terribly to your danger to have us with you."
"I do not think so," Vincent replied. "Two men would be sure to be questioned and suspected, but a party like ours would be far less likely to excite suspicion. Every foot we get south we shall find ourselves more and more among people who are friendly to us, and although they might be afraid to give shelter to men, they would not refuse to take women in. I really think, Miss Kingston, that this plan is the best. In the first place it would be a dangerous journey for you through the woods to Nashville and if you fall into the hands of any of those ruffians who have been here you may expect no mercy. At Nashville you will have great difficulty in obtaining employment of any kind and even suppose you went further north your position as a friendless girl would be a most painful one. As to your staying here that is plainly out of the question. I think that there is no time to lose in making a decision. Those fellows may go to the camp at the bridge, give their account of the affair, declare they have been attacked by a party of Confederate sympathizers, and return here with a troop of horse."
"What do you say, Chloe?" Lucy asked.
"I'se ready to go wid you whereber you like, Miss Lucy; but I do tink dat in times like dis dat a young gal is best wid her own folk. It may be hard work getting across, but as to danger dar can't be much more danger than dar has been in stopping along here, so it seems to me best to do as dis young officer says."
"Very well, then, I will, sir. We will go under your protection, and will give you as little trouble as we can. We will be ready in five minutes. Now, Chloe, let us put a few things together. The fewer the better. Just a small bundle which we can carry in our hands."
In a few minutes they returned to the room, Chloe carrying a large basket, and looking somewhat ruffled.
"Chloe is a little upset," the girl said, smiling, "because I won't put my best things on; and the leaving her Sunday gown behind is a sore trouble to her."
"No wonder, sah," Chloe said, "why dey say dat thar am no pretty dresses in de 'Federacy, and dat blue gown wid red spots is just as good as new, and it am downright awful to tink dat dose fellows will come back and take it."
"Never mind, Chloe," Vincent said, smiling. "No doubt we are short of pretty dresses in the South, but I dare say we shall be able to find you something that will be almost as good. But we must not stand talking. You are sure you have got everything of value, Miss Kingston?"
"I have got my purse," she said, "and Chloe has got some food. I don't think there is anything else worth taking in the house."
"Very well, we will be off," Vincent said, leading the way to the door.
A minute later Dan rode past, and Vincent called him and told him they were going to start.
"Shall we take de horses, sah?"
"No, Dan. We are going to carry out our original plan of crossing the river in a boat, and I think the horses would be rather in our way than not. But you had better not leave them here. Take them to the farther side of the clearing and get them through the fence into the forest, then strike across as quickly as you can and join us where we were stopping to-day. Miss Kingston and her servant are going with us. They cannot stay here after what has taken place."
Dan at once rode off with the two horses, and the others walked across to the edge of the clearing and waited until he rejoined them.
"Now, Miss Kingston, you must be our guide at present."
"We must cross the road first," the girl said. "Nearly opposite to where we are there is a little path through the wood leading straight down to the river. The boat lies only a short distance from it."
The path was a narrow one, and it was very dark under the trees.
"Mind how you go," Vincent said as the girl stepped lightly on ahead. "You might get a heavy fall if you caught your foot on a root."
She instantly moderated her pace. "I know the path well, but it was thoughtless of me to walk so fast. I forgot you did not know it, and if you were to stumble you might hurt your arm terribly. How does it feel now?"
"It certainly hurts a bit," Vincent replied in a cheerful tone; "but now it is strapped tightly to me it cannot move much. Please do not worry about me."
"Ah!" she said, "I cannot forget how you got it--how you attacked twelve men to save me!"
"Still less can I forget, Miss Kingston, how you, a young girl, confronted death rather than say a word that would place me in their power."
"That was quite different, Mr. Wingfield. My own honor was pledged not to betray you, who had trusted me."
"Well, we will cry quits for the present, Miss Kingston; or, rather, we will be content to remain for the present in each other's debt."
A quarter of an hour's walking brought them to the river.
"Now," Lucy said, "we must make our way about ten yards through these bushes to the right."
With some difficulty they passed through the thick screen of bushes, the girl still leading the way.
"Here it is," she said; "I have my hand upon it." Vincent was soon beside her, and the negroes quickly joined them.
"There are no oars in the boat," Vincent said, feeling along the seat.
"Oh! I forgot! They are stowed away behind the bushes on the right; they were taken out, so that if the Yankees found the boat it would be of no use to them."
Dan made his way through the bushes, and soon found the oars. Then uniting their strength they pushed the boat through the high rushes that screened it from the river.
"It is afloat," Vincent said. "Now, Dan, take your place in the bow."
"I will row, Mr. Wingfield. I am a very good hand at it. So please take your seat with Chloe in the stern."
"Dan can take one oar, anyhow," Vincent replied; "but I will let you row instead of me. I am afraid I should make a poor hand of it with only one arm."
The boat pushed quietly out. The river was about a hundred yards wide at this point. They had taken but a few strokes when Vincent said: "You must row hard, Miss Kingston, or we shall have to swim for it. The water is coming through the seams fast."
The girl and Dan exerted themselves to the utmost; but, short as was the passage, the boat was full almost to the gunwale before they reached the opposite bank, the heat of the sun having caused the planks to open during the months it had been lying ashore.
"This is a wet beginning," Lucy Kingston said laugh as she tried to wring the water out of the lower part of her dress. "Here, Chloe; you wring me and I will wring you."
"Now, Dan, get hold of that head-rope," Vincent said; "haul her up little by little as the water runs out over the stern."
"I should not trouble about the boat, Mr. Wingfield; it is not likely we shall ever want it again."
"I was not thinking of the boat; I was thinking of ourselves. If it should happen to be noticed at the next bridge as it drifted down, it would at once suggest to any one on the lookout for us that we had crossed the river; whereas, if we get it among the bushes here, they will believe that we are hidden in the woods or have headed back to the north, and we shall be a long way across the line, I hope, before they give up searching for us in the woods on the other side."
"Yes; I didn't think of that. We will help you with the rope."
The boat was very heavy, now that it was full of water. Inch by inch it was pulled up, until the water was all out except near the stern. Dan and Vincent then turned it bottom upward, and it was soon hauled up among the bushes.
"Now, Miss Kingston, which do you think is our best course? I know nothing whatever of the geography here."
"The next town is Mount Pleasant; that is where the Williamsport road passes the railway. If we keep south we shall strike the railway, and that will take us to Mount Pleasant. After that the road goes on to Florence, on the Tennessee River. The only place that I know of on the road is Lawrenceburg. That is about forty miles from here, and I have heard that the Yankees are on the line from there right and left. I believe our troops are at Florence; but I am not sure about that, because both parties are constantly shifting their position, and I hear very little, as you may suppose, of what is being done. Anyhow, I think we cannot do better than go on until we strike the railway, keep along by that till we get within a short distance of Mount Pleasant, and then cross it. After that we can decide whether we will travel by the road or keep on through the woods. But we cannot find our way through the woods at night; we should lose ourselves before we had gone twenty yards."
"I am afraid we should, Miss Kingston."
"Please call me Lucy," the girl interrupted. "I am never called anything else, and I am sure this is not a time for ceremony."
"I think that it will be better; and will you please call me Vin. It is much shorter and pleasanter using our first names; and as we must pass for brother and sister if we get among the Yankees, it is better to get accustomed to it. I quite agree with you that it will be too dark to find our way through the woods unless we can discover a path.
"Dan and I will see if we can find one. If we can, I think it will be better to go on a little way at any rate, so as to get our feet warm and let our clothes dry a little."
"They will not dry to-night," Lucy said. "It is so damp in the woods that even if our clothes were dry now they would be wet before morning."
"I did not think of that. Yes, in that case I do not see that we should gain anything by going farther; we will push on for two or three hundred yards, if we can, and then we can light a fire without there being any chance of it being seen from the other side."
"That would be comfortable, Mr.--I mean Vin," the girl agreed. "That is, if you are quite sure that it would be safe. I would rather be wet all night than that we should run any risks."
"I am sure if we can get a couple of hundred yards into this thick wood the fire would not be seen through it," Vincent said; "of course I do not mean to make a great bonfire which would light up the forest."
For half an hour they forced their way through the bushes, and then Vincent said he was sure that they had come far enough. Finding a small open space, Dan, and Lucy, and the negress set to work collecting leaves and dry sticks. Vincent had still in his pocket the newspaper he had bought in the streets of Nashville, and he always carried lights. A piece of the paper was crumpled up and lighted, a few of the driest leaves they could find dropped upon it, then a few twigs, until at last a good fire was burning.
"I think that is enough for the present," Vincent said. "We will keep on adding wood as fast as it burns down, so as to get a great pile of embers, and keep two or three good big logs burning all night."
He then gave directions to Dan, who cut a long stick and fastened it to two saplings, one of which grew just in front of the fire. Then he set to work and cut off branches, and laid them sloping against it, and soon had an arbor constructed of sufficient thickness to keep off the night dews.
"I think you will be snug in there," Vincent said when he had finished. "The heat of the fire will keep you dry and warm, and if you lie with your heads the other way I think your things will be dry by the morning. Dan and I will lie down by the other side of the fire. We are both accustomed to sleep in the open air, and have done so for months."
"Thank you very much," she said. "Our things are drying already, and I am as warm as a toast; but, indeed, you need not trouble about us. We brought these warm shawls with us on purpose for night-work in the forest. Now, I think we will try the contents of the basket Dan has been carrying."
The basket, which was a good-sized one, was opened. Chloe had before starting put all the provisions in the house into it, and it contained three loaves, five or six pounds of bacon, a canister of tea and loaf-sugar, a small kettle, and two pint mugs, besides a number of odds and ends. The kettle Dan had, by Chloe's direction, filled with water before leaving the river, and this was soon placed among the glowing embers.
"But you have brought no teapot, Chloe."
"Dar was not no room for it, Miss Lucy. We can make tea berry well in de kettle."
"So we can. I forgot that. We shall do capitally."
The kettle was not long in boiling. Chloe produced some spoons and knives and forks from the basket.
"Spoons and forks are luxuries, Chloe," Vincent said laughing. "We could have managed without them."
"Yes, sah; but me not going to leave massa's silver for dose villains to find."
Lucy laughed. "At any rate, Chloe, we can turn the silver into money if we run short. Now the kettle is boiling."
It was taken off the fire, and Lucy poured some tea into it from the canister, and then proceeded to cut up the bread. A number of slices of bacon had already been cut off, and a stick thrust through them, and Dan, who was squatted at the other side of the fire holding it over the flames, now pronounced them to be ready. The bread served as plates, and the party were soon engaged upon their meal, laughing and talking over it as if it had been an ordinary picnic in the woods, though at times Vincent's face contracted from the sharp twitching of pain in his shoulder. Vincent and Lucy first drank their tea, and the mugs were then handed to Dan and Chloe.
"This is great fun," Lucy said. "If it goes on like it all through our journey we shall have no need to grumble. Shall we Chloe?"
"If you don't grumble, Miss Lucy, you may be quite sure dat Chloe will not. But we hab not begun our journey at present; and I spec dat we shall find it pretty hard work before we get to de end. But neber mind dat; anyting is better dan being all by ourselves in dat house. Terrible sponsibility dat."
"It was lonely," the girl said, "and I am glad we are away from it whatever happens. What a day this has been. Who could have dreamed when I got up in the morning that all this would take place before night. It seems almost like a dream, and I can hardly believe"--and here she stopped with a little shiver as she thought of the scene she had passed through with the band of bushwhackers.
"I would not think anything at all about it," Vincent said. "And now I should recommend your turning in, and getting to sleep as soon as you can. We will be off at daybreak, and it is just twelve o'clock now."
Five minutes later Lucy and her old nurse were snugly ensconced in their little bower, while Vincent and Dan stretched themselves at full length on the other side of the fire. In spite of the pain in his shoulder Vincent dozed off occasionally, but he was heartily glad when he saw the first gleam of light in the sky. He woke Dan.
"Dan, do you take the kettle down to the river and fill it. We had better have some breakfast before we make our start. If you can't find your way back, whistle and I will answer you."
Dan, however, had no occasion to give the signal. It took him little more than five minutes to traverse the distance that had occupied them half an hour in the thick darkness, and Vincent was quite surprised when he reappeared again with the kettle. Not until it was boiling, and the bacon was ready, did Vincent raise his voice and call Lucy and the nurse.
"This is reversing the order of things altogether," the girl said as she came out and saw breakfast already prepared. "I shall not allow it another time, I can tell you."
"We are old campaigners, you see," Vincent said, "and accustomed to early movements. Now please let us waste no time, as the sooner we are off the better."
In a quarter of an hour breakfast was eaten and the basket packed, and they were on their way. Now the bright, glowing light in the east was sufficient guide to them as to the direction they should take, and setting their face to the south they started through the forest. In a quarter of an hour they came upon a little stream running through the wood, and here Vincent suggested that Lucy might like a wash, a suggestion which was gratefully accepted. He and Dan went a short distance down the streamlet, and Vincent bathed his face and head.
"Dan, I will get you to undo this bandage and get off my coat; then I will make a pad of my handkerchief and dip it in the water and you can lay it on my shoulder, and then help me on again with my coat. My arm is getting horribly painful."
Vincent's right arm was accordingly drawn through the sleeve and the coat turned down so as to enable Dan to lay the wet pad on the shoulder.
"It has not bled much," Vincent said, looking down at it.
"No, sah, not much blood on de shirt."
"Pull the coat down as far as the elbow, Dan, and bathe it for a bit."
Using his cap as a bailer, Dan bathed the arm for ten minutes, then the wet pad was placed in position, and with some difficulty the coat got on again. The arm was then bandaged across the chest, and they returned to the women, who were beginning to wonder at the delay.
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
13
|
LAID UP.
|
"You must see a surgeon whatever the risk," Lucy said when the others joined them, for now that it was light she could see by the paleness of Vincent's face, and the drawn expression of the mouth, how much he had suffered.
"You have made so light of your wound that we have not thought of it half as much as we ought to do, and you must have thought me terribly heartless to be laughing and talking when you were in such pain. But it will never do to go on like this; it is quite impossible for you to be traveling so far without having your shoulder properly attended to."
"I should certainly be glad to have it looked to," Vincent replied. "I don't know whether the bullet's there or if it has made its way out, and if that could be seen to, and some splints or something of that sort put on to keep things in their right place, no doubt I should be easier; but I don't see how it is to be managed. At any rate, for the present we must go on, and I would much rather that you said nothing about it. There it is, and fretting over it won't do it any good, while if you talk of other things I may forget it sometimes."
In two hours they came upon the railway, whose course lay diagonally across that they were taking. They followed it until they caught sight of the houses of Mount Pleasant, some two miles away, and then crossed it. After walking some distance farther they came upon a small clearing with a log-hut, containing apparently three or four rooms, in the center.
"We had better skirt round this," Vincent suggested.
"No," Lucy said in a determined voice. "I have made up my mind I would go to the first place we came to and see whether anything can be done for you. I can see you are in such pain you can hardly walk, and it will be quite impossible for you to go much further. They are sure to be Confederates at heart here, and even if they will not take us in, there is no fear of their betraying us; at any rate we must risk it."
Vincent began to remonstrate, but without paying any attention to him the girl left the shelter of the trees and walked straight toward the house. The others followed her. Vincent had opposed her suggestion, but he had for some time acknowledged to himself that he could not go much further. He had been trying to think what had best be done, and had concluded that it would be safest to arrange with some farmer to board Lucy and her nurse for a time, while he himself with Dan went a bit further; and then, if they could get no one to take them in, would camp up in the woods and rest. He decided that in a day or two if no improvement took place in his wound he would give himself up to the Federals at Mount Pleasant, as he would there be able to get his wound attended to.
"I don't think there is any one in the house," Lucy said, looking back over her shoulder; "there is no smoke coming from the chimney, and the shutters are closed, and besides the whole place looks neglected."
Upon reaching the door of the house it was evident that it had been deserted. Lucy had now assumed the command.
"Dan," she said, "there is no shutter to the window of that upper room. You must manage to climb up there and get in at that window, and then open the door to us."
"All right, missie, me manage dat," Dan said cheerfully. Looking about he soon found a long pole which would answer his purpose, placed the end of this against the window, and climbed up. It was not more than twelve feet above the ground. He broke one of the windows, and inserting his hand undid the fastening and climbed in at the window. A minute later they heard a grating sound, and then the lock shot back under the application of his knife, and the door swung open.
"That will do nicely," Lucy said, entering. "We will take possession. If the owners happen to come back we can pay them for the use of the place."
The furniture had been removed with the exception of a few of the heavy articles, and Chloe and Lucy at once set to work, and with bunches of long grass swept out one of the rooms. Dan cut a quantity of grass and piled it upon an old bedstead that stood in the corner, and Lucy smoothed it down.
"Now, sir," she said peremptorily to Vincent, "you will lie down and keep yourself quiet, but first of all I will cut your coat off."
One of the table-knives soon effected the work, and the coat was rolled up as a pillow. Dan removed his boots, and Vincent, who was now beyond even remonstrating, laid himself down on his cool bed.
"Now, Chloe," Miss Kingston said when they had left Vincent's room, "I will leave him to your care. I am sure that you must be thoroughly tired, for I don't suppose you have walked so many miles since you were a girl."
"I is tired, missie; but I am ready to do anyting you want."
"I only want you to attend to him, Chloe. First of all you had better make some tea. You know what is a good thing to give for a fever, and if you can find anything in the garden to make a drink of that sort, do; but I hope he will doze off for some time. When you have done, you had better get this place tidy a little; it is in a terrible litter. Evidently no one has been in since they moved out."
The room, indeed, was strewed with litter of all sorts, rubbish not worth taking away, old newspapers, and odds and ends of every description. Lucy looked about among these for some time, and with an exclamation of satisfaction at last picked up two crumpled envelopes. They were both addressed "William Jenkins, Woodford, near Mount Pleasant."
"That is just what I wanted," she said.
"What am you going to do, Miss Lucy?"
"I am going to Mount Pleasant," she said.
"Lor' a marcy, dearie, you are not going to walk that distance! You must have walked twelve miles already."
"I should if it were twice as far, Chloe. There are some things we must get. Don't look alarmed, I shall take Dan with me. Now, let me see. In the first place there are lemons for making drink and linseed for poultices, some meat for making broth, and some flour, and other things for ourselves; we may have to stay here for some time. Tell me just what you want and I will get it."
Chloe made out a list of necessaries.
"I sha'n't be gone long," the girl said. "If he asks after me or Dan, make out we are looking about the place to see what is useful. Don't let him know I have gone to Mount Pleasant, it might worry him."
Dan at once agreed to accompany the girl to Mount Pleasant when he heard that she was going to get things for his master.
Looking about he found an old basket among the litter, and they started without delay by the one road from the clearing, which led, they had no doubt, to the town. It was about two miles distant, and was really but a large village. A few Federal soldiers from the camp hard by were lounging about the streets but these paid no attention to them. Lucy soon made her purchases, and then went to the house that had been pointed out to her as being inhabited by the doctor who attended to the needs of the people of Mount Pleasant and the surrounding district. Fortunately he was at home. Lucy looked at him closely as he entered the room and took his seat. He was a middle-aged man with a shrewd face, and she at once felt that she might have confidence in it.
"Doctor," she said, "I want you to come out to see some one who is very ill."
"What is the matter with him? Or is it him or her?"
"It is--it's--" and Lucy hesitated, "a hurt he has got."
"A wound, I suppose?" the doctor said quietly. "You may as well tell me at once, as for me to find out when I get there, then I can take whatever is required with me."
"Yes, sir. It is a wound," Lucy said. "His shoulder is broken, I believe, by a pistol bullet."
"Umph!" the doctor said. "It might have been worse. Do not hesitate to tell me all about it, young lady. I have had a vast number of cases on hand since these troubles began. By the way, I do not know your face, and I thought I knew every one within fifteen miles around."
"I come from the other side of the Duck river. But at present he is lying at a place called Woodford, but two miles from here."
"Oh, yes! I know it. But I thought it was empty. Let me see, a man named Jenkins lived there. He was killed at the beginning of the troubles in a fight near Murfreesboro. His widow moved in here; and she has married again and gone five miles on the other side. I know she was trying to sell the old place."
"We have not purchased it, sir; we have just squatted there. My friend was taken so bad that we could go no further. We were trying, doctor, to make our way down south."
"Your friend, whoever he is, did a very foolish thing to bring a young lady like yourself on such a long journey. You are not a pair of runaway lovers, are you?"
"No, indeed," Lucy said, flushing scarlet; "we have no idea of such a thing. I was living alone, and the house was attacked by bushwhackers, the band of a villain named Mullens."
"Oh! I saw all about that in the Nashville paper this morning. They were attacked by a band of Confederate plunderers, it said."
"They were attacked by one man," the girl replied. "They were on the point of murdering me when he arrived. He shot Mullens and four of his band and the rest made off, but he got this wound. And as I knew the villains would return again and burn the house and kill me, I and my old nurse determined to go southward to join my friends in Georgia."
"Well, you can tell me more about it as we go," the doctor said. "I will order my buggy round to the door, and drive you back. I will take my instruments and things with me. It is no business of mine whether a sick man is a Confederate or a Federal; all my business is to heal them."
"Thank you very much, doctor. While the horse is being put in I will go down and tell the negro boy with me to go straight on with a basket of things I have been buying."
"Where is he now?" the doctor asked.
"I think he is sitting down outside the door, sir."
"Then you needn't go down," the doctor said. "He can jump up behind and go with us. He will get there all the quicker."
In five minutes they were driving down the village, with Dan in the back seat. On the way the doctor obtained from Lucy a more detailed account of their adventures.
"So he is one of those Confederate officers who broke prison at Elmira," he said. "I saw yesterday that one of his companions was captured."
"Was he, sir? How was that?"
"It seems that he had made his way down to Washington, and was staying at one of the hotels there as a Mr. James of Baltimore. As he was going through the street he was suddenly attacked by a negro, who assaulted him with such fury that he would have killed him had he not been dragged off by passers-by. The black would have been very roughly treated, but he denounced the man he had attacked as one of the Confederate officers who had escaped from the prison. It seems that the negro had been a slave of his who had been barbarously treated, and finally succeeded in making his escape and reaching England, after which he went to Canada; and now that it is safe for an escaped slave to live in the Northern States without fear of arrest or ill-treatment he had come down to Washington with the intention of engaging as a teamster with one of the Northern armies, in the hope when he made his way to Richmond of being able to gain some news of his wife, whom his master had sold before he ran away from him."
"It served the man right!" Lucy said indignantly. "It's a good thing that the slaves should turn the tables sometimes upon masters who ill-treat them."
"You don't think my patient would ill-treat his slaves?" the doctor asked with a little smile.
"I am sure he wouldn't," the girl said indignantly. "Why, the boy behind you is one of his slaves, and I am sure he would give his life for his master."
Dan had overheard the doctor's story, and now exclaimed: "No, sah. Massa Vincent de kindest of masters. If all like him, do slaves everywhere contented and happy. What was de name of dat man, sah, you was speaking of?"
"His name was Jackson," the doctor answered.
"I tought so," Dan exclaimed in excitement. "Massa never mentioned de names of de two officers who got out wid him, and it war too dark for me to see their faces, but dat story made me tink it must be him. Berry bad man that; he libs close to us, and Massa Vincent one day pretty nigh kill him because he beat dat bery man who has catched him now on de street of Washington. When dat man sell him wife Massa Vincent buy her so as to prevent her falling into bad hands. She safe now wid his mother at de Orangery--dat's the name of her plantation."
"My patient must be quite an interesting fellow, young lady," the doctor said, with a rather slight twinkle of his eye. "A very knight-errant. But there is the house now; we shall soon see all about him."
Taking with him the case of instruments and medicines he had brought, the doctor entered Vincent's room. Lucy entered first; and although surprised to see a stranger with her, Vincent saw by her face that there was no cause for alarm.
"I have brought you a doctor," she said. "You could not go on as you were, you know. So Dan and I have been to fetch one."
The doctor now advanced and took Vincent's hand.
"Feverish," he said, looking at his cheeks, which were now flushed. "You have been doing too much, I fancy. Now let us look at this wound of yours. Has your servant got any warm water?" he asked Lucy.
Lucy left the room, and returned in a minute with a kettleful of warm water and a basin, which was among the purchases she had made at Mount Pleasant.
"That is right," the doctor said, taking it from her. "Now we will cut open the shirt sleeve. I think, young lady, you had better leave us, unless you are accustomed to the sight of wounds."
"I am not accustomed to them, sir; but as thousands of women have been nursing the wounded in the hospitals, I suppose I can do so now."
Taking a knife from the case, the doctor cut open the shirt from the neck to the elbow. The shoulder was terribly swollen and inflamed, and a little exclamation of pain broke from Lucy.
"That is the effect of walking and inattention," the doctor said. "If I could have taken him in hand within an hour of his being hit the matter would have been simple enough; but I cannot search for the ball, or in fact do anything, till we have reduced the swelling. You must put warm poultices on every half-hour, and by to-morrow I hope the inflammation will have subsided, and I can then see about the ball. It evidently is somewhere there still, for there is no sign of its having made its exit anywhere. In the meantime you must give him two tablespoonfuls of this cooling draught every two hours, and to-night give him this sleeping draught. I will be over to-morrow morning to see him. Do not be uneasy about him; the wound itself is not serious, and when we have got rid of the fever and inflammation I have no doubt we shall pull him round before long."
"I know the wound is nothing," Vincent said; "I have told Miss Kingston so all along. It is nothing at all to one I got at the first battle of Bull Run, where I had three ribs badly broken by a shell. I was laid up a long time over that business. Now I hope in a week I shall be fit to travel."
The doctor shook his head. "Not as soon as that. Still we will hope it may not be long. Now all you have to do is to lie quiet and not worry, and to get to sleep as quick as you can. You must not let your patient talk, Miss Kingston. It will be satisfactory to you, no doubt," he went on turning to Vincent, "to know that there is no fear whatever of your being disturbed here. The road leads nowhere, and is entirely out of the way of traffic. I should say you might be here six months without even a chance of a visitor. Every one knows the house is shut up, and as you have no neighbor within half a mile no one is likely to call in. Even if any one did by accident come here you would be in no danger; we are all one way of thinking about here."
"Shall we make some broth for him?" Lucy asked after they had left the room.
"No; he had best take nothing whatever during the next twenty-four hours except his medicine and cooling drinks. The great thing is to get down the fever. We can soon build him up afterward."
By nightfall the exertions of Dan, Lucy, and Chloe had made the house tidy. Beds of rushes and grass had been made in the room upstairs for the women, and Dan had no occasion for one for himself, as he was going to stop up with his master. He, however, brought a bundle of rushes into the kitchen, and when it became dark threw himself down upon them for a few hours' sleep, Lucy and her old nurse taking their place in Vincent's room, and promising to rouse Dan at twelve o'clock.
During the easy part of the night Vincent was restless and uneasy, but toward morning he became more quiet and dozed off, and had but just awoke when the doctor drove up at ten o'clock. He found the inflammation and swelling so much abated that he was able at once to proceed to search for the ball. Chloe was his assistant. Lucy felt that her nerves would not be equal to it, and Dan's hand shook so that he could not hold the basin. In a quarter of an hour, which seemed to Lucy to be an age, the doctor came out of the room.
"There is the bullet, Miss Kingston."
"And is he much hurt, sir?"
"It is a nasty wound," the doctor replied. "The collarbone is badly broken, and I fancy the head of the bone of the upper arm, to put it in language you will understand, is fractured; but of that I cannot be quite sure. I will examine it again to-morrow, and will then bandage it in its proper position. At present I have only put a bandage round the arm and body to prevent movement. I should bathe it occasionally with warm water, and you can give him a little weak broth to-day. I think, on the whole, he is doing very well. The feeling that you are all for the present safe from detection has had as much to do with the abatement of the fever as my medicine."
The next morning the report was still satisfactory. The fever had almost disappeared, and Vincent was in good spirits. The doctor applied the splints to keep the shoulder up in its proper position, and then tightly bandaged it.
"It depends upon yourself now," he said, "whether your shoulders are both of the same width as before or not. If you will lie quiet, and give the broken bones time to reunite, I think I can promise you that you will be as straight as before; but if not--putting aside the chances of inflammation--that shoulder will be lower than the other, and you will never get your full strength in it again. Quiet and patience are the only medicines you require, and as there can be no particular hurry for you to get south, and as your company here is pleasant and you have two good nurses, there is no excuse for your not being quiet and contented."
"Very well, doctor. I promise that unless there is a risk of our being discovered I will be as patient as you can wish. As you say, I have everything to make me contented and comfortable."
The doctor had a chat with Lucy, and agreed with her that perhaps it would be better to inform the mistress of the house that there were strangers there. Some of the people living along the road might notice him going or coming, or see Dan on his way to market, and might come and ascertain that the house was inhabited, and communicate the fact to their old neighbor.
"I will see her myself, Miss Kingston, and tell her that I have sent a patient of mine to take up his quarters here. I will say he is ready to pay some small sum weekly as long as he occupies the house. I have no doubt she would be willing enough to let you have it without that; for although I shall say nothing actually I shall let her guess from my manner that it is a wounded Confederate, and that will be enough for her. Still, I have no doubt that the idea of getting a few dollars for the rent of an empty house will add to her patriotism. People of her class are generally pretty close-fisted, and she will look upon this as a little pocket-money. Good-by! I shall not call to-morrow, but will be round next day again."
On his next visit the doctor told Lucy that he had arranged the matter with her landlady, and that she was to pay a dollar a week as rent. "I should not tell your patient about this," he said. "It will look to him as if I considered his stay was likely to be a long one, and it might fidget him."
"How long will it be, doctor, do you think?"
"That I cannot say. If all goes well, he ought in a month to be fairly cured; but before starting upon a journey which will tax his strength, I should say at least six weeks."
Ten days later Vincent was up, and able to get about. A pile of grass had been heaped up by the door, so that he could sit down in the sun and enjoy the air. Lucy was in high spirits, and flitted in and out of the house, sometimes helping Chloe, at others talking to Vincent.
"What are you laughing at?" she asked as she came out suddenly on one of these occasions.
"I was just thinking," he said, "that no stranger who dropped in upon us would dream that we were not at home here. There is Dan tidying up the garden; Chloe is quite at her ease in the kitchen, and you and I might pass very well for brother and sister."
"I don't see any likeness between us--not a bit."
"No, there is no personal likeness; but I meant in age and that sort of thing. I think, altogether, we have a very homelike look."
"The illusion would be very quickly dispelled if your stranger put his head inside the door. Did any one ever see such a bare place?"
"Anyhow, it's very comfortable," Vincent said, "though I grant that it would be improved by a little furniture."
"By a great deal of furniture, you mean. Why, there isn't a chair in the house, nor a carpet, nor a curtain, nor a cupboard, nor a bed; in fact all there is is the rough dresser in the kitchen and that plank table, and your bedstead. I really think that's all. Chloe has the kettle and two cooking-pots, and there is the dish and six plates we bought."
"You bought, you mean," Vincent interrupted.
"We bought, sir; this is a joint expedition. Then, there is the basin and a pail. I think that is the total of our belongings."
"Well, you see, it shows how little one can be quite comfortable upon," Vincent said. "I wonder how long it will be before the doctor gives me leave to move. It is all very well for me who am accustomed to campaigning, but it is awfully rough for you."
"Don't you put your impatience down to my account, at any rate until you begin to hear me grumble. It is just your own restlessness, when you are pretending you are comfortable."
"I can assure you that I am not restless, and that I am in no hurry at all to be off on my own account. I am perfectly contented with everything. I never thought I was lazy before, but I feel as if I could do with a great deal of this sort of thing. You will see that you will become impatient for a move before I do."
"We shall see, sir. Anyhow, I am glad you have said that, because now whatever you may feel you will keep your impatience to yourself."
Another four weeks passed by smoothly and pleasantly. Dan went into the village once a week to do the shopping, and the doctor had reduced his visits to the same number. He would have come oftener, for his visits to the lonely cottage amused him; but he feared that his frequent passage in his buggy might attract notice. So far no one else had broken the solitude of their lives. If the doctor's calls had been noticed, the neighbors had not taken the trouble to see who had settled down in Jenkins' old place. His visits were very welcome, for he brought newspapers and books, the former being also purchased by Dan whenever he went into the village, and thus they learned the course of events outside.
Since Antietam nothing had been done in Northern Virginia; but Burnside, who had succeeded McClellan, was preparing another great army, which was to march to Richmond and crush out the rebellion. Lee was standing on the defensive. Along the whole line of the frontier, from New Orleans to Tennessee, desultory fighting was going on, and in these conflicts the Confederates had generally the worse of things, having there no generals such as Lee, Jackson, and Longstreet, who had made the army of Virginia almost invincible.
At the last of these visits the doctor told Vincent that he considered he was nearly sufficiently restored in health to be able to start on their journey.
"It is a much better job than I had expected it would turn out. I was almost afraid that your shoulder would never be quite square again. However, as you can see for yourself it has come out quite right; and although I should not advise you to put any great strain on your left arm, I believe that in a very short time it will be as strong as the other."
"And now, doctor, what am I in debt to you? Your kindness cannot be repaid, but your medical bill I will discharge as soon as I get home. We have not more than twenty dollars left between us, which is little enough for the journey there is before us. You can rely that the instant I get to Richmond I will send you the money. There is no great difficulty in smuggling letters across the frontier."
"I am very pleased to have been able to be of service to you," the doctor said. "I should not think of accepting payment for aid rendered to an officer of our army; but it will give me real pleasure to receive a letter saying you have reached home in safety. It is a duty to do all we can for the brave men fighting for our cause. As I have told you, I am not a very hot partisan, for I see faults on both sides. Still, I believe in the principle of our forefathers, that each State has its own government and is master of its own army, joining with the others for such purposes as it may think fit. If I had been a fighting man I should certainly have joined the army of my State; but as it is, I hope I can do more good by staying and giving such aid and comfort as I can to my countrymen. You will, I am sure, excuse my saying that I think you must let me aid you a little further. I understand you to say that Miss Kingston will go to friends in Georgia, and I suppose you will see her safely there. Then you have a considerable journey to make to Richmond, and the sum that you possess is utterly inadequate for all this. It will give me real pleasure if you will accept the loan of one hundred dollars, which you can repay when you write to me from Richmond. You will need money for the sake of your companions rather than your own. When you have once crossed the line you will then be able to appear in your proper character."
"Thank you greatly, doctor. I will accept your offer as frankly as it is made. I had intended telegraphing for money as soon as I was among our own people, but there would be delay in receiving it, and it will be much more pleasant to push on at once."
"By the way, you cannot cross at Florence, for I hear that Hood has fallen back across the river, the forces advancing against him from this side being too strong to be resisted. But I think that this is no disadvantage to you, for it would have been far more difficult to pass the Federals and get to Florence than to make for some point on the river as far as possible from the contending armies."
"We talked that over the last time you were here, doctor, and you know we agreed it was better to run the risk of falling into the hands of the Yankee troops than into those of one of those partisan bands whose exploits are always performed at a distance from the army. However, if Hood has retreated across the Tennessee there is an end of that plan, and we must take some other route. Which do you advise?"
"The Yankees will be strong all round the great bend of the river to the west of Florence and along the line to the east, which would, of course, be your direct way. The passage, however, is your real difficulty, and I should say that instead of going in that direction you had better bear nearly due south. There is a road from Mount Pleasant that strikes into the main road from Columbia up to Camden. You can cross the river at that point without any question or suspicion, as you would be merely traveling to the west of the State. Once across you could work directly south, crossing into the State of Mississippi, and from there take train through Alabama to Georgia.
"It seems a roundabout way, but I think you would find it far the safest, for there are no armies operating upon that line. The population, at any rate as you get south, are for us, and there are, so far as I have heard, very few of these bushwhacking bands about either on one side or the other. The difficult part of the journey is that up to Camden, but as you will be going away from the seat of war instead of toward it there will be little risk of being questioned."
"I had thought of buying a horse and cart," Vincent said. "Jogging along a road like that we should attract no attention. I gave up the idea because our funds were not sufficient, but, thanks to your kindness, we might manage now to pick up something of the sort."
The doctor was silent for a minute.
"If you will send Dan over to me to-morrow afternoon I will see what can be done," he said. "It would certainly be the safest plan by far; but I must think it over. You will not leave before that, will you?"
"Certainly not, doctor. In any case we should have stayed another day to get a few more things for our journey."
The next afternoon Dan went over to Mount Pleasant. He was away two hours longer than they had expected, and they began to feel quite uneasy about him, when the sound of wheels was heard, and Dan appeared coming along the road driving a cart. Vincent gave a shout of satisfaction, and Lucy and the negress ran out from the house in delight.
"Here am de cart. Me had to go to five miles from de town to get him. Dat what took me so long. Here am a letter, sah, from the doctor. First-rate man dat. Good man all ober."
The letter was as follows: "My Dear Mr. Wingfield: I did not see how you would be able to buy a cart, and I was sure that you could not obtain one with the funds in your possession. As from what you have said I knew that you would not in the least mind the expense, I have taken the matter upon myself, and have bought from your landlady a cart and horse, which will, I think, suit you well. I have paid for them a hundred and fifty dollars, which you can remit me with the hundred I handed you yesterday. Sincerely trusting that you may succeed in carrying out your plans in safety, and with kind regards to yourself and Miss Kingston, "I remain, yours truly, "James Spencer."
"That is a noble fellow," Vincent said, "and I trust, for his sake as well as our own, that we shall get safely through. Now, Lucy, I think you had better go into the town the first thing and buy some clothes of good homely fashion. What with the water and the bushes your dress is grievously dilapidated, to say the least of it. Dan can go with you and buy a suit for me--those fitted for a young farmer. We shall look like a young farmer and his sister jogging comfortably along to market; we can stop and buy a stock of goods at some farm on the way."
"That will be capital," the girl said. "I have been greatly ashamed of my old dress, but knowing we were running so short, and that every dollar was of consequence, I made the best of it; now that we are in funds we can afford to be respectable."
Lucy started early the next morning for the town, and the shopping was satisfactorily accomplished. They returned by eleven o'clock. The new purchases were at once donned, and half an hour later they set off in the cart, Vincent sitting on the side driving, Lucy in the corner facing him on a basket turned topsy-turvy, Dan and Chloe on a thick bag of rushes in the bottom of the cart.
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
14
|
ACROSS THE BORDER.
|
Dan on his return with the cart had brought back a message from its late owner to say that if she could in any way be of use to them she should be glad to aid them. Her farm lay on the road they were now following, and they determined therefore to stop there. As the cart drew up at the door the woman came out.
"Glad to see you," she said; "come right in. It's strange now you should have been lodging in my house for more than six weeks and I should never have set eyes on you before. The doctor talked to me a heap about you, but I didn't look to see quite such a young couple."
Lucy colored hotly and was about to explain that they did not stand in the supposed relationship to each other, but Vincent slightly shook his head. It was not worth while to undeceive the woman, and although they had agreed to pass as brother and sister Vincent was determined not to tell an untruth about it unless deceit was absolutely necessary for their safety.
"And you want to get out of the way without questions being asked, I understand?" the woman went on. "There are many such about at present. I don't want to ask no questions; the war has brought trouble enough on me. Now is there anything I can do? If so, say it right out."
"Yes, there is something you can do for us. We want to fill up our cart with the sort of stuff you take to market--apples and pumpkins, and things of that sort. If we had gone to buy them anywhere else there might have been questions asked. From what the doctor said you can let us have some."
"I can do that. The storeroom's chuck full; and it was only a few days ago I said to David it was time we set about getting them off. I will fill your cart, sir; and not overcharge you neither. It will save us the trouble of taking it over to Columbia or Camden, for there's plenty of garden truck round Mount Pleasant, and one cannot get enough to pay for the trouble of taking them there."
The cart was soon filled with apples, pumpkins, and other vegetables, and the price put upon them was very moderate.
"What ought we to ask for these?" Vincent soon inquired. "One does not want to be extra cheap or dear."
The woman informed them of the prices they might expect to get for the produce; and they at once started amid many warm good wishes from her.
Before leaving the farm the woman had given them a letter to her sister who lived a mile from Camden.
"It's always awkward stopping at a strange place," she said, "and farmers don't often put up at hotels when they drive in with garden truck to a town, though they may do so sometimes; besides it's always nice being with friends. I will write a line to Jane and tell her you have been my tenants at Woodford and where you are going, and ask her to take you in for the night and give you a note in the morning to any one she or her husband may know a good bit along that road."
When they reached the house it was dark, but directly Vincent showed the note the farmer and his wife heartily bade them come in.
"Your boy can put up the horse at the stable, and you are heartily welcome. But the house is pretty full, and we can't make you as comfortable as we should wish at night; but still we will do our best."
Vincent and Lucy were soon seated by the fire. Their hostess bustled about preparing supper for them, and the children, of whom the house seemed full, stared shyly at the newcomers. As soon as the meal was over, Chloe's wants were attended to, and a lunch of bread and bacon taken out by the farmer to Dan in the stables. The children were then packed off to bed, and the farmer and his wife joined Vincent and Lucy by the fire.
"As to sleeping," the woman said, "John and I have been talking it over, and the best way we can see is that you should sleep with me, ma'am, and we will make up a bed on the floor here for my husband and yours."
"Thank you--that will do very nicely; though I don't like interfering with your arrangements."
"Not at all, ma'am, not at all, it makes a nice change having some one come in, especially of late, when there is no more pleasure in going about in this country, and people don't go out after dark more than they can help. Ah! it's a bad time. My sister says you are going west, but I see you have got your cart full of garden truck. How you have raised it so soon I don't know; for Liza wrote to me two months since as she hadn't been able to sell her place, and it was just a wilderness. Are you going to get rid of it at Camden to-morrow?"
Vincent had already been assured as to the politics of his present host and hostess, and he therefore did not hesitate to say: "The fact is, madam, we are anxious to get along without being questioned by any Yankee troops we may fall in with; and we have bought the things you see in the cart from your sister, as, going along with a cart full, any one we met would take us for farmers living close by on their road to the next market-town."
"Oh, oh! that's it!" the farmer said significantly. "Want to get through the lines, eh?"
Vincent nodded.
"Didn't I think so!" the farmer said, rubbing his hands. "I thought directly my eyes hit upon you that you did not look the cut of a granger. Been fighting--eh? and they are after you?"
"I don't think they are after me here," Vincent said. "But I have seen a good deal of fighting with Jackson and Stuart; and I am just getting over a collar-bone which was smashed by a Yankee bullet."
"You don't say!" the farmer exclaimed. "Well, I should have gone out myself if it hadn't been for Jane and the children. But there are such a lot of them that I could not bring myself to run the chance of leaving them all on her hands. Still, I am with them heart and soul."
"Your wife's sister told me that you were on the right side," Vincent said, "and that I could trust you altogether."
"Now, if you tell me which road you want to go, I don't mind if I get on my horse to-morrow and ride with you a stage, and see you put for the night. I know a heap of people, and I am sure to be acquainted with some one whichever road you may go. We are pretty near all the right side about here, though, as you get further on, there are lots of Northern men. Now, what are your ideas as to the roads?"
Vincent told him the route he intended to take.
"You ought to get through there right enough," the farmer said. "There are some Yankee troops moving about to the west of the river, but not many of them; and even if you fell in with them, with your cargo of stuff they would not suspect you. Anyhow, I expect we can get you passed down so as always to be among friends. So you fought under Jackson and Stuart, did you? Ah, they have done well in Virginia! I only wish we had such men here. What made you take those two darkies along with you? I should have thought you would have got along better by yourself."
"We couldn't very well leave them," Vincent said; "the boy has been with me all through the wars, and is as true as steel. Old Chloe was Lucy's nurse, and would have broken her heart had she been left behind."
"They are faithful creatures when they are well treated. Mighty few of them have run away all this time from their masters, though in the parts the Yankees hold there is nothing to prevent their bolting if they have a mind to it. I haven't got no niggers myself. I tried them, but they want more looking after than they are worth; and I can make a shift with my boys to help me, and hiring a hand in busy times to work the farm. Now, sir, what do you think of the look-out?"
The subject of the war fairly started, his host talked until midnight, long before which hour Lucy and the farmer's wife had gone off to bed.
"We will start as soon as it is light," the farmer said, as he and Vincent stretched themselves upon the heap of straw covered with blankets that was to serve as their bed, Chloe having hours before gone up to share the bed of the negro girl who assisted the farmer's wife in her management of the house and children.
"It's best to get through Camden before people are about. There are Yankee soldiers at the bridge, but it will be all right you driving in, however early, to sell your stuff. Going out you ain't likely to meet with Yankees; but as it would look queer, you taking your garden truck out of the town, it's just as well to be on the road before people are about. Once you get five or six miles the other side you might be going to the next place to sell your stuff."
"That is just what I have been thinking," Vincent said, "and I agree with you the earlier we get through Camden the better."
Accordingly as soon as daylight appeared the horse was put in the cart, the farmer mounting his own animal, and with a hearty good-by from his wife the party started away. The Yankee sentinels at each end of the bridge were passed without questions, for early as it was the carts were coming in with farm produce. As yet the streets of the town were almost deserted, and the farmer, who before starting had tossed a tarpaulin into the back of the cart, said: "Now, pull that over all that stuff, and then any one that meets us will think that you are taking out bacon and groceries and such like for some store way off."
This suggestion was carried out, and Camden was soon left behind. A few carts were met as they drove along. The farmer knew some of the drivers and pulled up to say a few words to them. After a twenty-mile drive they stopped at another farm, where their friend's introduction ensured them as cordial a welcome as that upon the preceding evening. So step by step they journeyed on, escorted in almost every case by their host of the night before and meeting with no interruption. Once they passed a strong body of Federal cavalry, but these supposing that the party belonged to the neighborhood asked no questions; and at last, after eight days' traveling, they passed two posts which marked the boundary between Tennessee and Alabama.
For the last two days they had been beyond the point to which the Federal troops had penetrated. They now felt that all risk was at an end. Another day's journey brought them to a railway station, and they learned that the trains were running as usual, although somewhat irregular as to the hours at which they came along or as to the time they took upon their journey. The contents of the cart had been left at the farm at which they stopped the night before, and Vincent had now no difficulty in disposing of the horse and cart, as he did not stand out for price, but took the first offer made. Two hours later a train came along, and the party were soon on their way to the east. After many hours' traveling they reached Rome, in Georgia, and then proceeded by the southern line a few miles to Macon, at which place they alighted and hired a conveyance to take them to Antioch, near which place Lucy's relatives resided.
The latter part of the journey by rail had been a silent one. Lucy felt none of the pleasure that she had expected at finding herself safely through her dangers and upon the point of joining relations who would be delighted to see her, and she sat looking blankly out of the window at the surrounding country. At last Vincent, who had been half an hour without speaking, said: "Are you sorry our journey is just over, Lucy?"
The girl's lip quivered, but she did not speak for a moment. "Of course it is unpleasant saying good-by when people have been together for some time," she said with an effort.
"I hope it will not be good-by for long," he said. "I shall be back here as soon as this horrible war is over."
"What for?" the girl asked, looking round in surprise. "You live a long way from here, and you told me you knew nobody in these parts."
"I know you," Vincent said, "and that is quite enough. Do you not know that I love you?"
The girl gave a start of surprise, her cheek flushed, but her eyes did not drop as she looked frankly at him.
"No, Vin," she said after a pause, "I never once thought you loved me, never once. You have not been a bit like what I thought people were when they felt like that."
"I hope not, Lucy. I was your protector then, that is to say when you were not mine. Your position has been trying enough, and I should have been a blackguard if I had made it more uncomfortable than it was by showing you that I cared for you. I have tried my best to be what people thought me--your brother; but now that you are just home and among your own people, I think I may speak and tell you how I feel toward you and how I have loved you since the moment I first saw you. And you, Lucy, do you think you could care for me?"
"Not more than I do now, Vin. I love you with all my heart. I have been trying so hard to believe that I didn't, because I thought you did not care for me that way."
For some minutes no further word was spoken. Vincent was the first to speak: "It is horrid to have to sit here in this stiff, unnatural way, Lucy, when one is inclined to do something outrageous from sheer happiness. These long, open cars, where people can see from end to end what every one is doing, are hateful inventions. It is perfectly absurd, when one finds one's self the happiest fellow living, that one is obliged to look as demure and solemn as if one was in church."
"Then you should have waited, sir," the girl said.
"I meant to have waited, Lucy, until I got to your home, but directly I felt that there was no longer any harm in my speaking, out it came; but it's very hard to have to wait for hours perhaps."
"To wait for what?" Lucy asked demurely.
"You must wait for explanations until we are alone, Lucy. And now I think the train begins to slacken, and it is the next station at which we get out."
"I think, Lucy," Vincent said, when they approached the house of her relatives, "you and Chloe had better get out and go in by yourselves and tell your story. Dan and I will go to the inn, and I will come round in an hour. If we were to walk in together like this it would be next to impossible for you to explain how it all came about."
"I think that would be the best plan. My two aunts are the kindest creatures possible, but no doubt they will be bewildered at seeing me so suddenly. I do think it would be best to let me have a talk with them and tell them all about it before you appear upon the scene."
"Very well, then, in an hour I will come in."
When they arrived at the gate, therefore, Vincent helped Lucy and Chloe to alight, and then jumping into the buggy again told the driver to take him to the inn.
Having engaged a room and indulged in a thorough wash Vincent sallied out into the little town, and was fortunate enough to succeed in purchasing a suit of tweed clothes, which, although they scarcely fitted him as if they had been made for him, were still an immense improvement upon the rough clothes in which he had traveled. Returning to the hotel he put on his new purchases, and then walked to the house of Lucy's aunts, which was a quarter of a mile outside the town.
Lucy had walked up the little path through the garden in front of the house, and turning the handle of the door had entered unannounced and walked straight into the parlor. Two elderly ladies rose with some surprise at the entry of a strange visitor. It was three years since she had paid her last visit there, and for a moment they did not recognize her.
"Don't you know me, aunts?"
"Why, goodness me!" the eldest exclaimed, "if it isn't our little Lucy grown into a woman! My dear child, where have you sprung from?" And the two ladies warmly embraced their niece, who, as soon as they released her from their arms, burst into a fit of crying, and it was some time before she could answer the questions showered upon her.
"It is nothing, aunts," she said at last, wiping her eyes; "but I am so glad to be with you again, and I have gone through so much, and I am so happy, and it is so nice being with you again. Here is Chloe waiting to speak to you, aunts. She has come with me all the way."
The old negress, who had been waiting in the passage, was now called in.
"Why, Chloe, you look no older than when you went away from here six years ago," Miss Kingston said. "But how ever did you both get through the lines? We have been terribly anxious about you. Your brother was here only a fortnight ago, and he and your father were in a great way about you, and reproached themselves bitterly that they did not send you to us before the troubles began, which certainly would have been a wiser step, as I told them. Of course your brother said that when they left you to join the army they had no idea that matters were going so far, or that the Yankees would drive us out of Tennessee, or they would never have dreamed of leaving you alone. However, here you are, so now tell me all about it."
Lucy told the story of the various visits of the Federal bushwhackers to the house, and how they had narrowly escaped death for refusing to betray the Confederate officer who had come to the house for food. Her recital was frequently interrupted by exclamations of indignation and pity from her aunts.
"Well, aunts, after that," she went on, "you see it was impossible for me to stop there any longer. No doubt they came back again a few hours afterward and burned the house, and had I been found there I should have been sure to be burned in it, so Chloe agreed with me that there was nothing to do but to try and get through the lines and come to you. There was no way of my getting my living at Nashville except by going out as a help, and there might have been some difficulties about that."
"Quite right, my dear. It was clearly the best thing for you to come to us--indeed, the only thing. But how in the world did you two manage to travel alone all that distance and get through the Federal lines?"
"You see, we were not alone, aunts," Lucy said; "the Confederate officer and his servant were coming through, and of course they took care of us. We could never have got through alone, and as Chloe was with me we got on very nicely; but we have been a long time getting through, for in that fight, where he saved my life and killed five of the band, he had his shoulder broken by a pistol bullet, and we had to stop in a farmhouse near Mount Pleasant, and he was very ill for some time, but the doctor who attended him was a true Southerner, and so we were quite safe till he was able to move again."
"And who is this officer, Lucy?" Miss Kingston asked rather anxiously.
"He is a Virginian gentleman, auntie. His mother has large estates near Richmond. He was in the cavalry with Stuart, and was made prisoner while he was lying wounded and insensible, at Antietam; and I think, auntie, that that--" and she hesitated--"some day we are going to be married."
"Oh, that's it, is it?" the old lady said kindly. "Well, I can't say anything about that until I see him, Lucy. Now tell us the whole story, and then we shall be better able to judge about it. I don't think, my dear, that while you were traveling under his protection he ought to have talked to you about such things."
"He didn't, auntie; not until we were half a mile from the station here. I never thought he cared for me the least bit; he was just like a brother to me--just like what Jack would have been if he had been bringing me here."
"That's right, my dear; I am glad to hear it. Now, let us hear all about it."
Lucy told the whole story of her escape and her adventures, and when she had finished her aunts nodded to each other.
"That's all very satisfactory, Lucy. It was a difficult position to be placed in, though I don't see how it was to be avoided, and the young man really seems to have behaved very well. Don't you think so, Ada?" The younger Miss Kingston agreed, and both were prepared to receive Vincent with cordiality when he appeared.
The hour had been considerably exceeded when Vincent came to the door. He felt it rather an awkward moment when he was ushered into the presence of Lucy's aunts, who could scarcely restrain an exclamation of surprise at his youth, for although Lucy had said nothing about his age, they expected to meet an older man, the impression being gained from the recital of his bravery in attacking singlehanded twelve men, and by the manner in which he had piloted the party through their dangers.
"We are very glad to see you--my sister Ada and myself," Miss Kingston said, shaking hands cordially with their visitor. "Lucy has been telling us all about you; but we certainly expected from what you had gone through that you were older."
"I am two or three years older than she is, Miss Kingston, and I have gone through so much in the last three years that I feel older than I am. She has told you, I hope, that she has been good enough to promise to be my wife some day?"
"Yes, she has told us that, Mr. Wingfield; and although we don't know you personally, we feel sure--my sister Ada and I--from what she has told us of your behavior while you have been together that you are an honorable gentleman, and we hope and believe that you will make her happy."
"I will do my best to do so," Vincent said earnestly. "As to my circumstances, I shall in another year come into possession of estates sufficient to keep her in every comfort."
"I have no doubt that that is all satisfactory, Mr. Wingfield, and that her father will give his hearty approval when he hears all the circumstances of the case. Now, if you will go into the next room, Mr. Wingfield, I will call her down"--for Lucy had run upstairs when she heard Vincent knock.
"I dare say you will like a quiet talk together," she added smiling, "for she tells me you have never been alone together since you started."
Lucy required several calls before she came down. A new shyness such as she had never before felt had seized her, and it was with flushed cheeks and timid steps that she at last came downstairs, and it needed an encouraging--"Go in, you silly child, your lover will not eat you," before she turned the handle and went into the room where Vincent was expecting her.
Vincent had telegraphed from the first station at which he arrived within the limits of the Confederacy to his mother, announcing his safe arrival there, and asking her to send money to him at Antioch. Her letter in reply reached him three days after his arrival. It contained notes for the amount he wrote for; and while expressing her own and his sisters' delight at hearing he had safely reached the limits of the Confederacy, she expressed not a little surprise at the out-of-the-way place to which he had requested the money to be sent.
"We have been examining the maps, my dear boy," she said, "and find that it is seventy or eighty miles out of your direct course, and we have puzzled ourselves in vain as to why you should have made your way there. The girls guess that you have gone there to deliver in person some message from one of your late fellow-prisoners to his family. I am not good at guessing, and am content to wait until you return home. We hope that you will leave as soon as you get the remittance. We shall count the hours until we see you. Of course we learned from a Yankee paper smuggled through the lines that you had escaped from prison, and have been terribly anxious about you ever since. We are longing to hear your adventures."
A few hours after the receipt of this letter Vincent was on his way home. It was a long journey. The distance was considerable, and the train service greatly disordered and unpunctual. When within a few hours of Richmond he telegraphed, giving the approximate time at which he might be expected to arrive. The train, however, did not reach Richmond until some hours later. The carriage was waiting at the station, and the negro coachman shouted with pleasure at the sight of his young master.
"Missis and the young ladies come, sah; but de station-master he say de train no arrive for a long time, so dey wait for you at de town house, sah."
Dan jumped up beside the coachman and Vincent leaped into the carriage, and a few minutes later he was locked in the arms of his mother and sisters.
"You grow bigger and bigger, Vincent," his mother said after the first greeting was over. "I thought you must have done when you went away last, but you are two or three inches taller and ever so much wider."
"I think I have nearly done now, mother--anyhow as to height. I am about six feet one."
"You are a dreadful trouble to us, Vincent," Annie said. "We have awful anxiety whenever we hear of a battle being fought, and it was almost a relief to us when we heard that you were in a Yankee prison. We thought at least you were out of danger for some time; but since the news came of your escape it has been worse than ever, and as week passed after week without our hearing anything of you we began to fear that something terrible had happened to you."
"Nothing terrible has happened at all, Annie. The only mishap I had was getting a pistol bullet in my shoulder which laid me up for about six weeks. There was nothing very dreadful about it," he continued, as exclamations of alarm and pity broke from his mother and sister. "I was well looked after and nursed. And now I will tell you my most important piece of news, and then I will give you a full account of my adventures from the time when Dan got me out of prison, for it is entirely to him that I owe my liberty."
"Well, what is the piece of news?" Annie asked.
"Guess!" Vincent replied smiling.
"You have got promoted?" his mother said. He shook his head.
"Is it about a lady?" Annie asked.
Vincent smiled.
"Oh, Vincent, you are not engaged to be married! That would be too ridiculous!" Vincent laughed and nodded.
"Annie is right, mother; I am engaged to be married." Mrs. Wingfield looked grave, Rosie laughed, and Annie threw her arms round his neck and kissed him.
"You dear, silly old boy:" she said. "I am glad, though it seems so ridiculous. Who is she, and what is she like?"
"We needn't ask where she lives," Rosie said. "Of course it is in Antioch, though how in the world you managed it all in the two or three days you were there I can't make out."
Mrs. Wingfield's brow cleared. "At any rate, in that case, Vincent, she is a Southerner. I was afraid at first it was some Yankee woman who had perhaps sheltered you on your way."
"Is she older than you, Vincent?" Annie asked suddenly. "I shouldn't like her to be older than you are."
"She is between sixteen and seventeen," Vincent replied, "and she is a Southern girl, mother, and I am sure you will love her, for she saved my life at the risk of her own, besides nursing me all the time I was ill."
"I have no doubt I shall love her, Vincent, for I think, my boy, that you would not make a rash choice. I think you are young, much too young, to be engaged; still, that is a secondary matter. Now tell us all about it. We expected your story to be exciting, but did not dream that love-making had any share in it."
Vincent accordingly told them the whole story of his adventures from the time of his first meeting Dan in prison. When he related the episode of Lucy's refusal to say whether he would return, although threatened with instant death unless she did so, his narrative was broken by the exclamations of his hearers.
"You need not say another word in praise of her," his mother said. "She is indeed a noble girl, and I shall be proud of such a daughter."
"She must be a darling!" Annie exclaimed. "Oh, Vincent, how brave she must be! I don't think I ever could have done that, with a pistol pointing straight at you, and all those dreadful men round, and no hope of a rescue; it's awful even to think of."
"It was an awful moment, as you may imagine," Vincent replied. "I shall never forget the scene, or Lucy's steadfast face as she faced that man; and you see at that time I was a perfect stranger to her--only a fugitive Confederate officer whom she shielded from his pursuers."
"Go on, Vincent; please go on," Annie said. "Tell us what happened next."
Vincent continued his narrative to the end, with, however, many interruptions and questions on the part of the girls. His mother said little, but sat holding his hand in hers.
"It has been a wonderful escape, Vincent," she said when he had finished. "Bring your Lucy here when you like, and I shall be ready to receive her as my daughter, and to love her for her own sake as well as yours. She must be not only a brave but a noble girl, and you did perfectly right to lose not a single day after you had taken her safely home in asking her to be your wife. I am glad to think that some day the Orangery will have so worthy a mistress. I will write to her at once. You have not yet told us what she is like, Vincent."
"I am not good at descriptions, but you shall see her photograph when I get it."
"What, haven't you got one now?"
"She had not one to give me. You see, when the troubles began she was little more than a child, and since that time she has scarcely left home, but she promised to have one taken at once and send it me, and then, if it is a good likeness, you will know all about it."
"Mother, when you write to-night," Rosie said, "please send her your photograph and ours, and say we all want one of our new relative that is to be."
"I think, my dear, you can leave that until we have exchanged a letter or two. You will see Vincent's copy, and can then wait patiently for your own."
"And now, mother, I have told you all of my news; let us hear about every one here. How are all the old house hands, and how is Dinah? Tony is at Washington, I know, because I saw in the paper that he had made a sudden attack upon Jackson."
Mrs. Wingfield's face fell.
"That is my one piece of bad news, Vincent. I wish you hadn't asked the question until to-morrow, for I am sorry that anything should disturb the pleasure of this first meeting; still as you have asked the question I must answer it. About ten days ago a negro came, as I afterward heard from Chloe, to the back entrance and asked for Dinah. He said he had a message for her. She went and spoke to him, and then ran back and caught up her child. She said to Chloe, 'I have news of my husband. I think he is here. I will soon be back again.' Then she ran out, and has never returned. We have made every inquiry we could, but we have not liked to advertise for her, for it may be that she has met her husband, and that he persuaded her to make off at once with him to Yorktown or Fortress Monroe."
"This is bad news indeed, mother," Vincent said. "No, I do not think for a moment that she has gone off with Tony. There could be no reason why she should have left so suddenly without telling any one, for she knew well enough that you would let her go if she wished it; and I feel sure that neither she nor Tony would act so ungratefully as to leave us in this manner. No, mother, I feel sure that this has been done by Jackson. You know I told you I felt uneasy about her before I went. No doubt the old rascal has seen in some Northern paper an account of his son having been attacked in the streets of Washington, and recaptured by Tony, and he has had Dinah carried off from a pure spirit of revenge. Well, mother," he went on in answer to an appealing look from her, "I will not put myself out this first evening of my return, and will say no more about it. There will be plenty of time to take the matter up to-morrow. And now about all our friends and acquaintances. How are they getting on? Have you heard of any more of my old chums being killed since I was taken prisoner at Antietam?"
It was late in the evening before Vincent heard all the news. Fortunately, the list of casualties in the army of Virginia had been slight since Antietam; but that battle had made many gaps among the circle of their friends, and of these Vincent now heard for the first time, and he learned too, that although no battle had been fought since Antietam, on the 17th of September, there had been a sharp skirmish near Fredericksburg, and that the Federal army, now under General Burnside, who had succeeded McClellan, was facing that of Lee, near that town, and that it was believed that they would attempt to cross the Rappahannock in a few days.
It was not until he retired for the night that Vincent allowed his thoughts to turn again to the missing woman. Her loss annoyed and vexed him much more than he permitted his mother to see. In the first place, the poor girl's eagerness to show her gratitude to him upon all occasions, and her untiring watchfulness and care during his illness from his wound, had touched him, and the thought that she was now probably in the hands of brutal taskmasters was a real pain to him. In the next place, he had, as it were, given his pledge to Tony that she should be well cared for until she could be sent to join him. And what should he say now when the negro wrote to claim her? Then, too, he felt a personal injury that the woman should be carried off when under his mother's protection, and he was full of indignation and fury at the dastardly revenge taken by Jackson. Upon hearing the news he had at once mentally determined to devote himself for some time to a search for Dinah; but the news that a great battle was expected at the front interfered with his plan. Now that he was back, capable of returning to duty, his place was clearly with his regiment; but he determined that while he would rejoin at once, he would as soon as the battle was over, if he were unhurt, take up the search. His mother and sisters were greatly distressed when at breakfast he told them that he must at once report himself as fit for duty, and ready to join his regiment.
"I was afraid you would think so," Mrs. Wingfield said, while the girls wept silently; "and much as I grieve at losing you again directly you have returned, I can say nothing against it. You have gone through many dangers, Vincent, and have been preserved to us through them all. We will pray that you may be so to the end. Still, whether or not, I as a Virginian woman cannot grudge my son to the service of my country, when all other mothers are making the same sacrifice; but it is hard to give you up when but yesterday you returned to us."
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
15
|
FREDERICKSBURG.
|
As soon as breakfast was over Vincent mounted Wildfire--which had been sent back after he had been taken prisoner, and rode into Richmond. There he reported himself at headquarters as having returned after escaping from a Federal prison, and making his way through the lines of the enemy.
"I had my shoulder-bone smashed in a fight with some Yankees," he said, "and was laid up in hiding for six weeks; but have now fairly recovered. My shoulder, at times, gives me considerable pain, and although I am desirous of returning to duty and rejoining my regiment until the battle at Fredericksburg has taken place, I must request that three months' leave be granted to me after that to return home and complete my cure, promising of course to rejoin my regiment at once should hostilities break out before the spring."
"We saw the news that you had escaped," the general said, "but feared, as so long a time elapsed without hearing from you, that you had been shot in attempting to cross the lines. Your request for leave is of course granted, and a note will be made of your zeal in thus rejoining on the very day after your return. The vacancy in the regiment has been filled up, but I will appoint you temporarily to General Stuart's staff, and I shall have great pleasure in to-day filling up your commission as captain. Now let me hear how you made your escape. By the accounts published in the Northern papers it seemed that you must have had a confederate outside the walls."
Vincent gave a full account of his escape from prison and a brief sketch of his subsequent proceedings, saying only that he was in the house of some loyal people in Tennessee, when it was attacked by a party of Yankee bushwhackers, that these were beaten off in the fight, but that he himself had a pistol bullet in his shoulder. He then made his way on until compelled by his wound to lay up for six weeks in a lonely farmhouse near Mount Pleasant; that afterward in the disguise of a young farmer he had made a long detour across the Tennessee river and reached Georgia.
"When do you leave for the front, Captain Wingfield?"
"I shall be ready to start to-night, sir."
"In that case I will trouble you to come round here this evening. There will be a fast train going through with ammunition for Lee at ten o'clock, and I shall have a bag of despatches for him, which I will trouble you to deliver. You will find me here up to the last moment. I will give orders that a horse-box be put on to the train."
After expressing his thanks Vincent took his leave. As he left the general's quarters, a young man, just alighting from his horse, gave a shout of greeting.
"Why, Wingfield, it is good to see you! I thought you were pining again in a Yankee dungeon, or had got knocked on the head crossing the lines. Where have you sprung from, and when did you arrive?"
"I only got in yesterday after sundry adventures which I will tell you about presently. When did you arrive from the front?"
"I came down a few days ago on a week's leave on urgent family business," the young man laughed, "and I am going back again this afternoon by the four o'clock train."
"Stay till ten," Vincent said, "and we will go back together. There is a special train going through with ammunition, and as everything will make way for that it will not be long behind the four o'clock, and likely enough may pass it on the way. There is a horse-box attached to it, and as I only take one horse there will be room for yours."
"I haven't brought my horse down," Harry Furniss said; "but I will certainly go with you by the ten o'clock. Then we can have a long talk. I don't think I have seen you since the day you asked me to lend you my boat two years ago."
"Can you spare me two hours now?" Vincent asked. "You will do me a very great favor if you will."
Harry Furniss looked at his watch. "It is eleven o'clock now; we have a lot of people to lunch at half-past one, and I must be back by then."
"You can manage that easy enough," Vincent replied; "in two hours from the time we leave here you can be at home."
"I am your man, then, Vincent. Just wait five minutes. I have to see some one in here."
A few minutes later Harry Furniss came out again and mounted.
"Now which way, Vincent? and what is it you want me for?"
"The way is to Jackson's place at the Cedars, the why I will tell you about as we ride."
Vincent then recounted his feud with the Jacksons, of which, up to the date of the purchase of Dinah Morris, his friend was aware, having been present at the sale. He now heard of the attack upon young Jackson by Tony, and of the disappearance of Dinah Morris.
"I should not be at all surprised, Wingfield, if your surmises are correct, and that old scoundrel has carried off the girl to avenge himself upon Tony. Of course, if you could prove it, it would be a very serious offense; for the stealing a slave, and by force too, is a crime with a very heavy penalty, and has cost men their lives before now. But I don't see that you have anything like a positive proof, however strong a case of suspicion it may be. I don't see what you are going to say when you get there."
"I am going to tell him that if he does not say what he has done with the girl, I will have his son arrested for treachery as soon as he sets foot in the Confederacy again."
"Treachery!" Furniss said in surprise; "what treachery has he been guilty of? I saw that he was one of those who escaped with you, and I rather wondered at the time at you two being mixed up together in anything. I heard that he had been recaptured through some black fellow that had been his slave, but I did not read the account. Have you got proof of what you say?"
"Perhaps no proof that would hold in a court of law," Vincent replied, "but proof enough to make it an absolute certainty to my mind."
Vincent then gave an account of their escape, and of the anonymous denunciation of himself and Dan.
"Now," he said, "no one but Dan knew of the intended escape, no one knew what clothes he had purchased, no one could possibly have known that I was to be disguised as a preacher and Dan as my servant. Therefore the information must have been given by Jackson."
"I have not the least doubt but that the blackguard did give it, Wingfield; but there is no proof."
"I consider that there is a proof--an absolute and positive proof," Vincent asserted, "because no one else could have known it."
"Well, you see that as a matter of fact the other officer did know it, and might possibly have given the information."
"But why should he? The idea is absurd. He had never had a quarrel with me, and he owed his liberty to me."
"Just so, Wingfield. I am as certain that it was Jackson as you are, because I know the circumstances; but you see there is no more absolute proof against one man than against the other. It is true that you had had a quarrel with Jackson some two years before, but you see you had made it up and had become friends in prison--so much so that you selected him from among a score of others in the same room to be the companion of your flight. You and I, who know Jackson, can well believe him guilty of an act of gross ingratitude--of ingratitude and treachery; but people who do not know would hardly credit it as possible--that a man could be such a villain. The defense he would set up would be that in the first place there is no shadow of evidence that he more than the other turned traitor. In the second place he would be sure to say that such an accusation against a Confederate officer is too monstrous and preposterous to be entertained for a moment; and that doubtless your negro, although he denies the fact, really chattered about his doings to the negroes he was lodging with, and that it was through them that some one got to know of the disguise you would wear. We know that it wasn't so, Wingfield; but ninety-nine out of every hundred white men in the South would rather believe that a negro had chattered than that a Confederate officer had been guilty of a gross act of treachery and ingratitude."
Vincent was silent. He felt that what his companion said was the truth; and that a weapon by which he had hoped to force the elder Jackson into saying what he had done with Dinah would probably fail in its purpose. The old man was too astute not to perceive that there was no real proof against his son, and would therefore be unlikely at once to admit that he had committed a serious crime, and to forego his revenge.
"I will try at any rate," he said at last; "and if he refuses I will publish the story in the papers. When the fellow gets back from Yankee-land he may either call me out or demand a court of inquiry. I may not succeed in getting a verdict from twelve white men, but I think I can convince every one of our own class that the fellow did it; and when this battle that is expected is over I have got three months' leave, and I will move heaven and earth to find the woman; and if I do, Jackson will either have to bolt or stand a trial, with the prospect of ten years' imprisonment if he is convicted. In either case we are not likely to have his son about here again; and if he did venture back and brought an action against me, his chance of getting damages would be a small one."
Another half-hour's ride brought them to the Cedars. They dismounted at the house, and fastening their horses to the portico knocked at the door. It was opened by a negro.
"Tell your master," Vincent said, "that Mr. Wingfield wishes to speak to him."
Andrew Jackson himself came to the door.
"To what do I owe the very great pleasure of this visit, Mr. Wingfield?" he said grimly.
"I have come to ask you what you have done with Dinah Morris, whom, I have every ground for believing, you have caused to be kidnaped from my mother's house."
"This is a serious charge, young gentleman," Andrew Jackson said, "and one that I shall call upon you to justify in the law-courts. Men are not to be charged with criminal actions even by young gentlemen of good Virginian families."
"I shall be quite ready to meet you there, Mr. Jackson, whenever you choose; but my visit here is rather to give you an opportunity of escaping the consequences that will follow your detection as the author of the crime; for I warn you that I will bring the crime home to you, whatever it costs me in time and money. My offer is this: produce the woman and her child, and not only shall no prosecution take place, but I will remain silent concerning a fact which affects the honor of your son."
Andrew Jackson's face had been perfectly unmoved during this conversation until he heard the allusion to his son. Then his face changed visibly.
"I know nothing concerning which you can attack the honor of my son, Mr. Wingfield," he said, with an effort to speak as unconcernedly as before.
"My charge is as follows," Vincent said quietly: "I was imprisoned at Elmira with a number of other officers, among them your son. Thinking that it was time for the unpleasantness that had been existing between us to come to an end, I offered him my hand. This he accepted and we became friends. A short time afterward a mode of escape offered itself to me, and I proved the sincerity of my feelings toward him by offering to him and another officer the means of sharing my escape. This they accepted. Once outside the walls, I furnished them with disguises that had been prepared for them, assuming myself that of a minister. We then separated, going in different directions, I myself being accompanied by my negro servant, to whose fidelity I owed our escape. Two days afterward an anonymous writer communicated to the police the fact that I had escaped in the disguise of a minister, and was accompanied by my black servant. This fact was only known to the negro, myself, and the two officers. My negro, who had released me, was certainly not my betrayer; the other officer could certainly have had no possible motive for betraying me. There remains, therefore, only your son, whose hostility to me was notorious, and who had expressed himself with bitterness against me on many occasions, and among others in the hearing of my friend Mr. Furniss here. Such being the case, it is my intention to charge him before the military authorities with this act of treachery. But, as I have said, I am willing to forego this and to keep silence as to your conduct with reference to my slave Dinah Morris, if you will restore her and her child uninjured to the house from which you caused her to be taken."
The sallow cheeks of the old planter had grown a shade paler as he listened to Vincent's narrative, but he now burst out in angry tones: "How dare you, sir, bring such an infamous accusation against my son--an accusation, like that against myself, wholly unsupported by a shred of evidence? Doubtless your negro had confided to some of his associates his plans for assisting you to escape from prison, and it is from one of these that the denunciation has come. Go, sir, report where you will what lies and fables you have invented; but be assured that I and my son will seek our compensation for such gross libels in the courts."
"Very well, sir," Vincent said, as he prepared to mount his horse; "if you will take the trouble to look in the papers to-morrow, you will see that your threats of action for libel have no effect whatever upon me."
"The man is as hard as a rock, Wingfield," Furniss said, as they rode off together. "He wilted a little when you were telling your story, but the moment he saw you had no definite proofs he was, as I expected he would be, ready to defy you. What shall you do now?"
"I shall ride back into Richmond again and give a full account of my escape from the jail, and state that I firmly believe that the information as to my disguise was given by Jackson, and that it was the result of a personal hostility which, as many young men in Richmond are well aware, has existed for some time between us."
"Well, you must do as you like, Wingfield, but I think it will be a risky business."
"It may be so," Vincent said; "but I have little doubt that long before Jackson is exchanged I shall have discovered Dinah, and shall prosecute Jackson for theft and kidnaping, in which case the young man will hardly venture to prosecute me or indeed to show his face in this part of the country."
That evening the two young officers started for the front, and the next morning the Richmond papers came out with a sensational heading, "Alleged Gross Act of Treachery and Ingratitude by a Confederate Officer."
It was the 10th of December when Vincent joined the army at Fredericksburg. He reported himself to General Stuart, who received him with great cordiality.
"You are just in time, Wingfield," he said. "I believe that in another twenty-four hours the battle will be fought. They have for the last two days been moving about in front, and apparently want us to believe that they intend to cross somewhere below the town; but all the news we get from our spies is to the effect that these are only feints and that they intend to throw a bridge across here. We know, anyhow, they have got two trains concealed opposite, near the river. Burnside is likely to find it a hard nut to crack. Of course they are superior in number to us, as they always are; but as we have always beat them well on level ground I do not think their chances of getting up these heights are by any means hopeful. Then, too, their change of commanders is against them. McClellan fought a drawn battle against us at Antietam and showed himself a really able general in the operations in front of Richmond. The army have confidence in him, and he is by far the best man they have got so far, but the fools at Washington have now for the second time displaced him because they are jealous of him. Burnside has shown himself a good man in minor commands, but I don't think he is equal to command such a vast army as this; and besides, we know from our friends at Washington that he has protested against this advance across the river, but has been overruled. You will see Fredericksburg will add another to the long list of our victories."
Vincent shared a tent with another officer of the same rank in General Stuart's staff. They sat chatting till late, and it was still dark when they were suddenly aroused by an outbreak of musketry down at the river.
"The general was right," Captain Longmore, Vincent's companion, exclaimed. "They are evidently throwing a bridge across the river, and the fire we hear comes from two regiments of Mississippians who are posted down in the town under Barksdale."
It was but the work of a minute to throw on their clothes and hurry out. The night was dark and a heavy fog hung over the river. A perfect roar of musketry came up from the valley. Drums and bugles were sounding all along the crest. At the same moment they issued out General Stuart came out from his tent, which was close by.
"Is that you, Longmore? Jump on your horse and ride down to the town. Bring back news of what is going on."
A few minutes later an officer rode up. Some wood had been thrown on the fire, and by its light Vincent recognized Stonewall Jackson.
"Have you any news for us?" he asked.
"Not yet, I have sent an officer down to inquire. The enemy have been trying to bridge the river.
"I suppose so," Jackson replied. "I have ordered one of my brigades to come to the head of the bank as soon as they can be formed up, to help Barksdale if need be, but I don't want to take them down into the town. It is commanded by all the hills on the opposite side, and we know they have brought up also all their artillery there."
In a few minutes Captain Longmore returned.
"The enemy have thrown two pontoon bridges across, one above and one below the old railway bridge. The Mississippians have driven them back once, but they are pushing on the work and will soon get it finished; but General Barksdale bids me report that with the force at his command he can repulse any attempt to cross."
The light was now breaking in the east, but the roar of musketry continued under the canopy of fog. General Lee, Longstreet, and others had now arrived upon the spot, and Vincent was surprised that no orders were issued for troops to reinforce those under General Barksdale. Presently the sun rose, and as it gained in power the fog slowly lifted, and it was seen that the two pontoon bridges were complete; but the fire of the Mississippians was so heavy that although the enemy several times attempted to cross they recoiled before it. Suddenly a gun was fired from the opposite height, and at the signal more than a hundred pieces of artillery opened fire upon the town. Many of the inhabitants had left as soon as the musketry fire began, but the slopes behind it soon presented a sad spectacle. Men, women, and children poured out from the town, bewildered with the din and terrified by the storm of shot and shell that crashed into it. Higher and higher the crowd of fugitives made their way until they reached the crest; among them were weeping women and crying children, many of them in the scantiest attire and carrying such articles of dress and valuables as they had caught up when startled by the terrible rain of missiles. In a very few minutes smoke began to rise over the town, followed by tongues of flame, and in half an hour the place was on fire in a score of places.
All day the bombardment went on without cessation and Fredericksburg crumbled into ruins. Still, in spite of this terrible fire the Mississippians clung to the burning town amid crashing walls, falling chimneys, and shells exploding in every direction. As night fell the enemy poured across the bridges, and Barksdale, contesting every foot of ground, fell back through the burning city and took up a position behind a stone wall in its rear.
Throughout the day not a single shot had been fired by the Confederate artillery, which was very inferior in power to that of the enemy. General Lee had no wish finally to hinder the passage of the Federals, the stubborn resistance of Barksdale's force being only intended to give him time to concentrate all his army as soon as he knew for certain the point at which the enemy was going to cross; and he did not wish, therefore, to risk the destruction of any of his batteries by calling down the Federal fire upon them.
During the day the troops were all brought up into position. Longstreet was on the left and Jackson on the right, while the guns, forty-seven in number, were in readiness to take up their post in the morning on the slopes in front of them. On the extreme right General Stuart was posted with his cavalry and horse artillery. The night passed quietly and by daybreak the troops were all drawn up in their positions.
As soon as the sun rose it was seen that during the night the enemy had thrown more bridges across and that the greater portion of the army was already over. They were, indeed, already in movement against the Confederate position, their attack being directed toward the portion of the line held by Jackson's division. General Stuart gave orders to Major Pelham, who commanded his horse artillery, and who immediately brought up the guns and began the battle by opening fire on the flank of the enemy. The guns of the Northern batteries at once replied, and for some hours the artillery duel continued, the Federal guns doing heavy execution. For a time attacks were threatened from various points, but about ten o'clock, when the fog lifted, a mass of some 55,000 troops advanced against Jackson. They were suffered to come within 800 yards before a gun was fired, and then fourteen guns opened upon them with such effect that they fell back in confusion.
At one o'clock another attempt was made, covered by a tremendous fire of artillery. For a time the columns of attack were kept at bay by the fire of the Confederate batteries, but they advanced with great resolution, pushed their way through Jackson's first line, and forced them to fall back. Jackson brought up his second line and drove the enemy back with great slaughter until his advance was checked by the fire of the Northern artillery.
All day the fight went on, the Federals attempting to crush the Confederate artillery by the weight of their fire in order that their infantry columns might again advance. But although outnumbered by more than two to one the Confederate guns were worked with great resolution, and the day passed and darkness begun to fall without their retiring from the positions they had taken up. Just at sunset General Stuart ordered all the batteries on the right to advance. This they did and opened their fire on the Northern infantry with such effect that these fell back to the position near the town that they had occupied in the morning.
On the left an equally terrible battle had raged all day, but here the Northern troops were compelled to cross open ground between the town and the base of the hill, and suffered so terribly from the fire that they never succeeded in reaching the Confederate front. Throughout the day the Confederates held their position with such ease that General Lee considered the affair as nothing more than a demonstration of force to feel his position, and expected an even sterner battle on the following day. Jackson's first and second lines, composed of less than 15,000 men, had repulsed without difficulty the divisions of Franklin and Hooker, 55,000 strong; while Longstreet with about the same force had never been really pressed by the enemy, although on that side they had a force of over 50,000 men.
In the morning the Northern army was seen drawn up in battle array as if to advance for fresh assault, but no movement was made. General Burnside was in favor of a fresh attack, but the generals commanding the various divisions felt that their troops, after the repulse the day before, were not equal to the work, and were unanimously of opinion that a second assault should not be attempted. After remaining for some hours in order of battle they fell back into the town and two days later the whole army recrossed the Rappahannock River. The loss of the Confederates was 1,800 men, who were for the most part killed or wounded by the enemy's artillery, while the Federal loss was no less than 13,771. General Burnside soon afterward resigned his command, and General Hooker, an officer of the same politics as the president and his advisers, was appointed to succeed him.
The cavalry had not been called upon to act during the day, and Vincent's duties were confined to carrying orders to the commanders of the various batteries of artillery posted in that part of the field, as these had all been placed under General Stuart's orders. He had many narrow escapes by shot and fragments of shells, but passed through the day uninjured.
General Lee has been blamed for not taking advantage of his victory and falling upon the Federals on the morning after the battle; but although such an assault might possibly have been successful he was conscious of his immense inferiority in force, and his troops would have been compelled to have advanced to the attack across ground completely swept by the fire of the magnificently served Northern artillery posted upon their commanding heights. He was moreover ignorant of the full extent of the loss he had inflicted upon the enemy, and expected a renewed attack by them. He was therefore, doubtless, unwilling to risk the results of the victory he had gained and of the victory he expected to gain should the enemy renew their attack, by a movement which might not be successful, and which would at any rate have cost him a tremendous loss of men, and men were already becoming scarce in the Confederacy.
As soon as the enemy had gone back across the river and it was certain that there was little chance of another forward movement on their part for a considerable time, Vincent showed to General Stuart the permit he had received to return home until the spring on leave, and at once received the general's permission to retire from the staff for a time.
He had not been accompanied by Dan on his railway journey to the front, having left him behind with instructions to endeavor by every means to find some clew as to the direction in which Dinah had been carried off. He telegraphed on his way home the news of his coming, and found Dan at the station waiting for him.
"Well, Dan, have you obtained any news?" he asked as soon as his horse had been removed from its box, and he had mounted and at a foot-pace left the station, with Dan walking beside him.
"No, sah; I hab done my best, but I cannot find out anyting. The niggers at Jackson's all say dat no strangers hab been there wid de old man for a long time before de day dat Dinah was carried off. I have been over dar, massa, and hab talked wid the hands at de house. Dey all say dat no one been dere for a month. Me sure dat dey no tell a lie about it, because dey all hate Massa Jackson like pison. Den de lawyer, he am put de advertisement you told him in the papers: Five hundred dollars to whoever would give information about de carrying off of a female slave from Missy Wingfield, or dat would lead to de discovery of her hiding-place. But no answer come. Me heard Missy Wingfield say so last night."
"That's bad, Dan; but I hardly expected anything better. I felt sure the old fox would have taken every precaution, knowing what a serious business it would be for him if it were found out. Now I am back I will take the matter up myself, and we will see what we can do. I wish I could have set about it the day after she was carried away. It is more than a fortnight ago now, and that will make it much more difficult than it would have been had it been begun at once."
"Well, Vincent, so you have come back to us undamaged this time," his mother said after the first greeting. "We were very anxious when the news came that a great battle had been fought last Friday; but when we heard the next morning the enemy had been repulsed so easily we were not so anxious, although it was not until this morning that the list of killed and wounded was published, and our minds set at rest."
"No, mother; it was a tremendous artillery battle, but it was a little more than that--at least on our side. But I have never heard anything at all like it from sunrise to sunset. But, after all, an artillery fire is more frightening than dangerous, except at comparatively close quarters. The enemy must have fired at least fifty shots for every man that was hit. I counted several times, and there were fully a hundred shots a minute, and I don't think it lessened much the whole day. I should think they must have fired two or three hundred rounds at least from each gun. The roar was incessant, and what with the din they made, and the replies of our own artillery, and the bursting of shells, and the rattle of musketry, the din at times was almost bewildering. Wildfire was hit with a piece of shell, but fortunately it was not a very large one, and he is not much the worse for it, but the shock knocked him off his legs; of course I went down with him, and thought for a moment I had been hit myself. No; it was by far the most hollow affair we have had. The enemy fought obstinately enough, but without the slightest spirit or dash, and only once did they get up anywhere near our line, and then they went back a good deal quicker than they came."
"And now you are going to be with us for three months, Vincent?"
"I hope so, mother; at least if they do not advance again. I shall be here off and on. I mean to find Dinah Morris if it is possible, and if I can obtain the slightest clew I shall follow it up and go wherever it may lead me."
"Well, we will spare you for that, Vincent. As you know, I did not like your mixing yourself up in that business two years ago, but it is altogether different now. The woman was very willing and well conducted, and I had got to be really fond of her. But putting that aside, it is intolerable that such a piece of insolence as the stealing of one of our slaves should go unpunished. Therefore if you do find any clew to the affair we will not grumble at your following it up, even if it does take you away from home for a short time. By the by, we had letters this morning from a certain young lady in Georgia inclosing her photograph, and I rather fancy there is one for you somewhere."
"Where is it, mother?" Vincent asked, jumping from his seat.
"Let me think," Mrs. Wingfield replied. "Did either of you girls put it away, or where can it have been stowed?" The girls both laughed.
"Now, Vincent, what offer do you make for the letter? Well, we won't tease you," Annie went on as Vincent gave an impatient exclamation. "Another time we might do so, but as you have just come safely back to us I don't think it will be fair, especially as this is the very first letter. Here it is"--and she took out of the workbox before her the missive Vincent was so eager to receive.
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
16
|
THE SEARCH FOR DINAH.
|
"By the by, Vincent," Mrs. Wingfield remarked next morning at breakfast, "I have parted with Pearson."
"I am glad to hear it, mother. What! did you discover at last that he was a scamp?"
"Several things that occurred shook my confidence in him, Vincent. The accounts were not at all satisfactory, and it happened quite accidentally that when I was talking one day with Mr. Robertson, who, as you know, is a great speculator in tobacco, I said that I should grow no more tobacco, as it really fetched nothing. He replied that it would be a pity to give it up, for so little was now cultivated that the price was rising, and the Orangery tobacco always fetched top prices. 'I think the price I paid for your crop this year must at any rate have paid for the labor that is to say, paid for the keep of the slaves and something over.' He then mentioned the price he had given, which was certainly a good deal higher than I had imagined. I looked to my accounts next morning, and found that Pearson had only credited me with one-third of the amount he must have received, so I at once dismissed him. Indeed, I had been thinking of doing so some little time before, for money is so scarce and the price of produce so low that I felt I could not afford to pay as much as I have been giving him."
"I am afraid I have been drawing rather heavily, mother," Vincent put in.
"I have plenty of money, Vincent. Since your father's death we have had much less company than before, and I have not spent my income. Besides, I have a considerable sum invested in house property and other securities. But I have, of course, since the war began been subscribing toward the expenses of the war--for the support of hospitals and so on. I thought at a time like this I ought to keep my expenses down at the lowest point, and to give the balance of my income to the State."
"How did Jonas take his dismissal, mother?"
"Not very pleasantly," Mrs. Wingfield replied; "especially when I told him that I had discovered he was robbing me. However, he knew better than to say much, for he has not been in good odor about here for some time. After the fighting near here there were reports that he had been in communication with the Yankees. He spoke to me about it at the time, but as it was a mere matter of rumor, originating, no doubt, from the fact that he was a Northern man by birth, I paid no attention to them."
"It is likely enough to be true," Vincent said. "I always distrusted the vehemence with which he took the Confederate side. How long ago did this happen?"
"It is about a month since I dismissed him."
"So lately as that! Then I should not be at all surprised if he had some hand in carrying off Dinah. I know he was in communication with Jackson, for I once saw them together in the street, and I fancied at the time that it was through him that Jackson learned that Dinah was here. It is an additional clew to inquire into, anyhow. Do you know what has become of him since he left you?"
"No; I have heard nothing at all about him, Vincent, from the day I gave him a check for his pay in this room. Farrell, who was under him, is now in charge of the Orangery. He may possibly know something of his movements."
"I think Farrell is an honest fellow," Vincent said "He was always about doing his work quietly never bullying or shouting at the hands, and yet seeing that they did their work properly. I will ride out and see him at once."
As soon as breakfast was over Vincent started, and found Farrell in the fields with the hands.
"I am glad to see you back, sir," the man said heartily.
"Thank you, Farrell. I am glad to be back, and I am glad to find you in Pearson's place. I never liked the fellow, and never trusted him."
"I did not like him myself, sir, though we always got on well enough together. He knew his work, and got as much out of the hands as any one could do; but I did not like his way with them. They hated him."
"Have you any idea where he went when he left here?"
"No, sir; he did not come back after he got his dismissal. He sent a man in a buggy with a note to me, asking me to send all his things over to Richmond. I expect he was afraid the news might get here as soon as he did, and that the hands would give him an unpleasant reception, as indeed I expect they would have done."
"You don't know whether he has any friends anywhere in the Confederacy to whom he would be likely to go?"
"I don't know about friends, sir; but I know he has told me he was overseer, or partner, or something of that sort, in a small station down in the swamps of South Carolina. I should think, from things he has let drop, that the slaves must have had a bad time of it. I rather fancy he made the place too hot for him, and had to leave; but that was only my impression."
"In that case he may possibly have made his way back there," Vincent said. "I have particular reasons for wishing to find out. You don't know anything about the name of the place?" The man shook his head.
"He never mentioned the name in my hearing."
"Well, I must try to find out, but I don't quite see how to set about it," Vincent said. "By the way, do you know where his clothes were sent to?"
"Yes; the man said that he was to take them to Harker's Hotel. It's a second-rate hotel not far from the railway station."
"Thank you. That will help me. I know the house. It was formerly used by Northern drummers and people of that sort."
After riding back to Richmond and putting up his horse, Vincent went to the hotel there. Although but a secondary hotel it was well filled, for people from all parts of the Confederacy resorted to Richmond, and however much trade suffered, the hotels of the town did a good business. He first went up to the clerk in a little office at the entrance.
"You had a man named Pearson," he said, "staying here about a month ago. Will you be good enough to tell me on what day he left?"
The clerk turned to the register, and said after a minute's examination: "He came on the 14th of November, and he left on the 20th."
This was two days after the date on which Dinah had been carried off.
In American hotels the halls are large and provided with seats, and are generally used as smoking and reading-rooms by the male visitors to the hotel. At Harker's Hotel there was a small bar at the end of the hall, and a black waiter supplied the wants of the guests seated at the various little tables. Vincent seated himself at one of these and ordered something to drink. As the negro placed it on the table he said: "I will give you a dollar if you will answer a few questions."
"Very good, sah. Dat am a mighty easy way to earn a dollar."
"Do you remember, about a month ago, a man named Pearson being here?"
The negro shook his head.
"Me not know de names of de gentlemen, sah. What was de man like?"
"He was tall and thin, with short hair and a gray goatee--a regular Yankee."
"Me remember him, sah. Dar used to be plenty ob dat sort here. Don't see dem much now. Me remember de man, sah, quite well. Used to pass most of de day here. Didn't seem to have nuffin to do."
"Was he always alone, or did he have many people here to see him?"
"Once dar war two men here wid him, sah, sitting at dat table ober in de corner. Rough-looking fellows dey war. In old times people like dat wouldn't come to a 'spectable hotel, but now most ebery one got rough clothes, can't get no others, so one don't tink nuffin about it; but dose fellows was rough-looking besides dar clothes. Didn't like dar looks nohow. Dey only came here once. Dey was de only strangers that came to see him. But once Massa Jackson--me know him by sight--he came here and talk wid him for a long time. Earnest sort of talk dat seemed to be. Dey talk in low voice, and I noticed dey stopped talking when any one sat down near dem."
"You don't know where he went to from here, I suppose?"
"No, sah, dat not my compartment. Perhaps de outside porter will know. Like enough he take his tings in hand-truck to station. You like to see him, sah?"
"Yes, I should like to have a minute's talk with him. Here is your dollar."
The waiter rang a bell, and a minute later the outdoor porter presented himself.
"You remember taking some tings to station for a tall man wid gray goatee, Pomp?" the waiter asked. "It was more dan tree weeks ago. I tink he went before it was light in de morning. Me seem to remember dat."
The negro nodded.
"Me remember him bery well, sah. Tree heavy boxes and one bag, and he only give me quarter dollar for taking dem to de station. Mighty mean man dat."
"Do you know what train he went by?"
"Yes, sah, it was de six o'clock train for de souf."
"You can't find out wher his luggage was checked for?"
"I can go down to station, sah, and see if I can find out. Some of de men dar may remember."
"Here is a dollar for yourself," Vincent said, "and another to give to any of the men who can give you the news. When you have found out come and tell me. Here is my card and address."
"Bery well, sah. Next time me go up to station me find about it, for sure, if any one remember dat fellow."
In the evening the negro called at the house and told Vincent that he had ascertained that a man answering to his description and having luggage similar to that of Pearson had had it checked to Florence in South Carolina.
Vincent now called Dan into his counsel and told him what he had discovered. The young negro had already given proof of such intelligence that he felt sure his opinion would be of value.
"Dat all bery plain, sah," Dan said when Vincent finished his story. "Me no doubt dat old rascal Jackson give money to Pearson to carry off de gal. Ob course he did it just to take revenge upon Tony. Pearson he go into de plot, because, in de fust place, it vex Missy Wingfield and you bery much; in de second place, because Jackson gib him money; in de third place, because he get hold of negro slave worf a thousand dollar. Dat all quite clear. He not do it himself, but arrange wid oder fellows, and he stop quiet at de hotel for two days after she gone so dat no one can 'spect his having hand in de affair."
"That is just how I make it out, Dan; and now he has gone off to join them."
Dan thought for some time.
"Perhaps dey join him dar, sah, perhaps not; perhaps him send him baggage on there and get out somewhere on de road and meet them."
"That is likely enough, Dan. No doubt Dinah was taken away in a cart or buggy. As she left two days before he did, they may have gone from forty to sixty miles along the road, to some place where he may have joined them. The men who carried her off may either have come back or gone on with him. If they wanted to go south they would go on; if they did not, he would probably have only hired them to carry her off and hand her over to him when he overtook them. I will look at the timetable and see where that train stops. It is a fast train, I see," he said, after consulting it; it stops at Petersburg, fifteen miles on, and at Hicks Ford, which is about fifty miles. I should think the second place was most likely, as the cart could easily have got there in two days. Now, Dan, you had better start to-morrow morning, and spend two days there if necessary; find out if you can if on the twentieth of last month any one noticed a vehicle of any kind, with two rough men in it, and with, perhaps, a negro woman. She might not have been noticed, for she may have been lying tied up in the bottom of the cart, although it is more likely they frightened her by threats into sitting up quiet with them. They are sure not to have stopped at any decent hotel, but will have gone to some small place, probably just outside the town.
"I will go with you to Mr. Renfrew the first thing in the morning and get him to draw up a paper testifying that you are engaged in lawful business, and are making inquiries with a view to discovering a crime which has been committed, and recommending you to the assistance of the police in any town you may go to. Then if you go with that to the head constable at Hicks Ford he will tell you which are the places at which such fellows as these would have been likely to put up for the night, and perhaps send a policeman with you to make inquiries. If you get any news telegraph to me at once. I will start by the six o'clock train on the following morning. Do you be on the platform to meet me, and we can then either go straight on to Florence, or, should there be any occasion, I will get out there; but I don't think that is likely. Pearson himself will, to a certainty, sooner or later, go to Florence to get his luggage, and the only real advantage we shall get if your inquiries are successful will be to find out for certain whether he is concerned in the affair. We shall then only have to follow his traces from Florence."
Two days later Mr. Renfrew received a telegram from the head constable at Hicks Ford: "The two men with cart spent day here, 20th ult. Were joined that morning by another man--negro says Pearson. One man returned afternoon, Richmond. Pearson and the other drove off in buggy. A young negress and child were with them. Is there anything I can do?"
Mr. Renfrew telegraphed back to request that the men, who were kidnaping the female slave, should if possible be traced and the direction they took ascertained. He then sent the message across to Vincent, who at once went to his office.
"Now," the lawyer said, "you must do nothing rashly in this business, Vincent. They are at the best of time a pretty rough lot at the edge of these Carolina swamps, and at present things are likely to be worse than usual. If you were to go alone on such an errand you would almost certainly be shot. In the first place, these fellows would not give up a valuable slave without a struggle; and in the next place, they have committed a very serious crime. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that you should go armed with legal powers and backed by the force of the law. In the first place, I will draw up an affidavit and sign it myself, to the effect that a female slave, the property of Vincent Wingfield, has, with her male child, been kidnaped and stolen by Jonas Pearson and others acting in association with him, and that we have reason to know that she has been conveyed into South Carolina. This I will get witnessed by a justice of the peace, and will then take it up to Government House. There I will get the usual official request to the governor of South Carolina to issue orders that the aid of the law shall be given to you in recovering the said Dinah Morris and her child and arresting her abductors. You will obtain an order to this effect from the governor, and armed with it you will, as soon as you have discovered where the woman is, call upon the sheriff of the county to aid you in recovering her, and in arresting Pearson and his associates."
"Thank you, sir. That will certainly be the best way. I run plenty of risk in doing my duty as an officer of the state, and I have no desire whatever to throw my life away at the hands of ruffians such as Pearson and his allies."
Two hours later Vincent received from Mr. Renfrew the official letter to the governor of South Carolina, and at six o'clock next morning started for Florence. On the platform of the station at Hicks Ford Dan was waiting for him.
"Jump into the car at the end, Dan; I will come to you there, and you can tell me all the news. We are going straight on to Columbia. Now, Dan," Vincent went on when he joined him--for in no part of the United States were negroes allowed to travel in any but the cars set apart for them--"what is your news? The chief constable telegraphed that they had, as we expected, been joined by Pearson here."
"Yes, sah, dey war here for sure. When I get here I go straight to de constable and tell him dat I was in search of two men who had kidnaped Captain Wingfield's slave. De head constable he Richmond man, and ob course knew all about de family; so he take de matter up at once and send constable wid me to seberal places where it likely dat the fellows had put up, but we couldn't find nuffin about dem. Den next morning we go out again to village four mile out of de town on de north road, and dere we found sure 'nough dat two men, wid negro wench and chile, had stopped dere. She seem bery unhappy and cry all de time. De men say dey bought her at Richmond, and show de constable of de village de paper dat dey had bought a female slave Sally Moore and her chile. De constable speak to woman, but she seem frightened out of her life and no say anything. Dey drive off wid her early in de morning. Den we make inquiries again at de town and at de station. We find dat a man like Pearson get out. He had only little hand-bag with him. He ask one of de men at de station which was de way to de norf road. Den we find dat one of de constables hab seen a horse and cart wid two men in it, with negro woman and child. One of de men look like Yankee--dat what make him take notice of it. We s'pose dat oder man went back to Richmond again."
"That is all right, Dan, and you have done capitally. Now at Florence we will take up the hunt. It is a long way down there; and if they drive all the way, as I hope they will, it will take them a fortnight, so that we shall have gained a good deal of time on them. The people at the station are sure to remember the three boxes that lay there for so long without being claimed. Of course they may have driven only till they got fairly out of reach. Then they may either have sold the horse and trap, or the fellow Pearson has with him may have driven it back. But I should think they would most likely sell it. In that case they would not be more than a week from the time they left Richmond to the time they took train again for the south. However, whether they have got a fortnight or three weeks' start of us will not make much difference. With the description we can give of Pearson, and the fact that there was a negress and child, and those three boxes, we ought to be able to trace him."
It was twelve at night when the train arrived at Florence. As nothing could be done until next morning Vincent went to an hotel. As soon as the railway officials were likely to be at their offices he was at the station again. The tip of a dollar secured the attention of the man in the baggage-room.
"Three boxes and a black bag came on here a month ago, you say, and lay here certainly four or five days--perhaps a good deal longer. Of course I remember them. Stood up in that corner there. They had been checked right through. I will look at the books and see what day they went. I don't remember what sort of men fetched them away. Maybe I was busy at the time, and my mate gave them out. However, I will look first and see when they went. What day do you say they got here?"
"They came by the train that left Richmond at six o'clock on the morning of the 20th."
"Then they got in late that night or early next morning. Ah, the train was on time that day, and got in at half-past nine at night. Here they are--three boxes and a bag, numbers 15020, went out on the 28th. Yes, that's right enough. Now I will just ask my mate if he remembers about their going out."
The other man was called. Oh, yes, he remembered quite well the three boxes standing in the corner. They went out some time in the afternoon. It was just after the train came in from Richmond. He noticed the man that asked for them. He got him to help carry out the boxes and put them into a cart. Yes, he remembered there was another man with him, and a negress with a child. He wondered at the time what they were up to, but supposed it was all right. Yes, he didn't mind trying to find out who had hired out a cart for the job. Dessay he could find out by to-morrow--at any rate he would try. Five dollars are worth earning anyway.
Having put this matter in train, Vincent, leaving Dan at Florence, went down at once to Charleston. Here, after twenty-four hours' delay, he obtained a warrant for the arrest of Jonas Pearson and others on the charge of kidnaping, and then returned to Florence. He found that the railway man had failed in obtaining any information as to the cart, and concluded it must have come in from the country on purpose to meet the train.
"At any rate," Vincent said, "it must be within a pretty limited range of country. The railway makes a bend from Wilmington to this place and then down to Charleston, so this is really the nearest station to only a small extent of country."
"That's so," the railway man said. He had heard from Dan a good deal about the case, and had got thoroughly interested in it. "Either Marion or Kingstree would be nearer, one way or the other, to most of the swamp country. So it can't be as far as Conwayborough on the north or Georgetown on the south, and it must lie somewhere between Jeffries' Creek and Lynch's Creek; anyhow it would be in Marion County--that's pretty nigh sure. So if I were you I would take rail back to Marion Court house, and see the sheriff there and have a talk over the matter with him. You haven't got much to go upon, because this man you are after has been away from here a good many years and won't be known; besides, likely enough he went by some other name down here. Anyhow, the sheriff can put you up to the roads, and the best way of going about the job."
"I think that would be the best way," Vincent said. "We shall be able to see the county map too and to learn all the geography of the place."
"You have got your six-shooters with you, I suppose, because you are as likely as not to have to use them?"
"Yes, we have each got a Colt; and as I have had a good deal of practice, it would be awkward for Pearson if he gives me occasion to use it."
"After what I hear of the matter," the man said, "I should say your best plan is just to shoot him at sight. It's what would serve him right. You bet there will be no fuss over it. It will save you a lot of trouble anyway."
Vincent laughed.
"My advice is good," the man went on earnestly. "They are a rough lot down there, and hang together. You will have to do it sudden, whatever you do, or you will get the hull neighborhood up agin you."
On reaching Marion Courthouse they sought out the sheriff, produced the warrant signed by the States' authority, and explained the whole circumstances.
"I am ready to aid you in any way I can," the sheriff said when he concluded; "but the question is, where has the fellow got to? You see he may be anywhere in this tract;" and he pointed out a circle on the map of the county that hung against the wall. "That is about fifty mile across, and a pretty nasty spot, I can tell you. There are wide swamps on both sides of the creek, and rice grounds and all sorts. There ain't above three or four villages altogether, but there may be two or three hundred little plantations scattered about, some big and some little. We haven't got anything to guide us in the slightest, not a thing, as I can see."
"The man who was working under Pearson, when he was with us, told me he had got the notion that he had had to leave on account of some trouble here. Possibly that might afford a clew."
"It might do so," the sheriff said. "When did he come to you?"
"I think it was when I was six or seven years old. That would be about twelve or thirteen years ago; but, of course, he may not have come direct to us after leaving here."
"We can look anyway," the sheriff said, and, opening a chest, he took out a number of volumes containing the records of his predecessors. "Twelve years ago! Well, this is the volume. Now, Captain Wingfield, I have got some other business in hand that will take me a couple of hours. I will leave you out this volume and the one before it and the one after it, and if you like to go through them you may come across the description of some man wanted that agrees with that of the man you are in search of."
It took Vincent two hours and a half to go through the volume, but he met with no description answering to that of Pearson.
"I will go through the first six months of the next year," he said to himself, taking up that volume, "and the last six months of the year before."
The second volume yielded no better result, and he then turned back to the first of the three books. Beginning in July, he read steadily on until he came to December. Scarcely had he begun the record of that month than he uttered an exclamation of satisfaction.
"December 2nd. --Information laid against gang at Porter's Station, near Lynch's Creek. Charged with several robberies and murders in different parts of the county. Long been suspected of having stills in the swamps. Gang consists of four besides Porter himself. Names of gang, Jack Haverley, Jim Corben, and John and James Porter. Ordered out posse to start to-morrow.
"December 5th. --Returned from Porter's Station. Surprised the gang. They resisted. Haverley, Corben, and James Porter shot. John Porter escaped, and took to swamp. Four of posse wounded; one, William Hannay, killed. Circulated description of John Porter through the county. Tall and lean; when fifteen years old shot a man in a brawl, and went north. Has been absent thirteen years. Assumed the appearance of a northern man and speaks with Yankee twang. Father was absent at the time of attack. Captured three hours after. Declares he knows nothing about doings of the gang. Haverley and Corben were friends of his sons. Came and went when they liked. Will be tried on the 15th."
On the 16th there was another entry: "William Porter sentenced to three years' imprisonment for giving shelter to gang of robbers. Evidence wanting to show he took any actual part in their crimes."
The sheriff had been in and out several times during the five hours that Vincent's search had taken up. When he returned again Vincent pointed out the entry he had found.
"I should not be at all surprised if that's our man," the sheriff said. "I know old Porter well, for he is still alive and bears a pretty bad reputation still, though we have never been able to bring him to book. I remember all the circumstances of that affair, for I served upon the posse. While Porter was in prison his house was kept for him by a married daughter and her husband. There was a strong suspicion that the man was one of the gang too, but we couldn't prove it. They have lived there ever since. They have got five or six field hands, and are said to be well off. We have no doubt they have got a still somewhere in the swamps, but we have never been able to find it. I will send a man off to-morrow to make inquiries whether any stranger has arrived there lately. Of course, Pearson will not have kept that name, and he will not have appeared as John Porter, for he would be arrested on a fresh warrant at once for his share in that former business. I think, Captain Wingfield, you had better register at the hotel here under some other name. I don't suppose that he has any fear of being tracked here; still it is just possible his father may have got somebody here and at Florence to keep their eyes open and let him know if there are any inquiries being made by strangers about a missing negress. One cannot be too careful. If he got the least hint, his son and the woman would be hidden away in the swamps before we could get there, and there would be no saying when we could find him."
Vincent took the sheriff's advice, and entered his name in the hotel book as Mr. Vincent. Late in the evening the sheriff came round to him.
"I have just sent summonses to six men. I would rather have had two or three more, but young men are very scarce around here now; and as with you and myself that brings it up to eight that ought to be sufficient, as these fellows will have no time to summon any of their friends to their assistance. Have you a rifle, Captain Wingfield?"
"No; I have a brace of revolvers."
"They are useful enough for close work," the sheriff said, "but if they see us coming, and barricade their house and open fire upon us, you will want something that carries further than a revolver. I can lend you a rifle as well as a horse if you will accept them."
Vincent accepted the offer with thanks. The next morning at daylight he went round to the sheriff's house, where six determined-looking men, belonging to the town or neighboring farms, were assembled. Slinging the rifle that the sheriff handed him across his back, Vincent at once mounted, and the party set off at a brisk trot.
"My man came back half an hour ago," the sheriff said to Vincent as they rode along. "He found out that a man answering to your description arrived with another at Porter's about a fortnight ago, and is staying there still. Whether they brought a negress with them or not no one seems to have noticed. However, there is not a shadow of doubt that it is our man, and I shall be heartily glad to lay hold of him; for a brother of mine was badly wounded in that last affair, and though he lived some years afterward he was never the same man again. So I have a personal interest in it, you see."
"How far is it to Porter's?"
"About thirty-five miles. We shall get there about two o'clock, I reckon. We are all pretty well mounted and can keep at this pace, with a break or two, till we get there. I propose that we dismount when we get within half a mile of the place. We will try and get hold of some one who knows the country well, and get him to lead three of us round through the edge of the swamp to the back of the house. It stands within fifty yards of the swamp. I have no doubt they put it there so that they might escape if pressed, and also to prevent their being observed going backward and forward to that still of theirs."
This plan was followed out. A negro lad was found who, on the promise of a couple of dollars, agreed to act as guide. Three of the party were then told off to follow him, and the rest, after waiting for half an hour to allow them to make the detour, mounted their horses and rode down at a gallop to the house. When they were within a short distance of it they heard a shout, and a man who was lounging near the door ran inside. Almost instantly they saw the shutters swing back across the windows, and when they drew up fifty yards from the door the barrels of four rifles were pushed out through slits in the shutters.
The sheriff held up his hand. "William Porter, I want a word with you."
A shutter in an upper room opened, and an elderly man appeared with a rifle in his hand.
"William Porter," the sheriff said, "I have a warrant for the arrest of two men now in your house on the charge of kidnaping a female slave, the property of Captain Wingfield here. I have no proof that you had any share in the matter, or that you are aware that the slave was not honestly obtained. In the second place, I have a warrant for the arrest of your son John Porter, now in your house and passing recently under the name of Jonas Pearson, on the charge of resisting and killing the officers of the law on the 5th of December, 1851. I counsel you to hand over these men to me without resistance. You know what happened when your sons defied the law before, and what will happen now if you refuse compliance."
"Yah!" the old man shouted. "Do you suppose we are going to give in to five men? Not if we know it. Now, I warn you, move yourself off while I let you, else you will get a bullet in you before I count three."
"Very well, then. You must take the consequences," the sheriff replied, and at once called the party to fall back.
"We must dismount," he said in answer to Vincent's look of surprise; "they would riddle us here on horseback in the open. Besides we must dismount to break in the door."
They rode back a quarter of a mile, and then dismounted. The sheriff took two heavy axes that hung from his saddle, and handed them to two of the men.
"I reckoned we should have trouble," he said. "However, I hope we sha'n't have to use these. My idea is to crawl up through the corn-field until we are within shooting distance, and then to open fire at the loopholes. They have never taken the trouble to grub up the stumps, and each man must look out for shelter. I want to make it so hot for them that they will try to bolt to the swamp, and in that case they will be covered by the men there. I told them not to fire until they got quite close; so they ought to dispose of three of them, and as they have got pistols they will be able to master the others; besides, directly we hear firing behind, we shall jump up and make a rush round. Do you, sir, and James Wilkins here, stop in front. Two of them might make a rush out behind, and the others, when they have drawn us off, bolt in front."
Several shots were fired at the party as they made their way across to the end of the field, where the tall stalks of maize were still standing, though the corn had been gathered weeks before. As soon as they reached the shelter they separated, each crawling through the maize until they arrived within fifty yards of the house. There were, as the sheriff had said, many stumps still standing, and each ensconced himself behind one of those, and began to reply to the fire that the defenders had kept up whenever they saw a movement among the corn stalks.
At such a distance the shutters were but of slight advantage to the defenders of the house; for the assailants were all good shots, and the loopholes afforded excellent targets at such a distance. After a few shots had been fired from the house the fire of the defenders ceased, the men within not daring to protrude the rifles through the loopholes, as every such appearance was instantly followed by a couple of shots from the corn patch.
"Give me one of those axes," the sheriff said. "Now, Withers, do you make a rush with me to the door. Get your rifle loaded before you start, and have your revolver handy in your belt. Now, Captain Wingfield, do you and the other two keep a sharp lookout at the loopholes, and see that they don't get a shot at us as we run. Now, Withers," and the sheriff ran forward. Two rifles were protruded through the loopholes. Vincent and his companions fired at once. One of the rifles gave a sharp jerk and disappeared, the other was fired, and Withers dropped his axe, but still ran forward. The sheriff began an onslaught at the door, his companion's right arm being useless. A minute later the sharp crack of rifles was heard in the rear, and the sheriff and two men rushed in that direction, while Vincent and the other lay watching the door. Scarcely had the sheriff's party disappeared round the house than the door was thrown open, and Pearson ran out at full speed. Vincent leaped to his feet.
"Surrender," he said, "or you are a dead man."
Jonas paused for a moment with a loud imprecation, and then leveling a revolver, fired. Vincent felt a moment's pain in the cheek, but before he could level his rifle his companion fired, and Pearson fell forward dead. A minute later the sheriff and his party ran round.
"Have you got him?" he asked.
"He will give no more trouble, sheriff," the young man who fired said. "I fancy I had him plum between the eyes. How about the others?"
"Dick Matheson is killed; he got two bullets in his body. The other man is badly wounded. There are no signs of old Porter."
They now advanced to the door, which stood open. As the sheriff entered there was a sharp report, and he fell back shot through the heart. The rest made a rush forward. Another shot was fired, but this missed them, and before it could be repeated they had wrested the pistol from the hand of Matheson's wife. She was firmly secured, and they then entered the kitchen, where, crouched upon the floor, lay some seven or eight negro men and women in an agony of terror. Vincent's question, "Dinah, where are you?" was answered by a scream of delight; and Dinah, who had been covering her child with her body, leaped to her feet.
"It's all right, Dinah," Vincent said; "but stay here, we haven't finished this business yet."
"I fancy the old man's upstairs," one of the men said. "It was his rifle, I reckon, that disappeared when we fired."
It was as he expected. Porter was found dead behind the loophole, a bullet having passed through his brain. The deputy-sheriff, who was with the party, now took the command. A cart and horse were found in an out-building; in these the wounded man, who was one of those who had taken part in the abduction of Dinah, was placed, together with the female prisoner and the dead body of the sheriff. The negroes were told to follow; and the horses having been fetched the party mounted and rode off to the next village, five miles on their way back. Here they halted for the night, and the next day went on to Marion Courthouse, Vincent hiring a cart for the conveyance of Dinah and the other women. It was settled that Vincent's attendance at the trial of the two prisoners would not be necessary, as the man would be tried for armed resistance to the law, and the woman for murdering the sheriff. The facts could be proved by other witnesses, and as there could be no doubt about obtaining convictions, it would be unnecessary to try the charge against the man for kidnaping. Next day, accordingly, Vincent started with Dinah and Dan for Richmond. Two months afterward he saw in the paper that Jane Matheson had been sentenced to imprisonment for life, the man to fourteen years.
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
17
|
CHANCELLORSVILLE.
|
The news of the fight between the sheriff's posse and the band at Lynch's Creek was telegraphed to the Richmond papers by their local agent upon the day after it occurred. The report said that Captain Wingfield, a young officer who had frequently distinguished himself, had followed the traces of a gang, one of whom was a notorious criminal who had evaded the pursuit of the law and escaped from that section fifteen years ago, and had, under an assumed name, been acting as overseer at Mrs. Wingfield's estate of the Orangery. These men had carried off a negress belonging to Mrs. Wingfield, and had taken her down South. Captain Wingfield, having obtained the assistance of the sheriff with a posse of determined men, rode to the place which served as headquarters for the gang. Upon being summoned to surrender the men opened a fire upon the sheriff and his posse. A sharp fight ensued, in which the sheriff was killed and one of his men wounded; while the four members of the gang were either killed or taken prisoners. It was reported that a person occupying a position as a planter in the neighborhood of Richmond is connected with this gang.
The reporter had obtained his news from Vincent, who had purposely refrained from mentioning the names of those who had fallen. He had already had a conversation with the wounded prisoner. The latter had declared that he had simply acted in the affair as he had been paid to do by the man he knew in Richmond as Pearson, who told him that he wanted him to aid in carrying off a slave woman, who was really his property, but had been fraudulently taken from him. He had heard him say that there was another interested in the affair, who had his own reasons for getting the woman out of the way, and had paid handsomely for the job. Who that other was Pearson had never mentioned.
Vincent saw that he had no absolute evidence against Jackson, and therefore purposely suppressed the fact that Pearson was among the killed in hopes that the paragraph would so alarm Jackson that he would at once decamp. His anticipations were entirely justified; for upon the day of his return to Richmond he saw a notice in the paper that the Cedars, with its field hands, houses, and all belonging to it, was for sale. He proceeded at once to the estate agent, and learned from him that Jackson had come in two days before and had informed him that sudden and important business had called him away, and that he was starting at once for New York, where his presence was urgently required, and that he should attempt to get through the lines immediately. He had asked him what he thought the property and slaves would fetch. Being acquainted with the estate, he had given him a rough estimate, and had, upon Jackson's giving him full power to sell, advanced him two-thirds of the sum. Jackson had apparently started at once; indeed, he had told him that he should take the next train as far North as he could get.
Vincent received the news with great satisfaction. He had little doubt that Jackson had really made down to the South, and that he would try to cross the lines there, his statement that he intended to go direct North being merely intended to throw his pursuers off his track should a warrant be issued against him. However, it mattered little which way Jackson had gone, so that he had left the State.
There was little chance of his ever returning; for even when he learned that his confederate in the business had been killed in the fight, he could not be certain that the prisoner who had been taken was not aware of the share he had in the business.
A fortnight later Vincent went down into Georgia and brought back Lucy Kingston for a visit to his mother. She had already received a letter from her father in reply to one she had written after reaching her aunt's protection, saying how delighted he was to hear that she had crossed the lines, for that he had suffered the greatest anxiety concerning her, and had continually reproached himself for not sending her away sooner. He said that he was much pleased with her engagement to Captain Wingfield, whom he did not know personally, but of whom he heard the most favorable reports from various Virginian gentlemen to whom he had spoken since the receipt of her letter.
Lucy remained at Richmond until the beginning of March, when Vincent took her home to Georgia again, and a week after his return rejoined the army on the Rappahannock. Every effort had been made by the Confederate authorities to raise the army of General Lee to a point that would enable him to cope with the tremendous force the enemy were collecting for the ensuing campaign. The drain of men was now telling terribly, and Lee had at the utmost 40,000 to oppose the 160,000 collected under General Hooker.
The first fight of the campaign had already taken place when Vincent rejoined the army. A body of 3,000 Federal cavalry had crossed the river on the 17th of March at Kelley's Ford, but had been met by General Fitz Lee with about 800 cavalry, and after a long and stubborn conflict had been driven back with heavy loss across the river. It was not until the middle of April that the enemy began to move in earnest. Every ford was watched by Stuart's cavalry, and the frequent attempts made by the Federal horse to push across to obtain information were always defeated.
On the 27th of April General Hooker's preparations were complete. His plan of action was that 20,000 men should cross the river near the old battlefield of Fredericksburg, and thus lead the Confederates to believe that this was the point of attack. The main body were, however, to cross at Kelley's Ford, many miles higher up the river, and to march down toward Fredericksburg. The other force was then to recross, march up the river, cross at Kelley's Ford, and follow and join the main army. At the same time the Federal cavalry, which was very numerous and well-organized, was, under General Stoneman, to strike down through the country toward Richmond, and thus cut the Confederate communication with their capital, and so prevent Longstreet's division, which was lying near Richmond, from rejoining Lee.
The passage of the river was effected at the two fords without resistance on the 29th of April, and upon the same day the cavalry column marched south. General Lee directed a portion of his cavalry under General Fitz Lee to harass and delay this column as much as possible. Although he had with him but a few hundred men, he succeeded in doing good service in cutting off detached bodies of the enemy, capturing many officers and men, and so demoralizing the invaders that, after pushing on as far as the James River, Stoneman had to retreat in great haste across the Rapidan River.
Hooker having crossed the river, marched on to Chancellorsville, where he set to to entrench himself, having sent word to General Sedgwick, who commanded the force that had crossed near Fredericksburg, to recross, push round, and join as soon as possible. Chancellorsville was a large brick mansion standing in the midst of fields surrounded by extensive forests. The country was known as the Wilderness. Within a range of many miles there were only a few scattered houses, and dense thickets and pine-woods covered the whole country. Two narrow roads passed through the woods, crossing each other at Chancellorsville; two other roads led to the fords known as Ely's Ford and the United States Ford. As soon as he reached Chancellorsville Hooker set his troops to work cutting down trees and throwing up earthworks for infantry and redoubts for artillery, erecting a double line of defenses. On these he mounted upward of a hundred pieces of artillery, commanding the narrow roads by which an enemy must approach, for the thickets were in many places so dense as to render it impossible for troops to force their way through them.
When Sedgwick crossed the river, Lee drew up his army to oppose him; but finding that no more troops crossed, and that Sedgwick did not advance, he soon came to the conclusion that this was not the point at which the enemy intended to attack, and in twenty-four hours one of Stuart's horsemen brought the news that Hooker had crossed the Rappahannock at Kelley's Ford and the Rapidan at Ely's Ford. Lee at once left one division to face General Sedgwick, and ordered the three others to join General Anderson, who with 8,000 men had fallen back before Hooker's advance, and taken his post at Tabernacle Church, about halfway between Fredericksburg and Tabernacle. Lee himself rode forward at once and joined Anderson.
Jackson led the force from Fredericksburg, and pressed the enemy back toward Chancellorsville until he approached the tremendous lines of fortifications, and then fell back to communicate with Lee. That night a council of war was held, and it was agreed that an attack upon the front of the enemy's position was absolutely impossible. Hooker himself was so positive that his position was impregnable that he issued a general order of congratulation to his troops, saying that "the enemy must now ingloriously fly or give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him."
Jackson then suggested that he should work right round the Wilderness in front of the enemy's position, march down until well on its flank, and attack it there, where they would be unprepared for an assault. The movement was one of extraordinary peril. Lee would be left with but one division in face of an immensely superior force; Jackson would have to perform an arduous march exposed to an attack by the whole force of the enemy; and both might be destroyed separately without being able to render the slightest assistance to each other. At daybreak on the 2d of May Jackson mustered his troops for the advance. He had in the course of the night caught a severe cold. In the hasty march he had left his blankets behind him. One of his staff threw a heavy cape over him as he lay on the wet ground. During the night Jackson woke, and thinking that the young officer might himself be suffering from the want of his cape, rose quietly, spread the cape over him, and lay down without it. The consequence was a severe cold, which terminated in an attack of pneumonia that, occurring at a time when he was enfeebled by his wounds, resulted in his death. If he had not thrown that cape over the officer it is probable that he would have survived his wounds.
At daybreak the column commenced its march. It had to traverse a narrow and unfrequented road through dense thickets, occasionally crossing ground in sight of the enemy, and at the end to attack a tremendous position held by immensely superior forces. Stuart with his cavalry moved on the flank of the column whenever the ground was open, so as to conceal the march of the infantry from the enemy. As the rear of the column passed a spot called the Furnace, the enemy suddenly advanced and cut off the 23d Georgia, who were in the rear of the column, and captured the whole regiment with the exception of a score of men. At this point the road turned almost directly away from Chancellorsville, and the enemy believed that the column was in full retreat, and had not the least idea of its real object.
So hour after hour the troops pressed on until they reached the turnpike road passing east and west through Chancellorsville, which now lay exactly between them and the point that they had left in the morning. Jackson's design was to advance upon this line of road, to extend his troops to the left and then to swing round, cut the enemy's retreat to the fords, and capture them all. Hooker had already been joined by two of Sedgwick's army corps, and had now six army corps at Chancellorsville, while Jackson's force consisted of 22,000 men. Lee remained with 13,000 at Tabernacle. The latter general had not been attacked, but had continued to make demonstrations against the Federal left, occupying their attention and preventing them from discovering how large a portion of his force had left him.
It was at five o'clock in the evening that Jackson's troops, having gained their position, advanced to the attack. In front of them lay Howard's division of the Federals, intrenched in strong earthworks covered by felled trees; but the enemy were altogether unsuspicious of danger, and it was not until with tumultuous cheers the Confederates dashed through the trees and attacked the entrenchment that they had any suspicion of their presence. They ran to their arms, but it was too late. The Confederates rushed through the obstacles, climbed the earthworks, and carried those in front of them, capturing 700 prisoners and five guns. The rest of the Federal troops here, throwing away muskets and guns, fled in wild confusion. Steadily the Confederates pressed on, driving the enemy before them, and capturing position after position, until the whole right wing of the Federal army was routed and disorganized. For three hours the Confederates continued their march without a check; but owing to the denseness of the wood, and the necessity of keeping the troops in line, the advance was slow, and night fell before the movement could be completed. One more hour of daylight and the whole Federal army would have been cut off and captured, but by eight o'clock the darkness in the forest was so complete that all movement had to be stopped.
Half an hour later one of the saddest incidents of the war took place. General Jackson with a few of his staff went forward to reconnoiter. As he returned toward his lines, his troops in the dark mistook them for a reconnoitering party of the enemy and fired, killing or wounding the whole of them, General Jackson receiving three balls. The enemy, who were but a hundred yards distant, at once opened a tremendous fire with grape toward the spot, and it was some time before Jackson could be carried off the field. The news that their beloved general was wounded was for some time kept from the troops; but a whisper gradually spread, and the grief of his soldiers was unbounded, for rather would they have suffered a disastrous defeat than that Stonewall Jackson should have fallen.
General Stuart assumed the command, General Hill, who was second in command, having, with many other officers, been wounded by the tremendous storm of grape and canister that the Federals poured through the wood when they anticipated an attack. At daybreak the troops again moved forward in three lines, Stuart placing his thirty guns on a slight ridge, where they could sweep the lines of the Federal defenses. Three times the position was won and lost; but the Confederates fought with such fury and resolution, shouting each time they charged the Federal ranks "Remember Jackson," that the enemy gradually gave way, and by ten o'clock Chancellorsville itself was taken, the Federals being driven back into the forest between the houses and the river.
Lee had early in the morning begun to advance from his side to the attack, but just as he was moving forward the news came that Sedgwick had recrossed at Fredericksburg, captured a portion of the Confederate force there, and was advancing to join Hooker. He at once sent two of his three little divisions to join the Confederates who were opposing Sedgwick's advance, while with the three or four thousand men remaining to him, he all day made feigned attacks upon the enemy's position, occupying their attention there, and preventing them from sending reinforcements to the troops engaged with Stuart. At night he himself hurried away, took the command of the troops opposed to Sedgwick, attacked him vigorously at daybreak, and drove him with heavy loss back across the river. The next day he marched back with his force to join in the final attack upon the Federals; but when the troops of Stuart and Lee moved forward they encountered no opposition. Hooker had begun to carry his troops across the river on the night he was hurled back out of Chancellorsville, and the rest of his troops had crossed on the two following nights.
General Hooker issued a pompous order to his troop after getting across the river, to the effect that the movement had met with the complete success he had anticipated from it; but the truth soon leaked out. General Sedgwick's force had lost 6,000 men, Hooker's own command fully 20,000 more; but splendid as the success was, it was dearly purchased by the Confederates at the price of the life of Stonewall Jackson. His arm was amputated the day after the battle; he lived for a week, and died not so much from the effect of his wounds as from the pneumonia, the result of his exposure to the heavy dew on the night preceding his march through the Wilderness.
During the two days' fighting Vincent Wingfield had discharged his duties upon General Stuart's staff. On the first day the work had been slight, for General Stuart, with the cannon, remained in the rear, while Jackson's infantry attacked and carried the Federal retrenchments. Upon the second day, however, when Stuart assumed the command, Vincent's duties had been onerous and dangerous in the extreme. He was constantly carrying orders from one part of the field to the other, amid such a shower of shot and shell that it seemed marvelous that any one could exist within it. To his great grief Wildfire was killed under him, but he himself escaped without a scratch. When he came afterward to try to describe the battle to those at home he could give no account of it.
"To me," he said, "it was simply a chaos of noise and confusion. Of what was going on I knew nothing. The din was appalling. The roar of the shells, the hum of grape and canister, the whistle of bullets, the shouts of the men, formed a mighty roar that seemed to render thinking impossible. Showers of leaves fell incessantly, great boughs of trees were shorn away, and trees themselves sometimes came crashing down as a trunk was struck full by a shell. The undergrowth had caught fire, and the thick smoke, mingled with that of the battle, rendered it difficult to see or to breathe. I had but one thought, that of making my way through the trees, of finding the corps to which I was sent, of delivering my message, and finding the general again. No, I don't think I had much thought of danger, the whole thing was somehow so tremendous that one had no thought whatever for one's self. It was a sort of terrible dream, in which one was possessed of the single idea to get to a certain place. It was not till at last we swept across the open ground down to the house, that I seemed to take any distinct notice of what was going on around me. Then, for the first time, the exulting shouts of the men, and the long lines advancing at the double, woke me up to the fact that we had gained one of the most wonderful victories in history, and had driven an army of four or five times our own strength from a position that they believed they had made impregnable."
The defeat of Hooker for a time put a stop to any further advance against Richmond from the North. The Federal troops, whose term of service was up, returned home, and it was months before all the efforts of the authorities of Washington could place the army in a condition to make a renewed advance. But the Confederates had also suffered heavily. A third of the force with which Jackson had attacked had fallen, and their loss could not be replaced, as the Confederates were forced to send every one they could raise to the assistance of the armies in the West, where Generals Banks and Grant were carrying on operations with great success against them. The important town of Vicksburg, which commanded the navigation of the Mississippi, was besieged, and after a resistance lasting for some months, surrendered, with its garrison of 25,000 men, on the 3d of July, and the Federal gunboats were thus able to penetrate by the Mississippi and its confluents into the heart of the Confederacy.
Shortly after the battle of Chancellorsville, Vincent was appointed to the command of a squadron of cavalry that was detached from Stuart's force and sent down to Richmond to guard the capital from any raids by bodies of Federal cavalry. It had been two or three times menaced by flying bodies of horsemen, and during the cavalry advance before the battle of Chancellorsville small parties had penetrated to within three miles of the city, cutting all the telegraph wires, pulling up rails, and causing the greatest terror. Vincent was not sorry for the change. It took him away from the great theater of the war, but after Chancellorsville he felt no eager desire to take part in future battles. His duties would keep him near his home, and would give ample scope for the display of watchfulness, dash, and energy. Consequently he took no part in the campaign that commenced in the first week in June.
Tired of standing always on the defensive, the Confederate authorities determined to carry out the stop that had been so warmly advocated by Jackson earlier in the war, and which might at that time have brought it to a successful termination. They decided to carry the war into the enemy's country. By the most strenuous efforts Lee's army was raised to 75,000 men, divided into three great army corps, commanded by Longstreet, Ewell, and Hill. Striking first into Western Virginia, they drove the Federals from Winchester, and chased them from the State with the loss of nearly 4,000 prisoners and 30 guns. Then they entered Maryland and Pennsylvania, and concentrating at Gettysburg they met the Northern army under Meade, who had succeeded Hooker. Although great numbers of the Confederates had seen their homes wasted and their property wantonly destroyed, they preserved the most perfect order in their march through the North, and the Federals themselves testify to the admirable behavior of the troops, and to the manner in which they abstained from plundering or inflicting annoyance upon the inhabitants.
At Gettysburg there was three days' fighting. In the first a portion only of the forces were engaged, the Federals being defeated and 5,000 of their men taken prisoners. Upon the second the Confederates attacked the Northerners, who were posted in an extremely strong position, but were repulsed with heavy loss. The following day they renewed the attack, but after tremendous fighting again failed to carry the height. Both parties were utterly exhausted. Lee drew up his troops the next day, and invited an attack from the Federals; but contented with the success they had gained they maintained their position, and the Confederates then fell back, Stuart's cavalry protecting the immense trains of wagons loaded with the stores and ammunition captured in Pennsylvania.
But little attempt was made by the Northerners to interfere with their retreat. On reaching the Potomac they found that a sudden rise had rendered the fords impassable. Intrenchments and batteries were thrown up, and for a week the Confederate army held the lines, expecting an attack from the enemy, who had approached within two miles; but the Federal generals were too well satisfied with having gained a success when acting on the defensive in a strong position to risk a defeat in attacking the position of the Confederates, and their forces remained impassive until pontoon bridges were thrown across the river, and the Confederate army, with their vast baggage train, had again crossed into Virginia. The campaign had cost the Northern army 23,000 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners, besides a considerable number of guns. The Confederates lost only two guns, left behind in the mud, and 1,500 prisoners, but their loss in killed and wounded at Gettysburg exceeded 10,000 men. Even the most sanguine among the ranks of the Confederacy were now conscious that the position was a desperate one. The Federal armies seemed to spring from the ground. Strict discipline had taken the place of the disorder and insubordination that had first prevailed in their ranks. The armies were splendidly equipped. They were able to obtain any amount of the finest guns, rifles, and ammunition of war from the workshops of Europe; while the Confederates, cut off from the world, had to rely solely upon the makeshift factories they had set up, and upon the guns and stores they captured from the enemy.
The Northerners had now, as a blow to the power of the South, abolished slavery, and were raising regiments of negroes from among the free blacks of the North, and from the slaves they took from their owners wherever their armies penetrated the Southern States. Most of the Confederate ports had been either captured or were so strictly blockaded that it was next to impossible for the blockade-runner to get in or out, while the capture of the forts on the Mississippi enabled them to use the Federal flotillas of gunboats to the greatest advantage, and to carry their armies into the center of the Confederacy.
Still, there was no talk whatever of surrender on the part of the South, and, indeed, the decree abolishing slavery, and still more the action of the North in raising black regiments, excited the bitterest feeling of animosity and hatred. The determination to fight to the last, whatever came of it, animated every white man in the Southern States, and, although deeply disappointed with the failure of Lee's invasion of the North, the only result was to incite them to greater exertions and sacrifices. In the North an act authorizing conscription was passed in 1863, but the attempt to carry it into force caused a serious riot in New York, which was only suppressed after many lives had been lost and the city placed under martial law.
While the guns of Gettysburg were still thundering, a Federal army of 18,000 men under General Gillmore, assisted by the fleet, had laid siege to Charleston. It was obstinately attacked and defended. The siege continued until the 5th of September, when Fort Wagner was captured; but all attempts to take Fort Sumter and the town of Charleston itself failed, although the city suffered greatly from the bombardment. In Tennessee there was severe fighting in the autumn, and two desperate battles were fought at Chickamauga on the 19th and 20th of September, General Bragg, who commanded the Confederate army there, being reinforced by Longstreet's veterans from the army of Virginia. After desperate fighting the Federals were defeated, and thirty-six guns and vast quantities of arms captured by the Confederates. The fruits of the victory, however, were very slight, as General Bragg refused to allow Longstreet to pursue, and so to convert the Federal retreat into a rout, and the consequence was that this victory was more than balanced by a heavy defeat inflicted upon them in November at Chattanooga by Sherman and Grant. At this battle General Longstreet's division was not present.
The army of Virginia had a long rest after their return from Gettysburg, and it was not until November that the campaign was renewed. Meade advanced, a few minor skirmishes took place, and then, when he reached the Wilderness, the scene of Hooker's defeat, where Lee was prepared to give battle, he fell back again across the Rappahannock.
The year had been an unfortunate one for the Confederates. They had lost Vicksburg, and the defeat at Chattanooga had led to the whole State of Tennessee falling into the hands of the Federals, while against these losses there was no counterbalancing success to be reckoned.
In the spring of 1864 both parties prepared to the utmost for the struggle. General Grant, an officer who had shown in the campaign in the West that he possessed considerable military ability, united with immense firmness and determination of purpose, was chosen as the new commander-in-chief of the whole military force of the North. It was a mighty army, vast in numbers, lavishly provided with all materials of war. The official documents show that on the 1st of May the total military forces of the North amounted to 662,000 men. Of these the force available for the advance against Richmond numbered 284,630 men. This included the army of the Potomac, that of the James River, and the army in the Shenandoah Valley--the whole of whom were in readiness to move forward against Richmond at the orders of Grant.
To oppose these General Lee had less than 53,000 men, including the garrison of Richmond and the troops in North Carolina. Those stationed in the seaport towns numbered in all another 20,000, so that if every available soldier had been brought up Lee could have opposed a total of but 83,000 men against the 284,000 invaders.
In the West the numbers were more equally balanced. General Sherman, who commanded the army of invasion there, had under his orders 230,000 men, but as more than half this force was required to protect the long lines of communication and to keep down the conquered States, he was able to bring into the field for offensive operations 99,000 men, who were faced by the Confederate army under Johnston of 58,000 men. Grant's scheme was, that while the armies of the North were, under his own command, to march against Richmond, the army of the West was to invade Georgia and march upon Atlanta.
His plan of action was simple, and was afterward stated by himself to be as follows: "I determined first to use the greatest number of troops practicable against the main force of the enemy, preventing him from using the same force at different seasons against first one and then another of our armies, and the possibility of repose for refitting and producing necessary supplies for carrying on resistance. Second, to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources until, by mere attrition if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him but submission."
This was a terrible programme, and involved an expenditure of life far beyond anything that had taken place. Grant's plan, in fact, was to fight and to keep on fighting, regardless of his own losses, until at last the Confederate army, whose losses could not be replaced, melted away. It was a strategy that few generals have dared to practice, fewer still to acknowledge.
On the 4th of May the great army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan and advanced toward Chancellorsville. Lee moved two divisions of his army to oppose them. Next morning the battle began at daybreak on the old ground where Lee had defeated Hooker the year before. All day long the division of Ewell supported the attack of the army corps of Sedgwick and Hancock. Along a front of six miles, in the midst of the thick forest, the battle raged the whole of the day. The Confederates, in spite of the utmost efforts of the Northerners, although reinforced in the afternoon by the army corps of General Burnside, held their position, and when night put an end to the conflict the invaders had not gained a foot of ground.
As soon as the first gleam of light appeared in the morning the battle recommenced. The Federal generals, Sedgwick, Warren, and Hancock, with Burnside in reserve, fell upon Hill and Ewell. Both sides had thrown up earthworks and felled trees as a protection during the night. At first the Confederates gained the advantage; but a portion of Burnside's corps was brought up and restored the battle, while on the left flank of the Federals Hancock had attacked with such vigor that the Confederates opposed to him were driven back.
At the crisis of the battle, Longstreet, who had marched all night, appeared upon the ground, drove back Hancock's men, and was on the point of aiding the Confederates in a decisive attack upon the enemy, when, riding rapidly forward into the wood to reconnoiter, he was, like Jackson, struck down by the fire of his own men. He was carried to the rear desperately, and it was feared for a time mortally wounded, and his loss paralyzed the movement which he had prepared. Nevertheless during the whole day the fight went on with varying success, sometimes one side obtaining a slight advantage, the other then regaining the ground they had lost.
Just as evening was closing in a Georgia brigade, with two other regiments, made a detour, and fell furiously upon two brigades of the enemy, and drove them back in headlong rout for a mile and a half, capturing their two generals and many prisoners. The artillery, as on the previous day, had been little used on either side, the work being done at short range with the rifle, the loss being much heavier among the thick masses of the Northerners than in the thinner lines of the Confederates. Grant had failed in his efforts to turn Lee's right and to accomplish his direct advance; he therefore changed his base and moved his army round toward Spotsylvania.
Lee soon perceived his object, and succeeded in carrying his army to Spotsylvania before the Federals reached it.
On the afternoon of Monday, the 9th, there was heavy fighting and on the 10th another pitched battle took place. This time the ground was more open, and the artillery was employed with terrible effect on both sides. It ended, however, as the previous battles had done, by the Confederates holding their ground.
Upon the next day there was but little fighting. In the night the Federals moved quietly through the wood, and at daybreak four divisions fell upon Johnston's division of Ewell's corps, took them completely by surprise, and captured the greater part of them.
But Lee's veterans soon recovered from their surprise and maintained their position until noon. Then the whole Federal army advanced, and the battle raged till nightfall terminated the struggle, leaving Lee in possession of the whole line he had held, with the exception of the ground lost in the morning.
For the next six days the armies faced each other, worn out by incessant fighting, and prevented from moving by the heavy rain which fell incessantly. They were now able to reckon up the losses. The Federals found that they had lost, in killed, wounded, or missing, nearly 30,000 men; while Lee's army was diminished by about 12,000.
While these mighty battles had been raging the Federal cavalry under Sheridan had advanced rapidly forward, and, after several skirmishes with Stuart's cavalry, penetrated within the outer intrenchments round Richmond. Here Stuart with two regiments of cavalry charged them and drove them back, but the gallant Confederate officer received a wound that before night proved fatal. His loss was a terrible blow to the Confederacy, although his successor in the command of the cavalry, General Wade Hampton, was also an officer of the highest merit.
In the meantime General Butler, who had at Fort Monroe under his command two corps of infantry, 4,000 cavalry, and a fleet of gunboats and transports, was threatening Richmond from the east. Shipping his men on board the transports he steamed up the James River, under convoy of the fleet, and landed on a neck of land known as Bermuda Hundred. To oppose him all the troops from North Carolina had been brought up, the whole force amounting to 19,000 men, under the command of General Beauregard. Butler, after various futile movements, was driven back again to his intrenched camp at Bermuda Hundred, where he was virtually besieged by Beauregard with 10,000 men, the rest of that general's force being sent up to reinforce Lee.
In western Virginia, Breckenridge, with 3,500 men, was called upon to hold in check Sigel, with 15,000 men. Advancing to Staunton, Breckenridge was joined by the pupils of the military college at Lexington, 250 in number, lads of from 14 to 17 years of age. He came upon Sigel on the line of march, and attacked him at once. The Federal general placed a battery in a wood and opened fire with grape. The commander of the Lexington boys ordered them to charge, and, gallantly rushing in through the heavy fire, they charged in among the guns, killed the artillerymen, drove back the infantry supports, and bayoneted their colonel. The Federals now retired down the valley to Strasburg, and Breckenridge was able to send a portion of his force to aid Lee in his great struggle.
After his six days' pause in front of Lee's position at Spotsylvania, Grant abandoned his plan of forcing his way through Lee's army to Richmond, and endeavored to outflank it; but Lee again divined his object, and moved round and still faced him. After various movements the armies again stood face to face upon the old battle-grounds on the Chickahominy. On the 3d of June the battle commenced at half-past four in the morning. Hancock at first gained an advantage, but Hill's division dashed down upon him and drove him back with great slaughter; while no advantage was gained by them in other parts of the field. The Federal loss on this day was 13,000, and the troops were so dispirited that they refused to renew the battle in the afternoon.
Grant then determined to alter his plan altogether, and sending imperative orders to Butler to obtain possession of Petersburg, embarked Smith's corps in transports, and moved with the rest of his army to join that general there. Smith's corps entered the James River, landed, and marched against Petersburg. Beauregard had at Petersburg only two infantry and two cavalry regiments under General Wise, while a single brigade fronted Butler at Bermuda Hundred. With this handful of men he was called upon to defend Petersburg and to keep Butler bottled up in Bermuda Hundred until help could reach him from Lee. He telegraphed to Richmond for all the assistance that could be sent to him, and was reinforced by a brigade, which arrived just in time, for Smith had already captured a portion of the intrenchments, but was now driven out.
The next day Beauregard was attacked both by Smith's and Hancock's corps, which had now arrived. With 8,000 men he kept at bay the assaults of two whole army corps, having in the meantime sent orders to Gracie, the officer in command of the brigade before Butler, to leave a few sentries there to deceive that general, and to march with the rest of his force to his aid. It arrived at a critical moment. Overwhelmed by vastly superior numbers, many of the Confederates had left their posts, and Breckenridge was in vain trying to rally them when Gracie's brigade came up. The position was reoccupied and the battle continued.
At noon Burnside with his corps arrived and joined the assailants; while Butler, discovering at last that the troops in front of him were withdrawn, moved out and barred the road against reinforcements from Richmond. Nevertheless the Confederates held their ground all the afternoon and until eleven o'clock at night, when the assault ceased.
At midnight Beauregard withdrew his troops from the defenses that they were too few to hold, and set them to work to throw up fresh intrenchments on a shorter line behind. All night the men worked with their bayonets, canteens, and any tools that came to hand.
It was well for them that the enemy were so exhausted that it was noon before they were ready to advance again, for by this time help was at hand. Anderson, who had succeeded to the command of Longstreet's corps, and was leading the van of Lee's army, forced his way through Butler's troops and drove him back into the Bermuda Hundred, and leaving one brigade to watch him marched with another into Petersburg just as the attack was recommenced. Thus reinforced Beauregard successfully defeated all the assaults of the enemy until night fell. Another Federal army corps came up before morning, and the assault was again renewed, but the defenders, who had strengthened their defenses during the night, drove their assailants back with terrible loss. The whole of Lee's army now arrived, and the rest of Grant's army also came up, and that general found that after all his movements his way to Richmond was barred as before. He was indeed in a far worse position than when he had crossed the Rapidan, for the morale of his army was much injured by the repeated repulses and terrible losses it had sustained. The new recruits that had been sent to fill up the gaps were far inferior troops to those with which he had commenced the campaign. To send forward such men against the fortifications of Petersburg manned by Lee's veteran troops was to court defeat, and he therefore began to throw up works for a regular siege.
Fighting went on incessantly between the outposts, but only one great attempt was made during the early months of the siege to capture the Confederate position. The miners drove a gallery under the works, and then drove other galleries right and left under them. These were charged with eight thousand pounds of powder. When all was ready, masses of troops were brought up to take advantage of the confusion which would be caused by the explosion, and a division of black troops were to lead the assault. At a quarter to five in the morning of the 30th of July the great mine was exploded, blowing two guns, a battery, and its defenders into the air, and forming a huge pit two hundred feet long and sixty feet wide. Lee and Beauregard hurried to the scene, checked the panic that prevailed, brought up troops, and before the great Federal columns approached the breach the Confederates were ready to receive them. The assault was made with little vigor, the approaches to the breach were obstructed by abattis, and instead of rushing forward in a solid mass they occupied the great pit, and contented themselves with firing over the edge of the crater, where regiments and divisions were huddled together. But the Confederate batteries were now manned, and from the works on either side of the breach, and from behind, they swept the approaches, and threw shell among the crowded mass. The black division was now brought up, and entered the crater, but only added to the confusion. There was no officer of sufficient authority among the crowded mass there to assume the supreme command. No assistance could be sent to them, for the arrival of fresh troops would but have added to the confusion. All day the conflict went on, the Federals lining the edge of the crater, and exchanging a heavy musketry fire with the Confederate infantry, while the mass below suffered terribly from the artillery fire. When night closed the survivors of the great column that had marched forward in the morning, confident that victory was assured to them, and that the explosion would lay Petersburg open to capture, made their retreat, the Confederates, however, taking a considerable number of prisoners. The Federal loss in killed, wounded and captured was admitted by them to be 4,000; the Confederate accounts put it down at 6,000.
After this terrible repulse it was a long time before Grant again renewed active operations, but during the months that ensued his troops suffered very heavily from the effects of fever, heightened by the discouragement they felt at their want of success, and at the tremendous losses they had suffered since they entered Virginia on their forward march to Richmond.
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
18
|
A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING.
|
Vincent Wingfield had had an arduous time of it with his squadron of cavalry. He had taken part in the desperate charge that checked the advance of Sheridan's great column of cavalry which approached within three miles of Richmond, the charge that had cost the gallant Stuart his life; and the death of his beloved general had been a heavy blow for him. Jackson and Stuart, two of the bravest and noblest spirits of the Confederate army, were gone. Both had been personally dear to Vincent, and he felt how grievous was their loss to the cause for which he was fighting; but he had little time for grief. The enemy, after the tremendous battles of the Wilderness, swung their army round to Cold Harbor, and Vincent's squadron was called up to aid Lee in his struggle there. Then they were engaged night and day in harassing the enemy as they marched down to take up their new base at Petersburg, and finally received orders to ride round at full speed to aid in the defense of that place.
They had arrived in the middle of the second day's fighting, and dismounting his men Vincent had aided the hard-pressed Confederates in holding their lines till Longstreet's division arrived to their assistance. A short time before the terrible disaster that befell the Federals in the mine they exploded under the Confederate works, he was with General Wade Hampton, who had succeeded General Stuart in the command of the cavalry, when General Lee rode up.
"They are erecting siege works in earnest," General Lee said. "I do not think that we shall have any more attacks for the present. I wish I knew exactly where they are intending to place their heavy batteries. If I did we should know where to strengthen our defenses, and plant our counter batteries. It is very important to find this out; but now that their whole army has settled down in front of us, and Sheridan's cavalry are scouring the woods, we shall get no news, for the farmers will no longer be able to get through to tell us what is going on.
"I will try and ride round, if you like, general," Vincent said. "By making a long detour one could get into the rear of their lines and pass as a farmer going into camp to sell his goods."
"It would be a very dangerous service, sir," General Lee said. "You know what the consequence would be if you were caught?"
"I know the consequence," Vincent said; "but I do not think, sir, that the risk is greater than one runs every time one goes into battle."
"Perhaps not," General Lee replied; "but in one case one dies fighting for one's country by an honorable death, in the other--" and he stopped.
"In the other one is shot in cold blood," Vincent said quietly. "One dies for one's country in either case, sir; and it does not much matter, so far as I can see, whether one is killed in battle or shot in cold blood. As long as one is doing one's duty, one death is surely as honorable as the other."
"That is true enough," General Lee said, "although it is not the way men generally view the matter. Still, sir, if you volunteer for the work, I do not feel justified in refusing the opportunity of acquiring information that may be of vital consequence to us. When will you start?"
"In half an hour, sir. I shall ride back to Richmond, obtain a disguise there, and then go round by train to Burksville Junction and then ride again until I get round behind their lines. Will you give me an order for my horse and myself to be taken?"
"Very well, sir," General Lee said. "So be it. May God be with you on your way and bring you safely back."
Vincent rode off to his quarters.
"Dan," he said, "I am going away on special duty for at least three days. I have got a couple of letters to write, and shall be ready to start in half an hour. Give the horse a good feed and have him at the door again by that time."
"Am I to go with you, sah?"
"No, Dan; I must go by myself this time."
Dan felt anxious as he went out, for it was seldom that his master ever went away without telling him where he was going, and he felt sure that the service was one of unusual danger; nor was his anxiety lessened when at the appointed time Vincent came out and handed him two letters.
"You are to keep these letters, Dan, until I return, or till you hear that something has happened to me. If you hear that, you are to take one of these letters to my mother, and take the other yourself to Miss Kingston. Tell her before you give it her what has happened as gently as you can. As for yourself, Dan, you had your letters of freedom long ago, and I have left you five hundred dollars; so that you can get a cabin and patch of your own, and settle down when these troubles are over."
"Let me go with you, master," Dan said, with the tears streaming down his cheeks. "I would rather be killed with you a hundred times than get on without you."
"I would take you if I could, Dan; but this is a service that I must do alone. Good-by, my boy; let us hope that in three or four days at the outside I shall be back here again safe and sound."
He wrung Dan's hand, and then started at a canter and kept on at that pace until he reached Richmond. A train with stores was starting for the south in a few minutes; General Lee's order enabled Vincent to have a horse-box attached at once, and he was soon speeding on his way. He alighted at Burksville Junction, and there purchased some rough clothes for himself and some country-fashioned saddlery for his horse. Then, after changing his clothes at an inn and putting the fresh saddlery on his horse, he started.
It was getting late in the afternoon, but he rode on by unfrequented roads, stopping occasionally to inquire if any of the Federal cavalry had been seen in the neighborhood, and at last stopped for the night at a little village inn. As soon as it was daybreak he resumed his journey. He had purchased at Burksville some colored calico and articles of female clothing, and fastened the parcel to the back of his saddle. As he rode forward now he heard constant tales of the passing of parties of the enemy's cavalry, but he was fortunate enough to get well round to the rear of the Federal lines before he encountered any of them. Then he came suddenly upon a troop.
"Where are you going to, and where have you come from?"
"Our farm is a mile away from Union Grove," he said, "and I have been over to Sussex Courthouse to buy some things for my mother."
"Let me see what you have got there," the officer said. "You are rebels to a man here, and there's no trusting any of you."
Vincent unfastened the parcel and opened it. The officer laughed.
"Well, we won't confiscate them as contraband of war."
So saying he set spurs to his horse and galloped on with his troop. Vincent rode on to Union Grove, and then taking a road at random kept on till he reached a small farmhouse. He knocked at the door, and a woman came out.
"Mother," he said, "can you put me up for a couple of days? I am a stranger here, and all the villages are full of soldiers."
The woman looked at him doubtfully.
"What are you doing here?" she asked at last. "This ain't a time for strangers; besides a young fellow like you ought to be ashamed to show yourself when you ought to be over there with Lee. My boys are both there and my husband. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a strong-looking young fellow like you, to be riding about instead of fighting the Yankees. Go along! you will get no shelter here. I would scorn to have such as you inside my doors."
"Perhaps I have been fighting there," Vincent said significantly. "But one can't be always fighting, and there are other things to do sometimes. For instance, to find out what the Yankees are doing and what are their plans."
"Is that so?" the woman asked doubtfully.
"That is so," he answered earnestly. "I am an officer in Wade Hampton's cavalry, and, now Sheridan's troopers have cut off all communication, I have come out to find for General Lee where the Yankees are building their batteries before Petersburg."
"In that case you are welcome," the woman said. "Come straight in. I will lead your horse out and fasten him up in the bush, and give him a feed there. It will never do to put him in the stable; the Yankees come in and out and they'd take him off sharp enough if their eyes fell on him. I think you will be safe enough even if they do come. They will take you for a son of mine, and if they ask any questions I will answer them sharp enough."
"I wonder they have left you a feed of corn," Vincent said, when the woman returned after taking away his horse.
"It's no thanks to them," she answered; "they have cleared out everything that they could lay their hands on. But I have been expecting it for months, and, as I have had nothing to do since my man and boys went away, I have been digging a great pit in the wood over there, and have buried most all my corn, and have salted my pigs down and buried them in barrels; so they didn't find much. They took the old horse and two cows; but I hope the old horse will fall down the first time they uses him, and the cow meat will choke them as eats it. Now, is there anything as I can do to help you?"
"I want a basket with some eggs and chickens or vegetables to take into their camp to sell, but I am afraid I have not much chance of getting them."
"I can help you there too," the woman said. "I turned all my chickens into the wood the day I heard the Yankees had landed. They have got rather wild like; but I go out and give them some corn every evening. I expect if we look about we shall find some nests; indeed I know there are one or two of them sitting. So if you will come out with me we can soon knock down five or six of the creatures, and maybe get a score or two of eggs. As for vegetables, a horde of locusts couldn't have stripped the country cleaner than they have done."
They went out into the wood. Six hens were soon killed, and hunting about they discovered several nests and gathered about three dozen eggs. Vincent aided in plucking the chickens and they then returned to the house.
"You had best take a bite before you go," she said. "It's noon now, and you said you started at daybreak. Always get a meal when you can, say I." She produced a loaf and some bacon from a little cupboard hidden by her bed, and Vincent, who, now he thought of it, was feeling hungry, made a hearty meal.
"I will pay you for these chickens and eggs at once," he said. "There is no saying whether I shall come back again."
"I will not say no to your paying for the chickens and eggs," she said, "because money is scarce enough, and I may have long to wait before my man and the boys come back; but as to lodging and food I would not touch a cent. You are welcome to all I have when it's for the good cause." Vincent started with the basket on his arm, and after walking three miles came upon the Federal camps.
Some of the regiments were already under canvas, others were still bivouacked in the open air, as the store-ships carrying the heavy baggage had not yet arrived. The generals and their staffs had taken up their quarters in the villages. Vincent had received accurate instructions from his hostess as to the position of the various villages, and avoided them carefully, for he did not want to sell out his stock immediately. He had indeed stowed two of the fowls away in his pocket so that in case any one insisted upon buying up all his stock he could place these in his basket and still push on.
He avoided the camps as much as he could. He could see the smoke rising in front of him, and the roar of guns was now close at hand. He saw on his right an elevated piece of ground, from which a good view could be obtained of the fortifications upon which the Federals were working. A camp had been pitched there, and a large tent near the summit showed that some officer of superior rank had his quarters there. He made a detour so as to come up at the back of the hill and when he reached the top he stood looking down upon the line of works.
They were nearly half a mile distant. The intervening ground had already been stripped of its hedges, and the trees cut down to form gabions, fascines, and platforms for the cannon. Thousands of men were at work; but in some parts they were clustered much more thickly than in others, and Vincent had no difficulty in determining where the principal batteries were in course of construction along this portion of the position. He was still gazing intently when two horsemen rode up from behind.
"Hallo you, sir! What are you looking at?" one of them asked sharply. "What are you spying about here?"
Vincent turned slowly round with a silly smile on his lips.
"I am spying all them chaps at work," he said. "It reminds me for all the world of an ant-hill. Never did see so many chaps before. What be they a-doing? Digging a big drain or making a roadway, I guess."
"Who are you, sir?" the officer asked angrily.
"Seth Jones I be, and mother's sent me to sell some fowls and eggs. Do you want to buy any? Fine birds they be."
"Why, Sheridan," laughed the other officer, "this is a feather out of your cap. I thought your fellows had cleared out every hen-roost within twenty miles of Petersburg already."
"I fancy they have emptied most of them," the general said grimly. "Where do you come from, lad?"
"I comes from over there," Vincent said, jerking his thumb back. "I lives there with mother. Father and the other boys they have gone fighting Yanks; but they wouldn't take me with them 'cause I ain't sharp in my wits, though I tells them I could shoot a Yank as well as they could if they showed me."
"And who do you suppose all those men are?" General Sheridan asked, pointing toward the trenches.
"I dunno," Vincent replied. "I guess they be niggers. There be too many of them for whites; besides whites ain't such fools to work like that. Doesn't ye want any fowl?" and he drew back the cloth and showed the contents of the basket.
"Take them as a matter of curiosity, general," the other officer laughed. "It will be downright novelty to you to buy chickens."
"What do you want for them, boy?"
"Mother said as I wasn't to take less nor a dollar apiece."
"Greenbacks, I suppose?" the officer asked.
"I suppose so. She didn't say nothing about it; but I has not seen aught but greenbacks for a long time since."
"Come along, then," the officer said; "we will take them."
They rode up to the large tent, and the officers alighted, and gave their horses to two of the soldiers.
"Give your basket to this soldier."
"I want the basket back again. Mother would whop me if I came back without the basket again."
"All right," the officer said; "you shall have it back in a minute."
Vincent stood looking anxiously after the orderly.
"Do you think that boy is as foolish as he seems?" General Sheridan asked his companion. "He admits that he comes of a rebel family."
"I don't think he would have admitted that if he hadn't been a fool. I fancy he is a half-witted chap. They never would have left a fellow of his age behind."
"No, I think it's safe," Sheridan said; "but one can't be too particular just at present. See, the trees in front hide our work altogether from the rebels, and it would be a serious thing if they were to find out what we are doing."
"That boy could not tell them much even if he got there," the other said; "and from this distance it would need a sharp eye and some military knowledge to make out anything of what is going on. Where does your mother live, boy?"
"I ain't going to tell you," Vincent said doggedly. "Mother said I wasn't to tell no one where I lived, else the Yankee thieves would be a-coming down and stealing the rest of our chickens."
The officers laughed.
"Well, go along, boy; and I should advise you not to say anything about Yankee thieves another time, for likely enough you will get a broken head for your pains."
Vincent went off grumbling, and with a slow and stumbling step made his way over the brow of the hill and down through the camps behind. Here he sold his last two fowls and his eggs, and then walked briskly on until he reached the cottage from which he had started.
"I am glad to see you back," the woman said as he entered. "How have you got on?"
"Capitally," he said. "I pretended to be half an idiot, and so got safely out, though I fell into Sheridan's hands. He suspected me at first, but at last he thought I was what I looked--a fool. He wanted to know where you lived, but I wouldn't tell him. I told him you told me not to tell any one, 'cause if I did the Yankee thieves would be clearing out the rest of the chickens."
"Did you tell him that, now?" the woman said in delight; "he must have thought you was a fool. Well, it's a good thing the Yanks should hear the truth sometimes. Well, have you done now?"
"No, I have only seen one side of their works yet; I must try round the other flank to-morrow. I wish I could get something to sell that wouldn't get bought up by the first people I came to, something I could peddle among the soldiers."
"What sort of thing?"
"Something in the way of drinks, I should say," Vincent said. "I saw a woman going among the camps. She had two tin cans and a little mug. I think she had lemonade or something of that sort."
"It wouldn't be lemonade," the woman said "I haven't seen a lemon for the last two years; but they do get some oranges from Florida. Maybe it was that, or perhaps it was spirits and water."
"Perhaps it was," Vincent agreed; "though I don't think they would let any one sell spirits in the camp."
"I can't get you any lemons or oranges neither," the woman said; "but I might make you a drink out of molasses and herbs, with some spirits in it. I have got a keg of old rye buried away ever since my man went off, six months ago; I am out of molasses, but I dare say I can borrow some from a neighbor, and as for herbs they are about the only thing the Yankees haven't stole. I think I could fix you up something that would do. As long as it has got spirits in it, it don't much matter what you put in besides, only it wouldn't do to take spirits up alone. You can call it plantation drink, and I don't suppose any one would ask too closely what it's made of."
"Thank you, that will do capitally."
The next morning Vincent again set out, turning his steps this time toward the right flank of the Federal position. He had in the course of the evening made a sketch of the ground he had seen, marking in all the principal batteries, with notes as to the number of guns for which they seemed to be intended.
"Look here," he said to the woman before leaving. "I may not be as lucky to-day as I was yesterday. If I do not come back to-night, can you find any one you can trust to take this piece of paper round to Richmond? Of course he would have to make his way first up to Burksville junction, and then take train to Richmond. When he gets there he must go down to Petersburg, and ask for General Lee. I have written a line to go with it, saying what I have done this for, and asking the general to give the bearer a hundred dollars."
"I will take it myself," the woman said; "not for the sake of the hundred dollars, though I ain't saying as it wouldn't please the old man when he comes back to find I had a hundred dollars stored away; but for the cause. My men are all doing their duty, and I will do mine. So trust me, and if you don't come back by daybreak to-morrow morning, I will start right away with these letters. I will go out at once and hide them somewhere in case the Yanks should come and make a search. If you are caught they might, like enough, trace you here, and then they would search the place all over and maybe set it alight. If you ain't here by nightfall I shall sleep out in the wood, so if they come they won't find me here. If anything detains you, and you ain't back till after dark, you will find me somewhere near the tree where your horse is tied up."
Provided with a large can full of a liquor that the woman compounded, and which Vincent, on tasting, found to be by no means bad, he started from the cottage. Again he made his way safely through the camps, and without hindrance lounged up to a spot where a large number of men belonging to one of the negro regiments were at work.
"Plantation liquor?" he said, again assuming a stupid air, to a black sergeant who was with them. "First-rate stuff; and only fifteen cents a glass."
"What plantation liquor like?" the negro asked. "Me not know him."
"First-rate stuff," Vincent repeated. "Mother makes it of spirit and molasses and all sorts. Fifteen cents a glass."
"Well, I will take a glass," the sergeant said. "Mighty hot work dis in de sun; but don't you say nuffin about the spirit. Ef dey ask you, just you say molasses and all sorts, dat's quite enough. De white officer won't let spirits be sold in de camp.
"Dat bery good stuff," he said, smacking his lips as he handed back the little tin measure. "You sell him all in no time." Several of the negroes now came round, and Vincent disposed of a considerable quantity of his plantation liquor. Then he turned to go away, for he did not want to empty his can at one place. He had not gone many paces when a party of three or four officers came along.
"Hallo, you sir, what the deuce are you doing here?" one asked angrily. "Don't you know nobody is allowed to pass through the lines?"
"I didn't see no lines. What sort of lines are they? No one told me nothing about lines. My mother sent me out to sell plantation liquor, fifteen cents a glass."
"What's it like?" one of the officers said laughing. "Spirits, I will bet a dollar, in some shape or other. Pour me out a glass. I will try it, anyhow."
Vincent filled the little tin mug, and handed it to the officer. As he lifted his face to do so there was a sudden exclamation.
"Vincent Wingfield!" and another officer drawing his sword attacked him furiously, shouting, "A spy! Seize him! A Confederate spy!"
Vincent recognized with astonishment in the Federal officer rushing at him with uplifted sword his old antagonist, Jackson. Almost instinctively he whirled the can, which was still half full of liquor, round his head and dashed it full in the face of his antagonist, who was knocked off his feet by the blow. With a yell of rage he started up again and rushed at Vincent. The latter snatched up a shovel that was lying close by and stood his ground. The officers were so surprised at the suddenness of the incident and the overthrow of their companion, and for the moment so amused at the latter's appearance, covered as he was from head to foot with the sticky liquor and bleeding from a cut inflicted by the edge of the can, that they were incapable of interference.
Blinded with rage, and with the liquid streaming into his eyes, Jackson rushed at Vincent. The latter caught the blow aimed at him on the edge of the shovel, and then swinging his weapon round smote his antagonist with all his strength, the edge of the shovel falling fairly upon his head. Without a cry the traitor fell dead in his tracks. The other officers now drew their swords and rushed forward. Vincent, seeing the futility of resistance, threw down his shovel. He was instantly seized.
"Halloo there!" the senior officer called to the men, who had stopped in their work and were gazing at the sudden fray that had arisen, "a sergeant and four men." Four of the negro soldiers and a sergeant at once stepped forward. "Take this man and conduct him to the village. Put him in a room, and stay there with him. Do you, sergeant, station yourself at the door, so that I shall know where to find you. Put on your uniforms and take your guns." The men put on their coats, which they had removed while at work, shouldered their muskets, and took their places, two on each side of the prisoner. The officers then turned to examine their prostrate comrade.
"It's all over with him," one said, stooping down; "the shovel has cut his skull nearly in half. Well, I fancy he was a bad lot. I don't believe in Southerners who come over to fight in our ranks; besides he was at one time in the rebel army."
"Yes, he was taken prisoner," another said. "Then his father, who had to bolt from the South, because, he said, of his Northern sympathies, but likely enough for something else, came round, made interest somehow and got his son released, and then some one else got him a commission with us. He always said he had been obliged to fight on the other side, but that he had always been heart and soul for the North; anyhow, he was always blackguarding his old friends. I always doubted the fellow. Well, there's an end of him; and anyhow he has done useful service at last by recognizing this spy. Fine-looking young fellow that. He called him Vincent Wingfield. I seem to remember the name; perhaps I have read it in some of the rebel newspapers we got hold of; likely enough some one will know it. Well, I suppose we had better have Jackson carried into camp."
Four more of the negroes were called out, and these carried the body into the camp of his regiment. An officer was also sent from the working party to report the capture of a spy to his colonel.
"I will report it to the general," the latter said; "he rode along here about a quarter of an hour ago, and may not be back again for some hours. As we have got the spy fast it cannot make any difference."
As he was marched back to the village Vincent felt that there was no hope for him whatever. He had been denounced as a spy, and although the lips that had denounced him had been silenced forever, the mischief had been done. He could give no satisfactory account of himself. He thought for a moment of declaring that a mistake had been made, but he felt that no denial would counterbalance the effect of Jackson's words. The fury, too, with which the latter had attacked him would show plainly enough that his assailant was absolutely certain as to his identity, and even that there had been a personal feud between them. Then he thought that if he said that he was the son of the woman in the line she would hear him out in the assertion. But it was not likely that this would be accepted as against Jackson's testimony; besides, inquiry among her neighbors would certainly lead to the discovery that she was speaking an untruth, and might even involve her in his fate as his abettor. But most of all he decided against this course because it would involve the telling of a lie.
Vincent considered that while in disguise, and doing important service for his country, he was justified in using deceit; but merely for the purpose of saving his own life, and that perhaps uselessly, he would not lie. His fate, of course, was certain. He was a spy, and would be shot for it. Vincent had so often been in the battlefield, so often under a fire from which it seemed that no one could come alive, that the thought that death was at hand had not for him the terrors that possess those differently circumstanced. He was going to die for the Confederacy as tens of thousands of brave men had died before, and he rejoiced over the precaution he had taken as to the transmission of his discoveries on the previous day, and felt sure that General Lee would do full justice to his memory, and announce that he had died in doing noble service to the country.
He sighed as he thought of his mother and sisters; but Rose had been married in the spring, and Annie was engaged to an officer in General Beauregard's staff. Then he thought of Lucy away in Georgia and for the first time his lip quivered and his cheek paled.
The negro guards, who had been enlisted but a few weeks, were wholly ignorant of their duties, and having once conveyed their prisoner into the room, evidently considered that all further necessity for military strictness was at an end. They had been ordered to stay in the room with the prisoner, but no instructions had been given as to their conduct there. They accordingly placed their muskets in one corner of the room, and proceeded to chatter and laugh without further regarding him.
Under other circumstances this carelessness would have inspired Vincent with the thought of escape, but he knew that it was out of the question here. There were Federal camps all round and a shout from the negroes would send a hundred men in instant pursuit of him. There was nothing for him to do but to wait for the end, and that end would assuredly come in the morning. From time to time the door opened, and the negro sergeant looked in. Apparently his ideas on the subject of discipline were no stricter than those of his men, for he made no remark as to their carelessness. Presently, when he looked in, the four soldiers were standing at the window watching a regiment passing by on its way to take its share of the work in the trenches. Vincent, who was sitting at a table, happened to look up, and was astonished at seeing the sergeant first put his finger on his lips, then take off his cap, put one hand on his heart, and gesticulate with the other.
Vincent gazed at him in blank surprise, then he started and almost sprang to his feet, for in the Yankee sergeant he recognized Tony Morris; but the uplifted hand of the negro warned him of the necessity of silence. The negro nodded several times, again put his hand on his heart, and then disappeared. A thrill of hope stirred every vein in Vincent's body. He felt his cheeks flush and had difficulty in maintaining his passive attitude. He was not, then, utterly deserted; he had a friend who would, he was sure, do all in his power to aid him.
It was extraordinary indeed that it should be Tony who was now his jailer; and yet, when he thought it over, it was not difficult to understand. It was natural enough that he should have enlisted when the black regiments were raised. He had doubtless heard his name shouted out by Jackson, and had, as Vincent now remembered, stepped forward as a sort of volunteer when the officer called for a sergeant and four men.
Yes, Tony would doubtless do all in his power to save him. Whether it would be possible that he could do so was doubtful; but at least there was a hope, and with it the feeling of quiet resignation with which Vincent had faced what appeared to be inevitable at once disappeared, and was succeeded by a restless longing for action. His brain was busy at once in calculating the chances of his being ordered for instant execution or of the sentence being postponed till the following morning, and, in the latter case, with the question of what guard would be probably placed over him, and how Tony would set about the attempt to aid him to escape.
Had the general been in camp when he was brought in he would probably have been shot at sunset, but if he did not return until the afternoon he would most likely order the sentence to be carried out at daybreak. In any case, as he was an officer, some time might be granted to him to prepare for death. Then there was the question whether he would be handed over to a white regiment for safekeeping or left in the hands of the black regiment that had captured him. No doubt after the sentence was passed the white officers of that regiment would see that a much stricter watch than that now put over him was set.
It was not probable that he would still be in charge of Tony, for as the latter would be on duty all day he would doubtless be relieved. In that case how would he manage to approach him, and what means would he use to direct the attention of the sentries in another direction? He thought over the plans that he himself would adopt were he in Tony's place. The first thing would be, of course, to make the sentries drunk if possible. This should not be a difficult task with men whose notions of discipline were so lax as those of the negroes; but it would be no easy matter for Tony to obtain spirits, for these were strictly prohibited in the Federal camp. Perhaps he might help Tony in this way. He fortunately had a small notebook with a pencil in his pocket, and as his guards were still at the window he wrote as follows: "I am captured by the Yankees. So far as I can see, my only chance of escape is to make the sentries drunk. The bearer is absolutely to be trusted. Give him his canteen full of spirits, and tell him what I have written here."
He tore this page out, folded it up, and directed it to Mrs. Grossmith, Worley Farm, near Union. Presently Tony looked in again and Vincent held up the note. The sergeant stepped quickly forward and took it, and then said sharply to the men: "Now den, dis not keeping guard. Suppose door open and dis fellow run away. What dey say to you? Two of you keep your eye on dis man. Suppose Captain Pearce come in and find you all staring out window. He kick up nice bobbery."
Thus admonished as to their duty, two of the negroes took up their muskets and stood with their backs to the door, with their eyes fixed on the prisoner with such earnestness that Vincent could not suppress a smile. The negroes grinned responsively.
"Dis bad affair, young sah," one said; "bery bad affair. Ob course we soldiers ob de Union, and got to fight if dey tell us; but no like dis job ob keeping guard like dis."
"It can't be helped," Vincent said; "and of course you must do your duty. I am not going to jump up the chimney or fly through the window, and as there are four of you, to say nothing of the sergeant outside, you needn't be afraid of my trying to escape."
"No sah, dat not possible nohow; we know dat bery well. Dat's why we no trouble to look after you. But as de sargent say watch, ob course we must watch. We bery pleased to see you kill dat white officer. Dat officer bery hard man and all de men hate him, and when you knock him down we should like to hab given cheer. We all sorry for you; still you see, sah, we must keep watch. If you were to get away, dar no saying what dey do to us."
"That's all right," Vincent said; "I don't blame you at all. As you say, that was a very bad fellow. I had quarreled with him before, because he treated his slaves so badly."
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
19
|
FREE.
|
It was not until late in the afternoon that a white officer entered, and ordered the soldiers to conduct the prisoner to the general's tent.
"What is your name, sir, and who are you?" the general asked as he was brought in. "I hear that you were denounced by Lieutenant Jackson as being a spy, and that he addressed you as Vincent Wingfield. What have you got to say to the charge?"
"My name is Vincent Wingfield, sir," Vincent replied quietly. "I am upon the staff of General Wade Hampton, and in pursuance of my duty I came here to learn what I could of your movements and intentions."
The general was silent for a moment.
"Then, sir, as you are an officer, you must be well aware of the consequence of being discovered in disguise here. I regret that there is no course open to me but to order you to be shot as a spy to-morrow morning."
One of the officers who was standing by the general here whispered to him.
"Ah, yes, I remember," he said. "Are you the same officer, sir, who escaped from Elmira?"
"I am, sir," Vincent replied; "and at the same time aided in the escape of the man who denounced me to-day, and who then did his best to have me arrested by sending an anonymous letter stating the disguise in which I was making my way through the country. I was not surprised to find that he had carried his treachery further, and was now fighting against the men with whom he had formerly served."
"He deserved the fate that has befallen him," the general said. "Still this does not alter your position. I regret that I must order my sentence to be carried out."
"I do not blame you, sir. I knew the risks I ran when I accepted the mission. My only regret is that I failed in supplying my general with the information they required."
The general then turned to the officer who had brought Vincent up.
"This officer will remain in charge of your men for to-night, Captain Pearce. You will see that the sentence is carried into effect at daybreak. I need not tell you that a vigilant guard must be placed over him."
Vincent was again marched back to the village, but the officer halted the party when he arrived there.
"Stop here a few minutes, sergeant," he said. "That room is required for an officer's quarters. I will look round and find another place."
In a few minutes he returned, and Vincent was conducted to a shed standing in the garden of one of the houses.
"Place one man on guard at the door and another behind," he said to the sergeant. "Let the other two relieve them, and change the watch once an hour."
The sergeant saluted.
"De men hab been on duty since daylight, sah, and none of us hab had anything to eat."
"Oh, I forgot that," the officer replied. "Very well, I will send another party to relieve you at once."
In ten minutes another sergeant and four men arrived at the spot, and Tony and his companions returned to the camp.
As soon as Tony had devoured a piece of bread he left the camp, walked with careless gait through the camps behind, and went on until he reached a village in which were comparatively few soldiers. He went up to a woman who was standing at a door.
"Missus," he said, "I hab got a letter to take, and I ain't bery sure as to de name. Will you kindly tell me what is de address writ on dis paper?"
The woman looked at it.
"Mrs. Grossmith, Worley Farm, near Union. That's about two miles along the road. If you go on any one will tell you which is Mrs. Grossmith's."
Tony hurried on, for he wanted to get back to the camp before it was dark. He had no difficulty in finding Worley Farm.
"Now, then, what do you want?" its owner said sharply, as she opened the door in reply to his knock. "There's nothing for you here. You can look round if you like. It's been all stripped clean days ago, so I tell you."
"Me no want anything, ma'am. Me hab a letter for you." The woman in surprise took the note and opened it. She read it through and looked earnestly at Tony.
"He says you are to be trusted," she said. "Is that so?"
"I would gib my life for him twenty times over," Tony replied. "He got me away from a brutal master and bought my wife out ob slavery for me. What does he say, ma'am? For de Lord sake tell me. Perhaps he tell me how to get him clar."
The woman read out the contents of the note.
"Dat's it, missus, sure enough; dat's the way," he exclaimed in delight. "Me tink and tink all day, and no manage to tink of anything except to shoot de sentry and fight wid de oders and get him out; but den all de oder sojers come running down, and no chance to escape. If me can get de spirits dat's easy enough. Me make dem all drunk as hogs."
"I can give you that," the woman said. "Is there anything else you will want? What are you going to do with him if you get him free? They will hunt you down like vermin."
"I tought we might get down to de river and get ober somehow. Dere will be no getting trou der cavalry. Dey will hab dem on every road."
"Well, you want some clothes, anyhow; you can't go about in these soldier clothes. The first Yank you came across would shoot you for a deserter, and the first of our men as a traitor. Well, by the time you get back to-night, that is if you do come back, I will get up a chest I've get buried with my men's clothes in it. They didn't want to take them away to the war with them, so I hid them up."
She had by this time dug up the keg from its hiding-place, and now filled Tony's canteen.
"Tank you, missus; de Lord bress you for what you've done, wheder I get Massa Wingfield off or wheder we bofe get killed ober de job. But I must get back as fast as I can. Ef it was dark before I got to camp dey would wonder whar I had been."
"Oh, you have plenty of time," the woman said; "it won't be dark till eight o'clock, and it's not seven yet. I will set to and boil a good chunk of pork and bake some cakes. It's no use getting out of the hands of the Yanks and then going and getting starved in the swamps."
Directly Tony got back to his regiment he strolled over to the shed where Vincent was confined. Two sentinels were on duty, the sergeant and the two other men were lying at full length en the ground some twenty yards away. Their muskets were beside them, and it was evident to Tony by the vigilant watch that they kept upon the shed that their responsibility weighed heavily upon them and that Captain Pearce had impressed upon them that if the prisoner escaped they would certainly be shot.
"Well, Sergeant John Newson," Tony began, "I hab just walked ober to see how you getting on. It am a mighty 'sponsible business dis. I had six hours of him, and it make de perspiration run down my back to tink what a job it would be for me if dat fellow was to run away."
"Dat's just what dis chile feel, Sergeant Tony Morris; I am zactly like dat, and dat's what dese men feel too. We am all on guard. De captain say, put two on guard at de shed and let de oders relieb dem ebery hour. So dey shall; but dose off duty must watch just the same. When it gets dark we get close up, so as to be ready to jump in directly we hear a stir. Dis fellow no fool us."
"Dat's the way, Sergeant Newson, dat am de way. Neber close your eye, but keep a sharp look on dem. It's a pity dat you not in camp to-night."
"How am dat, how am dat?" the sergeant asked.
"To tell you de truf, sergeant, tree or four ob us hab smuggled in some spirits, and you are one of dose who would hab come in for a share of it if you had been dere."
"Golly!" the sergeant exclaimed; "but dat is bery unfortunate. Can't you manage to bring me a little here?"
"Well, you know, it's difficult to get out ob camp."
"Oh, you could get through. Dere is no fear about you being caught."
"I don't know," Tony replied with an air of reluctance. "Well, I will see about it. Ef I can crawl troo de sentries, and bring some for you and de oders, I will. It will help keep you awake and keep out de damp.
"Dat's right down good ob you," the other said cordially. "You good man, Tony Morris; and if I can do as much for you anoder time, I do it."
Having settled this, Tony went round to the hospital tent in rear of the regiment, having tied up his face with a handkerchief.
"Well, what is it, sergeant?" the negro, who acted as an orderly and sometimes helped the surgeon mix his drugs, asked. "De doctor am gone away, and I don't 'spect he come back again to-night."
"Dat am bery bad ting," Tony said dolefully. "Can't you do something for me, Sam Smith? I tink you know quite as much about de medicines as de doctor himself."
"Not quite so much, sergeant, not quite so much; but I'se no fool, and my old mother she 'used to make medicine for de plantation and knew a heap about herbs, so it am natural dat I should take to it. What can I gib you?"
"Well, Sam, you see sometimes I'se 'flicted dre'fful wid de faceache him just go jump, jump, jump, as ef he bust right up. Mose times I find de best ting am to put a little laudabun in my mouf, and a little on bit of rag and put him outside. De best ting would be for you to gib me little bottle of him; den when de pain come on I could jess take him, and not be troubling you ebery day. And Sam, jus you whisper--I got hold of a little good stuff. You gib me tin mug; me share what I hab got wid you."
The negro grinned with delight, and going into the tent brought out a tin mug.
"Dat's all right, Sam; but you hab no brought de bottle of laudabun too. You just fetch dat, and I gib you de spirit."
The negro went in again, and in two minutes returned with a small bottle of laudanum.
"Dat's a fair exchange," Tony said, taking it, and handing to the man his mug half full of spirit.
"Dat am someting like," the black said, looking with delight at the liberal allowance. "Me drink him de last ting at night, den me go to sleep and no one 'spect nuffin'. Whereber you get dat spirit?"
"Never you mind, Sam," Tony said with a grin. "Dar's more where dat comes from, and maybe you will get anoder taste ob it."
Then after leaving the hospital tent he poured half the spirits away, for he had not now to depend upon the effect of that alone; and it were better not to give it too strong, for that might arouse the suspicion of the guard. Then he uncorked the bottle of laudanum.
"I don't know how much to gib," he said to himself. "No good to kill dem. Me don't 'spect de stuff bery strong. Dese rogues sell all sorts of stuff to de government. Anyting good enough for de soldier. Dey gib him rotten boots, and rotten cloth, and bad powder, and all sorts of tings. I spect dey gib him bad drugs too. However, me must risk it. Dis bottle not bery big, anyhow--won't hold more dan two or three teaspoon. Must risk him."
So saying he poured the contents of the vial into the canteen, and then going to a water-cart filled it up. He waited until the camp was quiet, and then, taking off his boots and fastening in his belt his own bayonet and that of one of the men sleeping near, he quietly and cautiously made his way out of camp. There were no sentries placed here, for there was no fear whatever of an attack, and he had little difficulty in making his way round to the back of the village to the spot where Vincent was confined. He moved so quietly that he was not perceived until he was within a few yards of the shed.
"Sergeant Newson, am you dere?"
"Bress me, what a start you hab given me, for suah!" the sergeant said. "I did not hear you coming.
"You didn't s'pose I was coming along shouting and whistling, Sergeant Newson? Don't you talk so loud. Dar am no saying who's about."
"Hab you brought de stuff?"
"You don't suppose I should hab come all dis way to tell you I hab not got it. How am de prisoner?"
"Oh, he's dere all right. My orders was to look in at dat little winder ebery five minutes, and dat when it began to get dark me was to tie him quite tight, and me hab done so. And one of de sentries goes in every five minutes and feels to see if de ropes are tight. He am dar, sure enough."
"Dat's quite right, Sergeant Newson. I knew when you came to have me as de captain knew what he was doing when he choose you for dis job. He just pick out de man he considers de very best in de regiment. Now, here is de spirit; and fuss-rate stuff it am, too."
"Golly, but it am strong!" the sergeant said, taking a long gulp at the canteen. "Dat warm de cockles ob de heart in no time. Yes, it am good stuff--just de ting for dis damp air. I hear as a lot of de white soldiers are down wid de fever already, and dere will be lots and lots more if we stop here long. Here, you two men, take a drink of dis; but mind, you mustn't tell no one 'bout it. Dis a secret affair."
The two negroes each took a long drink, and returned the canteen with warm expressions of approval.
"De oder men are on duty," the sergeant said with the air of a man who knew his business; "dey mustn't hab none of it, not until dey comes off. As we are de relief, it am proper and right dat we drink a drop out of a canteen ef we want it."
"Quite so, Sergeant Newson," Tony said in a tone of admiration. "Dat's de way to manage dese tings--duty first and pleasure afterward."
"It am nearly time to relieve guard," the other said; "and den dey can have a drink."
In five minutes the two soldiers relieved those on guard, and they also took a long drink at the canteen, to which the sergeant also again applied his lips.
"Now I must be going," Tony said. "I will leave the canteen with you, sergeant. I have got some more of the stuff over there, and I dare say you will like another drink before morning."
So saying he stole away, but halted and lay down twenty yards distant. In ten minutes he heard the sergeant say: "I feel as if I could do just five minutes' sleep. You keep your eyes on de shed, and ef you hear any officer coming his rounds you wake me up."
Tony waited another half-hour and then crawled up. The sergeant was lying on his back sound asleep; the two men with him were on their faces, with their rifles pointing toward the shed, as if they had dropped off to sleep while they were staring at it. Then he crawled on to the shed. The soldier on sentry at the back had grounded his musket and was leaning against the shed fast asleep, while the one at the door had apparently slid down in a sitting position and was snoring.
"I hope I haben't given it to dem too strong," Tony said to himself; "but it can't be helped anyhow."
He opened the door and entered the shed.
"Are you awake, Marse Wingfield?"
"Yes, I am awake, Tony. Thank God you have come! How did you manage it?"
"I hab managed it, sah, and dey are all fast asleep," Tony said, as he cut the ropes which bound Vincent.
"Now, sah, let's be going quick. Dar am no saying when dey may come round to look after de guards. Dat's what I hab been worrying about de last quarter ob an hour."
Vincent sprang to his feet as the ropes fell from him, and grasped Tony's hand.
"Here am a bayonet, sah. I hope we sha'n't want to use dem, but dar am no saying."
They made their way cautiously across the fields till they approached another camp. A few sentries were walking up and down in front of it, but they crawled round these and passed through the space between the regiment and that next to it. Several other camps were passed; and then, when Vincent knew that they were well in rear of the whole of them, they rose to their feet and started forward at a run. Suddenly Tony touched Vincent, and they both stood still. A distant shout came through the air, followed by another and another.
"I 'spect dey hab found out we have gone, sah. Dey go round two or tree times in de night to see dat de sentries are awake. Now, sah, come along."
They were on the road now, and ran at full speed until they approached Union. They left the track as they neared the village, and as they did so they heard the sound of a horse at full gallop behind them.
"That's an orderly taking the news of our escape. Sheridan's cavalry are scattered all over the country, and there are two squadrons at Union Grove. The whole country will be alive at daybreak."
Making their way through the fields they soon struck the track leading to Worley Farm, and in a few minutes were at the door. The woman opened it at once.
"I have been watching for you," she said, "and I am real glad you have got safe away. Wait a minute and I will strike a light."
"You had better not do that," Vincent said. "They have got the alarm at Union Grove already, and if any one caught sight of a light appearing in your window, it would bring them down here at once."
"They can't see the house from Union," the woman said. "Still, perhaps it will be best. Now, sir, I can't do anything for you, because my men's clothes are the same sort of cut as yours; but here's a suit for this man."
Thanking her warmly Vincent handed the things to Tony.
"Make haste and slip them on. Tony; and make your other things up into a bundle and bring them with you for a bit. We must leave nothing here, for they will search the whole country to-morrow. We will take the horse away too; not that we want it, but it would never do for it to be found here."
"Will you take your letter again?" the woman asked.
"No, I will leave it with you. It will be no use now if I get through, but if you hear to-morrow or next day that I am caught, please carry it as we arranged. What is this?" he asked as the woman handed him a bundle.
"Here are eight or ten pounds of pork," she said, "and some corn-cakes. If you are hiding away you will want something, and I reckon anyhow you won't be able to make your way to our people for a bit. Now, if you are ready I will start with you."
"You will start with us!" Vincent repeated in surprise.
"Certainly I will start with you," the woman said. "How do you think you would be able to find your way a dark night like this? No, sir; I will put you on your way till morning. But, in the first place, which line do you mean to take?"
"I do not think there is much chance of getting back the way we came," Vincent said. "By morning Sheridan's cavalry will have got a description of me, and they will be scouring the whole country. The only chance will be to go north and cross the river somewhere near Norfolk."
"I think, sah, you better go on wid your horse at once. No use wait for me. I come along on foot, find my own way."
"No, Tony, I shall certainly not do that. We will either get off or be taken together. Well, I think the best plan will be to go straight down to the river. How far is it away?"
"About fifteen miles," the woman said.
"If we got there we can get hold of a boat somehow, and either cross and then make straight for Richmond on foot, or go up the river in the boat and land in the rear of our lines. That we can settle about afterward. The first thing is to get to the river bank. We are not likely to meet with any interruption in that direction. Of course the cavalry are all on the other flank, and it will be supposed that I shall try either to work round that way or to make straight through the lines. They would hardly suspect that I shall take to the river, which is covered with their transports and store-ships."
"I think that is the best plan," the woman said. "There are scarce any villages between this and the river. It's only just when you cross the road between Petersburg and Williamsburg that you would be likely to meet a soul, even in the daytime. There is scarce even a farmhouse across this section. I know the country pretty well. Just stop a minute and I will run up to the wood and fetch down the horse. There's a big wood about a mile away, and you can turn him in there."
A few minutes later they started, Vincent leading the horse and Tony carrying the bundle of food and his castoff uniform. The woman led them by farm roads, sometimes turning off to the right or left, but keeping her way with a certainty which showed how well she was acquainted with the country. Several times they could hear the dull sound of bodies of cavalry galloping along the roads; but this died away as they got further into the country. The horse had been turned loose a mile from their starting place. Vincent removed the bridle and saddle, saying: "He will pick up enough to feed on here for some time. When he gets tired of the wood he can work his way out into a clearing."
Here Tony hid away his uniform among some thick bushes, and the three walked steadily along until the first tinge of daylight appeared on the sky. Then the woman stopped.
"The river is not more than half a mile in front of you," she said; "so I will say good-by."
"What will you do?" Vincent asked. "You might be questioned as you get near home."
"I am going to put up at the last house we passed," she said, "about three miles back. I know the people there, and they will take me in. I will stop there for a day or two, maybe, then walk back, so I shall have a true story to tell. That's all right."
Vincent said good-by to her, with many hearty thanks for the services she had rendered him, and had almost to force her to take notes for two hundred dollars from the bundle he had sewn up in the lining of his coat.
"You have saved my life," he said, "and some day I hope to be able to do more to show my gratitude; but you must take this anyhow to tide you over the hard times, and find food for your husband and sons when they come back from the war."
As soon as the woman had turned back Vincent and Tony continued on their way. The former had, as soon as they were fairly out from the Federal camp, told Tony in a few words that his wife was safe at home and their boy flourishing, and he now gave him further details of them.
"And how came you to enter the army, Tony?"
"Well, sah, dere wasn't much choice about it. De Northern people, dey talk mighty high about der love for de negro, but I don't see much of it in der ways. Why, sah, dey is twice as scornful ob a black man as de gentleman is in de Souf. I list in de army, sah, because dey say dey go to Richmond, and den I find Dinah and de boy."
"Well, Tony, I little thought when I did you a service that it would be the means of you being able to save my life some day."
"Not much in dat, sah. You sabe my life, because dey would, for suah, hab caught me and killed me. Den you save my wife for me, den you pay out dat Jackson, and now you hab killed him. I could hab shouted for joy, sah, when I saw you hit him ober de head wid de shovel, and I saw dat dis time he gib no more trouble to no one. I should hab done for him bery soon, sah. I had my eye upon him, and the fust time we go into battle he get a ball in his back. Lucky he didn't see me. He not officer ob my company, and me look quite different in de uniform to what me was when I work on de plantation; but I know him, and wheneber I see him pass I hung down my head and I say to myself, 'My time come soon, Massa Jackson; my time come bery soon, and den we get quits.'"
"It is wrong to nourish revenge, Tony; but I really can't blame you very much as to that fellow. Still, I should have blamed you if you had killed him--blamed you very much. He was a bad man, and he treated you brutally, but you see he has been already punished a good deal."
"Yes, you knock him down, sah. Dat bery good, but not enough for Tony."
"But that wasn't all, Tony. You see, the affair set all my friends against him, and his position became a very unpleasant one. Then, you see, if it hadn't been for you he would probably have got through to our lines again after he had escaped with me. Then, you see, his father, out of revenge, stole Dinah away."
"Stole Dinah!" Tony exclaimed, stopping in his work. "Why, sah, you hab been telling me dat she is safe and well wid Mrs. Wingfield."
"So she is, Tony. But he stole her for all that, and had her carried down into Carolina; but I managed to bring her back. It's a long story, but I will tell you about it presently. Then the knowledge that I had found Dinah, and the fear of punishment for his share of taking her away, caused old Jackson to fly from the country, getting less than a quarter of the sum his estate would have fetched two or three years ago. That was what made him and his son turn Unionists. So, you see, Jackson was heavily punished for his conduct to you, and it did not need for you to revenge yourself."
"So he was, sah, so he was," Tony said thoughtfully. "Yes, it does seem as if all dese tings came on kinder one after de oder just out ob dat flogging he gabe me; and now he has got killed for just de same cause, for if he hadn't been obliged to turn Unionist he wouldn't have been in dat dar battery at de time you came dere. Yes, I sees dat is so, sah; and I'se glad now I didn't hab a chance ob shooting him down, for I should have done so for suah ef I had."
They had now reached the river. The sun was just showing above the horizon, and the broad sheet of water was already astir. Steamers were making their way up from the mouth of the river laden with stores for the army. Little tugs were hurrying to and fro. Vessels that had discharged their cargo were dropping down with the tide, while many sailing-vessels lay at anchor waiting for the turn of tide to make their way higher up. Norfolk was, however, the base from which the Federal army drew the larger portion of its stores; as there were great conveniences for landing here, and a railway thence ran up to the rear of their lines. But temporary wharfs and stages had been erected at the point of the river nearest to their camps in front of Petersburg, and here the cattle and much of the stores required for the army were landed. At the point at which Vincent and Tony had struck the river the banks were somewhat low. Here and there were snug farms, with the ground cultivated down to the river. The whole country was open and free from trees, except where small patches had been left. It was in front of one of these that Vincent and Tony were now standing.
"I do not think there is any risk of pursuit now, Tony. This is not the line on which they will be hunting us. The question is--how are we to get across?"
"It's too far to swim, sah."
"I should think it was," Vincent said with a laugh. "It's three or four miles, I should say, if it's a foot. The first question is--where are we to get a boat? I should think that some of these farmhouses are sure to have boats, but the chances are they have been seized by the Yankees long ago. Still they may have some laid up. The Yanks would not have made much search for those, though they would no doubt take all the larger boats for the use of the troops or for getting stores ashore. Anyhow, I will go to the next farmhouse and ask."
"Shall I go, sah?"
"No, Tony, they would probably take you for a runaway. No, I will go. There can be no danger. The men are all away, and the women are sure to be loyal. I fancy the few who were the other way before will have changed their minds since the Yanks landed."
They followed the bank of the river for a quarter of a mile, and then Vincent walked on to a small farmhouse standing on the slope fifty yards from the water. Two or three children who were playing about outside at once ran in upon seeing a stranger, and a moment later two women came out. They were somewhat reassured when they saw Vincent approaching alone.
"What is it, stranger?" one of them asked. "Do you want a meal? We have got little enough to offer you, but what there is you are welcome to; the Yanks have driven off our cows and pigs and the two horses, and have emptied the barns, and pulled up all the garden stuff, and stole the fowls, and carried off the bacon from the beams, so we have got but an empty larder. But as far as bread and molasses go, you are welcome."
"Thank you," Vincent said; "I am not in want of food. What I am in want of is a boat."
"Boat!" the women repeated in surprise.
"Yes, I want to get across to the other side, or else to get up the river and land between Petersburg and Bermuda."
"Sakes alive!" the woman exclaimed; "what do you want to do that for?"
"I will tell you," Vincent replied. "I know I can trust my life to any woman in the Confederacy. I am one of General Wade Hampton's officers, and I have come through their lines to find out what they are doing. I have been caught once, but managed to slip through their hands, but there is no possibility of making my way back across the country, for the Yankee cavalry are patrolling every road, and the only chance I have is of getting away by boat."
"Step right in, sir," the woman said. "It's a real pleasure to us to have one of our officers under our roof."
"I have a friend with me," Vincent said; "a faithful negro, who has helped me to escape, and who would be hung like a dog if they could lay hands on him."
"Bring him in, sir," the woman said hospitably. "I had four or five niggers till the Yanks came, but they all ran away 'cause they knew they would either be set to work or made to fight; so they went. They said they would come back again when the trouble is over; maybe they will and maybe they won't. At first the niggers about here used to look for the Yanks coming, but as the news got about of what happened to those they took from their masters, they concluded they were better off where they were. Call your boy in, sir; call him in."
Vincent gave a shout, and Tony at once came up.
"Thank you, we don't want anything to eat," Vincent went on as the woman began to put some plates on the table. "We have just had a hearty meal, and have got enough food for three or four days in that bundle. But we want a boat, or, if we can't find that, some sailors' clothes. If I had them I would keep along the river down to Norfolk. The place will be full of sailors. We should not be likely to be noticed there."
"I can't help you in that," the woman said; "but there are certainly some boats laid up along the shore. Now, Maria, who has got boats that haven't been taken?"
"I expect the Johnsons have got one," the other woman replied. "They had a small boat the boys and girls used to go out fishing in. I don't think the Yanks have got that. I expect they hid it away somewhere; but I don't know as they would let you have it. She is a close-fisted woman is Sarah Johnson."
"I could pay her for its value," Vincent said.
"Oh, well, if you could pay her she would let you have it. I don't say she wouldn't, anyhow, seeing as you are an officer, and the Yanks are after you. Still, she is close is Sarah Johnson, and I don't know as she is so set on the Confederacy as most people. I tell you what I will do, sir. I will go down and say as a stranger wants to buy her boat, and no questions asked. She is just to show where the boat is hidden, and you are to pay for it and take it away when you want it."
"That would be a very good plan," Vincent said, "if you wouldn't mind the trouble."
"The trouble is nothing," she said. "Johnson's place ain't above a mile along the shore."
"I will go with you until you get close to the house," Vincent said; "then, when you hear what she wants for the boat, I will give you the money for it, and you can show me where it is hidden."
This was accordingly done. Mrs. Johnson, after a considerable amount of bargaining with Vincent's guide, agreed to take twenty dollars for the boat, and upon receiving the money sent down one of her boys with her to show her where it was hidden. It was in a hole that had been scooped out in the steep bank some ten foot above the water's edge, and was completely hidden from the sight of any one rowing past by a small clump of bushes. When the boys had returned to the farmhouse the woman took Vincent to the spot, and they then went back together.
Here he and Tony had a long talk as to whether it would be better to put out at once or to wait till nightfall. It was finally determined that it was best to make an immediate start. A boat rowed by two men would attract little attention. It might belong to any of the ships at anchor in the river, and might be supposed to have gone on shore to fetch eggs or chickens, or with a letter or a message.
"You see, both shores are in the hands of the Yankees," Vincent said, "and there will not be any suspicion of a boat in the daytime. At night we might be hailed, and if we gave no answer fired upon, and that night bring a gunboat along to see what was the matter. No, I think it will be far best to go on boldly. There are not likely to be any bodies of Federal troops on the opposite shore except at Fortress Monroe, and perhaps opposite the point where they have got their landing below Petersburg. Once ashore we shall be safe. The peninsula opposite is covered with forest and swamp, and we shall have no difficulty in getting through however many troops they may have across it. You know the place pretty well, don't you, Tony?"
Tony nodded. "Once across, sah, all de Yank army wouldn't catch us. Me know ob lots ob hiding-places."
"Them broad hats will never do," the woman said; "but I have got some blue nightcaps I knitted for my husband. They are something like the caps I have seen some sailors wear; anyhow, they will pass at a distance, and when you take your coats and vests off, them colored flannel shirts will be just the right thing."
"That will do capitally, and the sooner we are off the better," Vincent said, and after heartily thanking the two women, and bestowing a present upon each of the children, they started along the shore.
The boat was soon got into the water, the oars put out, and they started. The tide was just low now, and they agreed to pull along at a short distance from the shore until it turned. As soon as it did so the vessels at anchor would be getting up sail to make up to the landing-place, and even had any one on board noticed the boat put out, and had been watching it, they would have other things to think about.
"It is some time since we last rowed in a boat together, Tony."
"About three years, sah; dat time when you got me safe away. I had a bad fright dat day you left me, sah. It came on to blow bery hard, and some ob de men told me dat dey did not tink you would ever get back to shore. Dat made me awful bad, sah; and me wish ober and ober again dat me hab died in de forest instead ob your taking me off in a boat and trowing away your life. I neber felt happy again, sah, till I got your letter up in Canady, and knew you had got back safe dat day."
"We had a narrow squeak of it, Tony, and were blown some distance up. We were nearly swamped a score of times, and Dan quite made up his mind that it was all up with us. However, we got through safe, and I don't think a soul, except perhaps Jackson and that rascally overseer of ours, who afterward had a hand in carrying off your wife, and lost his life in consequence, ever had a suspicion we had been doing more than a long fishing expedition. I will tell you all about it when we are going through the woods. Now I think it's pretty nearly dead water, and we will begin to edge across."
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
20
|
THE END OF THE STRUGGLE.
|
Vincent directed his course so that while the boat's head was still pointing up the stream, and she was apparently moving in the same direction as the ships, she was gradually getting out to the middle of the river. Had he tried to row straight across suspicion might at once have been excited. In half an hour they were in the middle of the stream. A vessel passing under full sail swept along at a distance of a hundred yards, and they were hailed. Vincent merely waved his hand and continued his course.
"I dare say those fellows wonder what we are up to, Tony; but they are not likely to stop to inquire. In another quarter of an hour we shall be pretty safe. Ah! there's a fellow who might interfere with us," he added looking round. "Do you see that little black thing two miles ahead of us? that's a steam launch. If she sees us making over she's likely enough to come and ask us some questions. We had better head a little more toward the shore now. If it comes to a race every foot is of importance."
Up to now they had been rowing in an easy and leisurely manner, avoiding all appearance of haste. They now bent to their oars, and the boat began to travel a good deal faster through the water. Vincent glanced over his shoulder frequently at the steam launch.
"She is keeping straight on in the middle of the channel, Tony; evidently she hasn't noticed us yet."
Ten minutes after passing the ship he exclaimed sharply: "Row, Tony, as hard as you can; the launch has just passed that ship, and has changed her course. I expect the captain has called their attention to us. It's a race now."
The boat, at the moment the launch changed her course, was rather more than halfway between the center of the channel and the shore. The launch was in the center of the channel, and three-quarters of a mile higher up. She had evidently put on steam as she started to cut off the boat, for there was now a white wave at her bow.
"I think we shall do it, Tony," Vincent said. "I don't suppose she can go above eight miles an hour and we are certainly going four, and she has more than twice as far to travel as we have."
Those on board the launch were evidently conscious that they were likely to lose the race, for in a few minutes they began to open fire with their rifles.
"Fire away," Vincent said. "You ain't likely to hit us a thousand yards off, and we haven't another three hundred to row."
The bullets whistled overhead, but none of them struck the water within many yards of the boat, and the launch was still four or five hundred yards away when the bow of the boat touched the shore. Several muskets were discharged as Vincent and Tony leaped out and plunged into the bushes that came down to the water's edge. The launch sent up a sharp series of whistles, and random shots were for some time fired into the bushes.
"It is lucky she didn't carry a small gun in her bow," Vincent said; "for though seven or eight hundred yards is a long range for a rifle, they might likely enough have hit us if they had had a gun. Now, Tony, we shall have to be careful, for those whistles are no doubt meant as an alarm; and although she cannot tell who we are, she will probably steam up, and if they have any force opposite Bermuda will give them news that two suspicious characters have landed, and they will have parties out to look for us."
"Dey can look as long as dey like, sah. Ef dose slave-hunters can't find people in de swamps what chance you tink dose soldiers have? None at all. Dey haven't got no reward before dere eyes, and dey won't want to be going in ober dere shoes into de mud and dirtying dere uniforms. No fear ob dem, sah. Dey make as much noise when dey march in de wood as a drove ob pigs. You can hear dem a quarter ob a mile away."
They tramped on through the woods through which McClellan's force had so painfully made their way during their first advance against Richmond. From time to time they could hear noises in the forest--shouts, and once or twice the discharge of firearms.
"Dey call dat hunting, I s'pose," Tony said scornfully.
They kept steadily on until it began to grow dark in the forest. They were now in the White Oak Swamp and not eight miles from Richmond, and they thought it better to pause until it became quite dark, for they might be picked up by any raiding party of cavalry. Vincent was in high spirits. Now, that he had succeeded in his enterprise, and had escaped almost by a miracle, he was eager to get back to Richmond and carry his news down to General Lee. Tony was even more anxious to push on. At last, after three years' absence, he was to see his wife and child again, and he reluctantly agreed to Vincent's proposal for a halt.
"We sha'n't stop very long, Tony; and I own I am waiting quite as much because I am hungry and want to eat, and because I am desperately tired, as from any fear of the enemy. We walked twenty miles last night from Union Grove to the river, then I walked to the boat, back to the farm and then back to the boat again--that's three more miles--and we have gone another twenty now. I am pretty nearly dead beat, I can tell you."
"I'se tired too, sah; but I feel I could go on walking all night if I was to see Dinah in de morning."
"Well, I couldn't, Tony; not to see any one. I might be willing enough, but my legs wouldn't take me."
They ate a hearty meal, and almost as soon as they had finished Vincent stood up again.
"Well, Tony, I can feel for your impatience, and so we will struggle on. I have just been thinking that when I last left my mother a week since she said she was thinking of going out to the Orangery for a month before the leaves fell, so it is probable that she may be there now. It is only about the same distance as it is to Richmond, so we will go straight there. I shall lose a little time, of course; but I can be driven over to Richmond, so it won't be too much. Besides, I can put on a pair of slippers. That will be a comfort, for my feet feel as if they were in vises. A cup of tea won't be a bad thing, too."
During their walk through the wood Vincent had related the circumstances of the carrying away of Dinah and of her rescue. When he had finished Tony had said: "Well, Massa Wingfield, I don't know what to say to you. I tought I owed you enuff before, but it war nothing to dis. Just to tink dat you should take all dat pains to fetch Dinah back for me. I dunno how it came to you to do it. It seems to me like as if you been sent special from heben to do dis poor nigger good. Words ain't no good, sah; but if I could give my life away a hundred times for you I would do it."
It took them nearly three hours' walking before they came in sight of the Orangery.
"There are lights in the windows," Vincent said. "Thank goodness they are there."
Vincent limped slowly along until he reached the house.
"You stay out here, Tony. I will send Dinah out to you directly. It will be better for her to meet you here alone."
Vincent walked straight into the drawing-room, where his mother and Annie were sitting.
"Why, Vincent!" Mrs. Wingfield exclaimed, starting up, "what has happened to you? What are you dressed up like that for? Is anything the matter?"
"Nothing is the matter, mother, except that I am as tired as a dog. Yes, my dress is not quite fit for a drawing-room," he laughed, looking down at the rough trousers splashed with mud to the waist, and his flannel shirt, for they had not waited to pick up their coats as they left the boat; "but nothing is the matter, I can assure you. I will tell you about it directly, but first please send for Dinah here."
Mrs. Wingfield rang the bell on the table beside her.
"Tell Dinah I want to speak to her at once," she said to the girl that answered it. Dinah appeared in a minute.
"Dinah," Vincent said, "has your boy gone to bed?"
"Yes, sah; been gone an hour ago."
"Well, just go to him, and put a shawl round him, and go out through the front door. There is some one standing there you will be glad to see."
Dinah stood with open eyes, then her hands began to tremble.
"Is it Tony, sah; for de Lord's sake, is it Tony?"
Vincent nodded, and with a little scream of joy she turned and ran straight to the front door. She could not wait now even to fetch her boy, and in another moment she was clasped in her husband's arms.
"Now, Vincent, tell us all about it," his mother said. "Don't you see we are dying of curiosity?"
"And I am dying of fatigue," Vincent said; "which is a much more painful sort of death, and I can think of nothing else until I have got these boots off. Annie, do run and tell them to bring me a pair of slippers and a cup of tea, and I shall want the buggy at the door in half an hour."
"You are not going away again to-night, Vincent, surely?" his mother said anxiously. "You do look completely exhausted."
"I am exhausted, mother. I have walked seven or eight-and-forty miles, and this cavalry work spoils one for walking altogether."
"Walked forty-eight miles, Vincent! What on earth have you done that for?"
"Not from choice, I can assure you, mother; but you know the old saying, 'Needs must when the devil drives,' and in the present case you must read 'Yankee' instead of 'the gentleman in black.'
"But has Petersburg fallen?" Mrs. Wingfield asked in alarm.
"No; Petersburg is safe, and is likely to continue so. But you must really be patient, mother, until I have had some tea, then you can hear the story in full."
When the servant came in with the tea Vincent told her that she was to tell Dinah, whom she would find on the veranda, to bring her husband into the kitchen, and to give him everything he wanted. Then, as soon as he had finished tea, he told his mother and sister the adventures he had gone through. Both were crying when he had finished.
"I am proud of you, Vincent," his mother said. "It is hard on us that you should run such risks; still I do not blame you, my boy, for if I had ten sons I would give them all for my country."
Vincent had but just finished his story when the servant came in and said that the buggy was at the door.
"I will go in my slippers, mother, but I will run up and change my other things. It's lucky I have got a spare suit here. Any of our fellows who happened to be going down to-night in the train would think that I was mad were I to go like this."
It was one o'clock in the morning when Vincent reached Petersburg. He went straight to his quarters, as it would be no use waking General Lee at that hour. A light was burning in his room, and Dan was asleep at the table with his head on his arms. He leaped up with a cry of joy as his master entered.
"Well, Dan, here I am safe again," Vincent said cheerily. "I hope you had not begun to give me up."
"I began to be terribly frightened, sir--terribly frightened. I went dis afternoon and asked Captain Burley if he had any news ob you. He said 'No;' and asked me ef I knew where you were. I said 'No, sah;' that I knew nuffin about it except that you had gone on some dangerous job. He said he hoped that you would be back soon; and certainly, as far as dey had heard, nuffin had happened to you. Still I was bery anxious, and tought I would sit up till de last train came in from Richmond. Den I tink I dropped off to sleep."
"I think you did, Dan. Well, I am too tired to tell you anything about it now, but I have one piece of news for you; Tony has come back to his wife."
"Dat's good news, sah; bery good news. I had begun to be afraid dat Tony had been shot or hung or someting. I know Dinah hab been fretting about him though she never said much, but when I am at home she allus asks me all sorts of questions 'bout him. She bery glad woman now."
The next morning Vincent went to General Lee's quarters.
"I am heartily glad to see you back," the general said warmly as he entered. "I have blamed myself for letting you go. Well, what success have you had?"
"Here is a rough plan of the works, general. I have not had time to do it out fairly, but it shows the positions of all their principal batteries, with a rough estimate as to the number of guns that each is intended to carry."
"Excellent!" the general said, glancing over the plan. "This will give us exactly the information we want. We must set to with our counter-works at once. The country is indeed indebted to you, sir. So you managed to cheat the Yankees altogether?"
"I should have cheated them, sir; but unfortunately I came across an old acquaintance who denounced me, and I had a narrow escape of being shot."
"Well, Captain Wingfield, I must see about this business, and give orders at once. Will you come and breakfast with me at half-past eight? Then you can give me an account of your adventures."
Vincent returned to his quarters, and spent the next two hours in making a detailed drawing of the enemy's positions and batteries, and then at half-past eight walked over to General Lee's quarters. The general returned in a few minutes with General Wade Hampton and several other officers, and they at once sat down to breakfast. As the meal was proceeding an orderly entered with a telegram for the general. General Lee glanced through it.
"This, gentlemen, is from the minister of war. I acquainted him by telegraph this morning that Captain Wingfield, who had volunteered for the dangerous service, had just returned from the Federal lines with a plan of the positions and strength of all the works that they are erecting. I said that I trusted that such distinguished service as he had rendered would be at once rewarded with promotion, and the minister telegraphs to me now that he has this morning signed this young officer's commission as major. I heartily congratulate you, sir, on your well-earned step. And now, as I see you have finished your breakfast, perhaps, you will give us an account of your proceedings."
Vincent gave a detailed account of his adventures, which were heard with surprise and interest.
"That was a narrow escape, indeed," the general said, as he finished. "It was a marvelous thing your lighting upon this negro, whom you say you had once had an opportunity of serving, just at that moment; and although you do not tell us what was the nature of the service you had rendered him, it must have been a very considerable service or he would never have risked his life in that way to save yours. When these negroes do feel attachment for their masters there are no more faithful and devoted fellows. Well, in your case certainly a good action has met with its reward; if it had not been for him there could be no question that your doom was sealed. It is a strange thing too your meeting that traitor. I remember reading about that escape of yours from the Yankee prison. He must have been an ungrateful villain, after your taking him with you."
"He was a bad fellow altogether, I am afraid," Vincent said; "and the quarrel between us was a long-standing one."
"Whatever your quarrel was," the general said hotly, "a man who would betray even an enemy to death in that way is a villain. However, he has gone to his account, and the country can forgive his treachery to her, as I have no doubt you have already done his conduct toward yourself."
A short time afterward Vincent had leave for a week, as things were quiet at Petersburg.
"Mother," he said on the morning after he got home, "I fear that there is no doubt whatever now how this struggle will end. I think we might keep Grant at bay here, but Sherman is too strong for us down in Georgia. We are already cut off from most of the Southern States, and in time Sherman will sweep round here, and then it will be all over. You see it yourself, don't you, mother?"
"Yes, I am afraid it cannot continue much longer, Vincent. Well, of course, we shall fight to the end."
"I am not talking of giving up, mother; I am looking forward to the future. The first step will be that all the slaves will be freed. Now, it seems to me that however attached they may be to their masters and mistresses they will lose their heads over this, flock into the towns, and nearly starve there; or else take up little patches of land and cultivate them, and live from hand to mouth, which will be ruin to the present owners as well as to them. Anyhow for a time all will be confusion and disorder. Now, my idea is this, if you give all your slaves their freedom at once, offer them patches of land for their own cultivation and employ them at wages, you will find that a great many of them will stop with you. There is nowhere for them to go at present and nothing to excite them, so before the general crash comes they will have settled down quietly to work here in their new positions, and will not be likely to go away."
"It is a serious step to take, Vincent," Mrs. Wingfield said, after thinking the matter over in silence for some time. "You do not think there is any probability of the ultimate success of our cause?"
"None, mother; I do not think there is even a possibility. One by one the Southern States have been wrested from the Confederacy. Sherman's march will completely isolate us. We have put our last available man in the field, and tremendous as are the losses of the enemy they are able to fill up the gaps as fast as they are made. No, mother, do not let us deceive ourselves on that head. The end must come, and that before long. The slaves will unquestionably be freed, and the only question for us is how to soften the blow. There is no doubt that our slaves, both at the Orangery and at the other plantations, are contented and happy; but you know how fickle and easily led the negroes are, and in the excitement of finding them selves free and able to go where they please, you may be sure that the greater number will wander away. My proposal is, that we should at once mark out a plot of land for each family and tell them that as long as they stay here it is theirs rent-free; they will be paid for their work upon the estate, three, four, or five days a week, as they can spare time from their own plots. In this way they will be settled down, and have crops upon their plots of land, before the whole black population is upset by the sudden abolition of slavery."
"But supposing they won't work at all, even for wages, Vincent?"
"I should not give them the option, mother; it will be a condition of their having their plots of land free that they shall work at least three days a week for wages."
"I will think over what you say, Vincent, and tell you my decision in the morning. I certainly think your plan is a good one."
The next morning Mrs. Wingfield told Vincent that she had decided to adopt his plan. He at once held a long consultation with the overseer, and decided which fields should be set aside for the allotments, choosing land close to the negroes' quarters and suitable for the raising of vegetables for sale in the town.
In the afternoon Mrs. Wingfield went down with him. The bell was rung and the whole of the slaves assembled. Vincent then made them a speech. He began by reminding them of the kind treatment they had always received, and of the good feeling that had existed between the owners of the Orangery and their slaves. He praised them for their good conduct since the beginning of the troubles, and said that his mother and himself had agreed that they would now take steps to reward them, and to strengthen the tie between them. They would all be granted their freedom at once, and a large plot of land would be given to each man, as much as he and his family could cultivate with an average of two days a week steady labor.
Those who liked would, of course, be at liberty to leave; but he hoped that none of them would avail themselves of this freedom, for nowhere would they do so well as by accepting the offer he made them. All who accepted the offer of a plot of land rent-free must understand that it was granted them upon the condition that they would labor upon the estate for at least three days a week, receiving a rate of pay similar to that earned by other freed negroes. Of course they would be at liberty to work four or five days a week if they chose; but at least they must work three days and any one failing to do this would forfeit his plot of land. "Three days' work," he said, "will be sufficient to provide all necessaries for yourselves and families and the produce of your land you can sell, and will so be able to lay by an ample sum to keep yourselves in old age. I have already plotted out the land and you shall cast lots for choice of the plots. There will be a little delay before all your papers of freedom can be made out, but the arrangement will begin from to-day, and henceforth you will be paid for all labor done on the estate."
Scarcely a word was spoken when Vincent concluded. The news was too surprising to the negroes for them to be able to understand it all at once. Dan and Tony, to whom Vincent had already explained the matter, went among them, and they gradually took in the whole of Vincent's meaning. A few received the news with great joy, but many others were depressed rather than rejoiced at the responsibilities of their new positions. Hitherto they had been clothed and fed, the doctor attended them in sickness, their master would care for them in old age. They had been literally without a care for the morrow, and the thought that in future they would have to think of all these things for themselves almost frightened them. Several of the older men went up to Mrs. Wingfield and positively declined to accept their freedom. They were quite contented and happy, and wanted nothing more. They had worked on the plantation since they had been children, and freedom offered them no temptations whatever.
"What had we better do, Vincent?" Mrs. Wingfield asked.
"I think, mother, it will be best to tell them that all who wish can remain upon the old footing, but that their papers will be made out and if at any time they wish to have their freedom they will only have to say so. No doubt they will soon become accustomed to the idea, and seeing how comfortable the others are with their pay and the produce of their gardens they will soon fall in with the rest. Of course it will decrease the income from the estate, but not so much as you would think. They will be paid for their labor, but we shall have neither to feed nor clothe them; and I think we shall get better labor than we do now, for the knowledge that those who do not work steadily will lose their plots of land, and have to go out in the world to work, their places being filled by others, will keep them steady."
"It's an experiment, Vincent, and we shall see how it works."
"It's an experiment I have often thought I should like to make, mother, and now you see it is almost forced upon us. To-morrow I will ride over to the other plantations and make the same arrangements."
During the month of August many battles took place round Petersburg. On the 12th the Federals attacked, but were repulsed with heavy loss, and 2,500 prisoners were taken. On the 21st the Confederates attacked, and obtained a certain amount of success, killing, wounding, and capturing 2,400 men. Petersburg was shelled day and night, and almost continuous fighting went on. Nevertheless, up to the middle of October the positions of the armies remained unaltered. On the 27th of that month the Federals made another general attack, but were repulsed with a loss of 1,500 men. During the next three months there was little fighting, the Confederates having now so strengthened their lines by incessant toil that even General Grant, reckless of the lives of his troops as he was, hesitated to renew the assault.
But in the South General Sherman was carrying all before him. Generals Hood and Johnston, who commanded the Confederate armies there, had fought several desperate battles, but the forces opposed to them were too strong to be driven back. They had marched through Georgia to Atlanta and captured that important town on the 1st of September, and obtained command of the network of railways, and thus cut off a large portion of the Confederacy from Richmond. Then Sherman marched south, wasting the country through which he marched, and capturing Savannah on the 21st of September.
While he was so doing, General Hood had marched into Tennessee, and after various petty successes was defeated, after two days' hard fighting, near Nashville. In the third week in January, 1865, Sherman set out with 60,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry from Savannah, laying waste the whole country--burning, pillaging, and destroying. The town of Columbia was occupied, sacked, and burned, the white men and women and even the negroes being horribly ill-treated.
The Confederates evacuated Charleston at the approach of the enemy, setting it in flames rather than allow it to fall into Sherman's hands. The Federal army then continued its devastating route through South Carolina, and at the end of March had established itself at Goldsboro, in North Carolina, and was in readiness to aid Grant in his final attack on Richmond.
Lee, seeing the imminence of the danger, made an attack upon the enemy in front of Petersburg, but was repulsed. He had now but 37,000 men with which to oppose an enemy of nearly four times that strength in front of him, while Sheridan's cavalry, 10,000 strong, threatened his flank, and Sherman with his army was but a few days' march distant. There was fierce fighting on the 29th, 30th, and 31st of March, and on the 2d of April the whole Federal army assaulted the positions at Petersburg, and after desperate fighting succeeded in carrying them. The Confederate troops, outnumbered and exhausted as they were by the previous week's marching and fighting, yet retained their discipline, and Lee drew off with 20,000 men and marched to endeavor to effect a junction with Johnston, who was still facing Sherman. But his men had but one day's provision with them. The stores that he had ordered to await them at the point to which he directed his march had not arrived there when they reached it, and, harassed at every foot of their march by Sheridan's cavalry and Ord's infantry, the force fought its way on. The horses and mules were so weak from want of food that they were unable to drag the guns, and the men dropped in numbers from fatigue and famine. Sheridan and Ord cut off two corps, but General Lee, with but 8,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, still pressed forward toward Lynchburg. But Sheridan threw himself in the way, and, finding that no more could be done, General Lee and the infantry surrendered, and a few days later Generals Lee and Grant met and signed terms of peace. General Johnston's army surrendered to General Sherman, and the long and desperate struggle was at an end.
It was a dreadful day in Richmond when the news came that the lines of Petersburg were forced, and that General Lee no longer stood between the city and the invaders. The president and ministers left at once, and were followed by all the better class of inhabitants who could find means of conveyance. The negroes, Irish, and some of the lower classes at once set to work to pillage and burn, and the whole city would have been destroyed had not a Federal force arrived and at once suppressed the rioting.
Whatever had been the conduct of the Federal troops during the last year of the war, however great the suffering they had inflicted upon the unarmed and innocent population of the country through which they marched, the terms of peace that General Grant agreed upon, and which were, although with some reluctance, ratified by the government, were in the highest degree liberal and generous. No one was to be injured or molested for the share he had taken in the war. A general amnesty was granted to all, and the States were simply to return to the position in the Union that they occupied previous to the commencement of the struggle.
More liberal terms were never granted by a conqueror to the vanquished.
Vincent was with the cavalry who escaped prior to Lee's surrender, but as soon as the terms of peace were ratified the force was disbanded and he returned home. He was received with the deepest joy by his mother and sister.
"Thank God, my dear boy, that all is over, and you have been preserved to us. We are beaten, but no one can say that we have been disgraced. Had every State done its duty as Virginia has we should never have been overpowered. It has been a terrible four years, and there are few families indeed that have no losses to mourn."
"It was well you were not in Richmond, mother, the day of the riots."
"Yes; but we had our trouble here too, Vincent. A number of the slaves from some of the plantations came along this way, and wanted our hands to join them to burn down their quarters and the house, and to march to Richmond. Tony and Dan, hearing of their approach, armed themselves with your double-barreled guns, went down and called out the hands and armed them with hoes and other implements. When the negroes came up there was a desperate quarrel, but our hands stood firm, and Tony and Dan declared that they would shoot the first four men that advanced, and at last they drew off and made their way to Richmond.
"Your plan has succeeded admirably. One or two of the hands went to Richmond next day, but returned a day or two afterward and begged so hard to be taken on again that I forgave them. Since then everything has been going on as quietly and regularly as usual, while there is scarcely a man left on any of the estates near."
"And now, mother, that I find things are quiet and settled here, I shall go down to Georgia and fetch Lucy home. I shall be of age in a few months, and the house on the estate that comes to me then can be enlarged a bit, and will do very well."
"Not at all, Vincent. Annie will be married next month. Herbert Rowsell was here two days ago, and it's all settled. So I shall be alone here. It will be very lonely and dull for me, Vincent, and I would rather give up the reins of government to Lucy and live here with you, if you like the plan."
"Certainly, I should like it, mother, and so, I am sure, would Lucy."
"Well, at any rate, Vincent, we will try the experiment, and if it does not work well I will take possession of the other house."
"There is no fear of that, mother, none whatever."
"And when are you thinking of getting married, Vincent?"
"At once, mother. I wrote to her the day we were disbanded saying that I should come in a week, and would allow another week and no longer for her to get ready."
"Then, in that case, Vincent, Annie and I will go down with you. Annie will not have much to do to get ready for her own wedding. It must, of course, be a very quiet one, and there will be no array of dresses to get; for I suppose it will be some time yet before the railways are open again and things begin to come down from the North."
Happily Antioch had escaped the ravages of war, and there was nothing to mar the happiness of the wedding. Lucy's father had returned, having lost a leg in one of the battles of the Wilderness a year before, and her brother had also escaped. After the wedding they returned to their farm in Tennessee, and Mrs. Wingfield, Annie, Vincent, and Lucy went back to the Orangery.
For the next three or four years times were very hard in Virginia, and Mrs. Wingfield had to draw upon her savings to keep up the house in its former state; while the great majority of the planters were utterly ruined.
The negroes, however, for the most part remained steadily working on the estate. A few wandered away, but their places were easily filled; for the majority of the freed slaves very soon discovered that their lot was a far harder one than it had been before, and that freedom so suddenly given was a curse rather than a blessing to them.
Thus, while so many went down, the Wingfields weathered the storm, and the step that had been taken in preparing their hands for the general abolition of slavery was a complete success.
With the gradual return of prosperity to the South the prices of produce improved, and ten years after the conclusion of the rebellion the income of the Orangery was nearly as large as it had been previous to its outbreak. Vincent, two years after the conclusion of the struggle, took his wife over to visit his relations in England, and, since the death of his mother in 1879, has every year spent three or four months at home, and will not improbably ere long sell his estates in Virginia and settle in England altogether.
|
{
"id": "2805"
}
|
1
|
None
|
On a beautiful evening, many hundred years ago, a worthy old fisherman sat mending his nets. The spot where he dwelt was exceedingly picturesque. The green turf on which he had built his cottage ran far out into a great lake; and this slip of verdure appeared to stretch into it as much through love of its clear waters as the lake, moved by a like impulse, strove to fold the meadow, with its waving grass and flowers, and the cooling shade of the trees, in its embrace of love. They seemed to be drawn toward each other, and the one to be visiting the other as a guest.
With respect to human beings, indeed, in this pleasant spot, excepting the fisherman and his family, there were few, or rather none, to be met with. For as in the background of the scene, toward the west and north-west, lay a forest of extraordinary wildness, which, owing to its sunless gloom and almost impassable recesses, as well as to fear of the strange creatures and visionary illusions to be encountered in it, most people avoided entering, unless in cases of extreme necessity. The pious old fisherman, however, many times passed through it without harm, when he carried the fine fish which he caught by his beautiful strip of land to a great city lying only a short distance beyond the forest.
Now the reason he was able to go through this wood with so much ease may have been chiefly this, because he entertained scarcely any thoughts but such as were of a religious nature; and besides, every time he crossed the evil-reported shades, he used to sing some holy song with a clear voice and from a sincere heart.
Well, while he sat by his nets this evening, neither fearing nor devising evil, a sudden terror seized him, as he heard a rushing in the darkness of the wood, that resembled the tramping of a mounted steed, and the noise continued every instant drawing nearer and nearer to his little territory.
What he had fancied, when abroad in many a stormy night, respecting the mysteries of the forest, now flashed through his mind in a moment, especially the figure of a man of gigantic stature and snow-white appearance, who kept nodding his head in a portentous manner. And when he raised his eyes towards the wood, the form came before him in perfect distinctness, as he saw the nodding man burst forth from the mazy web-work of leaves and branches. But he immediately felt emboldened, when he reflected that nothing to give him alarm had ever befallen him even in the forest; and moreover, that on this open neck of land the evil spirit, it was likely, would be still less daring in the exercise of his power. At the same time he prayed aloud with the most earnest sincerity of devotion, repeating a passage of the Bible. This inspired him with fresh courage, and soon perceiving the illusion, and the strange mistake into which his imagination had betrayed him, he could with difficulty refrain from laughing. The white nodding figure he had seen became transformed, in the twinkling of an eye, to what in reality it was, a small brook, long and familiarly known to him, which ran foaming from the forest, and discharged itself into the lake.
But what had caused the startling sound was a knight arrayed in sumptuous apparel, who from under the shadows of the trees came riding toward the cottage. His doublet was violet embroidered with gold, and his scarlet cloak hung gracefully over it; on his cap of burnished gold waved red and violet-coloured plumes; and in his golden shoulder-belt flashed a sword, richly ornamented, and extremely beautiful. The white barb that bore the knight was more slenderly built than war-horses usually are, and he touched the turf with a step so light and elastic that the green and flowery carpet seemed hardly to receive the slightest injury from his tread. The old fisherman, notwithstanding, did not feel perfectly secure in his mind, although he was forced to believe that no evil could be feared from an appearance so pleasing, and therefore, as good manners dictated, he took off his hat on the knight’s coming near, and quietly remained by the side of his nets.
When the stranger stopped, and asked whether he, with his horse, could have shelter and entertainment there for the night, the fisherman returned answer: “As to your horse, fair sir, I have no better stable for him than this shady meadow, and no better provender than the grass that is growing here. But with respect to yourself, you shall be welcome to our humble cottage, and to the best supper and lodging we are able to give you.”
The knight was well contented with this reception; and alighting from his horse, which his host assisted him to relieve from saddle and bridle, he let him hasten away to the fresh pasture, and thus spoke: “Even had I found you less hospitable and kindly disposed, my worthy old friend, you would still, I suspect, hardly have got rid of me to-day; for here, I perceive, a broad lake lies before us, and as to riding back into that wood of wonders, with the shades of evening deepening around me, may Heaven in its grace preserve me from the thought.”
“Pray, not a word of the wood, or of returning into it!” said the fisherman, and took his guest into the cottage.
There beside the hearth, from which a frugal fire was diffusing its light through the clean twilight room, sat the fisherman’s aged wife in a great chair. At the entrance of their noble guest, she rose and gave him a courteous welcome, but sat down again in her seat of honour, not making the slightest offer of it to the stranger. Upon this the fisherman said with a smile: “You must not be offended with her, young gentleman, because she has not given up to you the best chair in the house; it is a custom among poor people to look upon this as the privilege of the aged.”
“Why, husband!” cried the old lady, with a quiet smile, “where can your wits be wandering? Our guest, to say the least of him, must belong to a Christian country; and how is it possible, then, that so well-bred a young man as he appears to be could dream of driving old people from their chairs? Take a seat, my young master,” continued she, turning to the knight; “there is still quite a snug little chair on the other side of the room there, only be careful not to shove it about too roughly, for one of its legs, I fear, is none of the firmest.”
The knight brought up the seat as carefully as she could desire, sat down upon it good-humouredly, and it seemed to him almost as if he must be somehow related to this little household, and have just returned home from abroad.
These three worthy people now began to converse in the most friendly and familiar manner. In relation to the forest, indeed, concerning which the knight occasionally made some inquiries, the old man chose to know and say but little; he was of opinion that slightly touching upon it at this hour of twilight was most suitable and safe; but of the cares and comforts of their home, and their business abroad, the aged couple spoke more freely, and listened also with eager curiosity as the knight recounted to them his travels, and how he had a castle near one of the sources of the Danube, and that his name was Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten.
Already had the stranger, while they were in the midst of their talk, heard at times a splash against the little low window, as if some one were dashing water against it. The old man, every time he heard the noise, knit his brows with vexation; but at last, when the whole sweep of a shower came pouring like a torrent against the panes, and bubbling through the decayed frame into the room, he started up indignant, rushed to the window, and cried with a threatening voice-- “Undine! will you never leave off these fooleries? --not even to-day, when we have a stranger knight with us in the cottage?”
All without now became still, only a low laugh was just audible, and the fisherman said, as he came back to his seat, “You will have the goodness, my honoured guest, to pardon this freak, and it may be a multitude more; but she has no thought of evil or of any harm. This mischievous Undine, to confess the truth, is our adopted daughter, and she stoutly refuses to give over this frolicsome childishness of hers, although she has already entered her eighteenth year. But in spite of this, as I said before, she is at heart one of the very best children in the world.”
“YOU may say so,” broke in the old lady, shaking her head; “you can give a better account of her than I can. When you return home from fishing, or from selling your fish in the city, you may think her frolics very delightful, but to have her dancing about you the whole day long, and never from morning to night to hear her speak one word of sense; and then as she grows older, instead of having any help from her in the family, to find her a continual cause of anxiety, lest her wild humours should completely ruin us, that is quite another thing, and enough at last to weary out the patience even of a saint.”
“Well, well,” replied the master of the house with a smile, “you have your trials with Undine, and I have mine with the lake. The lake often beats down my dams, and breaks the meshes of my nets, but for all that I have a strong affection for it, and so have you, in spite of your mighty crosses and vexations, for our graceful little child. Is it not true?”
“One cannot be very angry with her,” answered the old lady, as she gave her husband an approving smile.
That instant the door flew open, and a fair girl, of wondrous beauty, sprang laughing in, and said, “You have only been making a mock of me, father; for where now is the guest you mentioned?”
The same moment, however, she perceived the knight also, and continued standing before the young man in fixed astonishment. Huldbrand was charmed with her graceful figure, and viewed her lovely features with the more intense interest, as he imagined it was only her surprise that allowed him the opportunity, and that she would soon turn away from his gaze with increased bashfulness. But the event was the very reverse of what he expected; for, after looking at him for a long while, she became more confident, moved nearer, knelt down before him, and while she played with a gold medal which he wore attached to a rich chain on his breast, exclaimed, “Why, you beautiful, you kind guest! how have you reached our poor cottage at last? Have you been obliged for years and years to wander about the world before you could catch one glimpse of our nook? Do you come out of that wild forest, my beautiful knight?”
The old woman was so prompt in her reproof as to allow him no time to answer. She commanded the maiden to rise, show better manners, and go to her work. But Undine, without making any reply, drew a little footstool near Huldbrand’s chair, sat down upon it with her netting, and said in a gentle tone-- “I will work here.”
The old man did as parents are apt to do with children to whom they have been over-indulgent. He affected to observe nothing of Undine’s strange behaviour, and was beginning to talk about something else. But this the maiden did not permit him to do. She broke in upon him, “I have asked our kind guest from whence he has come among us, and he has not yet answered me.”
“I come out of the forest, you lovely little vision,” Huldbrand returned; and she spoke again: “You must also tell me how you came to enter that forest, so feared and shunned, and the marvellous adventures you met with in it; for there is no escaping without something of this kind.”
Huldbrand felt a slight shudder on remembering what he had witnessed, and looked involuntarily toward the window, for it seemed to him that one of the strange shapes which had come upon him in the forest must be there grinning in through the glass; but he discerned nothing except the deep darkness of night, which had now enveloped the whole prospect. Upon this he became more collected, and was just on the point of beginning his account, when the old man thus interrupted him: “Not so, sir knight; this is by no means a fit hour for such relations.”
But Undine, in a state of high excitement, sprang up from her little stool and cried, placing herself directly before the fisherman: “He shall NOT tell his story, father? he shall not? But it is my will:--he shall! --stop him who may!”
Thus speaking, she stamped her little foot vehemently on the floor, but all with an air of such comic and good-humoured simplicity, that Huldbrand now found it quite as hard to withdraw his gaze from her wild emotion as he had before from her gentleness and beauty. The old man, on the contrary, burst out in unrestrained displeasure. He severely reproved Undine for her disobedience and her unbecoming carriage towards the stranger, and his good old wife joined him in harping on the same string.
By these rebukes Undine was only excited the more. “If you want to quarrel with me,” she cried, “and will not let me hear what I so much desire, then sleep alone in your smoky old hut!” And swift as an arrow she shot from the door, and vanished amid the darkness of the night.
Huldbrand and the fisherman sprang from their seats, and were rushing to stop the angry girl; but before they could reach the cottage-door, she had disappeared in the stormy darkness without, and no sound, not so much even as that of her light footstep, betrayed the course she had taken. Huldbrand threw a glance of inquiry towards his host; it almost seemed to him as if the whole of the sweet apparition, which had so suddenly plunged again amid the night, were no other than a continuation of the wonderful forms that had just played their mad pranks with him in the forest. But the old man muttered between his teeth, “This is not the first time she has treated us in this manner. Now must our hearts be filled with anxiety, and our eyes find no sleep for the whole night; for who can assure us, in spite of her past escapes, that she will not some time or other come to harm, if she thus continue out in the dark and alone until daylight?”
“Then pray, for God’s sake, father, let us follow her,” cried Huldbrand anxiously.
“Wherefore should we?” replied the old man. “It would be a sin were I to suffer you, all alone, to search after the foolish girl amid the lonesomeness of night; and my old limbs would fail to carry me to this wild rover, even if I knew to what place she has betaken herself.”
“Still we ought at least to call after her, and beg her to return,” said Huldbrand; and he began to call in tones of earnest entreaty, “Undine! Undine! come back, come back!”
The old man shook his head, and said, “All your shouting, however loud and long, will be of no avail; you know not as yet, sir knight, how self-willed the little thing is.” But still, even hoping against hope, he could not himself cease calling out every minute, amid the gloom of night, “Undine! ah, dear Undine! I beseech you, pray come back--only this once.”
It turned out, however, exactly as the fisherman had said. No Undine could they hear or see; and as the old man would on no account consent that Huldbrand should go in quest of the fugitive, they were both obliged at last to return into the cottage. There they found the fire on the hearth almost gone out, and the mistress of the house, who took Undine’s flight and danger far less to heart than her husband, had already gone to rest. The old man blew up the coals, put on dry wood, and by the firelight hunted for a flask of wine, which he brought and set between himself and his guest.
“You, sir knight, as well as I,” said he, “are anxious on the silly girl’s account; and it would be better, I think, to spend part of the night in chatting and drinking, than keep turning and turning on our rush-mats, and trying in vain to sleep. What is your opinion?”
Huldbrand was well pleased with the plan; the fisherman pressed him to take the empty seat of honour, its late occupant having now left it for her couch; and they relished their beverage and enjoyed their chat as two such good men and true ever ought to do. To be sure, whenever the slightest thing moved before the windows, or at times when even nothing was moving, one of them would look up and exclaim, “Here she comes!” Then would they continue silent a few moments, and afterward, when nothing appeared, would shake their heads, breathe out a sigh, and go on with their talk.
But, as neither could think of anything but Undine, the best plan they could devise was, that the old fisherman should relate, and the knight should hear, in what manner Undine had come to the cottage. So the fisherman began as follows: “It is now about fifteen years since I one day crossed the wild forest with fish for the city market. My wife had remained at home as she was wont to do; and at this time for a reason of more than common interest, for although we were beginning to feel the advances of age, God had bestowed upon us an infant of wonderful beauty. It was a little girl; and we already began to ask ourselves the question, whether we ought not, for the advantage of the new-comer, to quit our solitude, and, the better to bring up this precious gift of Heaven, to remove to some more inhabited place. Poor people, to be sure, cannot in these cases do all you may think they ought, sir knight; but we must all do what we can.
“Well, I went on my way, and this affair would keep running in my head. This slip of land was most dear to me, and I trembled when, amidst the bustle and broils of the city, I thought to myself, ‘In a scene of tumult like this, or at least in one not much more quiet, I must soon take up my abode.’ But I did not for this murmur against our good God; on the contrary, I praised Him in silence for the new-born babe. I should also speak an untruth, were I to say that anything befell me, either on my passage through the forest to the city, or on my returning homeward, that gave me more alarm than usual, as at that time I had never seen any appearance there which could terrify or annoy me. The Lord was ever with me in those awful shades.”
Thus speaking he took his cap reverently from his bald head, and continued to sit for a considerable time in devout thought. He then covered himself again, and went on with his relation.
“On this side the forest, alas! it was on this side, that woe burst upon me. My wife came wildly to meet me, clad in mourning apparel, and her eyes streaming with tears. ‘Gracious God!’ I cried, ‘where’s our child? Speak!’
“‘With Him on whom you have called, dear husband,’ she answered, and we now entered the cottage together, weeping in silence. I looked for the little corpse, almost fearing to find what I was seeking; and then it was I first learnt how all had happened.
“My wife had taken the little one in her arms, and walked out to the shore of the lake. She there sat down by its very brink; and while she was playing with the infant, as free from all fear as she was full of delight, it bent forward on a sudden, as if seeing something very beautiful in the water. My wife saw her laugh, the dear angel, and try to catch the image in her tiny hands; but in a moment--with a motion swifter than sight--she sprang from her mother’s arms, and sank in the lake, the watery glass into which she had been gazing. I searched for our lost darling again and again; but it was all in vain; I could nowhere find the least trace of her.
“The same evening we childless parents were sitting together by our cottage hearth. We had no desire to talk, even if our tears would have permitted us. As we thus sat in mournful stillness, gazing into the fire, all at once we heard something without,--a slight rustling at the door. The door flew open, and we saw a little girl, three or four years old, and more beautiful than I can say, standing on the threshold, richly dressed, and smiling upon us. We were struck dumb with astonishment, and I knew not for a time whether the tiny form were a real human being, or a mere mockery of enchantment. But I soon perceived water dripping from her golden hair and rich garments, and that the pretty child had been lying in the water, and stood in immediate need of our help.
“‘Wife,’ said I, ‘no one has been able to save our child for us; but let us do for others what would have made us so blessed could any one have done it for us.’
“We undressed the little thing, put her to bed, and gave her something to drink; at all this she spoke not a word, but only turned her eyes upon us--eyes blue and bright as sea or sky--and continued looking at us with a smile.
“Next morning we had no reason to fear that she had received any other harm than her wetting, and I now asked her about her parents, and how she could have come to us. But the account she gave was both confused and incredible. She must surely have been born far from here, not only because I have been unable for these fifteen years to learn anything of her birth, but because she then said, and at times continues to say, many things of so very singular a nature, that we neither of us know, after all, whether she may not have dropped among us from the moon; for her talk runs upon golden castles, crystal domes, and Heaven knows what extravagances beside. What, however, she related with most distinctness was this: that while she was once taking a sail with her mother on the great lake, she fell out of the boat into the water; and that when she first recovered her senses, she was here under our trees, where the gay scenes of the shore filled her with delight.
“We now had another care weighing upon our minds, and one that caused us no small perplexity and uneasiness. We of course very soon determined to keep and bring up the child we had found, in place of our own darling that had been drowned; but who could tell us whether she had been baptized or not? She herself could give us no light on the subject. When we asked her the question, she commonly made answer, that she well knew she was created for God’s praise and glory, and that she was willing to let us do with her all that might promote His glory and praise.
“My wife and I reasoned in this way: ‘If she has not been baptized, there can be no use in putting off the ceremony; and if she has been, it still is better to have too much of a good thing than too little.’
“Taking this view of our difficulty, we now endeavoured to hit upon a good name for the child, since, while she remained without one, we were often at a loss, in our familiar talk, to know what to call her. We at length agreed that Dorothea would be most suitable for her, as I had somewhere heard it said that this name signified a gift of God, and surely she had been sent to us by Providence as a gift, to comfort us in our misery. She, on the contrary, would not so much as hear Dorothea mentioned; she insisted, that as she had been named Undine by her parents, Undine she ought still to be called. It now occurred to me that this was a heathenish name, to be found in no calendar, and I resolved to ask the advice of a priest in the city. He would not listen to the name of Undine; and yielding to my urgent request, he came with me through the enchanted forest in order to perform the rite of baptism here in my cottage.
“The little maid stood before us so prettily adorned, and with such an air of gracefulness, that the heart of the priest softened at once in her presence; and she coaxed him so sweetly, and jested with him so merrily, that he at last remembered nothing of his many objections to the name of Undine.
“Thus, then, was she baptized Undine; and during the holy ceremony she behaved with great propriety and gentleness, wild and wayward as at other times she invariably was; for in this my wife was quite right, when she mentioned the anxiety the child has occasioned us. If I should relate to you--” At this moment the knight interrupted the fisherman, to direct his attention to a deep sound as of a rushing flood, which had caught his ear during the talk of the old man. And now the waters came pouring on with redoubled fury before the cottage-windows. Both sprang to the door. There they saw, by the light of the now risen moon, the brook which issued from the wood rushing wildly over its banks, and whirling onward with it both stones and branches of trees in its rapid course. The storm, as if awakened by the uproar, burst forth from the clouds, whose immense masses of vapour coursed over the moon with the swiftness of thought; the lake roared beneath the wind that swept the foam from its waves; while the trees of this narrow peninsula groaned from root to topmost branch as they bowed and swung above the torrent.
“Undine! in God’s name, Undine!” cried the two men in an agony. No answer was returned. And now, regardless of everything else, they hurried from the cottage, one in this direction, the other in that, searching and calling.
|
{
"id": "2825"
}
|
2
|
None
|
The longer Huldbrand sought Undine beneath the shades of night, and failed to find her, the more anxious and confused he became. The impression that she was a mere phantom of the forest gained a new ascendency over him; indeed, amid the howling of the waves and the tempest, the crashing of the trees, and the entire change of the once so peaceful and beautiful scene, he was tempted to view the whole peninsula, together with the cottage and its inhabitants, as little more than some mockery of his senses. But still he heard afar off the fisherman’s anxious and incessant shouting, “Undine!” and also his aged wife, who was praying and singing psalms.
At length, when he drew near to the brook, which had overflowed its banks, he perceived by the moonlight, that it had taken its wild course directly in front of the haunted forest, so as to change the peninsula into an island.
“Merciful God!” he breathed to himself, “if Undine has ventured a step within that fearful wood, what will become of her? Perhaps it was all owing to her sportive and wayward spirit, because I would give her no account of my adventures there. And now the stream is rolling between us, she may be weeping alone on the other side in the midst of spectral horrors!”
A shuddering groan escaped him; and clambering over some stones and trunks of overthrown pines, in order to step into the impetuous current, he resolved, either by wading or swimming, to seek the wanderer on the further shore. He felt, it is true, all the dread and shrinking awe creeping over him which he had already suffered by daylight among the now tossing and roaring branches of the forest. More than all, a tall man in white, whom he knew but too well, met his view, as he stood grinning and nodding on the grass beyond the water. But even monstrous forms like this only impelled him to cross over toward them, when the thought rushed upon him that Undine might be there alone and in the agony of death.
He had already grasped a strong branch of a pine, and stood supporting himself upon it in the whirling current, against which he could with difficulty keep himself erect; but he advanced deeper in with a courageous spirit. That instant a gentle voice of warning cried near him, “Do not venture, do not venture! --that OLD MAN, the STREAM, is too full of tricks to be trusted!” He knew the soft tones of the voice; and while he stood as it were entranced beneath the shadows which had now duskily veiled the moon, his head swam with the swelling and rolling of the waves as he saw them momentarily rising above his knee. Still he disdained the thought of giving up his purpose.
“If you are not really there, if you are merely gambolling round me like a mist, may I, too, bid farewell to life, and become a shadow like you, dear, dear Undine!” Thus calling aloud, he again moved deeper into the stream. “Look round you--ah, pray look round you, beautiful young stranger! why rush on death so madly?” cried the voice a second time close by him; and looking on one side he perceived, by the light of the moon, again cloudless, a little island formed by the flood; and crouching upon its flowery turf, beneath the branches of embowering trees, he saw the smiling and lovely Undine.
O how much more gladly than before the young man now plied his sturdy staff! A few steps, and he had crossed the flood that was rushing between himself and the maiden; and he stood near her on the little spot of greensward in security, protected by the old trees. Undine half rose, and she threw her arms around his neck to draw him gently down upon the soft seat by her side.
“Here you shall tell me your story, my beautiful friend,” she breathed in a low whisper; “here the cross old people cannot disturb us; and, besides, our roof of leaves here will make quite as good a shelter as their poor cottage.”
“It is heaven itself,” cried Huldbrand; and folding her in his arms, he kissed the lovely girl with fervour.
The old fisherman, meantime, had come to the margin of the stream, and he shouted across, “Why, how is this, sir knight! I received you with the welcome which one true-hearted man gives to another; and now you sit there caressing my foster-child in secret, while you suffer me in my anxiety to wander through the night in quest of her.”
“Not till this moment did I find her myself, old father,” cried the knight across the water.
“So much the better,” said the fisherman, “but now make haste, and bring her over to me upon firm ground.”
To this, however, Undine would by no means consent. She declared that she would rather enter the wild forest itself with the beautiful stranger, than return to the cottage where she was so thwarted in her wishes, and from which the knight would soon or late go away. Then, throwing her arms round Huldbrand, she sang the following verse with the warbling sweetness of a bird: “A rill would leave its misty vale, And fortunes wild explore, Weary at length it reached the main, And sought its vale no more.”
The old fisherman wept bitterly at her song, but his emotion seemed to awaken little or no sympathy in her. She kissed and caressed her new friend, who at last said to her: “Undine, if the distress of the old man does not touch your heart, it cannot but move mine. We ought to return to him.”
She opened her large blue eyes upon him in amazement, and spoke at last with a slow and doubtful accent, “If you think so, it is well, all is right to me which you think right. But the old man over there must first give me his promise that he will allow you, without objection, to relate what you saw in the wood, and--well, other things will settle themselves.”
“Come--only come!” cried the fisherman to her, unable to utter another word. At the same time he stretched his arms wide over the current towards her, and to give her assurance that he would do what she required, nodded his head. This motion caused his white hair to fall strangely over his face, and Huldbrand could not but remember the nodding white man of the forest. Without allowing anything, however, to produce in him the least confusion, the young knight took the beautiful girl in his arms, and bore her across the narrow channel which the stream had torn away between her little island and the solid shore. The old man fell upon Undine’s neck, and found it impossible either to express his joy or to kiss her enough; even the ancient dame came up and embraced the recovered girl most cordially. Every word of censure was carefully avoided; the more so, indeed, as even Undine, forgetting her waywardness, almost overwhelmed her foster-parents with caresses and the prattle of tenderness.
When at length the excess of their joy at recovering their child had subsided, morning had already dawned, shining upon the waters of the lake; the tempest had become hushed, the small birds sung merrily on the moist branches.
As Undine now insisted upon hearing the recital of the knight’s promised adventures, the aged couple readily agreed to her wish. Breakfast was brought out beneath the trees which stood behind the cottage toward the lake on the north, and they sat down to it with contented hearts; Undine at the knight’s feet on the grass. These arrangements being made, Huldbrand began his story in the following manner:-- “It is now about eight days since I rode into the free imperial city which lies yonder on the farther side of the forest. Soon after my arrival a splendid tournament and running at the ring took place there, and I spared neither my horse nor my lance in the encounters.
“Once while I was pausing at the lists to rest from the brisk exercise, and was handing back my helmet to one of my attendants, a female figure of extraordinary beauty caught my attention, as, most magnificently attired, she stood looking on at one of the balconies. I learned, on making inquiry of a person near me, that the name of the young lady was Bertalda, and that she was a foster-daughter of one of the powerful dukes of this country. She too, I observed, was gazing at me, and the consequences were such as we young knights are wont to experience; whatever success in riding I might have had before, I was now favoured with still better fortune. That evening I was Bertalda’s partner in the dance, and I enjoyed the same distinction during the remainder of the festival.”
A sharp pain in his left hand, as it hung carelessly beside him, here interrupted Huldbrand’s relation, and drew his eye to the part affected. Undine had fastened her pearly teeth, and not without some keenness too, upon one of his fingers, appearing at the same time very gloomy and displeased. On a sudden, however, she looked up in his eyes with an expression of tender melancholy, and whispered almost inaudibly,-- “It is all your own fault.”
She then covered her face; and the knight, strangely embarrassed and thoughtful, went on with his story.
“This lady, Bertalda, of whom I spoke, is of a proud and wayward spirit. The second day I saw her she pleased me by no means so much as she had the first, and the third day still less. But I continued about her because she showed me more favour than she did any other knight, and it so happened that I playfully asked her to give me one of her gloves. ‘When you have entered the haunted forest all alone,’ said she; ‘when you have explored its wonders, and brought me a full account of them, the glove is yours.’ As to getting her glove, it was of no importance to me whatever, but the word had been spoken, and no honourable knight would permit himself to be urged to such a proof of valour a second time.”
“I thought,” said Undine, interrupting him, “that she loved you.”
“It did appear so,” replied Huldbrand.
“Well!” exclaimed the maiden, laughing, “this is beyond belief; she must be very stupid. To drive from her one who was dear to her! And worse than all, into that ill-omened wood! The wood and its mysteries, for all I should have cared, might have waited long enough.”
“Yesterday morning, then,” pursued the knight, smiling kindly upon Undine, “I set out from the city, my enterprise before me. The early light lay rich upon the verdant turf. It shone so rosy on the slender boles of the trees, and there was so merry a whispering among the leaves, that in my heart I could not but laugh at people who feared meeting anything to terrify them in a spot so delicious. ‘I shall soon pass through the forest, and as speedily return,’ I said to myself, in the overflow of joyous feeling, and ere I was well aware, I had entered deep among the green shades, while of the plain that lay behind me I was no longer able to catch a glimpse.
“Then the conviction for the first time impressed me, that in a forest of so great extent I might very easily become bewildered, and that this, perhaps, might be the only danger which was likely to threaten those who explored its recesses. So I made a halt, and turned myself in the direction of the sun, which had meantime risen somewhat higher, and while I was looking up to observe it, I saw something black among the boughs of a lofty oak. My first thought was, ‘It is a bear!’ and I grasped my weapon. The object then accosted me from above in a human voice, but in a tone most harsh and hideous: ‘If I, overhead here, do not gnaw off these dry branches, Sir Noodle, what shall we have to roast you with when midnight comes?’ And with that it grinned, and made such a rattling with the branches that my courser became mad with affright, and rushed furiously forward with me before I had time to see distinctly what sort of a devil’s beast it was.”
“You must not speak so,” said the old fisherman, crossing himself. His wife did the same, without saying a word, and Undine, while her eye sparkled with delight, looked at the knight and said, “The best of the story is, however, that as yet they have not roasted you! Go on, now, you beautiful knight.”
The knight then went on with his adventures. “My horse was so wild, that he well-nigh rushed with me against limbs and trunks of trees. He was dripping with sweat through terror, heat, and the violent straining of his muscles. Still he refused to slacken his career. At last, altogether beyond my control, he took his course directly up a stony steep, when suddenly a tall white man flashed before me, and threw himself athwart the way my mad steed was taking. At this apparition he shuddered with new affright, and stopped trembling. I took this chance of recovering my command of him, and now for the first time perceived that my deliverer, so far from being a white man, was only a brook of silver brightness, foaming near me in its descent from the hill, while it crossed and arrested my horse’s course with its rush of waters.”
“Thanks, thanks, dear brook!” cried Undine, clapping her little hands. But the old man shook his head, and looked down in deep thought.
“Hardly had I well settled myself in my saddle, and got the reins in my grasp again,” Huldbrand pursued, “when a wizard-like dwarf of a man was already standing at my side, diminutive and ugly beyond conception, his complexion of a brownish-yellow, and his nose scarcely smaller than the rest of him together. The fellow’s mouth was slit almost from ear to ear, and he showed his teeth with a grinning smile of idiot courtesy, while he overwhelmed me with bows and scrapes innumerable. The farce now becoming excessively irksome, I thanked him in the fewest words I could well use, turned about my still trembling charger, and purposed either to seek another adventure, or, should I meet with none, to take my way back to the city; for the sun, during my wild chase, had passed the meridian, and was now hastening toward the west. But this villain of a dwarf sprang at the same instant, and, with a turn as rapid as lightning, stood before my horse again. ‘Clear the way there!’ I cried fiercely; ‘the beast is wild, and will make nothing of running over you.’
“‘Ay, ay,’ cried the imp with a snarl, and snorting out a laugh still more frightfully idiotic; ‘pay me, first pay what you owe me. I stopped your fine little nag for you; without my help, both you and he would be now sprawling below there in that stony ravine. Hu! from what a horrible plunge I’ve saved you!’
“‘Well, don’t make any more faces,’ said I, ‘but take your money and be off, though every word you say is false. It was the brook there, you miserable thing, and not you, that saved me,’ and at the same time I dropped a piece of gold into his wizard cap, which he had taken from his head while he was begging before me.
“I then trotted off and left him, but he screamed after me; and on a sudden, with inconceivable quickness, he was close by my side. I started my horse into a gallop. He galloped on with me, though it seemed with great difficulty, and with a strange movement, half ludicrous and half horrible, forcing at the same time every limb and feature into distortion, he held up the gold piece and screamed at every leap, ‘Counterfeit! false! false coin! counterfeit!’ and such was the strange sound that issued from his hollow breast, you would have supposed that at every scream he must have tumbled upon the ground dead. All this while his disgusting red tongue hung lolling from his mouth.
“I stopped bewildered, and asked, ‘What do you mean by this screaming? Take another piece of gold, take two, but leave me.’
“He then began again his hideous salutations of courtesy, and snarled out as before, ‘Not gold, it shall not be gold, my young gentleman. I have too much of that trash already, as I will show you in no time.’
“At that moment, and thought itself could not have been more instantaneous, I seemed to have acquired new powers of sight. I could see through the solid green plain, as if it were green glass, and the smooth surface of the earth were round as a globe, and within it I saw crowds of goblins, who were pursuing their pastime and making themselves merry with silver and gold. They were tumbling and rolling about, heads up and heads down; they pelted one another in sport with the precious metals, and with irritating malice blew gold-dust in one another’s eyes. My odious companion ordered the others to reach him up a vast quantity of gold; this he showed to me with a laugh, and then flung it again ringing and chinking down the measureless abyss.
“After this contemptuous disregard of gold, he held up the piece I had given him, showing it to his brother goblins below, and they laughed immoderately at a coin so worthless, and hissed me. At last, raising their fingers all smutched with ore, they pointed them at me in scorn; and wilder and wilder, and thicker and thicker, and madder and madder, the crowd were clambering up to where I sat gazing at these wonders. Then terror seized me, as it had before seized my horse. I drove my spurs into his sides, and how far he rushed with me through the forest, during this second of my wild heats, it is impossible to say.
“At last, when I had now come to a dead halt again, the cool of evening was around me. I caught the gleam of a white footpath through the branches of the trees; and presuming it would lead me out of the forest toward the city, I was desirous of working my way into it. But a face, perfectly white and indistinct, with features ever changing, kept thrusting itself out and peering at me between the leaves. I tried to avoid it, but wherever I went, there too appeared the unearthly face. I was maddened with rage at this interruption, and determined to drive my steed at the appearance full tilt, when such a cloud of white foam came rushing upon me and my horse, that we were almost blinded and glad to turn about and escape. Thus from step to step it forced us on, and ever aside from the footpath, leaving us for the most part only one direction open. When we advanced in this, it kept following close behind us, yet did not occasion the smallest harm or inconvenience.
“When at times I looked about me at the form, I perceived that the white face, which had splashed upon us its shower of foam, was resting on a body equally white, and of more than gigantic size. Many a time, too, I received the impression that the whole appearance was nothing more than a wandering stream or torrent; but respecting this I could never attain to any certainty. We both of us, horse and rider, became weary as we shaped our course according to the movements of the white man, who continued nodding his head at us, as if he would say, ‘Quite right!’ And thus, at length, we came out here, at the edge of the wood, where I saw the fresh turf, the waters of the lake, and your little cottage, and where the tall white man disappeared.”
“Well, Heaven be praised that he is gone!” cried the old fisherman; and he now began to talk of how his guest could most conveniently return to his friends in the city. Upon this, Undine began laughing to herself, but so very low that the sound was hardly perceivable. Huldbrand observing it, said, “I thought you were glad to see me here; why, then, do you now appear so happy when our talk turns upon my going away?”
“Because you cannot go away,” answered Undine. “Pray make a single attempt; try with a boat, with your horse, or alone, as you please, to cross that forest stream which has burst its bounds; or rather, make no trial at all, for you would be dashed to pieces by the stones and trunks of trees which you see driven on with such violence. And as to the lake, I know that well; even my father dares not venture out with his boat far enough to help you.”
Huldbrand rose, smiling, in order to look about and observe whether the state of things were such as Undine had represented it to be. The old man accompanied him, and the maiden went merrily dancing beside them. They found all, in fact, just as Undine had said, and that the knight, whether willing or not willing, must submit to remaining on the island, so lately a peninsula, until the flood should subside.
When the three were now returning to the cottage after their ramble, the knight whispered in the ear of the little maiden, “Well, dear Undine, are you angry at my remaining?”
“Ah,” she pettishly replied, “do not speak to me! If I had not bitten you, who knows what fine things you would have put into your story about Bertalda?”
|
{
"id": "2825"
}
|
3
|
None
|
It may have happened to thee, my dear reader, after being much driven to and fro in the world, to reach at length a spot where all was well with thee. The love of home and of its peaceful joys, innate to all, again sprang up in thy heart; thou thoughtest that thy home was decked with all the flowers of childhood, and of that purest, deepest love which had grown upon the graves of thy beloved, and that here it was good to live and to build houses. Even if thou didst err, and hast had bitterly to mourn thy error, it is nothing to my purpose, and thou thyself wilt not like to dwell on the sad recollection. But recall those unspeakably sweet feelings, that angelic greeting of peace, and thou wilt be able to understand what was the happiness of the knight Huldbrand during his abode on that narrow slip of land.
He frequently observed, with heartfelt satisfaction, that the forest stream continued every day to swell and roll on with a more impetuous sweep; and this forced him to prolong his stay on the island. Part of the day he wandered about with an old cross-bow, which he found in a corner of the cottage, and had repaired in order to shoot the waterfowl that flew over; and all that he was lucky enough to hit he brought home for a good roast in the kitchen. When he came in with his booty, Undine seldom failed to greet him with a scolding, because he had cruelly deprived the happy joyous little creatures of life as they were sporting above in the blue ocean of the air; nay more, she often wept bitterly when she viewed the water-fowl dead in his hand. But at other times, when he returned without having shot any, she gave him a scolding equally serious, since, owing to his carelessness and want of skill, they must now put up with a dinner of fish. Her playful taunts ever touched his heart with delight; the more so, as she generally strove to make up for her pretended ill-humour with endearing caresses.
The old people saw with pleasure this familiarity of Undine and Huldbrand; they looked upon them as betrothed, or even as married, and living with them in their old age on their island, now torn off from the mainland. The loneliness of his situation strongly impressed also the young Huldbrand with the feeling that he was already Undine’s bridegroom. It seemed to him as if, beyond those encompassing floods, there were no other world in existence, or at any rate as if he could never cross them, and again associate with the world of other men; and when at times his grazing steed raised his head and neighed to him, seemingly inquiring after his knightly achievements and reminding him of them, or when his coat-of-arms sternly shone upon him from the embroidery of his saddle and the caparisons of his horse, or when his sword happened to fall from the nail on which it was hanging in the cottage, and flashed on his eye as it slipped from the scabbard in its fall, he quieted the doubts of his mind by saying to himself, “Undine cannot be a fisherman’s daughter. She is, in all probability, a native of some remote region, and a member of some illustrious family.”
There was one thing, indeed, to which he had a strong aversion: this was to hear the old dame reproving Undine. The wild girl, it is true, commonly laughed at the reproof, making no attempt to conceal the extravagance of her mirth; but it appeared to him like touching his own honour; and still he found it impossible to blame the aged wife of the fisherman, since Undine always deserved at least ten times as many reproofs as she received; so he continued to feel in his heart an affectionate tenderness for the ancient mistress of the house, and his whole life flowed on in the calm stream of contentment.
There came, however, an interruption at last. The fisherman and the knight had been accustomed at dinner, and also in the evening when the wind roared without, as it rarely failed to do towards night, to enjoy together a flask of wine. But now their whole stock, which the fisherman had from time to time brought with him from the city, was at last exhausted, and they were both quite out of humour at the circumstance. That day Undine laughed at them excessively, but they were not disposed to join in her jests with the same gaiety as usual. Toward evening she went out of the cottage, to escape, as she said, the sight of two such long and tiresome faces.
While it was yet twilight, some appearances of a tempest seemed to be again mustering in the sky, and the waves already heaved and roared around them: the knight and the fisherman sprang to the door in terror, to bring home the maiden, remembering the anguish of that night when Huldbrand had first entered the cottage. But Undine met them at the same moment, clapping her little hands in high glee.
“What will you give me,” she cried, “to provide you with wine? or rather, you need not give me anything,” she continued; “for I am already satisfied, if you look more cheerful, and are in better spirits, than throughout this last most wearisome day. Only come with me; the forest stream has driven ashore a cask; and I will be condemned to sleep through a whole week, if it is not a wine-cask.”
The men followed her, and actually found, in a bushy cove of the shore, a cask, which inspired them with as much joy as if they were sure it contained the generous old wine for which they were thirsting. They first of all, and with as much expedition as possible, rolled it toward the cottage; for heavy clouds were again rising in the west, and they could discern the waves of the lake in the fading light lifting their white foaming heads, as if looking out for the rain, which threatened every instant to pour upon them. Undine helped the men as much as she was able; and as the shower, with a roar of wind, came suddenly sweeping on in rapid pursuit, she raised her finger with a merry menace toward the dark mass of clouds, and cried: “You cloud, you cloud, have a care! beware how you wet us; we are some way from shelter yet.”
The old man reproved her for this sally, as a sinful presumption; but she laughed to herself softly, and no mischief came from her wild behaviour. Nay more, what was beyond their expectation, they reached their comfortable hearth unwet, with their prize secured; but the cask had hardly been broached, and proved to contain wine of a remarkably fine flavour, when the rain first poured down unrestrained from the black cloud, the tempest raved through the tops of the trees, and swept far over the billows of the deep.
Having immediately filled several bottles from the cask, which promised them a supply for a long time, they drew round the glowing hearth; and, comfortably secured from the tempest, they sat tasting the flavour of their wine and bandying jests.
But the old fisherman suddenly became extremely grave, and said: “Ah, great God! here we sit, rejoicing over this rich gift, while he to whom it first belonged, and from whom it was wrested by the fury of the stream, must there also, it is more than probable, have lost his life.”
“No such thing,” said Undine, smiling, as she filled the knight’s cup to the brim.
But he exclaimed: “By my unsullied honour, old father, if I knew where to find and rescue him, no fear of exposure to the night, nor any peril, should deter me from making the attempt. At least, I can promise you that if I again reach an inhabited country, I will find out the owner of this wine or his heirs, and make double and triple reimbursement.”
The old man was gratified with this assurance; he gave the knight a nod of approbation, and now drained his cup with an easier conscience and more relish.
Undine, however, said to Huldbrand: “As to the repayment and your gold, you may do whatever you like. But what you said about your venturing out, and searching, and exposing yourself to danger, appears to me far from wise. I should cry my very eyes out, should you perish in such a wild attempt; and is it not true that you would prefer staying here with me and the good wine?”
“Most assuredly,” answered Huldbrand, smiling.
“Then, you see,” replied Undine, “you spoke unwisely. For charity begins at home; and why need we trouble ourselves about our neighbours?”
The mistress of the house turned away from her, sighing and shaking her head; while the fisherman forgot his wonted indulgence toward the graceful maiden, and thus rebuked her: “That sounds exactly as if you had been brought up by heathens and Turks;” and he finished his reproof by adding, “May God forgive both me and you--unfeeling child!”
“Well, say what you will, that is what I think and feel,” replied Undine, “whoever brought me up; and all your talking cannot help it.”
“Silence!” exclaimed the fisherman, in a voice of stern rebuke; and she, who with all her wild spirit was extremely alive to fear, shrank from him, moved close up to Huldbrand, trembling, and said very softly: “Are you also angry, dear friend?”
The knight pressed her soft hand, and tenderly stroked her locks. He was unable to utter a word, for his vexation, arising from the old man’s severity towards Undine, closed his lips; and thus the two couples sat opposite to each other, at once heated with anger and in embarrassed silence.
In the midst of this stillness a low knocking at the door startled them all; for there are times when a slight circumstance, coming unexpectedly upon us, startles us like something supernatural. But there was the further source of alarm, that the enchanted forest lay so near them, and that their place of abode seemed at present inaccessible to any human being. While they were looking upon one another in doubt, the knocking was again heard, accompanied with a deep groan. The knight sprang to seize his sword. But the old man said, in a low whisper: “If it be what I fear it is, no weapon of yours can protect us.”
Undine in the meanwhile went to the door, and cried with the firm voice of fearless displeasure: “Spirits of the earth! if mischief be your aim, Kuhleborn shall teach you better manners.”
The terror of the rest was increased by this wild speech; they looked fearfully upon the girl, and Huldbrand was just recovering presence of mind enough to ask what she meant, when a voice reached them from without: “I am no spirit of the earth, though a spirit still in its earthly body. You that are within the cottage there, if you fear God and would afford me assistance, open your door to me.”
By the time these words were spoken, Undine had already opened it; and the lamp throwing a strong light upon the stormy night, they perceived an aged priest without, who stepped back in terror, when his eye fell on the unexpected sight of a little damsel of such exquisite beauty. Well might he think there must be magic in the wind and witchcraft at work, when a form of such surpassing loveliness appeared at the door of so humble a dwelling. So he lifted up his voice in prayer: “Let all good spirits praise the Lord God!”
“I am no spectre,” said Undine, with a smile. “Do I look so very frightful? And you see that I do not shrink from holy words. I too have knowledge of God, and understand the duty of praising Him; every one, to be sure, has his own way of doing this, for so He has created us. Come in, father; you will find none but worthy people here.”
The holy man came bowing in, and cast round a glance of scrutiny, wearing at the same time a very placid and venerable air. But water was dropping from every fold of his dark garments, from his long white beard and the white locks of his hair. The fisherman and the knight took him to another apartment, and furnished him with a change of raiment, while they gave his own clothes to the women to dry. The aged stranger thanked them in a manner the most humble and courteous; but on the knight’s offering him his splendid cloak to wrap round him, he could not be persuaded to take it, but chose instead an old grey coat that belonged to the fisherman.
They then returned to the common apartment. The mistress of the house immediately offered her great chair to the priest, and continued urging it upon him till she saw him fairly in possession of it. “You are old and exhausted,” said she, “and are, moreover, a man of God.”
Undine shoved under the stranger’s feet her little stool, on which at all other times she used to sit near to Huldbrand, and showed herself most gentle and amiable towards the old man. Huldbrand whispered some raillery in her ear, but she replied, gravely: “He is a minister of that Being who created us all; and holy things are not to be treated with lightness.”
The knight and the fisherman now refreshed the priest with food and wine; and when he had somewhat recovered his strength and spirits, he began to relate how he had the day before set out from his cloister, which was situated far off beyond the great lake, in order to visit the bishop, and acquaint him with the distress into which the cloister and its tributary villages had fallen, owing to the extraordinary floods. After a long and wearisome wandering, on account of the rise of the waters, he had been this day compelled toward evening to procure the aid of a couple of boatmen, and cross over an arm of the lake which had burst its usual boundary.
“But hardly,” continued he, “had our small ferry-boat touched the waves, when that furious tempest burst forth which is still raging over our heads. It seemed as if the billows had been waiting our approach only to rush on us with a madness the more wild. The oars were wrested from the grasp of my men in an instant; and shivered by the resistless force, they drove farther and farther out before us upon the waves. Unable to direct our course, we yielded to the blind power of nature, and seemed to fly over the surges toward your distant shore, which we already saw looming through the mist and foam of the deep. Then it was at last that our boat turned short from its course, and rocked with a motion that became more wild and dizzy: I know not whether it was overset, or the violence of the motion threw me overboard. In my agony and struggle at the thought of a near and terrible death, the waves bore me onward, till I was cast ashore here beneath the trees of your island.”
“Yes, an island!” cried the fisherman; “a short time ago it was only a point of land. But now, since the forest stream and lake have become all but mad, it appears to be entirely changed.”
“I observed something of it,” replied the priest, “as I stole along the shore in the obscurity; and hearing nothing around me but a sort of wild uproar, I perceived at last that the noise came from a point exactly where a beaten footpath disappeared. I now caught the light in your cottage, and ventured hither, where I cannot sufficiently thank my Heavenly Father that, after preserving me from the waters, He has also conducted me to such pious people as you are; and the more so, as it is difficult to say whether I shall ever behold any other persons in this world except you four.”
“What mean you by those words?” asked the fisherman.
“Can you tell me, then, how long this commotion of the elements will last?” replied the priest. “I am old; the stream of my life may easily sink into the ground and vanish before the overflowing of that forest stream shall subside. And, indeed, it is not impossible that more and more of the foaming waters may rush in between you and yonder forest, until you are so far removed from the rest of the world, that your small fishing-canoe may be incapable of passing over, and the inhabitants of the continent entirely forget you in your old age amid the dissipation and diversions of life.”
At this melancholy foreboding the old lady shrank back with a feeling of alarm, crossed herself, and cried, “God forbid!”
But the fisherman looked upon her with a smile and said, “What a strange being is man! Suppose the worst to happen; our state would not be different; at any rate, your own would not, dear wife, from what it is at present. For have you, these many years, been farther from home than the border of the forest? And have you seen a single human being beside Undine and myself? It is now only a short time since the coming of the knight and the priest. They will remain with us, even if we do become a forgotten island; so after all you will be a gainer.”
“I know not,” replied the ancient dame; “it is a dismal thought, when brought fairly home to the mind, that we are for ever separated from mankind, even though in fact we never do know nor see them.”
“Then YOU will remain with us--then you will remain with us!” whispered Undine, in a voice scarcely audible and half singing, while she nestled closer to Huldbrand’s side. But he was immersed in the deep and strange musings of his own mind. The region, on the farther side of the forest river, seemed, since the last words of the priest, to have been withdrawing farther and farther, in dim perspective, from his view; and the blooming island on which he lived grew green and smiled more freshly in his fancy. His bride glowed like the fairest rose, not of this obscure nook only, but even of the whole wide world; and the priest was now present.
Added to which, the mistress of the family was directing an angry glance at Undine, because, even in the presence of the priest, she leant so fondly on the knight; and it seemed as if she was on the point of breaking out in harsh reproof. Then burst forth from the mouth of Huldbrand, as he turned to the priest, “Father, you here see before you an affianced pair; and if this maiden and these good old people have no objection, you shall unite us this very evening.”
The aged couple were both exceedingly surprised. They had often, it is true, thought of this, but as yet they had never mentioned it; and now, when the knight spoke, it came upon them like something wholly new and unexpected. Undine became suddenly grave, and looked down thoughtfully, while the priest made inquiries respecting the circumstances of their acquaintance, and asked the old people whether they gave their consent to the union. After a great number of questions and answers, the affair was arranged to the satisfaction of all; and the mistress of the house went to prepare the bridal apartment of the young couple, and also, with a view to grace the nuptial solemnity, to seek for two consecrated tapers, which she had for a long time kept by her, for this occasion.
The knight in the meanwhile busied himself about his golden chain, for the purpose of disengaging two of its links, that he might make an exchange of rings with his bride. But when she saw his object, she started from her trance of musing, and exclaimed-- “Not so! my parents by no means sent me into the world so perfectly destitute; on the contrary, they foresaw, even at that early period, that such a night as this would come.”
Thus speaking she went out of the room, and a moment after returned with two costly rings, of which she gave one to her bridegroom, and kept the other for herself. The old fisherman was beyond measure astonished at this; and his wife, who was just re-entering the room, was even more surprised than he, that neither of them had ever seen these jewels in the child’s possession.
“My parents,” said Undine, “sewed these trinkets to that beautiful raiment which I wore the very day I came to you. They also charged me on no account whatever to mention them to any one before my wedding evening. At the time of my coming, therefore, I took them off in secret, and have kept them concealed to the present hour.”
The priest now cut short all further questioning and wondering, while he lighted the consecrated tapers, placed them on a table, and ordered the bridal pair to stand opposite to him. He then pronounced the few solemn words of the ceremony, and made them one. The elder couple gave the younger their blessing; and the bride, gently trembling and thoughtful, leaned upon the knight.
The priest then spoke out: “You are strange people, after all; for why did you tell me that you were the only inhabitants of the island? So far is this from being true, I have seen, the whole time I was performing the ceremony, a tall, stately man, in a white mantle, standing opposite to me, looking in at the window. He must be still waiting before the door, if peradventure you would invite him to come in.”
“God forbid!” cried the old lady, shrinking back; the fisherman shook his head, without opening his lips; and Huldbrand sprang to the window. It seemed to him that he could still discern a white streak, which soon disappeared in the gloom. He convinced the priest that he must have been mistaken in his impression; and they all sat down together round a bright and comfortable hearth.
|
{
"id": "2825"
}
|
4
|
None
|
Before the nuptial ceremony, and during its performance, Undine had shown a modest gentleness and maidenly reserve; but it now seemed as if all the wayward freaks that effervesced within her burst forth with an extravagance only the more bold and unrestrained. She teased her bridegroom, her foster-parents, and even the priest, whom she had just now revered so highly, with all sorts of childish tricks; but when the ancient dame was about to reprove her too frolicsome spirit, the knight, in a few words, imposed silence upon her by speaking of Undine as his wife.
The knight was himself, indeed, just as little pleased with Undine’s childish behaviour as the rest; but all his looks and half-reproachful words were to no purpose. It is true, whenever the bride observed the dissatisfaction of her husband--and this occasionally happened--she became more quiet, placed herself beside him, stroked his face with caressing fondness, whispered something smilingly in his ear, and in this manner smoothed the wrinkles that were gathering on his brow. But the moment after, some wild whim would make her resume her antic movements; and all went worse than before.
The priest then spoke in a kind although serious tone: “My fair young maiden, surely no one can look on you without pleasure; but remember betimes so to attune your soul that it may produce a harmony ever in accordance with the soul of your wedded bridegroom.”
“SOUL!” cried Undine with a laugh. “What you say has a remarkably pretty sound; and for most people, too, it may be a very instructive and profitable caution. But when a person has no soul at all, how, I pray you, can such attuning be then possible? And this, in truth, is just my condition.”
The priest was much hurt, but continued silent in holy displeasure, and turned away his face from the maiden in sorrow. She, however, went up to him with the most winning sweetness, and said: “Nay, I entreat you first listen to me, before you are angry with me; for your anger is painful to me, and you ought not to give pain to a creature that has not hurt you. Only have patience with me, and I will explain to you every word of what I meant.”
It was evident that she had come to say something important; when she suddenly faltered as if seized with inward shuddering, and burst into a passion of tears. They were none of them able to understand the intenseness of her feelings; and, with mingled emotions of fear and anxiety, they gazed on her in silence. Then, wiping away her tears, and looking earnestly at the priest, she at last said: “There must be something lovely, but at the same time something most awful, about a soul. In the name of God, holy man, were it not better that we never shared a gift so mysterious?”
Again she paused, and restrained her tears, as if waiting for an answer. All in the cottage had risen from their seats, and stepped back from her with horror. She, however, seemed to have eyes for no one but the holy man; an awful curiosity was painted on her features, which appeared terrible to the others.
“Heavily must the soul weigh down its possessor,” she pursued, when no one returned her any answer--“very heavily! for already its approaching image overshadows me with anguish and mourning. And, alas, I have till now been so merry and light-hearted!” and she burst into another flood of tears, and covered her face with her veil.
The priest, going up to her with a solemn look, now addressed himself to her, and conjured her, by the name of God most holy, if any spirit of evil possessed her, to remove the light covering from her face. But she sank before him on her knees, and repeated after him every sacred expression he uttered, giving praise to God, and protesting “that she wished well to the whole world.”
The priest then spoke to the knight: “Sir bridegroom, I leave you alone with her whom I have united to you in marriage. So far as I can discover, there is nothing of evil in her, but assuredly much that is wonderful. What I recommend to you is--prudence, love, and fidelity.”
Thus speaking, he left the apartment; and the fisherman, with his wife, followed him, crossing themselves.
Undine had sunk upon her knees. She uncovered her face, and exclaimed, while she looked fearfully round upon Huldbrand, “Alas! you will now refuse to look upon me as your own; and still I have done nothing evil, poor unhappy child that I am!” She spoke these words with a look so infinitely sweet and touching, that her bridegroom forgot both the confession that had shocked, and the mystery that had perplexed him; and hastening to her, he raised her in his arms. She smiled through her tears; and that smile was like the morning light playing upon a small stream. “You cannot desert me!” she whispered confidingly, and stroked the knight’s cheeks with her little soft hands. He turned away from the frightful thoughts that still lurked in the recesses of his soul, and were persuading him that he had been married to a fairy, or some spiteful and mischievous being of the spirit-world. Only the single question, and that almost unawares, escaped from his lips.
“Dearest Undine, tell me this one thing: what was it you meant by ‘spirits of earth’ and ‘Kuhleborn,’ when the priest stood knocking at the door?”
“Tales! mere tales of children!” answered Undine, laughing, now quite restored to her wonted gaiety. “I first frightened you with them, and you frightened me. This is the end of the story, and of our nuptial evening.”
“Nay, not so,” replied the enamoured knight, extinguishing the tapers, and a thousand times kissing his beautiful and beloved bride; while, lighted by the moon that shone brightly through the windows, he bore her into their bridal apartment.
The fresh light of morning woke the young married pair: but Huldbrand lay lost in silent reflection. Whenever, during the night, he had fallen asleep, strange and horrible dreams of spectres had disturbed him; and these shapes, grinning at him by stealth, strove to disguise themselves as beautiful females; and from beautiful females they all at once assumed the appearance of dragons. And when he started up, aroused by the intrusion of these hideous forms, the moonlight shone pale and cold before the windows without. He looked affrighted at Undine, in whose arms he had fallen asleep: and she was reposing in unaltered beauty and sweetness beside him. Then pressing her rosy lips with a light kiss, he again fell into a slumber, only to be awakened by new terrors.
When fully awake, he had thought over this connection. He reproached himself for any doubt that could lead him into error in regard to his lovely wife. He also confessed to her his injustice; but she only gave him her fair hand, sighed deeply, and remained silent. Yet a glance of fervent tenderness, an expression of the soul beaming in her eyes, such as he had never witnessed there before, left him in undoubted assurance that Undine bore him no ill-will.
He then rose joyfully, and leaving her, went to the common apartment, where the inmates of the house had already met. The three were sitting round the hearth with an air of anxiety about them, as if they feared trusting themselves to raise their voice above a low, apprehensive undertone. The priest appeared to be praying in his inmost spirit, with a view to avert some fatal calamity. But when they observed the young husband come forth so cheerful, they dispelled the cloud that remained upon their brows: the old fisherman even began to laugh with the knight till his aged wife herself could not help smiling with great good-humour.
Undine had in the meantime got ready, and now entered the room; all rose to meet her, but remained fixed in perfect admiration--she was so changed, and yet the same. The priest, with paternal affection beaming from his countenance, first went up to her; and as he raised his hand to pronounce a blessing, the beautiful bride sank on her knees before him with religious awe; she begged his pardon in terms both respectful and submissive for any foolish things she might have uttered the evening before, and entreated him with emotion to pray for the welfare of her soul. She then rose, kissed her foster-parents, and, after thanking them for all the kindness they had shown her, said: “Oh, I now feel in my inmost heart how much, how infinitely much, you have done for me, you dear, dear friends of my childhood!”
At first she was wholly unable to tear herself away from their affectionate caresses; but the moment she saw the good old mother busy in getting breakfast, she went to the hearth, applied herself to cooking the food and putting it on the table, and would not suffer her to take the least share in the work.
She continued in this frame of spirit the whole day: calm, kind attentive--half matronly, and half girlish. The three who had been longest acquainted with her expected every instant to see her capricious spirit break out in some whimsical change or sportive vagary. But their fears were quite unnecessary. Undine continued as mild and gentle as an angel. The priest found it all but impossible to remove his eyes from her; and he often said to the bridegroom: “The bounty of Heaven, sir, through me its unworthy instrument, entrusted to you yesterday an invaluable treasure; cherish it as you ought, and it will promote your temporal and eternal welfare.”
Toward evening Undine was hanging upon the knight’s arm with lowly tenderness, while she drew him gently out before the door, where the setting sun shone richly over the fresh grass, and upon the high, slender boles of the trees. Her emotion was visible: the dew of sadness and love swam in her eyes, while a tender and fearful secret seemed to hover upon her lips, but was only made known by hardly-breathed sighs. She led her husband farther and farther onward without speaking. When he asked her questions, she replied only with looks, in which, it is true, there appeared to be no immediate answer to his inquiries, but a whole heaven of love and timid devotion. Thus they reached the margin of the swollen forest stream, and the knight was astonished to see it gliding away with so gentle a murmuring of its waves, that no vestige of its former swell and wildness was now discernible.
“By morning it will be wholly drained off,” said the beautiful wife, almost weeping, “and you will then be able to travel, without anything to hinder you, whithersoever you will.”
“Not without you, dear Undine,” replied the knight, laughing; “think, only, were I disposed to leave you, both the Church and the spiritual powers, the Emperor and the laws of the realm, would require the fugitive to be seized and restored to you.”
“All this depends on you--all depends on you,” whispered his little companion, half weeping and half smiling. “But I still feel sure that you will not leave me; I love you too deeply to fear that misery. Now bear me over to that little island which lies before us. There shall the decision be made. I could easily, indeed, glide through that mere rippling of the water without your aid, but it is so sweet to lie in your arms; and should you determine to put me away, I shall have rested in them once more,... for the last time.”
Huldbrand was so full of strange anxiety and emotion, that he knew not what answer to make her. He took her in his arms and carried her over, now first realizing the fact that this was the same little island from which he had borne her back to the old fisherman, the first night of his arrival. On the farther side, he placed her upon the soft grass, and was throwing himself lovingly near his beautiful burden; but she said to him, “Not here, but opposite me. I shall read my doom in your eyes, even before your lips pronounce it: now listen attentively to what I shall relate to you.” And she began: “You must know, my own love, that there are beings in the elements which bear the strongest resemblance to the human race, and which, at the same time, but seldom become visible to you. The wonderful salamanders sparkle and sport amid the flames; deep in the earth the meagre and malicious gnomes pursue their revels; the forest-spirits belong to the air, and wander in the woods; while in the seas, rivers, and streams live the widespread race of water-spirits. These last, beneath resounding domes of crystal, through which the sky can shine with its sun and stars, inhabit a region of light and beauty; lofty coral-trees glow with blue and crimson fruits in their gardens; they walk over the pure sand of the sea, among exquisitely variegated shells, and amid whatever of beauty the old world possessed, such as the present is no more worthy to enjoy--creations which the floods covered with their secret veils of silver; and now these noble monuments sparkle below, stately and solemn, and bedewed by the water, which loves them, and calls forth from their crevices delicate moss-flowers and enwreathing tufts of sedge.
“Now the nation that dwell there are very fair and lovely to behold, for the most part more beautiful than human beings. Many a fisherman has been so fortunate as to catch a view of a delicate maiden of the waters, while she was floating and singing upon the deep. He would then spread far the fame of her beauty; and to such wonderful females men are wont to give the name of Undines. But what need of saying more? --You, my dear husband, now actually behold an Undine before you.”
The knight would have persuaded himself that his lovely wife was under the influence of one of her odd whims, and that she was only amusing herself and him with her extravagant inventions. He wished it might be so. But with whatever emphasis he said this to himself, he still could not credit the hope for a moment: a strange shivering shot through his soul; unable to utter a word, he gazed upon the sweet speaker with a fixed eye. She shook her head in distress, sighed from her full heart, and then proceeded in the following manner:--“We should be far superior to you, who are another race of the human family,--for we also call ourselves human beings, as we resemble them in form and features--had we not one evil peculiar to ourselves. Both we and the beings I have mentioned as inhabiting the other elements vanish into air at death and go out of existence, spirit and body, so that no vestige of us remains; and when you hereafter awake to a purer state of being, we shall remain where sand, and sparks, and wind, and waves remain. Thus we have no souls; the element moves us, and, again, is obedient to our will, while we live, though it scatters us like dust when we die; and as we have nothing to trouble us, we are as merry as nightingales, little gold-fishes, and other pretty children of nature.
“But all beings aspire to rise in the scale of existence higher than they are. It was therefore the wish of my father, who is a powerful water-prince in the Mediterranean Sea, that his only daughter should become possessed of a soul, although she should have to endure many of the sufferings of those who share that gift.
“Now the race to which I belong have no other means of obtaining a soul than by forming with an individual of your own the most intimate union of love. I am now possessed of a soul, and my soul thanks you, my best beloved, and never shall cease to thank you, if you do not render my whole future life miserable. For what will become of me, if you avoid and reject me? Still, I would not keep you as my own by artifice. And should you decide to cast me off, then do it now, and return alone to the shore. I will plunge into this brook, where my uncle will receive me; my uncle, who here in the forest, far removed from his other friends, passes his strange and solitary existence. But he is powerful, as well as revered and beloved by many great rivers; and as he brought me hither to the fisherman a light-hearted and laughing child, he will take me home to my parents a woman, gifted with a soul, with power to love and to suffer.”
She was about to add something more, when Huldbrand, with the most heartfelt tenderness and love, clasped her in his arms, and again bore her back to the shore. There, amid tears and kisses, he first swore never to forsake his affectionate wife, and esteemed himself even more happy than Pygmalion, for whom Venus gave life to his beautiful statue, and thus changed it into a beloved wife. Supported by his arm, and in the confidence of affection, Undine returned to the cottage; and now she first realized with her whole heart how little cause she had for regretting what she had left--the crystal palace of her mysterious father.
|
{
"id": "2825"
}
|
5
|
None
|
Next morning, when Huldbrand awoke from slumber, and perceived that his beautiful wife was not by his side, he began to give way again to his wild imaginations--that his marriage, and even the lovely Undine herself, were only shadows without substance--only mere illusions of enchantment. But she entered the door at the same moment, kissed him, seated herself on the bed by his side, and said: “I have been out somewhat early this morning, to see whether my uncle keeps his word. He has already restored the waters of the flood to his own calm channel, and he now flows through the forest a rivulet as before, in a lonely and dreamlike current. His friends, too, both of the water and the air, have resumed their usual peaceful tenor; all will again proceed with order and tranquillity; and you can travel homeward, without fear of the flood, whenever you choose.”
It seemed to the mind of Huldbrand that he must be in some waking dream, so little was he able to understand the nature of his wife’s strange relative. Notwithstanding this he made no remark upon what she had told him, and her surpassing loveliness soon lulled every misgiving and discomfort to rest.
Some time afterwards, while he was standing with her before the door, and surveying the verdant point of land, with its boundary of bright waters, such a feeling of bliss came over him in this cradle of his love, that he exclaimed: “Shall we, then, so early as to-day, begin our journey? Why should we? It is probable that abroad in the world we shall find no days more delightful than those we have spent in this green isle so secret and so secure. Let us yet see the sun go down here two or three times more.”
“Just as my lord wills,” replied Undine meekly. “Only we must remember, that my foster-parents will, at all events, see me depart with pain; and should they now, for the first time, discover the true soul in me, and how fervently I can now love and honour them, their feeble eyes would surely become blind with weeping. As yet they consider my present quietness and gentleness as of no better promise than they were formerly--like the calm of the lake just while the air remains tranquil--and they will learn soon to cherish a little tree or flower as they have cherished me. Let me not, then, make known to them this newly bestowed, this loving heart, at the very moment they must lose it for this world; and how could I conceal what I have gained, if we continued longer together?”
Huldbrand yielded to her representation, and went to the aged couple to confer with them respecting his journey, on which he proposed to set out that very hour. The priest offered himself as a companion to the young married pair; and, after taking a short farewell, he held the bridle, while the knight lifted his beautiful wife upon his horse; and with rapid steps they crossed the dry channel with her toward the forest. Undine wept in silent but intense emotion; the old people, as she moved away, were more clamorous in the expression of their grief. They appeared to feel, at the moment of separation, all that they were losing in their affectionate foster-daughter.
The three travellers had reached the thickest shades of the forest without interchanging a word. It must have been a fair sight, in that hall of leafy verdure, to see this lovely woman’s form sitting on the noble and richly-ornamented steed, on her left hand the venerable priest in the white garb of his order, on her right the blooming young knight, clad in splendid raiment of scarlet, gold, and violet, girt with a sword that flashed in the sun, and attentively walking beside her. Huldbrand had no eyes but for his wife; Undine, who had dried her tears of tenderness, had no eyes but for him; and they soon entered into the still and voiceless converse of looks and gestures, from which, after some time, they were awakened by the low discourse which the priest was holding with a fourth traveller, who had meanwhile joined them unobserved.
He wore a white gown, resembling in form the dress of the priest’s order, except that his hood hung very low over his face, and that the whole drapery floated in such wide folds around him as obliged him every moment to gather it up and throw it over his arm, or by some management of this sort to get it out of his way, and still it did not seem in the least to impede his movements. When the young couple became aware of his presence, he was saying: “And so, venerable sir, many as have been the years I have dwelt here in this forest, I have never received the name of hermit in your sense of the word. For, as I said before, I know nothing of penance, and I think, too, that I have no particular need of it. Do you ask me why I am so attached to the forest? It is because its scenery is so peculiarly picturesque, and affords me so much pastime when, in my floating white garments, I pass through its world of leaves and dusky shadows;--and when a sweet sunbeam glances down upon me at times unexpectedly.”
“You are a very singular man,” replied the priest, “and I should like to have a more intimate acquaintance with you.”
“And who, then, may you be yourself, to pass from one thing to another?” inquired the stranger.
“I am called Father Heilmann,” answered the holy man; “and I am from the cloister of Our Lady of the Salutation, beyond the lake.”
“Well, well,” replied the stranger, “my name is Kuhleborn; and were I a stickler for the nice distinctions of rank, I might, with equal propriety, require you to give me the title of noble lord of Kuhleborn, or free lord of Kuhleborn; for I am as free as the birds in the forest, and, it may be, a trifle more so. For example, I now have something to tell that young lady there.” And before they were aware of his purpose, he was on the other side of the priest, close to Undine, and stretching himself high into the air, in order to whisper something in her ear. But she shrank from him in terror, and exclaimed: “I have nothing more to do with you.”
“Ho, ho,” cried the stranger with a laugh, “you have made a grand marriage indeed, since you no longer know your own relations! Have you no recollection, then, of your uncle Kuhleborn, who so faithfully bore you on his back to this region?”
“However that may be,” replied Undine, “I entreat you never to appear in my presence again. I am now afraid of you; and will not my husband fear and forsake me, if he sees me associate with such strange company and kindred?”
“You must not forget, my little niece,” said Kuhleborn, “that I am with you here as a guide; otherwise those madcap spirits of the earth, the gnomes that haunt this forest, would play you some of their mischievous pranks. Let me therefore still accompany you in peace. Even the old priest there had a better recollection of me than you have; for he just now assured me that I seemed to be very familiar to him, and that I must have been with him in the ferry-boat, out of which he tumbled into the waves. He certainly did see me there; for I was no other than the water-spout that tore him out of it, and kept him from sinking, while I safely wafted him ashore to your wedding.”
Undine and the knight turned their eyes upon Father Heilmann; but he appeared to be moving forward, just as if he were dreaming or walking in his sleep, and no longer to be conscious of a word that was spoken. Undine then said to Kuhleborn: “I already see yonder the end of the forest. We have no further need of your assistance, and nothing now gives us alarm but yourself. I therefore beseech you, by our mutual love and good-will, to vanish, and allow us to proceed in peace.”
Kuhleborn seemed to become angry at this: he darted a frightful look at Undine, and grinned fiercely upon her. She shrieked aloud, and called her husband to protect her. The knight sprang round the horse as quick as lightning, and, brandishing his sword, struck at Kuhleborn’s head. But instead of severing it from his body, the sword merely flashed through a torrent, which rushed foaming near them from a lofty cliff; and with a splash, which much resembled in sound a burst of laughter, the stream all at once poured upon them and gave them a thorough wetting. The priest, as if suddenly awakening from a trance, coolly observed: “This is what I have been some time expecting, because the brook has descended from the steep so close beside us--though at first sight, indeed, it appeared to resemble a man, and to possess the power of speech.”
As the waterfall came rushing from its crag, it distinctly uttered these words in Huldbrand’s ear: “Rash knight! valiant knight! I am not angry with you; I have no quarrel with you; only continue to defend your lovely little wife with the same spirit, you bold knight! you valiant champion!”
After advancing a few steps farther, the travellers came out upon open ground. The imperial city lay bright before them; and the evening sun, which gilded its towers with gold, kindly dried their garments that had been so completely drenched.
The sudden disappearance of the young knight, Huldbrand of Ringstetten, had occasioned much remark in the imperial city, and no small concern amongst those who, as well on account of his expertness in tourney and dance, as of his mild and amiable manners, had become attached to him. His attendants were unwilling to quit the place without their master, although not a soul of them had been courageous enough to follow him into the fearful recesses of the forest. They remained, therefore, at the hostelry, idly hoping, as men are wont to do, and keeping the fate of their lost lord fresh in remembrance by their lamentations.
Now when the violent storms and floods had been observed immediately after his departure, the destruction of the handsome stranger became all but certain; even Bertalda had openly discovered her sorrow, and detested herself for having been the cause of his taking that fatal excursion into the forest. Her foster-parents, the duke and duchess, had meanwhile come to take her away; but Bertalda persuaded them to remain with her until some certain news of Huldbrand should be obtained, whether he were living or dead. She endeavoured also to prevail upon several young knights, who were assiduous in courting her favour, to go in quest of the noble adventurer in the forest. But she refused to pledge her hand as the reward of the enterprise, because she still cherished, it might be, a hope of its being claimed by the returning knight; and no one would consent, for a glove, a riband, or even a kiss, to expose his life to bring back so very dangerous a rival.
When Huldbrand now made his sudden and unexpected appearance, his attendants, the inhabitants of the city, and almost every one rejoiced. This was not the case with Bertalda; for although it might be quite a welcome event to others that he brought with him a wife of such exquisite loveliness, and Father Heilmann as a witness of their marriage, Bertalda could not but view the affair with grief and vexation. She had, in truth, become attached to the young knight with her whole soul; and her mourning for his absence, or supposed death, had shown this more than she could now have wished.
But notwithstanding all this, she conducted herself like a wise maiden in circumstances of such delicacy, and lived on the most friendly terms with Undine, whom the whole city looked upon as a princess that Huldbrand had rescued in the forest from some evil enchantment. Whenever any one questioned either herself or her husband relative to surmises of this nature, they had wisdom enough to remain silent, or wit enough to evade the inquiries. The lips of Father Heilmann had been sealed in regard to idle gossip of every kind; and besides, on Huldbrand’s arrival, he had immediately returned to his cloister: so that people were obliged to rest contented with their own wild conjectures; and even Bertalda herself ascertained nothing more of the truth than others.
For the rest, Undine daily felt more love for the fair maiden. “We must have been before acquainted with each other,” she often used to say to her, “or else there must be some mysterious connection between us, for it is incredible that any one so perfectly without cause--I mean, without some deep and secret cause--should be so fondly attached to another as I have been to you from the first moment of our meeting.”
And even Bertalda could not deny that she felt a confiding impulse, an attraction of tenderness toward Undine, much as she deemed this fortunate rival the cause of her bitterest disappointment. Under the influence of this mutual regard, they found means to persuade, the one her foster-parents, and the other her husband, to defer the day of separation to a period more and more remote; nay, more, they had already begun to talk of a plan for Bertalda’s accompanying Undine to Castle Ringstetten, near one of the sources of the Danube.
Once on a fine evening they happened to be talking over their scheme just as they passed the high trees that bordered the public walk. The young married pair, though it was somewhat late, had called upon Bertalda to invite her to share their enjoyment; and all three proceeded familiarly up and down beneath the dark blue heaven, not seldom interrupted in their converse by the admiration which they could not but bestow upon the magnificent fountain in the middle of the square, and upon the wonderful rush and shooting upward of its waters. All was sweet and soothing to their minds. Among the shadows of the trees stole in glimmerings of light from the adjacent houses (sic). A low murmur as of children at play, and of other persons who were enjoying their walk, floated around them--they were so alone, and yet sharing so much of social happiness in the bright and stirring world, that whatever had appeared rough by day now became smooth of its own accord. All the three friends could no longer see the slightest cause for hesitation in regard to Bertalda’s taking the journey.
At that instant, while they were just fixing the day of their departure, a tall man approached them from the middle of the square, bowed respectfully to the company, and spoke something in the young bride’s ear. Though displeased with the interruption and its cause, she walked aside a few steps with the stranger; and both began to whisper, as it seemed, in a foreign tongue. Huldbrand thought he recognized the strange man of the forest, and he gazed upon him so fixedly, that he neither heard nor answered the astonished inquiries of Bertalda. All at once Undine clapped her hands with delight, and turned back from the stranger, laughing: he, frequently shaking his head, retired with a hasty step and discontented air, and descended into the fountain. Huldbrand now felt perfectly certain that his conjecture was correct. But Bertalda asked: “What, then, dear Undine, did the master of the fountain wish to say to you?”
Undine laughed within herself, and made answer: “The day after to-morrow, my dear child, when the anniversary of your name-day returns, you shall be informed.” And this was all she could be prevailed upon to disclose. She merely asked Bertalda to dinner on the appointed day, and requested her to invite her foster-parents; and soon afterwards they separated.
“Kuhleborn?” said Huldbrand to his lovely wife, with an inward shudder when they had taken leave of Bertalda, and were now going home through the darkening streets.
“Yes, it was he,” answered Undine; “and he would have wearied me with his foolish warnings. But, in the midst, quite contrary to his intentions, he delighted me with a most welcome piece of news. If you, my dear lord and husband, wish me to acquaint you with it now, you need only command me, and I will freely and from my heart tell you all without reserve. But would you confer upon your Undine a very, very great pleasure, wait till the day after to-morrow, and then you too shall have your share of the surprise.”
The knight was quite willing to gratify his wife in what she had asked so sweetly. And even as she was falling asleep, she murmured to herself, with a smile: “How she will rejoice and be astonished at what her master of the fountain has told me! --dear, dear Bertalda!”
|
{
"id": "2825"
}
|
6
|
None
|
The company were sitting at dinner. Bertalda, adorned with jewels and flowers without number, the presents of her foster-parents and friends, and looking like some goddess of spring, sat beside Undine and Huldbrand at the head of the table. When the sumptuous repast was ended, and the dessert was placed before them, permission was given that the doors should be left open: this was in accordance with the good old custom in Germany, that the common people might see and rejoice in the festivity of their superiors. Among these spectators the servants carried round cake and wine.
Huldbrand and Bertalda waited with secret impatience for the promised explanation, and hardly moved their eyes from Undine. But she still continued silent, and merely smiled to herself with secret and heartfelt satisfaction. All who were made acquainted with the promise she had given could perceive that she was every moment on the point of revealing a happy secret; and yet, as children sometimes delay tasting their choicest dainties, she still withheld the communication. Bertalda and Huldbrand shared the same delightful feeling, while in anxious hope they were expecting the unknown disclosure which they were to receive from the lips of their friend.
At this moment several of the company pressed Undine to sing. This she seemed pleased at; and ordering her lute to be brought, she sang the following words:-- “Morning so bright, Wild-flowers so gay, Where high grass so dewy Crowns the wavy lake’s border.
On the meadow’s verdant bosom What glimmers there so white? Have wreaths of snowy blossoms, Soft-floating, fallen from heaven?
Ah, see! a tender infant! -- It plays with flowers, unwittingly; It strives to grasp morn’s golden beams. O where, sweet stranger, where’s your home? Afar from unknown shores The waves have wafted hither This helpless little one.
Nay, clasp not, tender darling, With tiny hand the flowers! No hand returns the pressure, The flowers are strange and mute.
They clothe themselves in beauty, They breathe a rich perfume: But cannot fold around you A mother’s loving arms;-- Far, far away that mother’s fond embrace.
Life’s early dawn just opening faint, Your eye yet beaming heaven’s own smile, So soon your tenderest guardians gone; Severe, poor child, your fate,-- All, all to you unknown.
A noble duke has crossed the mead, And near you checked his steed’s career: Wonder and pity touch his heart; With knowledge high, and manners pure, He rears you,--makes his castle home your own.
How great, how infinite your gain! Of all the land you bloom the loveliest; Yet, ah! the priceless blessing, The bliss of parents’ fondness, You left on strands unknown!”
Undine let fall her lute with a melancholy smile. The eyes of Bertalda’s noble foster-parents were filled with tears.
“Ah yes, it was so--such was the morning on which I found you, poor orphan!” cried the duke, with deep emotion; “the beautiful singer is certainly right: still ‘The priceless blessing, The bliss of parents’ fondness,’ it was beyond our power to give you.”
“But we must hear, also, what happened to the poor parents,” said Undine, as she struck the chords, and sung:-- “Through her chambers roams the mother Searching, searching everywhere; Seeks, and knows not what, with yearning, Childless house still finding there.
Childless house! --O sound of anguish! She alone the anguish knows, There by day who led her dear one, There who rocked its night-repose.
Beechen buds again are swelling, Sunshine warms again the shore; Ah, fond mother, cease your searching! Comes the loved and lost no more.
Then when airs of eve are fresh’ning, Home the father wends his way, While with smiles his woe he’s veiling, Gushing tears his heart betray.
Well he knows, within his dwelling, Still as death he’ll find the gloom, Only hear the mother moaning,-- No sweet babe to SMILE him home.”
“O, tell me, in the name of Heaven tell me, Undine, where are my parents?” cried the weeping Bertalda. “You certainly know; you must have discovered them, you wonderful being; for, otherwise you would never have thus torn my heart. Can they be already here? May I believe it possible?” Her eye glanced rapidly over the brilliant company, and rested upon a lady of high rank who was sitting next to her foster-father.
Then, bending her head, Undine beckoned toward the door, while her eyes overflowed with the sweetest emotion. “Where, then, are the poor parents waiting?” she asked; and the old fisherman, hesitating, advanced with his wife from the crowd of spectators. They looked inquiringly, now at Undine, and now at the beautiful lady who was said to be their daughter.
“It is she! it is she there before you!” exclaimed the restorer of their child, her voice half choked with rapture. And both the aged parents embraced their recovered daughter, weeping aloud and praising God.
But, terrified and indignant, Bertalda tore herself from their arms. Such a discovery was too much for her proud spirit to bear, especially at the moment when she had doubtless expected to see her former splendour increased, and when hope was picturing to her nothing less brilliant than a royal canopy and a crown. It seemed to her as if her rival had contrived all this on purpose to humble her before Huldbrand and the whole world. She reproached Undine; she reviled the old people; and even such offensive words as “deceiver, bribed and perjured impostors,” burst from her lips.
The aged wife of the fisherman then said to herself, in a low voice: “Ah, my God, she has become wicked! and yet I feel in my heart that she is my child.”
The old fisherman had meanwhile folded his hands, and offered up a silent prayer that she might NOT be his daughter.
Undine, faint and pale as death, turned from the parents to Bertalda, from Bertalda to the parents. She was suddenly cast dawn from all that heaven of happiness in which she had been dreaming, and plunged into an agony of terror and disappointment, which she had never known even in dreams.
“Have you, then, a soul? Have you indeed a soul, Bertalda?” she cried again and again to her angry friend, as if with vehement effort she would arouse her from a sudden delirium or some distracting dream of night, and restore her to recollection.
But when Bertalda became every moment only more and more enraged--when the disappointed parents began to weep aloud--and the company, with much warmth of dispute, were espousing opposite sides--she begged, with such earnestness and dignity, for the liberty of speaking in this her husband’s hall, that all around her were in an instant hushed to silence. She then advanced to the upper end of the table, where, both humbled and haughty, Bertalda had seated herself, and, while every eye was fastened upon her, spoke in the following manner:-- “My friends, you appear dissatisfied and disturbed; and you are interrupting, with your strife, a festivity I had hoped would bring joy to you and to me. Ah! I knew nothing of your heartless ways of thinking; and never shall understand them: I am not to blame for the mischief this disclosure has done. Believe me, little as you may imagine this to be the case, it is wholly owing to yourselves. One word more, therefore, is all I have to add; but this is one that must be spoken:--I have uttered nothing but truth. Of the certainty of the fact, I give you the strongest assurance. No other proof can I or will I produce, but this I will affirm in the presence of God. The person who gave me this information was the very same who decoyed the infant Bertalda into the water, and who, after thus taking her from her parents, placed her on the green grass of the meadow, where he knew the duke was to pass.”
“She is an enchantress!” cried Bertalda; “a witch, that has intercourse with evil spirits. She acknowledges it herself.”
“Never! I deny it!” replied Undine, while a whole heaven of innocence and truth beamed from her eyes. “I am no witch; look upon me, and say if I am.”
“Then she utters both falsehood and folly,” cried Bertalda; “and she is unable to prove that I am the child of these low people. My noble parents, I entreat you to take me from this company, and out of this city, where they do nothing but shame me.”
But the aged duke, a man of honourable feeling, remained unmoved; and his wife remarked: “We must thoroughly examine into this matter. God forbid that we should move a step from this hall before we do so.”
Then the aged wife of the fisherman drew near, made a low obeisance to the duchess and said: “Noble and pious lady, you have opened my heart. Permit me to tell you, that if this evil-disposed maiden is my daughter, she has a mark like a violet between her shoulders, and another of the same kind on the instep of her left foot. If she will only consent to go out of the hall with me--” “I will not consent to uncover myself before the peasant woman,” interrupted Bertalda, haughtily turning her back upon her.
“But before me you certainly will,” replied the duchess gravely. “You will follow me into that room, maiden; and the old woman shall go with us.”
The three disappeared, and the rest continued where they were, in breathless expectation. In a few minutes the females returned--Bertalda pale as death; and the duchess said: “Justice must be done; I therefore declare that our lady hostess has spoken exact truth. Bertalda is the fisherman’s daughter; no further proof is required; and this is all of which, on the present occasion, you need to be informed.”
The princely pair went out with their adopted daughter; the fisherman, at a sign from the duke, followed them with his wife. The other guests retired in silence, or suppressing their murmurs; while Undine sank weeping into the arms of Huldbrand.
The lord of Ringstetten would certainly have been more gratified, had the events of this day been different; but even such as they now were, he could by no means look upon them as unwelcome, since his lovely wife had shown herself so full of goodness, sweetness, and kindliness.
“If I have given her a soul,” he could not help saying to himself, “I have assuredly given her a better one than my own;” and now he only thought of soothing and comforting his weeping wife, and of removing her even so early as the morrow from a place which, after this cross accident, could not fail to be distasteful to her. Yet it is certain that the opinion of the public concerning her was not changed. As something extraordinary had long before been expected of her, the mysterious discovery of Bertalda’s parentage had occasioned little or no surprise; and every one who became acquainted with Bertalda’s story, and with the violence of her behaviour on that occasion, was only disgusted and set against her. Of this state of things, however, the knight and his lady were as yet ignorant; besides, whether the public condemned Bertalda or herself, the one view of the affair would have been as distressing to Undine as the other; and thus they came to the conclusion that the wisest course they could take, was to leave behind them the walls of the old city with all the speed in their power.
With the earliest beams of morning, a brilliant carriage for Undine drove up to the door of the inn; the horses of Huldbrand and his attendants stood near, stamping the pavement, impatient to proceed. The knight was leading his beautiful wife from the door, when a fisher-girl came up and met them in the way.
“We have no need of your fish,” said Huldbrand, accosting her; “we are this moment setting out on a journey.”
Upon this the fisher-girl began to weep bitterly; and then it was that the young couple first perceived it was Bertalda. They immediately returned with her to their apartment, when she informed them that, owing to her unfeeling and violent conduct of the preceding day, the duke and duchess had been so displeased with her, as entirely to withdraw from her their protection, though not before giving her a generous portion. The fisherman, too, had received a handsome gift, and had, the evening before, set out with his wife for his peninsula.
“I would have gone with them,” she pursued, “but the old fisherman, who is said to be my father--” “He is, in truth, your father, Bertalda,” said Undine, interrupting her. “See, the stranger whom you took for the master of the water-works gave me all the particulars. He wished to dissuade me from taking you with me to Castle Ringstetten, and therefore disclosed to me the whole mystery.”
“Well then,” continued Bertalda, “my father--if it must needs be so--my father said: ‘I will not take you with me until you are changed. If you will venture to come to us alone through the ill-omened forest, that shall be a proof of your having some regard for us. But come not to me as a lady; come merely as a fisher-girl.’ I do as he bade me, for since I am abandoned by all the world, I will live and die in solitude, a poor fisher-girl, with parents equally poor. The forest, indeed, appears very terrible to me. Horrible spectres make it their haunt, and I am so fearful. But how can I help it? I have only come here at this early hour to beg the noble lady of Ringstetten to pardon my unbecoming behaviour of yesterday. Sweet lady, I have the fullest persuasion that you meant to do me a kindness, but you were not aware how severely you would wound me; and then, in my agony and surprise, so many rash and frantic expressions burst from my lips. Forgive me, ah, forgive me! I am in truth so unhappy, already. Only consider what I was but yesterday morning, what I was even at the beginning of your yesterday’s festival, and what I am to-day!”
Her words now became inarticulate, lost in a passionate flow of tears, while Undine, bitterly weeping with her, fell upon her neck. So powerful was her emotion, that it was a long time before she could utter a word. At length she said: “You shall still go with us to Ringstetten; all shall remain just as we lately arranged it; but say ‘thou’ to me again, and do not call me ‘noble lady’ any more. Consider, we were changed for each other when we were children; even then we were united by a like fate, and we will strengthen this union with such close affection as no human power shall dissolve. Only first of all you must go with us to Ringstetten. How we shall share all things as sisters, we can talk of after we arrive.”
Bertalda looked up to Huldbrand with timid inquiry. He pitied her in her affliction, took her hand, and begged her tenderly to entrust herself to him and his wife.
“We will send a message to your parents,” continued he, “giving them the reason why you have not come;”--and he would have added more about his worthy friends of the peninsula, when, perceiving that Bertalda shrank in distress at the mention of them, he refrained. He took her under the arm, lifted her first into the carriage, then Undine, and was soon riding blithely beside them; so persevering was he, too, in urging forward their driver, that in a short time they had left behind them the limits of the city, and a crowd of painful recollections; and now the ladies could take delight in the beautiful country which their progress was continually presenting.
After a journey of some days, they arrived, on a fine evening, at Castle Ringstetten. The young knight being much engaged with the overseers and menials of his establishment, Undine and Bertalda were left alone. They took a walk upon the high rampart of the fortress, and were charmed with the delightful landscape which the fertile Suabia spread around them. While they were viewing the scene, a tall man drew near, who greeted them with respectful civility, and who seemed to Bertalda much to resemble the director of the city fountain. Still less was the resemblance to be mistaken, when Undine, indignant at his intrusion, waved him off with an air of menace; while he, shaking his head, retreated with rapid strides, as he had formerly done, then glided among the trees of a neighbouring grove and disappeared.
“Do not be terrified, Bertalda,” said Undine; “the hateful master of the fountain shall do you no harm this time.” And then she related to her the particulars of her history, and who she was herself--how Bertalda had been taken away from the people of the peninsula, and Undine left in her place. This relation at first filled the young maiden with amazement and alarm; she imagined her friend must be seized with a sudden madness. But from the consistency of her story, she became more and more convinced that all was true, it so well agreed with former occurrences, and still more convinced from that inward feeling with which truth never fails to make itself known to us. She could not but view it as an extraordinary circumstance that she was herself now living, as it were, in the midst of one of those wild tales which she had formerly heard related. She gazed upon Undine with reverence, but could not keep from a shuddering feeling which seemed to come between her and her friend; and she could not but wonder when the knight, at their evening repast, showed himself so kind and full of love towards a being who appeared to her, after the discoveries just made, more to resemble a phantom of the spirit-world than one of the human race.
|
{
"id": "2825"
}
|
7
|
None
|
The writer of this tale, both because it moves his own heart and he wishes it to move that of others, asks a favour of you, dear reader. Forgive him if he passes over a considerable space of time in a few words, and only tells you generally what therein happened. He knows well that it might be unfolded skilfully, and step by step, how Huldbrand’s heart began to turn from Undine and towards Bertalda--how Bertalda met the young knight with ardent love, and how they both looked upon the poor wife as a mysterious being, more to be dreaded than pitied--how Undine wept, and her tears stung the conscience of her husband, without recalling his former love; so that though at times he showed kindness to her, a cold shudder soon forced him to turn from her to his fellow-mortal Bertalda;--all this, the writer knows, might have been drawn out fully, and perhaps it ought to have been. But it would have made him too sad; for he has witnessed such things, and shrinks from recalling even their shadow. Thou knowest, probably, the like feeling, dear reader; for it is the lot of mortal man. Happy art thou if thou hast received the injury, not inflicted it; for in this case it is more blessed to receive than to give. Then only a soft sorrow at such a recollection passes through thy heart, and perhaps a quiet tear trickles down thy cheek over the faded flowers in which thou once so heartily rejoiced. This is enough: we will not pierce our hearts with a thousand separate stings, but only bear in mind that all happened as I just now said.
Poor Undine was greatly troubled; and the other two were very far from being happy. Bertalda in particular, whenever she was in the slightest degree opposed in her wishes, attributed the cause to the jealousy and oppression of the injured wife. She was therefore daily in the habit of showing a haughty and imperious demeanour, to which Undine yielded with a sad submission; and which was generally encouraged strongly by the now blinded Huldbrand.
What disturbed the inmates of the castle still more, was the endless variety of wonderful apparitions which assailed Huldbrand and Bertalda in the vaulted passages of the building, and of which nothing had ever been heard before within the memory of man. The tall white man, in whom Huldbrand but too plainly recognized Undine’s uncle Kuhleborn, and Bertalda the spectral master of the waterworks, often passed before them with threatening aspect and gestures; more especially, however, before Bertalda, so that, through terror, she had several times already fallen sick, and had, in consequence, frequently thought of quitting the castle. Yet partly because Huldbrand was but too dear to her, and she trusted to her innocence, since no words of love had passed between them, and partly also because she knew not whither to direct her steps, she lingered where she was.
The old fisherman, on receiving the message from the lord of Ringstetten that Bertalda was his guest, returned answer in some lines almost too illegible to be deciphered, but still the best his advanced life and long disuse of writing permitted him to form.
“I have now become,” he wrote, “a poor old widower, for my beloved and faithful wife is dead. But lonely as I now sit in my cottage, I prefer Bertalda’s remaining where she is, to her living with me. Only let her do nothing to hurt my dear Undine, else she will have my curse.”
The last words of this letter Bertalda flung to the winds; but the permission to remain from home, which her father had granted her, she remembered and clung to--just as we are all of us wont to do in similar circumstances.
One day, a few moments after Huldbrand had ridden out, Undine called together the domestics of the family, and ordered them to bring a large stone, and carefully to cover with it a magnificent fountain, that was situated in the middle of the castle court. The servants objected that it would oblige them to bring water from the valley below. Undine smiled sadly.
“I am sorry, my friends,” replied she, “to increase your labour; I would rather bring up the water-vessels myself: but this fountain must indeed be closed. Believe me when I say that it must be done, and that only by doing it we can avoid a greater evil.”
The domestics were all rejoiced to gratify their gentle mistress; and making no further inquiry, they seized the enormous stone. While they were raising it in their hands, and were now on the point of adjusting it over the fountain, Bertalda came running to the place, and cried, with an air of command, that they must stop; that the water she used, so improving to her complexion, was brought from this fountain, and that she would by no means allow it to be closed.
This time, however, Undine, while she showed her usual gentleness, showed more than her usual resolution: she said it belonged to her, as mistress of the house, to direct the household according to her best judgment; and that she was accountable in this to no one but her lord and husband.
“See, O pray see,” exclaimed the dissatisfied and indignant Bertalda, “how the beautiful water is curling and curving, winding and waving there, as if disturbed at being shut out from the bright sunshine, and from the cheerful view of the human countenance, for whose mirror it was created.”
In truth the water of the fountain was agitated, and foaming and hissing in a surprising manner; it seemed as if there were something within possessing life and will, that was struggling to free itself from confinement. But Undine only the more earnestly urged the accomplishment of her commands. This earnestness was scarcely required. The servants of the castle were as happy in obeying their gentle lady, as in opposing the haughty spirit of Bertalda; and however the latter might scold and threaten, still the stone was in a few minutes lying firm over the opening of the fountain. Undine leaned thoughtfully over it, and wrote with her beautiful fingers on the flat surface. She must, however, have had something very sharp and corrosive in her hand, for when she retired, and the domestics went up to examine the stone, they discovered various strange characters upon it, which none of them had seen there before.
When the knight returned home, toward evening, Bertalda received him with tears, and complaints of Undine’s conduct. He cast a severe glance of reproach at his poor wife, and she looked down in distress; yet she said very calmly: “My lord and husband, you never reprove even a bondslave before you hear his defence; how much less, then, your wedded wife!”
“Speak! what moved you to this singular conduct?” said the knight with a gloomy countenance.
“I could wish to tell you when we are entirely alone,” said Undine, with a sigh.
“You can tell me equally well in the presence of Bertalda,” he replied.
“Yes, if you command me,” said Undine; “but do not command me--pray, pray do not!”
She looked so humble, affectionate, and obedient, that the heart of the knight was touched and softened, as if it felt the influence of a ray from better times. He kindly took her arm within his, and led her to his apartment, where she spoke as follows: “You already know something, my beloved lord, of Kuhleborn, my evil-disposed uncle, and have often felt displeasure at meeting him in the passages of this castle. Several times has he terrified Bertalda even to swooning. He does this because he possesses no soul, being a mere elemental mirror of the outward world, while of the world within he can give no reflection. Then, too, he sometimes observes that you are displeased with me, that in my childish weakness I weep at this, and that Bertalda, it may be, laughs at the same moment. Hence it is that he imagines all is wrong with us, and in various ways mixes with our circle unbidden. What do I gain by reproving him, by showing displeasure, and sending him away? He does not believe a word I say. His poor nature has no idea that the joys and sorrows of love have so sweet a resemblance, and are so intimately connected that no power on earth is able to separate them. A smile shines in the midst of tears, and a smile calls forth tears from their dwelling-place.”
She looked up at Huldbrand, smiling and weeping, and he again felt within his heart all the magic of his former love. She perceived it, and pressed him more tenderly to her, while with tears of joy she went on thus: “When the disturber of our peace would not be dismissed with words, I was obliged to shut the door upon him; and the only entrance by which he has access to us is that fountain. His connection with the other water-spirits here in this region is cut off by the valleys that border upon us; and his kingdom first commences farther off on the Danube, in whose tributary streams some of his good friends have their abode. For this reason I caused the stone to be placed over the opening of the fountain, and inscribed characters upon it, which baffle all the efforts of my suspicious uncle; so that he now has no power of intruding either upon you or me, or Bertalda. Human beings, it is true, notwithstanding the characters I have inscribed there, are able to raise the stone without any extraordinary trouble; there is nothing to prevent them. If you choose, therefore, remove it, according to Bertalda’s desire; but she assuredly knows not what she asks. The rude Kuhleborn looks with peculiar ill-will upon her; and should those things come to pass that he has predicted to me, and which may happen without your meaning any evil, ah! dearest, even you yourself would be exposed to peril.”
Huldbrand felt the generosity of his gentle wife in the depth of his heart, since she had been so active in confining her formidable defender, and even at the very moment she was reproached for it by Bertalda. He pressed her in his arms with the tenderest affection, and said with emotion: “The stone shall remain unmoved; all remains, and ever shall remain, just as you choose to have it, my sweetest Undine!”
At these long-withheld expressions of tenderness, she returned his caresses with lowly delight, and at length said: “My dearest husband, since you are so kind and indulgent to-day, may I venture to ask a favour of you? See now, it is with you as with summer. Even amid its highest splendour, summer puts on the flaming and thundering crown of glorious tempests, in which it strongly resembles a king and god on earth. You, too, are sometimes terrible in your rebukes; your eyes flash lightning, while thunder resounds in your voice; and although this may be quite becoming to you, I in my folly cannot but sometimes weep at it. But never, I entreat you, behave thus toward me on a river, or even when we are near any water. For if you should, my relations would acquire a right over me. They would inexorably tear me from you in their fury, because they would conceive that one of their race was injured; and I should be compelled, as long as I lived, to dwell below in the crystal palaces, and never dare to ascend to you again; or should THEY SEND me up to you! --O God! that would be far worse still. No, no, my beloved husband; let it not come to that, if your poor Undine is dear to you.”
He solemnly promised to do as she desired, and, inexpressibly happy and full of affection, the married pair returned from the apartment. At this very moment Bertalda came with some work-people whom she had meanwhile ordered to attend her, and said with a fretful air, which she had assumed of late: “Well, now the secret consultation is at an end, the stone may be removed. Go out, workmen, and see to it.”
The knight, however, highly resenting her impertinence, said, in brief and very decisive terms: “The stone remains where it is!” He reproved Bertalda also for the vehemence that she had shown towards his wife. Whereupon the workmen, smiling with secret satisfaction, withdrew; while Bertalda, pale with rage, hurried away to her room.
When the hour of supper came, Bertalda was waited for in vain. They sent for her; but the domestic found her apartments empty, and brought back with him only a sealed letter, addressed to the knight. He opened it in alarm, and read: “I feel with shame that I am only the daughter of a poor fisherman. That I for one moment forgot this, I will make expiation in the miserable hut of my parents. Farewell to you and your beautiful wife!”
Undine was troubled at heart. With eagerness she entreated Huldbrand to hasten after their friend, who had flown, and bring her back with him. Alas! she had no occasion to urge him. His passion for Bertalda again burst forth with vehemence. He hurried round the castle, inquiring whether any one had seen which way the fair fugitive had gone. He could gain no information; and was already in the court on his horse, determining to take at a venture the road by which he had conducted Bertalda to the castle, when there appeared a page, who assured him that he had met the lady on the path to the Black Valley. Swift as an arrow, the knight sprang through the gate in the direction pointed out, without hearing Undine’s voice of agony, as she cried after him from the window: “To the Black Valley? Oh, not there! Huldbrand, not there! Or if you will go, for Heaven’s sake take me with you!”
But when she perceived that all her calling was of no avail, she ordered her white palfrey to be instantly saddled, and followed the knight, without permitting a single servant to accompany her.
The Black Valley lies secluded far among the mountains. What its present name may be I am unable to say. At the time of which I am speaking, the country-people gave it this appellation from the deep obscurity produced by the shadows of lofty trees, more especially by a crowded growth of firs that covered this region of moorland. Even the brook, which bubbled between the rocks, assumed the same dark hue, and showed nothing of that cheerful aspect which streams are wont to wear that have the blue sky immediately over them.
It was now the dusk of evening; and between the heights it had become extremely wild and gloomy. The knight, in great anxiety, skirted the border of the brook. He was at one time fearful that, by delay, he should allow the fugitive to advance too far before him; and then again, in his too eager rapidity, he was afraid he might somewhere overlook and pass by her, should she be desirous of concealing herself from his search. He had in the meantime penetrated pretty far into the valley, and might hope soon to overtake the maiden, provided he were pursuing the right track. The fear, indeed, that he might not as yet have gained it, made his heart beat with more and more of anxiety. In the stormy night which was now approaching, and which always fell more fearfully over this valley, where would the delicate Bertalda shelter herself, should he fail to find her? At last, while these thoughts were darting across his mind, he saw something white glimmer through the branches on the ascent of the mountain. He thought he recognized Bertalda’s robe; and he directed his course towards it. But his horse refused to go forward; he reared with a fury so uncontrollable, and his master was so unwilling to lose a moment, that (especially as he saw the thickets were altogether impassable on horseback) he dismounted, and, having fastened his snorting steed to an elm, worked his way with caution through the matted underwood. The branches, moistened by the cold drops of the evening dew, struck against his forehead and cheeks; distant thunder muttered from the further side of the mountains; and everything put on so strange an appearance, that he began to feel a dread of the white figure, which now lay at a short distance from him upon the ground. Still, he could see distinctly that it was a female, either asleep or in a swoon, and dressed in long white garments such as Bertalda had worn the past day. Approaching quite near to her, he made a rustling with the branches and a ringing with his sword; but she did not move.
“Bertalda!” he cried, at first low, then louder and louder; yet she heard him not. At last, when he uttered the dear name with an energy yet more powerful, a hollow echo from the mountain-summits around the valley returned the deadened sound, “Bertalda!” Still the sleeper continued insensible. He stooped down; but the duskiness of the valley, and the obscurity of twilight would not allow him to distinguish her features. While, with painful uncertainty, he was bending over her, a flash of lightning suddenly shot across the valley. By this stream of light he saw a frightfully distorted visage close to his own, and a hoarse voice reached his ear: “You enamoured swain, give me a kiss!” Huldbrand sprang upon his feet with a cry of horror, and the hideous figure rose with him.
“Go home!” it cried, with a deep murmur: “the fiends are abroad. Go home! or I have you!” And it stretched towards him its long white arms.
“Malicious Kuhleborn!” exclaimed the knight, with restored energy; “if Kuhleborn you are, what business have you here? --what’s your will, you goblin? There, take your kiss!” And in fury he struck his sword at the form. But it vanished like vapour; and a rush of water, which wetted him through and through, left him in no doubt with what foe he had been engaged.
“He wishes to frighten me back from my pursuit of Bertalda,” said he to himself. “He imagines that I shall be terrified at his senseless tricks, and resign the poor distressed maiden to his power, so that he can wreak his vengeance upon her at will. But that he shall not, weak spirit of the flood! What the heart of man can do, when it exerts the full force of its will and of its noblest powers, the poor goblin cannot fathom.”
He felt the truth of his words, and that they had inspired his heart with fresh courage. Fortune, too, appeared to favour him; for, before reaching his fastened steed, he distinctly heard the voice of Bertalda, weeping not far before him, amid the roar of the thunder and the tempest, which every moment increased. He flew swiftly towards the sound, and found the trembling maiden, just as she was attempting to climb the steep, hoping to escape from the dreadful darkness of this valley. He drew near her with expressions of love; and bold and proud as her resolution had so lately been, she now felt nothing but joy that the man whom she so passionately loved should rescue her from this frightful solitude, and thus call her back to the joyful life in the castle. She followed almost unresisting, but so spent with fatigue, that the knight was glad to bring her to his horse, which he now hastily unfastened from the elm, in order to lift the fair wanderer upon him, and then to lead him carefully by the reins through the uncertain shades of the valley.
But, owing to the wild apparition of Kuhleborn, the horse had become wholly unmanageable. Rearing and wildly snorting as he was, the knight must have used uncommon effort to mount the beast himself; to place the trembling Bertalda upon him was impossible. They were compelled, therefore, to return home on foot. While with one hand the knight drew the steed after him by the bridle, he supported the tottering Bertalda with the other. She exerted all the strengths in her power in order to escape speedily from this vale of terrors. But weariness weighed her down like lead; and all her limbs trembled, partly in consequence of what she had suffered from the extreme terror which Kuhleborn had already caused her, and partly from her present fear at the roar of the tempest and thunder amid the mountain forest.
At last she slid from the arm of the knight; and sinking upon the moss, she said: “Only let me lie here, my noble lord. I suffer the punishment due to my folly; and I must perish here through faintness and dismay.”
“Never, gentle lady, will I leave you,” cried Huldbrand, vainly trying to restrain the furious animal he was leading, for the horse was all in a foam, and began to chafe more ungovernably than before, till the knight was glad to keep him at such a distance from the exhausted maiden as to save her from a new alarm. But hardly had he withdrawn five steps with the frantic steed when she began to call after him in the most sorrowful accents, fearful that he would actually leave her in this horrible wilderness. He was at a loss what course to take. He would gladly have given the enraged beast his liberty; he would have let him rush away amid the night and exhaust his fury, had he not feared that in this narrow defile his iron-shod hoofs might come thundering over the very spot where Bertalda lay.
In this extreme peril and embarrassment he heard with delight the rumbling wheels of a waggon as it came slowly descending the stony way behind them. He called out for help; answer was returned in the deep voice of a man, bidding them have patience, but promising assistance; and two grey horses soon after shone through the bushes, and near them their driver in the white frock of a carter; and next appeared a great sheet of white linen, with which the goods he seemed to be conveying were covered. The greys, in obedience to a shout from their master, stood still. He came up to the knight, and aided him in checking the fury of the foaming charger.
“I know well enough,” said he, “what is the matter with the brute. The first time I travelled this way my horses were just as wilful and headstrong as yours. The reason is, there is a water-spirit haunts this valley--and a wicked wight they say he is--who takes delight in mischief and witcheries of this sort. But I have learned a charm; and if you will let me whisper it in your horse’s ear, he will stand just as quiet as my silver greys there.”
“Try your luck, then, and help us as quickly as possible!” said the impatient knight.
Upon this the waggoner drew down the head of the rearing courser close to his own, and spoke some words in his ear. The animal instantly stood still and subdued; only his quick panting and smoking sweat showed his recent violence.
Huldbrand had little time to inquire by what means this had been effected. He agreed with the man that he should take Bertalda in his waggon, where, as he said, a quantity of soft cotton was stowed, and he might in this way convey her to Castle Ringstetten. The knight could accompany them on horseback. But the horse appeared to be too much exhausted to carry his master so far. Seeing this, the man advised him to mount the waggon with Bertalda. The horse could be attached to it behind.
“It is down-hill,” said he, “and the load for my greys will therefore be light.”
The knight accepted his offer, and entered the waggon with Bertalda. The horse followed patiently after, while the waggoner, sturdy and attentive, walked beside them.
Amid the silence and deepening obscurity of the night, the tempest sounding more and more remote, in the comfortable feeling of their security, a confidential conversation arose between Huldbrand and Bertalda. He reproached her in the most flattering words for her resentful flight. She excused herself with humility and feeling; and from every tone of her voice it shone out, like a lamp guiding to the beloved through night and darkness, that Huldbrand was still dear to her. The knight felt the sense of her words rather than heard the words themselves, and answered simply to this sense.
Then the waggoner suddenly shouted, with a startling voice: “Up, my greys, up with your feet! Hey, now together! --show your spirit! --remember who you are!”
The knight bent over the side of the waggon, and saw that the horses had stepped into the midst of a foaming stream, and were, indeed, almost swimming, while the wheels of the waggon were rushing round and flashing like mill-wheels; and the waggoner had got on before, to avoid the swell of the flood.
“What sort of a road is this? It leads into the middle of the stream!” cried Huldbrand to his guide.
“Not at all, sir,” returned he, with a laugh; “it is just the contrary. The stream is running in the middle of our road. Only look about you, and see how all is overflowed!”
The whole valley, in fact, was in commotion, as the waters, suddenly raised and visibly rising, swept over it.
“It is Kuhleborn, that evil water-spirit, who wishes to drown us!” exclaimed the knight. “Have you no charm of protection against him, friend?”
“I have one,” answered the waggoner; “but I cannot and must not make use of it before you know who I am.”
“Is this a time for riddles?” cried the knight. “The flood is every moment rising higher; and what does it concern ME to know who YOU are?”
“But mayhap it does concern you, though,” said the guide; “for I am Kuhleborn.”
Thus speaking he thrust his head into the waggon, and laughed with a distorted visage. But the waggon remained a waggon no longer; the grey horses were horses no longer; all was transformed to foam--all sank into the waters that rushed and hissed around them; while the waggoner himself, rising in the form of a gigantic wave, dragged the vainly-struggling courser under the waters, then rose again huge as a liquid tower, swept over the heads of the floating pair, and was on the point of burying them irrecoverably beneath it. Then the soft voice of Undine was heard through the uproar; the moon emerged from the clouds; and by its light Undine was seen on the heights above the valley. She rebuked, she threatened the floods below her. The menacing and tower-like billow vanished, muttering and murmuring; the waters gently flowed away under the beams of the moon; while Undine, like a hovering white dove, flew down from the hill, raised the knight and Bertalda, and bore them to a green spot, where, by her earnest efforts, she soon restored them and dispelled their terrors. She then assisted Bertalda to mount the white palfrey on which she had herself been borne to the valley; and thus all three returned homeward to Castle Ringstetten.
|
{
"id": "2825"
}
|
8
|
None
|
After this last adventure they lived at the castle undisturbed and in peaceful enjoyment. The knight was more and more impressed with the heavenly goodness of his wife, which she had so nobly shown by her instant pursuit and by the rescue she had effected in the Black Valley, where the power of Kuhleborn again commenced. Undine herself enjoyed that peace and security which never fails the soul as long as it knows distinctly that it is on the right path; and besides, in the newly-awakened love and regard of her husband, a thousand gleams of hope and joy shone upon her.
Bertalda, on the other hand, showed herself grateful, humble, and timid, without taking to herself any merit for so doing. Whenever Huldbrand or Undine began to explain to her their reasons for covering the fountain, or their adventures in the Black Valley, she would earnestly entreat them to spare her the recital, for the recollection of the fountain occasioned her too much shame, and that of the Black Valley too much terror. She learnt nothing more about either of them; and what would she have gained from more knowledge? Peace and joy had visibly taken up their abode at Castle Ringstetten. They enjoyed their present blessings in perfect security, and now imagined that life could produce nothing but pleasant flowers and fruits.
In this happiness winter came and passed away; and spring, with its foliage of tender green, and its heaven of softest blue, succeeded to gladden the hearts of the three inmates of the castle. The season was in harmony with their minds, and their minds imparted their own hues to the season. What wonder, then, that its storks and swallows inspired them also with a disposition to travel? On a bright morning, while they were wandering down to one of the sources of the Danube, Huldbrand spoke of the magnificence of this noble stream, how it continued swelling as it flowed through countries enriched by its waters, with what splendour Vienna rose and sparkled on its banks, and how it grew lovelier and more imposing throughout its progress.
“It must be glorious to trace its course down to Vienna!” Bertalda exclaimed, with warmth; but immediately resuming the humble and modest demeanour she had recently shown, she paused and blushed in silence.
This much moved Undine; and with the liveliest wish to gratify her friend, she said, “What hinders our taking this little voyage?”
Bertalda leapt up with delight, and the two friends at the same moment began painting this enchanting voyage on the Danube in the most brilliant colours. Huldbrand, too, agreed to the project with pleasure; only he once whispered, with something of alarm, in Undine’s ear-- “But at that distance Kuhleborn becomes possessed of his power again!”
“Let him come, let him come,” she answered with a laugh; “I shall be there, and he dares do none of his mischief in my presence.”
Thus was the last impediment removed. They prepared for the expedition, and soon set out upon it with lively spirits and the brightest hopes.
But be not surprised, O man, if events almost always happen very differently from what you expect. That malicious power which lies in ambush for our destruction delights to lull its chosen victim asleep with sweet songs and golden delusions; while, on the other hand, the messenger of heaven often strikes sharply at our door, to alarm and awaken us.
During the first days of their passage down the Danube they were unusually happy. The further they advanced upon the waters of this proud river, the views became more and more fair. But amid scenes otherwise most delicious, and from which they had promised themselves the purest delight, the stubborn Kuhleborn, dropping all disguise, began to show his power of annoying them. He had no other means of doing this, indeed, than by tricks--for Undine often rebuked the swelling waves or the contrary winds, and then the insolence of the enemy was instantly humbled and subdued; but his attacks were renewed, and Undine’s reproofs again became necessary, so that the pleasure of the fellow-travellers was completely destroyed. The boatmen, too, were continually whispering to one another in dismay, and eying their three superiors with distrust, while even the servants began more and more to form dismal surmises, and to watch their master and mistress with looks of suspicion.
Huldbrand often said in his own mind, “This comes when like marries not like--when a man forms an unnatural union with a sea-maiden.” Excusing himself, as we all love to do, he would add: “I did not, in fact, know that she was a maid of the sea. It is my misfortune that my steps are haunted and disturbed by the wild humours of her kindred, but it is not my crime.”
By reflections like these, he felt himself in some measure strengthened; but, on the other hand, he felt the more ill-humour, almost dislike, towards Undine. He would look angrily at her, and the unhappy wife but too well understood his meaning. One day, grieved by this unkindness, as well as exhausted by her unremitted exertions to frustrate the artifices of Kuhleborn, she toward evening fell into a deep slumber, rocked and soothed by the gentle motion of the bark. But hardly had she closed her eyes, when every person in the boat, in whatever direction he might look, saw the head of a man, frightful beyond imagination: each head rose out of the waves, not like that of a person swimming, but quite perpendicular, as if firmly fastened to the watery mirror, and yet moving on with the bark. Every one wished to show to his companion what terrified himself, and each perceived the same expression of horror on the face of the other, only hands and eyes were directed to a different quarter, as if to a point where the monster, half laughing and half threatening, rose opposite to each.
When, however, they wished to make one another understand the site, and all cried out, “Look, there!” “No, there!” the frightful heads all became visible to each, and the whole river around the boat swarmed with the most horrible faces. All raised a scream of terror at the sight, and Undine started from sleep. As she opened her eyes, the deformed visages disappeared. But Huldbrand was made furious by so many hideous visions. He would have burst out in wild imprecations, had not Undine with the meekest looks and gentlest tone of voice said-- “For God’s sake, my husband, do not express displeasure against me here--we are on the water.”
The knight was silent, and sat down absorbed in deep thought. Undine whispered in his ear, “Would it not be better, my love, to give up this foolish voyage, and return to Castle Ringstetten in peace?”
But Huldbrand murmured wrathfully: “So I must become a prisoner in my own castle, and not be allowed to breathe a moment but while the fountain is covered? Would to Heaven that your cursed kindred--” Then Undine pressed her fair hand on his lips caressingly. He said no more; but in silence pondered on all that Undine had before said.
Bertalda, meanwhile, had given herself up to a crowd of thronging thoughts. Of Undine’s origin she knew a good deal, but not the whole; and the terrible Kuhleborn especially remained to her an awful, an impenetrable mystery--never, indeed, had she once heard his name. Musing upon these wondrous things, she unclasped, without being fully conscious of what she was doing, a golden necklace, which Huldbrand, on one of the preceding days of their passage, had bought for her of a travelling trader; and she was now letting it float in sport just over the surface of the stream, while in her dreamy mood she enjoyed the bright reflection it threw on the water, so clear beneath the glow of evening. That instant a huge hand flashed suddenly up from the Danube, seized the necklace in its grasp, and vanished with it beneath the flood. Bertalda shrieked aloud, and a scornful laugh came pealing up from the depth of the river.
The knight could now restrain his wrath no longer. He started up, poured forth a torrent of reproaches, heaped curses upon all who interfered with his friends and troubled his life, and dared them all, water-spirits or mermaids, to come within the sweep of his sword.
Bertalda, meantime, wept for the loss of the ornament so very dear to her heart, and her tears were to Huldbrand as oil poured upon the flame of his fury; while Undine held her hand over the side of the boat, dipping it in the waves, softly murmuring to herself, and only at times interrupting her strange mysterious whisper to entreat her husband-- “Do not reprove me here, beloved; blame all others as you will, but not me. You know why!” And in truth, though he was trembling with excess of passion, he kept himself from any word directly against her.
She then brought up in her wet hand, which she had been holding under the waves, a coral necklace, of such exquisite beauty, such sparkling brilliancy, as dazzled the eyes of all who beheld it. “Take this,” said she, holding it out kindly to Bertalda, “I have ordered it to be brought to make some amends for your loss; so do not grieve any more, poor child.”
But the knight rushed between then, and snatching the beautiful ornament out of Undine’s hand, hurled it back into the flood; and, mad with rage, exclaimed: “So, then, you have still a connection with them! In the name of all witches go and remain among them with your presents, you sorceress, and leave us human beings in peace!”
With fixed but streaming eyes, poor Undine gazed on him, her hand still stretched out, just as when she had so lovingly offered her brilliant gift to Bertalda. She then began to weep more and more, as if her heart would break, like an innocent tender child, cruelly aggrieved. At last, wearied out, she said: “Farewell, dearest, farewell. They shall do you no harm; only remain true, that I may have power to keep them from you. But I must go hence! go hence even in this early youth! Oh, woe, woe! what have you done! Oh, woe, woe!”
And she vanished over the side of the boat. Whether she plunged into the stream, or whether, like water melting into water, she flowed away with it, they knew not--her disappearance was like both and neither. But she was lost in the Danube, instantly and completely; only little waves were yet whispering and sobbing around the boat, and they could almost be heard to say, “Oh, woe, woe! Ah, remain true! Oh, woe!”
But Huldbrand, in a passion of burning tears, threw himself upon the deck of the bark; and a deep swoon soon wrapped the wretched man in a blessed forgetfulness of misery.
Shall we call it a good or an evil thing, that our mourning has no long duration? I mean that deep mourning which comes from the very well-springs of our being, which so becomes one with the lost objects of our love that we hardly realize their loss, while our grief devotes itself religiously to the honouring of their image until we reach that bourne which they have already reached!
Truly all good men observe in a degree this religious devotion; but yet it soon ceases to be that first deep grief. Other and new images throng in, until, to our sorrow, we experience the vanity of all earthly things. Therefore I must say: Alas, that our mourning should be of such short duration!
The lord of Ringstetten experienced this; but whether for his good, we shall discover in the sequel of this history. At first he could do nothing but weep--weep as bitterly as the poor gentle Undine had wept when he snatched out of her hand that brilliant ornament, with which she so kindly wished to make amends for Bertalda’s loss. And then he stretched his hand out, as she had done, and wept again like her, with renewed violence. He cherished a secret hope, that even the springs of life would at last become exhausted by weeping. And has not the like thought passed through the minds of many of us with a painful pleasure in times of sore affliction? Bertalda wept with him; and they lived together a long while at the castle of Ringstetten in undisturbed quiet, honouring the memory of Undine, and having almost wholly forgotten their former attachment. And therefore the good Undine, about this time, often visited Huldbrand’s dreams: she soothed him with soft and affectionate caresses, and then went away again, weeping in silence; so that when he awoke, he sometimes knew not how his cheeks came to be so wet--whether it was caused by her tears, or only by his own.
But as time advanced, these visions became less frequent, and the sorrow of the knight less keen; still he might never, perhaps, have entertained any other wish than thus quietly to think of Undine, and to speak of her, had not the old fisherman arrived unexpectedly at the castle, and earnestly insisted on Bertalda’s returning with him as his child. He had received information of Undine’s disappearance; and he was not willing to allow Bertalda to continue longer at the castle with the widowed knight. “For,” said he, “whether my daughter loves me or not is at present what I care not to know; but her good name is at stake: and where that is the case, nothing else may be thought of.”
This resolution of the old fisherman, and the fearful solitude that, on Bertalda’s departure, threatened to oppress the knight in every hall and passage of the deserted castle, brought to light what had disappeared in his sorrow for Undine,--I mean, his attachment to the fair Bertalda; and this he made known to her father.
The fisherman had many objections to make to the proposed marriage. The old man had loved Undine with exceeding tenderness, and it was doubtful to his mind that the mere disappearance of his beloved child could be properly viewed as her death. But were it even granted that her corpse were lying stiff and cold at the bottom of the Danube, or swept away by the current to the ocean, still Bertalda had had some share in her death; and it was unfitting for her to step into the place of the poor injured wife. The fisherman, however, had felt a strong regard also for the knight: this and the entreaties of his daughter, who had become much more gentle and respectful, as well as her tears for Undine, all exerted their influence, and he must at last have been forced to give up his opposition, for he remained at the castle without objection, and a messenger was sent off express to Father Heilmann, who in former and happier days had united Undine and Huldbrand, requesting him to come and perform the ceremony at the knight’s second marriage.
Hardly had the holy man read through the letter from the lord of Ringstetten, ere he set out upon the journey and made much greater dispatch on his way to the castle than the messenger from it had made in reaching him. Whenever his breath failed him in his rapid progress, or his old limbs ached with fatigue, he would say to himself: “Perhaps I shall be able to prevent a sin; then sink not, withered body, before I arrive at the end of my journey!” And with renewed vigour he pressed forward, hurrying on without rest or repose, until, late one evening, he entered the shady court-yard of the castle of Ringstetten.
The betrothed were sitting side by side under the trees, and the aged fisherman in a thoughtful mood sat near them. The moment they saw Father Heilmann, they rose with a spring of joy, and pressed round him with eager welcome. But he, in a few words, asked the bridegroom to return with him into the castle; and when Huldbrand stood mute with surprise, and delayed complying with his earnest request, the pious preacher said to him-- “I do not know why I should want to speak to you in private; what I have to say as much concerns Bertalda and the fisherman as yourself; and what we must at some time hear, it is best to hear as soon as possible. Are you, then, so very certain, Knight Huldbrand, that your first wife is actually dead? I can hardly think it. I will say nothing, indeed, of the mysterious state in which she may be now existing; I know nothing of it with certainty. But that she was a most devoted and faithful wife is beyond all dispute. And for fourteen nights past, she has appeared to me in a dream, standing at my bedside wringing her tender hands in anguish, and sighing out, ‘Ah, prevent him, dear father! I am still living! Ah, save his life! Ah, save his soul!’
“I did not understand what this vision of the night could mean, then came your messenger; and I have now hastened hither, not to unite, but, as I hope, to separate what ought not to be joined together. Leave her, Huldbrand! leave him, Bertalda! He still belongs to another; and do you not see on his pale cheek his grief for his lost wife? That is not the look of a bridegroom; and the spirit says to me, that ‘if you do not leave him you will never be happy! ’” The three felt in their inmost hearts that Father Heilmann spoke the truth; but they would not believe it. Even the old fisherman was so infatuated, that he thought it could not be otherwise than as they had latterly settled amongst themselves. They all, therefore, with a determined and gloomy eagerness, struggled against the representations and warnings of the priest, until, shaking his head and oppressed with sorrow, he finally quitted the castle, not choosing to accept their offered shelter even for a single night, or indeed so much as to taste a morsel of the refreshment they brought him. Huldbrand persuaded himself, however, that the priest was a mere visionary; and sent at daybreak to a monk of the nearest monastery, who, without scruple, promised to perform the ceremony in a few days.
|
{
"id": "2825"
}
|
9
|
None
|
It was between night and dawn of day that Huldbrand was lying on his couch, half waking and half sleeping. Whenever he attempted to compose himself to sleep, a terror came upon him and scared him, as if his slumbers were haunted with spectres. But he made an effort to rouse himself fully. He felt fanned as by the wings of a swan, and lulled as by the murmuring of waters, till in sweet confusion of the senses he sank back into his state of half-consciousness.
At last, however, he must have fallen perfectly asleep; for he seemed to be lifted up by wings of the swans, and to be wafted far away over land and sea, while their music swelled on his ear most sweetly. “The music of the swan! the song of the swan!” he could not but repeat to himself every moment; “is it not a sure foreboding of death?” Probably, however, it had yet another meaning. All at once he seemed to be hovering over the Mediterranean Sea. A swan sang melodiously in his ear, that this was the Mediterranean Sea. And while he was looking down upon the waves, they became transparent as crystal, so that he could see through them to the very bottom.
At this a thrill of delight shot through him, for he could see Undine where she was sitting beneath the clear crystal dome. It is true she was weeping very bitterly, and looked much sadder than in those happy days when they lived together at the castle of Ringstetten, both on their arrival and afterward, just before they set out upon their fatal passage down the Danube. The knight could not help thinking upon all this with deep emotion, but it did not appear that Undine was aware of his presence.
Kuhleborn had meanwhile approached her, and was about to reprove her for weeping, when she drew herself up, and looked upon him with an air so majestic and commanding, that he almost shrank back.
“Although I now dwell here beneath the waters,” said she, “yet I have brought my soul with me. And therefore I may weep, little as you can know what such tears are. They are blessed, as everything is blessed to one gifted with a true soul.”
He shook his head incredulously; and after some thought, replied, “And yet, niece, you are subject to our laws, as a being of the same nature with ourselves; and should HE prove unfaithful to you and marry again, you are obliged to take away his life.”
“He remains a widower to this very hour,” replied Undine, “and I am still dear to his sorrowful heart.”
“He is, however, betrothed,” said Kuhleborn, with a laugh of scorn; “and let only a few days wear away, and then comes the priest with his nuptial blessing; and then you must go up to the death of the husband with two wives.”
“I have not the power,” returned Undine, with a smile. “I have sealed up the fountain securely against myself and all of my race.”
“Still, should he leave his castle,” said Kuhleborn, “or should he once allow the fountain to be uncovered, what then? for he thinks little enough of these things.”
“For that very reason,” said Undine, still smiling amid her tears, “for that very reason he is at this moment hovering in spirit over the Mediterranean Sea, and dreaming of the warning which our discourse gives him. I thoughtfully planned all this.”
That instant, Kuhleborn, inflamed with rage, looked up at the knight, wrathfully threatened him, stamped on the ground, and then shot like an arrow beneath the waves. He seemed to swell in his fury to the size of a whale. Again the swans began to sing, to wave their wings and fly; the knight seemed to soar away over mountains and streams, and at last to alight at Castle Ringstetten, and to awake on his couch.
Upon his couch he actually did awake; and his attendant entering at the same moment, informed him that Father Heilmann was still lingering in the neighbourhood; that he had the evening before met with him in the forest, where he was sheltering himself under a hut, which he had formed by interweaving the branches of trees, and covering them with moss and fine brushwood; and that to the question “What he was doing there, since he would not give the marriage blessing?” his answer was-- “There are many other blessings than those given at marriages; and though I did not come to officiate at the wedding, I may still officiate at a very different solemnity. All things have their seasons; we must be ready for them all. Besides, marrying and mourning are by no means so very unlike; as every one not wilfully blinded must know full well.”
The knight made many bewildered reflections on these words and on his dream. But it is very difficult to give up a thing which we have once looked upon as certain; so all continued as had been arranged previously.
Should I relate to you how passed the marriage-feast at Castle Ringstetten, it would be as if you saw a heap of bright and pleasant things, but all overspread with a black mourning crape, through whose darkening veil their brilliancy would appear but a mockery of the nothingness of all earthly joys.
It was not that any spectral delusion disturbed the scene of festivity; for the castle, as we well know, had been secured against the mischief of water-spirits. But the knight, the fisherman, and all the guests were unable to banish the feeling that the chief personage of the feast was still wanting, and that this chief personage could be no other than the gentle and beloved Undine.
Whenever a door was heard to open, all eyes were involuntarily turned in that direction; and if it was nothing but the steward with new dishes, or the cupbearer with a supply of wine of higher flavour than the last, they again looked down in sadness and disappointment, while the flashes of wit and merriment which had been passing at times from one to another, were extinguished by tears of mournful remembrance.
The bride was the least thoughtful of the company, and therefore the most happy; but even to her it sometimes seemed strange that she should be sitting at the head of the table, wearing a green wreath and gold-embroidered robe, while Undine was lying a corpse, stiff and cold, at the bottom of the Danube, or carried out by the current into the ocean. For ever since her father had suggested something of this sort, his words were continually sounding in her ear; and this day, in particular, they would neither fade from her memory, nor yield to other thoughts.
Evening had scarcely arrived, when the company returned to their homes; not dismissed by the impatience of the bridegroom, as wedding parties are sometimes broken up, but constrained solely by heavy sadness and forebodings of evil. Bertalda retired with her maidens, and the knight with his attendants, to undress, but there was no gay laughing company of bridesmaids and bridesmen at this mournful festival.
Bertalda wished to awaken more cheerful thoughts; she ordered her maidens to spread before her a brilliant set of jewels, a present from Huldbrand, together with rich apparel and veils, that she might select from among them the brightest and most beautiful for her dress in the morning. The attendants rejoiced at this opportunity of pouring forth good wishes and promises of happiness to their young mistress, and failed not to extol the beauty of the bride with the most glowing eloquence. This went on for a long time, until Bertalda at last, looking in a mirror, said with a sigh-- “Ah, but do you not see plainly how freckled I am growing? Look here on the side of my neck.”
They looked at the place, and found the freckles, indeed, as their fair mistress had said; but they called them mere beauty spots, the faintest touches of the sun, such as would only heighten the whiteness of her delicate complexion. Bertalda shook her head, and still viewed them as a blemish. “And I could remove them,” she said at last, sighing. “But the castle fountain is covered, from which I formerly used to have that precious water, so purifying to the skin. Oh, had I this evening only a single flask of it!”
“Is that all?” cried an alert waiting-maid, laughing as she glided out of the apartment.
“She will not be so foolish,” said Bertalda, well-pleased and surprised, “as to cause the stone cover of the fountain to be taken off this very evening?” That instant they heard the tread of men passing along the court-yard, and could see from the window where the officious maiden was leading them directly up to the fountain, and that they carried levers and other instruments on their shoulders.
“It is certainly my will,” said Bertalda with a smile, “if it does not take them too long.” And pleased with the thought, that a word from her was now sufficient to accomplish what had formerly been refused with a painful reproof, she looked down upon their operations in the bright moonlit castle-court.
The men raised the enormous stone with an effort; some one of the number indeed would occasionally sigh, when he recollected they were destroying the work of their former beloved mistress. Their labour, however, was much lighter than they had expected. It seemed as if some power from within the fountain itself aided them in raising the stone.
“It appears,” said the workmen to one another in astonishment, “as if the confined water had become a springing fountain.” And the stone rose more and more, and, almost without the assistance of the work-people, rolled slowly down upon the pavement with a hollow sound. But an appearance from the opening of the fountain filled them with awe, as it rose like a white column of water; at first they imagined it really to be a fountain, until they perceived the rising form to be a pale female, veiled in white. She wept bitterly, raised her hands above her head, wringing them sadly as with slow and solemn step she moved toward the castle. The servants shrank back, and fled from the spring, while the bride, pale and motionless with horror, stood with her maidens at the window. When the figure had now come close beneath their room, it looked up to them sobbing, and Bertalda thought she recognized through the veil the pale features of Undine. But the mourning form passed on, sad, reluctant, and lingering, as if going to the place of execution. Bertalda screamed to her maids to call the knight; not one of them dared to stir from her place; and even the bride herself became again mute, as if trembling at the sound of her own voice.
While they continued standing at the window, motionless as statues, the mysterious wanderer had entered the castle, ascended the well-known stairs, and traversed the well-known halls in silent tears. Alas, how different had she once passed through these rooms!
The knight had in the meantime dismissed his attendants. Half-undressed and in deep dejection, he was standing before a large mirror, a wax taper burned dimly beside him. At this moment some one tapped at his door very, very softly. Undine had formerly tapped in this way, when she was playing some of her endearing wiles.
“It is all an illusion!” said he to himself. “I must to my nuptial bed.”
“You must indeed, but to a cold one!” he heard a voice, choked with sobs, repeat from without; and then he saw in the mirror, that the door of his room was slowly, slowly opened, and the white figure entered, and gently closed it behind her.
“They have opened the spring,” said she in a low tone; “and now I am here, and you must die.”
He felt, in his failing breath, that this must indeed be; but covering his eyes with his hands, he cried: “Do not in my death-hour, do not make me mad with terror. If that veil conceals hideous features, do not lift it! Take my life, but let me not see you.”
“Alas!” replied the pale figure, “will you not then look upon me once more? I am as fair now as when you wooed me on the island!”
“Oh, if it indeed were so,” sighed Huldbrand, “and that I might die by a kiss from you!”
“Most willingly, my own love,” said she. She threw back her veil; heavenly fair shone forth her pure countenance. Trembling with love and the awe of approaching death, the knight leant towards her. She kissed him with a holy kiss; but she relaxed not her hold, pressing him more closely in her arms, and weeping as if she would weep away her soul. Tears rushed into the knight’s eyes, while a thrill both of bliss and agony shot through his heart, until he at last expired, sinking softly back from her fair arms upon the pillow of his couch a corpse.
“I have wept him to death!” said she to some domestics, who met her in the ante-chamber; and passing through the terrified group, she went slowly out, and disappeared in the fountain.
|
{
"id": "2825"
}
|
10
|
None
|
Father Heilmann had returned to the castle as soon as the death of the lord of Ringstetten was made known in the neighbourhood; and he arrived at the very hour when the monk who had married the unfortunate couple was hurrying from the door, overcome with dismay and horror.
When Father Heilmann was informed of this, he replied, “It is all well; and now come the duties of my office, in which I have no need of an assistant.”
He then began to console the bride, now a widow though with little benefit to her worldly and thoughtless spirit.
The old fisherman, on the other hand, though severely afflicted, was far more resigned to the fate of his son-in-law and daughter; and while Bertalda could not refrain from accusing Undine as a murderess and sorceress, the old man calmly said, “After all, it could not happen otherwise. I see nothing in it but the judgment of God; and no one’s heart was more pierced by the death of Huldbrand than she who was obliged to work it, the poor forsaken Undine!”
He then assisted in arranging the funeral solemnities as suited the rank of the deceased. The knight was to be interred in the village church-yard, in whose consecrated ground were the graves of his ancestors; a place which they, as well as himself, had endowed with rich privileges and gifts. His shield and helmet lay upon his coffin, ready to be lowered with it into the grave, for Lord Huldbrand of Ringstetten had died the last of his race. The mourners began their sorrowful march, chanting their melancholy songs beneath the calm unclouded heaven; Father Heilmann preceded the procession, bearing a high crucifix, while the inconsolable Bertalda followed, supported by her aged father.
Then they suddenly saw in the midst of the mourning females in the widow’s train, a snow-white figure closely veiled, and wringing its hands in the wild vehemence of sorrow. Those next to whom it moved, seized with a secret dread, started back or on one side; and owing to their movements, the others, next to whom the white stranger now came, were terrified still more, so as to produce confusion in the funeral train. Some of the military escort ventured to address the figure, and attempt to remove it from the procession, but it seemed to vanish from under their hands, and yet was immediately seen advancing again, with slow and solemn step, among the followers of the body. At last, in consequence of the shrinking away of the attendants, it came close behind Bertalda. It now moved so slowly, that the widow was not aware of its presence, and it walked meekly and humbly behind her undisturbed.
This continued until they came to the church-yard, where the procession formed a circle round the open grave. Then it was that Bertalda perceived her unbidden companion, and, half in anger and half in terror, she commanded her to depart from the knight’s place of final rest. But the veiled female, shaking her head with a gentle denial, raised her hands towards Bertalda in lowly supplication, by which she was greatly moved, and could not but remember with tears how Undine had shown such sweetness of spirit on the Danube when she held out to her the coral necklace.
Father Heilmann now motioned with his hand, and gave order for all to observe perfect stillness, that they might breathe a prayer of silent devotion over the body, upon which earth had already been thrown. Bertalda knelt without speaking; and all knelt, even the grave-diggers, who had now finished their work. But when they arose, the white stranger had disappeared. On the spot where she had knelt, a little spring, of silver brightness, was gushing out from the green turf, and it kept swelling and flowing onward with a low murmur, till it almost encircled the mound of the knight’s grave; it then continued its course, and emptied itself into a calm lake, which lay by the side of the consecrated ground. Even to this day, the inhabitants of the village point out the spring; and hold fast the belief that it is the poor deserted Undine, who in this manner still fondly encircles her beloved in her arms.
|
{
"id": "2825"
}
|
1
|
None
|
Far, far from the line of the railroads which run through the Bialorus (a part of Poland around the city of Mohileff which now belongs to Russia), far from even the navigable River Dzwina, in one of the most remote corners of the country, amidst quiet, large, level fields--still existing in some parts of Europe--between two sandy roads which disappear into the depths of a great forest, there is a group of gray houses of different sizes standing so closely together that anyone looking at them would say that they had been seized by some great fright and had crowded together in order to be able to exchange whispers and tears.
This is Szybow, a town inhabited by Israelites, almost exclusively, with the exception of a small street at the end of the place in which, in a few houses, live a few very poor burghers and very quiet old retired officials.
It is the only street that is quiet, and the only street in which flowers bloom in summer. In the other streets no flowers bloom, and they are dreadfully noisy. There the people talk and move about continually, industriously, passionately, within the houses and in the narrow dark alleys called streets, and in the round, comparatively large market-place in the centre of the town, around which there are numerous doors of stinking small shops. In this market-place after a week of transactions by the people of the vicinity, there remains an inconceivable quantity of dirt and sweepings, and here is also the high, dusky, strangely-shaped meeting house.
This building is one of the specimens, rare to-day, of Hebrew architecture. A painter and an archeologist would look upon it with an equal amount of interest. At first glance it can be easily seen that it is a synagogue, although it does not look like other churches. Its four thick walls form a monotonous quadrangle, and its brown colour gives it a touch of dignity, sadness, and antiquity. These walls must be very old indeed, for they are covered with green strips of moss. The higher parts of the walls are cut with a row of long, narrow, deeply-set windows, recalling, by their shape, the loop-holes of a fortress. The whole building is covered by a roof whose three large heavy turrets, built one upon the other, look like three moss-covered gigantic mushrooms.
Every gathering, whether of greater importance or of common occurrence, was held here, sheltered beneath the brown walls and mushroom-like roof of the temple. Here in the large round courtyard are the heders (Hebrew schools), where the kahals (church committees) gather. Here stands a low black house with two windows, a real mud hovel, inhabited for several centuries and for many generations by Rabbis of the family of Todros, famous in the community and even far beyond it. Here at least everything is clean, and while in other parts of the place, in the spring especially, the people nearly sink into the mud, the school courtyard is always clean. It would be difficult to find on it even a wisp of straw, for as soon as anything is noticed, it is at once picked up by a passer-by, anxious to keep clean the place around the temple.
How important Szybow is to the Israelites living in Bialorus, and even in Lithuania, can be judged by an embarrassing incident which occurred to a merry but unwise nobleman while in conversation with a certain Jewish agent, more spiritual than humble.
The agent was standing at the door of the office of the noble, bent a little forward, smiling, always ready to please and serve the noble, and say a witty word to put him in good humour. The noble was feeling pretty good, and joked with the Jew.
"Chaimek," spoke he, "wert thou in Cracow?"
"I was not, serene lord."
"Then thou art stupid."
Chaimek bowed.
"Chaimek, wert thou in Rome?"
"I was not, serene lord."
"Then thou art very stupid."
Chaimek bowed again, but in the meanwhile he had made two steps forward. On his lips wandered one of those smiles common to the people of his race--clever, cunning, in which it is impossible to say whether there is humility or triumph, flattery or irony.
"Excuse me, your lordship," he said softly, "has your lordship been in Szybow?"
Szybow was situated about twenty miles from the place at which this conversation was held.
The nobleman answered, "I was not."
"And what now?" answered Chaimek still more softly.
The answer of the jolly nobleman to that embarrassing question is not recorded, but the use of Szybow as an argument against the insult shows that to the Jew Szybow was of the same relative importance as were Rome and Cracow to the nobleman, i.e., as the place which was the concentration of civil and religious authorities.
If someone were to have asked the Jew why he attributed such importance to a small, poor town, he would probably mention two families who had lived in Szybow for centuries--Ezofowichs and Todros. Between these two families there existed the difference that the Ezofowichs represented the concentration in the highest degree of the element of secular importance, i.e., large family, numerous relatives, riches, and keenness in the transaction of large business interests, and in increasing their wealth. On the other hand, the Todros family represented the spiritual element--piety, religious culture, and severe, almost ascetic, purity of life.
It is probable that if Chaimek were asked the reason for the importance given to the little town, he would forget to name the Ezofowichs because, although the Israelites were proud of the riches and influence of that family as one of their national glories, this lustre, purely worldly, paled in comparison with the rays of holiness which surrounded the name of Todros.
The Todros were for generations considered by the whole Hebrew population of Bialorus and Lithuania as the most accomplished example and enduring pillar of orthodoxy. Was it really so? Here and there could be found scholarly Talmudists, who smiled when a question arose in regard to the Talmudistic orthodoxy of the Todros, and when they gathered together the name of Todros was sadly whispered about. But although the celebrated orthodoxy of the Todros was much discussed by these scholars, they were greatly in the minority--only a score among the masses of believers. The crowd believed, worshipped, and went to Szybow as to a holy place, to make obeisance and ask for advice, consolation, and medicines.
Szybow had not always possessed such an attractive power of orthodoxy; on the contrary, its founders were schismatics, representing in Israel the spirit of opposition and division, Karaites. In the times of yore they had converted to their belief the powerful inhabitants of the rich land on the shores of Chersoneses, and they became their kings. Afterwards, in accordance with the traditions of that reign, they wandered into the world with their legislative book, the Bible, double exiles, from Palestine and Crimea, and a small part of them, brought to Lithuania by the Grand Duke Witold, went as far as Bialorus and settled there in a group of houses and mud-hovels called Szybow.
In those times, on Friday and Saturday evenings, great tranquillity and darkness was spread through the town, because Karaites, contrary to the Talmudists, did not celebrate the holy day of Sabbath with an abundance of light and noisy joy and copious feasts, but they greeted it with darkness, silence, sadness, and meditation upon the downfall of the national temple, and the glory and might of the people of Israel. Then, from the blackest houses, from behind the small dark windows, there flowed into the quiet without the sound of singing; the parents were sadly telling their children of the prophets who, on the shores of the rivers in Babylon, broke their harps and cut their fingers so that none could force them to sing in captivity, of the blessed country of Havili, situated somewhere in the south of Arabia, where the ten tribes of Israel lived in liberty, happiness, and peace, not knowing quarrels or the use of the sword. They talked of the holy river, Sabbation, hiding the Israelitic wanderers from the eyes of their toes. In time, however, lights began to shine in the windows on Fridays, and then, little by little, they began to talk and pray aloud. Rabbinits arrived. The worshippers of Talmudistic authorities, representative of blind faith in oral traditions gathered and transmitted by Kohens, Tanaits, and Gaons, came and pushed aside the handful of heretics and wrecks. Under the influence of the newcomers the community of Karaites began to melt away. The last blow was struck at it by a man well-known in the history of Polish Hebrews--Michael Ezofowich, Senior.
He was the first of his name to emerge from obscurity. His family, settled in Poland for a long time, was one of these which, during the reign of Jagiellons, under the influence of privileges and laws in Poland promulgated by a (for that time) high civilisation, was united by sympathetic ties to the aboriginal population, and Ezofowich was appointed Senior over all the Hebrew population of Lithuania and Bialorus, by King Zygmunt the First, by a document which read thus: "We, Zygmunt, by God's grace, etc., make known to all Jews living on the estate, our Fatherland, having taken into consideration the faithful services of the Jew, Michael Ezofowich, and wishing you in your affairs not to meet with any obstacles and delays, according to the laws of justice, we constitute, that Michael Ezofowich shall settle all your affairs for US, and be your superior, and you must come to US through him, and be obedient to him in everything. He will judge you and rule over you according to the custom of our law, and punish the guilty ones by OUR permission, everyone according to his merit."
From the few historical notes about him, it can be seen that the Senior was a man of strong and energetic will. With a firm hand he seized the authority given him over his co-religionists, and he threw an anathema over those who would not obey him, especially on the Karaites, excluding them from the Hebrew community, and refusing them the friendship and help of their tribe. Under such a blow the existence of the inhabitants of Szybow, already poor, sad, and inactive, was made altogether unbearable. The descendants of Hazairan rulers, heretics, constituting, as always, a great minority of the population, exposed to aversion and hatred, oppressed and poor, left the place which had given them shelter for a certain time, carrying with them in their hearts their stubborn attachment to the Bible, and on their lips their poetical legends. They scattered in the broad and hostile world, leaving behind them in that little town where they had lived two hundred years only a few families, cherishing still more passionately their old graveyards, the hill now covered with the ruins of their temple, which the conquering Rabbinits had destroyed. The Rabbinits took possession of Szybow, and, if the truth be told, they changed, by their energy, industry, perfect harmony of action, the result of unusual mutual help, the quiet, gray, poor, sad little village into a town full of activity, noise, care, and riches.
In those times, under the Senior's rule, the Jews in general were prosperous. Besides material prosperity, there began to live in them the hope of a possibility of rising from their mental ignorance and social humiliation. The Senior must surely have had a superior and keen mind, for he was able to thoroughly understand the spirit of the time and the needs of his people, notwithstanding the ancient barriers and prejudices. He rejected the Karaites from the bosom of Israel, not because of religious fanaticism but for broader social reasons. Although he was a Rabbinit, and obliged to give to the religious authorities absolute faith and worship, his mind was sometimes visited by fits of scepticism--perhaps the best road to wisdom. In one of his reports to the King, refuting some objections which had been made to his sentences, he wrote, sadly and ironically: "Our different books give us different laws. Very often we know not what to do when Gamaliel differs from Eliezer. In Babylon is one truth--in Jerusalem another (two editions of the Talmud). We obey the second Moses (Majmonides) and the new ones call him heretic. I encourage the savants to write such wise books that the clever and stupid can understand them." It was at the time when the Occidental Israelites, settled in France and Spain, raised the question as to whether the professors of the Talmud and Bible should be permitted to acquire a knowledge of the lay sciences. Many opinions were considered, but none was strong enough to prevail, because the partisans of absolute separation from mental work and human tendencies constituted a great majority among the Israelites. Every society has such moments of darkness. It happens especially when a nation is exhausted by a series of successful efforts, after having undergone tortures, and enfeebled by the streams of blood poured out. The Occidental Jews, after centuries of existence in abject fear, wandering through fire and blood, passed such a moment in the sixteenth century. The time was still far distant which gave birth to famous doctors of secular sciences beloved of the people, esteemed by Kings. The high ideas of Majmonides who, giving deserved credit to the legislation of Israel, admired also the Greek scholars, were also far from the--they were even forgotten. Majmonides, who wished to base the knowledge of the Bible and Talmud on a foundation of mathematical and astronomical truths, and make it durable; who openly expressed the desire to shorten the twenty-five hundred sheets of the Talmud into one chapter, clear as the day; who did not justify religious beliefs which were contrary to commonsense, and claimed that "the eyes are placed in the front, and not in the rear of man's head, in order that he may look before him," and prophesied that the whole world would one day be filled with knowledge, as the sea is filled with water--such a man was despised. Four centuries had passed since the dignified, sweet, highly sympathetic figure of the Israelitic thinker had disappeared from the face of the earth. He was one of the greatest thinkers of the middle ages. The giant with the eagle eye and fiery heart had been succeeded by dwarfs, whose weak breasts were saturated with bitterness, and whose eyes looked on the world sadly, suspiciously, narrow-mindedly. "Keep away from Greek knowledge," Joseph Ezobi cried to his son, "because it is like the wine-garden of Sodom, pouring into man's head drunkenness and sin."
"The strangers are pushing into the Gates of Zion!" lamented Abba-Mari, when he learned that the Hebrew youths had begun to study with masters of other religions. And all the Rabbis and the Presidents of the Jewish communities in the West, ordered that no man under thirty years of age should study the lay sciences. "Because," said they, "he who has filled his mind with the Bible, and Talmud has the right to warm himself at the stranger's flame."
The bolder ones, while submitting to the decision of their superiors, cried, "Rabbi, how can we study lay sciences after our thirtieth year, when our minds will have become dulled and our memory tired, and we shall possess enthusiasm no longer and strength of youth."
The orders were obeyed. Their minds grew dull, tired memory fainted, and the strength and enthusiasm of youth left them. Majmonides, grave, silent, motionless, stood in the midst of the sea of darkness which covered the people who had been conducted by him toward the light. They cursed his memory, and a devastating hand rubbed off his tomb its grateful and glorious inscription, replacing it with stiff and cruel words, as fanatical as ignorant: "Here lies Moses Majmonides, excommunicated heretic."
At the same time the same quarrels raged among the Hebrews settled in Poland, but being less tired by persecution, and because they were less tormented than their brothers in the West, and were freer and more sure of their privileges than their brothers in the West, their aversion to the 'stranger's flames' was less passionate. Nay, there was among them quite a numerous party which cried for secular sciences--for brotherhood with the rest of humanity in intellectual efforts and tendencies. One of these men who stood at the head of this party was the Lithuanian Senior, Ezofowich. Under his influence the Jewish Synod convocated in those times, issued a proclamation to all the Polish Jews. The principal paragraph of this was: "Jehovah has numerous Sefirots, Adam has had numerous emanations of perfection. Therefore an Israelite must not be satisfied with one religious science only. Although it is a holy science the others must not on this account be neglected. The best fruit is a paradise apple, but shall we not eat less good apples? There were Jews in the courts of kings; Mordoheus was a savant, Esther was clever, Nehemias was a Persian counsellor, and they liberated the people from captivity. Study; be useful to the King and the nobles will respect you. The Jews are as numerous as the sands of the sea and the stars in the sky; they do not shine like the stars, but everyone tramples on them as on the sand. The wind scatters the seeds of different trees, and none asks from where the most beautiful tree has its origin. Why, then, should there not rise among us a Cedar of Lebanon, instead of thorn-bushes?"
The man under whose inspiration the proclamation was written, calling the Polish Jews to turn their faces to where the light of the future was dawning, met, eye to eye, the man with his face set toward the past and darkness.
This man was a newcomer from Spain, and settled in Szybow. His name was Nehemias Todros, the descendant of the famous Todros Abulaffi Halevi who, famous for his Talmudistic learning and orthodoxy and knowledge, was afterwards carried away by the gloomy secrets of Kabalists, and helping it with his authority, was the cause of the most dreadful error among the Jews from which any nation can suffer. The tradition says that the same Nehemias Todros who had a princely title, Nassi, was the first to bring to Poland the book, Zohar, in which was explained the quintessence of the perilous doctrine, and from that day there comes from Poland the mixture of the Talmud with Kabalistic ideas which has influenced very badly the minds and the lives of the Polish Jews. History is silent regarding the quarrels and fights aroused by this innovation among the people who were in a fair way of emerging from the darkness which surrounded them, but the traditions, piously preserved in the families, tell, that in the fight, which lasted a long time and was very obstinate, between Michael Ezofowich, for a considerable period a Polish Jew, and Nehemias Todros, a Spanish newcomer, the first was vanquished. Consumed with grief caused by the sight of his people returning to the old false roads, crushed by intrigues set afoot against him by the gloomy adversary, he died in his prime. His name descended from generation to generation of Ezofowichs. They were all proud of his memory, although in time they understood less of its importance. From that time dated the great authority of the Todros and the gradual diminution of moral influence exerted by the Ezofowichs. The last ones being driven out by those fresh from the field of waste, social activity, they turned all their abilities in the direction of business, with the aim of increasing their material welfare. The navigable rivers were every year covered with vessels owned by them, and carrying to remote parts enormous quantities of merchandise. Their house, standing in the midst of the poor town, became more and more the centre of national riches and industry. To them, as to the modern Rothschilds, everyone went in need of gold to carry out their enterprises. The Ezofowichs were proud of their material might, and gave up entirely caring about the other--the might of spiritual influence and the fate of the people possessed by their grandfather, and of which they were robbed by Todros--by those Todros who, poor, almost beggars, living in the wretched little house which stood near the temple, disparaging everything which had the appearance of comfort and beauty, but who were, nevertheless, famous all over the country, and were enveloped in the pious dreams and hopes of their people. And only once during two centuries did one of the Ezofowichs attempt to lay hold of not only material--but also moral dignity. It happened toward the end of the last century. The great Four-Year Parliament was in session at Warsaw. The reports of its discussions reached even the small town in Bialorus. The people living there listened and waited. From lips to lips rushed the news of hope and fear--the Jews were under discussion at this Parliament!
What do they say about us? What do they write about us? the long--bearded passers-by asked each other, as they walked through the narrow streets of Szybow, dressed in long halats and big fur caps This curiosity increased each day to such an extent that it finally-extraordinary event--stopped the business transactions and money circulation. Some of them even undertook the long, difficult journey to Warsaw, in order to be near the source of news, and from there they sent their brethren who remained in the little town of Bialorus, long letters, rumpled and spotted newspapers, and leaves torn from different pamphlets, and books.
Of those who remained in the town, two men were most attentive and most impatient--Nohim Todros, Rabbi, and Hersh Ezofowich, rich merchant. There was a muffled, secret antipathy between them. Apparently they were on good terms, but at every opportunity there burst forth the antagonism which existed between the great-grandson of Michael the Senior, the disciple of Majmonides, and the descendant of Nehemias Todros, Kabalistic fanatic.
Finally there came from Warsaw to Szybow a crumpled sheet of paper, which had turned yellow during the journey, and on it were the following words: "All differences in dress, language, and customs existing between the Jews and early inhabitants must be abolished. Leave alone everything concerning religion. Tolerate even the sects if they work no moral injury. Do not baptise a Jew before he is twenty years old. Give to the Jews the right to acquire land, and do not collect any taxes from those who will take agriculture for five years. Supply them with farm stock. Forbid marriages before the age of twenty for men and eighteen for women."
This sheet was carried about and read hundreds of times in the houses, streets and squares. It was waved as a flag of triumph or mourning, until it went to pieces in those thousands of unhappy, trembling hands. But the population of Szybow did not express its opinion of that news. A smaller part of it turned their questioning eyes toward Hersh; others, more numerous, looked inquiringly into the face of Reb Nohim.
Reb Nohim appeared on the threshold of his hut, and raising his thin hands above his gray head, as a sign of indignation and despair, he cried several times: "Assybe! assybe! dajde!"
"Misfortune! misfortune! woe!" repeated after him, the crowd gathered in the courtyard of the temple.
But, in the same moment, Hersh Ezofowich standing at the door of the meeting house, put his white hand into the pocket of his satin halat, raised his head, covered with a costly beaver cap, and not less loudly than the Rabbi, but in a different voice, he called: "Hoffnung! Hoffnung! Frieden!"
"Hope! Hope! Happiness!" repeated after him, timidly, his not very numerous followers, with a sidelong glance at the Rabbi. But the old Rabbi's hearing was good, and he heard the cry. His white beard shook, and his dark eyes flashed lightning in Hersh's direction.
"They will order us to shave our beards and wear short dresses!" he exclaimed, painfully and angrily.
"They will make our minds longer and broaden our hearts!" answered Hersh's sonorous voice.
"They will put us to the plough and order us to cultivate the country of exile!" shouted Rabbi Nohim.
"They will open for us the treasures of the earth, and they will order her to be our fatherland!" screamed Hersh.
"They will forbid us kosher," cried Rabbi.
"They will make of Israel a cedar tree instead of a hawthorn!" answered Hersh.
"Our son's faces will be covered with beards before they may marry!"
"When they take their wives, their minds and strength will be already developed."
"They will order us to warm ourselves at strange fireplaces, and drink from the wine-garden of Sodom."
"They will bring near to us the Jobel-ha-Gabel--the festival of joy, during which the lamb may eat beside the tiger."
"Hersh Ezofowich! Hersh Ezofowich! Through your mouth speaks the soul of your great-grandfather, who wished to lead all Jews to foreign fireplaces."
"Reb Nohim! Reb Nohim! Through your eyes looks the soul of your great-grandfather, who plunged all Jews into great darkness."
Deep silence reigned in the crowd as the two men, standing far from each other, spoke thus. Nohim's voice grew thinner and sharper; Hersh's resounded with stronger and deeper tones. The Rabbi's yellow cheeks became covered with brick-red spots--Ezofowich's face grew pale. The Rabbi shook his thin hands, rocking his figure backward and forward, scattering his silvery beard over both shoulders. The merchant stood erect and motionless, and in his green eyes shone an angry sneer.
A couple of thousand eyes gazed in turn on the two adversaries--leaders of the people--and a couple of thousand mouths quivered, but were silent.
Finally, the long, sharp piercing cry of Reb Nohim resounded in the courtyard of the temple.
"Assybe! assybe! dajde!" moaned the old man, sobbing and crushing his hands.
"Hoffnung! Hoffnung! Frieden!" joyfully exclaimed Hersh, raising his white hand.
The crowd was still silent and motionless for a while. Then the heads began to move like waves and lips to murmur like waters, and at once a couple of thousands of hands were lifted with a gesture of pain and distress, and from a couple of thousand throats came the powerful shout.
"Assybe! assybe! dajde!"
Reb Nohim was victorious!
Hersh looked around. His friends surrounded him closely. They were silent. They dropped their heads and cast timid looks on the ground.
Hersh smiled disdainfully, and when the crowd rushed to the temple, led by Reb Nohim continually shaking his yellow hands above his gray head, and while still before the threshold of the temple began the prayer habitually recited when some peril was imminent--when finally the brown walls of the temple resounded with the powerful sobbing cry, "Lord help thy people! Save from annihilation the sons of Israel!" The young merchant stood motionless, plunged in deep thought. Then he passed slowly down the square, and finally disappeared into a large house of fine outward appearance. It was the biggest and showiest house in the town, almost new, for it was built by Hersh himself, and shone with yellow walls and brilliant windows.
Hersh sat for a long time in a large, simply-furnished room. His look was gloomy. Then he raised his head and called: "Freida! Freida!"
In answer to this call the door of the adjoining room opened, and in the golden light of the fireplace appeared a slender young woman. On her head was a large white turban, and a white kerchief fell from her neck, ornamented with several strings of pearls. Her big, dark eyes shone brightly and like flame from her gentle, oval face. She paused opposite her husband, and questioned him with her eyes only.
Hersh motioned her to a chair, in which she sat immediately.
"Freida," he began, "have you heard of what happened in the town to-day?"
"Yes, I have heard," she answered softly. "My brother Joseph came to see me, and told me that you had quarrelled with Reb Nohim."
"He wishes to eat me up as his great-grandfather ate up my great-grand father."
Freida's dark eyes became filled with fear.
"Hersh!" she exclaimed, "you must not quarrel with him. He is a great and saintly man. All will be with him!"
"No," answered the husband, with a smile, "don't be afraid. Now other times are corning--he can't harm me. And as for me, I can't shut my mouth when my heart shouts within me that I must speak. I can no longer stand by to hear that man teaching that what is good is bad, and see the stupid people look into his eyes and shout, although they do not understand anything. No! And how can they understand? Has Todros ever taught them to distinguish good from evil, and separate that which was from that winch shall be?"
After a few moments of silence, Hersh continued: "Freida."
"What, Hersh?"
"Have you forgotten what I told you about Michael the Senior?"
The woman folded her hands devoutly.
"Why should I forget it?" she asked. "You told me beautiful things of him."
"He was a great--a very great man. Todros ate him up. If that family had not eaten him up he would have accomplished great things for the Jews. But no matter about that. I will ask him what he wished to do. He will teach me, and I will do it!"
Freida grew pale.
"But how will you ask him?" she whispered in fear, "he is dead a long time ago."
A mysterious smile played about the merchant's thin lips.
"I know how. Sometimes God permits those who have died to talk with and teach their grandchildren, Freida," he continued, after another pause, "do you know what the Senior did when he saw that Todros would eat him up, and that he would die before the good times would come?"
"No, what did he do?"
"He shut himself up in a room, and he sat there without eating or drinking or sleeping, and--he only wrote. And what did he write? That nobody yet knows, because he hid what he had written, and when he felt that his end was near, he said to his sons: 'I have written down everything that I have known and felt, and what I intended to do; but I have hidden my writings from you, because now such times are at hand that all is useless for the present. The Todros rule, and they will rule for a long time, and they will do this that neither you, nor your sons, nor your grandsons will care to see my writing, and even were they to see it, they would tear it into pieces, and scatter it to the winds for annihilation, ant they would say that Michael the Senior was kofrim (heretic), and they would excommunicate him as they did the second Moses. But there will come a time when my great-grandson will wish for what I had written--to ask for guidance in his thoughts and actions in order to free the Jews from Todros' captivity, and to lead them to that sun from which the other nations receive the warmth. Thus, my great-grandson who desires to have my writings, will find the writings, and you have only to tell the eldest son of that family on your deathbed that it exists, and that there are many wise things written down. It must be thus from generation to generation. I command you thus. Remember to be obedient to this one, whose soul deserved to be immortal! (It was the teaching of Moses Majmonides, in regard to the immortality of the soul, that every man, according to the culture of his mind and moral perfection, could attain immortality, and that annihilation was the punishment for misdeeds)."
Hersh stopped speaking. Freida sat motionless looking into her husband's face with intense curiosity.
"Shall you search for that writing?" she asked softly.
"I shall search for it," said her husband, "and I shall find it, because I am that great-grandson of whom Michael Senior spoke when dying. I shall find that writing--you must help me to find it."
The woman stood erect, beaming with joy.
"Hersh, you are a good man!" she exclaimed. "You are kind to associate me, a woman, with such an important affair and great thoughts."
"Why should I not do it? Are you a bad housekeeper or a bad mother? You do everything well, and your soul is as beautiful as your eyes."
The white face of the young Hebrew woman became scarlet. She dropped her eyes, but her coral-like lips whispered some words of love and gratitude.
Hersh rose.
"Where shall we search for the writing?" said he thoughtfully.
"Where?" repeated the woman.
"Freida," said the husband, "Michael the Senior could not have hidden his writing in the earth, for he knew that there the worms would eat it, or that it would turn to dust. Is this writing in the earth?"
"No," answered the woman, "it is not there."
"He could not have hidden it in the wails of the house, for he knew that they would rot, and that they would be destroyed, and new ones built. These walls I have built myself, and I carefully searched the old ones, but there was no writing."
"There was not," repeated Freida sorrowfully.
"He could not have hidden it in the roof, because he knew it would not be safe there. When I was born there was perhaps the tenth roof built over our house, but it seems to me that the writing could not have been there. Where is it?"
Both were thoughtful. All at once, after a while, the woman exclaimed: "Hersh, I know where the writing is!"
Her husband raised his head. His wife was pointing to the large library filled with books, which stood in a corner of the room.
"There?" said Hersh, hesitatingly.
"There," repeated the woman, with conviction. "Have you not told me that these are Michael Senior's books, and that all the Ezofowichs have preserved them, but no one has read them because Todros would not permit the reading of books."
Hersh passed his hand over his forehead, and the woman spoke further.
"Michael the Senior was a wise man, and he saw the future. He knew that for a long time no one would read those books, and that only the one who would read them would be that great-grandson who would find his writings."
"Freida, Freida," exclaimed Hersh, "you are a wise woman!"
She modestly dropped her dark eyes.
"Hersh, I am going to see why the baby is crying. I will give the servants their orders, and have them keep the fire, then I will come here and aid you in your work."
"Come!" said her husband, and when she had gone to the room from which came the sounds of children's voices, he said to himself: "A wise woman is more precious than gold and pearls. Besides, her husband's heart is quiet."
After a while she returned, locked the door, and asked softly: "Where is the key?"
Hersh found the key of his great-grandfather's library, and they began to take down the large books. They placed them on the floor, and having seated themselves, they began to turn slowly one leaf after the other. Clouds of dust rose from the piles of paper, which had remained untouched for centuries. The dust settled on Freida's snow-white turban in a gray layer, and covered also Hersh's golden hair. But they worked on indefatigably and with such a solemn expression on their faces that one would think that they were uncovering the grave of their great-grandfather in order to take therefrom his grand thoughts.
Evening was already approaching when Hersh exclaimed as people exclaim when they meet with victory and bliss. Freida said nothing, but she rose slowly and extended her hands above her head in a movement of gratitude.
Then Hersh prayed fervently near the window, through which could be seen the first stars appearing in the sky. During the whole night there was a light in that window, and seated at the table, his head resting on both hands, was Hersh, reading from large yellowish sheets of paper. At the break of day, when the eastern part of the sky had hardly begun to burn with pinkish light, he went out, dressed himself in a travelling mantle and large beaver cap, got into a carriage, and drove away. He was so deeply plunged in thought that he did not even bid good-bye to his children and servants, who crowded the hall of the house. He only nodded to Freida, who stood on the piazza, with the white turban on her head turning pink in the light of the dawn. Her eyes, which followed her husband, were filled with sadness and pride.
Where had Hersh gone? Beyond mountains, forests, and rivers, to a remote part of the country where, amidst swampy plains and black forests of Pinseyzna lived an eloquent partisan of the rights to civilisation of the Polish Jews, Butrymowicz. He was a karmaszym--(the higher, or rather richer, class of nobility in Poland were called by that name, which means a certain shade of red, because their national costumes were of that colour)--and a thinker. He saw clearly and far. He was familiar with the necessities of the century.
When Hersh was introduced into the mansion of the nobleman and admitted to the presence of the great and wise member of parliament, he bowed profoundly, and began to speak thus: "I am Hersh Ezofowich, a merchant from Szybow, and the great-grandson of Michael Ezofowich, who was superior over all the Jews, and was called Senior by the command of the king himself. I come here from afar. And why do I come? Because I wished to see the great member of the Diet, and talk with the famous author. The light with which his figure shines is so great that it made me blind. As a weak plant twines around the branch of a great oak, so I desire to twine my thoughts about yours, that they shall over-arch the people like the rainbow, and there shall be no more quarrels and darkness in this world."
When the great man answered encouragingly to this preface, Hersh continued: "Serene lord, you have said that there must be an agreement between two nations, who, living on the same soil, are in continual conflict."
"Yes. I said so," answered the deputy.
"Serene lord, you said that the Jew ought to be equal in everything with the Christians, and in that way they would be no longer noxious."
"I said it."
"Serene lord, yon have said that you consider the Jews as Polish citizens, and that it is necessary that they should send their children to the secular schools. They should have the right to purchase the land, and that among them certain things, which are neither good nor sensible, should be abolished."
"I said it," again affirmed the deputy.
Then the tall, stately figure of the Jew, with its proud head and intelligent look, bent swiftly, and before the deputy could resist Hersh had pressed his hand to his lips.
"I am a newcomer in this country," said he softly. "Younger brother--" Then he drew himself up and pulled from the pocket of his halat a roll of yellowish papers.
"That which I have brought here," he said, "is more precious to me than gold, pearls, and diamonds."
"What is it?" asked the deputy.
Hersh answered in a solemn voice: "It is the will of my ancestor, Michael Ezofowich, the Senior."
They both sat reading through the whole night by the light of two small wax candles. Then they began to talk. They spoke softly, with heads bent together and burning faces. Then toward day-break they rose, and simultaneously each stretched out and shook the hands of the other cordially.
What did they read the whole night, and of what were they talking? What sentiment of enthusiasm and hope united their hands as a sign of a pact? Nobody ever learned. It is sunk in the dark night of historical secrets, with many other desires and thoughts. Adversities plunged it there. It was hidden, but not lost. Sometimes we ask ourselves whence come the lightnings of those thoughts and desires which nobody has known before? And we do not know that their sources are the moments not written on the pages of the history by any writer.
The next day a coach driven by six horses stopped before time house of the nobleman. The noble, with his Jewish guest, got in, and together they went to the capital of the country.
A couple of months afterwards Hersh returned from Warsaw to Szybow. He was very active in the town and its environments, he spoke, explained, persuaded, trying to gain partisans for the changes which were in preparation for his people. Then he went away again, and again he returned--and went away. This lasted a couple of years.
When Hersh returned from Ins last journey he was very much changed. His looks were sad, and his forehead was lined with sorrow. He entered the house, sat on the bench, and began to pant heavily. Freida stood before him, sorrowful and uneasy, but quiet and patient. She did not dare to ask. She waited for her husband's words and look. Finally he looked at her sadly, and said: "Everything is lost!"
"Why lost?" whispered Freida.
Hersh made a gesture, indicative of the downfall of something grand.
"When a building falls," he said, "the beams fall on the heads of those who are within, and the dust fills their eyes."
"It is true," affirmed the woman.
"A great building is in the mire. The beams have fallen on all the great problems and our great works, and the dust covers them--for a long time."
Then he rose, looked at Freida with eyes full of big tears, and said: "We must hide the Senior's testament, because it will be useless again. Come, let us hide it carefully. If some great-grandson of ours will wish to get it, he will find it the same as we did."
From that day Hersh grew perceptibly older. His eyes dulled, and his hack grew bent. He sat for hours on the bench, sighing deeply, and repeating: "Assybe! assybe! assybe! dajde!" (Misfortune! Misfortune! Woe!)
Around this sad man moved softly and solicitously a slender woman dressed in a flowing gown and white turban. Her dark eyes often filled with tears, and her steps were so careful and quiet that even the pearls which ornamented her neck never made the slightest noise, and did not interrupt her husband's thoughtfulness.
Sometimes Freida looked sadly at her husband. His sadness made her sad also, but she did not clearly understand it. Why was he sorrowful? His riches did not diminish, the children grew healthy, and everything was as before that quarrel with Reb Nohim and the finding of those old papers. The loving and wise woman, whose whole world was contained between the four walls of her home, could not understand that her husband's spirit was carried into the sphere of broad ideas--that it was fond of the fiery world, and being driven out of it by the strength of events, could not be cured of its longing. She did not know that in this world there were griefs and longings which had no connection with either parents or with children, or with wife or with wealth, or with one's house, and that such griefs and longings of the human spirit are the most difficult to cure.
Todros was rejoicing, and he called his flock to rejoice with him, who believed in his wisdom and sanctity. He triumphed, but he desired to triumph still further. To destroy the Ezofowichs would mean to destroy the stream which flowed into the future, striving with that other stream which strove to congeal into ice--into the petrification of the past. Who knows what may happen in the future? Who knows but that that cursed family may not give rise to a man strong enough to destroy the centuries of work achieved by the Todros. If events had taken another turn, Hersh, with the aid of his friend Edomits, would already have accomplished this!
As in times of yore, his ancestor Michael was accused, so now Hersh was assailed with reproaches of all kinds. In the synagogue they shouted at him that he did not observe the Sabbath, that he was friendly with gojs (any man who does not follow Judaism is a goj), and that he sat at their tables and ate meat which is not kosher. That in contentious affairs he avoided Jewish courts, and went to the tribunals of the country; that he did not obey the superiors of kahal, and he even dared to criticise them that he did not respect Jewish authorities in general, and Reb Nohim in particular.
Hersh defended himself proudly, refuting some of the objections and acknowledging some of the others, but justifying them by reasons, which, however, were not recognised as being right, either by his people or his superiors.
This lasted quite a long time, but finally it stopped. The accusations were discontinued, and intrigues ceased, because the object of these attacks became himself silent, and morally disappeared. Grown prematurely old, and tired of lights, Hersh shut himself up in the circle of private life, and occupied himself with business transactions, These, however, did not go as smoothly as did those of others, because he did not possess--as did others--the sympathy of his brethren. What he felt, and about what he thought, in those last years of his life, no one knew, for he told no one anything. Only before his death he had a long conversation with his wife.
The children were too small to be entrusted with the secret of his disappointed desires, wasted efforts, and smothered griefs. He left these as a legacy to his children through his wife. Did Freida understand and remember the words of her dying husband? Was she willing, and was she able, to remember them, and repeat them to his descendants? It is not known. Only this is certain--that only she knew the place where the Senior's will was hidden--the old writings which were the heritage not only of the Ezofowich family but of the whole Israelitic nation--a neglected and forgotten heritage, but in which--who knows! --were treasures a hundredfold richer than those which filled the chests of that wealthy family.
Therefore the Senior's last thoughts and wishes slept in some hiding-place, waiting for a bold descendant who would be courageous enough to bring them into life. But in the meantime there remained in the town not one soul longing for the light--not one heart which throbbed for something more than his own wife, his own children, and before all, his own riches.
There was plenty of noise arising from the care and haste whose only aim was to gain money; there was darkness because of mystic fears and dreams there was narrowness and suffocating because of merciless, grinding, dead orthodoxy.
The common people of the same faith throughout the whole country considered the people of Szybow as powerful, both materially and morally, wise, orthodox, almost holy.
Over the whole deep-sunk social valley hung a cloud. This cloud was composed of the darkest elements which exist in human kind, which are: respect for the letter from which the spirit has departed, dense ignorance, suspicious and hateful defence of self against everything which flows from broad, sunny, but 'foreign' worlds.
|
{
"id": "28400"
}
|
2
|
None
|
It happened three years ago.
Damp fog was rising from the muddy streets of the town and made dark the transparency of a starry evening. A breath of March wind mingled with the odour of freshly ploughed fields, flew over low roofs, but could not drive out the suffocating exhalations coming in clouds from the doors and windows of the houses.
Notwithstanding the mists and exhalations which filled it, the town had a gay and festive appearance. From behind gray curtains thousands of windows shone with bright illuminations, and from lighted houses came the sounds of noisy conversation or collective prayers. Whoever passed through the streets and looked into this or that window of this or that house, would see all around bright family scenes. In the centre of larger or smaller rooms were long tables, covered with white cloths, and all prepared for a feast. Around them bustled women in variegated dresses, carrying and leaving contributions with a smile on their faces, and admiring their own work in the decoration of the tables. Bearded husbands, holding their children in their arms, pressed their lips to the pink cheeks, or kissed the on the mouth with a loud smack. They tossed them up to the low ceilings, to the great mirth of the older members of the family. Others sat in groups on benches and talked of affairs of the past week. Others still, covered with the folds of their white talliths, stood motionless, facing the walls, rocking their figures back and forward. These were preparing themselves by fervent prayer to meet the holy Sabbath day.
For it was Friday evening.
In the whole town there was but one house in which reigned darkness, emptiness, and sadness. It was a little gray hut which seemed to have been clapped on to a small hill at the other end of the town--it was the only elevation on the waste plain. And even this hill was not natural. Tradition said that it was made by Karaites, who built it on their temple. Today there remained no traces of that temple. The bare, sandy hill, protected the little hut from the winds and snow storms, and the hut humbly and gratefully nestled in its shelter. Over its roof, on the side of the hill, grew a large pear tree. Through its branches the wind rushed sweetly--over it shone a few stars. A large, cultivated field separated this spot from the town. A deep quiet reigned here, interrupted only by muffled echoes of the remote noise of the town. Over the black beds thick clouds of steam and mist, coming from the streets of the town, crept toward the hut.
The interior of the hut was dark as a precipice, and from behind its small windows resounded the trembling but vigorous voice of a man: "Beyond far seas, beyond high mountains,"--spoke this voice amidst the darkness--"the river Sabbation flows. But it flows not with water, nor with milk and honey, but with yellow gravel and big stones."
The hoarse, trembling voice became silent, and in the dark room, seen from behind two small windows, there was deep silence for a while. This time it was interrupted by quite different sounds.
"Zeide! speak further."
These words were spoken in the voice of a girl--almost childish, but languid and dreamy.
Zeide (grandfather) asked, "Are they not coming yet?"
"I don't hear them," answered the girl.
In the dark room the hoarse trembling narrative began again: "Beyond the holy river of Sabbation there live four Israelitic tribes; Gad, Assur, Dan and Naphtali. These tribes escaped there from great fears and oppressions, and Jehovah--may His holy name be blessed--has hidden them from their enemies, beyond the river of gravel and stones. And this gravel rises high as the waves of the sea and the stones are roaring and rushing like a big forest when it is shaken by a storm. And when the day of Sabbath comes--" Here the old voice stopped suddenly, and after a while he asked softly: "Are they not yet coming?"
There was no answer for a long time. It seemed as though the other was listening before replying.
"They are coming," she said finally.
In the dark interior was heard a long, muffled moaning.
"Zeide! speak further," said the girl's voice, sonorous and pure as before, only less childish--stronger this time.
Zeide did not speak any more.
From the direction of the town rushed, approaching the hut, a strange noise. This was caused by numerous human feet, by piercing exclamations and silvery laughter of the children. Soon in the distance appeared a big moving spot rolling on the surface of the fields. Soon the spot neared the hut, scattered into several groups and with irresistible shouting, screaming, laughing, rushed toward the bent walls and low windows of the hut.
They were children--boys of various ages. The oldest amongst them was perhaps fourteen years and the youngest five. It was difficult to see their dresses in the darkness, but from beneath their caps and long curls of hair, their eyes shone with the passionate fire of mischief and perhaps some other excited sentiment.
"Guten abend! karaime!" shouted at once the rabble, kicking at the locked door with their feet, and shaking the frames of the windows.
"Why don't you show some light on the Sabbath? Why are you sitting in a black hole like the devil? Kofrim, uberwerfer!" (You unbeliever! heretic!) shouted the older ones.
"Aliejdyk giejer! oreman! mishugener!" (rascal, beggar, mad-man!) howled the young ones at the top of their voices.
The insults, laughter, and shaking of the door and windows increased every moment, when from within the hut resounded the girl's voice, quiet and sonorous as before, but so strong that it pierced the noise--"Zeide! speak further!"
"Aj! aj! aj!" answered the old voice, "how can I speak when they shout so loudly."
"Zeide! speak further!"
This time the girl's voice sounded almost imperatively. It was no longer childish. In it could be heard grief, contempt and struggle for the preservation of peace.
As sad singing is blended with the noise of stormy elements, so with the wild noise of the mob of children, insulting, mewing, howling, and laughing, the sobbing words were mingled.
"And during the day of Sabbath, Jehovah--may His name be blessed--gives rest to the holy river of Sabbation. The gravel ceases to flow, the big waves of stones do not roar like the forest--only from the river, which lies quiet and does not move, a thick mist rises--so great that it reaches the high clouds, and hides again from the enemies, the four tribes of Israel: Gad, Assur, Dan and Naphtali."
Alas! around the hut with bent walls and dark interior, the holy river of Sabbation did not flow; neither did high waves or gravel nor thick mists hide its inhabitants from the enemies.
These foes were small, but they were numerous. By a last effort of mischievous frolic several of them pulled at the frames of the windows so strongly that several panes broke. A shout of joy sounded far over the field. Through the openings the interior of the hut became strewn with small clods of earth and stones. The old voice, from the most remote part of the room, trembling, and still more hoarse, cried: "Aj! Aj! Aj! Jehovah! Jehovah!"
The girl's voice, always sonorous, repeated: "Zeide, keep quiet! Zeide, don't shout! Zeide, don't be afraid!"
All at once, from behind the crowd of children, someone exclaimed threateningly and imperatively: "Shtyl Bube! What are you doing here, you rascals? Get out!"
The children at once became silent. The man who caused the tranquillity by his loud voice was tall and well built. His long dress was lined with fur. His face looked pale in the dusk, and his eyes shone as only young eyes can shine.
"What are you doing here?" he repeated, in an angry and decided voice. "Do you think that this house is inhabited by wolves, and that you can howl at them and break the windows?"
The boys, gathered in one compact body, were silent. After a while, however, one of them, the tallest, and evidently the boldest, said: "Why do they not show some light on Sabbath?"
"That's none of your business," said the man.
"No! That's none of yours either," said the stubborn boy. "We come here every week and do the same--what then?"
"I know that you do the same every week. Therefore I watched to catch you here . . . now go home! quick!"
"And you, Meir, why don't you go yourself to your house? Your bobe and your zeide are eating the fish without you. Why do you drive us from here, and not observe the Sabbath yourself?"
The eyes of the young man became more fiery. He stamped the earth with his foot and shouted so angrily that the younger children dispersed immediately, and only the oldest boy, as though he would have revenge for the scolding, seized a clod of earth and wished to throw it into the little house.
But two strong hands seized him by the arms and the collar.
"Come," said the young man, "I will take you back home."
The boy shouted, and tried to escape. But the strong arm held him fast, and a quiet voice ordered him to be silent. He obeyed, dropping his head.
Around the hut it was now deep dusk. From the dark interior came the sound of heavy, hoarse sighing as from some very old breast, and near the broken window sounded the girl's voice: "Thank you."
"Rest in peace," answered the young man, and went off, leading the little prisoner.
They passed silently through a few streets, and went toward a house situated at the square.
The house was low and long, with a piazza, and a long corridor ran through the whole building. All this announced an inn. The windows in the part of the house assigned to guests were dark. In the others, situated opposite the piazza, and not higher than half-an-ell from the ground, which was covered with straw and hay and all kinds of rubbish, the lights of Sabbath shone forth from behind the dirty panes.
The young man, still leading the boy--who, as it seems, was not only not afflicted by his situation, but was jumping joyfully--passed the rubbish-covered ground, entered the deep corridor, where in the darkness some horse was stamping with his feet, and, groping, found the door Having half-opened it, he pushed the youngster into the room. Then he put his head in the door and said: "Reb Jankiel, I have brought you Mendel. Scold him or punish him. He roams in the darkness around the town, and attacks innocent people."
This speech, delivered in a loud voice, remained without an answer. Only the continual and fervent murmuring of a prayer came from the interior of the room. Through the door, which still remained half-opened, could be seen the whole long room, with very dirty walls, and enormous stove, which was black with the dust. In the centre of the room was a table covered with a cloth of doubtful cleanliness, but lighted with a copious blaze of light from seven candles burning in a great branched candlestick hanging from the ceiling. The Sabbath feast had not yet begun, and although from the remote part of the house could be heard the voices of women and children, announcing that the family was numerous, there was only one man, his face turned toward the wall, in the room where stood the table ready for the Sabbath supper. This man was of medium size, and very thin and supple. It is not exact to say that he was standing, because that does not express the position of his figure, but, just the same, it would be hard to find another expression. He was neither walking nor jumping, but, nevertheless, he was in continual and violent motion. He threw his head--which was covered with red hair--backward and forward with great rapidity. With these swift movements, the sounds which came from his mouth were in perfect harmony; for he was murmuring, then shouting passionately, then pouring forth long plaintive songs.
The young man standing on the threshold looked for a long time at that figure, praying with all its soul, or, rather, with all its body. Evidently he was waiting for an interruption in the prayer. But it was known that the one who wished to see the end of Reb Jankiel's prayers would have to wait for some time. Apparently the young man was anxious to settle the mischief of the little Mendel quickly.
"Reb Jankiel," he said aloud, after quite a long time, "your son wanders about during the night and assaults innocent people!"
There was no answer.
"Reb Jankiel, your son insults people with bad words!"
Reb Jankiel continued to pray with the same fervour.
"Reb Jankiel, your son breaks the windows of poor people!"
Reb Jankiel turned a few leaves of a large book which he held in both hands, and sang triumphantly: "Sing to the Lord a new song, because he has created all marvels! Sing! Play, play with a loud singing! Sound the trumpets and horns before the King, Lord!"
The last words were accompanied by the closing of the door. The young man left the long dark corridor, wading once more through the rubbish. When he passed the last lighted window he heard the sound of soft singing. He stopped, and anyone would have done the same, for the voice was pure, young and soft as a murmuring of a complaint, full of prayer, sadness and longing. It was a man's voice.
"Eliezer!" whispered the passer-by, and stopped at the low window.
These windows had far cleaner panes than the others. Through them could be seen a small room, in which was only a bed, a table, a few chairs, and a library full of books. On the table burned a tallow candle, and at the table sat a young man holding his head between the palms of his hands. He was about twenty years old, and his face was white, and of a delicate oval shape. From his fresh lips came the beautiful singing which would have attracted the attention of a great master of music.
And no wonder. Eliezer, Jankiel's son, was the cantor of the community of Szybow--the singer of people and Jehovah.
"Eliezer!" was repeated from behind the window in a soft, friendly whisper.
The singer must have heard the whisper, for he sat near the window. He raised his eyes, and turned them toward the pane. They were blue, meek, and sad. But he did not interrupt his singing. On the contrary, he lifted his hands, white as alabastar, and in that ecstatic position, with an enthusiastic expression on his face, he sang still louder: "My people, cast from thee the dust of heavy roads. Rise, and take the robe of thy beauty. Hasten, ah hasten, with help to your people, the Only, Incomprehensible! God of our fathers."
The young man at the window did not call any more to the singer praying for his people. He went off, stepping softly in careful respect, and walking through the dark, empty place toward the large house ablaze with lights; he looked at the few stars shining with their pale light through the fog, and he softly hummed, plunged in deep thankfulness: "Hasten! ah, hasten! with help to your people the Only, Incomprehensible! God of our fathers!"
|
{
"id": "28400"
}
|
3
|
None
|
The large house, blazing with light, which stood opposite the temple, separated from it by the whole width of the square, was the same house built by Hersh Ezofowich, in which he lived with his beautiful wife Freida. Its hundred year old walls had become black from the rains and dust, but the house stood straight, and by its height dominated all other dwelling-places in the town.
For the past hour the celebration of the Sabbath day had begun in the large room filled with old furniture.
There were numerous people of both sexes present, and others were coming. Saul Ezofowich, Hersh's son, the host of the house and chief of the family, rose and approached the big table, above which hung two heavy seven-branched candelabra of solid silver. The old man--whose bent, but strong figure, wrinkled face, and snow-white beard, proclaimed that he was over eighty--took from the hand of the eldest son--himself a gray-headed man--a long candle, and, raising it toward the other candles in the candelabra, exclaimed, in a voice strong, but aged: "Be blessed God, Lord of the world, Thou who hast lighted us with Thy commandments, and ordered us to light the lights on the day of Sabbath."
As soon as he said these words, the numerous candles were lighted in the candelabra, and everyone present in the room exclaimed: "Let us go! Let us meet the bride! Let us meet her with greeting on the day of Sabbath! Burn! burn! light of the King! Capital, rise from the mire! Thou hast lived long enough in the valley of tears!"
"My people, shake from thee the dust of heavy roads. Take on the robe of thy beauty. Hasten! ah, hasten! with help to Thy people! God of our fathers!"
"Let us go! Let us go to meet the bride! Let us greet her with the greeting of the song of the Sabbath!"
Loud singing, and the sound of fervent prayers following each other, filled the large room, and sounded far out on the large empty square. The young man, passing the square thoughtfully, heard it, and hastened his steps. When, after having passed the piazza and the long narrow corridor dividing the house in two parts, opened the door to the room filled with lights, the prayers had already changed to conversation, and the gathered company, with traces of solemnity in their faces, but yet mingled with joyful smiles, was standing around the table spread with abundant viands.
The company was composed of different faces and figures. There were two of Saul's sons living with the father; Raphael and Abraham, already gray, dark-eyed, with severe and thoughtful faces. Then Saul's son-in-law, light-haired, pale, with soft eyes--Ber. There were also daughters, sons, and grandchildren of the host of the house; matured women, with stately figures and high caps on carefully-combed wigs; or young girls, with swarthy complexions and thick tresses, their young eyes, brightened by the feast, shone like live coals.
Several young men belonging to the family, and numerous children of different ages, gathered at the other end of the table. Saul stood at the head of it, looking at the door leading to the other rooms of the house, as though he were waiting. After a while, two women appeared in the doorway. One of them gleamed with rainbow-like, almost dazzling light. She was very, very old, but still erect, and looked strong. Her head was surmounted by a turban of bright colours, fastened with an enormous buckle of diamonds. Around her neck she wore a necklace composed of several strands of big pearls which fell on her breast, also fastened with diamonds. She wore a silk dress of bright colours. She also had diamond earrings, which were so long that they reached her shoulders, and so heavy that it was necessary to support them with threads attached to the turban; they gleamed with the dazzling light of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies, and at every movement they rustled, striking the pearls and a heavy gold chain beneath them.
This hundred-year-old woman, dressed in all the riches accumulated for centuries, was, it seemed, a relic of the family, much respected by all these people. When, led by her grand-daughter--a girl with a swarthy face and dark hair--she stopped on the threshold of the room, all eyes turned toward her, and all mouths smiled and whispered: "Bobe! Elte Bobe!" (Grandmother! Great-grandmother!)
The majority of those present said the last words, because there were present more great-grandchildren than grandchildren. Only the host of the house, and the head of the whole family, said to the woman softly: "Mamma!"
This word, suitable for little children, sounded strangely, softly, and solemnly from the withered, yellow lips of Saul, moving from the midst of his milk-white beard. While pronouncing that word, his wrinkled forehead, surmounted by equally white hair beneath a velvet skull-cap, became smooth.
But where were Freida's beautiful face, dark, fiery eyes, and slender figure? How changed was the quiet, industrious, intelligent wife and confidant of Hersh Ezofowich! She had outlived all her charms, as she had outlived her husband, lord and friend. With time, her delicate, slender figure increased in size, and took on the shape of the trunk of a tree, from which sprang many strong, fruit-bearing branches. Her face was now covered with such a quantity of fine wrinkles that it was impossible to find one smooth place. Her eyes were sunken, and had grown small, looking from beneath the bar of eyelashes with a pale, faded glow. But on her face, crumpled though it was by the hand of time, there was a sweet and imperturbable peace. The small eyes looked about with smiling tranquillity of the spirit, lulled to sleep by agreeable whispering, and the sweet smile of slumber surrounded her yellow, hardly perceptible lips, which for a long time had grown silent, opening more and more seldom for the pronunciation of shorter and shorter sentences. Now, having placed her arm about the neck of the pretty, young and strong girl by whose side she stood at the family table, and having looked on the faces of all present there, she whispered: "Wo ist Meir?"
It was the great-grandmother who spoke, and at her words the whole assembly recoiled, as from the blow of a sudden gust of wind. Men, women, and children looked at each other, and through the room resounded the whisper: "Wo ist Meir?"
Owing to the largeness of the family his absence had not been noticed. Old Saul did not repeat his mother's question, but his forehead frowned still more, and his eye was fixed on the door with a severe, almost angry expression.
At that moment the door opened and a tall, well-proportioned young man entered. His long dress was trimmed with costly fur. He closed the door after him and stood near it, as though shy or ashamed. He noticed that he was too late and that the common family prayers had been recited without him, that the eyes of his grandfather Saul, of two uncles and several women relatives were looking at him severely and inquisitively. Only the grandmother's golden eyes did not look at him angrily. On the contrary, they dilated and shone with joy. Her wrinkled eyelids ceased to tremble, and the thin lips moved and pronounced with the same soundless whisper as before: "Ejnyklchen! Kleineskind!" (Grandson! Child!) When Saul heard that voice, resounding with joy and tenderness, he shut his lips, already opened to pronounce severe words of reproach and questioning. Both his sons dropped their eyes angrily to the table. The newcomer was greeted only by a general silence which, however, was interrupted by the great-grandmother repeating once more: "Kleineskind!"
Saul stretched his hands over the table, and in a half-voice suggested the subject of a prayer to be recited before the Sabbath feast.
"The Lord may be blessed," began he.
"Blessed be," resounded in the room in a muffled whisper.
For a time they all stood around the table, blessing by the prayer the viands and drinks spread upon it.
The young man did not join the general choir, but, having retreated to a remote corner of the room, he recited the Kiddish prayers omitted by him. While praying he did not move his figure. He crossed his hands on his chest, and fixed his eyes steadily on the window, behind which was complete darkness.
His delicate oval face was pale--the sign of a nervous and passionate disposition. His abundant dark, flowing hair, which had shades of gold in it, was scattered on his white forehead. His deeply set, large gray eyes gazed thoughtfully and a little sadly. In the whole expression of the young man's face there were mingled characteristics of deep sadness and childish bashfulness. His forehead and eyes betrayed some painful thought, but the thin lips had lines of tenderness, and they quivered from time to time as though under the influence of some fear. His upper up and cheeks were covered with golden down, indicating that the young man might be nineteen or twenty years old. It was the age at which the Hebrew men ripened and were not only allowed, but obliged to look after their family and other affairs.
When the young man had finished the prayers and approached the table to take his place, there was heard a voice from among those present, enouncing the words in such a way that they seemed sung: "Meir, where have you been for such a long time? What were you doing in the town after the Sabbath had begun, and no one is allowed to work any longer? Why did you not celebrate Kiddish with your family to-day? Why is your forehead pale and your eyes sad, when to-day is the joyful Sabbath? In heaven the whole celestial family rejoices, and on earth all pious people should keep their souls mirthful."
All this was said by a strange-looking man. He was rather small and thin; he had a large head covered with thick, coarse hair. His face was swarthy and round, covered with abundant hair, which formed a long, coarse beard. His round eyes cast sharp glances from beneath their thick eyelids. The thinness of the man was increased by a strange dress--more strange than the man himself. It was a very simple costume, consisting of a bag made of rough gray linen, girded around the neck and waist with a hemp rope, and falling to the ground it covered his bare feet.
Who was the man in the dress of an ascetic, with fanatical eyes, with lips full of mystic, deep, almost intoxicated joyfulness?
It was Reb Moshe, melamed or teacher of religion and the Hebrew language. He was pious-perfect. No matter what the weather--wind, rain, cold, and heat--he always went barefooted, dressed in a bag made of rough linen. He lived as do the birds--nobody knew how--probably on some grain scattered here and there. He was the right hand and the right eye of the Rabbi of Szybow, Isaak Todros, and after the Rabbi he was the next object of reverence and admiration of the whole community.
Hearing those words pouring tumultuously from the melamed's mouth and directed towards himself, Meir Ezofowich, great-grandson of Hersh and the grandson of old Saul, did not sit at the table, but with eyes cast on the ground, and a voice muffled by timidity, he answered: "Reb! I was not there where they are joyful and do good business. I was there where there is sorrow and where poor people sit in darkness and weep."
"Nu!" exclaimed the melamed, "and where today could there be sadness. To-day is Sabbath. Everywhere it is bright and joyful. . . . Where, today, could it be dark?"
A few older members of the family raised their heads and repeated the question: "Where to-day could there be darkness?"
And then again they asked him: "Meir, where have you been?"
Meir did not answer. His face expressed timidity and inward hesitation. At that moment one of the girls--the same who had introduced the old grand mother--the girl with the swarthy face and dark, frolicsome eyes, exclaimed mirthfully, clapping her hands: "I know where it is dark to-day!"
All looks were directed toward her, and all lips asked: "Where?"
Under the influence of the attracted attention, Lija blushed, and answered softly, with a certain amount of bashfulness: "In the hut of Abel Karaim, standing on the hill of the Karaites."
"Meir, have you visited Karaites?"
The question was asked by several voices, dominated by the sharp, whining voice of the melamed.
On the bashful young man's face there appeared an expression of angry and sullen irritation.
"I did not visit them," he answered, more loudly than before, "but I defended them from an attack."
"From an attack? What attack? Who attacked them?" asked the melamed mockingly.
This time Meir raised his eyelids and his shining eyes looked sharply into the eyes of his questioner.
"Reb Moshe," he exclaimed, "you know who attacked them. They were your pupils--they do the same every Friday. And why should they not do it, knowing--" He stopped and again dropped his eyes. Fear and anger were fighting within him.
"Nu, what do they know? Meir, why did you not finish? What do they know?" laughed Reb Moshe.
"They know that you, Reb Moshe, will praise them for so doing."
The melamed rose from his chair, his shining eyes opened widely. He stretched out his dark, thin hand, as though to-say something, but the strong and already sonorous voice of the young man did not permit to do it.
"Reb Moshe," said Meir, bending his head slightly before the melamed--which he did, evidently not very willingly--"Reb Moshe, I respect you--you taught me. I do not ask you why you do not forbid your pupils to attack these poor people living in darkness--but I cannot look at such injustice My heart aches when I see them, because I believe that from such bad children will grow bad men, and if they now shake the poor hut of an old man, and throw stones through the windows, afterward they will set fire to the houses and kill the people! To-day they would have destroyed that poor hut and killed the people if I had not prevented them."
As he said the last words, he took his place at the table. On his face there was no longer timidity and bashfulness. He was evidently deeply convinced of the righteousness of his cause. He looked boldly around, and only his lips quivered, as is always the case with young, sensitive people. At that moment old Saul and his two sons raised their arms and said: "Sabbath."
Their voices were solemn, and the looks they turned on Meir were severe and almost angry.
"Sabbath! Sabbath!" shouted the melamed, jumping in his chair and gesticulating with his hands; "You, Meir, during the holy evening of Sabbath, instead of reciting Kiddish and filling your spirit with great joy and giving it into the hands of the angel Matatron, who defends Jacob's tribes before God, that he may give them into the hands of Sar-ha-Olama, who is the angel over angels and the prince of the world, that Sar-ha-Olama may give them to the ten serafits who are so strong in force that they crushed the whole world, in order that through the ten serafits your spirit may reach the great throne, on which is seated En-Sof himself, and join with him in a kiss of love--you, Meir, instead of doing all that, went to defend people from some attack--to watch their house and their life. Meir! Meir! You have violated the Sabbath! You must go to the school and accuse yourself before the people of having committed a great sin and scandal."
This speech made an immense impression on the whole assembly. Saul and his sons looked threatening. The women were surprised and frightened. The dark eyes of Lija--she who had first betrayed her cousin's secret--shone with tears. Only Saul's son-in-law, blue-eyed Ber, looked at the accused boy with sad sympathy, and several young men, Meir's playmates, gazed into his face with curiosity and friendly uneasiness.
Meir answered in a trembling voice: "In our holy books, Reb Moshe, neither in the Torah nor in the Mishma is there any mention of Sefirots and En-Sof. But there it is stated plainly that Jehovah, although he has commanded us to keep the Sabbath, permitted twenty people to violate the Sabbath in order to save one man."
Such a thing as any one daring to answer the melamed--the perfect pious and Rabbi Todros's right hand--was unheard of and astonishing; it was more, because in the answer there was a negation of his judgment. Therefore the melamed's convex eyes nearly sprang from their sockets. They opened widely and covered Meir's pale face with deep hatred.
"Karaims!" he shouted, tossing himself in his chair, and tearing his beard and his hair--"You went to rescue the Karaims, heretics, infidels, accursed! Why should one rescue them? Why do they not light candles on Sabbath--why do they sit in darkness? Why do they not kill birds and animals as we do? Why do they not know Mishma, Gemara and Zahor?"
He choked with excitement and became silent, and in that interruption Meir's pure and sonorous voice resounded: "Reb, they are very poor!"
"En-Sof is revengeful and merciless!"
"They are much persecuted!"
"The Incomprehensible persecutes them!" shouted Reb.
"The Eternal does not command us to persecute. Rabbi Huna said: 'Even if the persecution is righteous, the Eternal will take the part of the persecuted one!'"
Reb Moshe's cheeks were red as flame. His eyes seemed to devour the face of the young man, whose looks had now grown bold, and his lips quivered with the words that came rushing to them, but were not pronounced.
The whole gathering was astonished--frightened--depressed. Such a quarrel with the melamed seemed to some of them a sin, to others a danger for the bold young man, and even for the whole family. Therefore Saul looked up sharply from beneath his bushy gray eye-brows into his grandson's face, and hissed: "Sh-a-a-a!"
Meir bent his head before his grandfather, in token of humility and obedience, and one of Saul's sons, in order to pacify Reb Moshe's anger, asked him: "What is the difference between the authority of the books of Talmud, and Zahora, the Kabalistic book?"
Having heard this question, the melamed put his elbows on the table, and fixed his eyes motionlessly and with an expression of deep reflection on the opposite wall. Then he began to speak slowly, and in a solemn voice: "Simon ben Jochai, the great Rabbi who lived a very great while ago and knew everything that happened in the heavens and on the earth, said, 'The Talmud is a vile slave, and the Kabala is a great queen.' With what is the Talmud filled? It is filled up with small, secondary things. It teaches what is clean and what is not clean. What is permitted and what is not permitted. What is decent and what is not decent. And with what is filled Zohar--the book of light, the book of Kabala? It is filled with great science; it tells what is God and his Sefirots. The author of it knows all their names, and he teaches what they do and how they built the world. There is said that God's name is En-Sof and his second name is Notarikon and his third name is Gomatria and fourth name Zirufh. The Sefirots are great heavenly forces called: human source, fiancee, fair sex, great visage, small face, mirror, celestial story, lily and apple orchard. And Israel is call Matron, and Israel's. God is called Father, God, En-Sof. He did not create the world; the Sefirots, celestial forces, did it. The first Sefirot produced the strength of God; the second all angels and the Torah (Bible); the third all prophets. The fourth Sefirot produced God's love; the fifth God's justice, and the sixth, a power which ruins everything. The seventh Sefirot produced beauty, the eighth magnificence, the ninth, eternal cause, and the tenth, an eye which watches Israel continually, and follows him on all his roads and takes care of his feet--that they are not wounded--and his head, that misfortune does not fall upon him. All this is taught by Zohar, the book of Kabala, and it is the first book for every Israelite. I know that many Israelites say that the Torah is the more important, but they are stupid, and they do not know that the earth shall tremble from great pains before God and Israel, Father and Matron, shall be united in a kiss of love, until the slave will not retreat before the queen--the Talmud before the Kabala. And when shall that time come? It shall come when the Messiah shall appear. Then for all pious and scholarly people will there be a great feast of joy. Then God will order the boiling of the fish Leviathan which is so great that the whole world rests on it. And everyone will sit down and eat that fish--the scholarly and pious people from the head, and the simple and ignorant from the tail!"
When the melamed finished his speech he breathed deeply, and having dropped his eyes on the table he suddenly fell from mystical heights to earthly realities. On the plate before him was an excellent fish--not Leviathan, but excellent nevertheless. The melamed, living ascetically was very fond of Sabbath feasts, because he believed that it was necessary, to celebrate the Sabbath properly, to keep joyful the body as well as the spirit. Therefore, with the remains of the ecstasy in his eyes, he began to put the delicious dish into his mouth. The whole assembly was silent for a while. His clever speech made a deep impression on almost everyone. Old Saul listened to it with great reverence. His sons cast their grateful eyes on the table and thought over Reb Moshe's scholarly instruction. The women piously placed their hands on their bosoms, inclined their heads in sign of admiration and with smiling lips they repeated: "Great student--perfect-pious. A true pupil of the great Rabbi Isaak!"
The one looking attentively on the faces of those sitting around the table would have seen two looks which, swift as lightning and unperceived by all present, had been exchanged during the melamed's speech. They were the looks of Ber and Meir. The former looked sadly at the other, who answered him with a look full of restrained anger and irony. When the melamed spoke of the fish Leviathan, so large that the whole world stood on it, and which, in the day of the Messiah, the scholars would eat from the head and the ignorant from the tail, a smile appeared on Meir's thin lips. It was a smile similar to the stiletto. It pierced the one on whose lips it appeared, and it seemed as though it would like to pierce the one who caused it. Ber answered this smile by a sigh. But the four young men who sat opposite Meir noticed it, and on their faces Meir's smile was reflected. After a period of silence, interrupted only by the clatter of knives on the plates and the loud movements of the melamed's jaws, old Saul said: "Those are great things, scholarly and dreadful, and we thank Reb Moshe for having told them to us. Listen to the learned men, who by their great knowledge sustain Israel's strength and glory, because it is written that the wise men are the world's foundation. 'Who respects them, and questions them often about obscure things with which they are familiar, to that one all sins shall be pardoned.'"
Reb Moshe raised his face from the plate, and stuttered with his mouth full of food: "Good deeds bring upon man an inexhaustible stream of blessing and forgiveness. They open for him the secrets of the heavens and earth and carry his soul among the Sefirots!"
A silence full of respect was the only answer. But after a few seconds it was interrupted by the sonorous voice of the youth: "Reb Moshe! what do you call a good deed? What must one do in order to save one's life from sin and draw upon one's self a great stream of grace?" asked Meir aloud.
The melamed raised his eyes at the question. Their looks met again. The melamed's gray eyes shone angrily and threateningly. The gray, transparent eyes of the youth contained silvery streams of hidden smiles.
"You, Meir, you were my pupil, and you can ask me about such things. Have I not told you a great many times that the best deed is acquiring depth in the holy science? To whom does that everything will be forgiven, and he who does not do that will be cursed and thrust out from the bosom of Israel, although his hands and heart are clean and white as the snow."
Having said this he turned to Saul and said, pointing at Meir with his brown finger: "He don't know anything. He has forgotten everything I have taught him!"
The old man slightly bent his wrinkled forehead before the melamed and said in a conciliatory voice: "Reb, forgive him! When wisdom shall come to him, then he will recognise that his mouth has been very daring, and I am sure he will be pious and scholarly, as were all the members of our family."
He drew himself up, and pride sparkled in the eyes which age had long dimmed.
"Listen to me, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Our family--the family of Ezofowich--is not a common family. We--thanks to God, whose holy name be blessed--have great riches in chests and on vessels. But we have still greater riches in the records of our family. Our ancestor was a Senior, a superior over all the Jews living in this country, and very much beloved by the king himself. And my father Hersh, the famous Hersh, had the friendship of the greatest lords, and they drove him in their carriages, and for his surprising wisdom they took him to the king to the diet which was then held in Warsaw."
The old man became silent and looked around with eyes brightened with pride and triumph. The whole gathering looked on him as on a rainbow. The melamed became gloomy, and slowly sipped the wine from a big glass. The old great-grandmother, who was already slumbering, awakened at once, and peered with her golden eyes from behind half-closed lids, exclaiming in her soundless voice: "Hersh! Hersh! my Hersh!"
After a while. Saul began to talk again: "We have in our family a great treasure--such a treasure as has no equal in all Israel. This treasure is a long document, written by our ancestor Michael the Senior, and left by him, and in which there are written noble and wise things. If we could get that document of wisdom we should be happy. The only trouble is that we don't know where it is."
From the time Saul began to talk of the document left by his ancestor, among the many eyes looking at him two pairs sparkled passionately, with, however, quite contradictory sentiments. They were the eyes of the melamed, who laughed softly and maliciously, and the eyes of Meir who drew himself up in his chair and looked into his grandfather's face with burning curiosity.
"This writing," Saul said further, "was hidden for two hundred years and nobody has touched it. And when the two hundred years were ended, my father, Hersh, found it. Where he found it no one but our old great-grandmother knows."
Here he pointed to his mother, and then finished: "And she alone knows where he hid that writing, but as yet she has told no one."
"And why did she tell no one?" laughed maliciously and softly the melamed.
Saul answered in a sad voice: "Reb Nohim Todros--may his memory be blessed--has forbidden her to speak of it."
"And you, Reb Saul, why have you not searched for that writing yourself?"
Saul answered still more sadly: "Reb Baruch Todros, the son of Reb Nohim and Reb Isaak--may he live a hundred years--the son of Reb Baruch, have forbidden me to search for it!"
"And no one dare search for it!" exclaimed the melamed with all his might, raising his hand armed with a fork, "nobody dare search for that writing, because it is full of blasphemy and filth. Reb Saul! You must forbid your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to search for that writing, and in case they find it they must give it up to the fire to be destroyed! For the one who shall find that writing, and shall read it aloud to the people--upon that one shall the herem fall. He shall be cast out from the bosom of Israel. Thus spake Reb Nohim and Reb Baruch--may their memory be blessed! Thus spake Reb Isaak--may he live a hundred years. In that writing is excommunication and great misfortune to the one who shall find it."
A deep silence followed those words, spoken with the greatest enthusiasm by the melamed, and amidst this silence was heard a long, trembling passionate sighing. All looked around, desiring to learn from whose breast proceeded that noise as of the tearing out of desire, but no one could discover whence it came. They only perceived that Meir, with rigid figure, pale face and burning eyes was gazing into the great-grandmother's face. She, feeling the piercing look of her beloved child, raised her wrinkled eyelids and said: "Meir?"
"Bobe?" answered the young man, in a voice filled with caressing tenderness.
"Kleineskind!" whispered the great-grandmother and, smiling sweetly, she began to slumber again.
The Sabbath feast was near its end when an incident occurred which would have appeared very strange to any foreign eye, but was an ordinary sight to those gathered there.
Reb Moshe, whose dark cheeks burned from the effects of several glasses of wine hospitably poured out for him by the hosts, suddenly jumped from his chair and rushed to the centre of the room.
"Sabbath! Sabbath! Sabbath!" --he shouted, shaking his head and arms violently. "Fried! Fried! Fried!" he repeated--"the whole celestial family rejoices and dances in the Heavens! David danced and jumped before the Arch--why then should not the perfect pious gladden his heart by dancing and jumping?"
Therefore he danced and jumped around the table.
It would have been interesting for an observer to watch the different sentiments reflected in the faces of those present who looked at the ecstatic dance. Old Saul and his sons looked at the dancing figure with the greatest gravity and attention. Not the slightest quiver of a smile appeared on their lips. It seemed as though they looked on the melamed's crazy leaps as the believers look on the performance of a mystic but holy ceremony. Tallow-haired Ber sat stiff and dignified also, but he knit his brows almost painfully, and his eyes were cast on the ground. Meir leaned his head in the palms of both hands, and it seemed that he neither heard nor saw--or at least tried not to notice anything. But the women wondered at Reb Moshe's dance; they moved their bodies to the time beaten by the bare-footed man, smacking their lips and making signs of admiration with their eyes. At the lower end of the table, where the boys and girls sat, could be heard a soft noise, as of gigglings suppressed with effort.
Finally Reb Moshe's strength was exhausted, his body shivering with enthusiasm, fell to the floor near the big green brick stove. After a while, however, he rose, laughed aloud, and wiped with the large sleeve of his shirt, the perspiration bathing his forehead and cheeks.
Sarah, Saul's daughter, left the table and carried around a large silver basin filled with water, in which everyone washed his fingers. Whispering prayers of thanksgiving, those present dipped their hands in the water and wiped them on a towel suspended from Sarah's shoulder. The Sabbath feast was ended.
A few moments afterward the table was cleared off. The whole company, dividing itself into small groups, filled the room with the noise of loud and animated conversation. Meir, who for a few moments had stood alone by the window gazing thoughtfully into the darkness of the evening, approached the group composed of the oldest people, gathered in the most luxurious part of the room which was ornamented by an antique sofa. Here Abraham and Raphael, Saul's sons, and Ber, his son-in-law, reported to the father in reference to the business transacted during the week, and asked his advice and help. Here old Saul was in his proper field, for, although the high and wise studies of mystic scholars aroused in him respect and fear, it seemed that secular business affairs were more suited to his mind--he was more familiar with them. In his eyes, which were now shining with keen and animated thought, there were no more signs of old age, and only his white hair and beard gave him the appearance of a patriarch and dignitary, distributing among the members of his family advice, praise and judgments.
Meir stood indifferent before that group of people talking of losses and profits. It was clear that in such affairs he did not yet take a part, and that his fresh nature was not yet touched by the biting fever of profit. He looked with some surprise at the usually phlegmatic Ber, who at that moment seemed to be changed into another man. Relating to his father-in-law his business projects, and explaining to him the necessity of contracting a considerable loan with his wife's brother, he became animated, eloquent--almost vehement. His eyes burned, his lips moved with great rapidity, and his hands trembled.
Meir went away and joined another group where the melamed was a central figure. As usual he was leaning his elbows on the table, and spoke solemnly to the attentive listeners.
"Everything in the world--every man, every animal, every blade of grass, and every stone--has its roots in the country where the spirits live. Therefore the whole world is like a gigantic tree, whose roots are among the spirits. And it is like a gigantic chain, whose last links are suspended where live the spirits. And it is like a gigantic sea, which never dries up, because an inexhaustible stream of spirits is always pouring in and filling it up."
Meir left the group listening to the melamed and approached the window. There two young men, leaning their foreheads in their hands and in deep thought, were speaking of where it is written that a man who walks during a clear night and does not see his shadow will die the same year.
Meir looked around. In the next room the older women were speaking of their households, and how clever their children were. The young girls were seated in a corner, whispering, giggling, and humming.
From Meir's face it could be seen that he was not attracted by any of these groups of people filling the house. He was among his own people--among those who were nearest to him in blood and affection--but it might be said that he was in the desert, so lonely did he stand in the room, and so sorrowfully did he look around him. He went out. Descending the stairs leading from the piazza he passed the dark square, and entered the little house of Reb Jankiel.
After the large, clean, well-lighted, and comfortable rooms of his grandfather's home, the dwelling of Reb Jankiel, the possessor of the largest inn in Szybow, whisky merchant, and a member of kahal, seemed to Meir narrow, dark, dirty, and mean. The Sabbath feast was over. It never was long, for it was scanty and passed in gloomy silence, interrupted only by quarrelling and the biting remarks of the father of the family. It was known that Reb Jankiel was avaricious. He gathered much money, but he did not care for the comfort of the house, because he was seldom there, being busy with whisky distilleries, with dram-shops in the neighbouring villages, returning to the town only when religious affairs required his presence. His wife, Jenta, and two grown-up daughters conducted the business of the inn.
The appearance of riches in his house only occurred when Reb Jankiel received eminent guests, as the saintly Rabbi, with whom he was a great favourite, the colleagues of the kahal, or wealthy merchants. Cleanliness and gaiety were well-known virtues.
In the first room, which Meir entered through a door opening into the dark hall, only one little candle burned in a brass candlestick. The smell of the food, which was just cleared off the table, was here mingled with the mustiness of the dirty walls and the greasy exhalations from the smoky chimney. It was dark and dull here. From the other room, completely dark, sounded the loud snoring of the master of the house, who was already fast asleep. In the third small room, filled with beds and trunks, Meir perceived, by the light of a small lamp burning in the stove around which was suspended a quantity of cabbages, a woman who was rocking a cradle with her foot, and trying to lull to sleep a crying child. Meir greeted her, and she answered him in a friendly manner and continued to hum.
Behind the closed door could be heard the muffled sound of human voices. Meir opened that door and entered the room of Eliezer.
Eliezer the cantor and the possessor of that marvellous voice, was not alone. Around the table, lighted by a tallow candle, sat several young men, members of the Ezofowich family--the same who had eaten Supper with Meir. Meir breathed deeply, perhaps because the air was purer there than in the other apartments, or perhaps because he was among friendly figures, on which he liked to gaze, and which, seeing him, smiled in a friendly manner.
Eliezer raised his turquoise-like eyes to the face of the newcomer as he sat at the table.
"Meir!" he exclaimed in his musical voice. "Well?" answered his guest.
"You were impatient to-day, and said to the melamed things of which there was no necessity to speak. They told me of your dispute with him."
Meir looked sharply and a little ironically into the cantor's face.
"Eliezer, are you in earnest when you tell me that?" he asked slowly.
The cantor dropped his head.
"It was honest on your part, but it may cause you much trouble."
The young man laughed, but his laugh Was empty and forced.
"Nu!" said he with determination, "Let it come. I can't stand it any longer. I can't be silent and look and listen, while we are being made fools of."
"Child! child what can you do?" sounded from behind them in a lazy, drawling voice.
They all turned. It was the phlegmatic Ber who had entered during the conversation. Having thus answered the angry exclamation of the young man, he stretched himself on Eliezer's bed. It seemed that those present were accustomed to see him among them, for they showed neither the slightest impatience nor confusion. On the contrary, the conversation was continued. One of the young men, a relative of Meir's, half in doubt and in smiles, half in fear and seriously, began to repeat to the cantor the melamed's speech about En-Sof and the Sefirots, about the day of the Messiah, and the gigantic fish, Leviathan. Another asked Eliezer what he thought of a moral which taught that it was sufficient to study Mishma and Zohar in order to obtain pardon for evil deeds.
Eliezer listened silently. He did not answer for a long time; then he slowly raised his head and said: "Read the Torah! There it is written: 'God is one, Jehovah! He is not satisfied with your sacrifices, singing, and incense, but he requires from you a love of the truth, to defend the oppressed, to teach the ignorant, and heal the sick, because these are your first duties.'"
The two young men opened their eyes. "Well!" they exclaimed, "then the melamed did not tell the truth!"
Eliezer was silent for a long time again. It was evident that he preferred not to answer, but the young impatient hands pulled him by the sleeve, asking for a reply.
"He did not tell the truth," he finally exclaimed timidly.
At that moment Meir put his hand on his shoulder. "Eliezer," said he, "you gave me the same answer two years ago, when you came back from the great city where you studied singing. Then you opened my eyes, which alone began to search for the truth, and you taught me that we are not true Israelites; that our faith was not the same that was given to us on Mount Sinai; that Judaism has grown muddy like water when a handful of earth is thrown into it--and that mud has blackened our heads and our hearts. Eliezer, you have told me this, and I have seen the light. Since that time I have loved you as a brother who helped me out of obscurity, but Since that time, I feel in my heart a great oppression and a great loneliness."
"Meir, Eliezer taught you, and Eliezer is silent--you, his pupil, commence to talk," said her, whose lazy words were tinged with irony.
"I wish I knew how to talk," exclaimed the young man, with sparkling eyes, "and what to do!"
And after a while he added, more softly: "But I know neither how to speak nor how to act--only in my heart I bear a great hatred toward those who deceive us, and a great love toward those who are deceived."
"And a great audacity," drawled Ber, negligently stretched on the bed.
"Until now I have not had the audacity, but--but if I knew what to do, I would have it."
There was a silence for a few moments which was finally broken by Meir.
"Eliezer, you are happier!"
"Why?"
"You have been out into the broad world--you have seen its wisdom--you have listened to clever people. Ah! if I could but go out into the world!"
"Eliezer, tell us something of the great world," said one of the young men.
And in the eyes watching the cantor there was curiosity and a strange longing.
Of the youth of Szybow, Eliezer alone had been out into the world. This was because of his marvellous voice, to cultivate which he had been sent to a large city. Everything he had to say had been told to his friends long ago. It was not much, but such as it was they were willing to listen to it every day. How does a large city appear? How high are the houses there? What kind of people live in those houses, and how many among them are Israelites? Who are rich, and wear beautiful dresses, and are greatly respected among the people? And why are they respected? Is it because they are rich? No--in Szybow there are also rich merchants, and the Purices (nobles) care for them only when they need their money, and when they do not need money they despise them. The Israelites in the great city are respected because they have a great deal of knowledge, and they have studied not only Mishma and Gemara, but other different, beautiful, and necessary things. And why in Szybow is there not such a school where these things could be studied, and why do Rabbi Isaak and Reb Moshe say that these sciences are the wine-garden of Sodom and infidel flames, and that every true Israelite should avoid them?
"Eliezer, how do those big carriages run without horses, and who invented them so cleverly?"
"Eliezer, do all Israelites there live kosher?"
"Eliezer, what is said there of the Rabbis Todros?"
"They speak ill of them."
A great surprise! The Israelites in the broad world speak ill of the Todros; and they believe neither in En-Sof nor in the Sefirots and the whole Kabalistic science!
"And what do they say of the Talmud?"
"They say that this beautiful book, full of wisdom, was written by clever and saintly people, but it should be shortened and many things left out because these are quite different times, and that which was formerly necessary is now harmful."
Again great surprise! The Talmud should be shortened, because it is difficult to study Gemara, and it dulls the minds and memories of the children!
True! They remember how difficult it was for them to study Gemara, and how the melamed had cruelly beaten them because they could not remember it, and how on that account they grew weak physically and mentally, and the little Lejbele, the son of a poor tailor, remained forever stupid and sick for the same reason!
"And who shortened the Talmud, and made it easier to study?"
"It was done by the great and saintly Moses Majmonides, whom the Rabbis excommunicated."
The Rabbis excommunicated the great and saintly savant! Therefore the Rabbis could be unjust and bad. One must not always believe what they teach!
"What more has Moses Majmonides written?"
"He has written More Nebuchim a guide for lost ones--a wise and beautiful book, which, when one reads one is inclined to weep with tenderness and laugh with joy!"
"Eliezer, have you read that book?"
"Yes. I have it."
"Where did you get it?"
"A wise Israelite gave it to me. He is a lawyer in the large city."
"Eliezer, read us something from that book."
In that way was revealed to those naive minds, involuntarily longing for the sun and broad bosom of humanity,--even though the revelation was partial and chaotic--the phenomena and thoughts circulating in the waste spaces. The result of this was not the production of firm convictions, nor the spinning out of a guiding thread to another better life; but doubt entered their consciences and desire filled their breasts--the young eyes veiled with the sadness of the thought which began to feel its fetters.
It was quite late when, after a long conversation, the young men rose and stood opposite each other with pale faces and burning looks. After a time of silence, Meir said: "Eliezer, when shall we stand up and cry with a powerful voice to the people, that they may open their eyes? Shall we always crawl in darkness, like the worms, covered with earth, and look on while the whole nation rots and chokes?"
Eliezer dropped his eyes, which were full of tears, and raising his white hands, he said in his harmonious voice: "Every day before God I sing and cry for my people!"
Meir made a movement of impatience, and at that moment Ber, rising heavily from the bed, laughed in a gloomy manner.
"Sing and cry!" said he to Eliezer, "your dreadful father fills you with such fear that you will never be able to do anything else!"
Then he put his hand on Meir's shoulder and said: "Only he is daring and will swim against the stream. But the water is stronger than a man. Where will it carry him?"
Leaving Jankiel's house, Meir perceived again in one of the rooms, the same as before, a woman sitting at the cradle of a sleeping baby. Now she was bent over, and with both elbows resting on the edges of the cradle, was slumbering. The light of the small lamp, burning in the stove, fell upon her and threw a purple glimmer on the old caftan which covered her bosom and shoulders. On her head she still wore the holiday cap with crumpled flowers, its red colour contrasting strangely with the yellow, wrinkled face with its low forehead and withered cheeks. She was not yet old but worn out, over worked, spent with fatigue. One glance at her was sufficient to tell that her life lay in the midst of work and humiliation, and that she was not refreshed by even one drop of happiness. Looking at her, it was not difficult to guess that she would not live--like Freida, wife of the heretic Hersh--until her hundredth birthday, and that she would not fall into the eternal sleep little by little, amidst those dear to her heart--the noise made by numerous children and grandchildren. Jenta, the wife of the greedy Reb Jankiel, was slain in spirit and worn out in body.
When the steps of the departing guests, which had for some time mingled with the snoring of several people fast asleep, became silent, Eliezer stood in the low door of his room and looked for a few seconds at his sleeping mother.
"Mother!" he called softly, "why don't you go to bed? Little Hajka is sleeping for a long time, and she will not cry any more. Mother, go to bed and rest."
The whisper of her son reached the slumbering Jenta. She raised her eyelids, turned her sad glance toward the tall youth whose white face shone in the darkness like alabastar, and--what a wonder--her small, half-closed eyes opened, and from the colourless eyeballs shone a light of joy.
"Eliezer, come here!" she whispered. The young man approached and sat on the edge of the bed.
"How can I sleep?" the faded woman whispered to him, "when I feel so miserable! Hajka is sick and at any moment she may cry, and if she would cry Jankiel would waken and be very angry!"
"Sleep mother," whispered back the young man. "I will sit here and rock Hajka."
The yellow, wrinkled face, with the big red rose over the forehead, bent and rested--not on the high dirty pillows--but on the lap of the sitting youth.
Eliezer put his elbow on the edge of the cradle, leaned his forehead on the palm of his hand and sat in thought. From time to time he moved the cradle with his foot, and hummed.
"Oj! My head, my poor head!" whispered in her sleep the yellow-faced woman, slumbering with her head in her son's lap.
"Oh, Israel! how poor thou art!" thoughtfully whispered the red lips of the young man watching by the cradle.
While this was passing in Reb Jankiel's house, a small, lively human figure rushed through the darkness, across the large school-yard toward the small house of Rabbi Todros, where it disappeared behind a small door.
The creaking of the door was answered from the interior of the house by a low, but pure voice: "Is that you, Moshe?"
"I, Nassi! your faithful servant! the miserable footstool of your feet! May the angel of peace visit your sleep! May every breath of your nostrils be agreeable to you, as the sweet oil mixed with myrrh! And while you sleep, may your soul bathe with great delight in the streams of the spirits!"
The deep voice coming from the interior of the room situated beyond the small dark hall, asked: "Where were you so long, Moshe?"
The man, who remained in the little hall, answered: "I ate the Sabbath supper in the house of the Ezofowich. In that house they celebrate the Sabbath with great magnificence, and I go there often to keep my soul in great joy!"
"You act wisely, Moshe, in keeping your soul joyful during the Sabbath. But what news have you?"
"Bad news, Nassi! Among the roses and lilies an ugly worm crawls!"
"What worm?"
"A worm which is eating into our holy faith, and which may make of the Israelitish people a people of goims and hazarniks."
"And in whose heart crawls that worm?"
"It is crawling in the heart of Meir Ezofowich--grandson of the rich Saul."
"Moshe, have you seen this worm with your own eyes, and have you heard with your own ears? Speak, Moshe! On my head rests the burden of all souls which are in this community, and I must know all."
There was silence for a moment in the little hall The man who was humbly sitting there at the closed door of the saintly Rabbi was evidently gathering his thoughts and reminiscences. After a while he began to speak in his hoarse voice, in a sing-song manner.
"I have seen with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears. Meir Ezofowich has not celebrated to-day the Kiddish with the whole family, and he came home after Sabbath had already been with us for some time. And I asked him what he had been doing, and he told me that he had been defending the cabin of Abel Karaim and his grandchild, Golda, from assault."
He became silent, and the deep voice within the closed room said: "He defended heretics, and violated the Sabbath!"
"He does not keep his soul joyful during the holy day of Sabbath."
"That teaching may be excommunicated! Israel must avoid it, and the Lord may not forgive it!" said the deep voice behind the door.
"He said that in the holy books of Israel there is nothing said of En-Sof and Sefirots, and that the Eternal does not command us to persecute heretics."
"Abominations pour from the mouth of that young man! Hersh Ezofowich's soul--his great-grandfather's soul--has passed into his body!"
"Nassi!" exclaimed Moshe, in a louder voice. An indistinct murmur from behind the door encouraged him to continue the conversation.
"He is going to search for the writing of Michael the Senior. I have seen that in his eyes. And he will find that writing, and when he finds it and reads it aloud to the people, the spirit of Israel will rise against your teaching."
There was a deep silence after those words, and then the bass voice resounded again: "When he shall find that writing, then my heavy hand will rest on him and crush him into dust. Moshe, what did he do after supper?"
"He went to the house of Reb Jankiel, and talked with the cantor, Eliezer. I passed that way, and saw them through the window."
"Moshe, who else was there?"
"There were Haim, Mendel, Aryel, and Ber, Saul's son-in-law."
"About what were they talking?"
"Nassi, my soul entered into my ear as I stood by their window. They complained much that they are kept in great darkness, and that the true faith of Israel is troubled like water when a handful of mud is thrown into it. And Eliezer said that he complains of it before the Lord, singing and crying; and Meir said that it is not enough to sing and cry, but that one must shout with a great voice to the people, and do something so that they will become something quite different from what they now are."
"A family of vipers!" hissed the voice from behind the door of the cabin.
"Nassi, who are a family of vipers?" asked Moshe humbly After a moment of silence, the answer came from the darkness: "Ezofowich's family."
|
{
"id": "28400"
}
|
4
|
None
|
A few months passed. A warm May day was ending in a bright, sweet-scented evening.
Not long before sunset two beings were walking through the narrow street surrounded by the poorest houses in town. One of these beings was a slender girl, the other was a snow-white she-goat. The she-goat went before, jumping at every moment in order to catch some herb growing here and there. She appeared to be adroit, full of pranks, and happy. The girl following was grave and thoughtful. It would be difficult to tell how old she was. She may have been anywhere from thirteen to seventeen. Although she was tall, she seemed childish, on account of the extreme thinness of her body. But her mien and the expression of her face denoted gravity and premature grief and sadness. At first glance she appeared to be homely. What charms she may have possessed were not enhanced by the poor dress made of faded calico, from beneath which appeared her feet, only half protected by heavy shoes. The flowing dress was buttoned at the neck, around which she wore a few strings of broken corals. Her face was thin and pale, contrasting sharply with the red colour of the beads. From beneath the thick eyebrows looked velvet-like eyes, and over the narrow forehead curled hair as black as ebony.
The whole person of this child, or woman, was a mixture of pride and wildness. Her walk was stiff, grave, and thoughtful, and she looked boldly into space. But at the more lively sound of human voices she stopped and dropped her eyes--not because she was afraid, but because it seemed that she much disliked meeting people. Only the presence of the she-goat did not cause her disgust; on the contrary, she looked after the animal attentively, and when the agile creature went too far, she called her with sharp, muffled exclamations. Reciprocally, it seemed that the goat understood her very well, and, obedient to her call, she returned to the girl with a questioning baa! At the end of the poor, narrow street, there appeared a small green meadow, fresh, pearled with the dew of May, and gilded with the sun. This was situated outside the town, surrounded on one side by a birch grove, the other side opening on large fields, beyond which, in the far distance, was seen a blue strip of the forest.
The girl slackened her steps, and having seized the animal by the horns, she stopped, and looked on the lively scene displayed on the meadow. At first the outlook appeared to be merely a tumultuous and chaotic mass of movement, composed of snow-white animals and variegated children on the green background. Only after a short while one could distinguish numbers of little girls driving from pasture several herds of goats.
The girls were full of play, and they hastened home. The goats were stubborn, and wished to remain on the meadow, so there was some fighting, in which the goats were victorious over the children. They escaped from the hands of their leaders, and jumped nimbly and quickly toward the hazel bushes.
The girls chased them, and, reaching them, they seized the animals by their long, rough hair, and then they were at a loss what to do next. Some of them called to their friends, busy and embarrassed also, for help; others crossed the way of their disobedient charges, and, when they were opposite them, they stretched out their arms; others shouted, and, falling on the ground, they rolled in the soft grass, bursting with laughter. These exclamations, calls, and laughter, mingling with the m-a-a-ing of the goats, were seized by the warm breeze blowing over the meadow, and carried through the gloomy streets of the town, over the large field, and in the remote depths of the grove. Through the golden air the small feet flitted and crossed each other, trampling the grass, and above them nodded the little heads covered with hair of all shades, from locks black as ebony to the curls of copper-red and flaxen-yellow.
The tall, grave girl, who passed with her frolicsome but obedient goat, looked indifferently at the noisy, animated scene. It was evident that neither the gaiety nor curiosity attracted her. As she had been walking, now she was standing grave and quiet. It seemed as though she was waiting for something. Maybe the disappearance from the meadow of these flitting heads and the exclamations of the children.
After a while the exclamations were united in one choir. It announced joy and universal triumph. At the end of long fights, chases, and efforts, the goats were finally subdued by the girls, and were now gathered in one group. Some of the children were holding the stubborn and rebellious animals by their short horns, dragging them with all their strength; while others, clasping their necks with both hands, accompanied them in their jumps; others, more courageous and strong, sat on the goats' backs, and, carried by their strange chargers, holding fast by the longest hair, they went at full trot toward the town. This cavalcade, tumultuous and noisy, squeezed into one of the larger streets, and disappeared in clouds of dust.
Now the green meadow was silent and deserted. Only a light wind rustled among the branches of birches and hazel trees, and the setting sun veiled it in transparent pink clouds.
The girl set her goat at liberty, walked quicker than formerly, and after a while reached the edge of the meadow. Then she stopped and looked in one direction with a sudden amazement of joy. This point was a thick birch trunk lying at the foot of the grove, and on this trunk sat a young man with an open book in his lap. The girl's amazement was short. With her eyes fastened on the young man's face, which was bent over the book, she crossed the whole length of the meadow, straight and light, and having stopped near the trunk on which he was sitting, she bent, seized his hand in both her swarthy hands, and raised it to her mouth.
Absorbed in his reading the man swiftly raised his head and looked in astonishment at the girl, quickly withdrawing his hand from her embrace and growing red with a warm blush.
"You don't know me," said the girl, in a voice which was muffled, but which trembled not one whit.
"No," answered the young man.
"But I know you. You are Meir Ezofowich, rich Saul's grandson. I see you often when you sit on the piazza of your beautiful house, or when, with that book, you pass the hill of the Karaims."
All this she said in a grave, steady voice, her figure drawn erect. In her face there was not the slightest sign of embarrassment or timidity nor the slightest blush. Only her large eyes became darker and shone with a warm light, and her pale lips assumed a soft and gentle expression.
"And who are you?" asked Meir softly.
"I am Golda, the grand-daughter of Abel Karaim, despised and persecuted by all your people."
And now her mouth trembled and her voice took on a gloomy tone.
"All your people persecute Abel Karaim and his grand-daughter Golda, and you defend them. Long ago I wished to thank you."
Meir dropped his eyelids. His pale face flushed.
"Live in peace, you and your grandfather Abel," he said softly, "and may the hand of the Eternal be stretched over your poor house--the hand of Him who loves and defends those who suffer."
"I thank you for your good words," whispered the girl.
In the meanwhile she slipped down to the grass at the young man's feet, and raising her clasped hands she whispered further: "Meir, you are good, wise, and beautiful. Your name signifies 'light,' and I have light before my eyes every time I see you. Long ago I wished to find you and talk with you, and tell you that although you are a grandson of a rich merchant and I am a grand-daughter of a poor Karaim, who makes baskets, yet we are equal in the eyes of the Eternal, and it is permitted to me to raise my eyes to you and looking on your light, to be happy."
And in fact she looked happy. Only now her thin, swarthy face burned with a flame-like blush, her lips were purple, and in her eyes raised to the young man's face and filled with passionate worship stood two silvery tears.
Meir listened to her with downcast eyes, and when she was silent he looked up and gazed at her for a while and whispered softly: "Golda, how grateful and beautiful you are!"
For the first time during her conversation with Meir, Golda dropped her eyes and mechanically began to pluck the high grass growing around her. Meir looked at her silently. The innocence of her heart was plainly manifested in her confusion, which caused him to blush, and a timid joy shone with double light from his gray eyes, which remained cast down.
"Sit beside me," said he finally, in a soft voice.
The girl rose from the ground and sat in the place indicated by him. She had recovered all her boldness and gravity. She was silent and looked at the youth who did not look at her. They were silent a long time. Silence was around them; only above their heads the tall birches rustled softly, and around the pond near by, which was grown up with osier, the whistling and carolling of the marsh-dwelling birds was heard.
Meir, who kept looking at the grass spread at his feet, was the first to speak: "Why do you bring your goat so late to the pasture?"
Golda answered: "Because I don't wish to meet the other girls here."
"Do they also persecute you?"
"They laugh at me when they see me, and call me ugly names, and drive me from them."
Meir raised his eyes to the girl, and in his glance there was deep pity.
"Golda, are you afraid of those girls?"
Golda gravely shook her head in negation.
"I have grown up together with fear," she answered. "It's my brother, and I am accustomed to it. But when I return home the old zeide asks: 'Have you met anybody? Have they annoyed you?' I can't lie, and if I tell the truth the old zeide is very sad and he weeps."
"Did zeide alone bring you up?"
She nodded her head affirmatively.
"My parents died when I was as small as that bush. Zeide didn't have any children, so he took me to his home and took care of me, and when I was ill he carried me in his arms and kissed me. When I was older he taught me to spin and read the Bible, and told me beautiful stories which the Karaims brought from the far world. Zeide is good; zeide is a dear old man--but so old--so old, and so poor. His hair is snow-white from great age and his eyes are red as corals from weeping. When he is making baskets I often lie at his feet and keep my head in his lap, and he caresses my hair with his old, trembling hand, and repeats: 'Josseyme! Josseyme!' (orphan)."
While thus speaking she sat a little bent over, with her elbow resting on her knee. She balanced herself softly, looking into space.
Meir was now gazing in her face as on a rainbow, and when she pronounced the last word, he repeated after her in a soft voice, filled with pity: "Josseyme!"
At that moment, quite a distance behind them in the grove, was heard the bleating of the goat. Meir looked back.
"Your goat--will it not be lost in the forest?" he asked.
"No," answered the girl quietly. "She never goes too far, and when I call her she returns to me. She is my sister."
"Fear is your brother, and a she-goat your sister!" said the young man, smiling.
The girl turned her head toward the grove, and gave voice to a few short exclamations. Immediately there came from the thicket the sound of quick, racing steps, and among the green birch branches appeared the snow-white hairy animal. It stood still and looked at the two people sitting beside each other.
"Come here!" called Golda.
The goat approached and stood near her. Golda caressed the animal's neck, and Meir did the same smiling. The goat gave a short bleat, jumped aside, and in the twinkling of an eye was biting at one of the birches.
"How obedient she is," said Meir.
"She is very fond of me," said Golda gravely. "I brought her up in the same way that zeide did me. She was a little kid when zeide brought her home and made me a present of her. I used to carry her in my arms and feed her with my hands, and when she was sick I sang to her, as zeide used to sing to me."
In speaking thus she smiled, and the smile gave her a childish appearance. She looked not more than fourteen years old.
"Would you like to have another little kid?" asked Meir.
"Why not?" she answered. "I would like it very much. When zeide shall sell a great many baskets, and I shall spin much wool we will buy another little kid."
"For whom do you spin the wool?"
"There are some good women who help me in that way. Hannah, Witebski's wife, your aunt Sarah, Ber's wife, give me wool to spin and then they pay me with copper--sometimes with silver money."
"Then you sometimes come to our house to take the wool for spinning from Sarah, Ber's wife?"
"Yes."
"And why have I never seen you?"
"Because they wish me to come secretly. Ber and his wife Sarah are very good-hearted people, but they don't wish anyone to know that they help us. I come to see them when there is nobody in the house except Lijka, your cousin, and I try to slip in in such a way that the black man could not see me."
"Whom do you mean by the 'black man'?" asked Meir in astonishment.
"Rabbi Isaak Todros!" answered Golda softly--almost in a whisper.
At the sound of that name pronounced by Golda, Meir's face, formerly beaming, full of pity, blushing with emotion, quivered nervously. He grew suddenly silent and looked into space with eyes filled with gloomy lights. He became so thoughtful that a deep line appeared on his white forehead. It seemed to him that he had forgotten that he was not alone.
"Meir," sounded in a soft voice, close to his shoulder, "of what are you thinking, and why have your eyes become so sad? Your name means 'light.' The sun of joy--does it not shine always for you?"
The young man, without changing the direction of his glance, shook his head.
"No," he answered, "there is a deep sorrow in my heart."
The girl bent toward him.
"Meir," she exclaimed, "and from where does this sorrow come to your heart?"
He was silent for a while, and then answered softly: "From the fact that there are black people among us, and such darkness--such darkness!"
The girl dropped her head, and repeated like a sad echo: "Ah! Such darkness!"
Meir continued to look into space, toward where a long strip of the forest separated the golden valley from the purple sky.
"Golda!" he said softly.
"What, Meir?"
"Did you never wish to see and know what there is beyond that thick, high forest--what is going on in the broad world?"
The girl was silent. From her attitude--her body bent toward the young man, her wide-open eyes full of fire--it could be seen that when she could look at him she did not wish to see anything else in the broad world.
But Meir spoke further: "I would like to borrow wings from a bird, in order to go beyond that forest--to fly far away!"
"Don't you like the beautiful house of the rich Saul? Don't you like the faces of your brothers, relatives, and friends, that you wish for the wings of a bird to fly away?" whispered the girl, with stifled grief or fright.
"I like the home of Saul, my grandfather," whispered the thoughtful youth, "and I love my brothers and all my relatives; but I would like to fly beyond that forest in order to see everything and become very wise, and then return here and tell to those who are walking in darkness and wearing chains, what they should do in order to leave the darkness and throw off the chains."
After a time of silence he spoke further.
"I should like to know how the stars are fixed and how the planets grow, and how all the nations of the world live, and what kind of a sacred book they have. I would like to read their books, and learn from them God's thought and human lot, in order that my soul might become filled with science as the sea is filled with water."
Suddenly he stopped, and his voice broke with a sigh of inexpressible longing and insatiable desire. Again he was silent for a while, and then added softly: "I would like to be as happy as was Rabbi Akiba."
"And who was Rabbi Akiba?" asked Golda shyly.
Meir's thoughtful eyes lit up and shone.
"He was a great man, Golda. I read his story often, and I was reading it again when you came."
"I know a great many beautiful stories," said Golda; "they grow in my soul, like red, fragrant roses! Meir, give me one more such rose that it may shine for me when I may not see you."
Their looks met and a soft smile played about Meir's mouth.
"Do you understand Hebrew?"
She hastily nodded in the affirmative.
"Yes, I understand. Zeide taught me." Meir turned a few pages of the book which his lap and read aloud: "Kolba Sabua was a rich man. His palaces were high as mountains and his dresses shone with gold. In his gardens grew fragrant cedars, palms with large leaves, and there bloomed sweet scented roses of Sharon."
"But more beautiful than the high palaces, than the fragrant cedars and crimson roses, more beautiful than all the maidens in Israel was his daughter, young Rachel."
"Kolba Sabua had as many herds as there were stars in the heavens, and these herds were watched by a poor youth who was tall, like a young cedar, and his face was pale and sad, as it is with a man who wishes to free his soul from the darkness, but cannot."
"The name of that youth was Joseph Akiba, and he lived on a high mountain on which the herds of his master grazed."
"And it happened once upon a time, that the beautiful Rachel came to her father, threw herself on the ground before him, kissed his feet, and wept bitterly; then she spoke: 'I want to marry Akiba and live in that little cabin which stands on the summit of the mountain, and in which he lives.'"
"Kolba Sabua was a proud man, and his heart was hard. He became very angry with his daughter, the beautiful Rachel, and forbade her to think of that young man."
"But the beautiful Rachel left the high palace, and taking with her only her dark eyes, which shone like big diamonds, and her dark tresses, which were raised over her head like a crown. And she went on the high mountain to the little cabin, and said, 'Akiba, behold your wife, who enters into your house!'"
"Akiba was joyful, and he drank from Rachel's eyes her diamond-like tears, and then began to tell her many beautiful things. Wise words poured like honey from his lips, and she listened and was happy, and said, 'Akiba, you shall be a great star, which shall shine over Israel's roads.'"
"Kolba Sabua was a proud man, and his heart was hard. He sent to his daughter on the high mountain neither food nor clothing, and said, 'Let her become acquainted with hunger, and let her see misery.'"
"And the beautiful Rachel saw misery, and became acquainted with hunger. There were days when she had nothing to put into Akiba's mouth, and thought that her husband must go hungry."
"Akiba spoke, 'No matter that I am hungry,' and then he told her wise things, but she descended the high mountains, went to the town, and cried, 'Who will give me a measure of millet-seed for the dark crown which I wear on my head?' And they gave her a measure of millet-seed, and took her dark crown from her forehead, which was more beautiful than diamonds."
"She returned to the mountains, to the little cabin, and said, 'Akiba, I have some food for your mouth, but your soul is hungry, and for it I cannot get food! Go into the world and nourish your soul with great wisdom which flows from the mouths of wise people. I will remain here. I will sit at the threshold of the house; I will spin wool, and take care of the herds, ad look on the road by which you will return, like the sun which returns to the sky to chase away the darkness of the night.'"
"And Akiba went."
Here the voice of the young man became silent, and he cast his eyes on the leaves of the book, for near his shoulder was heard a voice full of astonishment.
"Akiba went?" asked Golda, and her eyes were widely opened, and the breath seemed to stop in her breast.
"Akiba went," repeated Meir, and began to read farther.
"The beautiful Rachel sat at the threshold of the house, span the wool, took care of the herds, and looked at the road by which he must return, shining with great wisdom."
"Seven years passed, and there came an evening when the moon at her full pours on the earth a sea of silvery light, and the trees and herbs stand still and do not move, as though the spirit of the Eternal breathed on them, and brought to the world peace and tranquillity."
"That evening, from behind the mountains, a tall pale man appeared. His feet trembled like leaves when the wind shakes them, and his hands from time to time were raised to the heavens. And when he saw the small, poor cabin, a stream of tears flowed from his eyes--for it was Akiba, the husband of the beautiful Rachel."
"Akiba stopped at the open window, and listened to the talk that was going on within. His wife, Rachel, was talking with her brother, whom her father sent to her. 'Return to Kolba Sabua's house,' spoke her brother, and she answered, 'I am waiting for Akiba, and taking care of his house.' The brother spoke, 'Akiba will never return--he has left you, and he is a disgrace to you.' She answered, 'Akiba has not left me. I, myself, sent him to the fountain of wisdom, that he might drink from it.' 'He drinks from the fountain of wisdom, and you bathe yourself in tears, and your flesh dries from misery!' 'Let my eyes flow out with my tears, let my flesh be eaten with misery, I shall watch the house of my husband. And if that man, for whom I fed love in my heart, shall come back to me and say, 'Rachel, I come back to you that you may not weep any more, but I have not drunk enough from the fountain of wisdom,' I would say to him, 'Go and drink more.''"
"The pale traveller, who stood at the window, which was open, became still paler, and trembled still more when he heard what Rachel said. He left the small cabin, and returned whence he came."
"Again seven years passed by. And there came a day when the sun pours streams of golden brightness, and the trees rustle, and the flowers blossom, and the birds sing, and the people laugh, as though the spirit of the Eternal breathed on them, and brought to them life and joy."
"On the road which led up the mountain to the shepherd's little cabin a great crowd of people was roaring. Amidst them a tall man was walking. His face shone like the sun with great wisdom, and from his mouth fell words sweet as honey and fragrant as myrrh. People bowed low before him, seizing every word, and crying with great love to him, 'Oh, Rabbi!'"
"But through the crowd of people a woman rushed, and falling on the ground, she seized the master's knees. She still held a spindle in her hand. She was covered with rags; her face was thin and her eyes deeply sunken, for during fourteen years they had flowed with tears." " 'Go away, you beggar!' the people shouted to her, but the master raised her from the ground and pressed her to his breast; for the man was Joseph Akiba, and the woman was his wife Rachel." " 'Behold the fountain which supplied my sad heart with the drink of hope, when my head was in the depths of great loneliness and work.'"
"Thus spake the master to the people, and wished to place on Rachel's head a crown of gold and pearls." " 'Thou, Rachel,' said he, 'hast taken from thy head thy beautiful hair, in order to nourish my hungry mouth. Now I will ornament thy forehead with a rich garland.'"
"But she stopped his arm, and raising to him her eyes, which had again become as beautiful as of yore, she said to him, 'Rabbi, your glory is my crown.'"
The young man finished the story, and turned his eyes on the girl sitting beside him.
Golda's face was all aflame, and her eyes were full of tears.
"Do you find my story beautiful?" asked Meir. "Yes; beautiful indeed!" she answered, and with her head leaning on the palm of her hand she balanced her slender figure to and fro for a while, as if under the influence of ecstasy and drowsiness. Suddenly she grew pale, and drew herself up.
"Meir," she exclaimed, "if you were Akiba, and I the daughter of the rich Kolba Sabua, I would do for you the same as the beautiful Rachel did for him!"
She seized her superb tresses, black as ebony, which hung carelessly down her back, and twisting it around her head, she said: "I have exactly the same black crown as Rachel!" Then she raised her deep, fiery eyes to Meir, and said boldly, gravely, without a smile, blush, or exaltation: "Meir, for you I would take my eyes out of my head! I would not have any use for them if I could not look at you."
A strong flush covered the young man's face, but it was not mere bashfulness, but emotion. The girl was so naive--so wild, and at the same time so beautiful, with her luxuriant, dishevelled tresses piled above her forehead, and with passionate words on her grave and daring lips.
"Golda," said Meir, "I will come to your house and pay a visit to your old grandfather."
"Come," said she; "with you there will enter into our house a great light."
The sun had almost set behind the high scarlet and purple clouds. A little pond shone from beyond the high osiers. In that direction Golda's looks went, and stopped at the water and surrounding bushes.
"Why are you looking at the pond?" asked Meir, who could no longer keep his eyes from the girl's face.
"I would like to get as many as I could of those branches growing over there," answered the girl.
"What for?"
"I would carry them home. Zeide makes baskets of them, then he sells them in the market and buys bread, and sometimes fish. For a long time zeide has had no willow to make baskets, and he grieves."
"Why don't you take them if you need them?"
I am not permitted.
"Why not? Everyone from the town may cut the branches. This meadow and that grove belong to the whole community of Szybow."
"It doesn't matter; I am not permitted. We don't believe in the Talmud; we don't light candles on the Sabbath--nothing is allowed us."
Meir rose suddenly.
"Come," said he to Golda, "I will be with you, and you may cut as many branches as you like. Don't be afraid of anything."
Golda's face shown with joy. She took from Meir's hand a jack-knife and rushed toward the pond. Now, when she felt safe under the protection of a strong arm, when there was hope of giving pleasure to the old grandfathers she lost the gravity which gave her the appearance of a matured woman. She ran along, looking from time to time at Meir who followed her, calling her she-goat, who turned toward her from the opposite side of the meadow. They stopped on the shore. The most flexible willow grass grew in the water, a few steps from the bank. In the twinkling of an eye Golda threw off her low shoes, and rolling up her dress she entered the water. Meir remained on the shore and watched the girl, as raising her arms, she began to swiftly cut the pliable branches. In the mean time she laughed, and her parted lips disclosed rows of teeth as white and beautiful as pearls. The glare of the last dazzling rays bathed her swarthy face with a pinkish light, and gilded the black crown of hair twined above her brow.
Meir did not lose sight of her, and smiled also. Suddenly Golda set up a cry.
"What is the matter?" asked Meir.
From the green thicket, in which the girl's figure was hidden, a joyful voice resounded.
"Meir, what beautiful flowers are here!"
"What flowers?"
The tall figure thrust aside the green bushes, bent toward the shore, and stretching out her arm handed the young man a broad-leaved yellow pond lily. Meir bent over a little in order to reach the flower, but all at once Golda's arm trembled, her pink, face grew pale, and her eyes dilated with dread.
"The black man!" she whispered, dropping the flower, and with a soft exclamation of fear she retreated and hid herself in the willow copse.
Meir looked behind him. Some distance off he saw emerging from the grove, and passing swiftly across the meadow, a strange figure walked swiftly. It was a medium-sized man, very thin, with a dark face, gray hair and a dark, dullish beard falling to his waist. He was robed in a long dress made of rough woven cloth, and his yellow, bare neck was thrust from an open shirt of rough material. He stooped in the shoulders and his steps were noiseless, as he wore low, woven slippers. In either hand he carried a big bunch of variegated herbs. When that man, without looking at Meir, passed him at a distance, the youth mechanically bent low his head in sign of humility and reverence Soon, however, he raised it. His face was pale, and expressed suppressed grief. He looked gloomily at the black figure passing swiftly across the meadow, and through his teeth set in either grief or anger, he said: "Rabbi Isaak Todros!"
|
{
"id": "28400"
}
|
5
|
None
|
Rabbi Isaak Todros' appearance, and also his spiritual development, perhaps, were expressive characteristics of several centuries of long sojourn of his ancestors in Spain.
Wandering people, although astonishingly perseverant and conservative of marks distinguishing them from other nations, still by the inevitable influence of nature, draw here and there something from the different skies under which the lot of the exile scattered them.
Among the common characteristics of Israelites, however, there can be seen great differences. There are among them people but recently arrived from the South and West, and again there are others over whose head a pale sky has stretched and a cold wind has blown for centuries. There are among them phlegmatic natures, and also ardent mystical ones, and others redolent of reality. Some of them have hair black as the darkest raven wing--others have eyes the colour of the sky. There are among them white and also swarthy foreheads; strong, hardy natures, and others nervous, quivering with passion, imbued with dreaming, and consumed with fanciful ideals.
The swarthiest among the swarthy faces, the darkest of dark hair, the most passionate among the fiery spirits belonged to Isaak Todros.
What precise position did he occupy in the community, and on what was it based? He was not a priest; rabbis are not priests, and perhaps there is no other nation, as distant by its nature from theocratic government as are the Israelites. Neither was he the administrator of the community, because the members of the kahal took charge of its civil affairs; rabbis, while being members of the kahal, possessed only the role of warden of religion in respect to its rules and rites. He possessed a dignity higher than that, however. He was the descendant of an old princely house and among his ancestors he counted many scholars, pious and revered rabbis, and he was perfectly pious himself--consequently cadek and hahamen, ascetic, almost a miracle-worker, and a deeply, supernaturally learned man. Of course, saying that he was a learned man refers only to religious erudition, but in the eyes of the community of Szybow this was the only learning.
This scholarship embraced the incomparable knowledge of sacred books; Torah or the Bible, as little as possible--more of the Talmud, and most of Kabala.
Isaak Todros was the most able Kabalist of modern times, and it constituted the corner-stone upon which was built his greatness. Someone not familiar with the faith of the plebeian Israelites would suppose that the population of Szybow was a branch of a numerous gloomy sect of Hassid, which puts at the head of all religious and secular learning, the Kabala. No; the inhabitants of Szybow did not consider themselves heretics. On the contrary, they were proud of being orthodox Talmudists and Rabbinists. But they belonged to those, numerous in the lowest stratum of Talmudists, who joined Kabala to the Torah and Talmud, recognised it as a holy book, and became passionately fond of it, setting it in the shadow of the two first books.
And then Hassidism touched the Hebrew population of Szybow and left deep traces. In fact the greater part of the population was Hassidish without knowing it. Tradition said that Isaak Todros' ancestor, that Reb Nohim who had waged a battle of ideas with Hersh Ezofowich, was for some time a pupil of Besht, the founder of that curious sect. He saw him often, and although he did not join the sect entirely, he grafted some of its ideas into the community of which he was the spiritual leader.
The principal characteristics of the sect were: a boundless respect for Kabala, an almost idolatrous worship of Cadeks and a deep, pious and unshakeable aversion toward Edomites (foreign nations) and their lores.
These principles multiplied and branched out under the teaching of Nohim's son, Baruch, and his grandson Isaak seized the dignity held by his ancestors during the period of their rule. Therefore the religion of the inhabitants was neither Mosaism, nor Talmudism, nor Hassidism, but it was a chaotic mixture of all three which prevailed for the space of a number of miles around Szybow, and the highest expression of which was found in the person of the Rabbi of Szybow.
Rabbi Isaak had a swarthy forehead, furrowed deeply by lines of strained thought in trying to penetrate the mystery of Heaven and earth by a combination of letters, composed of the name of God and the Angels. Therefore in his coal-black eyes were gloomy lights which sometimes became ecstatic when they contemplated the incomparable delights of the supernatural world. His back was bent from the continual reading of books, arid his hand shook with excitement caused by the perpetual state of emotion in which his mind was kept; his body was thin from spiritual torments and physical mortifications.
Celibacy, fasting and sleepless nights were written in the dark face of the man, as well as his mystical ecstasies, secret dread and merciless hatred of everyone who lived, believed and desired differently from himself.
When he was young he had married--or rather they had married him--before the slightest sign of a beard had appeared on his cheeks, but he soon divorced his wife, because, by her continual bustling activity she troubled his pious thought and spiritual raptures. His three children were brought up in his brother's house, and he himself lived the life of an anchorite in the little cabin--a life of fancy strained to the utmost, of passionate prayers and unfathomable mystic contemplations. Such was his spiritual life.
His physical life was sustained by gifts sent him by his zealous admirers. But those gifts were small and common. Rabbi Isaak did not accept great and costly presents--he even refused to accept remuneration for the advice, medicines and prophecies which he gave to the faithful who came to him.
But every day before sunrise some bashful figures glided through the school-yard, and placed on the wooden bench standing near the window of the house some earthen dishes with food--slices of bread or holiday cake.
At that time the Rabbi usually recited his morning prayers, for it was that moment at which white could be distinguished from blue, which is the time that every faithful Israelite should recite the morning Tefils and Shems.
Then he opened his window and contemplated the pink glow of the dawn. In one direction was the far Orient, Jerusalem, the invisible ruins of Solomon's Temple, Palestine weeping for her sons and the withering palms of Zion.
Sometimes the fire shining in the Rabbi's eyes was quenched by a tear, cooling his cheeks which burned with the heat of interior fires. Sometimes they were cooled also by the cold winds and misty fogs, but Isaak Todros looked every morning through the mists and fogs, toward the Orient. Then he bent and took from the bench the food prepared for him by pious hands. He did not eat it alone. He broke the bread and cake into crumbs and threw it in handfuls to the birds which came to his window in great flocks. Some of them seized the food and carried it to their nests, chirping joyfully. Others after having eaten enough flew in through the window and perched on the bent shoulders of their friend. Then the Rabbi's dark face grew a little less dark, and sometimes--though very seldom--a smile played about his close shut lips. He was very well known, not only to the birds living in the town, but also to those who filled the birch grove.
Isaak Todros often went to the grove, and sometimes penetrated the neighbouring pine forest. What did he do there? He fed the birds, who, on seeing him, immediately flew to him, and accompanied him in his walk. Sometimes he prayed in a loud voice, raising his trembling hands, and awakening by the sounds of his passionate cries the choir of wood echoes. He also gathered different herbs and plants, which he brought in great bunches to his hut. These plants possessed curative properties, whose knowledge was a heritage in the Todros family. All the members of this family belonged to that class of primitive physicians with which the Middle Ages was filled, and who learned their art of healing not from academies, but from wild nature, studied more with fantastical inquiring, than with learned thought. One of Isaak Todros' ancestors was, however, a very learned physician in Spain at the time when there was a short interval in prosperity in the bad fortunes of the Hebrew nation, and they were permitted to draw with the other nations all possible good from every source. However, the interval was but a short one, and after it the world-famous and really scholarly Hebrew physicians disappeared from the world; but one, by the name of Todros Halevi, transmitted his knowledge to his sons, and so it passed from generation to generation.
Isaak Todros searched for diligently, and gathered carefully, these precious plants of the ancient knowledge and traditions of his family. He carried them with him, and laid them on the dirty floor of his cabin in order to dry them.
On this account the air of his cabin was saturated during the summer and fall with the pungent, choking scent of drying herbs and wild flowers.
His cell was a vivid reminder of the bare cells of anchorites and hermits. Its only furniture consisted of a hard bed, a white table, standing near one of the windows, a couple of chairs, and a few planks fastened to the wall piled up with books. Among these books were twelve enormous volumes bound in parchment. They constituted the Talmud. There were also the "Ozarha-Kabod," a work written by one of Isaak's ancestors--that Todros Halevi who was the first Talmudist to believe in the Kabala; "Toldot-Adam," an epic poem, telling the history of the first man and his exile; "Sefer-Jezira," (Book of Creation), telling by pictures of the origin of the world; "Ka-arat Kezef," in which Ezobi warns the Israelites against the pernicious influence of secular science; "Schiur-Koma," a plastic description of God, instructing the reader regarding his physical appearance--the gigantic size of the head, feet, hands, and especially God's beard, which, according to the book, is ten thousand five hundred parasangs long. But the place of honour was occupied by a book showing much thumbing. It was the Book of Light--Zohar--the greatest, and, at the same time, the deepest dissertation on Hohma-Nistar (Kabala), which was published in the thirteenth century by Moses Leon, in the name of Symeon-ben-Jochai, who lived several centuries before.
Such was the library of Isaak Todros, in the reading of which he spent his nights, drawing from it all his learning and wisdom, consuming in its perusal all the forces of his body. From that library emanated an odour which intoxicated his mind with mystical emotions and the bitter, sharp venom of aversion to everything which was a stranger to, or bore ill-will to the world, shut up in those books, filled with supernatural lights and shadows. In reading them, he exhausted many hours a week--even holy days and nights. But through the holy nights there sat at his feet his pupil and favourite, Reb Moshe, the melamed, who snuffed the yellow candle, for a pious man reading Holy Books during holy nights was not permitted to snuff the candle, and he must have beside him some attentive person to perform this office.
During the holy nights the Rabbi read Schiur-Koma and Zohar, and the little man, sitting beside him, raised himself from time to time in his low chair, reviving the flame of the dying candle, and with his round eyes looking into the face of his master, waiting for the moment when his hand would arrange a word from the names of God, Notarikon and Gomatria, which would perform great miracles, and disclose to the people all the secrets of the heavens and of the earth.
Returning home after sunset one day with a big bunch of herbs, Isaak Todros found his faithful worshipper seated in a corner of the dark hall, plunged in deep thought.
"Moshe," said the Rabbi, passing swiftly and quietly through the hall.
"What is your order, Nassi?" humbly asked Moshe.
"Go at once to old Saul, and tell him that Rabbi Isaak Todros will visit his house to-morrow."
The cramped, gray figure in the dark corner jumped as though moved by a spring, and rushed across the square to the house of Saul. Passing quickly the piazza and long hall, the melamed opened the door, and, thrusting his head into the room, he exclaimed triumphantly: "Reb Saul, a great honour and happiness is coming to you! Rabbi Isaak Todros, the perfect pious, and the first scholar in the world, will visit your house to-morrow!"
From the depths of the large parlour the voice of the old merchant, dried by age, but still strong, answered: "I, Saul Ezofowich, my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will await Rabbi Isaak's visit with great joy and great desire in our hearts. May he live a hundred years!"
"May he live a hundred years!" repeated the dark figure, and disappeared.
The door was closed. Old Saul was sitting on the sofa, reading from Zohar, but he could not understand its deep explanations in spite of the utmost mental strain, for his mind was accustomed to secular business affairs. Suddenly his wrinkled forehead became gloomy and uneasiness shone in his eyes. He turned to his elder son, Raphael, who sat at a table near by, balancing his books, and asked: "Why is he coming here?"
Raphael shrugged his shoulders, as a sign that he did not know.
"Has he any reason for picking a quarrel?" asked the old man again.
Raphael, raising his face from his books, said: "He has."
Saul shivered.
"Nu!" he exclaimed, "And what reason can he have? Has someone of the family sinned?"
Raphael answered shortly: "Meir."
The faces of both father and son grew sad and disquieted. Isaak Todros visited the members of the sect very seldom--only when there was a question of some important religious matter or transgression of rules. And even such rare calls were only paid to the most prominent and influential members of the community. Poor people surrounded the Rabbi's cabin, ready to rush in at a sign from him in inexpressible joy or fear.
Rabbi Isaak Todros was an ascetic and he despised mammon, but he did not reject all possible signs of respect the people desired to show him, and they who were familiar with his thoughts and sentiments knew that he was very fond of these signs, and would even demand them imperiously in case anyone thought to dispense with or diminish them. For that reason all the poor population, and everyone who wished to win his special favour, called him "Prince," addressing him as "Nassi." Therefore his passage through the town on all occasions was an important and curious event for the population, and was performed with quiet, dignified ceremony. A couple of hours before noon Saul Ezofowich, standing before the window of his parlour, looked with a certain amount of trouble at the retinue passing slowly across the square. All the members of his family, robed in holiday dresses, with a solemn expression on their faces, looked also, holding themselves in readiness to welcome this high dignitary of the community at the threshold of their residence. Through the square, from the school, a throng of people dressed in black advanced toward the house of the Ezofowich. In the middle, bent as always, in shabby clothes, with his rough shirt unbuttoned showing the yellow neck, marched Isaak Todros, with his usual swift, noiseless quiet pace.
On either side was an official of the Kahal--the small, lithe Reb Jankiel, with his white, freckled face and fiery red beard, and David Calman, one of the dignitaries of the town. Morejne, a rich cattle merchant, tall, stiff, and dignified, with hands in the pockets of his satin halat and a sweet smile of satisfaction on his fat lips, walked near. Behind these three people, and on both sides, were several others more or less humble and smiling. The whole crowd was preceded by Reb Moshe, in such a way that he faced the Rabbi and had his back in the direction in which they walked. Consequently he could not be said to walk, but draw back, in the meantime jumping and clapping his hands, bending low to the ground, stumbling, and jumping again, raising his face to the sky and shouting for joy. Finally, a certain distance behind, a throng of children followed them and looked with great curiosity at the retinue, and on seeing the melamed's jumping and dancing, they began to imitate him, jumping and gesticulating also and filling the air with wild noise.
After a while the door of the Ezofowich house was violently opened and through it rushed the melamed--he was red, out of breath, bathed in perspiration and beaming with great joy. He rejoiced heartily, loudly, passionately. What for? Poor melamed!
"Reb Saul!" he said with a hoarse voice, "meet the great happiness the great honour coming to you."
From Saul's face it would be seen that a secret fear was fighting with the great joy within him. But his family evidently rejoiced exceedingly, for their faces beamed with pride and satisfaction except Ber, who was always silent and apathetic if the question was not one of business and money. Old Saul stood near the threshold of the parlour. On the piazza Rob Jankiel and Morejne Calman seized the Rabbi under either arm, lifted his thin body above the ground, and having carried him through the hall and over the threshold they placed him opposite Saul. Then they bowed profoundly, left the house, sat on the piazza waiting for the moment to reconduct the Rabbi.
In the meanwhile Saul bent before the guest his grave and reverent head. Everyone present followed his example.
"He who greets a sage greets the Eternal," said he.
"He who greets a sage . . ." the choir of male and female voices began to repeat after Saul, but at that moment Isaak Todros raised his index finger, looked around with his fiery eyes, and said: "Sh-a-a-a!"
In the room there was the silence of the tomb.
The finger of the guest made a large circle, taking in the row of people standing near the wall.
"Weg!" (get out) shouted he.
Within the room the rustling of dresses and the sound of swift steps were heard; faces grew frightened and sorrowful, and crowding together the inmates squeezed through the door leading to the interior of the house, and disappeared.
In the larger room only two men remained--the silver-haired, broad-shouldered patriarch, and the thin, fiery-looking sage.
When the Rabbi imperatively drove out his host's family--the gray-headed sons, dignified matrons, and beautiful girls, Saul's gray eyebrows quivered and bristled for a moment. Evidently his pride rose within him.
"Rabbi," said he, in a muffled voice, and with a bow that was not as low as the first one, "deign to take under my roof the place you think the most comfortable."
He did not call his guest "prince"; he did not give him the name of Nassi.
Rabbi Isaak looked t him gloomily, crossed the room, and sat on the sofa. At that moment he was not bent; on the contrary, he sat bolt upright, looking sharply into the face of the old man who sat opposite to him.
"I have driven them out," said he, pointing to the door through which the patriarch's family had made their exit. "Why did you gather them? I wished to talk with you alone."
Saul was silent.
"I bring you news," again said the Rabbi quickly and gloomily. "Your grandson Meir has not a clean soul. He is a kofrim (infidel)."
Saul still sat silent, only his frowning brows quivered nervously above his faded eyes.
"He is a kofrim!" the Rabbi repeated loudly. "He speaks ugly words of our religion, and he does not respect the sages. He violates the Sabbath, and is friendly with the heretics."
"Rabbi!" began Saul.
"You must listen when I speak," interrupted the Rabbi.
The old man tightened his lips so that they disappeared under his gray moustache.
"I came to tell you," continued Todros, "that it's your fault that your grandson is bad. Why did you not permit the melamed to whip him when he was in the heder, and did not want to study German, and laughed at the melamed, and instigated the others to laugh at him? Why did you send him to Edomita, living there among the gardens to make him study the reading of the Gojs and also their writing and the other abominations of the Edomites? Why did you not punish him when he violated the Sabbath, and contradicted the melamed at your table? Why did you spoil his soul with your sinful love? Why don't you force him to study holy science? And why do you look on all his abominations as though you were a blind man?"
This vehement speech tired the Rabbi, and panting, he rested.
Then old Saul began to talk: "Rabbi, your soul must not be angry with me. I could not act otherwise. This child is the son of my son--the youngest among my children, and who disappeared very quickly from my eyes. When his parents died I took this child to my home, and I wished that he might never remember that he was an orphan. I was then already a widower, and I carried him in my own arms. His old great-grandmother took care of him also, and she would give her soul for the happiness of his soul. In her crown he is the first jewel, and now her old mouth opens only for him. These are, Rabbi, the reasons why I have been more indulgent with him than with my other children; these are the reasons why my soul was ill when the melamed scolded and whipped him in the heder, as the other children. I sinned then. I rushed into the heder like a madman, spoke ugly words to the melamed, and took the boy away with me. Rabbi, I sinned, because the melamed is a wise and saintly man; but this sin will disappear from your mind, Rabbi, if you will but think that I could not bear to look at the bruises on the body of the son of my son. When such bruises appeared on the bodies of the children of my son Raphael, and my son Abraham, and my son Ephraim, I was silent, for their fathers were living--thanks be to God! --and could look after their children. But when I saw the black-and-blue marks on the back and shoulders of the orphan, Rabbi, then I cried--then I shouted, and I sinned."
"That is not your only sin," said the Rabbi, who listened to Saul's speech with the motionless severity of a judge, "and why did you send him to Edomit?"
"Rabbi," answered Saul, "and how could he go through the world if he did not understand the tongue of the people of this country, and could not write his name to a contract or a note? Rabbi, my sons and grandsons conduct large business transactions, and he will do the same when he is married. His father's wealth belongs to him. He will be rich and will have to talk with great lords, and how could he so talk if I had not sent him to study with an Edomit?"
"May Edom perish with his abominable learning, and may the Lord not forgive him!" grumbled the Rabbi, and after a while he added: "and why did you not make of him a scholar instead of a merchant?"
"Rabbi," answered Saul, "the Ezofowich family is a family of merchants. We are merchants from father to son--that is our custom."
Saying this, he raised his bent head. The mention of his family caused him to grow proud and bold. But nothing could be compared with the disdain with which, repeating after Saul, the Rabbi hissed: "The Ezofowich family! It was always a grain of pepper in Israel's palate!"
Saul raised his head higher.
"Rabbi!" he exclaimed, "in that family there were diamonds which caused the Edomites themselves, in looking on them, to respect the whole of Israel."
The ancient hatred between the Ezofowichs and Todros began to bubble up.
"In your family," spoke the Rabbi, "there is one ugly soul which passes from one Ezofowich to another, and cannot be cleansed. For it is written that all souls which flow from the Seraphim flow like drops of water from an inclined bottle, carrying Ibur-Gilgul--travel through bodies, from one to another, until they are cleansed from all sin, when they return to the Seraphim. If a man is pious and saintly his soul returns to the Seraphim, and when the soul returns there another soul goes into the world and enters a body. Misery and sadness, sorrow and sin will dwell upon the earth as long as all souls taken from the Seraphim have not fulfilled the Ibur-Gilgul and pass through the bodies. And how will they be able to pass all the bodies if on the earth there are many which are abominable, unclean, and do not respect the holy teachings? These unwholesome ones keep the souls in their bodies, and there above the other souls are waiting. And they must wait, because there are not as many bodies in the world as there are souls among the Seraphim. And the Messiah himself is waiting, because he will not come until the last soul enters the body and Ibur-Gilgul begins. These abominable ones, occupying one body after another, do not permit the waiting souls to enter in, and postponing to a remote period the Jobelha-Gabel, the day of the Messiah,--the great festival of joy! In your family there is such an abominable soul. It entered first into the body of Michael the Senior, then it entered Hersh's body, and now it sits in the body of your grandson Meir! I recognised the proud and rebellious soul in his eyes and face, therefore my heart turned from him!"
While Todros explained to the old man sitting opposite him this doctrine of the migration of souls, and its consequences, in the old man a striking change took placer Before he had grown bolder, and even raised his head with a certain pride and dignity. Now he bent it low, and sorrow and fear appeared among the wrinkles of his face.
"Rabbi!" said he humbly, "be blessed for having disclosed to my eyes your holy learning. Your words are true and your eyes can recognise the souls which dwell in bodies. Rabbi, I will tell you something. When my son Raphael brought little Meir, I took the child and began to kiss him, for it seemed to me that he looked like my son Benjamin, his father; but the old great-grandmother took him from me, put him opposite her on the floor and began to look at him very attentively, and then she exclaimed: 'He does not look like Benjamin, but like my Hersh!' The tears flowed from her old eyes and her lips repeated: 'Hersh, Hersh! my Hersh!' and she pressed the child to her boom and said: 'He is my dearest Kleineskind! He is the eyes of my head and the diamond in my crown, made for me by my grandsons and great-grandson, for he looks like my Hersh.' And she is fond of him. Now she knows only him and calls him to her because he looks like her husband, Hersh."
"Michael's soul entered Hersh's body, and from his body it passed into your grandsons Meir's," repeated the Rabbi, and added: "It's a proud rebellious soul! There is no peace and humility in it."
It seemed that Todros was softened by Saul's submissiveness, and the respect shown in his words.
"Why don't you marry him? He has already long hair on his face," said the Rabbi.
"Rabbi, I wished to marry him to the daughter of the pious Jankiel, but the child lay at my feet and begged me not to force him."
"Why then did you not put your feet on his back, and make him obey you?"
Saul dropped his eyes and was silent. He felt that he was guilty. Love for the orphan made him sin always.
Todros spoke further: "Marry him as soon as you can, because it is written that when on a young man's face the hair is growing, and he has not a wife, then he will fall into uncleanliness. Your grandson's soul has already fallen into uncleanliness. Yesterday I saw him with a girl--" Saul raised his eyes.
"I saw him," continued the Rabbi, "talking with Karaim's girl."
"Karaim's girl?" repeated Saul, in a voice full of surprise and fright.
"He was standing on the edge of the pond and took from her hand some flowers, and I read in their faces that the unclean fire was embracing them."
"With Karaim's girl," repeated Saul once more.
"With a heretic!" said the Rabbi.
"With a beggar!" said Saul energetically, raising his head.
"Rabbi," continued he, "now I will act differently with him! I don't wish to have shame eat up my eyes in my old age, because my grandson has an unclean friendship with a beggar. I shall marry him!"
"You must punish him," said the Rabbi, "I came here to tell you to put your foot on his neck and bend his pride. Don't spare him, for your indulgence will be a sin which the Lord will not forgive you. And if you will not punish him, I will lay my hand on his head and there will be great shame for you, and for him such misfortune that he will grovel in the dirt, like a miserable worm!"
Under the influence of these words, pronounced in a threatening voice, Saul trembled. Different emotions fought continually within the old man; a secret hatred for Todros and a great respect for his learning, pride and fear, fierce anger toward his grandson and tender love for him. The Rabbi's threat touched that last chord.
"Rabbi," he said, "forgive him. He is still a mere child. When he is married and starts in business he will be different. When he was born his father wrote to me: 'Father, what name do you wish your grandson to be given?' and I answered, 'Give him the name of Meir, which means light, that it may be a light before me and all Israel!'"
Here emotion choked his voice and he was silent. Two tears rolled slowly down his cheeks.
The Rabbi rose from the sofa, lifted his index finger and said: "You must remember my commands. I order you to set your foot on his neck, and you must listen to my orders, because it is written that 'the sages are the world's foundation.'"
Having said this, he advanced toward the door, at which Reb Jankiel and Morejne Calman seized him again, and carried him through the hall and across the threshold and set him on the ground.
And again the black throng of people advanced through the square toward the school-yard; again the melamed, retreating before the Rabbi, jumped, clapped his hands, danced and shouted; and again the crowd of children, following the retinue at a distance, imitated their teacher, jumping, howling, Clapping their hands. And in Ezofowich's parlour old Saul sat with his face covered with his hands, while at the opposite door Freida appeared. The sun rays, falling through the window, kindled into rainbow colours the diamonds with which she was covered. She looked around the room with her half-closed eyes, and pronounced, in her customary soundless whisper: "Wo ist Meir?"
|
{
"id": "28400"
}
|
6
|
None
|
Meir was absent during the Rabbi's visit. He left the house early in the morning and went in the direction of the poorest quarter of the town. The houses there were very small and very low and exceedingly dismal, none of them having more than two windows. In front of the houses were evil-smelling sloughs. From the black chimneys of the tenements arose thin streaks of smoke, indicating by their thinness the scarcity of fuel, and the food cooked by it. Fences, rotten and tumble-down, surrounded the small courtyards, which were covered with sweepings. Here and there could be seen in the rear of the houses, tiny tracts of land with meagre vegetables growing in them. At the low doors, miserable looking women with dark sickly faces, wearing blue caftans and carroty wigs, washed their gray, coarse linen in buckets. The old and bent women sat on the benches, knitting blue or black wool stockings, while young sunburned girls, in dirty dresses and dishevelled hair, milked the goats.
It was the quarter of the town inhabited by the poorest population of Szybow, the nursery of poverty--even of misery, dirt, and disease. The houses of the Ezofowichs, Calmans, Witebskis and Kamionkers, standing at the square, were luxurious palaces when compared with those human dwellings, the mere exterior aspect of which made one think of earthly purgatory. And no wonder. There, on the square, lived merchants and learned men, the aristocracy of every Jewish community; here lived the population of working men and tradesmen--the plebeians earning their daily bread with their hands and not with brains.
In spite of the fact that it was yet early morning, the daily work had generally begun. From behind the dirty windows could be seen the rising and falling arms of the tailors and cobblers. Through the thin walls resounded the tools of tinsmiths and the hammers of blacksmiths, and from the houses of the manufacturers of tallow candles rose unbearable, greasy exhalations. Some of the inhabitants, taking advantage of the sunrise, looked into the street, opened their windows and a passer-by could see the interior of, the small rooms with black walls, crowded with occupants which swarmed like ants. Through the windows came the mixed noise of singing and praying in male voices, the quarrelling of women and the screaming of children. All the smaller children rent the sultry air of the black, crowded rooms with their cries, while the older ones trooped out into the street in great crowds, chasing each other noisily or rolling on the ground. Growing boys, dressed not in sleeveless jackets like the children, but in long, grey halats, stood on the thresholds of the huts leaning against the walls, pale, thin, drowsy, with widely opened mouths, as though they wished to breathe into their sickly, cold breasts the warm rays of the sun and the fresh breeze of the morning.
Meir approached one of these youths.
"Nu, Lejbele," said he, "I have come to see you. Are you always sick and looking like an owl?"
It was evident that Lejbele was ill and moping, for, with hands folded in the sleeves of his miserable halat, and pressed to his chest, he was shivering with cold, although the morning was warm; he did not answer Meir, but opened his mouth and great, dull, dark eyes more widely, and looked idiotically at the young man.
Meir laid his band on the boy's head.
"Were you in the heder yesterday?" he asked. The boy began to tremble still more, and answered in a hoarse voice: "Aha."
This meant an affirmative.
"Were you beaten again?"
Tears filled the boy's dark eyes, which remained raised to the face of the tall young man.
"They beat me," he said.
His breast began to heave with sobs under the sleeves of the halat, which were still pressed by the boy's folded bands.
"Have you breakfasted?"
The boy shook his head in the negative.
Meir took from the nearest huckster's stand a big hala (loaf of bread), for which he threw a copper coin to the old woman. He then gave the bread to the child. Lejbele seized it in both bands, and began to devour it rapaciously. At that moment a tall, thin, lithe man rushed out from the cabin. He wore a black beard, and bad an old, sorrowful face. He threw himself toward Meir. First be seized his band and raised it to his lips, and then began to reproach him.
"Morejne!" he exclaimed, "why did you give him that hala? He is a stupid, nasty child. He don't want to study, and brings shame upon me. The melamed--may he live a hundred years--takes a great deal of trouble to teach him; but he has a head which does not understand anything. The melamed beats him, and I beat him, too, in order that the learning shall enter his head, but it does not help at all. He is an alejdyc gejer (lazy)--a donkey!"
Meir looked at the boy, who was still devouring the bread.
"Schmul," said he, "he is neither lazy nor a donkey, but he is sick."
Schmul waved his hand contemptuously.
"He is sick," shouted he. "He began to be sick when he was told to study. Before that he was healthy, gay, and intelligent. Ah, what an intelligent and pretty child he was! Could I expect such a misfortune? What is he now?"
Meir continued to smooth the dishevelled hair of the pale child with his hand. The tall, thin Schmul bent again and kissed his hand.
"Morejne," said he, "you are very good if you pity such a stupid child."
"Schmul, why do you call me Morejne?" asked Meir.
Schmul interrupted him hastily.
"The fathers of your father were Morejnes; your zeide and your uncles are Morejnes, and you, Meir, you will soon be Morejne also."
Meir shook his head with a peculiar smile.
"I shall never be a Morejne!" said he. "They will not confer such an honour upon me, and I--don't wish for it!"
Schmul thought for a while, and then said: "I heard that you have quarrelled with the great Rabbi and the members of the kahal."
Meir, without answering, looked at the horrible proofs of deep destitution around him.
"How poor you are," said he, not answering Schmul directly.
These words touched the very sensitive string of Schmul's life. His hands trembled, and his eyes glared.
"Aj, how poor we are," he moaned; "but the poorest of all living on this street is the hajet (tailor) Schmul. He must support an old, blind mother, and wife, and eight children. And how can I support them? I have no means except these two hands, which sew day and night if there is something to sew."
Speaking thus, he stretched toward Meir his two hands--true beggar's hands, dark, dirty, pricked with the needle, covered with scars made by scissors, and now trembling from grief.
"Morejne," he said more softly, bending toward the listener, "our life is hard--very hard. Everything is very expensive for us, and we have so much to pay. The Czar's officers take taxes, we must pay more for our kosher meat, and for the candles for Sabbath, we must pay to the funeral society, pay to the officers of the kahal, and for what do we not pay? Aj, vaj! From these poor houses flow rivers of money--and where does it come from? From the sweat of our brows, from our blood and the entrails of our children who grow thin from hunger! Not a long time ago you asked me, Morejne, why my room was dirty. And how can we help it when eleven of us must live in one room, and in the passages there are two goats, which nourish us with their milk. Morejne, you asked me why my wife is so thin and old, although she has not yet lived many years, and why my children are always sick! Morejne, kosher meat costs us so much that we never eat it. We eat bread with onion, and we drink goat's-milk. On Sabbath we have fish only when you, Morejne, come to see us and leave us a silver coin. All in this street are poor--very poor, but the poorest is hajet Schmul, with his blind mother, thin wife and eight children."
He shook his head piteously and looked into Meir's face with his dark eyes which expressed stupefied astonishment at his own misery. Meir, with his hand still on the head of the sickly child, who was finishing his bread, listened to the speech of the miserable fellow. His mouth expressed pity, but the frowning brows and drooped eyelids gave to his face the expression of angry reverie.
"Schmul," he said, "and why are you so often out of work?"
Schmul became plainly confused, and raised his hand to his head, disarranging his skull cap which covered his long dishevelled hair.
"I will tell you," continued Meir; "they don't give you work because from the stuff which they give you to make dresses you cut large pieces and keep them."
Schmul seized his skull cap in both hands.
"My poor head," he groaned. "Morejne, what have you told me? Your mouth said a very ugly thing against me."
He jumped, bent nearly to the ground, and then jumped again.
"Nu, it's true, Morejne, I will open my heart to you I used to cut off and keep pieces of the stuff, and why did I do it? Because my children were naked. I clothed them with it. And when my blind mother was sick I sold it and bought a piece of meat for her. Morejne, your eye must not look angrily on me! Were I as rich as Reb Jankiel and Morejne Calman--had I as much money as they make from the work of our hands and the sweat of our brows, I would not steal!"
"And for what are Reb Jankiel and Morejne Calman taking your money?" began Meir thoughtfully, and he wished to continue, but Schmul stretched himself and interrupted suddenly: "Nu, they have a right to it. They are elders over us. What they do is sacred. When one listens to them it is as if one listened to God himself."
Meir smiled sadly and put his band into his pocket.
Schmul followed the movement with his eyes, which were animated with cupidity.
Meir placed on the open window a few silver coins. Schmul seized his hand and began to kiss it.
"Morejne, you are good. You always help poor people. You pity my stupid child."
When the enthusiasm of his gratitude had cooled a little, he stretched himself and began to whisper in Meir's ear.
"Morejne, you are good and generous and the grandson of a very rich man, and I am a poor and stupid hajet, but you are as honey in my mouth, and I must open my heart to you. You are wrong in quarrelling with our great Rabbi and with the members of the kahal. Our Rabbi is a great Rabbi and there is no other like him in the whole world. God revealed to him great things. He alone understands the Kabala Mashjat (the highest part of the Kabala, teaching how, by a combination of letters and words, miracles are performed and the mysteries penetrated). All the birds fly after him when he calls them. He knows how to cure all human diseases and all human hearts open to him. Every breath of his mouth is holy, and when he prays then his soul kisses God himself. And you, Morejne, you have turned away your heart from him."
Thus gravely spoke poor Schmul, raising in solemn gesture his black, needle-pricked index finger.
"And the members of the kahal," continued he, "they are very pious men and very rich. One should respect them and listen to them also, and even close one's eyes if they do something wrong. They could accuse one before God and the people. God will be angry if he hears their complaint, and will punish you, and the people will say that you are very bold, and will turn away their faces from you."
It would be difficult to guess the impression made on Meir by Schmul's humble and at the same time grave, warning. He continually kept his hand on little Lejbele's head, and looked into the beautiful fine-featured face of the pale, sick, idiotic and trembling child, where he saw the personification of that portion of Israel, which, devoured by misery and disease, nevertheless believed blindly and worshipped humbly, timidly, and everlastingly.
Then he gave Schmul a slow and friendly nod, and went away. Schmul followed him several steps.
"Morejne," he moaned, "don't be angry with me for having opened my heart to you. Be wise. May the learned and rich not complain of you to God, for the man who is under the ground is better off than he on whom they shall turn their angry hands."
Then he returned to his hut, and did not notice that Lejbele was not standing at the wall of the house. When Meir departed, the pale child followed him. With hands still muffled in the sleeves of his ragged gown, and with wide opened mouth, the child of Schmul the tailor followed the tall, beautiful man. At the end of the street only, as a being afraid to go further, the poor boy said, in a hoarse, guttural voice: "Morejne!"
Meir looked back. A friendly smile brightened his face when he saw the boy. The dark, dull eyes of the child were raised to his face, and from the gray sleeve a small, thin hand was stretched toward him.
"Hala," said Lejbele.
Meir looked around for a huckster's stand. Along the street stood several miserable barrows, by which the women, their thin bodies scantily clad in rags, were selling loaves of bread, hard as stone, and some heads of onion, as well as a black, unappetising preparation made of honey and poppy-seed.
From Meir's white hand to the dark, thin hand of the child again passed a big hala. Lejbele raised it to his mouth with both hands, and, turning, he walked slowly and gravely down the middle of the street toward his home.
After a while Meir reached the square of the town. It seemed to him that he came back to the light of day from a dark cavern. The sunlight flooded everything around, dried the mud, and kindled golden sparks in the windows of the houses. In the yard of the pious. Reb Jankiel, some large, new structure was being erected. The red-haired owner inspected the workmen personally, evidently satisfied with the increase of his wealth. The noise of axes and the gnashing of the saws filled the air, and in front of the low inn stood a couple of carriages belonging to passing guests. Further along the street stood Morejne Calman in the piazza of his house, shining in his satin halat. With one hand he held to his smiling mouth a cigar, and with the other he caressed the golden hair of a two-year-old child, who sat on a bench holding a loaf of bread abundantly spread with honey, which he had smeared all over his plump face, casting the while admiring glances at his magnificent father.
In the court-yard of the Ezofowich mansion there was plenty of noise, sunlight, and gaiety. In the centre two broad-shouldered workmen were sawing wood for the winter, and in the soft sawdust several cleanly-dressed children were playing. At the well a buxom and merry servant girl was drawing water, joking with the workmen, and through the open windows of the house could be seen Raphael's and Abraham's grave heads--they were talking over business affairs with great animation--and Sarah, standing by the fireplace, and pretty Lija, who stood before a mirror smoothing her luxuriant tresses.
When Meir entered the gate, the workmen stopped sawing, and smiled and nodded to him. They came from the same poor, dirty street he had just left, and evidently knew him very well.
"Scholem Alejhem!" (peace to you) they exclaimed.
"Alejhem & Scholem!" answered Meir, merrily.
"Will you not help us to-day?" asked one of the workmen jokingly.
"Why not?" answered Meir, approaching them.
Meir was fond of physical work. He practised it very often, and his grandfather's workmen were accustomed to it. One of them was about to give him his place at the log of wood, but at that moment. Lija appeared in the open window. She was just finishing braiding her hair, and said.
"Meir! Meir! where have you been so long? Zeide wishes to see you."
Hardly a quarter of an hour had passed since the Rabbi's visit. Saul still sat with his head between his hands, lost in half angry and half sad musing. A few steps from him sat Freida, bathed in golden sunlight and sparkling with diamonds. A very complicated process was going on in Saul's old breast. He disliked Isaak Todros. Without having deeply understood the real meaning of the action and position of either his ancestor Michael, or his father Hersh, he knew that they had great influence among their "own people," and enjoyed the general esteem of the mighty, although 'stranger' people. Therefore he was proud of these reminiscences of his family, and the knowledge of the wrong done to these two stars of his family by ancestors of Isaak Todros excited toward the latter a mute and not very well-defined dislike. Besides this, being rich, and proud of so being, he resented the misery and--as he said at the bottom of his soul--the sluttishness of the Todros. But all this was as nothing compared with the respect felt for the holy, wise, and deeply-learned man, who was the representative of all that was holiest, wisest, and most learned. Saul himself read with great zeal the holy books, but he could not become familiar with them, because for a long time his brain had been occupied with quite different matters. He read them, but understood very little of their obscure and secret sense, and the less he understood the more he respected them, and the deeper was his humility and dread. And now that dread and humility stood opposed to the true, tender love for his grandson, and he struggled between them.
"What profit can he draw from it?" thought Saul, and he met his grandson with angry looks.
Meir entered the parlour timidly. He already knew of the Rabbi's visit, and he guessed at the aim of it; he was afraid of his grandfather's anger and grief.
"Nu," said the old man, "come nearer. I am going to tell you beautiful things, at which you will rejoice greatly."
And when Meir had come to within a couple of steps from him, Saul looked at him sharply from beneath his bushy eyebrows, and said: "I am going to betroth you, and in two months you must be married."
Meir grew pale, but was silent.
"I am going to betroth you to Jankiel Kamionker's daughter."
After these words there was quite a long silence, which Meir at last interrupted.
"Zeide," said he, in a low but determined voice, "I am not going to marry Kamionker's daughter."
"Why?" asked Saul, smothering his anger.
"Because, zeide," growing bolder and bolder, "Kamionker is a bad and unjust man, and I don't wish to have anything to do with him!"
Then Saul's anger burst out. He reproached his grandson for the audacity of this judgment, and praised Rob Jankiel's piety.
"Zeide," interrupted Meir, "he wrongs the poor!"
"Is that any of your business?" exclaimed the grandfather.
This time the young man's eyes shone warmly. "Zeide," he said, "he pockets a great deal of the money produced by the sweat and work of these miserable people who live at the other end of the town, and through him they are thieves. While their children are naked, Reb Jankiel builds new houses! In the dram-shops and distilleries which he rents from the nobility be carries on evil acts. His dram-shop keepers make the peasants drunk, and cheat them, and his distilleries produce more vodka than is permitted by the Government. Zeide, you must not look at the way he prays, but the way he acts, for it is written: 'I do not need prayers, nor your sacrifices! The one who wrongs the poor man wrongs the Creator Himself!'"
Saul was very angry, but his grandson's quotation mollified him, for he very much desired to see him a scholar, and expert in the knowledge of the holy books.
"Well," muttered he angrily, but without vehemence, "it does not matter that Jankiel makes the peasants drunk, and that he produces more vodka than the law permits. You don't know yet that business is business! When you are married to Reb Jankiel's daughter, and go into partnership with him, you will do the same."
"Zeide," answered Meir quickly, "I shall neither produce nor sell vodka. I have no inclination for it."
"And what are you going to do--" He did not finish, for Meir bent forward and seized his knees with his hands, and pressing his lips to them, he began to talk.
"Zeide, let me go hence! Let me go into the broad world! I will study! I wish to study, and here my eyes wander in darkness. Two years ago I made the same request, but you became angry, and ordered me to remain. I remained, zeide, because I respect you, and your commands are sacred to me. But now, zeide, let me go hence! If I go into the world with your permission and blessing, I shall become a learned man. I shall come back here and take my stand against the great Rabbi, and I shall know how to show him that he is a small man. Now--" Saul did not permit him to speak further.
"Sha-a-a!" he exclaimed.
He was seized with fear at the mere mention of a strife between his grandson and the great Rabbi.
But Meir drew himself up, and with fire in his face and tears on his eyelashes, he spoke again: "Zeide, remember the history of Rabbi Eliezer. When he was young his father did not let him go into the world. He ploughed the field, and looked into the dark forest which hid him from the world, and curiosity and longing ate into his heart as now they are eating into mine. He could not stand that yearning, and he escaped. He went to Jerusalem, to a great, world-famed scholar, and said to him: 'Let me be your pupil, and you shall be my master!' And it was as he said. And when, several years after, his father Hyrkanos came to Jerusalem, he saw there on the square a beautiful youth, who talked with the people, and the people listened to him, and their souls melted like wax before the great sweetness of his words, and all heads bent low before the youth and shouted: 'Behold our master!' Hyrkanos wondered much at the wise words of the man who stood on the heights, and at the great love which all the people bore him. And he asked of the man who stood beside him: 'What is the name of the youth who stands on the heights, and where does his father live? for I wish to bow before him, whose entrails have brought into the world such a son.' And the man whom he questioned made answer: 'That youth's name is Eliezer, a star over Israel's head, and his father's name is Hyrkanos.' When Hyrkanos heard this he shouted with a great voice, rushed toward the youth, and opened his arms. And then there was ecstatic joy in the hearts of both father and son, and the whole nation bowed before Hyrkanos, because his entrails brought into the world such a son."
Saul listened attentively to the story, half gloomy and half joyful. He cherished the traditions of his nation, and was delighted to listen to them, especially when they were spoken by the mouth of his much-loved grandson. He did not hesitate, however, in his answer. He half closed his eyes and began: "If in Jerusalem there was to-day teaching such a famous learned man of Israel, I would send you to him at once, but the avenging hand of the Lord is laid on Jerusalem--she is no longer ours. When the day of the great Messiah shall come, she will again be ours. It is pleasant and sweet for a son of Israel to die there, but there is no one there to teach him. And I shall not send you into a foreign world to learn strange sciences. They are useless to an Israelite. From Edomit you have already learned as much as it is necessary for you to transact business in the foreign world, and even for that the great Rabbi has reproached me. And his reproaches are a shame and a sorrow, for, although the Rabbi is a wise man, my soul suffers when he comes to my house to scold me like the melamed scolds the little children in the heder."
Speaking thus, the old man became morose, and looked gloomily on the ground. Meir stood before him as though petrified, but in his eyes, looking into space, there was reflected a bottomless precipice of sad and rebellious sentiments.
"Zeide," he said finally, half in prayer and half abruptly, "then permit me to be an artisan. I will live in the same street with the poor. I will work with them and guard their souls from sin, And when they ask me something I will always answer them 'Yes' or 'No' When they lack bread I will divide with them all the bread I have in my house!"
Again his face burned and the tears shone on his eyelids. But Saul looked at him in the intensest amazement, and after a while he said: "When you are two or three years older you will see how stupid you are in telling me such things. There has been no artisan in the Ezofowich family and, please God, there never shall be. We are merchants, from father to son; we have enough money, and each generation brings more. You shall be a merchant also, because every Ezofowich must be one."
The last words he spoke in an imperative voice, but after a while he continued a little more softly: "I want to show you my favour. If you do not wish to marry Reb Jankiel's daughter, I will permit you not to marry her. But I shall betroth you to the daughter of Eli Witebski, the great merchant. You are longing for learning--flu! I am going to give you a very well educated wife. Her parents keep her in a boarding school at Wilno; she speaks French and plays the piano. Nu! if you are so difficult to please, that girl ought to suit you. She is sixteen years old. Her father will give her a big dowry, and immediately after the wedding will make you his partner."
From the expression of Meir's face it could be seen that his blood was boiling.
"I don't know Witebski's daughter. I never saw her," said he gloomily.
"Why do you need to know her?" exclaimed Saul; "I give her to you! In a month she will be back from Wilno and in two months you will be married! That is what I am telling you, and you, be silent and obey my commands. Up to the present I have given you too much liberty, but from now on it will be different. Isaak Todros told me to set my foot on your neck."
A flush appeared on Meir's pale face and his eyes flashed.
"Rabbi Isaak may put his feet on the necks of those who, like dogs, lick his feet!" he exclaimed. "I am an Israelite, as he is. I am no one's slave, I." The words died on his quivering lips, for old Saul stood before him, drawn up to his full height, powerful, inflamed with anger, and raised his hand to strike him. But at that moment between the old man's thin hand and the burning face of the younger man, appeared a small hand, dried, wrinkled, trembling with old age, separating them. It was the hand of Freida, who was present during the whole conversation between the grandfather and grandson, and had seemed to doze in the sun and not hear anything. But when the room resounded with Meir's passionate exclamation, and Saul had risen, angry and threatening, she rose also, and silently advanced a few steps, until with her poor old hand she shielded her great-grandson. Saul's hand dropped. Having exclaimed to Meir in an already softened voice, "Weg!" (Get out) he fell into a chair, panting deeply.
The great-grandmother again sat down by the window in the sunlight. Meir left the room.
He went out with bent head and a gloomy expression on his face. At that moment he felt all the impotency of youth against age, influence, and authority. He felt that the fetters of the patriarchial organisation of his family were growing heavy on him. And the mere thought of that small, thin, trembling woman's hand, which had shielded him from a rough act of force, caused a touching smile of tenderness to appear on his lips. It was also a smile of hope.
"If I could only get that writing," he said to himself, passing his hand over his forehead.
He was thinking of the writing of Michael the Senior, of which the old great-grandmother alone knew the whereabouts. He thought also that if he could only find it he would know what to say and how to act.
In the meantime Saul sat for a long time, breathing heavily from weariness, and sighing from grief. He looked several times at his mother and smiled. The intervention of this silent, continually dozing, hundred-year-old-woman for her great-grandson, seemed strange to him, and perhaps in the bottom of his heart he was grateful to her for not permitting him to wrong his orphan grandson in a moment of anger.
After a while he called: "Raphael."
The call was answered by a dignified dark-eyed man, already growing gray--his oldest son. After Saul he was the oldest of the family. He himself had grown-up grandchildren and was doing a very large business. On hearing his father call him he left his office and came to him immediately.
"Do you know if Eli Witebski is home?" asked Saul.
"Yes, he returned home yesterday," answered his son.
"Someone must go there at once and tell him that I wish to see him, and talk with him about an important matter."
"I will go myself," said Raphael; "I know about what you are going to talk with Witebski. You have an excellent idea, and it must be executed immediately. Meir may go astray if he is not married soon."
Saul's eyes searched his son's face inquiringly. "Raphael, do you think he will change when he is married?"
Raphael nodded his head affirmatively.
"Father," said he, "remember Ber. He was on the same road which Meir is travelling, but then he married Sarah, and you, father, took him into partnership and when the children began to come, one after another, all these stupid ideas left his head."
"Go! Call Witebski to me," concluded Saul.
Raphael left the room, and was soon walking in the direction of the house which stood at the corner of the two largest streets. On the piazza sat a plump woman in a silk gown, and a mantilla buckled with a gold brooch. On her ears were long earrings, and a carefully-combed wig was on her head. She was about forty, and looked fresh and healthy. Her mouth wore a smile of satisfaction and pride, and in her hands she held some fancy embroidery. When Raphael ascended the stairs she rose, and with the most exquisite bow ever made in Szybow, she extended her hand in welcome to the guest. Except Pani (Mrs.) Hannah Witebska, there was not another woman in Szybow who shook hands with a man. The English hand-shake, popular in the whole civilised world, evidently did not meet with the approval of the dignified Raphael, for he touched the plump Pani Hannah's hand a little reluctantly, and after a short greeting he asked for her husband.
"He is home," answered the woman, smiling continually, with chronic satisfaction and equally chronic pride; "he came back yesterday, and is now taking a rest."
"I came to talk with him," said Raphael "Come in! come in!" exclaimed the woman, opening with hasty amiability the door leading into the house. "My husband will be much pleased to receive such a guest."
Raphael answered Pani Hannah's fashionable civilities by a swift nod of the head, and entered the house. Pani Hannah again sat down on the bench, and half closed her eyes disdainfully, whispering to herself: "Nu! what people there are in this Szybow! They don't want to talk with women. They are like wild bears."
She sighed, moved her head several times, and added: "Am I accustomed to such people? In our city of Wilno the people are civil and educated, not savages as here. Pfe!"
She sighed once more, continued her work mechanically, looking on the town and swarming people with the same smile of satisfaction and pride. Soon two men appeared in the door of the house. They were in conversation, and passed swiftly by the piazza and without looking at Pani Hannah they went in the direction of the Ezofowich house. Eli Witebski, walking with Raphael across the square, did not at all resemble his companion. Although a merchant, he represented quite a different type of the Hebrew trader. He was evidently fashionable and a dandy. His coat, although not entirely short, was a great deal shorter than the halat which Raphael wore, and it was cut quite differently. Across his silk waistcoat shone a thick gold chain, and he wore a big diamond ring on his finger. His face was serene, his eyes keen and penetrating. He had a small, yellowish beard to which he often raised his diamond-ornamented hand by a slow and deliberate movement.
He walked beside Raphael rapidly and with evident pleasure. At any rate, there was not a merchant in all Szybow who would not make equal haste if he were called by Saul Ezofowich. For ten years Saul had retired from business, and, except to go to the synagogue, he never left his house. But everyone who wished to draw from the treasures of his great experience and equal keenness in business transactions came to see him. Saul never refused advice, and even help, as far as he was able to give it, without wronging his children And when he wished to speak to some dignitary of the community, he called them to him through his sons or grandsons and they hastened to him willingly. Therefore, on being called by the old patriarch, Eli Witebski hastened naturally. Smiling and radiant he entered the parlour, and greeted the host: "Scholem Alejhem!" (Peace to you). He did not greet anyone outside of Szybow in such an old-fashioned way. On the contrary, he could say very correctly, Gut morgen (Good morning), but his unshaken rule was to accommodate himself to those with whom he had to deal.
Raphael wished to leave them, but Saul signed him to remain. They carefully closed all the doors, and spoke together for quite a while. But no matter how low they spoke, the frolicsome Lija, Raphael's daughter, put her little nose to the closed door, and her dark eye to the keyhole, and often heard repeated the names of Meir and Mera, Witebski's daughter first, and then her own name and that of a certain Leopold, Pani Hannah's cousin. She sprang from the door covered with blushes, half-confused, and half-seized with a secret joy, and then she constantly looked through the window to see as soon as possible when her cousin returned.
The sun had begun to set when Witebski left the Ezofowich's house, beaming, smiling, and evidently very much pleased with the transaction, or, perhaps, two transactions closed at the same time.
Almost at the same moment Meir returned home. Lija rushed to meet him, and, in the gate of the court-yard, placing her arm about his neck, she whispered in his ear: "Do you know, Meir, a great thing has happened to-day in our house. Our zeide and my father spoke a long time with Eli Witebski, and they came to an agreement about us. Witebski has promised his daughter to you, and my father has promised me to Paul Hannah's nephew, who is very well educated."
She whispered all this, blushing, and too confused to dare to raise her eyes to her cousin's face. At once she felt that, by a sudden movement, he slipped from her embrace, and, when she raised her eyes, she saw Meir again leaving the gate of the house.
"Meir!" exclaimed the girl, in surprise, "where are you going? Are you not going to have supper with us?"
The departing young man did not answer the girl's voice calling him to the family table. A deep wrinkle angrily cut his forehead. Now he understood the nothingness of his exclamation in the presence of his grandfather: "I am no one's slave!" They disposed, without the slightest regard for his will, of his future, of his family, and he knew that the commands of the elders must be obeyed.
No! He shuddered to think that it must be so. Why? He did not know the young girl Mera, who, somewhere in the world, was studying the same things which he himself desired so much. But, walking through the town and the empty fields separating it from the Karaim's Hill, walking slowly, with hands behind him, and bent head, he thought obstinately, almost mechanically, and incessantly, "I am no one's slave!" Pride and the desire for freedom boiled in his heart, aroused by some unknown source, probably those secret breaths of nature sown in the fields by noble and strong spirits thirsting for liberty, righteousness, and knowledge.
At the foot of the Karaim's Hill, in the hut which clung closely to its sandy side, there burned a small, yellow light. Over it, through the forked branches of the willow tree, shone many small stars, and further on, over the great fields, lay the gray shadows of the dusk.
In the interior of the hut, against the low wall, was seated an old man, working with the flexible willow branches. His figure was gray in the dusk of the hut, and the features of the bent face could not be seen. The tall, straight figure of a girl, with a thin face, sat in a wooden chair near the flame of the candle. In one dropped hand a spindle was softly twirling, and over her head was a board with a big bunch of wool fastened to it. From the wall, where the old man sat, came a hoarse, trembling voice: "In the midst of the desert, so large that one could not see its end, rose two mountains so high that their summits were hidden in the clouds. The names of these mountains were Horeb and Sinai."
The voice became silent, and the girl, who listened gravely while she spun, said: "Zeide, speak further."
But at that moment a manly voice was heard at the open window.
"Golda!"
The spinner was neither frightened nor surprised at this sudden pronunciation of her name by a strange voice. It might almost be said that at any moment she expected to hear that voice, so gravely, and with so little emotion did she rise and go to the window. Only her eyes shone warmly under: the dark lashes, and her voice was inexpressibly sweet when, standing at the lattice, she said softly: "Meir! I knew that you would keep your promise and come."
"Golda," said the muffled voice from behind the window, "I came to see you because to-day there is a great darkness before my eyes, and I wished to look at you, that the world might become brighter to me."
"And why is it so dark to-day before your eyes?" asked the girl.
"A great sorrow has befallen me. Rabbi Todros has accused me of wrongdoing before my zeide, and my zeide wishes to marry me."
He became silent and dropped his eyes. The girl did not move. Not the slightest movement of her face or figure betrayed emotion--only her swarthy and sun-burned face grew white.
"To whom does your zeide wish to marry you?" she asked, and her voice had a gloomy sound.
"To Mera, the daughter of the merchant Witebski."
She shook her head.
"I don't know her."
Then she asked suddenly: "Meir, are you going to marry her?"
The young man did not answer. Golda, however, did not ask him again. Her swarthy forehead was bathed in a blush and an expression of great bliss filled her eyes, for Meir's sweet, deep and at the same time fiery look, rested on her face.
Both were silent, and amidst the tranquillity, interrupted only by the rustling of the branches overhanging the roof, there was heard again the hoarse and trembling voice of the old man sitting by the wall.
"When Moses descended Mount Sinai, the thunders were silenced, the lightning was quenched, the wind lay down, and all Israel rose as one man and exclaimed with a great voice: 'Moses, repeat to us the words of the Eternal!'"
Meir listened attentively to the old voice relating the history of Israel. Golda looked at her grandfather.
"He always tells the different stories," she said. "I spin or lie at his feet and listen."
"Meir," she added, with gravity in her look and her voice, "enter our house and greet my grandfather."
In a few moments the door of the small hall creaked. Old Abel raised his head from the willow branches, which his trembling but active hand continually plaited, and seeing in the dark, the handsome figure of the young man, he said: "Who is there?"
"Zeide," said Golda, "Meir Ezofowich, son of the rich Saul, has come to our house to greet you."
At the sound of that name pronounced by Golda, he shrunk against the wall, suddenly raised himself and leaning with both hands on the straw sheaf on which he sat, he stretched forward his yellow neck, swathed in rags. This brought near the flame a head covered with long, abundant white hair, and a small shrivelled face which was almost hidden by an enormous beard. Golda spoke the truth when she stated that her grandfather's hair had become white as snow from old age, and coral-like red were his eyes from weeping. Now, from beneath these swollen eyelids, the quenched pupils looked with an amazement of fear at first, and then with a sudden lighting of indignation or hatred.
"Ezofowich!" he exclaimed in a voice which was neither so hoarse nor so trembling as before, "why have you come here and passed the threshold of my house? You are a Rabbinit--foe--persecutor. Your great-grandfather cast an anathema at my ancestors and turned their temple into dust. Go from here. My old eyes shall not be poisoned by looking at you."
While speaking the last words he stretched his trembling hand toward the door through which the young man had entered.
But Meir stepped forward slowly, and bending his head before the angry old man said: "Peace to you!"
Under the influence of those sweet words, pronounced with sonority and expressing a prayer for a blessing and concord, the old man became silent, fell back on his seat, and only after a long while did he begin to speak in a plaintive, pitiful voice: "Why did you come here? You are a Rabbinit, and the great-grandson of the powerful Senior. Your people will curse you if they see you pass my threshold, for I am the last Karaite who remained here to watch the ruins of our temple and the ashes of our ancestors. I am a beggar! I am cursed by your people! I am the last of the Karaites!"
Meir listened to the old man's words in respectful silence.
"Reb," said he after a while, "I bend my head low before you because it is necessary that justice be done in the world, and that the great-grandson of the one who cursed should bow before the great-grandson of the accursed."
Abel Karait listened attentively to these words. Then he was silent for a while, as though he was pondering in his tired mind, over the meaning of them. Finally he understood them entirely, and whispered: "Peace be to you!"
Golda stood with her arms crossed on her bosom, looking on Meir as pious people look on a holy image. Having heard the words of peace from her grandfather's lips, she pushed toward Meir one of two chairs, took as mall, shining pitcher and went into the hall.
Meir sat near the old man who was again busy with his work and whispered something. After a while this whispering became louder until it changed into a hoarse and trembling narrative. It seemed that was his habit. He had plenty of stories in his head and heart, and with them he brightened his miserable life.
Meir could not hear the first whispers, and only understood their meaning when the old man began to speak louder: "On the shores of Babylon they sat weeping, and the wind moaned in their lutes, brought by them from their country, and in sadness they hung them on the trees."
"And their masters came to them, and said: 'Take to your hands your harps; play, and sing!' And they answered: 'How can we play and sing in the land of exile, when our tongues are dried with great bitterness and our hearts only know how to cry! Palestine! Palestine!' But unto them their masters said: 'Take from the trees your harps. Play and sing!'"
"Then Israel's prophets looked at one another and said: 'Who of us is sure? Who will stand torture that we may not be made to play and sing in the land of exile!'"
"And when their masters came to them the next day and said: 'Take from the trees your harps; play and sing!' the prophets of Israel raised their bloody hands and exclaimed: 'How can we take them, when our hands are cut in two, and we have no fingers!'"
"The rivers of Babylon rustled aloud with great amazement and the wind cried in the harps hanging on the trees, because the prophets of Israel had cut their hands in two rather than be forced to sing in the land of exile."
When Abel finished the last words of the old legend, Golda entered the room. In one hand she held a tray made of straw, on which there were two earthen cups. In the other hand she held a shining pitcher filled with milk. In the door, which remained open behind her, appeared the goat, whose whiteness stood out against the blackness of the hall. The girl was dressed in a faded skirt, and her long black tresses were thrown over the shoulders of the gray shirt which she wore. She poured the milk into the cups and handed it to the guest and her grandfather. She walked into the room quietly and lightly, with a smile on her lips. Then she sat down and began to spin. The room was in complete silence, and old Abel began to whisper some old story. But soon his mouth closed, his hands dropped on the sheaf of willow branches and his head rested motionlessly against the wall. The goat disappeared from the threshold and for a while could be heard her tramping in the little hall. Then everything became quiet. The young people remained alone in the presence of the slumbering old man and the stars which looked in through the low window, The girl was spinning, gazing into the face of the young man who sat opposite to her. He, with dropped, eyelids was thinking.
"Golda," said he, after a long while, "the prophets of Israel, who cut their hands in two rather than be forced to play and be the slaves of their masters, were great men."
"They did not wish to act against their hearts," answered the girl gravely.
They were silent again. The spindle still turned in Golda's hand, but less and less swiftly and more quietly. Gusts of wind blew through the chinks in the wall and caused the yellow flame of the candle to flicker.
"Golda," said Meir, "is it not frightful for you in this solitary cabin, when the long fall and winter drop black darkness over the earth, and great winds enter through the walls and moan about the house?"
"No," answered the girl, "it is not frightful for me, because the Eternal watches the poor huts standing in the darkness, and when the winds enter here and moan, I listen to the stories zeide tells me, and I do not hear their moaning."
Meir gazed pityingly into the face of the grave child. Golda looked at him with motionless eyes, which shone like black, fiery stars.
"Golda," said Meir again, "do you remember the story of Rabbi Akiba?"
"I shall never forget it to the end of my life," she answered.
"Golda, could you wait fourteen years, like the beautiful Rachel?"
"I could wait until the end of my life."
She said this quietly and gravely, but the spindle slipped from her hand and dropped.
"Meir," said she, so softly that the whispering of the wind almost deafened her words, "you must promise me one thing. When you have a sorrow in your heart, then come to our house. Let me know your every grief, let zeide console you with his beautiful stories."
"Golda," said Meir, in a strong voice, "I would rather cut my hand in two, as did the prophets of Israel, than act against my heart."
Having said this he rose and nodded to the girl.
"Peace to you!" he said.
"Peace to you," she answered softly, nodding to him slowly.
He went out, and after a while the girl rose, blew out the yellow flame of the burned-out candle, and having wrapped herself in some gray cloth, she lay down on the straw beside the sleeping old man. She lay down, but for a long time she watched the shining stars.
|
{
"id": "28400"
}
|
7
|
None
|
Eli Witebski possessed in his mind and character many diplomatic qualities. He was neither born nor brought up in Szybow, as were without exception all the inhabitants of the town; but three years ago had settled there on account of business matters as well as for various family reasons. Among the population who lived there for generations he was therefore almost a stranger, and in addition to that, having spent his whole life in a large city, he brought with him many new customs which astonished and shocked the ultra-conservative inhabitants of this lost corner of the world. Among these differences were the different cut and material of his clothing, the wearing of the diamond ring, the rejection of the skull cap on his head, the short clipping of his beard, and the absolute lack in his house of Talmudistic and Kabalistic books, and, principally, the possession of such a wife as Pani Hannah, of a daughter who was studying somewhere in a boarding school, and besides this daughter Mera, only two more children. These innovations, never seen nor heard of before, should have been the cause of drawing on the elegant merchant a general dislike of the population of Szybow. But they did not. It is true that at first so-and-so whispered to so-and-so that he was a misnagdim, progressive and indifferent in matters of religion. But these suspicious notions soon disappeared, stopped chiefly by Eli's extraordinary affability, amiability, and the power of adapting himself to any and all circumstances. Always good-natured smiling, and serene, he never argued with anybody, stood out of the way for everybody, affirmed nothing, avoided quarrels in order not to be obliged to take sides with the participants and thus offend the other, and when he could not avoid so doing, spoke so sweetly and convincingly that the antagonists, enraptured with his eloquence, became reconciled, bearing in their hearts gratitude and admiration for him, and speaking of him with enthusiasm. Ein kluger Mensch! As to rites and religious rules, Witebski proved to be perfectly orthodox. He observed the Sabbath, and kept kosher house with the minutest punctuality. Every time he met the great Rabbi he bowed very low, and he as no other before could make bright the eyes of the learned man, by telling him merry stories--taken no one knew whence, and he always told them in such a way that they possessed something of a mystic and patriotic character, and pleased even the most severely religious listeners. He did not spend much time at home, but continually travelled for business purposes, but every time he was seen in Szybow he was seen in the Bet-ha-Midrash, listening with due respect to the learned preaching of Rabbi Todros, or smiling when numbers of old and young scholars of the community passionately discussed Pilpul, or spoke of different commentaries, or commentaries on commentaries, with which twenty-five hundred printed sheets of Helaha, Hagada and Gemara were filled. He was also always to be seen in the synagogue, whenever there was occasion for a general attendance, and although he could not be counted among the most zealously praying ones, nor the most vehemently swaying ones, his attitude and the expression of his face were perfectly decent.
But it must not be thought that Witebski was a hypocrite; not at all--he was sincerely fond of peace and good understanding, and did not wish them disturbed for himself nor for others. He was successful in life; he felt happy and satisfied, and consequently he loved everybody, and it was a matter of absolute indifference to him whether the man with whom he had to deal was a Talmudist, a Kabalist, Hassyd, orthodox, heretic, or even Edomit, provided he was not obnoxious to him. He learned of the Edomits for the first time in his life when he came to Szybow, for in the circle in which he lived Christians were called gojem and that only seldom, and under the influence of exceptional sentiments of anger or offence. But when he came to Szybow and learned of the Edomits, he thought, "Let them be Edomits!" and from that time he spoke of Christians by that name when in conversation with the inhabitants of Szybow. But in the use of that name he felt not the slightest hatred nor even dislike. Until now the Edomits had done him no wrong--then why should he dislike them? Outside of Szybow he was friendly with them--he was even very fond of them--but in Szybow he did as everyone else did. He had received his religious education when he was young, but he afterward forgot everything amidst entirely secular occupations and cares. He believed in Jehovah and worshipped him profoundly; he knew the history of Moses and also something about the Babylonian captivity and the later history of the Jewish people, but he did not know much of the deeper meaning of these things. In the main be did not care what Tanait or some Rabbi said or commanded. But he did not contradict anything either by word or deed--not even by thought. He did everything that was commanded, thinking to himself: "There is no harm in it. Maybe it's only a human invention, but again it may be God's command--why should I anger Him against me." Thus, acting diplomatically with the people and with God, he was not afraid of anything, and he was happy. He would have been completely happy if he had not brought with him to Szybow that greatest and, for the inhabitants of Szybow, most astonishing novelty, his wife Hannah. In the same degree that it was his object while living in the small town to act as did everyone else there, it was the greatest desire of Pani Hannah to act differently from everyone else. When they had lived in a large city there was celestial harmony between them based on mutual attachment and similarity of taste. Here, however, Pani Hannah became to her husband the cause of perpetual embarrassment and occasional fear.
Pani Hannah was in love with civilisation, which for her assumed the form of beautiful dresses, her own hair on her head, elegantly furnished rooms, polite relations with her fellow-men, the French language and music. Music was her craze. When they dwelt in a large city she went to the public gardens to listen to it, where, walking with her friends, clad in a rustling silk gown and plumed bat, gazing at handsome men and chatting with amiable women, she felt perfectly happy, and still more proud of her social position. Certain products of civilisation especially caused her rapture. Once, perceiving in a public garden a fountain, she admired it for a couple of hours with inexpressible delight, and on returning to her city, which did not possess a fountain, she talked to her friends during the whole year of that beautiful phenomenon. She was also very fond of mirrors, and when she found herself opposite a large mirror she could not tear her eyes away from it, and especially from the reflected image of herself, which she found very handsome, with her big golden earrings, a hat with flowers on it, and a charming gown. As for religion, she knew still less about it than her husband. She believed in God, and at the bottom of her heart she was even very much afraid of Him, and she believed also in the devil, fearing him even more than God. She also believed that a person who did not see his shadow on a holiday night would die within a year, and even that a person who moved a candle on the Sabbath table would meet with a great misfortune. On the other hand, however, she did not believe many similar things--calling them superstitions. Being a good housekeeper, she acknowledged in the depths of her soul that it would be better if the Jews ate the same meat as the Christians, both because it would be a great deal cheaper, and because there would not be the need in the household of having so many kitchen dishes, which every orthodox household must have in order to keep the food properly kosher. As for the woven stuffs containing a mixture of wool and flax, Pani Hannah closed her eyes and ears to all interdictions, and used them without hesitation, because they were pretty and cheap. When she came to Szybow she was perfectly horrified. There was not one sign of civilisation--no public garden no music, no fountain, not even the shadow of beautiful women and handsome men chatting amiably, no echo of the French language. Good Heavens! Pani Hannah betook herself to bed, and buried herself in feather bolsters for two whole days and nights, lamenting and screaming that she could not stand it, that she would die and make orphans of her children. She did not die, however. She left the bed, because it was necessary to unpack things, to look after the household and dress the children prettily so that when they went into the streets they should astonish by their beauty and fine clothes that--as Pani Hannah expressed it, with a gesture of contempt--"rabble." The children were dressed, went out, and in truth they did astonish everyone. It was the first consolation which the unhappy exile from civilisation received in her place of banishment. Then came other similar consolations. Pani Hannah tried to amaze in everything she was able--dresses, furniture, manners, speech--and in doing so, she felt extremely happy. In the main, perhaps she was happier than in a large city. There she only looked on civilisation and its products and was proud of being one particle of it. Here she was civilisation itself--the whole sum of the civilisation existing in Szybow.
This love for amazing the people which, after the care of the children and the household, was the first occupation of Pani Hannah's mind, and the source of her greatest happiness caused her husband considerable uneasiness and fear. In the beginning he had heard some murmurs that he was a misnagdim be learned that the popular indignation had been aroused against his wife for wearing woven stuff of mixed flax and wool, and for using a samovar on Sabbath, and for saying that; "Szybow was not on the earth, but under it." When he learned of all these things he quaked with fear, and began to war with his better-half about the stuff of flax and wool, about the use of the samovar on the Sabbath, and about the situation of Szybow. His better-half fought for a long time, but the diplomatic husband was finally victorious regarding the samovar and the stuff. But he could do nothing regarding the situation of Szybow, because Pani Hannah could not but respect the place where she herself lived, in spite of all efforts of her will. Even if she was silent, her disdainfully half-closed eyes, her proudly smiling mouth, always elaborate dress, and her manners full of such exquisite courtesy, made it impossible to find anyone in the whole world more civil than she was, all that was protesting. In the main, Pani Hannah was perfectly happy with her meek, though at times decided husband, with pretty, always beautifully dressed children, and with the sentiment always in her soul that she was superior to everything surrounding her. She had only one great sorrow, and that; was the thought that she would never be able to amaze the inhabitants of Szybow by wearing her own hair; in the first place, because it was too late to make it grow now, and then Eli would never permit such a public scandal. Therefore she was obliged to wear a very pretty wig on her sorrowful head, and she consoled herself with the thought that the occasion of her daughter Mera's return from Wilno would be her greatest triumph. Eli was very uneasy about this, for he feared that he would be accused of being quite different from all the fathers in Szybow. As for Pani Hannah, she was beside herself with joy at the thought that she would be considered a quite different mother from all the other mothers in Szybow.
Finally it was accomplished. In a month after Eli's conversation with Saul there were assembled in Witebski's parlour five persons--two men and three women. And it was not a common parlour! it was ornamented with a sofa, having springs and upholstered in green rep--the only sofa of its kind in Szybow--several armchairs to match it, and a piano. It is true, it was not very new. In several places the varnish had been rubbed off, and the narrowness of the keys and the yellowness of the ivory betrayed its great antiquity. In fact, it was the only piano in the whole of Szybow. When a year ago it had been bought for the exclusive use of Mera, it caused a small revolution in the town and Pani Hannah's heart filled with joy and great pride. This parlour was also not lacking in lace curtains and several jardinieres in which grew several--to tell the truth--very ugly and badly kept cacti and geraniums. But it happened that a year ago one of the cacti had by some accident bloomed. Pani Hannah immediately placed it in the window looking on the street, and all the children in town came to her house to look at the red flower.
So, then, on the green sofa with springs, sat Pani Hannah and her sister, the wife of a merchant in Wilno, in whose house Mera had boarded during her three years of study at the college. She escorted her niece home personally, bringing with her, in the meanwhile, her son Leopold. Her figure was imposingly like Pani Hannah's. She wore a velvet mantilla, much gold jewellery and her own hair. On either side of the table which stood opposite the sofa, sat the host and Pani Hannah's young nephew Leopold. Mera, a pretty girl, with yellow hair and pale complexion, was hovering about the piano, wishing to touch the keys as soon as possible, and fill the whole house with merry music, but not daring to because it was Sabbath.
Mera knew that it was forbidden to play any musical instrument on Sabbath, but she would not have minded such prohibition had it not been for the glance of her father which followed her and warned her against committing a sin. Neither was it allowed to smoke on the Sabbath, but Leopold, a good-looking, slender youth of about twenty years, sat in the armchair in a very careless position smoking a cigarette, from which thin threads of smoke arose and floated through the open window; Eli rose and shut the window. On Leopold's lips a disdainful smile appeared, Mera shrugged her shoulders, and Pani Hannah blushed with shame.
On a table, on a silver tray, were different dainties prepared from honey--gingerbread, made with honey and poppy-seeds, sweet wine, and various other things. Pani Hannah served her guests with these tit-bits, which completed the dinner, composed of fish cooked the day before, and a cake also baked the day before. But her sister, the wife of the merchant from Wilno, was busy with something quite different from eating sweetmeats. With great admiration she was looking at the beautiful and precious brooches, rings, bracelets, and earrings, shining in their satin boxes. All these jewels were presents of betrothal sent by Saul, in Meir's name, to Mera, immediately following her home-coming. For two days the mother and aunt of the betrothed girl had been looking at them, and they were not yet satisfied. But Leopold's mother was sorry that her son had brought to Lija, his promised wife, presents which were a great deal more modest than those received by Mera from Meir.
"Nu! She is a lucky girl!" she said, tossing her head. "God-gives her true happiness. Such presents! Such nice people. But why does he not come here?" she asked her sister.
"Iii!" exclaimed Pani Hannah, with a disdainful smile, "they are common people. It is not customary that the bridegroom should visit his fiancee!"
"He is young," said Eli, "he is bashful." At that moment Mera sat down by the table, and leaning her head on her hand became sadly thoughtful. Leopold, on the contrary, laughed loudly.
"To be sure, I will not send my presents of betrothal before I have seen the girl," he said.
"Nu, you shall see her," said his mother. "We are all going to pay them a visit."
"What kind of a girl is she?" asked Pani Hannah's sister.
"Iii!" answered Pani Hannah, as before, "she is a common girl."
"Her father, Raphael, gives her fifteen thousand roubles as dowry," said Eli.
Leopold frowned.
"That's not much," he said. "I cannot live on fifteen thousand."
"You will start some business," remarked the merchant.
But the mother of the good looking boy turned angrily to her brother-in-law.
"Business!" she exclaimed, "he is not brought up for business! Did we give him a fine education for business? He was through five classes in the gymnasium (college) and he is now an official. It is true that he has as yet only a small salary, but who knows what may happen! He may be appointed to a governorship! Who can tell?"
Leopold raised his eyebrows significantly, indicating that he was satisfied at having been born for such honours and that he did not object to the likelihood of receiving a governorship.
Eli nodded and said nothing. "It does not matter," he thought, "that they talk nonsense. Let them talk!" At that moment pretty Mera raised her head and said to her cousin.
"Cousin! comme c'est ennuyant ici!"
"Oui, cousine! cette vilaine petite ville est une place tres ennuyante!" answered he, whistling.
The two mothers, seated on the sofa, did not understand a word, but they looked at each other and blushed for joy, and Pani Hannah stretched her plump hand across the table and caressed her daughter's hair.
"Fischele!" (little fish) said she, with an indescribable smile of beautitude and love on her lips.
Even on Eli the French language made some impression. His face, which had been a little sorrowful, became serene again. He rose and said cheerfully: "Nu, let us be going. It's time."
In a few minutes they descended from the piazza into the street. Eli's face had again become sorrowful. Nothing could be more unorthodox than the dress of his relative. It consisted of a short, fashionable coat, shining shoes and very widely-open waistcoat, which showed the entire snowy shirtfront. On his head he wore a small cap, with the official star, and before going out he had lighted a cigarette.
It was a hard thing for Eli to contradict anyone--much more his guest and the pet of the two women whom he at any rate respected. But when he went out on the piazza and saw the crowds of people--whom the Sabbath day brought out in swarms--he could not refrain from warning the lad.
"Leopold, listen!" said he, quietly and gently, "you had better throw that cigarette away. The people are stupid here, but you had better not irritate them. And perhaps," he added immediately, "God himself forbad smoking on the Sabbath. Who can tell?"
Leopold laughed aloud.
"I am not afraid of anything!" said he, and springing down the steps of the piazza be offered Mera his arm.
Leopold and Mera then walked ahead arm in arm. They were followed by the magnificent mothers in balloon-like dresses, velvet mantillas, and enormous hats covered with flowers. Eli brought up the retinue, walking slowly and with a conspicuously sorrowful face and hands folded behind him.
If attracting the attention of the numerous crowd could be called a triumph, the march of the Witebski family across the square of the town was certainly a triumphal one. In the twinkling of an eye a crowd of children of all ages and both sexes were following them, and, in the beginning with muffled exclamation, but finally with loud shouting, they began to run after them. Soon older people joined the children, and even more prominent families appeared on the piazzas of their houses surrounding the square. In the gate of the school-yard stood the melamed, in his usual primitive dress and as though he could not believe the evidence of his own widely-open eyes. He looked at the astonishing show passing the square.
The greatest attention was drawn by the young couple walking ahead; Leopold, clad in his elegant coat, and with a cigarette in his mouth, and Mera, in her very balloon-like bright dress, leaning on her cousin's arm and drawing herself up in order to show off to advantage her society manners.
Eli walked as though on live coals, but Pani Hannah strode forward as though crowned with laurels. Her sister looked around the dark crowd with half-closed eyes and head carried high.
"Zi! Zi! a shejne puryc! a shejne panienkies!" shouted the children, running, jumping, pointing with their fingers, and raising clouds of dust with their feet.
"Who are they? Are they Jews?" asked the older people, pointing at Leopold's short coat and Cigarette.
"Misnagdim!" suddenly shouted some voice in the crowd, and a small stone, thrown by an unknown hand, passed close to Leopold's head. The young man grew pale and threw away the cigarette--the cause of the general scandal. Eli frowned. But Pani Hannah raised her head still higher and said quite loudly to her sister: "Nu, we must forgive them. They are so ignorant!"
Leopold, however, did not forgive the stone thrown at him. This could be seen by his frightened eyes and tightened lips when he entered the Ezofowichs' parlour.
There on the sofa--the place of honour--sat old Saul surrounded by his sons, sons-in-law, and several older grandchildren. At one of the windows, as usual, sat the always slumbering great-grandmother. At the other window stood Meir.
When Witebski's family entered the parlour, Meir merely glanced at Mera, as though she was perfectly indifferent to him, but he looked sharply, inquisitively, at Leopold. He evidently desired to approach as soon as possible the man who came from the broad world, and penetrate him through and through.
For a while only preliminary conversation and loud greetings were heard Saul did not leave his place on the sofa. His daughter Sarah, Ber's wife, received the guests, serving them with dainties, loudly admiring the beauty of the hats and dresses of the ladies.
Mera sat graciously on the edge of a chair, amused by the bashful, embarrassed, and at the same time joyful Lija, and glancing askance at the young man standing at the window, guessing that he must be her intended husband. But she did not once meet his glance. Meir seemingly ignored her existence. He looked constantly at Leopold. Pani Hannah was telling with great animation, and still greater pride to the women surrounding her, of the fountain which she had once seen in a large city, and about the music which was played every Sunday in the public garden in Wilno. In the meantime she was examining the Ezofowichs' parlour. In fact, the large, clean room with its simple furniture, possessed an air of thrift and riches, which was a great deal more attractive than Pani Hannah's speckled salon. There was also a library filled with large volumes, which, according to the traditions of the Ezofowich family, were formerly the property of Michael the Senior. There was a cupboard filled with silver and china, and on the top of it stood a large samovar, shining like gold. When Pani Hannah saw this a blush of shame appeared on her face. A samovar in the parlour of the family of her future son-in-law! It was contrary to all rules of civilisation of which she knew anything. Soon, however, from this highly indecent object her glance passed on to the great-grandmother slumbering in her arm-chair. At that moment a ray of the setting sun fell on the motionless figure, lighting up the jewels with which she was covered. Like fiery stars over her forehead shone the rich gems ornamenting her turban, while her earrings threw out thousands of sparks, and the pearls on her bosom took on a faint pink glow.
Pani Hannah elbowed her sister slightly.
"Zi," whispered she, indicating the old women by a motion of her head, "what splendid diamonds!"
The wife of the merchant of Wilno half closed her eyes in admiration.
"Aj! Aj!" exclaimed she, "a true treasure. But why does such an old woman wear so many precious stones?"
Saul heard the exclamation, and with dignified civility he said, bending toward his guests: "She deserves our respect, and to be covered by us with all the precious stones in the possession of our family. She was her husband's crown, and all of us as branches from a tree, take our life from her."
He closed his eyes a little and continued: "Now she is very old, but she once was young and very beautiful, And where has her beauty disappeared to? It was erased by the years--by months and days passing over her like birds flying one after the other, pick one berry after another, until they have picked them all. It is true, she has now many wrinkles on her face. But whence come these wrinkles? I know; for looking at her I see some picture in each one. When I look at the wrinkles in her eyelids, and around her eyes, I remember that when I was small, and was ill she sat by my cradle and sang to lull me to sleep, and the tears poured from her eyes. And when I look at the wrinkles so numerous on her cheeks, I remember all the sorrows and griefs she has passed through, when she became a widow, refused to marry again, conducting business affairs personally and increasing the wealth of her children. And when I look at the wrinkle which appears in the middle of her forehead, it seems that I live again the moment that my father's soul left its body, and my mother fell to the floor like one dead. She did not cry nor moan, but only sobbed sweetly, 'Hersh! Hersh! My Hersh!' It was the greatest sorrow of her life, and left on her forehead that deep line."
Thus spoke old Saul, with his index finger raised solemnly and a thoughtful smile on his yellow lips. The women listening to him shook their heads, half sadly, half affirmatively, and looking at each other they repeated softly: "Hohr! Hohr!" (Listen! Listen!)
Pani Hannah was moved to tears. She dried them with a lace handkerchief which she held in her hand, and stretching this hand toward Saul she said: "Danke! Danke!" with a smile of gratitude on her lips.
"Danke!" (Thanks!) the majority of those present repeated after her. Then Pani Hannah's sister, Witebski, and two or three other people not belonging to the family, said in a hushed voice: "Ein kluger mensch! Ein ehrlicher mensch!" (A clever man! An honest man!)
The filial love and respect manifested by Saul, and his picturesque narrative, made a pleasant impression on all hearts and minds.
Only young Leopold, who until now sat silent and gloomy, or spoke in French with Mera, rose from his chair and went toward the window where Meir stood. Around the sofa a lively conversation had been recommenced by Pani Hannah, who expressed a regret that it was Sabbath, and that there was no piano, for her daughter was thus prevented from playing such music as melted all hearts, and brought before the mind's eye the botanical garden of Wilno, where the band of music played, and different other things which belonged to her lost paradise of civilisation.
The two young men remained completely isolated. No one could hear their conversation. It seemed that Leopold had no intention of starting a conversation with Meir. He went toward the window with quite a different motive, which was betrayed by his taking from his pocket a silver cigarette case. But Meir, when he saw the young man approach him, advanced a few steps. His face beamed with joy.
"I am Meir, Saul's grandson," said he, extending his hand to the guest. "I wish very much to make your acquaintance, to tell you many things, and ask you many things."
Leopold bowed to him elegantly but ceremoniously, and barely touched Meir's warm hand. Meir's eyes, which had been bright with joy, now saddened.
"You don't care to know me," said he, "and I don't wonder at it. You are an educated man, and I--am a simple Jew, who knows the Bible and Talmud well, but nothing more. But listen to me, at any rate! I have thoughts of many things, but they are not yet in order. Perhaps you can tell me how to become wise?"
Leopold listened to these words, vibrating first with youthful enthusiasm, with anxiety in which there was a shade of irony.
"Willingly," said he, "if you wish to learn something from me I will be glad to tell you. Why not? I can tell you many things, sir!"
"Leopold, don't call me 'sir.' It hurts me, for I love you very much."
Leopold was surprised at this simplicity of sentiment.
"I am glad of it!" said he; "but it's the first time we have met."
"It doesn't matter!" exclaimed Meir; "for a long time I have wished to meet such an Israelite as you are, and say to him, as Rabbi Eliezer said to the sage in Jerusalem, 'Let me be your pupil, and be you my teacher.'"
This time surprise was clearly expressed in the face of the young fashionable, and his irony increased. It was evident that he did not at all understand Meir's speech, and that he considered him as being half a savage. Meir, absorbed in his enthusiasm, did not notice the impression he had made.
"Leopold," he began, "how many years did you study in that foreign school?"
"What foreign school?" asked Leopold.
"Nu, in that school where they do not teach Jewish studies."
Leopold understood now. He half closed his eyes, pursed his mouth, and answered: "Well, I went to the gymnasium for five years."
"Five years!" exclaimed Meir, "then you must be a very learned man, if you have gone to school for such a long time."
"Well," answered the guest, with an indulgent smile, "there are people in the world who are more learned than I." Meir approached his companion still nearer, and his eyes shone more brightly.
"What do they teach in the school?" he asked.
"Different things."
"What are those different things?"
Leopold, with an ironical smile, began to enumerate all the subjects taught in public schools.
Meir interrupted him, saying with animation: "And you know all these subjects?"
"Yes, I do," answered the guest.
"And what are you doing now?"
This question was asked with great anxiety, and astounded the good-looking chap.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Nu, I wish to know, I wish to know the thoughts with which these studies have filled your head, and what you are doing in the world."
"What I am doing? I am an official in the office of the governor himself, and I copy important papers."
Meir thought for a while.
"That is not what I wished to know about. You copy those papers for money. Every man must earn. But I wish to know what you think about when you are sometimes alone, and what those thoughts impel you to accomplish in the world."
Leopold opened widely his eyes.
"Well," he exclaimed impatiently, "what should I think about? When I leave my office I return home, smoke a cigarette, and think of the time when I shall marry and get a dowry, and my father will give me my share, and I shall purchase a house. On the ground floor I shall fix pretty stores, the second floor I shall let to some rich people, and I shall live on the third floor."
This time it was Meir's turn to be amazed. "And you, Leopold, don't you think of anything else?"
"Well, of what else should I think? Thank God I have no sorrows. I live and board with my parents and my salary is sufficient to buy my clothes."
Meir looked at the floor, and a deep wrinkle appeared on his forehead, as was customary with him when he was hurt.
"Leopold, listen," he said, after a few moments of deep thought, "are there not many poor and ignorant Jews in your great city?"
Leopold laughed.
"There are plenty of them everywhere."
"And what are your thoughts when you see them?" asked Meir violently.
"What should they be? I think they are very stupid and very dirty!"
"And looking at them, do you think of nothing else?" asked Meir, almost in a whisper.
Leopold opened his cigarette case, and selected a cigarette. Meir, plunged in thought, did not notice this.
"Leopold," he began again, with awakened energy, "you had better not buy that house in the large city."
"Why should I not buy it?"
"I will tell you why. They have promised you, as wife, my first cousin. She is a good and intelligent girl. She has no education whatever, but she always wished to have it, and she was very glad when she was told that she would have an educated husband. You are going to marry her, and when you have married her, ask permission of the high officials to open in Szybow a school for the Jews, in which they will be made to study other things than the Bible and Talmud. I will help you to conduct such a school."
Leopold laughed, but Meir, all aglow with the joy of his idea, did not notice it. He leaned towards the young man and whispered: "I will tell you, Leopold. There is great ignorance here in Szybow, and there are many poor people living in misery. But there are some people--all of them young--who regret that they do not know another world, and that they have not other knowledge. They wish to become familiar with it, but there is no one to help them out of the darkness. And then the great Rabbi who lives here, Isaak Todros, is very severe, and he is dreaded by everyone; and the members of the kahal also oppress the poor people. You must come here and bring with you other educated people, and help us out of our misery and our ignorance."
All this was spoken enthusiastically, his head triumphally raised and his voice filled with warm prayer. But nothing could equal the astonishment, and in the meantime the irony, with which Leopold listened to him. As Meir finished he selected a match from a silver box, bending his head in order to hide the fact that he was laughing.
"Nu," said Meir, "what do you think of what I have said? Is it a good idea?"
Leopold lighted the match and answered: "I am thinking that if I were to speak of your plans to my family or my comrades they would be much amused."
The light which shone in Meir's eyes was quenched at once.
"Why would they laugh?" he whispered.
At that moment Leopold lighted his cigarette and the fragrant smoke floated through the room to where the company were gathered around the yellow sofa. Raphael raised his head in astonishment and looked back at him. Saul also looked toward the window, and rising from the sofa he said politely but with determination: "I beg your pardon, but I cannot permit anything in my house which is contrary to the holy law."
Having said this he sat down again looking at Leopold from beneath his bushy eyebrows. Leopold grew very red, threw the cigarette on the floor, and crushed it angrily with his foot.
"Such is your civility!" said he to Meir.
"And why do you smoke on the Sabbath?"
"Don't you smoke?" asked the guest satirically looking Meir in the face.
"No," answered Meir "And you wish to lead human souls out of darkness! And you believe that it is a holy law not to smoke on the Sabbath!"
"No, I don't believe it," answered Meir, with as much determination as before.
"You wish to cause the people to rebel against the great Rabbi and the kahal, and you yourself give way before the enemy."
Meir's eyes shone again, but this time angrily.
"If it was a question of saving a human soul from obscurity, or a human body from ignorance, I would not give way, because such things are important; but when it is a question of denying myself a pleasure, I give way because it is a trifle. And although I do not believe that such a law is holy and comes from God, I know that the old people believe in it, and I think that it would be rude to contradict them in a trifle like this."
After this speech Leopold turned away from Meir and walked over to where Mera sat. For a while Meir followed him with a glance in which there was a mixture of disappointment and anger. Then he left the window and went out.
This sudden disappearance of the young man made a great impression on the women. The men hardly noticed it, for they thought it very natural and praiseworthy that the bridegroom, through modesty, avoided the fiancee chosen for him by the older people. But Pani Hannah and her sister became gloomy, and Mera whispered to her mother: "Maman, let us go home!"
In the meantime Meir was on the way to the house of his friend Eliezer, but he only looked in at the window, and went further, for the cantor's room was empty; but he evidently knew where to find his comrades, and he went directly toward the meadow situated beyond the town. As a few weeks ago this meadow--a true oasis of quiet and freshness--was all bathed in the pink light of the sunset. It is true that the grass was no longer so green, for it was a little burned by the beat of the summer sun, but the bushes were in full bloom, and the scent of the wild flowers filled the air.
Near the grove, under the thickly growing birches, sat a group of young people. Some of them spoke together in low tones, while others mechanically plucked the wild plants growing around them, and others still with their faces turned to the blue sky, in which floated golden clouds, hummed softly.
The pond, a short way off, was now surrounded with thick bunches of forget-me-nots and large flowers of the water-plants. On its bank was seated the motionless figure of a tall slender girl, and beside her, amid the bushes of sweet-briar, grazed the white goat, plucking the herbs and leaves.
Meir approached the group of young people who were evidently awaiting his arrival with some impatience for those who lay in the grass rose at once on seeing him and sat looking intently into his face. He did not greet his comrades and did not even look at them, but threw himself down upon the trunk of a birch tree which had been overthrown by a storm. He was sad, but perhaps even more angry. The young people were silent, and looked at him in surprise. Eliezer, who lay in the grass with his elbow resting against the trunk on which Meir sat, was the first to speak.
"Well, have you seen him?"
"Have you seen him?" several voices chimed in, "and is he highly educated and very wise?"
Meir raised his head and said emphatically: "He is educated, but very stupid."
This exclamation caused great surprise among the young men. After quite a long silence, Aryel, the son of the magnificent Morejne Calman, said: "How can it be that a man is educated, and at the same time stupid?"
"I don't know how it can be," answered Meir, his eyes dilating as though he saw before him a bottomless precipice.
Then a conversation started, made up of quick questions and answers: "What did he tell you?"
"What was very stupid?"
"Why did not you ask him about wise things?"
"I did ask him, but he didn't even know what I meant."
"Did he not tell you what he thought of?"
"He told me he thought of how he could best buy a beautiful house which would bring him an income of two thousand roubles."
"He can think about the house, but about what else does he think?"
"He told me he did not think about anything else."
"And what is he accomplishing in the world?"
"He is in an office, where he copies some papers and when he returns home he smokes a cigarette and thinks about the house."
"And what does he think about Jews who have no education and live in misery?"
"He thinks they are stupid and dirty."
"And what did he say when you told him that we wished to free our souls from darkness, but could not."
"He told me that if he were to tell his family and comrades of it, they would laugh."
"Why should they laugh?"
Then there was a long silence, and finally someone said angrily: "A bad man!"
After a while Meir's cousin, Haim--Abraham's son--said: "Meir, that knowledge and education for which we wish so eagerly must be evil, if it makes people stupid and bad."
Another young man said: "Meir, will you explain it to us?"
Meir looked sadly at his comrades, and dropping his face in both bands, he said: "I don't know anything."
The answer came with stifled sobs. But at that moment the cantor raised his white band and pulled from his friend's sorrowful face the hands which covered it.
"Your hearts must not be sunk in sorrow," said Eliezer, "I will ask our master to answer that question for us."
He took from the ground a large book and with a smile on his lips be pointed out to his comrades the first leaf of it. On this leaf was printed the name of Moses Majmonides.
The young people drew near to him, and their faces wore an expression of solemn attention. The great Hebrew savant was about to speak to them through the mouth of their beloved cantor. He was an old master, forgotten by some, excommunicated by others, but dear and saintly to them. Since the spirit of that master in the form of several big volumes brought back by Eliezer on his return home from the outer world, had breathed upon their minds, they experienced the force of hitherto unknown streams of thought and rebellion--they were filled with sorrowful longings and desires. But they were grateful to him for this grief and longing, and rushed to him in all times of doubt. But alas! they could not find answers for all their questions-consolations for all their complaints! Centuries had vanished, the times had changed and there had passed through the world a long chain of geniuses bringing new truths. But of this they knew nothing, and when the large book was opened they prepared themselves with joy and solemnity to receive the breath of the old truths.
Eliezer did not begin at once to read. He turned the leaves, looking for a paragraph appropriate to the circumstances. In the meanwhile, the girl who had until now remained seated on the bank of the pond, rose from among the forget-me-nots and white briar and advanced slowly toward the group of young people. Even from afar her great eyes could be seen looking into Meir's face. The white goat followed her. Both disappeared in the grove and then Golda emerged and stood behind Meir. She came so quietly that no one noticed her. She threw her arms about the trunk of a birch tree and leaning her head against the softly swaying branch, she caressed the bent head of Meir with her looks. She seemed not to see the other people.
At that moment Eliezer exclaimed in his pure, crystalline voice: "Israel, listen!"
With these words many psalms and sacred writings of the Hebrews commence. For the young people surrounding Meir this reading of the old master was a psalm of respect and deep spiritual prayer.
Eliezer began to read in a chanting voice: "My disciples I You ask me what force attracts the celestial beings of the Heavens, which we call stars, and why some of them rise so high they are lost in mist, and others float more heavily toward the sky, and remain far behind their sisters?"
"I will disclose to you the mystery which you seek to solve."
"The force attracting the celestial bodies is the Perfection dwelling on the heights, and called God in the human tongue. The stars, seized with love and longing for this Perfection, rise continually in order to approach nearer and take something of wisdom and perfection from the Wise and Perfect."
"My disciples, from those celestial beings, which long for the Perfection, come all changes of the moon. They cause different forms and images. . . ." Eliezer stopped reading, and raised his turquoise-like eyes from the book, and they shone with joy.
But the others thought a long while, trying to find an answer to their doubts in that passage of the master.
Meir answered thoughtfully: "There are men who, like the celestial beings of which the sage talks, raise their souls toward the Perfection. They know that there is perfection, and they try to take from it Wisdom and Goodness for themselves. But there are also people who, like those stars which float more heavily upward, do not long for the perfection, and do not rise through such longing. Such people keep their souls very low. . . ." Now they understood. Joy beamed from all faces. What a small crumb of knowledge it took to make joyful these poor, and at the same time rich, souls!
Meir seized the book from his friend's hands, and read from another leaf: "The angels themselves are not all equal. They are classed one above the other, like the steps of a ladder, and the highest among them is the Spirit producing thought and knowledge. This Spirit animates Reason, and Hagada calls it Prince of the World--Sar-ha-Olam!"
"The highest angel is the Spirit producing thought and knowledge, and Hagada calls it the Prince of the world," repeated the choir of young voices.
Their doubts were scattered. Learning had reawakened respect in their minds, and longing in their hearts, and passed before them in the form of the Angel of Angels, flying over the world arrayed in princely purple, with a shining veil wrought by his thought. Reverie sat on their foreheads and in their eyes. The reverie of a quiet evening covered the meadow blooming around them. Before them purple clouds hung above the forest, hiding behind them the shield of the sun. Behind them the green grove, sunk in dusky shadows, was slumbering motionlessly.
Over the meadow and fields floated Eliezer's silvery voice: "I saw the spirit of my people when I slumbered," Jehovah's pale cantor began to sing.
And it was not known whence came that song. Who composed it? No one could tell. One verse was given by Eliezer to his friend after a state of ecstatic unconsciousness which visited him often; the second was composed by Aryel, Calman's son, while playing on his violin in the grove. Some of them had their birth in Meir's breast, and others were whispered by the childish lips of Haim, Abraham's son. Thus are composed all folk songs. Their origin is in longing hearts, oppressed thoughts, and instinctive flights toward a better life. Thus was born in Szybow the song which the cantor now began: "Once, while I slumbered, I fancied I saw My people's spirit before me; And I felt a strange spell stealing o'er me, As I gazed on the world in awe."
Here the other voices joined that of the cantor, and a powerful chorus resounded through the fields and meadow: "Did he come toward me in royal array, In purple and gold like the dawn of day. Ah, no I on his brow there was no golden crown; His naked knees trembled, hi gray head bowed down."
Here the choir of singing voices was mingled with a whisper coming from the birch grove: "Hush! Some people are listening!"
In fact, on the road passing through the grove, several human figures appeared in the distance. They were walking very slowly. But the singer heard neither Golda's warning nor the sound of the approaching steps. The second verse of the song resounded over the meadow: "O, my people's spirit, say, where is thy throne? Are the roses of Zion all faded and gone? Are the cedars of Lebanon all broken down? O, my people's spirit, say, where is thy crown?"
The last line of the song was still vibrating when, from the road passing through the grove, three men entered the meadow. They were dressed in long, black holiday clothes, and were girded with red handkerchiefs, because it was not permitted to carry them on Sabbath, but being used to gird the clothes were considered as part of the attire, and thus it was not a sin to wear them in that way.
In the centre was the cantor's father, Jankiel Kamionker, and on either side were Abraham Ezofowich, Haim's father, and Morejne Calman, the father of Aryel. Notwithstanding the darkness, the fathers recognised their sons in the last rays of the daylight. The voices of the young men trembled, became quiet, and then were silent--only one voice sang further: "Wilt thou never emerge from the darkness, despair? Will thy sweet songs of thanks ne'er resound in the air?"
It was Meir's voice.
The dignified men, passing through the meadow, stopped and turned toward the group of young men, and at that moment the manly voice was joined by the pure, sonorous voice of Golda, who, seeing the angry faces of the men, began to sing with Meir as though she wished to join him in common courage, and perhaps in common peril.
And paying no attention to either his comrades' silence or the threatening figures standing in the meadow the joined voices sang: "Let the wisdom of Heaven knock at thy door, And quiet the grief that has made thy heart sore; And bid the Angel of Knowledge come down, Restoring to thee thy lost glorious crown. We beseech thee to chase the dark shadows away, And the light of God's truth will turn night into day."
The song had only three verses, so with the last verse the two voices became silent. The dignitaries of the community turned toward the town, and talking loudly and angrily they went in the direction of the Ezofowich house.
Abraham, Saul's son, was quite different from his brother Raphael. Tall, dark-haired, and good-looking still, notwithstanding his more than fifty years, Raphael was dignified and careful, speaking very little. Abraham was small and bent. He was gray-headed, and had a passionate temper and sensitive disposition. He spoke very rapidly and with violent gestures. His eyes were very bright and generally looked gloomily on the ground.
Both brothers were learned, and for their learning the high title of 'Morejne' had been bestowed upon them by the community. But Raphael studied especially the Talmud, and was considered one of its best scholars. Abraham, however, preferred the study of the precipice-like mysteries of the Zohar. He was a close friend of the two high dignitaries of the kahal, Morejne Calman and pious Jankiel Kamionker. They transacted business together outside the town, and while in town they read sacred books together, and together they walked every Sabbath beyond the boundaries of the place, as far as an Israelite is permitted to go from his house. Therefore no one saw them go over two thousand steps, and only very seldom, when they were attracted by the shadow of the grove, they bent, and on the spot where their feet reached the two thousandth step they buried in the ground a crumb of bread. That spot then represented their house, and they were allowed to go two thousand steps further. Usually they were silent while walking, for they counted their steps, but the simple spiritually and bodily poor people, seeing them walking slowly and with thoughtful faces, admired the wisdom and orthodoxy of these scholarly and rich men. On seeing them they rose respectfully and stood until they passed, for it is written: "When you see a sage pass by, rise, and do not sit until he is out of your sight."
Moreover on their return they spoke, because it was not necessary to count their steps.
But the poor people had never seen the three dignified men walk as fast as that evening, when on the meadow they had heard the song of the young men. Even the magnificent Calman himself had not smiled as usual, and as for Jankiel Kamionker, his movements were so violent that his long black dress floated behind him like two black wings. Abraham Ezofowich had ungirded his handkerchief and carried it in his hand. Calman noticed this sign of senseless excitement and warned his friend that he was sinning. Abraham was dreadfully frightened, and in great haste he again girded his loins. When this happened they were already on the piazza of the Ezofowich house. Then the three men entered the room in which old Saul was sitting on the yellow sofa, reading in a large book by the light of two candles, which burned in two antique silver candlesticks.
Saul, seeing the entering guests was a little astonished, because it was already quite late and the time was not suitable for a visit. He greeted them, however, with a friendly nod, and pointed to the chairs standing near the sofa. The men did not sit in the places indicated to them, but stood opposite Saul. Although their faces were animated by anger, their mein was solemn. Evidently they had come to an understanding as to how the conversation was to be commenced, for Kamionker spoke first: "Reb Saul," said he, "we come here to complain against your grandson Meir."
A painful shiver passed over Saul's face.
"What has he done?" he asked in a low voice.
Kamionker began to speak, at first solemnly, and then very violently: "Your grandson Meir spoils our sons! He causes their souls to rebel against the Holy Law; he reads to them excommunicated books, and sings worldly songs on the Sabbath! Besides this he is bound by an impure friendship to the Karaimian girl, and we saw in the meadow our sons lying at his feet as though at the feet of their master, and over his head the Karaimian girl stood and sang abominable songs with him."
He stopped, out of breath from the angry speech, and Morejne Calman, looking at Saul with his honey like eyes, said slowly: "My son Aryel was there, and I shall punish him for it."
Abraham, looking gloomily on the ground, then said: "And my son, your grandson Haim, was also there, and I shall punish him for it."
Then all said: "You must punish Meir!"
Saul bent his sorrowful face.
"Lord of the world," he whispered with trembling lips, "have I deserved that the light of my eyes should be changed into darkness?"
Then he raised his head and said with determination: "I will punish him."
Abraham's eyes, fixed on his father's face, were shining.
"Father," said he, "you must think the most of that Karaimian girl. That unclean friendship between them is a great shame to our whole family. You know, father, our custom--no Israelite shall know another woman save the one his parents have destined for his wife."
It seemed that Saul's wrinkled forehead was covered with a pinkish flush.
"I will soon marry him," he answered.
Abraham continued: "As long as he sees the Karaimian girl he will not care to marry."
"And what can I do to prevent him from seeing her?"
The three men looked at each other.
"Something must be done with her!" said one.
After a long while of deep thought, the two guests bowed to Saul and left the house. Abraham remained in the room.
"Father," said he, "how do you propose to punish him?"
"I will command him to sit for a whole day in the Bet-ha-Midrash and read the Talmud."
"It would not do any good," said Abraham, with an impatient gesture; "you had better order him to be flogged."
Saul remained bent over.
"I shall not do it," he answered. Then he added softly: "Michael's soul passed into the body of my father Hersh, and my father's soul is now dwelling in Meir's body."
"And how can you know this?" asked Abraham, evidently shocked by his father's words.
"Hersh's wife, the great-grandmother first recognised this soul, and then Rabbi Isaak recognised it."
Saul sighed deeply, and repeated: "I will command him to sit in the Bet-ha-Midrash and read the Talmud. He shall neither eat nor sleep in my house for a whole week, and the Shamos (care-taker and messenger of the synagogue) shall announce his shame and punishment through the town!"
|
{
"id": "28400"
}
|
8
|
None
|
The Bet-ha-Midrash was a large, well-lighted building standing on the courtyard close to the synagogue. It served for various purposes: people congregated there for the less solemn prayers or lectures; the learned used it for their discussions upon knotty points of the Talmud, here also were kept the books of the different brotherhoods or societies, of which there are many in every Jewish community; and lastly, it served as a place of penance in exceptional cases, when any of the young men had transgressed the religious or moral laws. The punishment was not so much a physical discomfort as a moral one, and left an indelible stain upon the delinquent's character.
Opposite the Ha-Midrash rose a smaller but equally well-kept building. It was the Bet-ha-Kahol or Kahol room, where the functionaries of the town council and the elders held sittings. A little further was a more modest building, the Hek-Dosh or poor house, where all those who were unable to work and were hungry had the right to apply for food and shelter.
Opposite the house of prayer was the heder or school, where the learned and much-respected Reb Moshe ruled. The court with all its buildings, from the synagogue and hospital to the tiny dwelling of the Rabbi was like the capital of a small realm: everything was there which could promote the well-being of the public.
All these buildings had been raised at one time, to embody a great idea, either to serve God or mankind. In what manner these lofty ideas had been perverted and served other purposes than those first conceived is another thing altogether--for this we must go to history.
Eight days bad elapsed since the memorable evening when the young men bad conversed and sung together on the meadow. On the ninth day, after sunset, Meir left the Ha-Midrash and stood in its high portico.
Obedient to the order of the head of the family, he had spent the week in utter solitude, reading the Talmud which he knew so well already, and for which, in spite of all the doubts which troubled his mind, he never lost the reverence implanted into him from his childhood. The penance had not brought him any physical discomforts; his meals were carried to him from home, where the charitable women had tried to make them even more palatable than usual. Nevertheless, he was much changed. He looked paler, thinner, yet withal more manly. Neither in his expression nor bearing was there any trace of his former almost childish timidity. Perhaps his intelligence had rebelled against the injustice of the punishment; it may be the solitude and the study of the many volumes in the Ha-Midrash had called forth new ideas and confirmed him in the old ones. The nervous contraction of his brow and his feverish burning eyes betrayed hard mental work, all the harder because without help or guide. The penance inflicted upon him bad missed its aim. Instead of quieting and soothing the restless spirit, it made him bolder and more rebellious.
When Meir descended the steps into the court another feeling took hold of him--that of shame. At the sight of several people crossing the courtyard he dropped his eyes and blushed. They were elders of the Kahol, who seeing Meir, pointed at him and laughed. One of them, Jankiel Kamionker, did not laugh, and seemingly had not noticed the young man. He was walking apart from his companions, and his face looked troubled and preoccupied. Instead of entering into the Kahol building with the other men, he almost stealthily approached the almshouse; he only passed it, but it was sufficient to exchange a few whispered words with a man whose shaggy hair and swollen face appeared at the open window. Meir knew the man, and silently wondered what business the rich and pious Jankiel could have with a thief and vagrant like the carrier Johel. But he did not think much about it, and directed his steps, not towards home, but to a small passage near the school, which would bring him out into the fields; he was longing for space and air. He stood still for a few minutes. An odd murmuring noise, rising and falling, mixed with an occasional wailing reached his ear; it was dominated by a thick, hoarse voice alternately reading, talking, and scolding.
A peculiar smile crossed Meir's face; it expressed anger and compassion. He was standing near the school where the melamed Reb Moshe infused knowledge into the juvenile minds. Something seemed to attract him there; he leaned his elbows on the window-sill and looked in.
It was a narrow, low and evil-smelling room. Between the blackened ceiling, the wall and the floor full of dirt and litter, which filled the air with a damp and heavy vapour, there seethed and rocked a compact, gray mass which produced the murmuring noise. By and by, as if out of a dense fog, childish faces seemed to detach themselves. The faces were various, some dark and coarse, as if swollen with disease; others pale, delicate and finely cut. As various as the faces were their expressions; there were those who, with mouth wide open and idiotic eyes stared into vacancy; others twitched and fretted with ill concealed impatience but most of them, though suffering, looked patient and submissive. Their outward appearance showed an equal variety, from the decent coat of the rich man's child, in gentle graduations to the sleeveless jackets and tatters of the very poorest classes.
Some fifty children were crowded into that room which barely accommodated half that number. They sat almost one upon the other, on hard dirty benches, closely packed together. This was not the only school in Szybow but none of the others was so eagerly sought after by parents as the one conducted by Reb Moshe, known by his piety and cabalistic knowledge, the favourite of the Rabbi. It must not be thought that Reb Moshe initiated his scholars into the first steps of learning; this would have been sheer waste of his capabilities--which aimed at something higher.
The children he received were from ten to twelve years old, who had already been taught in other schools to read Hebrew and the Chumesh or Five Books of Moses, with all their explanations and commentaries; after that they came under the tuition of Reb Moshe and were introduced to the Talmud, with all its chapters, paragraphs, debatable points, and commentaries above commentaries.
All this would have been more than sufficient to enlarge or confuse the minds of those pale, miserable children; but Reb Moshe in his zeal did not content himself with exercising the memory of his scholars; he wanted also to develop their imagination, and sometimes treated them to extracts from the metaphysical Kabala. The reading or expounding of parts of those books was looked upon by him as a kind of rest or recreation, which sometimes it proved to be when the melamed was too deeply absorbed to watch his audience.
The melamed was thus occupied when Meir looked through the window. He was bending over a heavy book with an expression of ecstatic rapture, and rocking his body to and fro with the chair upon which he sat. The scholars with their books before them were also rocking themselves and repeating their lessons in a loud murmur, sometimes smiting the edge of the bench with their fists by way of emphasis, or burying their hands in their already tangled manes.
Suddenly the melamed left off rocking himself, took the heavy book in both hands and struck it with all his might on the table. It was the signal for silence. The scholars left off rocking and raised their eyes in sudden alarm, thinking the time bad come to give out their lessons.
But the melamed was not thinking of the lessons; his spirit had been carried away into other spheres altogether, but he was still dimly conscious of his duties as a teacher, and wanted his scholars to share in his spiritual rapture. He raised his finger and began to read a paragraph from the Scheier Koma.
"The great prince of knowledge thus describes the greatness of Jehovah: The height of Jehovah is one hundred six and thirty times a thousand leagues. From the right band, of Jehovah to His left the distance is seventy-seven times ten thousand leagues. His skull is three times ten thousand leagues in length and breadth. The crown of His head is sixty times ten thousand leagues long. The soles of the feet of the King of Kings are thirty thousand leagues long. From the heel to the knee, nineteen times ten thousand leagues; from the knees to the hip, twelve times ten thousand and four leagues; from the loins to the neck, twenty-four times ten thousand leagues. Such is the greatness of the King of Kings, the Lord of the world."
After this last exclamation, Heb Moshe, his hands raised in the air, remained motionless. Motionless likewise were the children. All, without exception, the timid and the mischievous, the idiotic and the sensible ones, stared open-mouthed at the melamed The description of Jehovah's greatness seemed to have paralysed their minds.
After a short pause the melamed woke up to the every-day business, and called out: "Go on."
The children again resumed their murmur and rocking. It would have been impossible from their confused voices to get an inkling of what they were learning but Meir, who had passed through the same course and possessed an excellent memory, understood that they were at the eighth chapter of Berachot (about the blessing).
The children, with great efforts that brought the perspiration to their faces, read in a singing murmur: "Mischna, 1. The disputed questions between the schools of Shamai and Hillel. The school of Shamai says: 'First, bless the day and then the wine.' The school of Hillel says: 'First bless the wine and then the day' (the Sabbath)."
"Mischna 2. The school of Shamai says: 'To wash the hands, then fill the cup.' Hillel says: 'Fill the cup, then wash the hands.'"
"Mischna 3. The school of Shamai says: 'After washing, put the napkin on the table.' The school of Hillel says: 'Put it on a cushion.'"
"Mischna 4. The school of Shamai says 'Sweep the room, then wash your hands.' The school of Hillel says: 'Wash your hands, then sweep the room.'"
A double knock with the heavy book upon the rickety table reduced the scholars to silence once more.
The melamed's round and gleaming eyes wandered around the room as if in search of a victim. He pointed to one of the hindmost benches, and called out: "Lejbele!"
A pale and slender child rose at the summons and fixed a pair of large, frightened eyes upon the teacher.
"Come here."
There was a great rustle among the boys, for it was no easy matter to pass across that dense mass of children. Lejbele at last managed to squeeze himself through, and holding his book with both hands, stood within the small space between the teacher's table and the front bench. He did not look at the melamed, but kept his eyes fixed upon the book.
"Why do you look down like a brigand? Look at me!" and the melamed struck him under the chin.
The child looked at him, his eyes slowly filling with tears.
"Well! what does the school of Shamai say, and what the school of Hillel?" began the melamed.
There was a long silence. The children of the first bench nudged his elbow, and whispered: "Speak out!"
"The school of Shamai," began Lejbele, in a trembling voice, says, "bless the wine. . . ." "The day--the day, and then the wine," whispered a few compassionate voices from the first bench. But, at the same time, the melamed's hand came into contact with the ear of one of the offenders, and his yell reduced the others to silence.
Reb Moshe turned again to the child.
"Mischna the first. What says the school of Shamai?"
The answer came in a still more trembling, almost inaudible, voice: "The school of Shamai says: 'Bless the wine'. The melamed's fist came down upon the young Talmudist's shoulder, out of whose hands the heavy book slipped and fell upon the floor.
"You bad, abominable boy," yelled the melamed, "you do not learn your lessons, and you throw your book upon the floor. Did you not read that the school of Shamai says, 'To bless first the day and then the wine?'"
Here a loud and sarcastic voice from the window called out; "Reb Moshe, that poor child has never seen wine in his life, and suffers hunger and flogging every day; it is not easy for him to remember whether to bless first the day and then the wine."
But Reb Moshe did not hear that speech, because both his hands were busy belabouring the head and shoulders of his pupil, who, without crying out, tried to avoid the blows by ducking on the floor. Suddenly a pair of strong hands pushed the melamed aside, and he, losing his footing, fell down, carrying with him the rickety table.
"Reb Moshe!" called out the same sarcastic and angry voice.
"Is this not an Israelitish child that you wreak your spite upon it? Is it not a poor man's child and our brother?"
His face burning with indignation, he bent down, and raising the child in his arms, turned towards the door.
"Reb Moshe, you drive all intelligence out of the children's heads, kill all the feeling in their hearts; I heard them laughing when you beat Lejbele."
Saying this, he disappeared with the child in his arms.
Only then did Reb Moshe awaken from the stupefaction into which the sudden assault had plunged him, and disengaging his burly frame from under the table, he shouted: "Assassin! murderer!" and turning towards his scholars, yelled: "Get hold of him! stone him!"
But he addressed empty benches; the books lay scattered about and the seats turned upside down. The scholars, seeing their master prostrate under the table, and one of their companions rescued by main force, had all rushed, partly from fright and partly from a wish for liberty, through the door and dispersed about the town like a flight of birds released from a cage.
The school was empty and the court deserted, except for a few grave looking men who stood in the portico of the Bet-ha-Kahol, and towards them rushed the frantic melamed, panting and tearing his hair. Meir in the meanwhile went swiftly on, with the child in his arms, whose tears fell thick and fast; but the eyes which looked through the tears at Meir were no longer the tears of an idiot.
"Morejne!" whispered Lejbele.
"Morejne!" he repeated, in a still lower voice, "how good you are!"
At the corner of the little street where the tailor lived, Meir put the child down.
"There," he said, pointing at Shmul's house, "go home now."
The child stiffened, put his hands into his sleeves, and remained motionless. Meir smiled and looked into his face: "Are you afraid?"
"I am afraid," said the motionless boy.
Instead of returning as he had intended, the young man went towards Shmul's hut, followed at a distance by Lejbele. The day was almost over, and so was work in the little street. The pale and ragged inhabitants crowded before their thresholds.
Scarcely had Meir penetrated into the street, where he became aware of a great change in the attitude of the people towards him. Formerly, the grandson of Saul had been greeted effusively on all sides; they had come to him with their complaints, sometimes asked for advice; others had greeted him from their windows with loud voices.
Now scarcely anybody seemed to notice him. The men looked away; the women glanced at him with curiosity, whispered to each other, and pointed their fingers at him. One of the woodcutters with whom he had worked at his grandfather's looked at him sadly and withdrew into his hut. Meir shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
"What is it all about?" he thought. "What wrong have I done to them?" Strange it seemed to him also that the tailor did not rush out to meet him with his usual effusive flatteries and complainings; nevertheless he entered the dwelling. Lejbele remained outside, crouching near the wall.
The young man had to bend his head in order to enter the low doorway leading into the dark entrance where two goats were dimly visible, thence to the room where the air, in spite of the open window, felt heavy and oppressive. A thin woman with a wrinkled face passed him on the threshold. It was Shmul's wife, who carried a piece of brown bread to the child outside, Lejbele's supper when he came home from school.
The whole family were eating a similar supper, with the exception of the elder and grown-up people, who seasoned their bread with pinches of chopped raw onion, of which a small quantity was lying on a battered plate. Besides Lejbele, there were two younger boys sitting on the floor, a two-year-old child crawled about on all fours, and a baby a few months old was suspended in a cradle near the ceiling, and rocked by one of the elder girls. Another girl was busy with the goats, and a third was feeding a blind old woman, Shmul's mother. She broke the bread in pieces, sprinkled onion upon it, and put it into the grandmother's hand, sometimes into her mouth. The blind mother was the only one in the family who possessed a bed; the others slept on the floor or upon the hard benches. She looked well cared for, the crossover on her shoulders was clean and whole, and on her head she had a quilted cap of black satin, profusely trimmed.
The grand-daughter seemed quite absorbed in task of feeding the old woman. She patted wrinkled hand encouragingly when she perceived difficulty in masticating the hard food.
As in the prosperous household of Saul, so in the dirty hut of the tailor, Shmul, the mother occupied the first place, and was the object of general care and reverence. Such a thing as a son, be he rich or poor, neglecting those who gave him life, is never seen in Israel. "Like the branches of a tree, we all sprang from her," said the head of the house of Ezofowich.
The tailor, Shmul, could not express his feelings like Saul, but when his mother lost her sight, he tore his long, curly hair in despair, fasted with his whole family for three days, and with the money thus saved bought an old bedstead, which he put together with his own hands against the wall; and when Sarah Ezofowich, Ber's wife, gave him an order to sew a black satin dress for her, he cut a goodish piece from the material to make a quilted cap for his mother.
When Shmul saw Meir coming into the room, he jumped up, bending his flexible body in two; but he did not kiss his hand as usual, or call out joyfully: "Ai! what a visitor, what a welcome visitor! Morejne!" , he exclaimed, "I have heard of what you have done. The children from school came running past, and said you had knocked the melamed under the table and rescued my Lejbele from his powerful hands. You did it out of kindness, but it was a rash deed, Morejne, and a sinful one, and will bring me into great trouble. Reb Moshe will not take Lejbele back, nor receive any of my other boys, and they will remain stupid and ignorant. Ai! Ai! Morejne, you have brought trouble upon me and upon yourself with your kindly heart."
"Do not trouble about me, Shmul; never mind about what I have brought upon myself, but take pity upon your child, and at least do not whip him at home; he suffers enough at school."
"And what if he suffers?" exclaimed Shmul. "His fathers went to school, and I went there and suffered the same; it cannot be helped; it is necessary."
"And have you never thought, Shmul, that things might be different?" questioned Meir gently.
Shmul's eyes flashed.
"Morejne!" he exclaimed, "do not utter sinful words under my roof. My hut is a poor one, but, thanks to the Lord, we keep the law and obey the elders. The tailor Shmul is very poor, and by the work of his hands supports his wife, eight children, and his blind mother. But he is poor before the Lord, and before the people, because faithfully he keeps the covenant and the Sabbath, eats nothing that is unclean, says all his prayers, crying aloud before the Lord. He does not keep friendship with the Goims (aliens) as the Lord protects and loves only the Israelites, and they only possess a soul. Thus lives the tailor Shmul, even as his fathers lived before him."
When the flexible and fiery Shmul had finished, Meir asked very gently: "And were your fathers happy? and you, Shmul, are you happy?"
This question brought before the tailor's eyes a vision of all his sufferings.
"Ai! Ai! Let not my worst enemy be as happy as I am. The skin sticks to my bones, and my heart is full of pain."
A deep sigh, from the corner of the room, seemed to re-echo the tailor's sorrowful outburst.
Meir turned round, and seeing a big shadowy figure in the corner, asked, "Who is that?"
Shmul nodded his head plaintively and waved his hands.
"It is the carrier, Johel, come to see me. We have known each other a long time."
At the same time a tall, heavy man came into the light, and approached the two. Johel was powerfully built, but he looked broken down and troubled. His jacket, without sleeves, was dirty and ragged, his bare feet cut and bruised, the fiery red hair matted, and the mouth swollen. There was something defiant in his looks, and yet he seemed as if he could not look anybody straight in the face. He went near the table to take a pinch of onion to season the bread he was holding in his hand.
"Meir," he said, "you are an old acquaintance. I drove your uncle Raphael when he went to fetch you, a poor little orphan, and I drove you and him to Szybow."
"I have seen you since," said Meir. "You were a decent carrier then, and had four horses."
The inmate of the poorhouse smiled.
"It is true," he said; "bad luck pursued me. I wanted to make a great geschaft (business), but it did not turn out as I thought it would, and then another misfortune befell me."
"The second misfortune, Johel, was a crime. Why did you take the horses out of the gentleman's stables?"
The questioned man laughed cynically.
"Why did I take them out? I wanted to sell them, and make a lot of money."
Shmul shook his head pityingly.
"Ah! ah!" he sighed. "Johel is a poor man--a very poor man. He has been in prison three years, and now cannot find work, but is obliged to seek shelter in the poorhouse."
Johel sighed deeply, but soon raised his head almost defiantly.
"That cannot be helped," he said. "Perhaps I shall soon see my way to make a big profit."
The words of the vagrant recalled to Meir's mind the short interview he had witnessed at the window of the poorhouse between Johel and Jankiel Kamionker. At the same time, he was struck by the expression of the tailor's face, which twitched all over as if under the influence of great excitement. His eyes sparkled and his hands trembled.
"Who knows," he exclaimed, "what may happen in the future? Those that are poor one day may become rich the next. Who knows? The poor tailor Shmul may yet build a house on the Market Square, and set up in business for himself."
Meir smiled sadly. The groundless hopes of these poor outcasts stirred his compassion. He looked absently around, and through the windows at the fields beyond.
"You, Shmul," he said, "will certainly not build big houses; nor you, Johel, make heavy profits. Is it to be thought of? You are too many, and there is not enough for you all. I sometimes think that if you left these narrow, dirty streets, and looked about in the world, you might find a better way of living; even if you worked like peasants on the soil your life would be easier."
He said this in an absent way, not so much addressing the two men before him as the noisy crowd without. But when Shmul heard these words, he twice jumped into the air, and twisted his cap upon his head.
"Morejne!" he cried out, "what ugly words come from your lips. Morejne, do you wish to turn Israel upside down?"
"Shmul," said Meir angrily, "it is true. When I look at your misery, and the misery of your families, I should like to turn things upside down."
"Ai! ai!" cried the impressible and lively Shmul, holding his head with both hands. "I would not believe what the people said of you, and called them liars; but now I see myself that you are a bad Israelite, and the covenant and customs of your forefathers are no longer dear to you."
Meir started, and drew himself up.
"Who dares to say that I am a bad Israelite?" he exclaimed.
Shmul's excited face took a quieter but more solemn expression, and he came close to Meir. Nobody would hear him, as the inmates of the room had gone into the street, and Johel retired into his corner to finish his meal. All the same, he spoke in an impressive whisper, as if about to disclose a terrible secret.
"Morejne, it is no use asking who said it. People whisper, like the leaves on a tree. Who is to say which special leaf has whispered, or which mouth? Everybody speaks ill of you. They say you break the Sabbath, read accursed books, sing abominable songs, and incite young men to rebellion, that you do not pay due respect to the learned and wealthy members of the community, and,"--here he seemed to hesitate, and added in a still lower voice--"and that you live in friendship with the Karaitish girl."
Meir listened like one turned to stone. He had grown very pale, and his eyes were flashing.
"Who dames to say that?" he repeated in a choking voice.
"Morejne!" replied Shmul, waving both hands, "you were sent for a week into the Bet-ha-Midrash to do penance. When the poor people in this street heard of it, there was a great commotion. Some wanted to go to your grandfather Saul and to the Rabbi to ask them not to put you to shame. The woodcutter Judel wanted to go, the carrier Baruch--well, the tailor Shmul, too. But soon afterwards people began to talk, and we heard why you had been punished; then we remained quiet, and said to each other: He is good and charitable, never proud with poor people, and has helped us often in our misery; but if he keeps not the covenant, his grandfather Saul is right to punish him."
He stopped at last, out of breath with his rapid speech, and Meir fixed his penetrating eyes upon him, and asked: "Shmul, if the learned and wealthy people ordered me to be stoned, would you also think they were right?"
Shmul retreated a few steps in horror.
"Ugh!" he exclaimed, "why should you think of such terrible things?" and then added, in a thoughtful voice: "Well, Morejne, if you do not keep the holy covenant--" Meir interrupted, in a louder tone: "And do you know yourself, Shmul, what is the covenant? How much of it is God's law, and how much people's invention?"
"Hush!" hissed Shmul, in a low voice. "People can hear, and I should not like anything unpleasant to happen to you under my roof."
Meir looked through the window, and saw several people sitting on the bench before Shmul's house. They did not seem to listen, but talked among themselves; at the last words of Meir and Shmul they had raised their heads and looked through the window with a half-astonished, half-indignant expression. Meir shrugged his shoulders impatiently, and without saying good-bye turned towards the door. He had almost crossed the threshold when Shmul rushed after him, stooped down, and kissed his hand.
"Morejne," he whispered, "I am sorry for you. Think better of it; reflect in time, and do not cause scandal in Israel. Your heart is made of gold, but your head is full of fire. Remember what you did to the melamed to-day! If you were not under such a terrible cloud, Morejne," he went on, raising a nervous twitching face up to Meir, "I should have opened my heart before you, for Shmul is in sore trouble to-day. I do not know what to do! He may remain poor all his life, or he may become rich; he may be happy or very wretched. A great fortune is coming to him, and he is afraid to take it because it looks like misfortune."
Meir looked in silent amazement at the poor man, who evidently was trying to convey some secret to him; but at the same time from beyond the blackened stove came Johel's deep voice: "Shmul, will you be quiet! Come here, I want you!" The tailor, with his face troubled, rushed towards him, and Meir, deeply musing, went out into the street.
It was evident from the clouded mien of the men and their scanty greetings that he was not so welcome to them as he used to be. Nobody rose when he passed, or approached him with a friendly word. Only the child got up as he went by, pushed his hands into the sleeves of his garment, and followed him.
Walking one behind the other, they crossed a long, narrow street, and found themselves in the fields which divided Abel Karaim's hut from the town.
It was now almost dark, but no flickering light was to be seen in Abel's window. They were not asleep yet, as Meir could see the dark outline of Golda near the window.
They greeted each other with a silent motion of the head.
"Golda," said Meir, in a low and rapid voice, "have you met with any unpleasantness lately? Has anybody molested you?"
The girl pondered a little over his question. "Why do you ask me that, Meir?"
"I was afraid some injury might have been done to you. People have spread some foolish slander about us."
"I do not mind injury; I have grown up with it. Injury is my sister."
Meir still looked troubled. "Why have you no light burning?" he asked.
"I have nothing to spin, and zeide prays in darkness."
"And why have you nothing to spin?"
"I carried the yarn to Hannah Witebska and Sarah, Ber's wife, and they did not give me any more wool."
"They have not insulted you?" asked Meir angrily Golda was again silent.
"People's eyes often say worse things than tongues," she replied at last quietly.
Evidently she did not want to complain, or it may be her mind was too full of other things to heed it much.
"Meir," she said, "you have been in great trouble yourself lately?"
Meir sat down upon the bench outside and leaned his head upon his hand with a weary sigh.
"The greatest trouble and grief fell upon me to-day when I found that the people had turned away from me. Their former friendship has changed into ill feeling, and those that confided in me suspect me now of evil."
Golda hung her head sadly, and Meir went on: "I do not know myself what to do. If I follow the promptings of my heart, my people will hate and persecute me. If I act against my conscience I shall hate myself and never know peace and happiness. Whilst I was sitting in the Bet-ha-Midrash I had almost made up my mind to let things be, and to try and live in peace with everybody; but when I had left the Ha-Midrash my temper again got the better of me, and rescuing a poor child I offended the melamed, and through him the elders and the people. That is what I have done to-day. Arid when I come to think of it, it seems to me a rash, useless act, as it will not prevent the melamed from destroying the poor children's health and intelligence. What can I do? I am alone, young, without a wife and family, or any position in the world. They can do with me what they like, and I can do nothing. They will persecute my friends until they desert me; they have already begun to injure and insult you, because you gave me your heart and joined your voice with mine on the meadow. I shall only bring unhappiness to you; perhaps it would be better to shut my eyes and ears to everything, and live like other people."
His voice became lower and lower, and more difficult from the inward struggle with doubts and perplexities.
Both remained silent for a few minutes, when suddenly a strange noise, seemingly from the other side of the hill, reached their ears. First it sounded faint and distant, like the passing of many wheels upon a soft and sandy soil. It grew louder by degrees, till the grating of wheels and stamping of many human feet could be heard quite distinctly. All this amidst the dark silence of the night gave it a mysterious, almost unreal appearance.
Meir stood straight up and listened intently.
"What is that?" he asked.
"What can it be?" said Golda, in her quiet voice.
It seemed as if a great many carts were passing on the other side of the hill.
"I thought something rumbled and knocked inside the hill," said Golda.
Indeed, it sounded now like human steps inside the hill, and as if some heavy weights were being thrown down. There was fear in Meir's face. He looked intently at Golda.
"Shut the window, and bolt your door," he said quickly; "I will go and see what it is!"
It was evident that he feared only on her account. "Why should I fasten either window or door? A strong hand could easily wrench them open."
Meir went round the base of the hill, and soon found himself on the other side. What he saw there filled him with the greatest astonishment.
In a half-circle, upon the sandy furrows, stood a great many carts laden with casks of all sizes. Around the carts a great many people were moving--peasants and Jews. The peasants were busy unload-the carts and rolling the casks into a cavern, which either nature or human hands had shaped in the hill.
The Jews, who were flitting in and out among the carts and looking at the casks, or sounding them with their knuckles, finally crowded round a man who stood leaning his back against the side of the hill, and a low-voiced, but lively discussion followed. Among the Jews, Meir recognised several innkeepers of the neighbourhood, and in the man with whom they conversed, Jankiel Kamionker. The peasants whose task it was to unload the carts preserved a gloomy silence. A strong smell of alcohol permeated the air.
The astonishment of Meir did not last long. He began to see the meaning of the whole scene, and seemingly had made up his mind what to do, as he moved a few steps in Jankiel Kamionker's direction.
He had not gone far when a huge shadow detached itself from a projection of the hill and barred the way.
"Where are you going, Meir?" whispered the man.
"Why do you stop me from going, Johel?" replied Meir, as he tried to push him aside.
But Johel grasped him by the coat tails.
"Do you no longer care for you life?" he whispered. "I am sorry for you, because you are good and charitable; take warning and go at once."
"But I want to know what Reb Jankiel and his innkeepers are going to do with the casks," persisted Meir.
"It does not concern you," whispered Johel. "Let neither your eyes see nor your ears hear what Reb Jankiel is doing. He is engaged in a big business; you will only hinder him. Why should you stand in his way? What will you gain by it? Besides, what can you do against him?"
Meir remained silent, and turned in another direction.
"What can I do?" he whispered to himself; with quivering lips.
Passing near Abel Karaim's hut, he saw Golda still standing at the window. He nodded to her.
"Sleep in peace."
But she called out to him: "Meir, here is a child sitting on the floor asleep."
He came nearer and saw, close to the bench where he had been sitting, the crouching figure of a child.
"Lejbele!" he said, wonderingly. He had not seen the lad, who had quietly followed him and sat down close to him.
"Lejbele!" repeated Meir, and he put his hand upon the child's head.
He opened a pair of half-unconscious eyes and smiled.
"Why did you come here?" asked Meir, kindly.
The child seemed to collect his thoughts, and then answered: "I followed you."
"Father and mother will not know what has become of you."
"Father sleeps, and mother sleeps," began Lejbele, rocking his head; "and the goats are sleeping," he added after a while, and at the remembrance of those, his best friends, he laughed aloud.
But from Meir's lips the slight smile had vanished.
He sighed and said, as if to himself: "How shall I act? What ought I to do?"
Golda, with her hands crossed above her head, looked thoughtfully up to the starry sky. After a while she whispered timidly: "I will ask zeide; zeide is very learned; he knows the whole Bible by heart."
"Ask him," said Meir.
The girl turned her head towards the dark interior, and called out: "Zeide! What does Jehovah command a man to do, from whom the people have turned away because he will not act against his conscience?"
Abel interrupted his prayers. He was accustomed to his grand-daughter's inquiries, and to answer them.
He seemed to ponder a few minutes, and then in his quavering but distinct voice, replied: "Jehovah says: 'I made you a prophet, a guardian over Israel! Hear my words and repeat them to the people. If you do this, I shall call you a faithful servant; if you remain silent, on your head be the woes of Israel.'"
The old voice became silent, but Meir listened still, with glowing eyes. Then he pointed into the dark room and said: "He has said the truth! Through his mouth has spoken the old covenant of Moses, the one true covenant."
Tears gleamed in Golda's eyes; but Meir saw them not, so deeply was he absorbed in thoughts which fired his whole being. He gently bent his head before the girl and went away.
She remained at the open window. Her bearing was quiet, but silent tears one after another rolled down her thin face.
"They beheaded the prophet Hosea, and drove the prophet Jeremiah out of Jerusalem," she whispered.
At a distance from the hut, Meir raised his face to heaven: "Rabbi Akiba died in great tortures for his convictions," he murmured.
Golda's eyes followed him still though she could see him no longer; and folding her hands, she murmured: "Like as Ruth said to Naomi, I wilt say to the light of my soul: 'Whither thou goest I will go; where thou diest, I will die!'"
In this way these two children, thoroughly imbued with the old history and legends of Israel, which represented to them all earthly knowledge, drew from them comfort and courage.
|
{
"id": "28400"
}
|
9
|
None
|
The day had scarcely begun to dawn when, in Kamionker's house, everybody, with the exception of the little children, was awake and stirring. It was an important day for the landlord of the inn, as it was that of the principal fair, which brought crowds of people of all sorts to the town. Both Jankiel's daughters, two strong, plain, and slatternly girls, with the help of the boy Mendel, whose stupid, malicious face bore the traces of Reb Moshe's training, were busy preparing the two guest rooms for the arrival of distinguished customers. Next to the guest rooms was the large bar-room, where, during the fair, crowds of country people were wont to drink and to dance. The servant pretended to clean the benches around the wall, and made a scanty fire in the great black stove, as the morning was cool and the air damp and musty. In Jankiel's room, the first from the entrance, the window of which looked upon the still empty market-square, were two people, Jankiel and his wife Jenta, both at their morning prayers.
Jankiel, dressed his everyday gabardine with black kerchief twisted round his neck, rocked his body violently and prayed in a loud voice: "Blessed be the Lord of the world that he hath not made me a heathen! Blessed be the Lord that he hath not made me a slave! Blessed be the Lord that he hath not made me a woman!"
At the same time Jenta, dressed in a blue sleeveless jacket and short skirt, bent her body in short, jerky motions, and in a voice much lower than her husband's, began: "Blessed be the Lord of the world that he has made me according to his will!"
Rocking to and fro, she sighed heavily: "Blessed be the Lord who gives strength to the tired and drives away from their eyes sleep and weariness!"
Then Jankiel took up the white tallith with the black border, and, wrapping himself in its soft folds, exclaimed: "Blessed be the Lord who enlightened us with his law and bade us to cover ourselves with the tallith!"
He put the philacteries, or holy scroll, upon his forehead and wrists, saying: "I betroth myself for ever, betroth myself unto truth, unto the everlasting grace."
Both husband and wife were so absorbed in their prayers that they did not hear the quick step of a man.
Meir Ezofowich crossed the room where Jankiel and his wife were praying, and the next, which was full of beds and trunks, where the two smaller children were still asleep, and opened the door of his friend's room.
There was as yet only a dim light in the little apartment where Eliezer stood at the window and prayed. He recognised his friend's step, but did not interrupt his prayers, only raised his hands as if inviting him to join: "O Lord of Hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?"
Meir stood a few steps apart and responded, as the people respond to the singer: "Thou feedest them with the bread of stones, and givest them tears to drink in great measure."
"Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours, and our enemies laugh among themselves," intonated Eliezer.
In this way the two friends sang one of the most beautiful complaints that ever rose from earth to heaven. Every word is a tear, every word a melody expressing the tragic history of a great people.
There were as different expressions in the faces of the two young men as their characters were unlike each other. Eliezer's blue eyes were full of tears, his delicate features full of dreaminess and rapture; Meir stood erect, his burning eyes fixed on the sky, and his brow contracted as if in anger. They both prayed from the depths of their hearts until the end, and then their formally united souls parted. Eliezer intoned a prayer for the Wise Men of Israel: "O Lord of heaven! guard and watch over the Wise Men of Israel, their wives, children and disciples, always and everywhere! Say unto me Amen!"
Meir did not say Amen. He was silent.
The singer seemed to wait for a response, when Meir, slightly raising his voice, said, with quivering lips: "Guard, O Lord, and watch over our brethren in Israel that live in sin and darkness, always and everywhere; bring them from darkness into light, from bondage to freedom! Say unto me Amen!"
"Amen!" exclaimed Eliezer, turning towards his friend; and their hands met in a hearty grasp.
"Eliezer," said Meir, "you look changed since I saw you last."
"And you, Meir, look different."
Only a week had passed over their heads. Sometimes one week means as much as ten years.
"I have suffered much during the week," whispered the singer.
Meir did not complain.
"Eliezer," he said, "give me 'More Nebuchim.' I came to you so early to ask for that book. I want it very much."
Eliezer stood with his head hanging down dejectedly.
"I no longer have the book," he said, in a low voice.
"Where is it?" asked Meir.
"The book which brought us light and comfort is no more. The fire has devoured it, and its ashes are scattered to the winds."
"Eliezer!" burst out Meir, "have you got frightened and burned it?"
"My hands could never have committed the deed; even had my mouth commanded it, they would not have obeyed. A week ago my father came to me in great fury and ordered me to give up the accursed book we had been reading on the meadow. He shouted at me, 'Have you that book?' I said, 'I have.' He then asked me, 'Where is it?' I remained silent. He looked as if he would have liked to beat me, but did not dare, on account of my position in the synagogue, and the love people bear me. He then ransacked the whole room, and at last found it under the pillow. He wanted to carry it to the Rabbi, but I knelt before him and begged him not to do so, as he would not allow me to sing any more, and would deprive me of people's love, and of my singing. Father seemed struck by my remark, for he is proud that a son of his, and one so young in years, holds such a position, and he thinks, also, that, when his son sings and prays before the Lord, the Lord will prosper him in his business, and forgive all his sins. So he did not take the book to the Rabbi, but thrust it into the fire, and, when it burned and crackled, he leaped and danced for joy."
"And you, Eliezer, you looked on and did nothing?"
"What could I do?" whispered the singer.
"I should have put the book on my breast, protected it with my arms, and said to my father, 'If you wish to burn it, burn me with it.'"
Meir said this with indignation, almost anger, against his friend.
Eliezer stood before him with downcast eyes, sad, and humbled.
"I could not," he whispered. "I was afraid they would deprive me of my office, and denounce me as an infidel. But look at me, Meir, and judge from it how I loved our Master; since he was taken away from me my face has shrunk, and my eyes are red with tears."
"Oh, tears! tears! tears!" exclaimed Meir, throwing himself upon a chair, and pressing his throbbing temples with both hands; "always those tears and tears!" he repeated, with a half-sarcastic, half-sorrowful voice. "You may weep for ever, and do no good either to yourself or to others. Eliezer! I love you even as a brother; but I do not like your tears, and do not care to look at your reddened eyes. Eliezer, do not show me tears again; show me eyes full of fire. The people love you, and would follow you like a child its mother."
Scolding and upbraiding his friend, Meir's eyes betrayed a moisture which, not wishing to betray, he buried his face in both hands.
"Oh, Eliezer, what have you done to give up that book? Where shall we go now for advice and comfort? Where shall we find another teacher? The flames have consumed the soul of our souls, and the ashes have been thrown to the winds. If the spirit of the Master sees it he will say, 'My people have cursed me again,'" and tears dropped through his fingers upon the rough deal table.
Suddenly he stopped his laments, and, changing his position, fell into a deep reverie.
Eliezer opened the window.
The sandy ground of the market-square seemed divided in long slanting paths of red and gold by the rays of the rising sun. Along one of these shining paths, towards Kamionker's house, came a powerful bare-footed man. His heavy step sounded near the window where the two young men were sitting. Meir raised his head; the man had already passed, but a short glimpse of the matted red hair and swollen face was enough for Meir to identify him as the carrier, Johel.
A few minutes later two men dressed in black passed near the window. One of them was tall, stately, and smiling; the other, slightly stooping, had iron-gray hair and a wrinkled brow. They were Morejne Calman and Abraham Ezofowich. Evidently they had not crossed the square, but passed along the back streets almost stealthily, as if to avoid being seen. Both disappeared in the entrance of Kamionker's house, where Johel had preceded them.
Eliezer looked up from the book which he had been reading.
"Meir," he said, "why do you look so stern? I have never seen you look so stern before."
Meir did not seem to have heard his friend's remark. His eyes were fixed upon the floor, and he murmured: "My uncle Abraham! My uncle Abraham! Woe to our house. Shame to the house of Ezofowich!"
In the next room, divided from Eliezer's by a thin wall, loud voices and bustle were audible. Jankiel shouted at his wife to go away and take the children with her. Jenta's low shoes clattered upon the floor, and the suddenly-roused children began to squall. By degrees the noise sounded fainter and farther off. Then the floor resounded with the steps of men, chairs were drawn together, and a lively discussion in low but audible voices began.
Meir suddenly rose.
"Eliezer," he whispered, "let us go away."
"Why should we go away?" said the young man, raising his head from the book.
"Because the walls are thin," began Meir.
He did not finish, for from the other side of the wall came the violent exclamation from his uncle Abraham: "I do not know anything about that; you did not tell me, Jankiel."
The mirthless, bilious cackle of Jankiel interrupted. "I know a thing or two," he exclaimed; "I knew that you, Abraham, would not easily agree to it. I shall manage that without your help."
"Hush!" hissed Calman. The voices dropped again to a whisper.
"Eliezer, go away!" insisted Meir.
The singer did not seem to understand. "Eliezer! do you want to honour your father, as it is commanded from Sinai?"
Kamionker's son sighed.
"I pray to Jehovah that I may honour him." Meir grasped him by the hand.
"Then go at once--go! if you stop here any longer you will never be able to honour your father again!" He spoke so impressively that Eliezer grew pale and began to tremble.
"How can I go now, if they are discussing secrets there?"
The voice of Jankiel became again distinctly audible: "The tailor Shmul is desperately poor; the driver Johel is a thief. Both will be well paid."
"And the peasants who carted the spirit?" asked Abram.
Jankiel laughed.
"They are safe; their souls and bodies and everything that belongs to them is pledged to my innkeepers."
"Hush!" whispered again the phlegmatic, therefore cautious, Kalman.
Eliezer trembled more and more. A ray of light had pierced his dreamy brain.
"Meir! Meir!" he whispered, "how can I get away? I am afraid to cross the room; they might think I had overheard their secrets."
With one hand Meir pushed the table from the window, and with the other helped his friend to push through. In a second Eliezer had disappeared from the room. Meir drew himself up and murmured: "I will show myself now, and let them know that somebody has overheard their conversation."
Then he opened the low door and entered into the next room. There, near the wall, on three chairs closely drawn together, sat three men. A small table stood between them. Kalman, in his satin garment, looked calm and self-possessed. Jankiel and Abraham rested their elbows on the table. The first was red with excitement and his eyes glittered with malicious, greedy light; the latter looked pale and troubled, and kept his eyes fixed on the floor; but nothing was capable of disturbing the smiling equanimity of Kalman. When Meir entered the room, he heard distinctly his uncle's words: "And if the whole place burns down with the spirit vaults?"
"Ah! ah!" sneered Jankiel, "what does it matter? One more Edomite will become a beggar!"
Here the speaker stopped and began to quiver as if with rage or terror; he saw Meir coming into the room. His two companions also saw him. Kalman's mouth opened wide. Abraham looked threatening, but his eyes fell before the bold, yet sorrowful glance of his nephew, and his hands began to tremble.
Meir slowly crossed the room and entered into the next, where Johel stood near the stove staring absently at his bare toes.
Jankiel sent a malediction after the retreating figure; the two others were silent.
"Why did you bring us in such an unsafe place?" asked Kalman at last, in his even voice.
"Why did you not warn us that somebody might hear from the other side of the wall?" asked Abraham impetuously. Jankiel explained that it was his son's room, who did not know anything about business and never paid the slightest attention to what was going on around him.
"How should I know that cursed lad was there? He must have entered like a thief, through the window. Well!" he said, after a while, "what does it matter if he heard? He is an Israelite, one of us, and dare not betray his own people."
"He may dare," repeated Kalman; "but we will keep an eye on him, and if he as much as breathes a syllable of what he heard we will crush him."
Abraham rose.
"You may do what you like," he said impulsively. "I wash my hands of the whole business."
Jankiel eyed him with a malicious expression.
"Very well," he said, "in that case there will be all the more for us two. Those who risk will get the money."
Abraham sat down again. His nervous face betrayed the inward struggle. Jankiel, who had a piece of chalk in his hand, began writing on a black tablet: "Eight thousand gallons of spirit at four roubles the gallon make thirty-two thousand roubles. These divided into three make ten thousand six hundred and sixty-six roubles sixty-six and one third kopecks. Six hundred roubles to each of the two, Johel and Shmul, and there remains for each of us ten thousand and sixty-six roubles, sixty-six and one third kopecks."
Abraham rose again. He did not speak, but twisted his handkerchief convulsively with both hands, Then he raised his eyes and asked: "And when will it come off?"
"It will come off very soon," said Jankiel.
Abraham said nothing further, and without saying good-bye, swiftly left the room.
The large market-square showed signs of life. Long strings of carts and people began to arrive from all directions. Inside the houses and shops everybody was busy preparing for the day's business.
In Ezofowich's house the inmates had risen earlier than usual to-day. The part of the home occupied by Raphael and Ber with their families resounded with gay and lively conversation. Various objects of trade, with their corresponding money value, were mentioned. Sometimes the calculations were interrupted by remarks in feminine voices, which occasioned laughter or gay exclamations. Everything showed the peace and contentment of people who strove after the well-being of their families and lived in mutual confidence and harmony.
The large sitting-room smelt of pine branches, which were scattered upon the even more than usually clean floor. On the old-fashioned, high-backed sofa, before a table spread with fine linen, sat old Saul and sipped his fragrant tea. The huge samovar had been taken down from the cupboard and gleamed with red coals and hissed and steamed in the next room, where a large kitchen fire illuminated the long table and white, scrubbed benches. The steaming of the samovar, the great kitchen fire and fresh curtains everywhere, together with the unusual stir of all the inmates, showed distinctly that many visitors were expected and preparations made accordingly.
But it was yet early in the day, and Saul sat alone, evidently relishing the atmosphere of well-being and orderliness and the sounds of the busy life filling the house from top to basement. It was one of those moments, not by any means rare in Saul's life, when he realised the many blessings which the Lord had bestowed upon his house with which to gladden his old age.
Suddenly the door opened and Meir entered. The happy expression vanished from Saul's wrinkled face. The sight of his grandson reminded him of the thorn which lurked amidst the flowers. The very look of the young man acted as a false or stormy discord in a gay and peaceful melody. Trouble was depicted on his pale face, and his eyes looked indignant and angry. He entered boldly and quickly, but meeting the eyes of his grandfather, he bent his head and his step became slower. Formerly he was wont to approach his father and benefactor with the confidence and tenderness of a favourite child. Now he felt that between him and the old man there arose a barrier, which became higher and stronger every day, and his heart yearned for the lost love and for a kind look from the old man, who now met his eyes with a stern and angry face. He approached him timidly, therefore, and said in a sad, entreating voice: "Zeide! I should like to speak with you about important business."
The humble attitude of the once favourite child mollified the old man; he looked less stern, and said shortly but gently: "Speak out."
"Zeide, permit me to shut the door and windows so that nobody hears what I have to say."
"Shut them," replied Saul, and he waited with troubled face for the grandson to begin.
After closing the door and windows Meir came close to his grandfather and began: "Zeide! I know that my words will bring you trouble and sorrow, but I have nobody to go to; you were to me father and mother, and when in trouble I come to you." His voice shook perceptibly.
The grandfather softened.
"Tell me everything. Though I have reason to be angry with you, because you are not what I should like to see you, I cannot forget that you are the son of my son who left me so early. If you have troubles I will take them from you; if anybody has wronged you I will stand up for you and punish him."
These words soothed and comforted the young man.
"Zeide!" , he said, in a bolder tone, "thanks to you I have no troubles of my own, and nobody has wronged me; but I have come across a terrible secret, and do not know what to do with it, as I cannot keep it concealed. I thought I would tell you, so that you, Zeide, with the authority of your gray hair, might prevent a great crime and a great shame."
Saul looked at his grandson half-anxiously, half-curiously.
"It is better people should not know any secrets or trouble about any; but I know that if you do not speak to me, you will speak to someone else, and troubles might come from it. Say, then, what is this terrible secret?"
Meir answered "This is the secret: Jankiel Kamionker, as you know, zeide, rents the distillery from the lord of Kamionka. He distilled during the season six thousand gallons of spirits, but did not sell any as prices were low. Now prices have risen and he wants to sell; but he does not want to pay the high government taxes."
"Speak lower," interrupted Saul, whose face betrayed great uneasiness.
Meir lowered his voice almost to a whisper.
"In order not to pay the taxes Kamionker last night carted away all the spirits to the Karaite's hill, where his innkeepers from all parts came to bargain for it and buy it up. But he thought what would become of him if the government officials came down to visit the vaults and did not find the spirits--he would be held answerable and punished. Then he hired two people. Zeide! he tempted two miserable outcasts to--" "Hush!" exclaimed Saul, in a low voice. "Be quiet; do not say a word more. I can guess the rest."
The old man's hands trembled, and his shaggy eyebrows bristled in a heavy frown.
Meir was silent, and looked with expectant eyes at his grandfather.
"Your mouth has spoken what is not true. It cannot be true."
"Zeide!" whispered Meir, "it is as true as the sun in heaven. Have you not heard, zeide, of the incidents that happened last year and last year but one? These incidents are getting more and more numerous, and every true Israelite deplores it and reddens with shame."
"How can you know all this? How can you understand these things? I do not believe you."
"How do I know and understand it? Zeide, I have been brought up in your house, where many people come to see you: Jews and Christians, merchants and lords, rich and poor. They talked with you and I listened. Why should I not understand?"
Saul was silent, and his troubled countenance betrayed many conflicting thoughts. A sudden anger toward the grandson stirred his blood.
"You understand too much. You are too inquisitive. Your spirit is full of restlessness, and you carry trouble with you wherever you go. I felt so happy to-day until my eye fell upon you, and black care entered with you into the room."
Meir hung his head.
"Zeide," he said sadly, "why do you reproach me? It is not about my own affairs I came to you."
"And what right have you to meddle with affairs that are not your own?" said Saul, with hesitation in his voice.
"They are our own, zeide. Kamionker is an Israelite, and as such ought not to cast a slur on our race; besides, they are our own, still more because your son, zeide, Abraham belongs to it."
Saul rose suddenly from the sofa and fell back again. Then he fixed his penetrating eyes upon Meir.
"Are you speaking the truth?" he asked sternly.
"I have seen and heard it all myself," whispered Meir.
Saul remained thinking a long time.
"Well," he said slowly, "you have the right to accuse your uncle. He is your father's brother, and from his deed shame and ignominy might come upon our house. The family of Ezofowich never did dishonourable things. I shall forbid Abraham to have anything to do with it."
"Zeide, tell also Kamionker and Kalman not to do it."
"You are foolish," said Saul. "Are Kamionker and Kalman my sons or my daughters' husbands? They would not listen to me."
"If they do not listen, zeide," exclaimed Meir "denounce them before the owner of Kamionka or before the law."
Saul looked at his grandson with flaming eyes.
"Your advice is that of a foolish boy. Would you have your old grandfather turn informer, and bring calamity upon his own brethren?"
He wanted to say something more, but the door opened to admit several visitors; they were Israelites from the country, respectable merchants or farmers from the neighbouring estates, arrived for the great fair. Saul half-rose to welcome his guests, who quickly stepping up to him, pressed his hand in hearty greeting, and explained that it was not so much business as the desire to see the wise and honoured Saul which had brought them to town. Saul answered with an equally polite speech, and asked them to be seated round the table, and without leaving his own seat on the sofa clapped his bony hands. At the signal a buxom servant girl came in with glasses of steaming tea, which filled the whole room with its subtle aroma. The guests thanked him smilingly, and then began a lively conversation about familiar subjects.
Meir saw that he would have no further opportunity of seeing his grandfather alone, and quickly left the room and went into the kitchen. This also was full of visitors, but of a different class from those in the pitting-room. Upon the benches by the wall sat some fifteen men in old worn-out garments; and Sarah, Saul's daughter, and Raphael's wife, Saul's daughter-in-law, conversed with them and offered tea or mead and other refreshments.
The men responded gaily, if somewhat timidly, and accepted the refreshments with humble thanks. Most of them were inn-keepers, dairy farmers, or small tradesmen from the country. Their dark, lean faces and rough hands betrayed poverty and hard work. The smallest expense for food during their stay in town would have made a difference to them. They went, therefore, straight to Ezofowich's house, the doors of which were always hospitably open on such days, as had been the custom of the family for hundreds of years.
The two women in their silk gowns and bright caps flitted to and fro between the huge fireplace and the grateful guests. Outside the house there was another class of visitors. Those were the very poorest, who had not come to buy or to sell at the fair, but to obtain some wine and food out of the charity of their wealthier brethren. To these the servant carried bread and clotted milk and small copper coins. The murmur of their thanks and blessings penetrated to the kitchen, where the two busy women smiled yet more contentedly, and produced more small coins from their capacious pockets.
In another part of the roomy kitchen stood the children of the house, pleased with their pretty dresses and coral necklaces, eating sweets. The elder boys listened to the conversation of the men, and a few of the younger children played on the floor. Close to this group sat the great-grandmother, Freida. Days like this conveyed to her clouded memory pictures of the past, when she herself, a happy wife and mother, looked after the comforts of her numerous guests. Her great-granddaughter had roused her earlier than usual to-day, and dressed her in the costliest garments, and now, before she would be led into the sitting-room to her chair near the window, they were completing her toilette. The black-eyed Lija fastened the diamond star into her turban; her younger sister arranged the pendants; another put the costly pearls around her neck and twisted the golden chain cunningly among the soft folds of her white apron. Having done this they smiled and drew back a little to admire the effect of their handiwork, or peeped roguishly into the great-grandmother's eyes and kissed her on the forehead.
The men sitting round the wall nodded their heads sympathetically, looked reverentially at the old lady, and now and then exclamations of wonder and pleasure at seeing her surrounded by such tender care escaped from their lips.
The other part of the house, which had been so lively early in the morning, was now silent and deserted. Meir crossed the narrow passage that divided the house, and opened the door of his Uncle Raphael's room, meeting his friend and cousin Haim upon the threshold. The youthful, almost childish face, surrounded by golden hair, looked beaming and excited.
"Where is Uncle Raphael?" asked Meir.
"Where should he be? He is at the fair, together with Ber, buying bullocks."
"And you, Haim, where are you going?"
But the lad did not even hear the question. Trilling a gay song, he had rushed off where the stir and lively spectacle of the fair attracted him.
Meir went out into the porch and looked around. The fair had scarcely begun, but in the midst of some forty carts he saw Ber discussing the prices of the cattle with the peasants. A little further on he saw Raphael standing in the porch of a house, surrounded by merchants, evidently talking and arranging business, as all their fingers were in motion. To approach these two men, who, after his grandfather, had the greatest, authority in the family, and engage them in private talk was impossible. Meir saw that, and did not even try.
The sight of the motley crowd, where everybody was engaged upon some business of his own, looked strange and unreal. His thoughts were so different from any of the thoughts that moved that bustling multitude.
"Why should it trouble me?" he murmured. "What can I do?" And yet it seemed to him impossible to wait in passive inactivity until a red glare in the sky should announce that the nefarious design had been accomplished.
"What wrong has the man ever done us?" he said to himself. He was thinking of the owner of Kamionka.
His dull, listless eyes rested on the porch of Witebski's house, and he saw the merchant himself standing and leisurely smoking a cigar. He was looking at the lively scene with the eyes of a man who had nothing whatever to do with it. The fact is, he dealt in timber, which he bought in large quantities, from the estates; therefore the fair had no special attraction for him. Besides, he considered himself too refined and thought too highly of his own business to mix with a crowd occupied with selling and buying corn or cattle.
Meir descended the steps and went towards Witebski, who, seeing him, smiled and stretched out a friendly hand.
"A rare visitor! A rare visitor!" he exclaimed. "But I know you could not come sooner to see the parents of your betrothed. We have heard how your severe grandfather ordered you to sit in Bet-ha-Midrash to read the Talmud. Well, it does not matter much; does it? The zeide is a dear old man, and did not mean it unkindly, just as you did not mean to do any wrong. Young people will now and then kick over the traces. Come into the drawing-room; I will call my wife, and she will make you welcome as a dear son-in-law."
The worldly-wise merchant spoke smilingly, and holding Meir by the hand, led him into the drawing-room. There, before the green sofa, he stood still, and looked into Meir's face and said: "It is very praiseworthy, Meir, that you are bashful and shy of your future wife. I was the same at your age, and all young men ought to feel like it; but my daughter has been brought up in the world, where customs are somewhat different. She is wondering that she does not even know the fiance who is to be her husband within a month. I will go and bring her here. Nobody need know you are together. I will shut the door and window, and you can have a quiet talk together and make each other's acquaintance."
He was moving towards the door, but Meir grasped him by the sleeve.
"Reb!" he said. "I am not thinking of betrothals or weddings; I came to you on a different errand altogether."
Witebski looked sharply at the grave and pale face of the young man, and his brow became slightly clouded.
"It is not about my own affairs I have come to you, Reb--" The merchant quickly interrupted: "If it be neither your affair nor mine, why enter it?"
"There are affairs," said the young man, "which belong to everybody, and it is everybody's business to think and speak about them."
He was thinking of public affairs, but though he did not express himself in these words, he felt all their importance.
"I have come across an awful secret to-day."
Witebski jumped up from the easy-chair where he was sitting.
"I do not want to hear about any awful secrets! Why should you come to me about it, when I am not curious to know anything?"
"I want you, Reb, to prevent a terrible deed."
"And why should I prevent anything; why do you come to me about it?"
"Because you are rich and respected, and know how to speak. You live in peace and friendship with everybody; even the great Rabbi smiles when he sees you. Your words could do much if you only would--" "But I will not," interrupted Witebski in a determined voice and with clouded brow. "I am rich and live in peace with everybody;" and lowering his voice, he added: "If I began to peer into people's secrets and thwarted them, I should be neither rich nor live in peace with anybody, and things would, not go so well with me as they are going now."
"Reb!" said Meir, "I am glad that everything is prospering with you: but I should not care for prosperity if it were the result of wrong-doing."
"Who speaks about wrong-doing?" said Eli, brightening up again. "I wrong no man. I deal honestly with everybody I do business with, and they are satisfied and feel friendly towards me. Thanks to the Lord, I can look everybody in the face, and upon the fortune I leave my children there are no human tears or human wrongs."
Meir bent his head respectfully.
"I know it, Reb. You are fair and honest, and carry on your business with the wise intelligence the Lord gave you, and bring honour upon Israel. But I think if a man be honest himself, he ought not to look indifferently upon other people's villainy; and if he do not prevent it when he can, it is as bad as if he had done it himself. I have heard that a great wrong is going to be done by an Israelite to an innocent man. I can do nothing to prevent it, and I am looking for somebody who might be able to save this innocent man from a great calamity."
Here a loud and jovial laugh quite unexpectedly interrupted Meir's speech, and Witebski patted him playfully on the shoulder.
"Well, well," he said, "I see what you are driving at. You are a hot-headed youth, and want to take some trouble out of your own head and put it into mine. Thank you for the gift, but I will have none of it. Let things be. Why should we spoil our lives when they can be made so pleasant? There, sit ye down, and I will go and bring your bride. You have never heard her play on the piano. Ah, but she can play well. It is not the Sabbath, and she will play and you can listen a little."
He said this in his most lively manner, and moved towards the door; but again Meir arrested his steps.
"Reb!" he said, "listen at least to what I have to say."
There was a gleam of impatience in Witebski's eyes. "Ah, Meir! what an obstinate fellow you are, wanting to force your elders to do or hear things they do not want to! Well, I forgive you, and now let me go and bring the young woman."
Meir barred the way "Reb," he said, "I will not let you go before you have heard me. I have no one else to go to; everybody is occupied with business or visitors. You alone, Reb, have time."
He stopped, because the merchant laid his hand upon the young man's shoulder; he was no longer smiling, but looked grave and displeased.
"Listen, Meir," he said. "I will tell you one thing. You have taken a wrong turning altogether. People shake their heads and speak badly of you; but I am indulgent with you. I make allowance because you are young, and because I am not of the same way of thinking as the people here, and know that many things in Israel are not as they ought to be. I think it; but do not speak about it or show it. Why should I expose myself to their ill-feeling? What can I do? If it be the Lord who ordered it so, why should I offend Him and make Him turn against me? If it be people's doing, other people will come in time to set it right. My business is to look after my family and their well-being. I am not a judge or a Rabbi either; therefore I keep quiet, try to please God and the people, and be in nobody's way. These re my principles, and I wish they were yours also Meir. I should let you go your own way, and not give advice to you either; but since you are to be my son-in-law, I must keep my eye upon you."
"Rob!" interrupted Meir, whose eyelids quivered with suppressed irritation, "do not be angry with me or think me rude, but I cannot marry your daughter. I shall never be her husband."
Witebski turned rigid with amazement.
"Do we hear aright?" he said, after a while. "Did not your grandfather pledge you to her and send the betrothal gifts?"
"My grandfather agreed with you about it," said Meir, in a trembling voice; "but he did it against my wish."
"Well," said Witebski, with the greatest amazement, "and what have you to say against my daughter?"
"I have no feelings against her, Rob; but my heart is not drawn to her. She also does not care for me. The other day, when passing your house, I heard her crying and lamenting that they wanted her to marry a common, ignorant Jew. It may be I am a common, ignorant Jew, but her education likewise is not to my taste. Why should you wish to bind us? We are not children, and know what our heart desires and what it does not desire."
Witebski still looked at the young man in utter bewilderment, and raising both hands to his head, exclaimed indignantly: "Did my ears not deceive me? You do not want my daughter--my beautiful, educated Mera?"
A hot flush had mounted to his forehead. The gentle diplomatist and man of the world had disappeared, only the outraged father remained.
At the same time the door was violently thrown open, and upon the threshold, with a very red face and blazing eyes, stood Mistress Hannah.
Evidently she had been at her toilette, which was only partly completed. Instead of her silk gown she wore a short red petticoat and gray jacket. The front of her wig was carefully dressed, but a loose braid fastened by a string dangled gracefully at her back. She stood upon the threshold and gasped out: "I have heard everything!"
She could not say any more from excitement. Her breast heaved and her face was fiery red. At last she rushed with waving arms at Meir, and shouted: "What is that? You refuse my daughter! You, a common, stupid Jew from Szybow, do not wish to marry a beautiful, educated girl like my Mera! Fie upon you--an idiot, a profligate!"
Witebski tried in vain to mitigate the fury of his better half.
"Hush, Hannah, hush!" he said, holding her by the elbow.
But all the breeding and distinguished manners upon which Mistress Hannah prided herself had vanished. She shook her clenched fist close in Meir's face: "You do not want Mera, my beautiful daughter! Ai! Ai! the great misfortune!" she sneered. "It will certainly kill us with grief. She will cry her eyes out after the ignorant Jew from Szybow! I shall take her to Wilno and marry her to a count, a general, or a prince. You think that because your grandfather is rich and you have money of your own you can do what you like. I will show your grandfather and all your family that I care for them as much as for an old slipper!"
Eli carefully closed the door and windows. Mistress Hannah rushed toward a chest of drawers, opened it and took out, one after the other, the velvet-lined boxes, and throwing them at Meir's feet, exclaimed: "There, take your presents and carry them to the beggar girl you are consorting with; she will be just the wife for you."
"Hush!" hissed out the husband, almost despairingly, as he stooped down to pick up the boxes but Mistress Hannah tore them out of his hands.
"I will carry them myself to his grandfather, and break off the engagement."
"Hannah," persuaded the husband, "you will only make matters worse. I will take them myself and speak with Saul."
Hannah did not even hear what he said.
"For shame!" she cried out; "the madman, the profligate, to prefer the Karaite's girl to my daughter! Well, the Lord be thanked we have got rid of him. Now I shall take my daughter to Wilno and marry her to a great nobleman."
It was about noon when Meir left Witebski's house, pursued by the curses and scoldings of its mistress and the gentle remonstrances and conciliatory words of Eli. The fair was now in full swing. The large market square was full of vehicles of all kinds, animals and people, that it seemed as if nobody could pass or find room any longer. In one part of the square where the crowd was less dense, close by the wall of a large building, sat an old man surrounded by baskets of all shapes and sizes. It was Abel Karaim.
Though the day was warm and sunny, his head was covered with a fur cap, from under which streamed his white hair, and his beard spread like a fan over his breast. The sun fell upon the small and thin face, scarcely visible from under his hair, and the fur which fell over the shaggy eyebrows gave but little protection to the dim eyes blinking in the sunlight.
Close to him, slim and erect, stood Golda, with her corals encircling the slender neck, setting off the clear olive of her complexion, and her heavy tresses falling down her back. A few steps in front of these two stood long rows of carts full of grain, wood, and various country produce; between the carts bullocks and cows lowed, calves bleated, horses neighed and stamped, small brokers and horse-dealers flitted to and fro bargaining with the peasants. In this hubbub of voices, in midst of bargaining and quarrels, mixed with the shrill voices of women and squalling children, sounded the quavering voice of old Abel unweariedly at his task of reciting. The surging elements around did not distract him; on the contrary, they seemed to stimulate him, as his voice sounded louder and more distinct.
"When Moses descended from Mount Sinai, a great light shone from his face, and the people fell down on their faces and called out as in one voice: Moses, repeat to us the words of the Eternal. And a great calm came upon the earth and the heavens. They grew silent, the lightning ceased, and the wind fell. And Moses called the seventy elders of Israel, and when they surrounded him, as the stars surround the moon, he repeated to them the words of the Eternal."
At this moment two grave men, poorly dressed, came from the crowd and passed close by him.
"He is reciting again," said one.
"He is always doing so," said the other.
They smiled, but did not go further. An old woman and some younger people joined them. The woman stood listening and asked: "What is it he is telling?"
"The history and the covenant of the Israelites," replied Golda.
The young people opened their mouths, the woman drew nearer, the men smiled, but all stood still and listened.
"When the people heard the commandments of the Lord, they called out as in one voice: We will do all that the Lord commands. And Moses erected twelve stones against the Mountain of Sinai, and said unto the people: Keep therefore the words of this covenant; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel."
"Your little ones, your wives, and the stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water."
"He says beautiful things, and speaks well," said one.
"And the hewer of thy wood and the drawer of thy water," repeated the two poorly dressed men as they raised their shining eyes to heaven. The woman, who had listened attentively, drew from her shabby gown a dirty handkerchief, and undoing one of the knots, deposited a big copper coin on Abel's knees.
A few more had joined the little group which surrounded Abel, Jews, Christians, and young people. These few had torn themselves from the noisy, haggling crowd, and listened to other words than those of roubles and kopecks--the sounds of the far past. It seemed almost as if Abel felt the attention of the people, and as if all these eyes upon him warmed his heart and stirred his memory. His eyes shone brighter from under the half-closed eyelids; the fur cap pushed at the back of his head, and the long white hair falling upon breast and shoulder, gave him the air of a half-blind bard who, with national songs, rouses and gladdens the spirit of the people. In a louder and steadier voice he went on: "When the Israelites crossed the Jordan, Joshua erected two great stones, and wrote upon them the ten commandments. One half of the people rested under Mount Gerisim, the other half under Mount Ebal, and the voice spoke unto all men: He breaks the covenant of the Lord who worships false gods, he who does not honour his father and mother. He breaks the covenant who covets his neighbour's property and leads astray the blind. He breaks it who wrongs the stranger, the orphan, and the widow; he who putteth a lie into his brother's ear, and sayeth of the innocent, Let him die. And when the people of Israel heard it they called out, as if in one voice: All that thou commandest, we will do."
"Amen," murmured around Abel the voices which a short time before had haggled desperately over their small bargains. A peasant woman pushed through the little group, picked up one of the baskets and asked the price. Golda told her, after which the woman began to bargain; but Golda did not answer again, not because she did not want to, as rather that she did not hear the shrill voice any longer. Her eyes were fixed upon one point in the crowd, a hot blush suffused her features, and a half-childish, half-passionate smile played upon her lips. She saw Meir making his way through the crowd and coming near where she stood; but he did not see her. His face looked troubled and restless, and presently he disappeared within the precincts of the synagogue. This was almost as crowded as the market square, but not so noisy.
Meir went towards the dwelling of the Rabbi Todros; all the people were moving in the same direction. Close to the Rabbi's little hut the crowd was still denser; but there was no noise, no pushing, or eyes shining with the greediness of gain; a grave silence prevailed everywhere, interrupted only by timid whispers. Meir knew what brought the people here and where they came from. There were scarcely any inhabitants of Szybow amongst them, as these could always see the Rabbi and come to him for advice. They came mostly from the country around; some from far distant places. There was a slight sprinkling of merchants and well-to-do people, but the great bulk bore the stamp of poverty and hard work in their lean, patient faces, and upon their garments.
"Why should I go there?" said Meir to himself; "he will not listen to me now; but where else can I go?" he added after a while, and he again mixed with the crowd, which bore him onwards until he found himself before the wide-open door of the Rabbi's dwelling.
Beyond the door, in the entrance hall, people stood closely pressed together like a living and breathing wall; no other sound than their long-drawn breaths were audible. Meir tried to push his way through, which did not present much difficulty, for many of the poor people had been humble guests at Ezofowich's, and recognised Saul's grandson and made way for him. They did this in a quick, absent-minded way, their eyes being riveted on the room beyond; they stood on tip-toe, and whenever they caught a broken sentence, their faces glowed with happiness as if the honoured sage's words were balm for all the sorrows of their lives.
The interior of the room, which Meir beheld from the open door, presented a singular appearance. In the depth of it, between the wall and a table, sat Rabbi Todros in his usual worn-out garments with his cap pushed to the back of his head. The upper part of his body bent forward; he sat perfectly motionless except for his eyes, which roamed along the people, who looked at him humbly and beseechingly. There was a small space between the sage and those who stood before him, which none dared to cross without his permission. The whole scene was lighted up by the rays of the sun streaming in through the window, on one side; on the other by the lurid and fitful flames in the fire-place. Near the latter crouched the melamed, feeding the fire with fresh fuel and putting various herbs into steaming vessels.
Besides the function of apothecary he had also the office of crier. He called out the names of the people who, according to his opinion, were entitled to appear before the master.
He now raised his thick forefinger towards the entrance, and called out: "Shimshel, the innkeeper."
The summoned man whose name, Samson, time and custom had transformed into Shimshel, did not in the least resemble his namesake, the Samson of history. He was slender and red-haired, and bent almost to the ground before the Rabbi.
"Who greets the Wise Man bows before the greatness of the Creator," he said in a timid, shaking voice. It was not only his voice which trembled, but all his limbs, and his blue eyes roamed wildly about the room.
Isaak Todros sat like a statue. His eyes looked piercingly at the little red-haired man before him, who, in his terror, had lost his tongue altogether.
"Well?" said the sage, after a lengthy pause.
Shimshel raised his shoulders almost to his ears and began: "Nassi! let a ray of your wisdom enlighten my darkness. I have committed a great sin, and my soul trembles while I am confessing it before you. Nassi! I am a most unfortunate man; my wife Ryfka has lost my soul for ever, unless you, oh Rabbi, tell me how to make it clean again."
Here the poor penitent choked again, but gathering courage, proceeded: "Nassi! I and my wife Ryfka and the children sat down, last Friday, to the Sabbath feast. On one table there was a dish of meat, on the other a bowl of milk which my wife had boiled for the younger children. My wife ladled out the milk for the children, when her hand shook and a drop of milk fell upon the meat."
"Ai! Ai! stupid woman, what had she done! She had made the meat unclean."
"Well, and what did you do with the meat?" The questioned man's head sank upon his breast, and he stammered: "Rabbi, I ate from it, and so did my wife and children."
The Rabbi's eyes flashed with anger.
"Why did you not throw the unclean food on the refuse heap? Why did you make your mouth and the mouths of your family unclean?" shouted the Rabbi.
Shimshel choked again, and stopped. The sage, still motionless, asked: "Nassi! I am very poor, and keep a small inn that brings but little profit. I have six children, an old father who lives with me, and two orphaned grandchildren, whose parents died. Rabbi it is difficult to find food for so many mouths, and we have meat only once a week. Kosher meat is very dear, so I buy three pounds every week, and eleven people have to keep up their strength, on it. Rabbi! I knew we should have nothing during the week, except bread and onions and cucumber. I was loth to throw that meat away and so ate from it, and allowed my family to eat from it."
Thus complained and confessed the poor Samson, and the master listened with clouded brows.
Then he spoke, transfixing the sinner with angry eyes. He explained in a long and learned speech the origin of the law of clean and unclean food. How great and wise men had written many commentaries about it, and how great the sin of a man was who dared to eat a piece of meat upon which a drop of milk had fallen.
"Your sin is abominable in the sight of the Lord," he thundered at the humble penitent. "For the sake of greediness you have broken the covenant which Jehovah made with his people, and transgressed one of the six hundred and thirteen commandments which every true Israelite is bound to keep. You deserve to be cursed even as Elisha cursed the mocking children, and Joshua the town of Jerico. But since it was only your body which sinned, whilst the spirit remained faithful, and you came to me and humbled and confessed yourself, I will forgive you, under the condition that you and your family abstain from meat and milk during four weeks, and the money saved thereby be distributed among the poor. And after four weeks, when your souls will be clean again from the abomination, you may dwell in peace and piety among your brethren Israelites."
"Say everybody Amen."
"Amen," called the people within the room and without, and those who pressed their eager faces against the window.
The little red-haired Samson, relieved of the burden that had oppressed his conscience, though otherwise burdened with a four-weeks' fast, murmured his thanks and retreated towards the entrance.
Reb Moshe again raised his finger and called out: "Reb Gerson, melamed."
At his summons a round-backed, middle-sized man, with shaggy hair and clouded mien, appeared. He was a colleague of Reb Moshe, a teacher from a small town, where he enlightened the Israelitish youths. He stood in the middle of the room, holding a heavy book with both hands, After greeting the master, he began in these words: "Rabbi! my soul has been in trouble, Two days ago my children read that evening prayers ought to be said until the end of the first watch. The children asked me: 'What is the first watch?' I remained mute, for I did not know how to answer, and I come to you, Rabbi, for a ray of wisdom to enlighten my mind. Tell me, oh Rabbi, what are the watches according to which every Israelite has to regulate his prayers. Where are they, so that I may give an answer to the children?"
The round-backed man stopped, and all eyes rested with excited curiosity upon the sage, who, without changing his position, answered: "What should it be but the angels' watch? And where do they watch? They watch before the throne of the Eternal, when the day declines and night approaches. The angels are divided into three choirs. The first choir stands before the throne and keeps watch till midnight. Then is the time to say evening prayers. The second comes at midnight and keeps watch until dawn; when you see the sky turn rosy-red and pale-blue, the third choir arrives, and then it is time to say morning prayers."
The master stopped, and a low murmur of admiration and rapture was heard among the crowd. But the melamed did not retire yet; his eyes fixed upon his book he began anew: "Rabbi, give me another ray of wisdom to carry back to my scholars. Near our little town lies the estate of a great lord. Sometimes the children go there and hear all sorts of things. Once, coming thence, they told in town that the origin of thunder had been explained to them. They were told that thunder comes from heaven when two clouds meet and give out a force they called electricity. I never heard of it before: is it true that such a force exists and that it originates thunder?"
During Reb Gerson's speech the Rabbi's face twitched with suppressed impatience, and he smiled scornfully.
"It is not true!" he exclaimed. "There is no such force, and not from there comes thunder. When the Roman emperor destroyed the Temple, and dispersed the people of Israel, there was thunder. Where did it come from? It came from Jehovah's breast, who wept aloud over the destruction of his people. And now the Lord weeps over his people, and his moans are heard upon earth as thunder; his tears fall into the seas and make them heave and rise, and shake the earth to its foundations, and send forth fire and smoke. I have told you now whence come thunder and earthquakes. Go in peace and repeat to your children what I have told you."
With a humble bow and thanks the melamed retired into the crowd. At the same time from beyond the door the loud wail of a child became audible.
Reb Moshe called out: "Haim, dairy farmer from Kamionka, and his wife Malka."
From the crowd came a man and a woman. Both looked pale and troubled The woman carried a sick child in her arms. They knelt before him, and holding up to him the child, wasted with disease, asked for his help and advice. Todros bent tenderly over the fragile little body and looked long and attentively at it. Reb Moshe, squatting on the floor, looked at the master for orders, mixing and stirring the decoctions. In this way, one by one, came the people to their teacher, sage, physician, prophet almost, plied him with questions and asked for advice. A troubled husband brought his comely, buxom wife, and asked for judgment by help of a certain water, called the water of jealousy. If the wife be guilty of infidelity, the efficacy of the water is believed to cause death; if innocent, it will enhance her beauty and give her health. Another man asked what he was to do if the time for prayers came during a journey and he could not turn his face to the east, because the storm and dust would blind his eyes. A great many came crying and bewailing their miserable lives, and asked the sage to look into the future and tell them how long it would be till the Messiah arrived. The greater part of the people did not want anything, asked neither questions nor came for advice; they simply wanted to see the revered master, breathe the same air with him, and fill their souls with the words that dropped from his lips, and see the light of his countenance.
It was evident that Isaak Todros felt and appreciated his high position. He attended to all their wants with the greatest gravity, zeal, and patience. He explained, and put the people right in points of law, inflicted penances upon sinners, gave physic to the sick, advice to the ignorant--without changing his position--only fixing his either stern or thoughtful eyes upon those who came to him. Several times when the people wailed and complained, entreating him to foretell the coming of the Messiah, his dark eyes grew misty. He loved those who came to him with their troubles and felt for them. Big beads of perspiration stood upon his forehead, and his breath came hard and fast; still he went on with his ministrations, in the deep conviction that he was doing his duty, with a fervent faith and belief in all that he was achieving and teaching, and the disinterestedness of a man who wants nothing for himself, except the little black hut, a scanty meal, and the tattered garments he had worn for many years.
In the meanwhile a man passed rapidly through the court of the synagogue, looking around him as if in search of something or somebody. It was Ber, Saul's son-in-law. He looked at the people crowding round the Rabbi's dwelling; at last his eyes lighted on Meir, and he grasped him by the sleeve of his coat.
The young man awoke, as from a trance, and looked round absently at his uncle.
"Come with me," whispered Ber.
"I cannot go away," said Meir, in an equally low voice. "I have important business with the Rabbi, and shall wait till all the people have left so that I may speak with him."
"Come away," repeated Ber, and he took the youth by the shoulder.
Meir shook him off impatiently, but Ber repeated: "Come with me now; you can return later when the people have gone--that is, if you wish it, but I do not think you will."
Both left the crowded hut. Ber walked swiftly and silently, leading his companion to a quiet part of the precincts where, under the shadow of the walls of Bet-ha-Midrash, nobody could overhear, their conversation.
Meir leaned against the wall. Ber stood silently before him, looking intently at his young kinsman.
Ber's outward appearance did not present any striking features; many would pass him without taking particular notice, yet the student of human nature would find in him a character worth knowing. He was forty years old, always carefully dressed, yet according to old customs. His delicately moulded features and blue eyes had a dreamy and apathetic expression, which only lighted up under the excitement of business speculations. A deep yearning after something, and carefully suppressed dreams and stifled aspirations gave to his mouth an expression of calm resignation. Sometimes, when the ghost of the past appeared before him, two deep furrows appeared across his forehead. It was evident that some fierce conflicts had raged under that quiet exterior, and left wounds and scars which now and then would remind him painfully of the past.
He now stood opposite the young man whom he had dragged away from the crowd almost by force.
"Meir," he said at last, "an hour ago your grandfather had a long talk with his son, Abraham. He left his visitors on purpose to speak with him, and bade me to be present at their conversation. Rest in peace, Meir; your uncle will have no hand in the vile deed which will be perpetrated."
"Will be perpetrated?" interrupted Meir passionately. "Not if I can prevent it."
Ber smiled bitterly "How can you prevent it? I guessed you wanted to speak about it to the Rabbi, and I went after you to warn you and save you from the consequences of such a step. You thought that if you put the case before him, he would rise in anger and forbid any one to do such an infamous deed If he did that they would obey him; but he will not."
"Why should he not?" exclaimed Meir.
"Because he does not understand anything about it. If you questioned him about clean or unclean food, whether it was allowed to snuff a candle on the Sabbath, or gird the loins with pocket-handkerchiefs, he would answer readily enough. He would tell you whether to bless first the wine or first the bread, or how the spirits transmigrate from one body to another, how many Sefirots emanate from Jehovah and how to transpose the sacred letters in order to discover fresh mysteries, or about the arrival of the Messiah. But if you began to speak to him about distilleries, taxes, estates, and things in connection with them, he would open his eyes widely and would listen to you like a man struck with deafness, because these things are to him like a sealed letter. For him, beyond his sacred books, the world is like a great wilderness."
Meir bent his head.
"I feel the truth of what you say; yet if I asked him whether it be right for the sake of gain to wrong an innocent man?"
Ber answered: "He would ask you whether the innocent man were an Edomite or an Israelite."
Meir looked intently at the sky, thinking deeply, and evidently puzzled.
"Ber," he said at last, "do you hate the Edomites?"
The questioned man shook his head.
"Hatred is like poison to the human mind. Once, when I was young, I even thought of going to them and entreating them to help us. I am glad now that I did not do it and remained with my own people, but I have no ill-feeling towards them."
"And I have none," said Meir. "Do you think Kamionker hates them?"
"No," said her decidedly. "He makes use of them. They are his milch cows. He may despise them, because they do not look after their business but allow themselves to be cheated."
"And Todros; does he hate them?" questioned Meir.
"Yes," said Ber, very emphatically; "Todros hates them. And why does he hate them? Because he does not live in the Present; he still lives in the Past, when the Roman emperor besieged Jerusalem and drove the Israelites out of Palestine. He breathes, thinks, and feels as if he were living two thousand years ago. He does not know that from the time of his ancestor, Halevi Todros, other wise people have lived, and that times are changed, and that those who hated and persecuted us once have since then stretched out their hands in peace and goodwill. How can he know anything? He never left Szybow since he was born; never read anything but the books left by his forefathers; has never seen or spoken to any one out of Israel."
Meir listened, and nodded his head in sign that he agreed with his companion.
"I see that it is of no use at all going to him," he said, thoughtfully.
"It is not," said Ber; "therefore I came in search of you. He will not prevent Kamionker from wronging the lord of Kamionka, who represents to him the people of Ai, with whom Joshua went to war, or the Roman nation who destroyed the Temple, or the Spaniards who, five hundred years ago, burned and despoiled the Jews. He would not even listen to you, and would denounce you as an infidel. If he has not brought his hand down upon you, it is owing to the love and respect the people bear towards your grandfather, Saul. If you accused Kamionker before him, Kamionker would set him, against you, as already does Reb Moshe. Meir! be careful! there are rocks ahead. Save yourself before it is too late."
Meir did not reply to the warning.
"Ber," he said, "I am sure that man, blind and revengeful as he is, possesses a great soul. Look how patiently he sits night and day over his books, how full of pity and compassion are his eyes when he listens to the poor people and comforts them, and does not want anything for himself. Ber! his faith is so sincere!"
Ber smiled at his words, and turned his dreamy eyes to heaven.
"You speak thus about the Rabbi, Meir; what do you say about the people who, in the midst of misery, hunger, and humiliation still thirst for wisdom and knowledge. Never mind whether it is the true wisdom or true knowledge, but look how they raise themselves above their narrow lives by their faith and reverence for their Wise Men. Do you think that this narrow, bigoted, greedy people have a great soul?"
"Israel has a great soul, and I love it more than my life, my happiness, and my peace." He stopped for a minute, then grasped Ber by the shoulder. "I know what is wanting in Todros to make him a great man, and what is wanting in the Israelitish people to show their greatness to the world. They ought to come out of the Past, in which they persist to dwell, into the Present. They want Sar-Ha-Olam, the angel of knowledge, to touch them with his wings."
Whilst the young man spoke thus, his face glowing with excitement, Ber looked at him thoughtfully.
"When I look at you, Meir, and listen to you, I see myself as I was at your age. I felt the same anger, the same grief, and I wanted--" He stopped, and passed his hand over his brow, marked with two deep lines, and his eyes looked far away as if into the future.
Anybody seeing their animated faces and lively gesticulation as they stood near the wall of the Bet-ha-Midrash, would have concluded that they were discussing bargains. What else did people like them live or care for? Yet they think and suffer, but nobody guesses it or wishes to penetrate the mystery of their thoughts. It is like the depth of an unfathomable sea--its depths unknown even to those who are perishing in it.
"Come home with me," said Ber. "Your grandfather will soon be sitting down to dinner with his guests and be displeased at not seeing you at table. There is already a storm brewing for you, because Mistress Hannah has returned the betrothal gifts, broken off the engagement, and given Saul a piece of her mind in presence of all the visitors."
Meir carelessly waved his bands.
"I wished for it," he said. "I shall ask my grandfather's pardon. I can only think about one thing now: where to go next."
Ber looked wonderingly at the speaker. "How obstinate you are," he remarked. They were near the entrance gate when Ber suddenly stopped.
"Meir, whatever you do, don't go to the government authorities."
Meir passed his hand over his forehead.
"I thought of that," he said, "but I am afraid. If I reveal the whole truth, they will not only punish Kamionker, but also those poor wretches he tempted with his money. Poor people, ignorant people, I am sorry for them--" He suddenly paused, and looked fixedly in one direction. An elegant carriage, drawn by four horses, crossed the market-square. Meir pointed at the carriage, which stopped before Jankiel Kamionker's inn, and his eyes opened wider, for a sudden idea took hold of his mind.
"Ber!" he exclaimed, "do you see him? That is the lord of Kamionka."
The sun was declining towards the west when, in the porch of Saul's house, stood a group of men gaily conversing among themselves. They were Saul's visitors who, after having feasted at his hospitable board, were now saying good-bye, and pressing the old man's hand, thanking him for his kind reception; then, by twos and threes, they mounted the waiting carts, their faces still turned towards their venerable host, who stood in the porch.
In the sitting-room the women, with the help of the servants, were busy clearing the table, and putting away the dinner service.
The fair was also drawing to an end; the carts grew fewer by degrees, so did the people upon the square. All the noise and liveliness concentrated itself now in the several inns where the people were drinking and dancing. Jankiel Kamionker's inn was by far the most frequented and noisiest, No wonder.
The crafty dealer rented several distilleries and some seventy inns about the country, and ruled over a small army of subtenants and inn-keepers, of the Samson kind, who bought meat once a week, and starved on other days. They depended entirely on Kamionker, who, if he did not treat them generously they, on their side, were not generous towards the peasants, whom they plied with drink. Through his subordinates, Kamionker held thousands of peasants' families under his thumb. Therefore they all came to his inn. He did not himself look after his humble customers, but left them to his wife and his two strong and ugly daughters, who carried bottles and glasses round the tables, together with salted herrings, and different kinds of bread. Nobody could have guessed, seeing the faded woman, shabbily dressed, moving in that stifling atmosphere of alcohol and human breath, that she was the wife of one of the wealthiest men in the country.
Neither did the man in his musty garments who stood humbly at the door of the guest's room, look like a great capitalist and financier.
He stood near the threshold, and his guest, the lord of Kamionka, reclined in an easy-chair smoking a cigar. The young gentleman was tall and handsome; his dark hair fell upon a white forehead, though the other part of his face was slightly browned by the sun. He had a good-natured and thoughtful face.
The gay playfulness with which his eyes twinkled was evidently caused by the sight of the nimble Jew, whose body seemed to be made of india rubber, and the two corkscrew curls behind his ears of a fiery red, seemed to dance to and fro with his every motion.
Then he became thoughtful again, because the red-haired Jew spoke about important business. The young nobleman did not know anything about the man himself with whom he dealt.
He was to him a Jew, and the tenant of his distillery. Thus he might be also a prominent member of a powerfully organised body, a greatly respected and pious person, a mystic deeply versed in sacred knowledge, and finally a man who, in those dirty, freckled hands, held the entangled threads of many Jewish and Christian families; of all this the lord of Kamionka knew nothing. Therefore it never occurred to him to invite the Jew to draw nearer or sit down. Reb Jankiel likewise did not think of such a thing. He had been accustomed to stand humbly, as his fathers had done before him; nevertheless, his pale blue eyes were full of malice whenever the young gentleman turned his look elsewhere and could not see him. It may be Reb Jankiel did not realise his own feelings, yet he could not help seeing the contrast between his present humble attitude and the proud position he occupied in his own community. Such feelings, though ill-defined, if united to a bad heart, could produce no other results than hatred and even crime.
"You bore me, Jankiel, with your everlasting bargains and agreements," said the nobleman carelessly, twisting his cigar between his fingers. "I stopped at your inn for a few minutes to rest my horses, and you get me into business discussions at once."
Reb Jankiel bowed nimbly.
"I beg the gracious lord's pardon," he said smilingly, "but the distillery will be starting work next month, and I should like to renew the agreement."
"Of course you will be my tenant, as you have been these last three years; but there is plenty of time."
"It is better to arrange everything beforehand. I shall have to buy a hundred head of cattle for fattening purposes, and I cannot afford the outlay unless I am sure of the tenancy. If the gracious lord permits, I shall come to-morrow to write the agreement."
The young nobleman rose.
"Very well, come to-morrow, but not in the morning, as I shall not be at home."
"The gracious lord thinks of spending the night in the neighbourhood?" asked Jankiel, his face twitching nervously.
"Yes, in the near neighbourhood," answered the nobleman, and was going to say something more when the door behind Jankiel's back opened gently, and a young Jew, with a pale face and burning eyes, entered boldly.
At the sight of the newcomer Jankiel drew back instinctively, and an expression of terror came into his face.
"What do you want here?" he asked in a choking voice.
The nobleman glanced carelessly at the young Jew.
"Do you want to speak to me, my friend?" he asked.
"Yes, with the gracious lord," said the newcomer, and he advanced a few steps nearer. But Jankiel barred him the way.
"Do not permit him to come nearer, gracious lord, and do not speak with him. He is a bad man, and interferes with everybody."
The lord of Kamionka waved the frantic Jankiel aside.
"Let him speak if he has any business with me. Why should I not speak with him?"
Saying this, he looked with evident curiosity at the youthful face of the intruder.
"The gracious lord does not know me," began the young man.
"And why should the gracious lord know such a good-for-nothing fellow?" interrupted Jankiel. But the lord of Kamiorika bade him be silent.
"I have seen you, gracious lord, at my grandfather's, Saul, whose son, Raphael, buys your corn."
"So you are Saul's grandson?"
"Yes, gracious lord, I am his grandson."
"And the son of Raphael Ezofowich?"
"No; I am the son of Benjamin, the youngest of Saul's sons, who died long ago."
Meir did not speak Polish very fluently, yet he made himself understood. He had heard it spoken by those who came to deal with members of his family, and had learned it of the Edomite, who had also taught him to read and write.
"Did Raphael send you to me?"
"No; I came on my own account."
He seemed to collect his thoughts, then boldly raised his head.
"I came to warn you, gracious lord. Bad people are preparing a great misfortune for you--" Jankiel rushed forward, and, with outstretched arms, placed himself between the two.
"Will you hold your tongue," he shouted. "Why do you come here to disturb the gracious lord with your foolish talk?" and, turning towards the nobleman, he said: "He is a madman and a villain."
It was not the lord now who waved Jankiel but Meir himself. With heightened colour, breathing quickly, he pushed him away, said: "He will not allow me to speak, but I will say quickly what I have to say. Do not trust him, gracious lord; he is a bad man, and your enemy. He wants to do you a grievous harm--guard yourself and guard your house like the apple of your eye. I am not an informer; therefore I came to say it in his presence, and warn the gracious lord. He will revenge himself upon me, but that does not matter. I am doing my duty, as every true Israelite ought to do, for it is written: 'The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you,' and it is further said: 'If thou remainest silent, upon thy head be the woes of Israel.'"
The young nobleman looked at the speaker with some interest, but his eyes twinkled. The quotation from Scripture, beautiful in itself, but easily marred by faulty pronunciation, appeared more ridiculous than interesting.
"I perceive that old Saul has a grandson who is well grounded in the Scriptures, and has a prophetic gift; but tell me clearly, and distinctly, my young prophet, what misfortune is threatening me, and why this honest Jankiel, who has been dealing with me for years, has suddenly become my enemy?"
Jankiel stood close to the easy-chair, and, bending closer to the lord, whispered smilingly: "He is mad. He always foretells all sorts of terrible things, and he hates me because I laugh at him."
"Oh! then I shall not laugh at him and make him hate me," said the nobleman gaily; and turning towards Meir, he asked: "Tell me what is the misfortune that threatens me. If you tell me the truth, you will be doing a good deed, and I shall be grateful for it."
"You ask me a difficult thing, gracious lord; I thought you would understand from a few words. It is hard for me to speak more clearly," and he passed his hand over his brow which was wet with perspiration. "Promise me, gracious lord, that if I speak out, my words will fall like a stone into water. Promise me to make use of my information, but not to go to law."
The nobleman looked amused, yet curious.
"I give you my word of honour that your secret will be safe with me."
Meir's burning eyes turned towards Jankiel, his whole frame shook, he opened his mouth--but the words refused to come. Jankiel, seeing his emotion which momentarily deprived him of his tongue, suddenly grasped him by the waist and dragging him towards the door, shouted: "Why do you enter my house and disturb my honoured guest by your foolish talk? The gracious lord is my guest, has known me for years; there! off with you at once."
Meir tried to get out of Jankiel's hands, and though he was the taller and stronger, Jankiel was nimbler, and despair redoubled his energy. Struggling and panting, both rolled towards the door, and the young gentleman looked at the struggle with an amused expression. Meir's pale face towering above Jankiel's red head suddenly flushed.
"Do you laugh at me, gracious lord?" he said brokenly.
"You do not know how difficult it is for me to speak, but guard your house from fire!"
At these last words he disappeared through the door, which the panting Jankiel slammed after him.
The lord of Kamionka still smiled. The struggle between the nimble, red-haired Jankiel and the tall young Jew looked very funny. During the battle the long coat tails had flapped about like wings, and Jankiel, in his desperate efforts to get rid of the intruder, had performed the most extraordinary acrobatic feats. It was a ridiculous scene altogether--the more ridiculous as the combatants belonged to a race at which it was an old, time-honoured custom to laugh. How could the young nobleman understand the deeper meaning of the play enacted before him? He saw before him a young Jew who spoke in broken Polish, the grandson of a merchant, and who would be, in his turn, a merchant. That he was a noble spirit in rebellion against everything mean and dishonest, a despairing spirit longing for freedom and wider knowledge, that coming to him as he did he had done an heroic action that would destroy his whole future--of all this the nobleman had not the slightest suspicion.
After a short pause he looked at Jankiel, and asked: "Explain to me now; what did it all mean? What kind of a man is he really?"
"What kind of man?" said Jankiel, who seemingly had regained his composure. "It was a stupid affair, and I beg the gracious lord's pardon that it should have happened to him under my roof. He is a madman and very spiteful. He went mad from mere spitefulness."
"Hm!" said the young gentleman. "He did not look like a madman. He has a handsome face and an intelligent one."
"He is not altogether mad--" began Jankiel, but the lord interrupted him.
"He is the grandson of Saul Ezofowich?" he asked, thoughtfully.
"He is Saul's grandson; but his grandfather does not like him."
"Whether he likes him or not, I could scarcely ask his grandfather about him."
"On the contrary, ask him, gracious lord, what he thinks of his grandson," exclaimed Jankiel triumphantly. "Ask his uncles; I will go and bring his uncle Abraham."
"No need," said the nobleman shortly.
He rose, and looked thoughtful, then fixed his eyes upon Jankiel's face.
Jankiel boldly met his searching glance. "Listen, Jankiel," said the lord of Kamionka, "you are a man of years, a respectable merchant, and father of a large family. I ought to trust you more than a young man whom I have seen to-day for the first time, and who may be wrong in the head for anything I know; but there must be something at the bottom of what he tells me. I must get some information about him."
"The gracious lord can get that information very easily," said Jankiel, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously.
The owner of Kamionka thought a little, and then asked: "Is that celebrated Rabbi of yours in town?"
"Where should he be?" said Jankiel. "He has never been out of the town during his life."
"A steady man, your Rabbi," said the nobleman, reaching for his hat. "Now, Jankiel, show me the way, and, if I do not hear anything new, I shall at least have seen and spoken with that celebrated man."
Jankiel opened the door for his distinguished guest, and followed him into the square, which was now almost deserted. Half-way across they met Eli Witebski, whom the lord of Kamionka greeted affably. By his manner and appearance the wealthy merchant came a little nearer to the civilised sphere in which the landowner moved himself.
"Has the gracious lord come to town on business?" asked Eli.
"No; I am only passing."
"And where might the gracious lord be going now?"
"To see your Rabbi, Witebski."
Witebski looked astonished.
"To see the Rabbi! And what business can the noble lord have with the Rabbi?"
"It is a ridiculous story, Witebski. There, tell me, do you know Saul Ezofowich's grandson?"
"Which of them?" asked Eli. "Saul has many grandsons."
"What is his name?" asked the nobleman, half-turning his head toward Jankiel.
"Meir, Meir, that worthless fellow!"
Witebski nodded his head as a sign that he understood.
"Well," he said, with an indulgent smile, "I would not quite call him a worthless fellow. He is young, and will mend; he is hot-headed though."
"What! a little wrong here?" laughed the gentleman, pointing to his forehead.
"Well," said Eli, "he is not mad, but rash and impulsive, and just now had done a very foolish thing, and put me into a most awkward position. Ai! Ai! what trouble and vexation I had through him, and shall have still--" "Oh, that's it!" said the lord. "He is a kind, of half-witted mischief-maker, who does not know what he wants, and gets in everybody's way?"
"The noble lord has guessed it," said Eli, but he added at once. "He is very young, and will yet be a decent man."
"Which means that he is not a decent man at present? I see."
"This way, please," said Jankiel, showing the gates of the synagogue court.
"And where does your Rabbi live?"
Kamionker pointed to the little black hut close to the synagogue.
"What, in that little cottage?"
And he went towards it with Jankiel alone, as Witebski, guessing that some unpleasant business had brought them hither, directly took his leave, and, bowing politely, left them.
The door of the hut was already closed, but a little group of worshippers still lingered at the open window. It was very silent within; but the Rabbi did not rest, he never rested, as the few hours spent in broken sleep could scarcely be called by that name. He was bending over his books, which he knew by heart, but still pondered over, and of which he strove with his whole mind and soul to penetrate the mystery.
Reb Moshe rested, but not altogether. He sat in the corner of the fireplace, his knees drawn up to his chin, and his hands buried in his beard. He looked fixedly at the Master, not unlike a fanatic savage worshipping his fetish, or as a scientist watches the universe. The eyes of Reb Moshe expressed deep veneration, wonder, and utter devotion.
Suddenly the door opened, and upon the threshold stood the lord of Kamionka who, turning to Jankiel, said: "Remain outside; I will speak alone with the Rabbi."
Saying this, he stooped in order to enter the low doorway, and then looked around.
Opposite him, near the wall, sat a man with a mass of coal-black hair, slightly tinged with gray, about him a worn-out garment, and with a yellow, wrinkled face, who, looked at the intruder with amazed and piercing eyes. In a far corner squatted another man, only dimly visible; upon him the young gentleman bestowed only a passing glance. It did not even enter his mind that the man in the tattered clothes and with the piercing eyes could be the celebrated Rabbi, whose fame, spreading over the Jewish communities, had sent a faint echo into the Christian world.
He approached the man very politely. "Could I see the Rabbi of Szybow for a few minutes?"
There was no answer.
The man sitting near the wall craned his long yellow neck, and opened his eyes and mouth wider.
The sudden amazement, or perhaps other feelings, gave him the appearance of stupidity, almost idiotism.
No wonder that Isaak Todros looked like one turned to stone at the sight of the nobleman standing before him. He was the first Edomite who had ever crossed his threshold--the first he had ever seen closely, and the first time he had heard the sonorous language, which sounded strange and unintelligible to his ears. If the angel Matatron, the heavenly patron and defender of Israel, or even the foremost of the evil spirits had stood before him, he would have been less appalled: with supernatural beings he was in constant though not direct communication. He studied them--their nature and their functions. But this tall, stately man, in his abominable garment which reached barely to his knees, with the white, effeminate forehead and unintelligible language, who was he? Was he a Philistine? a cruel Roman, or perhaps a Spaniard--one of those that murdered the famous Abrabanel family, and drove his ancestor Todros out of Spain?
The lord waited a few minutes, and not getting an answer, repeated the question: "Could I speak with the Rabbi of Szybow?"
At the sound of the somewhat raised voice the squatting figure in the corner moved and rose slowly. Reb Moshe, with open mouth and stupid, glaring eyes, came into the light, and in his hoarse voice uttered the monosyllable "Hah!"
At the sight of the man dressed in such primitive and now-a-days unseen simplicity, the lord's face twitched all over with suppressed merriment.
"My good sir," he said, turning to the melamed, "is that man deaf and dumb? I asked him twice whether I could see the Rabbi of Szybow, and got no answer."
Saying this, he pointed at Todros, who, craning his neck in the melamed's direction, asked: "Was sagd er? Was will er?" (What does he say? What does he want?)
Reb Moshe, instead of answering, opened his mouth still wider. At the same time murmurs and whispers became audible from the open window, and the young gentleman, looking in that direction, saw a cluster of faces peeping into the room: the faces looked inquisitive, and a little frightened. He turned towards them and asked: "Does the Rabbi of Szybow live here?"
"He does," said some voices.
"Where is he, then?"
A great many fingers pointed at the bench near the wall.
"What! That man is your wise and celebrated Rabbi?"
The faces framed in the open window radiated with a peculiar blissfulness, and nodded.
The young man made an heroic effort to control his risible muscles, and with twinkling eyes he pointed at the melamed.
"And who is this?"
"He is the melamed," said several voices; "a very wise and pious man."
The nobleman turned again to Todros.
"Reverend sir," he said, "could I speak alone with you for a few minutes?"
Todros remained silent as the grave, but his breath went faster and his eyes grew fiercer.
"Mr. Melamed," said the nobleman to the barefooted man in the long coarse shirt, "perhaps this is a day when your Rabbi is not allowed to speak?"
"Hah?" asked Reb Moshe drawlingly. The nobleman, half-amused, half-angry, turned towards the people.
"Why do they not answer?"
There was a momentary silence. The faces looked perplexedly at each other. One of them at last said: "They only understand the Jewish language." The owner of Kamionka looked at them in open-eyed amazement; he could scarcely believe that he heard aright.
"What! You don't mean to say they do not understand the language of the country they live in?"
"Well, they do not understand it."
There was some indefined resentment in the voice that said that.
At this moment Isaak Todros drew himself up, and raising both arms above his head, began to speak quickly: "And a day will arrive when the Messiah, who sleeps in Paradise, will wake up and descend to the earth. Then a great war will spread over the world. Israel will stand up against Edom and Ishmael, until Edom and Ishmael will fall at his feet like shattered cedars."
His gestures were at once solemn and threatening, his eyes blazing, and catching his breath, he repeated again: "Edom and Ishmael will lie at the feet of Israel like broken cedars, and the thunderbolt of the Lord will fall upon them and crush them to powder."
It was now the Edomite's turn to look astonished, for he did not understand a word. He looked not unlike a tall, stately cedar as he stood there, but not like one that could be easily crushed to powder. His face was rippling over with laughter, which he carefully tried to suppress.
"What does he say?" he asked the people at the window.
There was no answer. All eyes were riveted upon the sage, and on the melamed's face there was an expression of ecstatic rapture.
"My good people, tell me what he said," repeated the nobleman.
A deep voice, as if in sarcastic retribution, answered with another question.
"Did the gracious lord not understand?"
This ingenuous question put an end to the young man's self-control, and he burst out into a peal of laughter and turned towards the door.
"Savages!" he murmured to himself, and he still laughed as he crossed the precincts, and the people who crowded round the Rabbi's window looked after him with astonished and deeply-offended eyes. The young man laughed, tickled by the ludicrous aspect of the whole scene; yet under his apparent merriment there was an under-current of resentment and anger, that the Wise Men of Israel should have shown themselves to him like savages, who did not even speak the language of the country whose air they breathed, and that had nourished them for many centuries. The people around the Rabbi's hut followed him with looks of displeasure almost amounting to hatred, because he had blasphemed what they loved and revered beyond anything. Poor sages of Israel with their worshippers! Poor Edomite laughing at the sage and his worshippers! But poorest of all, the country, the sons of which after journeying together for so many centuries do not understand each other's heart and language.
At the gate of the precincts Jankiel Kamionker met the young nobleman.
"Well, Jankiel," he said, "you have indeed a wise and learned Rabbi."
Jankiel did not reply to this, but began at once to speak about the agreement and the Kamionka distillery. He spoke glibly and easily, and did not appear to remember what had occurred or refer to it. Neither did the lord of Kamionka, upon whom the whole scene had left an impression of astonishment and amusement. The young prophet, and Jankiel with his red curls trying to evict him; the Rabbi, who only spoke the Jewish language, and his companion in the wonderful costume: it was as good as a play. How his friends would enjoy his description; how the good-natured Sir Andrew would laugh, and his daughter, the beautiful Hedwiga, of whom he thought night and day as the believer in his paradise, would smile!
Thinking of her he jumped into the carriage, and looking at the west, he exclaimed: "How long you have kept me!"
He nodded to Jankiel and called to the coachman: "Drive on."
The four grays and the light carriage carried him swiftly through the town till he disappeared in a cloud of golden dust. In the western sky the red clouds died gradually away, and the transparent dusk of an August evening enveloped the town and darkened the sitting-room in the Ezofowich house. Loud and angry cries had reverberated in that usually peaceful household. The shrillest and angriest among them was that of Reb Jankiel, who abused all the members of the family one after the other, who answered either angrily or quietly according to their different characters. After that, the accusing and threatening man, shaking with fury, or perhaps terror, had rushed out of the house towards the Rabbi's dwelling; and those who remained behind sat silent and motionless, as if riveted to their chairs by their angry and perplexed feelings.
Saul sat on the sofa with his head sunk upon his breast, his hands lying motionless upon his knees, and sighed loudly and heavily. Around him sat on chairs Raphael, Abraham, and Ber. The wives of Raphael and Ber, the much-respected and beloved women, entered quietly and sat down behind their husbands. In a corner of the room, not noticed by any one, sat young Haim, Abraham's son and Meir's devoted friend.
It was Saul who interrupted the silence.
"Where is he gone to?" --meaning Jankiel.
"He is gone to denounce him before the Rabbi," said Abraham.
"He will bring Meir before the ecclesiastical tribunal," said Raphael.
Saul rocked himself and moaned aloud: "Ai! ai! my poor head! Did I live to see a grandson of mine brought up to judgement like a thief or robber?"
"It is as informer he will appear before the judges," said Abraham swiftly and passionately.
"Something must be done with Meir, father."
"Think of it and tell us what to do with him. Things cannot remain as they are. He will ruin us and our sons and bring shame upon the whole family. Father! people used to say that it was always an Ezofowich who tried to undermine the faith of Israel: that the house of Todros and the house of Ezofowich are like two rivers than run in opposite directions, but meet now and then, and struggle to see which is the stronger, and to push the other underground. This talk had subsided, people began to forget, till Meir stirred it up again. Something must be done. Think of it, father, and we will do as you command us."
Two red spots appeared on Saul's face.
"What is to be done with him?" he asked in a voice that sounded like a smothered sob.
Raphael said: "He must be married as quickly as possible."
Ber, who had until now remained silent, observed: "Why not send him into the world?"
Saul thought a long time, and then replied: "Your advice is not good. I cannot punish him severely. What would my father Hersh say to it, in whose footsteps he wishes to go, and whom I am not at liberty to judge. I cannot marry him quickly, because the child is not like other children--he is proud and sensitive, and does not brook any fetters. Besides, he is so disgraced and openly rebuked already that no wealthy or respectable Israelite will give him his daughter in marriage."
Again Saul's voice shook. He had lived to see his grandson, the most beloved of all his children, come down so low that no respectable family would receive him as son-in-law.
"I cannot send him away either," he continued, "because I am afraid that in the world he will lose all that is left of his father's faith. I am in the position of the great and wise Rabbi of whom it is written that he had a reckless son who ate pork in secret. People advised him to send his son out into the world and expose him to misery and a wandering life. But he replied: 'Let my son remain at home. The sight of his father's troubled and sorrowful face may soften his heart and lead him to a better life; stern misery would change it into hard stone.'"
Saul became silent--all around were silent; nothing was heard but now and then a sigh from the women.
The room became darker and darker.
After a while, in a subdued, almost timid, voice, Ber began: "Allow me to open my heart before you to-day. I speak but seldom, because as often as I want to speak the remembrance of my younger years seems to rise before me and smother my voice; therefore it is the voice least heard of all the voices in the family. I left off speaking or advising, and looked only after my business and my family. But I must speak now. Why trouble so much about Meir? Give him his liberty; let him go into the world, and do not punish him either by your anger or by dooming him to poverty. What wrong has he done? He keeps all the commandments faithfully; has studied the holy books; all the members of our family, and even the poor, ignorant people love him like their own soul. What do you want from him? What has he done? Why should you punish him?"
Ber's speech, delivered in a lazy, half-timid voice, made a deep impression on all those present. His wife Sarah, evidently frightened, pulled him by the sleeve and whispered: "Hush, Ber! hush! they will be angry with you for your rash words."
Saul raised his head several times arid bent it down again. One might have said that gratitude for Ber's defence of his grandson struggled with his rising anger.
"Ber, your own sins have spoken through your mouth. You stand up for Meir because you were once what he is now," said the passionate Abraham.
Raphael, with his usual gravity, said: "You say, Ber, that he has not sinned against the ten commandments. That is true; but you forget that the covenant does not stand alone upon the ten commandments which Moses brought from Sinai, but also upon the six hundred and thirteen which the great Tanaites, Amoraits and Gaons, with other Wise Men, have put down in the Talmud. We not only owe obedience to them, but also to the six hundred and thirteen of the Talmud; and Meir has transgressed many of them."
"He has sinned greatly," called out Abraham, "but the greatest and blackest sin be committed to-day, when he denounced a brother Israelite before the stranger, and thus broke the solidarity and faith of his people. What will become of us if we accuse each other before the stranger? Whom shall we love and shield if not our brethren, who are bones of our bones and our blood. He felt more sorry for a stranger than for a brother Israelite, and for that he ought to--" The violent and impulsive man broke off his sentence in the middle and remained open-mouthed, like one turned to stone.
He sat opposite the window, at which he stared fixedly with stupefied eyes.
"What is that?" he called out in a trembling voice: "What is that?" said everybody; and all except Saul rose from their seats.
The room, which had been quite dark, became suddenly lighted up, as if by the reflection of thousands of torches from without; not only the house of Ezofowich, but the whole sky above was illuminated by a red glare.
The men and women stood spell-bound in the middle of the room, and looked silently at the fiery volumes, which rose higher and higher into the heavens above.
"How quickly he has done the deed!" said Abraham.
Nobody answered.
The little town, so quiet a moment before, became suddenly very noisy and tumultuous. No nation in the world is so easily carried away by sensations of any kind. This time the sensation was a powerful one. It was aroused by the mighty element which carries destruction upon earth and lifts its blood-red banner up to the skies, The noise of thousands of running feet re-echoed in the streets like the rushing of many waters. The square was black with a dense crowd, which swiftly and noisily moved in one direction. Above the din of all the voices single words were heard now and then more distinctly.
"Kamionka! It is the Kamionka estate!" exclaimed those that knew the country.
"Hear! hear! it is Kamionka!" took up a chorus of voices.
"Ai! Ai! such a fine place! such a magnificent place!"
Those were the last words that reached the inmates of Ezofowich's house. The crowd streamed on, and the voices sounded faint and far off.
Then Saul rose from the sofa, and, his face turned towards the window, he stood silent and motionless.
Then he raised his trembling hands and said, in a faltering voice: "In my father Hersh's time and in my own, such things did not happen, and sins like this were not in Israel. Our hands used to spread gold and silver over the land, but not fire and tears."
He paused a few moments, gazing thoughtfully at the window.
"My father Hersh and his grandfather lived in friendship; they often conversed together about important affairs, and the lord of Kamionka--he wore then a gold brocaded sash and a sword at his side--said to my father Hersh: 'Ezofowich, you are a large-hearted and a far-seeing man; if our side win we will make a nobleman of you at the Diet.' His son was not quite like his father, but he always spoke courteously to me, and I bought his corn for thirty years. Whenever he wanted money I was always ready, because his estate brought much gain to me. The lady of Kamionka--she is still living--liked my mother Frieda very much; she used to say: 'Mistress Frieda has a great many diamonds and I have only one.' She called her son, who was as the apple of her eye, her diamond--the same son whose house is now in flames," and he pointed at the fiery columns with a silent gesture of grief and horror.
Then Raphael spoke.
"When I was last time at Kamionka, the old lady was sitting with her son upon the balcony, and when I began to speak about business, she said to him: 'Remember, Sigismond, never sell your corn to anybody but to an Ezofowich; they are amongst the Jews the most honest and friendly towards us.' And after that she began to ask whether old Frieda was still alive, and her son Saul, and if he had many grandchildren. Then she looked at her son and said to me: 'Raphael, I have no grandson!' And I bowed politely and said: 'May the gracious lady live a hundred years and see a great many grandsons of her own!' I did not put a lie into her ear; I sincerely wished her well. Why should I not wish her well?"
Raphael left off speaking, and Saul, turning towards him, asked: "Raphael, has he ever wronged you?"
Raphael thought a little and then replied: "No. He has never done me the slightest wrong. He is a little proud, it is true, and does not look sharp after his business; he is fond of amusements, and when an Israelite bows to him he gives a careless nod and does not try to make a friend of him . . . but his heart is good, and his word is his bond, and in business he is more likely to wrong himself than anybody else."
Sarah, who stood near her husband, wrung her hands, and rocking her body gently, sighed mournfully: "Ai! all such a handsome gentleman to have such a misfortune happen to him."
"Such a fine young man, and he was going to marry such a beautiful young lady," said the wife of Raphael.
"And how will he be able to marry now, when he is ruined?" said Saul, and he added in a lower voice: "A great sin has been committed in Israel!"
"A great shame has fallen to-day on Israel's head," said Raphael.
From a corner of the room where the glare penetrated least, came or rather crept forth Abraham. Bent almost in two, and trembling in every limb, he kissed his father's hand.
"Father," he said, "I thank you that you saved me from it."
Saul raised his head. The colour came back to his face, and energy gleamed in his eyes.
"Abraham," he said, in a commanding tone, "have your horses ready at once, and drive as quickly as you can to the estate where the young lord is staying. He cannot see the conflagration from there; drive quickly and tell him to come and save his property and his mother."
"You, Raphael, go at once to the Jankiel's and Leisor's inns where the peasants are drinking. Tell them to drive home quickly to save their lord's property."
Obedient as two children, Saul's two sons left the room at once and the women went into the porch. Then Ber came close to Saul.
"Father! what do you think now of Meir? Was he not right to warn the lord of Kamionka?"
Saul bent his head, but did not answer.
"Father," said her, "save Meir! Go to the Rabbi, and to the judges, and elders; ask them not to bring him before their tribunal."
For a long while Saul did not answer.
"It is very difficult for me to go," he said at last. "The hardest task to humble my gray head before Todros," but he added after a pause, "I will go tomorrow--we must stand up for the child--though he be rash and does not pay due reverence to the faith and customs of his father."
While the foregoing took place in the house of Ezofowich, the little meadow close to the town was covered with a waving, murmuring and compact mass of people. From this spot, the terrible conflagration could be seen most distinctly; therefore the whole population, eager and greedy for sensation, congregated there.
The reflected light of the fire rose above the pine forest, which was enveloped in a ray light and so transparent that every branch and stem could be seen distinctly. The wide half-circle of the glare, dark red below, grew paler and paler above, till the golden yellow light lost itself in the pale blue sky. The stars twinkled with a feeble, uncertain light, and on the opposite side, beyond the birch wood, rose the red ball of the moon.
Among the population, sentences and words, quick and sharp, whizzed about like pistol shots. Somebody was telling that when Jankiel Kamionker heard about the fire, he had gone off to the estate tearing his hair like a madman, wailing and lamenting over the loss of the spirits which he had there in such quantities. Hearing this, many people smiled knowingly; others shook their heads compassionately at the supposed heavy losses of Jankiel; but the greater part of the people remained silent. They guessed the truth; here and there somebody knew about it; but nobody dared to meddle in a business so full of danger, even with an unwary word.
A full hour after the first gleam of the fire had been noticed a light carriage and four gray horses were seen in full gallop across the streets in the direction of the meadow.
It was not the regular road to Kamionka, in fact, there was no road at all; but by driving across the meadow, the young owner shortened his way considerably. He did not sit in the carriage, but stood straight up, holding on by the box, seat, and kept his eyes fixed upon the red glare of the flames, where his mother was, which was consuming the house of his fathers.
When the horses came to the meadow and he saw the crowd, he shouted to the coachman: "Be careful; do not hurt the people."
"A good man," said one in the crowd; "at such a moment he still thinks of other people."
Some groaned aloud.
A few heads clustered together, whispering. The name of Jankiel was whispered low--very low.
But there was a spot, not on the meadow, but in the little street close by, where people talked aloud. Near Shmul's hut, upon the bench before the window, stood Meir. Thence he looked at the meadow, black with people, and at the red glare of the fire; around him in the street stood a dozen or more young men, his friends. Their faces looked excited and indignant.
Haim, the son of Abraham, who an hour before had been an unseen witness to Saul's conversation with his sons, told his friends about it. Carried away by his indignation, he repeated in a loud voice every word that had passed and his friends re-echoed them. The young and usually timid spirits grew bolder under the pressure of shame and exasperation. Only one voice was missing among the chorus of voices--the most prominent of all, because he was the leading spirit of the young people. Eliezer was not among those who crowded round Meir; he sat apart, leaning against the black wall of the hut, His elbows rested on his knees and his face was buried in his hands. He looked like one petrified in this position; full of grief and shame. From time to time he rocked his body slightly. The dreamy, timid man was overwhelmed with bitter arid desperate thoughts.
Presently, from beyond the corner of the street, a black thin shadow glided swiftly along the walls; and close by the group of young men, the heavy panting, almost moaning, of an exhausted human being became audible.
"Shmul!" said the young men.
"Hush!" said Meir, in a low voice, jumping down from the bench. "Let nobody utter the name of the miserable man, so as not to bring him into danger. I have been standing here to watch for his return. Go away from here, and remember that your eyes have not seen Shmul coming from that direction, not seen--" "You are right," whispered Aryel; "he is our poor brother," "Poor brother, poor, poor!" they repeated all round.
They dispersed at once. Near the hut remained only Meir and Eliezer, whom nothing could rouse from his stupor.
Shmul ran into the hut, now deserted by every one except the blind mother and the smallest children.
There he threw himself at full length upon the floor and beat his forehead in the dust; sobbing and moaning, he uttered in broken sentences: "I am not guilty, not guilty, not guilty. I did not fire it. I did not hold the vessel full of oil. He, Johel, did it all; I stood on watch in the fields--when I saw the fire--Ai! ai! I understood what I had been doing--" "Hush!" said a low, sorrowful voice close to the despairing, almost senseless, man. "Hold your tongue, Shmul, till I shut the door and window."
Shmul raised his face, but again dropped it on the dusty floor.
"Morejne," he moaned, "morejne, my daughters were growing up; it was necessary to marry them; I had no money to pay the taxes with for the whole year!"
"Get up and calm yourself," said Meir.
Shmul did not listen. With his lips sweeping the dusty boards, he kept on moaning.
"Morejne! save me. I am lost, body and soul."
"You have not lost your soul, Shmul. The Eternal will weigh your poverty against your sin; that is if you do not take the money with which bad people tempted you."
This time Shmul lifted his face from the floor. The lean and ashy-pale face, covered with dust and twitching with nervous terror, presented a picture of the deepest human misery.
He looked at Meir with despairing eyes, and pointing at the miserable room, he groaned: "Morejne! how shall we be able to live without that money?"
Fully half-an-hour passed before Meir left the cottage, where the outcast Shmul accused himself, wailed and moaned in a voice that gradually became lower till it almost sank to a whisper. The ruddy glow from the street fell upon one corner of the dark entrance. There, coiled up between the goats, his head resting upon a projecting board, with the red light of the fire upon his face, slept Lejbele. Neither noise nor the glare of the fire, not even the lamentations of his unhappy father, had disturbed his innocent sleep among his friends, the goats.
Next morning an unusual stir prevailed amongst the inhabitants of the town. The common topic of all their conversation was the conflagration at the Kamionka estate. The whole house was reduced to ashes; nearly all the outbuildings had been burned down; the barns and ricks with all the year's harvest had been devoured by the flames.
The old lady, the mother of the lord of Kamionka, was very ill, and had been carried into a neighbour's house.
To discuss these and other items of news, people stood in groups about the streets or before their houses; all the ordinary business of their every-day life seemed suspended for the time being.
Now and then among the groups a single question was heard repeatedly: "What will become of him?"
The question had nothing whatever to do with the ruined young nobleman, but referred to Jankiel.
Some pitied the former sincerely, as also some blamed the latter; but the landowner was to them a perfect stranger, known to most of them only by sight. Jankiel Kamionker was connected with them by a thousand threads of common interest and friendship; besides that, he was surrounded by the halo of wealth and the reputation of ardent piety. No wonder that even those who blamed him trembled for his safety.
"Will they suspect him?" asked somebody here and there.
"Nobody would dream of suspecting him, but for Meir Ezofowich putting bad thoughts into their heads," was said here and there.
"He has broken the solidarity and the covenant of Israel."
"What else could you expect? He is a kofrim, a heretic!"
"He dared to raise his hand against Reb Moshe!"
"He lives in friendship with the Karaite's girl!"
Those who spoke cast ominous, threatening glances in the direction of Ezofowich's dwelling.
The house was unusually quiet and lifeless. The windows looked upon the square, which, as a rule, were open in summer-time so that anybody could see the daily life of people who had nothing to conceal, were shut to-day. No one had remembered to open them, or to straighten the sitting-room--as a rule kept in such perfect order. The women wandered aimlessly from one place to another; their caps were crushed and in disorder from their frequently putting their hands upon their heads; they stood before the kitchen fire and sighed distractedly. Sarah's eyes were red; her husband, Ber, had two deep wrinkles on his forehead, a sure sign to her that he suffered grievously. He did not open his lips to her, but sat with his head resting upon his hand, looking vacantly at his brothers-in-law. Raphael had his account books before him, but his thoughts were elsewhere as he raised his head frequently and looked at his brothers. Old Saul sat on the sofa reading the sacred books; but, judging by his countenance, derived but little comfort from them.
Near the window in her deep easy-chair sat the great-grandmother, dozing. Hers was the only face that did not show any change, or lose any of its usual serenity. She opened her eyes now and then, then dozed off again. Soon after twelve o'clock the women busied themselves with arranging the table for dinner.
The door opened softly. Meir entered the room, and standing close to the wall, his eyes looked around at all faces. It was a troubled look, almost timid and very sorrowful. Those present raised their eyes at him for a second only; but in that short instant a heavy load of mute reproaches fell upon the young man. It was the reproach of people used to a quiet, peaceful life, for past troubles and troubles still to come; there was some pity in it for the offender, and also a threat of casting him off.
Only the great-grandmother opened her eyes when she saw him, and with a smile, murmured: "Kleineskind!"
Meir's eyes rested tenderly and thoughtfully upon her face. At this moment there came a sudden dash and a heavy thump. From among the groups that looked angrily at Ezofowich's house, somebody had thrown a heavy stone, which, breaking the window, flew close over Freida's head and fell into the middle of the room.
Saul's face became of a dull red; the women arranging the table screamed in terror; Raphael, Abraham, and Ber jumped up suddenly. All stared at the broken window, but presently their attention became concentrated upon their great-grandmother Freida, who stood straight up and looked attentively at the stone in the middle of the room, and then called out in her loud, tuneless whisper: "It is the same stone! They threw it through the window the same when Reb Nohim quarrelled with Hersh because he wanted to live in friendship with the strangers. It is the same stone--at whom did they throw it now?" All the wrinkles in her face quivered, and her eyes for the first time wide open, travelled about the room.
"At whom did they throw it?" she repeated.
"At me, dear bobe," replied, from the opposite wall, a voice full of unspoken grief.
"Meir!" exclaimed the great-grandmother--not in her usual whisper, but in a loud, almost piercing voice.
Meir crossed the room, stood before her and took the little wrinkled hand caressingly in his own. He looked at her eyes full of tenderness, and as if in mute entreaty. She seemed to feel his look, for her eyelids flickered tremulously and restlessly. Saul rose from the sofa.
"Raphael," he said. "Give me my cloak and hat."
"Where are you going, father?" asked both sons simultaneously.
"I am going to humble my head before the Rabbi; to ask him to delay his judgment on my headstrong child until the anger in the hearts of the people has subsided."
Presently the gray-headed patriarch of the greatest family in the town, dressed in his long cloak and tall shiny hat, was seen slowly and gravely crossing the market-place. The groups standing about made way for him, bowing respectfully.
Somebody said loudly "Poor Reb Saul, to have such a grandson!" The old man did not reply, but pressed his lips closer together.
More than an hour had elapsed ere Saul returned from his errand. He found all the elder members of the family in the same position as he had left them. Meir sat close to the easy-chair of the great-grandmother, who tightly clutched him by the coat sleeve.
Sarah met her father and relieved him of his hat and cloak.
"What news do you bring, father?" asked Raphael.
Saul breathed heavily, and looked gloomily on the floor.
"What could I bring from there," he said after a momentary silence, "but shame and humiliation? The hearts of Todros rejoices over the misfortune of the house of Ezofowich. Smiles, like reptiles, are writhing and crawling over his yellow face."
"And what did he say?" asked several voices. "He said he had been far too forbearing towards my godless, insolent grandson--that Reb Moshe, Kamionker, and all the people were urging him to sit in judgment upon Meir; at my intercession he would put off the trial until to-morrow after sunset, and said if Meir humbled himself and asked his and his people's pardon, the sentence would be less severe."
All eyes turned towards Meir.
"What do you say to it?" asked a chorus of voices.
Meir looked thoughtfully down.
"Give me time--till to-morrow," he pleaded. "I may perhaps find a way out of it."
"How can you find a way?" they exclaimed. "Allow me not to answer you till to-morrow," repeated Meir.
They nodded and became silent. It was mute consent.
In all their hearts fear and anger were struggling with family pride. They felt angry with Meir, yet trembled for his fate, and the very thought that a member of their family should humble himself publicly before the Rabbi and the people seemed unbearable.
"Who knows," whispered Raphael, "he may find a way to avoid it?"
"Perhaps his mother will appear to him in his sleep and tell him what to do," sighed Sarah.
The belated dinner, passed off in gloomy silence, interrupted only by the sighs of women and a smothered sob from the children, who had been forbidden to laugh and chatter.
The grieved and mournful faces looked now and then at Freida, who showed an unusual restlessness. She did not speak, neither did she doze during the meal; but moved uneasily in her chair, looked at Meir, then at the shattered window, and in the middle of the room on the spot where the stone had fallen.
"What ails her?" asked the members of the family of each other, in a perturbed voice.
"She is recalling something to her mind," others replied. "She is afraid of something. She wants to speak, but cannot find words."
When the dinner was over, two great-granddaughters wanted to help Freida into the next room and lay her down to rest as usual, but she planted her feet firmly on the floor and pointed to the easy-chair by the window. Presently the inmates of the room began gradually to disperse.
Raphael and Ber went driving away to a neighbouring estate, where they had some important business to transact. Abraham shut himself up in his room to look after his accounts, or perhaps to read. Saul gave orders to his daughter to keep the house quiet, and sighing wearily, lay down upon his bed. The women, after raking out the fire in the kitchen, shut the door of the sitting-room and betook themselves with their needlework to the courtyard, where they watched the children at play, and conversed together in a low voice. The great-grandmother remained alone in the sitting-room.
Strange to say, though perfect silence reigned in the house, she did not fall asleep or even doze for a moment.
She sat in the easy-chair with her eyes wide open, and looking at the broken window, her lips kept moving continually as if she were speaking to herself. Sometimes she rocked her head, heavy, with the voluminous turban, and the diamonds flashed out and glittered in the sudden motion, and the pendants jingled against the links of the golden chain. Her lips moved incessantly. Presently her hands also moved quickly. It seemed as if she spoke with somebody; with the spirits of the Past, who came forth from her clouded memory. Suddenly she rocked her head, and said aloud: "It was the same way when my Hersh found the writing of the Senior--bad people threw stones at him."
She stopped; great tears gathered in her eyes and ran down her withered cheeks.
Meir rose from the bench where he had been sitting, crossed the room quickly, sat down on the low stool where the old woman rested her foot, and putting his folded hands upon her knee asked: "Bobe! where is the writing of the Senior?"
At the sound of the voice which, as well as the face, reminded her of the man she had loved so well, and the days of her youth and happiness, she smiled. Her eyes full of tears did not look at her great-grandson, but somewhere far beyond, and she began to whisper: "The day he quarrelled with Reb Nohim and angered the people, he came home and sat down sorrowful upon the bench and called his wife, Freida. Freida was then young and beautiful; she wore a white turban and stood before the kitchen fire, looking after the servants; but when she heard her husband's voice, she went at once and stood before him, waiting for his words. 'Freida!' he said, 'where the writing of the Senior?'"
Then suddenly the whisper ceased. The young man sitting at her feet pressed his hands convulsively together and asked again: "Bobe! where is the writing of the Senior?"
The old woman gently swayed her head, and her lips moved.
"He asked: 'Where is the writing of the Senior? Did the Senior bury it in the ground? No! he could not have buried it, as dampness and worms would have destroyed it. Did he hide it in the walls? No! he knew that fire might destroy the walls. Where did he hide it?' Thus asked Hersh, and his wife Freida pondered over his words and then pointed at the bookcase where the Senior's old books were preserved, and said: 'Hersh my Hersh! the writing is there.' When Freida said that, Hersh rejoiced and said: 'You, Freida, have a wise head, and your soul is as beautiful as your eyes.'"
And smiling at the dim pictures of her youthful days, she whispered: "Then he said: 'A virtuous woman is far above rubies and her husband doth trust her!'"
The young man looked at her with entreating eyes, and again asked: "Bobe! what did Hersh do with the writing?"
The old woman did not answer at once, but her lips moved silently as if she spoke with an invisible being, and then took up the thread of her tale again: "Hersh came back from a long journey, deeply grieved, and said to Freida: 'Everything is lost. We must bide the Senior's writing again; it is no use now.' Freida asked: 'Hersh! where will you hide the writing?' Hersh replied: 'I will hide it where it was before, and you alone, Freida, will know the secret.'"
Meir's eyes sparkled with sudden joy.
"Bobe! is the writing there?" And he pointed at the old bookcase.
Freida gave no answer, but continued in a whisper: "He said: 'You alone will know the secret. And when the time is drawing near and your soul is about to leave your body, tell it to the son or grandson who resembles most your husband'--'and which of my sons or grandsons is most like my husband Hersh?' 'It is Meir, the son of Benjamin, who is like him as two grains of sand are like each other. He is my child, the dearest of all. Freida will tell him the secret.'"
Meir took both the hands of his great-grandmother in his own, and covered them with kisses.
"Bobe," he whispered, "Is the writing there?" pointing at the bookcase. But the old woman still followed the thread of her musings.
"Hersh said to Freida: 'If the elders of the family raise their hands against him and the people throw stones at him, you, Freida, tell him the secret. Let him take the writing of the Senior to his heart, and leave everything, his house and wealth and family, and go forth into the world; for that writing is more precious than gold and pearls. It is the covenant of Israel with the Present, which flows like a great river over their heads and with the nations which tower around him like great mountains.'"
"Bobe! the elders of the family have risen up against me; the people have thrown stones at me--I am that dearest grandson of whom your husband Hersh spoke--tell me, is the writing among those old volumes?"
A broad, almost triumphant, smile lit up the wrinkled face. She shook her head with a feeling of secret joy, and whispered: "Freida has watched over her husband's treasure and guarded it like her own soul. When she became a widow, Reb Nohim Todros came to her house and wanted to have the bookcase and the volumes put into the fire; then Reb Baruch Todros came and wanted to burn the books; but whenever they came, Freida screened the bookcase with her own body, and said: 'This is my house, and everything in it is my own.' And when Freida stood before the bookcase, Freida's sons and grandsons stood before her and said: 'It is our mother; we will not let her be harmed.'"
"Reb Nohim was very angry and went away--Reb Isaak did not come, because he knew from his fathers that as long as Freida lives nobody touched the old bookcase--Freida has watched over her husband's treasure; it remains there and sleeps in peace."
With these last words the old woman pointed her thin hand at the bookcase, which stood not far from her, and a quiet laugh, a laugh of joy and almost childish triumph, shook her aged breast.
With one bound Meir reached the bookcase, and with a powerful hand shook the old, rusty lock. The door flew open and a cloud of dust burst forth which covered Meir's head as it had once--long ago--covered Hersh's golden hair and Freida's white turban. He did not heed it, but plunged his hand amongst the books from which his ancestors, had drawn their wisdom and where that lay hidden which was to direct him on his way.
At the sight of the open bookcase and the clouds of dust Freida stretched forth both arms and called out: "Hersh! Hersh! my own Hersh!"
It was not the usual tuneless whisper, but a loud cry wrung from the heart, full of the joys and griefs of the past. She had forgotten the great-grandson, and thought the tall, golden-haired youth, covered with dust, was her husband come back to her from unknown worlds.
Meir turned his excited face and burning eyes to her.
"Bobe!" he said breathlessly, "where is it? On the top? Below? In this book--that--or that?"
"In that," said the woman, pointing at the book upon which Meir's hand rested.
Presently a roll of yellow papers rustled under the parchment cover of the volume. Holding them in both hands, Meir fell down before his great-grandmother and kissed her hands and feet.
Freida smiled, and touched his head gently; but by and by her eyelids drooped, and her whole face took the expression of sweet dreaminess again. Tired with the strain upon her clouded memory, looking still into the bright dreamland of the past, the centenarian had fallen asleep--touched, as it were, by a gentle wave of the eternal sleep.
The passionate outpouring of thanks did not rouse her again. Meir hid the precious papers in his breast and went swiftly upstairs towards the top of the house, where his young cousins dwelt.
During the whole of the evening, and the greater part of the night, the large window near the pointed roof flickered with an uncertain light, and people were seen moving about constantly. At early dawn, some people came out of the house by a side door and went in different directions.
Soon afterwards strange news began to circulate about the town. The news was undefined, vague, told and explained in different ways; but, such as it was, it excited the greatest curiosity among the people. The everyday work seemed to go on as usual, but in the midst of the dashing and rattling of implements of handiwork a continual hum of conversation was going on. Nobody could point out the source from which sprung all the rumours which filled the public mind; they seemed to be floating in the air, and pervading all the streets and alleys.
"To-day, after sunset the elders of the Kahol and the judges, with Rabbi Isaak at their head, will sit in judgment upon Meir Ezofowich."
"How will they judge him? What will they do to him?"
"No; there will be no judgment. The bold grandson of Reb Saul will come to the Bet-ha-Midrash and confess his sins before the Rabbi and the people, and ask forgiveness!"
"No, he will not humble himself or ask forgiveness."
"Why should he not?"
"Ah, ah, it is a great secret, but everybody knows about it, and everybody's eyes burn with curiosity. Young Meir has found a treasure!"
"What treasure?"
"A treasure that has been buried for five hundred years--a thousand years--ever since the Jews came into this country, in the house of Ezofowich. The treasure is the writing of one of their ancestors, left as a legacy to his descendants."
"What does the writing say?"
"No one knows for certain."
All the inhabitants of the poorer streets had heard something about it from their fathers and grandfathers; but everybody bad heard it different. Some said it was the writing of a wise and saintly Israelite, who lived long ago, and who wanted to make his nation powerful and wise. Others maintained that this same ancestor of Ezofowich was an unbeliever, bribed by the stranger to destroy the name of Israel and the holy covenant from the face of the earth.
"The writing was to teach people how to make gold out of sand, and it tells poor people how to get rich."
"No! it teaches how to drive away the evil spirits, so that they cannot touch you, and how to transpose the letters of God's names into a word with which you can work miracles."
"The writing teaches how to make friends out of your enemies, and to enter into a covenant of peace with all nations. Somebody heard that it showed the way how to bring Moses back to life again, and call on him to bring his people out of bondage into the land that flows with gold and wisdom."
"Why did they not search for the treasure sooner?"
"They were afraid. It is said that whoever touches that writing will be scorched with fire and burned into powder. Serpents will twist themselves around his heart! His forehead will become as black as soot! Happiness and peace will go from him for ever! Stones will fall upon him like hail! His forehead will be branded with a red mark! Long, long ago, there still lived people who remembered it, the great merchant, Hersh Ezofowich, Saul's father, had touched that writing."
"And what became of him?"
"The old people said that when he touched the papers serpents coiled round his heart and bit him, so that he died young."
"And now young Meir has found that writing?"
"Yes, he has found it, and is going to read it before the people in Bet-ha-Midrash after sunset."
Going to and fro amongst the people who exchanged the above opinions, was Reb Moshe, the melamed. He appeared first in one street, then in another; was seen in one court, and near another's window; always listening intently; he smiled now and then and his eyes gleamed, but he said nothing. When directly appealed to by people, and urged to give an opinion, he shook his head gloomily and muttered unintelligible sentences. He could not say anything, as he had not spoken to the master yet, to whom, out of fanatical faith and mystic personal attachment he had given himself up body and soul. Without definite orders from the revered sage he dared not give an opinion or settle things even in his own mind. He might unwittingly act against his master's wish, or transgress any of the thousands of precepts; though he knew them all by heart, yet he might fail to catch their deeper meaning without the guiding spirit. The melamed was fully conscious of his own wisdom, yet what did it mean in comparison with the Rabbi's, whose mind pierced the very heavens? Jehovah looked upon him with pleased eyes, and wondered how he could have created such a perfect being as Rabbi Isaak Todros.
About noon, when his mind and ears were full of what he had heard, he glided silently into the Rabbi's hut. He could not get the Rabbi's ear at once, because he was conversing with an old man, whose dusty, travel-stained garments showed that he had come a great distance; he now stood leaning on his stick before the Rabbi, looking at him with humble, and at the same time radiant, eyes.
"I dearly wished," he said, in a voice trembling with age and emotion, "to go to Jerusalem to die in the land of our fathers; but I am poor and have no money for the journey. Give me, O Rabbi, a handful of the sand which they bring to you every year from there, so that my grandchildren may scatter it upon my breast when the soul is about to leave my body. With that handful of soil, I shall lie easier in my grave."
The Rabbi took some white sand out of a carefully, wrapped-up bag and gave it to the old man.
The man's whole face lighted up with joy; he carefully secured the precious relic under his ragged garments, and then kissed the Rabbi's hand with fervent gratitude.
"Rabbi," he said, "I have nothing to pay you with."
Todros craned his yellow neck towards him: "You have come from a far country, indeed, if you do not know that Isaak Todros does not take payment. If I do good to my brethren, I ask only for one reward: that the Almighty may increase by one drop the wisdom I possess already, but of which I can never have enough."
The old man looked with admiring eyes at the sage, who, so full of wisdom, yet wished for more.
"Rabbi," he sighed, "allow me to kiss your benevolent hand."
"Kiss it," said the master gently, and when the old man bent his head covered with white hair, the Rabbi put his arm round him and kissed him on the forehead.
"Rabbi!" exclaimed the old man, with a burst of happiness in his voice, "you are good--you are our father--our master and brother."
"Blessing upon you," replied Todros, "for having preserved your faith until your old age, and the love for our fatherland which makes you prize a handful of its soil more than gold and silver."
Both their eyes were full of tears. It was the first time they had ever met, and yet their hearts were full of brotherly love and mutual sympathy.
Reb Moshe, who sat in his usual corner waiting for the end of the interview, also had tears in his eyes. When Isaak Todros was alone be still waited a little, and then said in a low voice: "Nassi!"
"Hah?" asked the sage, who was already buried in mystic speculation.
"There is great news about the town."
"What news?"
"Meir Ezofowich has found the writing of his ancestor, the Senior, and is going to read it to-day before the assembled people."
The Rabbi was now fully awake, and craning his neck towards the melamed, exclaimed: "How did you come to hear of it?"
"Ah! the whole town is full of it. Meir's friends since early morning have been among the people spreading the news."
Todros did not say a word; but his eyes had a keen, almost savage expression.
"Nassi! will you allow him to do this?"
Todros was silent. At last he said in a determined voice: "I will."
Reb Moshe gave a convulsive start.
"Rabbi!" he exclaimed, "you are the wisest man that ever was, or will be on this earth; but has your wisdom considered all the consequences, and that this writing may detach the people from you and the covenant?"
Todros looked at him sternly: "You do not know the spirit of the people if you can speak and think like that. Have not I and my fathers before me tried to mould and educate the people and make them faithful to their religion? Let him read the papers--let the abomination come forth from its hiding-place, where it has lain till now; it will be easier to fight against it and crush it down, once and for ever. Let him read it: the measure of his transgressions will then be full, and my avenging hand will come down upon him!"
A long silence followed upon these words. The master was absorbed in thought, and the humble follower looked at him in silent adoration.
"Moshe!"
"What is your will, Nassi?"
"That writing must be taken from him and delivered into my hands."
"Nassi! how is it to be taken from him?"
"That writing must be taken and delivered into my hands!" repeated the Rabbi decisively.
"Nassi! who is to take it from him?" Todros fixed his glaring eyes upon his follower. "That writing must be taken from him and delivered into my hands," he repeated for the third time.
Moshe bent his head.
"Rabbi!" he whispered, "I understand. Rest in peace. When he reads the abomination before the people such a storm will break over his head that it will lay him in the dust."
Again there was silence. The Rabbi interrupted it: "Moshe!"
"Yes, Nassi!"
"When is he going to read that blasphemous writing?"
"He is going to read it in the Bet-ha-Midrash after sunset."
"Moshe! go at once to the shamos (messenger) and tell him to convoke the elders and the judges in the Bet-ha-Kahol for a solemn judgment."
Moshe rose obediently, and went towards the door. The Rabbi, raising both arms, exclaimed "Woe to the headstrong and disobedient! Woe to him who touches the leper and spreads contagion!"
Saying this, his whole face became suffused with a wave of dark, relentless hatred. And yet, a quarter of an hour ago the same face was full of brotherly love; the same mouth spoke gentle and comforting words, and the eyes were full of tears.
Thus gentleness and wrath, love and relentless hatred dwelt side by side in the same heart; virtues and dark crimes flow from the same source. Charity goes hand in hand with persecution and neighbour often stands for enemy. Man, who tended to human suffering and healed the sick, with the same hand lit the stakes and prepared the instruments of torture.
What mysterious influences rule such dual lives? --asks the perplexed student of human nature.
But for these mysterious undercurrents which lead human brains and hearts into awful error, Rabbi Isaak might have been a great man.
Let us be just. He would have been a great man but for those that raised the weapons of fire and sword, and the still more deadly weapons of scorn and contempt, against his brethren, and thus confined them in the narrow, dark,--a spiritual and moral Ghetto!
The sun had set, and the earth was wrapped in the dim light of a summer evening. The large court of the synagogue swarmed with a crowd. The interior of Bet-ha-Midrash was already full of people. There could be seen heads of old men and fair locks of children, long beards, black like crow's wings and blonde like hemp. They all moved and swayed, necks were craned, beards raised, and eyes glowed in anticipation of some new sensation. Everything appeared in shadow. The large room was lighted by a small lamp, suspended at the entrance door, and a single tallow candle in a brass candlestick, which stood on a white table; this, with a solitary chair close to the high and bare wall, constituted the platform from which the speaker was wont to address the people. In Israel, everybody, young or old, and of whatever social position, had the right to speak in public, according to the democratic principles prevailing in the ancient law. Every Israelite had the right to enter this building, whether for the purposes of praying, reading, or teaching.
The people who crowded outside the building looked often in at the windows of the room where the elders and judges held their conferences. In the entrance hall the lamp was being lit, and burning candles were placed upon the long table. Presently people well-known to the inhabitants ascended, the steps of the portico. Singly or in twos arrived the judges of the community--all of them men well on in years, fathers of large families, wealthy merchants, or house owners. There ought to have been twelve in number, but the bystanders counted only up to eleven. The twelfth judge was Raphael Ezofowich. People whispered to each other that the uncle of the accused could not sit in judgment against him; others said that he would not. After the judges arrived, the elders, amongst whom was Morejne Calman, with his hands in his pockets and the stereotyped, honeyed smile on his lips, and Jankiel Kamionker, whose face looked very yellow, and whose eyes had the hunted look of a criminal. The last, but not least of them, was Isaak Todros, who glided in so swiftly and silently that scarcely anybody in the crowd noticed him.
At the same time, from the depth of Bet-ha-Midrash, a clear, resonant voice reached the ears of the surging crowd without: "In the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, hear, O Israel!"
The murmur of the crowd within and without increased, and almost rose to a tumult. For a few moments the voice of the speaker was drowned in the general hubbub, and his few sentences sounded indistinct and broken.
Suddenly somebody from the crowd shouted: "Silence and listen, for it is said: 'You shall listen to whosoever speaketh in the name of Jehovah!'"
"That is true," murmured voices. "He began in the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
Then everything became quiet, except for the rustle of those near the door, who tried to get a better view of the speaker. They did not see anything unusual. Behind the white table, pale and grave, stood Meir Ezofowich. He was much paler than usual, and his eyes burned feverishly. His emotion was not the outcome of fear or doubt, but of a powerful conviction and radiant hope. In his hands he held a few sheets of old yellow paper, which he raised now and then, to show whence he took his words.
"O Israel!" he read out, in a clear and thrilling voice, "you are a great people! You were the first among nations who recognised one God in heaven, and heard on earth, amid the roar of thunder and flashes of lightning, those ten great commandments, which, like ten rocks, helped you and other nations to climb towards the sun of perfection. Israel! blind from his birth, or blinded by malice, must be the man who fails to recognise the greatness of your mission. Dry from its birth, or dried by the searching breath that comes from the nether world, must be the eye that does not shed a tear at the sight of your sufferings. Ill-fated he who, looking at you, calls you contemptible. May the Lord pity him and forgive him, as he possesses not the balance in which are weighed a nation's virtues and crimes, possesses not the wisdom which shows how pain and degradation produce sin. Israel! of you were born Moses, whose love was like the flaming bush, David with the golden harp, the beautiful Esther, weeping over the misery of her people. The Maccabees with their mighty swords came from among you, and the prophets who died for their faith. Whilst living happily in the land of your fathers, you loathed to bind a brother into slavery; upon your fields you left the tenth sheaf to the poor and needy, and gave a hearing to anybody who spoke to the people. Humbling yourself only before Jehovah, you said: 'We are all alike in the eyes of our Father.' And when, in after years, ill-fated, vanquished, covered with the blood of your sons who defended the land of their fathers, you stood an outcast amongst nations, and suffered from contempt and persecution, you yet remained faithful unto your God and the memory of your fathers, and taught other nations who suffered like you how to defend themselves without weapons. The Lord hath made you intelligent, pure, and charitable, O my people; but it is nigh two thousand years since you possessed the one necessary thing on earth--a fatherland."
Here the voice of the speaker gave way, and he paused for a minute. The crowd had caught his emotion, and a low tremor seemed to pass through the people. A few subdued voices murmured: "Let us listen! Let us listen! It is the writing of a true Israelite who tells of the glory of his people."
They listened in silence, and Meir went on: "Woe to the people who have no fatherland! The soul of the people clings to the soil as a child clings to its mother's breast which gives it nourishment, health, and relief from sickness. The Lord ordained it thus; but the people acted against His will and tore your soul, O Israel, from the soil to which it was attached. As an outcast you went and knocked for charity at the very doors of those that had despoiled you; your head bent down under laws from which your mind recoiled; your tongue tried to imitate their speech, and the roof of your mouth dried up in exceeding bitterness; your face darkened from wrath and humiliation, and you lived in fear lest your faith and the name of Israel should be obliterated from the face of the earth. Then under torments and awful sorrows your greatness fell from you; your sins and transgressions began to grow and multiply, and Jehovah your Lord, looking down upon you said: 'Is this my chosen people with whom I made the covenant of Truth and Grace? Can he not keep it except with the words of his mouth, which do not agree with the deeds of his hands? Does he see the covenant only in his offerings; songs, prayers, and incense, and forget the high ladder I showed my servant Jacob in his dream to teach the people in all times how to reach me, who is Perfection and Understanding.'"
Here the voice of the reader became drowned again in a low, ever-increasing murmur.
"What is it he is reading?" they asked each other. "It is the writing of a bad Israelite who throws ugly words at his people."
"Which are those sins that have been multiplying amongst us? And how are we to praise the Lord if our songs and, prayers have no value in His eyes?"
Meir grew pale when he found his voice powerless against the increasing tumult. But he would not stop now, and went on reading. By and by curiosity prevailed over discontent and they became silent once more.
They listened to the tale of Michael Senior's life; how, by order of the king, and out of love for his people, he had stood at the head of their affairs, and wanted to lead them into new ways, at the end of which he saw the dawning of a happy future; how he had been thwarted in all his undertakings, and the heart of the people turned away from him.
"Great thoughts crowded into my brain which I could not utter, because my old friends and my pupils abandoned me! In my breast there was fire, at which they would not warm themselves, but said it had been kindled by evil spirits. Then my body wasted away, the light of my eyes became dim, and the sleep of death drew near. I cried out in anguish: 'Lord of the world! do not forsake thy messenger! Give him a voice powerful enough to reach the ears of those that are not born, since those that live will listen no longer.' And I opened the Holy Book and read:" "'Though he be dead, he yet speaketh.' Son of my sons, you who have found this writing, read it to the people to let them know what I desired from them. The first thing I asked from them was; Forgetfulness. Did I want them to forget their Lord Jehovah, or the name of Israel which produced the greatest men of the past? No, I could not ask them to forget it because the remembrance is dear to me and rejoices my heart."
"I asked my people to forget the wrongs and sorrows of the past. Do not remember injuries! Do not say an eye for an eye! Mar Zutra every day, before he lay down to rest, said, 'I forgive all those that have saddened me.' Mar Zutra was a great man."
"When you begin to forget Israel, you will approach the flame which you speak of as alien, and which belongs to all nations. The alien flame, from which you fly in your blind hatred, has been kindled by Sar-ha-Olam, the angel of knowledge, who is the Angel of Angels and the prince of the world. The knowledge of religion is sacred, but other knowledge has equally been created by him who dwells in perfect wisdom. Good is the apple of paradise, but are we therefore to refuse other products of the earth? A time will come when the world will be full of knowledge, as the sea is full of water."
"Thus spoke and wrote the sage whom your teachers hold accursed. His name was Moses Majmonides, a true prophet, who did not look into the past but into the future, for he knew that a time would come when all those who did not gather around the flame of wisdom would fall into the dust, and their name become a by-word of contempt and derision. He was the second Moses; he was my teacher from whom came all my joy and all my sorrow."
Here the reader dropped the hands that held the papers, and an expression of rapture shone in his face.
"He was my teacher from whom came all my joy and all my sorrow." Strange coincidence! Both he and his ancestor who had died three hundred years ago had listened to the same teacher. In the hearts of both he had kindled the heroic, self-sacrificing love, the greatest upon earth--the love of the ideal. But the descendant who read these words which one by one dispersed all his doubts, felt no sorrow; nothing but a great joy and hope.
A hoarse and thick voice shouted from the crowd: "Hear! hear! he praises alien flames! He calls the accursed heretic a second Moses!"
All heads turned towards the door to see who had spoken. It was Reb Moshe, who had climbed upon the bench near the door and was thus raised above the crowd; he shook his head, laughed derisively, and fixed his malignant eyes upon Meir. But the people's curiosity was not yet satisfied; under their ragged garments many hearts were beating with a new, and by themselves undefined sensation.
"He speaks to us through the mouth of his descendant. Listen to him whose soul dwells already amongst the Sefirots."
An old man with stooping back, who leaned upon his stick, raised his white head and said to Meir, plaintively: "How could Israel warm himself at the sun of knowledge when he was driven away from it by his enemies? And we once had, Reb, famous physicians and wise men who were ministers at the courts of kings; but when they thrust us from the portals of knowledge we went forth and said: Henceforth Israel will hold aloof from the stranger, like an elder brother whom the younger brethren have offended."
Meir looked at the old man with a gentle, half-triumphant smile.
"Reb!" he replied, "the voice of my ancestor will give an answer to your question:" "A time will come when wrong and injustice will disappear from the earth. The gates of knowledge will be thrown open wide before you. Enter quickly with a joyful heart, because understanding is the greatest weapon given by the Lord who rules the world by the eternal laws of wisdom."
"They do not wish to behold the works of the Creator; of such it is said: 'A fool hath no delight in understanding.'"
"The second thing I asked from my people is: Remembrance. Rava asked Raba, the son of Moro, the origin of the proverb! 'Do not throw mud into the fountain from which thou drinkest.' Raba answered with the words of the Scriptures: 'Thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian, because thou wast a stranger in his land.' Eliezer the son of Azalrya, said: 'The Egyptians did not invite the Israelites into their country from self-interest, therefore the Lord rewarded them.' Since the country whose bread you eat did not treat you as cattle to plough his field, but as a tired brother to rest on his bosom, how have you rewarded it, O Israel?"
"It is not said, Thou shalt despoil the stranger, but 'One Law shall be for him that is home-born and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.'"
"When I was holding the office bestowed upon me by the king, two base Israelites were found who had gone to the enemy's camp and betrayed the king's secrets and brought calamity and trouble upon the kings troops. What did I do with these base subjects? I ordered it to be published by the sound of trumpets, all over the country, that these two, traitors to their God and their country, were for ever expelled from the bosom of Israel. I did this because when contemplating their deed my heart boiled over with wrath. I saw, as if in a dream, the second Moses, who said: 'Thrust them out of Israel, for they have betrayed those that received them as guests into their land.'"
"Not only for the good of your souls did I ask you for remembrance and gratitude, but also for your earthly welfare. When I sat in the great Synod assembled at the wish of the king and nobles, in the rich town of Lublin, I advised and urged the wise and honest men to send out a proclamation that would shake the hearts and brains of the people, even as the gardener shakes the trees to make the ripe fruit fall."
"In this proclamation we said: 'Be useful to the country wherein you live and the inhabitants will respect you. This is the first step towards happiness, because contempt is bitter and respect sweet to the human heart.'"
"But there are still other things which I have in my mind: He who is the servant of the soil, hath bread in abundance. How is the soil to nourish you if you treat it, not as a faithful servant, but as a stranger who only cares for the present day?"
"Rabbi Papa said: 'Do not engage in trade, but cultivate the soil, though both are good things; but the first is blessed by men.' If you come into the land, plant all kinds of trees that produce fruit."
"There will come a time when wrong-doing will disappear from the earth, and the nations will call out to the sons of Israel: 'Take the plough into your hands and cultivate the land, that you and your sons may eat your bread in peace.' But false prophets will raise their voice and tell you not to till the soil in the land of bondage."
"Oh, my descendant who reads this, tell the people to beware of false prophets! Call out to them in a loud voice: The false prophets have brought you low, O Israel!"
It was evident that the descendant fulfilled the command of his ancestor with conviction and unspeakable joy. Had he not himself felt the deep hatred towards the false sages? Why he considered them as such, he could not have told. His tongue was tied by want of knowledge, and his spirit, longing for light, had beaten against the walls of darkness in the midst of which he was imprisoned. Now he knew and understood; therefore from the depth of his heart he called out: "Do not believe, O Israel, in your false sages."
The crowd grew noisy.
"Of whom does he speak?"
"Who are the false sages and prophets in Israel?"
"He speaks of our rabbis and learned men; abominable blasphemy comes out of his mouth."
"He throws only blame upon the children of Israel!"
"He bids us plough the soil in the land of bondage."
"Rabbi Nohim, the grandfather of Rabbi Isaak, said to our fathers: 'You shall not till the soil with your own hands in the land of bondage.'"
"Rabbi Nohim was the wisest of wise men; his wisdom lighted up the whole earth."
"Hersh Ezofowich quarrelled fiercely with Reb Nohim."
"Hersh Ezofowich was a great sinner!"
"Why, does he not tell us how to make poor people rich?"
"He said we ought to become servants of the soil on which we live. When the Messiah comes and takes us to the promised land, we shall leave this one. Why should we become its servants?"
"It was said the writing would teach us how to change sand into gold!"
"And how to drive out evil spirits."
"How to bring Moses to life again."
"They have told us lies; there is nothing wise or pleasing to the Lord in the writing."
Questions and mutterings followed rapidly one upon the other, accompanied by the scornful laughter of those that had been balked in their hopes and expectations. The melamed, towering above the crowd, threw out insulting remarks, or burst into harsh laughter full of venomous malice. Under the second wall opposite the melamed stood Ber on a bench. These two men, standing opposite each other, presented a striking contrast. The melamed shook his head and waved his arms, wildly shouting and laughing; Ber stood silent and motionless, his head thrown back, resting against the wall, and from his blue eyes that looked into the far, far distance, tears fell in thick drops. Close to Meir in a compact body stood a dozen or more of young men, who looked with rapt attention at the reader. They breathed quickly, smiled now and then, and raised their arms and sighed. They seemed not to see or hear the crowd; their spirits, longing for truth and blindly searching for it, had fastened upon the new thoughts. A thin, quavering voice was heard from the crowd: "They talked much about that, long, long ago; when I was young." A deep sigh accompanied the young man's words. Perhaps he was one of Hersh's friends. Young boys who pushed their heads between the people laughed and shouted, then disappeared again.
The old yellow papers began to tremble in Meir's hands; upon his pale face appeared two red burning spots. He looked half angrily, half entreatingly at the public.
"Be quiet!" he called out. "Let me read the words of the great man to you to the end. He has chosen me as his messenger, and I must obey his commands."
His voice was loud and authoritative; his whole frame seemed to expand under the influence of a new power.
"Be quiet," shouted the melamed. "Let him read the abomination which hitherto has lain in hiding. Let it come forth that we may stamp it out all the easier."
"O Israel!" began the youthful voice once more. "O Israel, the third thing I ask from you is Discernment."
"In ages past, the learned men among us were called Baale Tressim or armour-bearers. What was their armour? Their armour was the understanding of the covenant. Why were they armed? To protect Israel from annihilation. They said: Israel shall not disappear from the surface of the earth, for we will give him a strong hold from the covenant of 'Moses. Thus said the Tanaim. And the Sanhedrin where they sat, and the schools in which they taught became as the arsenal where they ground and prepared their weapons. Gamaliel, Eliezer, Joshua, Akiba, and Jehuda were amongst them like suns among the stars. Others followed in their footsteps, and through five hundred years they compiled, explained and wrote the great book which they' named the Talmud, and which through centuries was a bulwark to the Israelites, shielding them from the devouring elements From its pages the sons of Israel drew wisdom and comfort, and during the great dispersion they were never divided, because their thoughts and sighs went towards it and gathered round it, like children round their mother."
"But is everything which is good in itself equally perfect?"
"This book, which during five hundred years was written and composed by wise and loving men, cannot be a foolish or a bad book. He who speaks thus of it, tell him to clean his heart from evil, and then open it and read."
"There are clouds in the sky, and in the purest heart the Lord discerns a flaw. Did Jehovah himself write the books of Our Law? Did the angels write them? No; people wrote them. Has there ever been a man during all the ages who did not know what it meant to go astray? Is there any human work which is adequate or all times and all ages?"
"The throne of the Pharaohs has been shattered; Nineveh fell into ruins; Rome which ruled over half the world broke asunder; and Greek wisdom has made way for other wisdom. The desert spreads now where once were rich and powerful cities; and cities are rising where formerly was desert. Thus human works, the greatest of them, pass away and others take their place."
"Israel! the nourishment which sustained your soul through many generations contains grain, but also chaff. In your treasure hoards there are diamonds and worthless sand."
"The books of your Law are as the pomegranate which the foolish man ate with the rind, which left a bitter taste in his mouth. When Rabbi Meir saw him doing this, he plucked fruit from the tree, threw away the bitter rind and ate the luscious fruit. I wished to teach you as Rabbi Meir taught the man who ate the pomegranate. I wished for you the gift of discernment, for the books of your faith. Wished that you might use your intelligence as a sieve in order to separate the grain from the chaff, the diamonds from the sand; so that you may keep the pure grain and the diamonds."
"You have thrust me off for this my request; your hearts became hardened against me because of the fear and hatred towards things new. And yet it is written: 'Do not look at the vessel, but look at its contents.' There are new pitchers full of old wine, and old ones that are empty."
"Meir," whispered Ber, "look at the people!" and then he added in a still lower voice: "Depart from this place as quickly as you can."
Meir looked around at the seething, muttering crowd; a smile half-angry, half-sad came on his lips.
"I did not expect this; I expected something quite different," he said in a low voice, and he bent his head; but he raised it again almost instantly and called out: "I am the messenger of my ancestor. He has chosen me to read his thoughts to you. I must obey him."
He drew a deep breath, then added in a still louder voice: "He penetrated the doubts which were to arise in those who were not born, and gave an answer to them. He penetrated into the inner life of the human soul, which thirsts after truth and knowledge, and offers you freedom and happiness through my mouth. I love him as if he had given me life. I bow down before the greatness of the man who has worked out his own immortality and dwells now in Jehovah's glory. I think as he thought; I wish for you as he wished. I am like him; I am the child of his spirit." His clear voice shook with emotion, and smiles and unshed tears were together on his mobile features.
"My ancestor says to you that all nations are moving on towards knowledge and happiness; but our heads are so full of little things that there is not room for great thoughts; that the study they call Kabala, and which you consider, is a cursed science, for it kills the Israelite's intellect and leads him away from true science."
His voice became drowned in the general uproar, laughter and groaning, so that only broken sentences reached the small, inattentive audience. Yet he did not cease speaking, but went on quicker and quicker, with heaving breast. It almost seemed as if recognising the futility of his efforts, he tried to stand at his post as messenger of the dead as long as he could. Perhaps he had not lost hope altogether.
"Woe I woe!" called out voices in the crowd. "Heresy and sin have entered the house of Israel! Out of the mouths of children comes blasphemy against holy things."
"Listen, listen!" cried Meir. "It is still far to the end of my ancestor's writing."
"Let us stop his mouth and drive him from the spot where only true Israelites should speak."
"Listen, it is written here that Israel should leave off expecting a Messiah in the flesh."
"Woe! woe! he will take from the heart of this only hope and comfort."
"Because he will not come upon earth in the shape of man, but in the shape of Time, bringing to all people knowledge, happiness and peace."
"Meir, Meir, what are you doing? You will be lost! Look at the people! Go away while there is time," whispered those around him.
Ber stood at his side. Eliezer, Aryel, Haim, and a few others surrounded him; but he neither saw nor heeded anything. Large beads of perspiration stood on the proudly-raised brow, and his eyes looked despairingly and angrily at the tumultuous crowd.
Suddenly a dull thump was heard near the entrance door. The melamed had jumped down from the bench, and, with his naked feet, stamped several times upon the floor. Then, in a few bounds, he cleared the crowd, which made way for him, and with a violent jerk of his arm threw down the brass candlestick with the yellow candle. At the same time someone climbed on the bench and blew out the lamp near the door. Except for the pale streaks of moonlight, which came through the windows, the whole room was plunged into darkness, and amidst that darkness seethed and boiled the raging element--an exasperated populace.
Nobody could have singled out any individual expression. Words, curses, groans, came down like hailstones, and mixed together in a chaos indescribable. At last, from the wide open door of the Bet-ha-Midrash poured the dark stream of people which, outside in the court, was met by another of those who had not found room within, and were less noisy, though equally excited. A large wave of moonlight lit up the open space and the Bet-ha-Kahol with its closed door and shuttered windows. On the portico steps, motionless and silent, his elbows resting on his knees, sat the shamos (messenger) awaiting orders from the interior of the building which, in the midst of the uproarious mob stood dark and mute like the grave.
The crowd broke up into many groups. One of these, the largest, crossed the gates of the precincts; shouting and struggling, it poured into the moonlit square, where it looked like a monster bird flapping its huge wings It was mostly composed of poorly-dressed men with long beards and maliciously gleaming eyes. Children of different ages flittered to and fro among them, picking up stones and mud. They all thronged towards one point; a single man surrounded by a bodyguard of friends. Pushed and knocked about, they resisted with their arms and shoulders until, yielding to the pressures they finally gave way, and were swallowed up by the crowd. Then a shower of stones fell upon the back of the man whom, until now, they had screened; dozens of hands grasped his garments and tore them into strips; upon his bare head fell mud and handfuls of gravel picked out of the gutter. In his ears thundered the yells and groans of the infuriated mob; before his face flashed the clenched fists and inflamed faces of his assailants, and beyond, as if veiled in a blood-red mist, silent and closely shuttered, appeared the house of his fathers.
Towards that house, as if to a haven of salvation, he directed his steps as quick as the grasping hands and the children crowding round his feet would let him. From his compressed lips came no sound either of complaint or entreaty; he did not seem to feel the hands that smote him or the stones, which pelted his body, and which might maim or kill him at any moment. With breast and shoulders he tried desperately to push aside the mob. It was not himself he defended, but the treasure he carried; now and then he touched his breast to make sure it was still there. Suddenly a burly figure, dressed in a coarse shirt, and with a thick stick in his bands, barred his way, and shouted: "Fools, what are you doing? Why do you not take the loathsome writing from him? The Rabbi Isaak has ordered it to be torn from him; he has bidden it in his breast!"
In an instant the young man, who had been assailed from the back and sides only, found himself attacked in front also. Rough and dark bands reached at his breast; his convulsively clenched arms were wrenched asunder, and they began to tear his garments. Then he raised his pale face towards the moonlit sky with a despairing cry: "Jehovah!"
He felt a lithe and supple body creep up from under his feet, and a pair of hot lips were pressed to the hand which hung down powerless. A wonderful contrast this single kiss of love in the midst of all that hatred and fury. With a last, almost superhuman effort, he pushed off his assailants, stooped down, and, before anybody had time to rush at him again, lifted a child up in his arms. It threw its arms around his neck, and looked with streaming eyes dilated with terror at the people.
"It is my child! it is my Lejbele! do not hurt him!" called the frightened voice of the tailor Shmul from the crowd.
"Reb!" called out several voices to the melamed, "he is shielding himself behind the child--the child loves him!"
"Take away the child and tear from him the writing!" yelled the melamed.
But nobody obeyed him. They still pulled at his clothes at his sides and behind, a few stones whizzed over his head; but he saw a clear space in front of him, and, with a few bounds, he reached the porch, which an invisible hand opened quickly, and as quickly bolted after he had entered.
Meir put the child down in the dark passage, and he himself entered the sitting-room, where, by the light of the lamp, he saw the whole family assembled. Panting and breathless, he leaned against the wall, and his dull eyes looked slowly round the room. All were silent. Never since the house of Ezofowich had existed in the world had a member of that family looked like the pale, panting youth whose head was covered with dust and mud, and whose garments hung in tatters around him. The forehead, moist with the dew of mortal anguish, was marked across with a red scar, caused by a rough stone, or perhaps some blunt instrument in the darkness of the Bet-ha-Midrash.
But for the expression of pride and undaunted courage in his face, he might have been taken for a begging outcast or a hunted criminal.
Saul covered his face with both hands. Some of the women sobbed aloud. Raphael, Abraham, and other grave members of the family rose from their seats, stern and angry, and called out in one voice: "Ill-fated lad!" They were about to surround him, and to speak to him, when suddenly the shutters flew open with a crash, the windows shattered into bits, and heavy stones thundered against the furniture from beyond the broken windows, yells and shouts arose, over which dominated the hoarse voice of the melamed. They called for Meir to give up the writing, heaped abuse and insults on the family, and threatened them with heaven's and the people's wrath.
The members of the family stood motionless, as if turned to stone with terror and shame.
Saul took his hands from his face, drew himself up proudly, and went quickly towards the door.
"Father, where are you going?" cried the men and women in terror.
He pointed his shaking hand at the window, and said: "I will stand in the porch of my house, and tell the foolish rabble to be quiet, and take itself off."
They barred his way. The women clung around his shoulders and knees.
"They will kill you, father!" they moaned.
Suddenly the raging tumult ceased. Instead yells, a low murmur passed from mouth to mouth.
"The shamos! the shamos! the shamos!" It was indeed the same man who, silent and motionless, had sat on the steps of the Be-ha-Kahol waiting for orders, and who now approached the house of Ezofowich to proclaim the sentence of the tribunal before the family of the accused. The crowd, stirred by ardent curiosity to hear the sentence, pressed close to the windows, in which not a single pane of glass remained. Others, scattered over the square and in the neighbouring streets, drew nearer, and surrounded the house like a dark, living wall. The door of the house was opened and shut again, and the shamos entered the sitting-room.
He looked anxiously, almost suspiciously around, and bowed very low before Saul.
"Peace be with you," he said in a low voice, as if he himself felt the bitter irony of the greeting.
"Reb Saul," he began, in a somewhat more assured voice, "do not be angry with your servant if he brings shame and misfortune into your house. I obey the commands of the Rabbi, the elders, and the judges who sat in judgment upon your grandson Meir, and whose sentence I am ordered to read out to him and you all."
A deep silence followed upon his words. At last Saul, who stood leaning upon the shoulder of his son Raphael said in a low voice: "Read."
The messenger unrolled the paper he was holding in his hand, and read: "Isaak Todros, the son of Baruch, Rabbi of Szybow, together with the judges and elders of the Kahal, who constitute the tribunal of the community of Szybow, heard the following accusations, confirmed by many witnesses, against Meir Ezofowich, son of Benjamin:" "Meir Ezofowich, son of Benjamin, is accused, and found guilty, of the crime of breaking the Sabbath. Instead of giving himself up to the study of holy books, he watched and defended the dwelling of the heretic Abel Karaim, and raised his hand in anger against Israelitish children."
(2.) "That Meir Ezofowich was seen reading the accursed book, 'More Nebuchim,' by Moses Majmonides, the false sage, excommunicated by many saintly rabbis and learned men; read this same book aloud to his companions, thus teaching them heresy and other abominations."
(3.) "That Meir Ezofowich held rebellious speeches against the covenant and the wise men of Israel, perverting thus their youthful minds."
(4.) "That under pretext of charity and pity for the poor of the town, he gave them criminal and foolish advice, saying, they ought to see what the elders did with the money they received from them; and further, they should distinguish in the covenant between God's work and people's invention; finally, told them to work in the fields like peasants."
(5.) "That having hair growing on his face, he refused to get married, and broke his engagement with the Israelitish girl Mera, daughter of Eli, and showed thereby his resolution to avoid the married state."
(6.) "That he lived in impure friendship with Golda, the granddaughter of a heretic, who, not belonging to the faithful, had been allowed to live in his place through the great charity of the Rabbi and the elders. Meir, the son of Benjamin, has been seen in their dwelling, and meeting the girl Golda in lonely places, taking flowers from her, and joining his voice with hers in worldly songs on a Sabbath."
(7.) "That he has not paid due respect to the learned men, and has raised a sacrilegious hand against the melamed Moshe, whom he knocked down, throwing the table upon him, causing, thereby, bodily harm to the melamed and great scandal to the community."
(8.) "That in his great, unheard-of malice, he denounced a brother Israelite, Reb Jankiel Kamionker, before an alien, thereby breaking the solidarity of his people, and bringing Reb Jankiel into trouble and perhaps danger."
(9.) "That in his boundless audacity he extracted the writing of his ancestor, Michael Senior, from its hiding-place, where it should have rotted away, and with criminal insolence read it to a large crowd of people, thereby endangering the old law and customs of the Israelites; and as the writing, we have been told, contains blasphemous and pernicious doctrines we consider the reading of the said document as the greatest of his crimes. Therefore, according to the power given us by our law over the sons of Israel, we decree:" "That to-morrow after sunset, a great and terrible curse will be pronounced against the audacious and disobedient Meir Ezofowich, son of Benjamin, through the mouth of Rabbi Isaak, son of Baruch, for the hearing of which all the Israelites of Szybow and the environs will be summoned by the messenger; and Meir Ezofowich will be thrust out and ignominiously expelled from the bosom of Israel. All of you who remain faithful unto the Lord and the covenant live in peace and happiness with all your brethren in Israel."
The shamos had finished; and putting the paper under his coat, bowed low, and swiftly left the room.
For several minutes a deadly silence prevailed within and without.
Suddenly Meir, who had stood like one entranced, threw his arms wildly above his head and uttered a heart-broken cry: "Expelled from Israel! cursed and expelled by my own people!" His voice died away in a loud sob. With his head pressed against the wall he sobbed in great anguish. It was enough to hear one of these sobs, which shook his whole frame, to guess that he had been wounded in the most vital part of his soul.
Then approached his uncles, their wives and daughters, with voices of entreaty, anger, threats, and prayers, beseeching him to give up the writing of the Senior, to let it be burned publicly, and perhaps the decree of the elders would be mitigated. The men crowded round him; the women kissed him.
Still shaken by sobs, and his face closely pressed to the wall, deaf to all the voices of entreaty and anger, his only answer was a motion with his head and the short monosyllable: "No! No! No!"
This single word, thrown out amidst his sobs, was more eloquent than the longest speech: it expressed such deep suffering, love, and undaunted courage.
"Father," exclaimed Raphael, turning towards Saul, who sat alone and motionless, "Father! why do you not command him to humble himself? Bring him to reason; tell him to give up the writing to us, and we will carry it to the Rabbi and ask him to relent!"
When Raphael said this, Meir uncovered his face and turned it towards his grandfather.
Saul raised his head, stretched out his hands as if blindly groping for support, and then rose. The previously dull eyes became all at once singularly restless, till they met with the fixed look of his grandson. He opened his mouth, but no words came.
"Speak, father! command him!" urged several voices.
The old man seemed to totter on his feet. A cruel struggle was taking place within him. Several times he tried to speak, but could not. At last in a heavy whisper, he said: "He is not cursed yet--I am still allowed:" "In the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob I bless you, son of my son!"
And trembling in every limb, his eyes full of tears, he sank back in his chair.
Those present exchanged glances of amazement and reverence. Meir bounded forward and threw himself at the feet of the old man. In a low, feverish voice he spoke of the love he bore him--about the Senior's legacy to his descendants, and that he would go into the world and come back sometime. Then he rose from his knees and quickly left the room.
At this moment there was nobody near the windows of the house. The great crowd of people had retreated towards the middle of the square, and there they stood almost motionless, quietly whispering with each other. A singular thing happened. Scarcely had the messenger finished reading the sentence when the storm of wrath and anger suddenly subsided. What had happened to them? Their emotional nature which, like a stringed instrument, answered to the slightest touch, quivered under a new feeling. It was respect and sympathy for the misfortune of an ancient and charitable family. The crowd, which such a short time before had yelled and cursed and was ready to tear everything to pieces, became suddenly quiet and subdued, and began to disperse peacefully. Here and there still sounded malicious laughter or insulting epithets, but more voices were heard in gentle pity.
"Yet he was good and charitable!"
"He never was proud!"
"He fed my foolish child and kissed it!"
"He saved my old father when the cart had fallen upon him!"
"He worked with us like a common man, and sawed wood!"
"His face shone with beauty and intelligence!"
"All eyes rejoiced looking at his young age!"
"Herem!! Herem! Herem!" (Excommunicated) repeated many.
Then they shook their heads in wonder, faces paled with horror, and breasts heaved with sighs.
*** Three shadows glided swiftly over the moonlit deserted fields which separated the town from the Karaite's Hill. The first belonged to a tall, slender man; the second to a child who clung to the sleeve of his garment; these two shadows were so close together that often they formed but one; the third shadow showed the outline of a burly figure, which kept carefully in the distance, now and then stood still or doubled up, at times disappearing altogether behind palings, shrubs, or trees. It was evident the shadow wanted to hide itself, and was looking for something, listening and watching for something or somebody.
At the open window of Abel's cottage a low voice called out: "Golda! Golda!"
From the window bent a face, whitened in the moonlight, and surrounded by waves of black hair. A low passionate whisper sounded in the still evening air: "Meir! Meir! I heard a terrible noise and awful voices! My heart trembled in fear; but it is nothing now you are here."
Two arms were stretched forth towards the approaching young man. The corals on her neck quivered under the throbbing emotion where sobs mingled with laughter.
Suddenly she uttered a piercing cry.
Meir stood before her, and she saw his torn garments and the red scar on his forehead.
She moaned, and put her hand gently on his brow, and caressingly touched the dusty hair and ragged clothes with the almost motherly feeling that longs to comfort and soothe. Meir sat on the bench in the posture of a man deadly tired. He leaned his head against the window-frame, and seemed to draw in the mild evening breeze. The moon reflected herself in the mournful eyes that were raised in question towards the silvery clouds. After a while he straightened himself and said quickly, in a low voice: "Golda, people may search for me; if they find me they will take my treasure. I will give it to you to hide it, and then I will go into the fields and woods to cry out unto Jehovah for mercy."
The girl, too, stood straight and grave. "Give it to me," she said quietly. The leaves of the paper rustled in Meir's hands, and, giving them to the girl, he said: "Hide it in your breast, and guard my treasure as the apple of your eye. It contains the precious words of my ancestor, which have removed all blindness from my eyes. They will be my passport which will open to me the doors and hearts of wise men. It is quiet here, and safe--nobody sees or suspects. When I am ready I shall come and ask you for it."
Golda took the paper.
"Rest tranquil about your treasure," she said. "I would rather lay down my life than give it up to anyone but you. It is safe here, it is quiet, nobody will suspect."
Meir rose from the bench.
"Sleep in peace," he said. "I must go; my soul is full of cries; I must walk, walk. I shall go and throw myself down among the trees, and send my prayers up to Jehovah with the evening breeze. I must unburden my mind of the heavy load."
He was going away, but Golda held him by the sleeve.
"Meir," she whispered, "tell me what has happened. Why did the people beat and hurt you? Why must you go out into the world?"
"People have beaten and stoned me," replied Meir gloomily, "because I would not go against the truth, and would not agree to what the people agree. I must go, because to-morrow a terrible curse will be pronounced against me, and I shall be excommunicated and expelled from Israel."
"Herem!" (the curse) shrieked the girl, and she threw her folded hands in horror above her head. She stood thus for a moment; then a gentle, thoughtful smile came on her face.
"Meir!" she whispered, "zeide is cursed and I am cursed; but the mercy of the Lord is greater than the greatest terror and His justice vaster than the vastest sea. When zeide reads this, he leaves off grieving and says: 'The cursed ones are happier than those that curse . . . because a time will come when the justice of the Lord will enter into the human heart, and then they will bless the names of those that have been cursed.'"
Meir looked at the girl, whose deep-set eyes glowed with inspiration.
"Golda!" he said softly, "you are the second half of my soul. Come with me into the world as my wife; holding each other's hands, we will bear the curse together and live so that people shall bless our names."
A great wave of fire passed over Golda's face and left it radiant with ineffable joy.
"Oh, Meir!" she exclaimed. She wanted to say something more, but could not. She bent her lithe figure very low and hung upon his arm.
He put his arm around her neck and pressed his lips to the wavy black hair. It was only for a moment. The girl straightened herself, and with the hot blush still dying her face, she said softly: "And zeide?"
Meir looked at her like a man suddenly aroused from sleep. She went on in the same low voice: "His feet are so weak that he could not go with us, and besides he would never leave the graves of his fathers. How can I leave him? How could he live without me, whom he brought up with his hands, taught to spin, to read the Bible, and told all his beautiful stories? Who would feed him if I went away? Who during the cold winter nights would lie at his feet and warm his cold limbs? And when the soul is about to part from his body, who will rock the old head to its eternal sleep? Meir! Meir! you have a grandfather whose hair is white as snow, and who will rend his garments when you are gone. But your zeide has many sons, daughters, and grandchildren; he is rich and respected by everybody. My zeide has only this poor hut, his old Bible and granddaughter Golda."
Meir sighed.
"You are right, Golda; but what will become of you when your grandfather dies, and you remain alone in the world, exposed to poverty and human scorn?"
Golda sat down because her limbs trembled. She passed both her hands over her hot face, and with upraised eyes replied: "I shall sit before the door of this hut, spin my wool and tend my goats, looking along the road whence you will come back!"
It was an adaptation from the story of Akiba.
Meir asked dreamily: "And what will you do if people come and laugh at you and say: 'Akiba is drinking at the spring of wisdom whilst your body is consumed with misery and your eyes are dull from weeping?'"
A voice stifled with emotion replied to him: "I shall answer this: 'Let misery consume my body, and my eyes run over with tears; yet truly will I guard my husband's faith.' And if he stood before me and said: 'I have come back because I did not wish you to weep any longer,' I should say to him: 'Go and drink more.'"
Meir rose. There was no despair on his face now, but hope and courage depicted in his whole bearing.
"I will come back, Rachel," he exclaimed. "Jehovah will give me strength, and good people will help me if I show them my hard yearning after knowledge and the writing of the Senior, which is the covenant of peace between Israel and the nations. I shall drink long and eagerly at the spring of wisdom; then come back and teach my people, and for all the misery and contempt which you suffer, I shall put a golden crown upon your head."
Golda shook her head. The expression in her face showed she had been carried away by a wonderful dream. She dreamt she was Rachel, greeting her husband Akiba. With passionate eyes and a far-away smile, she whispered: "And I shall embrace your knees, and with eyes that have regained their former beauty I shall look at all your glory and say: 'Lord and Master! your glory be my crown.'"
They looked long at each other, and through their tearful eyes there shone a love as deep and earnest as their hearts were pure and heroic.
A low, childish laughter reached their ears. They looked astonished in the direction whence it came. Upon the threshold of the hut sat Lejbele, holding in his arms a snow-white kid. The kid had been purchased at the fair with the money Golda had taken for the baskets. The child had seen it in the entrance, brought it out on the threshold, and nestled his face to the soft white hair and laughed aloud.
"The child always follows you," said Golda. "He kissed me to-day, when everybody beat and stoned me; with him I shielded my treasure against their strong hands," replied Meir. Golda disappeared from the window and stood upon the threshold. She bent over the child, her flowing hair covered his head and shoulders, and she kissed him on the forehead. Lejbele was not frightened; he seemed to feel safe here. He had seen the girl before, whose luminous eyes looked at him with an expression of great sweetness. He raised his grateful, now almost intelligent, eyes to her, and whispered: "Let me play with this little goat?"
"Will you have some milk?" said Golda.
"Yes," he said; "please give me some."
She brought a bowl full of milk and fed the child; then asked: "Why do you leave your father and mother, and follow Meir?"
The child rocked his head and replied: "He is better than daddy, and better than mammy. He fed me and patted my head, and saved me from Reb Moshe."
"Whose little boy are you?" asked Golda. Lejbele remained silent and kept on rocking his head. He evidently tried to collect his confused thoughts. Suddenly he raised his finger and pointed after the retreating figure of Meir, and said aloud: "I am his."
And he laughed: but it was no longer the laugh of an idiot, only the expression of joy that he had found the way to clothe in words the thoughts of his loving little heart.
Golda looked in the direction where Meir had disappeared, and sighed heavily. Presently she rose, wrapped herself in a gray shawl, went half-way up the hill, and sat down under a dwarfed pine-tree. Perhaps she wanted to look down and watch his return from the woods. Her elbows resting on her knees--her face buried in her hands, she sat motionless, like a statue of sorrow; the black hair which covered her like a mantle, glittered and shone in the bright moonlight.
At the same time the low door of the Rabbi's hut was softly opened and Reb Moshe crept in, looking worn, ashamed and troubled. He squatted down near the fireplace and looked anxiously at Isaak Todros who sat in the open window, his eyes fixed on the sky.
"Rabbi!" he whispered timidly.
"Rabbi!" he said a little louder, "your servant will look guilty in your eyes--he has not brought the abominable writing. The storm was fearful, but his friends defended him; he resisted himself, and then a little child shielded him. The foolish people tore his clothes, beat, abused and stoned him; but did not take the writing from him."
"Nassi! your servant is ashamed and troubled; have mercy upon him, and do not punish him with the lightning of your eyes."
Todros, without taking his eyes from off the sky, said: "The writing must be taken from him and delivered into my hands."
"Nassi! the writing is no longer in his hands."
"And where is it?" said the Rabbi, in a louder voice, without turning round.
"Rabbi! I should not have dared to appear before you, had I not known what became of it. I followed him--my whole soul entered into my eyes and ears. I saw how he gave the writing to the Karaitish girl to hide it; I heard how he called it his treasure, and his passport to go into the world with, and which would open for him the hearts of the people."
Todros shuddered convulsively.
"It is true," he whispered angrily. "That writing will be to him a shield and weapon, on which our sharpest arrows will have no effect. Moshe!" he said, in a more determined voice, "the writing must be taken from the Karaitish girl."
The melamed crawled to his master's knees, and raising his face to him said, in a low voice: "Rabbi! the girl said she would sooner lay down her life than part with the writing."
Todros was silent for a moment, and then repeated: "The writing must be taken from her."
The melamed remained, silent and thoughtful for a long time.
"Rabbi!" he said in a very low whisper, "and if anything happens to the girl?"
Todros did, not answer at once. At last he said: "Blessed is the hand that removes garbage from the house of Israel!"
The melamed seemed to drink in the words eagerly and ponder over their meaning. Then he smiled.
"Rabbi!" he said, "I have understood your wish--depend upon your servant; he will find men whose hands are strong and whose hearts are steel. Rabbi!" he added, entreatingly, "let a gentle ray from your eyes fall upon your servant; let him see your wrath is softened towards him. My soul without your love and favour is like a well without water or a dark prison where no love enters."
Todros replied: "No gentle ray will come from my eye, nor will my wrath be softened till the writing has been torn out of the accursed hands."
Moshe groaned: "Rabbi, the writing shall be in your hands tomorrow."
The moon fell bright upon the faces of both men, of whom one looked at the heavens, the other into his master's face. The master searched the heavens for the silvery streaks which are the ways the angels travel from star to star through eternity; the pupil looked into the master's eyes for the reflection of the supernatural light.
In both their minds the name of the angel of death whom they had called up was present--yet both their hearts were full of love and boundless admiration.
|
{
"id": "28400"
}
|
10
|
None
|
A great and unusual emotion prevailed among the population of the little town. From all parts they thronged towards the large brown house of prayer, where, under the three-storied roof covered with moss, the row of high and narrow windows blazed with light. The sky was covered with stars twinkling feebly and paling before the full moon.
The interior of the temple, large and roomy, would easily hold several thousand people. The high and smooth walls, forming a perfect square, were cut across by a long, heavy gallery, divided into niches, not unlike private boxes, and surrounded by a high, open-work grating. Wooden benches, standing closely together, filled the body of the synagogue from the entrance door up to the raised platform, which was surrounded by a highly ornamental grating. There was a table on the platform, used for unfolding the leaves of the Tora on days when extracts from it were read to the people. It served also as a pulpit when, on solemn days, speeches or religious discourses were delivered. Here also stood the choir of young men or grown-up children, who united their voices or answered to the intonating singer.
The platform was about a dozen feet from the principal part of the building, which looked very impressive in its dignity and blaze of colour. It was the altar, or the place where the holy of holies was preserved. The top of the altar reached to the ceiling, and consisted of two great tables incrusted with lapis-lazuli and covered with white letters, like strings of arabesques, in a rich and fantastic design, in which the initiated eye could read the Ten Commandments. The tables of lapis-lazuli were supported by two gilt-bronze lions of huge size, resting on two heavy columns of the intensest blue, surrounded with white garlands of vine-leaves and grapes. All this rose from a heavy stone foundation, the large surface of which, from top to bottom was covered with inscriptions from the Bible. The two columns stood like guards on either side of a deep recess, veiled entirely with a red silk curtain richly embroidered with gold. Behind this curtain, only raised at certain times, lay the holy of holies, the Tora, a great roll of parchment covered with costly silk and tied with ribbons embroidered in gold and silver.
Seven chandeliers of a hundred lights each, illuminated the gallery above, showing behind the transparent grating innumerable female figures in bright coloured dresses; below were the benches, where the men were sitting on their soft white talliths. Around the necks of the more prominent members gleamed large silver bands worked in delicate bas-relief. The costliest and largest of the seven chandeliers hung suspended by heavy silver cords before the red silk curtain and reflected in the heavy gold embroidery, and showed the delicate design of the vine leaves twining round the columns. Here stood Eliezer, the singer who intoned the old psalms, the limitless melodies of which resound with all the voices of human joy, suffering, and entreaty. Never had the beautiful voice produced richer or mellower tones; never had it vibrated with such deep emotion. It almost seemed as if that evening a superhuman power had taken possession of him. Now and then his voice died away in a low wail; then it rose again with such voluminous power of entreaty as if it carried him on its wings before the throne of Jehovah--to plead for something or somebody.
The whole building was filled with the sound, in which the choir of young voices joined from time to time. There was a deep silence among the congregation. Here and there some one whispered: "It is like the angel Sandalphon, who offers to Jehovah the garlands made from human prayers."
Others shook their heads sadly. "He is pleading for his friend, who is to be excommunicated to-night."
Suddenly the singer's voice was interrupted by a heavy thump, repeated several times. It ceased, as if the golden string had been torn asunder by a brutal hand. The choir disappeared from the platform, and in their place stood one man, whose dark, piercing eyes looked more baneful than ever. In his hands he held a heavy book, with which he struck the table as a sign for silence. Throughout the building everything was quiet, except in the portico, where some twenty people surrounded a young man who, with a deathly pale face and compressed lips, stood leaning against the wall.
Whisperers crowded around him.
"It is still time. Have mercy upon yourself and your family! Run quick, quick, throw yourself at the feet of the Rabbi! Oh, Herem! Herem! Herem!"
He did not seem to listen. His arms were crossed over his breast. The contracted forehead, marked with the red scar, gave him the expression of inward pain, but also of inflexible courage.
"In the name of the God of our fathers," sounded the loud voice of Isaak Todros.
A long sigh like a tremor seemed to shake the whole congregation, and then everything was silent.
Isaak Todros spoke slowly and impressively: "By the force and power of the world, in the name of the holy covenant and the six hundred and thirteen commandments contained in the covenant; with the malediction of Joshua against the town of Jericho; with the malediction of Elisha against the children who mocked him; with the shamanta used by the great Sanhedrims and Synods; with all the herems and curses used from the time of Moses to this day; in the name of the God eternal; in the name of Matatron, the guardian of Israel; in the name of the angel Sandalphon, who from human prayers wreathes garlands for the throne of Jehovah; in the name of the archangel Michael, the powerful leader of the heavenly army; in the name of the angels of fire, wind, and lightning; in the name of all the angels conducting the stars on their courses, and all the archangels who are spreading their wings above the throne of the Eternal; in the name of Him who appeared in the burning bush, and by the power of which Moses divided the waters; in the name of the hand who wrote the tables of the holy law, we expel, disgrace, and curse the strong, disobedient, and blasphemous Meir Ezofowich, son of Benjamin."
He paused a little, then, with a vehement motion, raised both his arms above his head, and, amidst the deepest silence, he went on faster and louder: "Be he accursed by heaven and earth; by the angels Matatron, Sandalphon, and Michael; by all the angels, archangels, and heavenly orbs. Be he accursed by all pure and holy spirits which serve the Lord; accursed by every power in heaven and upon earth. Let all creation become his enemy, that the whirlwind crush him and the sword smite him. Let his ways be dangerous and covered with darkness, and let the greatest despair be hi only companion thereon. Let sorrow and unhappiness waste his body; let his eyes look upon the heavy blows falling upon him. Let the Lord never forgive him; nay, let the wrath and vengeance of the Lord eat deep into his marrow. Let him be wrapped up in the curse as in a garment; let his death be sudden, and drive him into utter darkness."
Here Todros paused again to draw breath into his exhausted lungs. His voice had become every minute more laboured, and his sentences more broken. His face was burning, and his arms waved wildly over his head.
"From this moment," he shouted again, "from this moment the curse has fallen upon him; let him not dare to approach the house of prayer nearer than four yards. Under the threat of excommunication, let no Israelite approach nearer to him than four yards distance, nor open to him his house, nor give him bread, water, or fire, though he see him dying with thirst, hunger, and disease; nay, let everybody spit upon him, and throw stones under his feet, that he may stumble and fall. Let him not have any fortune, either what he has earned himself or what comes from his parents; let it be given up to the elders of the Kahal, to be used for the poor and needy."
"This curse which has fallen upon him, let it be made public all over Israel wherever you go, and we will send the tidings of it to all our brethren to the farthest confines of the world."
"This is our decree, and you all who remain faithful unto the Lord and his covenant, live in peace."
He had finished; and, at the same time, by some prearranged contrivance, all the lights in the seven chandeliers grew dim, and in the four corners of the edifice trumpets began to sound in a low, mournful wail, in which joined a chorus of sobs and loud moans. A heart-rending cry came from the portico, which was all the more terrible as, it came from the breast of a young and powerful man. There was the noise of many feet, and the sound of somebody driven out. Meir disappeared from the house of prayer. Among the benches near the altar came the sound of rent garments, and grave men fell on their faces.
"In the dust lies the mighty house of Ezofowich," said several voices, pointing at them.
From the gallery came the loud sobs and wailing, of women, and in the background of the edifice people without silver ribbons round their talliths wrung their hard, work-stained hands.
Todros wiped the perspiration from his brow with his ragged sleeve, and, leaning upon the balustrade with heaving breast and twitching lips, looked at the singer. He did not leave the platform, for, according to the prescribed rules, a blessing for all the people ought to follow the curse. It was the singer's duty to intonate it. Todros waited for it. Why did the singer delay so long? Why did he not take up his last words, "Live in peace," and intonate the blessing? Eliezer stood with his face turned to the altar. Whilst the Rabbi pronounced the curse his whole frame had shook under the folds of the tallith. By and by he grew quieter, stood motionless, and his eyes seemed to look far, far in the distance. At last he raised his arms. It was the sign for silence and prayer. The trumpets, which had kept on the low, mournful wailing, grew silent, the human sobs and cries ceased. The dim light blazed up again, and amidst the deepest silence, interrupted by some stifled sobs, rose the pure and silvery voice of Eliezer: "O Lord, who blessed our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, David, the prophets of Israel, and all righteous people, pour down thy blessing upon the man who this day has been injured by an unjust curse."
"God in thy mercy shield and guard him from all unhappiness, prolong the years of his life, and bless all his undertakings. Release him from distress, and darkness, and fetters, together with all his brethren in Israel."
"Do this, O Lord. Say all unto me, Amen." He stopped, and there was a short silence of stupefaction, and then out of several hundred throats came the cry, "Amen!" "Amen!" called out the members of the Ezofowich family who rose from the floor, shaking the dust from their rent garments. "Amen!" called out the group of poor people who had wrung their black, work-stained hands.
"Amen!" came from the voices of the weeping women in the gallery. "Amen!" repeated at last a chorus of young voices.
The Rabbi took his hands off the balustrade, and looked around the congregation with amazed eyes.
"What is that? What does this mean?"
Then Eliezer turned his face to him and the people. The hood of his tallith had slipped from his head on to his shoulders. His face, usually white, was flushed, and his blue eyes glowed with anger and courage. He raised his band, and said, in a loud voice: "Rabbi, it means that our ears and our hearts will not listen to any such curses any more!"
These words were like the signal for battle. Scarcely had he finished speaking when some fifty young men ranged themselves on either side of him. Some were the excommunicated man's personal friends; others had only seen him from a distance; among them were even those who had blamed him and condemned his rashness.
"Rabbi!" they called out, "we will hear such curses no more!"
"Rabbi! your curse has made us love the accursed!"
"Rabbi! with that herem you have laid a burden upon a man who was pleasant in the sight of God and man!"
With a mighty effort Todros seemed to rouse himself from the numbness into which the unexpected rebellion had plunged him.
"What is it you want?" he shouted. "What are you speaking of? Has the evil spirit bewitched you? Do you not know that our Law commands us to curse those who rebel against the holy covenant?"
Not from among the young men, but from the benches where the elders were sitting, came a grave voice: "Rabbi! do you not know that when the old Sanhedrim were in fierce debate whether to adhere to the teaching of Hillel or Shamai, a mysterious voice, 'Bat Kohl,' taken for the voice of God himself, was heard, 'Listen to the Law of Hillel, for it is full of charity and gentleness.'"
All heads were craned in the direction whence the speech had come. It was from Raphael, the uncle of the excommunicated.
At this moment Ber made his way through the crowd and stood at the side of the young men.
"Rabbi!" he exclaimed, "have you ever counted the intellects you and your forefathers crushed with your despotism; all the souls eager for knowledge that you thrust into darkness and suffering?"
"Rabbi!" said a youthful almost childish voice, "will you and those that stand by you always keep from us all knowledge after which our minds are yearning?"
"Why do you not, Rabbi, teach the people to use their intelligence as a sieve, to divide the grain from the chaff, and the pearls from the sand? Rabbi! you have made us to eat the pomegranate with the bitter rind; we begin to feel the acrid taste of it and it causes pain."
"Unhappy, misguided youths! Reprobates!" shouted Todros passionately. "Did you not see with your own eyes that the people hated him, stoned him, and marked his forehead with a red scar?"
Proud and scornful laughter answered his speech. "Do not agree with everything the people say," and one voice continued: "The curse you pronounced against him has softened many hearts and opened many eyes."
"Malicious promptings stirred up hatred against him; but to-day all hearts are full of compassion, because with your curse you have killed his youth."
"It is worse than death, Rabbi; for amongst the living he will be like one dead."
"And is it not written in the statutes of the great Sanhedrim: 'The tribunal which once in seventy years pronounces a sentence of death will be called the tribunal of murderers?'"
"In the Sanhedrim, did not childless and stony-hearted men sit?"
"Who soweth wrath, reapeth sorrow!"
Such and similar were the sentences which fell like hail around the Rabbi, accompanied by threatening looks and indignant gestures.
Todros answered no more. He remained quite motionless and, with his mouth open and eyebrows raised, presented the picture of a man who does not understand what is going on around him. Suddenly, the melamed rushed from the crowd, jumped over the balustrade, and spreading out his arms as if to shield the beloved master, confronted the people and shouted in angry tones: "Woe! woe! to the insolent who does not reverence those who serve them before the Lord!"
Eliezer replied: "No wall is to be raised between the Lord and his people. We appointed men from amongst us to study the Law in order to teach it to the ignorant. But we did not, tell them: 'We deliver our souls unto you in bondage'; because every Israelite is free to search for the Lord in his own heart and to explain His words according to his intelligence."
Others exclaimed: "In Israel there are no higher or lower grades. We are all brethren in the eyes of the Creator; no one has the right to fetter our will and intellect."
"The false prophets have lost us, because they separated us from other nations, that we are even as prisoners in the dark, left in loneliness."
"But a time will come when Israel will shake off his fetters, and the blind and proud spirits shall fall down from their heights and the imprisoned souls will regain their liberty."
Isaak Todros raised his hands slowly to his head, as a man who tries to rouse himself from sleep; then he leaned again on the balustrade, raised his eyes, and sighed deeply: "En-Sof!" he said in a dreamy whisper.
It was the kabalistic name of God which whirled across his despairing mind. But as if in protest against the doctrines which had encumbered the pure Mosaic faith, a chorus of voices answered: "Jehovah!"
The melamed's body shook as in a fit of ague. With violent speech and gesture he called upon the people to stand up for their beloved sage, and punish the audacious rebels. But the more he spoke, the more amazed he grew. Nobody moved. The rich and prominent of the community sat silent, their foreheads supported on their hands, their eyes riveted to the floor. They were in deep meditation. The bulk of the people remained motionless and mute.
The melamed understood at last that all efforts to rouse them were useless. He became silent, but his eyes opened wider in great wonder; he could not understand why they did not listen.
But through the misty brain of Isaak Todros passed a ray of light, and he got a glimpse of the terrible truth. Something whispered to him that in the young breasts all the dormant desires and aspirations of which the excommunicated man had been the interpreter, had stirred into life. The young man was, then, not the only one; but he was bolder, more enterprising and proud. He heard another whisper. The young heads whose fearless attitude bad made him powerless to-day, had been touched by the wings of the angel of Time, which, as he perceived in a dull, indistinct way, was full of rebellion and upheaving and would break down the barriers he had raised between them and the highest truth. And he heard again why the people had not stood up for him, because the angel of Time, who carries with him rebellion, and battle, also brings charity and forgiveness, and sweeps away curses and hatred with his powerful, yet soft, wings.
All this Todros heard in a dim and vague way; but it was enough, to benumb his heart, full of petrified faith and pride.
"Bat Kohl," he whispered.
The voice of his own conscience he took for the mysterious voice said to be heard in great crises by the lawgivers and priests of Israel.
"Bat Kohl," he repeated with trembling lips, and turned his gaze around the building.
The interior of the synagogue was half-empty. The people dispersed slowly and silently, as if they were seized by a great sorrow and doubt. The poor and rich, until now great admirers of the Rabbi. There was the rustle of the belated women in the gallery, and then everything was quiet and deserted.
As in times of yore, Joseph Akiba was coming back in the moonlit night, to his shepherd's hut, so Meir pale and trembling approached the house of his fathers.
He went there, but without the intention of entering it again. He knew that he would have to go away, to pursue in loneliness and misery the great aim he saw in the far, far distance, and which was so difficult to reach. He wanted to see the house once more, but did not intend to cross its threshold. Among the many darkened windows, he saw one where a light glimmered. He stood still and looked at it. Through the window he saw the motionless figure of his great-grandmother in her easy chair. A wave of moonlight made the diamonds sparkle.
Meir slowly ascended the steps of the porch and touched the door latch. It yielded to the pressure; contrary to the usual custom the door was unlocked. He entered the narrow passage and stood at the door of the sitting-room, which was wide open. The whole house was wrapped in darkness and silence.
Was everybody asleep? Not likely; but not the slightest noise was to disturb the last farewell between the great-grandmother and her great-grandson and drive him from her knees. It was the last time he rested under the roof of his fathers.
"Bobe," he said softly, "Elte Bobe!"
Freida slept peacefully as a child: the rays of the moonlight played on the wrinkled face like childish dreams.
"I shall never see you again, never any more."
He pressed his lips to the dear old hand that had given him the treasure which was his salvation and ruin, life and death.
Freida's head moved gently.
"Kleineskind!" she whispered, without opening her eyes.
Meir lost himself in thought. His forehead resting on his great-grandmother's knees, he said farewell to everything and everybody around.
At last he rose and slowly left the room.
In the dark passage he suddenly felt two strong arms closing around him, and a heavy object was put in his pocket.
"It is I, Ber. Your grandfather looked around the family for a courageous man who would give you a handful of money on the way; and found me. Everybody in the house mourns for you; the women have taken to their beds, crying; your uncles are angry with the Rabbi and the elders; the grandfather is almost beside himself with grief--but nobody will see you any more. It is thus with us; reason drags one way; the old faith the other. They are afraid. But Meir, do not grieve! You are happy. I envy you! You have not been afraid to do what I did not dare to do, and you will win. To-day your friends stood up for you, and the people were silent and did not defend the Rabbi. It is the beginning; but the end is still far off. If you showed yourself to-morrow before the people, their wrath would flare up again. Go! go into the world. You have youth on your side and courage; life is before you."
"Sometime you will come back and put an end to our sins and darkness. We have many diamonds, but they want sifting. Go forth now, to conquer. Be like Baale Tressim, armour-clad like our ancestors; and my blessing and the blessings of those who, like me, wished, but could not--longed, but did not obtain what they longed for--be with you."
They exchanged farewells, and Ber disappeared as silently as he had come. The deep silence of the whole house seemed to bid the excommunicated youth to go hence.
When he left the house it had begun to dawn. The market square and the adjacent streets were asleep. The whole town was wrapped in the gray mist of an almost autumnal morning.
He swiftly crossed the mist-covered fields to get away, and say farewell to her who had promised to be a faithful Rachel to him, and to claim from her his treasure.
The door and window of the little hut stood wide open.
"Golda!" he called softly, "Golda!"
There was no answer.
He repeated his call, but the silence remained unbroken. He drew nearer, and looked at the spot where old Abel was wont to sit. It was empty.
A strange, undefined dread took hold of him.
He looked around, up the hills and along the fields, and called in a loud voice: "Golda!"
There was a slight rustle not far off. It came from a wild rosebush, from among the branches of which rose the sleepy figure of little Lejbele.
Meir went quickly up to him. The child disengaged himself from the branches, and put his hand under his coat.
"Where is Golda?" asked Meir.
Lejbele did not answer, but handed him the roll of papers.
Meir bent towards the child.
"Who gave you that?"
"She," answered Lejbele, pointing to the hut.
"When did she give it to you?"
The child answered: "When the people were coming she rushed out of the hut, woke me, and put the roll under my coat, and said, 'Give it to Meir when he comes.'"
Meir began to tremble.
"And afterwards?" he asked, "afterwards?"
"Afterwards, Morejne, she hid me in the bush, and went back to the hut."
"How many people were there?"
"Two, Morejne, three--ten--I don't know."
"And what did they do? What did the people do?"
"The people came, Morejne, and shouted and screamed at her to give up the writing; and she screamed that she would not, and the goat in the entrance ran about and bleated."
Meir trembled in all his limbs.
"And then what happened?"
"Morejne, she took the spindle into her hands and stood before her zeide. I saw it from the bush. She was so white, and the spindle was white, and the people were black, and the goat kept on running amongst them and bleating."
"And then--and then?"
"Then, Morejne, I did not look any longer, but cowered down in fear, because there was such a noise in the hut--such moans. Then the people went away, and carried her, and carried her grandfather, and the goat ran up the hill bleating, and I do not know where it has gone."
Meir straightened himself, and looked up to the sky with stony eyes. He knew everything now.
"Where did they carry them?" he asked in a dull whisper.
"There."
The outstretched arm of the child pointed in the direction where, in the gray mist, the meadow was dimly visible--and the pond. Beyond the pond were marshes and bogs, where two lifeless bodies would easily sink. There, beyond the meadows, where in spring she had gathered yellow lilies among the rushes, and unconsciously betrayed her fresh and innocent love--there, hidden from all human eyes, she was lying at the feet of her grandfather, wrapped in the wealth of her black hair.
A threefold cry of Jehovah rang out in the still morning air, and only Lejbele remained before the door, holding in his raised hand the scroll of paper.
Meir had gone into the hut.
What a terrible story was revealed to him! The straw lying about Abel's couch, and amongst it, like drops of blood, Golda's red corals. The broken spindle and the old Bible torn in shreds told their tale. It was a long and cruel tale to which the young man listened, his head pressed against the wall--a tale so long that hours passed over his head, and he still listened with beating heart and trembling limbs.
When he stood again on the threshold, the sun was shining brightly. How terribly changed he looked. The forehead, marked with a red scar, was seamed and corrugated as if long years of suffering bad ploughed the once smooth surface. The half-shut eyes had a dull despairing lustre, and his arms hung down limp and powerless. He stood thus a few minutes, as if listening intently for the sound of the voice he should never hear more, when a weak hand tugged at his clothes, and a small voice said: "Morejne."
Lejbele stood before him, his mournful eyes raised to his, and stretched out a roll of paper. It seemed as if the sight of the papers reminded Meir of something, roused him from sleep, and told him to do something that was sacred and important. He passed both hands over his forehead, and then took the Senior's legacy from the child's hands, and at the touch of it he raised his head, and his eyes seemed to regain their old power and courage. He looked at the town waking up from sleep, and murmured something in a low voice--something about Israel, its greatness in the past, and its great sins, and that he would never desert it, and not give back curses for curses; that he would carry the covenant of peace to other nations, drink at the source of wisdom, and come back sometime-sometime, he repeated, thinking of the far future; and with a last look embracing the poor little hut, as if in farewell to his short and pure dream of love, he slowly ascended the hill.
The child, standing motionless near the door, looked after the retreating figure of the young man. His wide open eyes became suffused with tears. When Meir was about half-way up the hill, one convulsive sob burst from the child, and he began to run. At first he moved very fast, but finding they were about a dozen steps apart, he slackened his speed, and tucking his hands under his sleeves, walked slowly and gravely after him.
Thus walking, one after the other, the excommunicated youth and the child of the poor man, they disappeared beyond the hill, where they beheld a broad, sandy road leading into the wide, unknown world.
Has the humiliated, excommunicated, and despised youth reached the aim after which he strove so ardently? Has he found in the world people ready to open their hearts and doors, and help him on the road to learning?
Has he, or will he come back, and bring with him forgiveness, and that light, by the power of which the soil on which now grows nought but thorns--will it produce cedars of Lebanon? I do not know.
The story is too recent to have its end yet--for stories like this have no end. But as it is similar to many of the same kind of stories, reader! of whatever race, or country, or religion, if you meet this obscure apostle on your way, give him cordially and quickly your brotherly hand in friendship and help.
THE END.
|
{
"id": "28400"
}
|
1
|
BESSIE MEETS WITH AN ADVENTURE.
|
It was extremely tiresome!
It was vexatious; it was altogether annoying!
Most people under similar circumstances would have used stronger expressions, would have bemoaned themselves loudly, or at least inwardly, with all the pathos of self-pity.
To be nearly at the end of one's journey, almost within sight and sound of home fires and home welcomes, and then to be snowed up, walled, imprisoned, kept in durance vile in an unexpected snowdrift--well, most human beings, unless gifted with angelic patience, and armed with special and peculiar fortitude, would have uttered a few groans under such depressing circumstances.
Fortunately, Bessie Lambert was not easily depressed. She was a cheerful young person, an optimist by nature; and, thanks to a healthy organization, good digestion, and wholesome views of duty, was not given to mental nightmares, nor to cry out before she was hurt.
Bessie would have thought it faint-hearted to shrink at every little molehill of difficulty; she had plenty of what the boys call pluck (no word is more eloquent than that), and a fund of quiet humor that tided her safely over many a slough of despond. If any one could have read Bessie's thoughts a few minutes after the laboring engine had ceased to work, they would have been as follows, with little staccato movements and pauses: "What an adventure! How Tom would laugh, and Katie too! Katie is always longing for something to happen to her; but it would be more enjoyable if I had some one with me to share it, and if I were sure father and mother would not be anxious. An empty second-class compartment is not a particularly comfortable place on a cold afternoon. I wonder how it would be if all the passengers were to get out and warm themselves with a good game of snowballing. There is not much room, though; we should have to play it in a single file, or by turns. Supposing that, instead of that, the nice, white-haired old gentleman who got in at the last station were to assemble us all in the third-class carriage and tell us a story about Siberia; that would be nice and exciting. Tom would suggest a ghost story, a good creepy one; but that would be too dismal. The hot-water tin is getting cold, but I have got a rug, I am thankful to say, so I shall not freeze for the next two hours. If I had only a book, or could go to sleep--oh!" in a tone of relief, as the guard's face was suddenly thrust in at the open window.
"I beg your pardon, miss; I hope I did not startle you; but there is a young lady in the first-class compartment who, I take it, would be the better for a bit of company; and as I saw you were alone, I thought you might not object to change your carriage."
"No, indeed; I shall be delighted to have a companion," returned Bessie briskly. "How long do you think we shall be detained here, guard?"
"There is no knowing, miss; but one of our men is working his way back to the signals. We have not come more than three miles since we left Cleveley. It is only a bit of a drift that the snow-plow will soon clear, and it will be a matter of two or three hours, I dare say; but it has left off snowing now."
"Will they telegraph to Cliffe the reason of the delay?" asked Bessie, a little anxiously.
"Oh, yes, they will do that right enough; you needn't be uneasy. The other young lady is in a bit of a fuss, too, but I told her there was no danger. Give a good jump, miss; there, now you are all right. I will take care of your things. Follow me, please; it is only a step or so."
"This is more of an adventure than ever," thought Bessie, as she followed the big, burly guard. "What a kind man he is! Perhaps he has daughters of his own." And she thanked him so warmly and so prettily as he almost lifted her into the carriage, that he muttered, as he turned away: "That's a nice, pleasant little woman. I like that sort."
The first-class compartment felt warm and snug. Its only tenant was a fair, pretty-looking girl, dressed very handsomely in a mantle trimmed with costly fur, and a fur-lined rug over her knees.
"Oh, thank you! How good of you to come!" she exclaimed eagerly; and Bessie saw at once that she had been crying. "I was feeling so frightened and miserable all by myself. I got it into my head that another train would run into us, and I was quite in a panic until the guard assured me there was no danger. He told me that there was another young lady alone, and that he would bring her to me."
"Yes, that was so nice of him; and of course it is pleasanter to be able to speak to somebody," returned Bessie cheerfully; "and it is so much warmer here."
"Take some of my rug; I do not need it all myself; and we may as well be as comfortable as we can, under the miserable circumstances."
"Well, do you know I think it might be worse?"
"Worse! how can you talk so?" with a shudder.
"Why, it can hardly be a great hardship to sit for another two hours in this nice warm carriage, with this beautiful rug to cover us. It certainly was a little dull and cold in the other compartment, and I longed to get out and have a game of snowballing to warm myself." But here her companion gave a little laugh.
"What a funny idea! How could you think of such a thing?" And here she looked, for the first time, rather scrutinizingly at Bessie. Oh, yes, she was a lady--she spoke nicely and had good manners; but how very shabbily she was dressed--at least, not shabbily; that was not the right word--inexpensively would have been the correct term.
Bessie's brown tweed had evidently seen more seasons than one; her jacket fitted the trim figure, but was not made in the last fashion; and the brown velvet on her hat was decidedly worn. How was the young lady to know that Bessie was wearing her oldest things from a sense of economy, and that her new jacket and best hat--a very pretty one--were in the neat black box in the luggage-van?
Certainly the two girls were complete opposites. Bessie, who, as her brother Tom often told her, was no beauty, was, notwithstanding, a bright, pleasant-looking girl, with soft gray eyes that could express a great deal of quiet sympathy on occasions, or could light up with fun. People who loved her always said Bessie's face was better than a beautiful one, for it told nothing but the truth about itself. It did not say, "Come, admire me," as some faces say, but, "Come, trust me if you can."
The fashionably dressed young stranger had a very different type of face. In the first place, it was undeniably pretty; no one ever thought of contradicting that fact, though a few people might have thought it a peculiar style of beauty, for she had dark-brown eyes and fair hair--rather an uncommon combination.
She was small, too, and very pale, and yet not fragile-looking; on the contrary, she had a clear look of health, but there was a petulant curve about the mouth that spoke of quick temper, and the whole face seemed capable of great mobility, quick changes of feeling that were perfectly transparent.
Bessie was quite aware that her new acquaintance was taking stock of her; she was quietly amused, but she took no apparent notice.
"Is Cliffe-on-Sea your destination?" she asked presently.
"No; is it yours?" with a quick note of alarm in her voice. "Oh, I am so sorry!" as Bessie nodded. "I hoped we should have travelled together to London. I do dislike travelling alone, but my friend was too ill to accompany me, and I did not want to stay at Islip another day; it was such a stupid place, so dull; so I said I must come, and this is the result."
"And you are going to London? Why, your journey is but just beginning. Cliffe-on-Sea is where I live, and we cannot be more than two miles off. Oh, what will you do if we are detained here for two or three hours?"
"I am sure I don't know," returned the other girl disconsolately, and her eyes filled with tears again. "It is nearly five now, and it will be too late to go on to London; but I dare not stay at a hotel by myself. What will mamma say? She will be dreadfully vexed with me for not waiting for Mrs. Moultrie--she never will let me travel alone, and I have disobeyed her."
"That is a great pity," returned Bessie gravely; but politeness forbade her to say more. She was old-fashioned enough to think that disobedience to parents was a heinous offence. She did not understand the present code, that allows young people to set up independent standards of duty. To her the fifth commandment was a very real commandment, and just as binding in the nineteenth century as when the young dwellers in tents first listened to it under the shadow of the awful Mount.
Bessie's gravely disapproving look brought a mocking little smile to the other girl's face; her quick comprehension evidently detected the rebuke, but she only answered flippantly: "Mamma is too much used to my disobedience to give it a thought; she knows I will have my way in things, and she never minds; she is sensible enough to know grown-up girls generally have wills of their own."
"I think I must have been brought up differently," returned Bessie simply. "I recollect in our nursery days mother used to tell us that little bodies ought not to have grown-up wills; and when we got older, and wanted to get the reins in our own hands, as young people will, she would say, 'Gently, gently, girls; you may be grown up, but you will never be as old as your parents--'" But here Bessie stopped, on seeing that her companion was struggling with suppressed merriment.
"It does sound so funny, don't you know! Oh, I don't mean to be rude, but are not your people just a little bit old-fashioned and behind the times? I don't want to shock you; I am far too grateful for your company. Mamma and I thoroughly understand each other. I am very fond of her, and I am as sorry as possible to vex her by getting into this mess;" and here the girl heaved a very genuine sigh.
"And you live in London?" Bessie was politely changing the subject.
"Oh, no; but we have some friends there, and I was going to break my journey and do a little shopping. Our home is in Kent; we live at Oatlands--such a lovely, quiet little place--far too quiet for me; but since I came out mamma always spends the season in town. The Grange--that is our house--is really Richard's--my brother's, I mean."
"The Grange--Oatlands? I am sure I know that name," returned Bessie, in a puzzled tone; "and yet where could I have heard it?" She thought a moment, and then added quickly, "Your name cannot be Sefton?"
"To be sure it is," replied the other girl, opening her brown eyes rather wildly; "Edna Sefton; but how could you have guessed it?"
"Then your mother's name is Eleanor?"
"I begin to think this is mysterious, and that you must be a witch, or something uncanny. I know all mamma's friends, and I am positive not one of them ever lived at Cliffe-on-Sea."
"And you are quite sure of that? Has your mother never mentioned the name of a Dr. Lambert?"
"Dr. Lambert! No. Wait a moment, though. Mamma is very fond of talking about old days, when she was a girl, don't you know, and there was a young doctor, very poor, I remember, but his name was Herbert."
"My father's name is Herbert, and he was very poor once, when he was a young man; he is not rich now. I think, many years ago, he and your mother were friends. Let me tell you all I know about it. About a year ago he asked me to post a letter for him. I remember reading aloud the address in an absent sort of way: 'Mrs. Sefton, The Grange, Oatlands, Kent;' and my father looked up from his writing, and said, 'That is only a business letter, Bessie, but Mrs. Sefton and I are old correspondents. When she was Eleanor Sartoris, and I was a young fellow as poor as a church mouse, we were good friends; but she married, and then I married; but that is a lifetime ago; she was a handsome girl, though.'"
"Mamma is handsome now. How interesting it all is! When I get home I shall coax mamma to tell me all about it. You see, we are not strangers after all, so we can go on talking quite like old friends. You have made me forget the time. Oh dear, how dark it is getting! and the gas gives only a glimmer of light."
"It will not be quite dark, because of the snow. Do not let us think about the time. Some of the passengers are walking about. I heard them say just now the man must have reached Cleveley, so the telegram must have gone--we shall soon have help. Of course, if the snow had not ceased falling, it would have been far more serious."
"Yes," returned Miss Sefton, with a shiver; "but it is far nicer to read of horrid things in a cheerful room and by a bright fire than to experience them one's self. Somehow one never realizes them."
"That is what father says--that young people are not really hard-hearted, only they do not realize things; their imagination just skims over the surface. I think it is my want of imagination helps me. I never will look round the corner to try and find out what disagreeable thing is coming next. One could not live so and feel cheerful."
"Then you are one of those good people, Miss Lambert, who think it their duty to cultivate cheerfulness. I was quite surprised to see you look so tranquil, when I had been indulging in a babyish fit of crying, from sheer fright and misery; but it made me feel better only to look at you."
"I am so glad," was Bessie's answer. "I remember being very much struck by a passage in an essay I once read, but I can only quote it from memory; it was to the effect that when a cheerful person enters a room it is as though fresh candles are lighted. The illustration pleases me."
"True, it was very telling. Yes, you are cheerful, and you are very fond of talking."
"I am afraid I am a sad chatterbox," returned Bessie, blushing, as though she were conscious of an implied reproof.
"Oh, but I like talking people. People who hold their tongues and listen are such bores. I do detest bores. I talk a great deal myself."
"I think I have got into the way for Hatty's sake. Hatty is the sickly one of our flock; she has never been strong. When she was a tiny, weeny thing she was always crying and fretful. Father tells us that she cannot help it, but he never says so to her; he laughs and calls her 'Little Miss Much-Afraid.' Hatty is full of fear. She cannot see a mouse, as I tell her, without looking round the corner for pussy's claws."
"Is Hatty your only sister, Miss Lambert?"
"Oh, no; there are three more. I am the eldest--'Mother's crutch,' as they call me. We are such a family for giving each other funny names. Tom comes next. I am three-and-twenty--quite an old person, as Tom says--and he is one-and-twenty. He is at Oxford; he wants to be a barrister. Christine comes next to Tom--she is nineteen, and so pretty; and then poor Hatty--'sour seventeen,' as Tom called her on her last birthday; and then the two children, Ella and Katie; though Ella is nearly sixteen, and Katie fourteen, but they are only school-girls."
"What a large family!" observed Miss Sefton, stifling a little yawn. "Now, mamma has only got me, for we don't count Richard."
"Not count your brother?"
"Oh, Richard is my step-brother; he was papa's son, you know; that makes a difference. Papa died when I was quite a little girl, so you see what I mean by saying mamma has only got me."
"But she has your brother, too," observed Bessie, somewhat puzzled by this.
"Oh, yes, of course." But Miss Sefton's tone was enigmatical, and she somewhat hastily changed the subject by saying, plaintively, "Oh, dear, do please tell me, Miss Lambert, what you think I ought to do when we reach Cliffe, if we ever do reach it. Shall I telegraph to my friends in London, and go to a hotel? Perhaps you could recommend me one, or----" "No; you shall come home with me," returned Bessie, moved to this sudden inspiration by the weary look in Miss Sefton's face. "We are not strangers; my father and your mother were friends; that is sufficient introduction. Mother is the kindest woman in the world--every one says so. We are not rich people, but we can make you comfortable. To be sure, there is not a spare room; our house is not large, and there are so many of us; but you shall have my room, and I will have half of Chrissy's bed. You are too young"--and here Bessie was going to add "too pretty," only she checked herself--"to go alone to a hotel. Mother would be dreadfully shocked at the idea."
"You are very kind--too kind; but your people might object," hesitated Miss Sefton.
"Mother never objects to anything we do; at least, I might turn it the other way about, and say we never propose anything to which she is likely to object. When my mother knows all about it, she will give you a hearty welcome."
"If you are quite sure of that, I will accept your invitation thankfully, for I am tired to death. You are goodness itself to me, but I shall not like turning you out of your room."
"Nonsense. Chriss and I will think it a bit of fun--oh, you don't know us yet. So little happens in our lives that your coming will be quite an event; so that is settled." And Bessie extended a plump little hand in token of her good will, which Miss Sefton cordially grasped.
|
{
"id": "28651"
}
|
2
|
"HERE IS OUR BESSIE."
|
An interruption occurred at this moment. The friendly guard made his appearance again, accompanied by the same white-haired old clergyman whom Bessie had noticed. He came to offer his services to the young ladies. He cheered Miss Sefton's drooping spirits by reiterating the guard's assurance that they need only fear the inconvenience of another hour's delay.
The sight of the kind, benevolent countenance was reassuring and comforting, and after their new friend had left them the girls resumed their talk with fresh alacrity.
Miss Sefton was the chief speaker. She began recounting the glories of a grand military ball at Knightsbridge, at which she had been present, and some private theatricals and tableaux that had followed. She had a vivid, picturesque way of describing things, and Bessie listened with a sort of dreamy fascination that lulled her into forgetfulness of her parents' anxiety.
In spite of her alleged want of imagination, she was conscious of a sort of weird interest in her surroundings. The wintry afternoon had closed into evening, but the whiteness of the snow threw a dim brightness underneath the faint starlight, while the gleam of the carriage lights enabled them to see the dark figures that passed and repassed underneath their window.
It was intensely cold, and in spite of her furs Miss Sefton shivered and grew perceptibly paler. She was evidently one of those spoiled children of fortune who had never learned lessons of endurance, who are easily subdued and depressed by a passing feeling of discomfort; even Bessie's sturdy cheerfulness was a little infected by the unnatural stillness outside. The line ran between high banks, but in the mysterious twilight they looked like rocky defiles closing them in.
After a time Bessie's attention wandered, and her interest flagged. Military balls ceased to interest her as the temperature grew lower and lower. Miss Sefton, too, became silent, and Bessie's mind filled with gloomy images. She thought of ships bedded in ice in Arctic regions; of shipwrecked sailors on frozen seas; of lonely travellers laying down their weary heads on pillows of snow, never to rise again; of homeless wanderers, outcasts from society, many with famished babes at their breasts, cowering under dark arches, or warming themselves at smoldering fires.
"Thank God that, as father says, we cannot realize what people have to suffer," thought Bessie. "What would be the use of being young and happy and free from pain, if we were to feel other people's miseries? Some of us, who are sympathetic by nature, would never smile again. I don't think when God made us, and sent us into the world to live our own lives, that He meant us to feel like that. One can't mix up other people's lives with one's own; it would make an awful muddle."
"Miss Lambert, are you asleep, or dreaming with your eyes open? Don't you see we are moving? There was such a bustle just now, and then they got the steam up, and now the engine is beginning to work. Oh! how slowly we are going! I could walk faster. Oh! we are stopping again--no, it is only my fancy. Is not the shriek of the whistle musical for once?"
"I was not asleep; I was only thinking; but my thoughts had travelled far. Are we really moving? There, the snow-plow has cleared the line; we shall go on faster presently."
"I hope so; it is nearly eight. I ought to have reached London an hour ago. Poor Neville, how disappointed he will be. Oh, we are through the drift now and they are putting on more steam."
"Yes, we shall be at Cliffe in another ten minutes;" and Bessie roused in earnest. Those ten minutes seemed interminable before the lights of the station flashed before their eyes.
"Here she is--here is our Bessie!" exclaimed a voice, and a fine-looking young fellow in an ulster ran lightly down the platform as Bessie waved her handkerchief. He was followed more leisurely by a handsome, gray-haired man with a quiet, refined-looking face.
"Tom--oh, Tom!" exclaimed Bessie, almost jumping into his arms, as he opened the carriage door. "Were mother and Hattie very frightened? Why, there is father!" as Dr. Lambert hurried up.
"My dear child, how thankful I am to see you! Why, she looks quite fresh, Tom."
"As fit as possible," echoed Tom.
"Yes, I am only cold. Father, the guard put me in with a young lady. She was going to London, but it is too late for her to travel alone, and she is afraid of going to a hotel. May I bring her home? Her name is Edna Sefton. She lives at The Grange, Oatlands."
Dr. Lambert seemed somewhat taken aback by his daughter's speech.
"Edna Sefton! Why, that is Eleanor Sefton's daughter! What a strange coincidence!" And then he muttered to himself, "Eleanor Sartoris' daughter under our roof! I wonder what Dora will say?" And then he turned to the fair, striking-looking girl whom Tom was assisting with all the alacrity that a young man generally shows to a pretty girl: "Miss Sefton, you will be heartily welcome for your mother's sake; she and I were great friends in the 'auld lang syne.' Will you come with me? I have a fly waiting for Bessie; my son will look after the luggage;" and Edna obeyed him with the docility of a child.
But she glanced at him curiously once or twice as she walked beside him. "What a gentlemanly, handsome man he was!" she thought. Yes, he looked like a doctor; he had the easy, kindly manner which generally belongs to the profession. She had never thought much about her own father, but to-night, as they drove through the lighted streets, her thoughts, oddly enough, recurred to him. Dr. Lambert was sitting opposite the two girls, but his eyes were fixed oftenest on his daughter.
"Your mother was very anxious and nervous," he said, "and so was Hatty, when Tom brought us word that the train was snowed up in Sheen Valley I had to scold Hatty, and tell her she was a goose; but mother was nearly as bad; she can't do without her crutch, eh, Bessie?" with a gleam of tenderness in his eyes, as they rested on his girl.
Edna felt a little lump in her throat, though she hardly knew why; perhaps she was tired and over-strained; she had never missed her father before, but she fought against the feeling of depression.
"I am so sorry your son has to walk," she said politely; but Dr. Lambert only smiled.
"A walk will not hurt him, and our roads are very steep."
As he spoke, the driver got down, and Bessie begged leave to follow his example.
"We live on the top of the hill," she said apologetically; "and I cannot bear being dragged up by a tired horse, as father knows by this time;" and she joined her brother, who came up at that moment.
Tom had kept the fly well in sight.
"That's an awfully jolly-looking girl, Betty," he observed, with the free and easy criticism of his age. "I don't know when I have seen a prettier girl; uncommon style, too--fair hair and dark eyes; she is a regular beauty."
"That is what boys always think about," returned Bessie, with good-humored contempt. "Girls are different. I should be just as much interested in Miss Sefton if she were plain. I suppose you mean to be charmed with her conversation, and to find all her remarks witty because she has _les beaux yeux_."
"I scorn to take notice of such spiteful remarks," returned Tom, with a shrug. "Girls are venomous to each other. I believe they hate to hear one another praised, even by a brother."
"Hold your tongue, Tom," was the rejoinder. "It takes my breath away to argue with you up this hill. I am not too ill-natured to give up my own bed to Miss Sefton. Let us hurry on, there's a good boy, or they will arrive before us."
As this request coincided with Tom's private wishes, he condescended to walk faster; and the brother and sister were soon at the top of the hill, and had turned into a pretty private road bordered with trees, with detached houses standing far back, with long, sloping strips of gardens. The moon had now risen, and Bessie could distinctly see a little group of girls, with shawls over their heads, standing on the top of a flight of stone steps leading down to a large shady garden belonging to an old-fashioned house. The front entrance was round the corner, but the drawing-room window was open, and the girls had gained the road by the garden way, and stood shivering and expectant; while the moon illumined the grass terraces that ran steeply from the house, and shone on the meadow that skirted the garden.
"Run in, girls; you will catch cold," called out Bessie; but her prudent suggestion was of no avail, for a tall, lanky girl rushed into the road with the rapturous exclamation, "Why, it is our Bessie after all, though she looked so tall in the moonlight, and I did not know Tom's new ulster." And here Bessie was fallen upon and kissed, and handed from one to another of the group, and then borne rapidly down the steps and across the terrace to the open window.
"Here she is, mother; here is our Bessie, not a bit the worse. And Hatty ought to be ashamed of herself for making us all miserable!" exclaimed Katie.
"My Hatty sha'n't be scolded. Mother, dear, if you only knew how sweet home looks after the Sheen Valley! Don't smother me any more, girls. I want to tell you something that will surprise you;" and Bessie, still holding her mother's hand, but looking at Hatty, gave a rapid and somewhat indistinct account of her meeting with Edna Sefton.
"And she will have my room, mother," continued Bessie, a little incoherently, for she was tired and breathless, and the girl's exclamations were so bewildering.
Mrs. Lambert, a pale, care-worn woman, with a sweet pathetic sort of face, was listening with much perplexity, which was not lessened by the sight of her husband ushering into the room a handsome-looking girl, dressed in the most expensive fashion.
"Dora, my dear, this is Bessie's fellow-sufferer in the snowdrift; we must make much of her, for she is the daughter of my old friend, Eleanor Sartoris--Mrs. Sefton now. Bessie has offered her her own room to-night, as it is too late for her to travel to London."
A quick look passed between the husband and wife, and a faint color came to Mrs. Lambert's face, but she was too well-bred to express her astonishment.
"You are very welcome, my dear," she said quietly. "We will make you as comfortable as we can. These are all my girls," and she mentioned their names.
"What a lot of girls," thought Edna. She was not a bit shy by nature, and somehow the situation amused her. "What a comfortable, homelike room, and what a lovely fire! And--well, of course, they were not rich; any one could see that; but they were nice, kind people."
"This is better than the snowdrift," she said, with a beaming smile, as Dr. Lambert placed her in his own easy chair, and Tom brought her a footstool and handed her a screen, and her old acquaintance Bessie helped her to remove her wraps. The whole family gathered round her, intent on hospitality to the bewitching stranger--only the "Crutch," as Tom called her, tripped away to order Jane to light a fire in her room, and to give out the clean linen for the unexpected guest, and to put a few finishing touches to the supper-table.
The others did not miss her at first. Christine, a tall, graceful girl who had inherited her father's good looks, was questioning Edna about the journey, and the rest were listening to the answers.
Hatty, a pale, sickly-looking girl, whose really fine features were marred by unhealthy sullenness and an anxious, fretful expression, was hanging on every word; while the tall schoolgirl Ella, and the smaller, bright-eyed Katie, were standing behind their mother, trying to hide their awkwardness and bashfulness, till Tom came to the rescue by finding them seats, with a whispered hint to Katie that it was not good manners to stare so at a stranger. Edna saw everything with quiet, amused eyes; she satisfied Christine's curiosity, and found replies to all Mrs. Lambert's gentle, persistent questioning. Tom, too, claimed her attention by all sorts of dexterous wiles. She must look at him, and thank him, when he found that screen for her; she could not disregard him when he was so solicitous about the draft from the window, so anxious to bring her another cushion.
"I did not know you were such a ladies' man, Tom," observed Dr. Lambert presently, in a tone that made Tom retreat with rather a foolish expression.
With all his love for his children, Dr. Lambert was sometimes capable of a smooth sarcasm. Tom felt as though he had been officious; had, in fact, made a fool of himself, and drew off into the background. His father was often hard on him, Tom said to himself, in an aggrieved way, and yet he was only doing his duty, as a son of the house, in waiting on this fascinating young lady.
"Poor boy, he is very young!" thought Edna, who noticed this by-play with some amusement; "but he will grow older some day, and he is very good-looking;" and then she listened with a pretty show of interest to a story Dr. Lambert was telling her of when he was snowed up in Scotland as a boy.
When Bessie returned she found them all in good spirits, and her fellow-traveller laughing and talking as though she had known them for years; even Tom's brief sulkiness had vanished, and, unmindful of his father's caustic tongue, he had again ventured to join the charmed circle.
It was quite late before the girls retired to rest, and as Edna followed Bessie up the broad, low staircase, while Tom lighted them from below, she called out gayly. "Good-night, Mr. Lambert; it was worth while being snowed up in the Sheen Valley to make such nice friends, and to enjoy such a pleasant evening."
Edna really meant what she said, for the moment; she was capable of these brief enthusiasms. Pleasantness of speech, that specious coinage of conventionality, was as the breath of life to her. Her girlish vanity was gratified by the impression she had made on the Lambert family, and even Tom's crude, boyish admiration was worth something.
"To be all things to all men" is sometimes taken by vain, worldly people in a very different sense from that the apostle intended. Girls of Edna Sefton's caliber--impressionable, vivacious, egotistical, and capable of a thousand varying moods--will often take their cue from other people, and become grave with the grave, and gay with the gay, until they weary of their role, and of a sudden become their true selves. And yet there is nothing absolutely wrong in these swift, natural transitions; many sympathetic natures act in the same way, by very reason and force of their sympathy. For the time being they go out of themselves, and, as it were, put themselves in other people's places. Excessive sympathy is capable of minor martyrdom; their reflected suffering borders upon real pain.
When Bessie ushered Edna into her little room, she looked round proudly at the result of her own painstaking thoughtfulness. A bright fire burned in the small grate, and her mother's easy chair stood beside it--heavy as it was, Bessie had carried it in with her own hands. The best eider-down quilt, in its gay covering, was on the bed, and the new toilet-cover that Christine had worked in blue and white cross-stitch was on the table. Bessie had even borrowed the vase of Neapolitan violets that some patient had sent her father, and the sweet perfume permeated the little room.
Bessie would willingly have heard some encomium on the snug quarters provided for the weary guest, but Edna only looked round her indifferently, and then stifled a yawn.
"Is there anything you want? Can I help you? Oh, I hope you will sleep comfortably!" observed Bessie, a little mortified by Edna's silence.
"Oh, yes: I am so tired that I am sure I shall sleep well," returned Edna; and then she added quickly, "but I am so sorry to turn you out of your room."
"Oh, that does not matter at all, thank you," replied Bessie, stirring the fire into a cheerful blaze, and then bidding her guest good-night; but Edna, who had taken possession of the easy chair, exclaimed: "Oh, don't go yet--it is only eleven, and I am never in bed until twelve. Sit down a moment, and warm yourself."
"Mother never likes us to be late," hesitated Bessie; but she lingered, nevertheless. This was not an ordinary evening, and there were exceptions to every rule, so she knelt down on the rug a moment, and watched Edna taking down the long plaits of fair hair that had crowned her shapely head. "What lovely hair!" thought Bessie; "what a beautiful young creature she is altogether!"
Edna was unconscious of the admiration she was exciting. She was looking round her, and trying to realize what her feelings would be if she had to inhabit such a room. "Why, our servants have better rooms," she thought.
To a girl of Edna's luxurious habits Bessie's room looked very poor and mean. The little strips of faded carpet, the small, curtainless bedstead, the plain maple washstand and drawers, the few simple prints and varnished bookcase were shabby enough in Edna's eyes. She could not understand how any girl could be content with such a room; and yet Bessie's happiest hours were spent there. What was a little shabbiness, or the wear and tear of homely furniture, to one who saw angels' footprints even in the common ways of life, and who dreamed sweet, innocent dreams of the splendors of a heavenly home? To these sort of natures even threadbare garments can be worn proudly, for to these free spirits even poverty loses its sting. It is not "how we live," but "how we think about life," that stamps our characters, and makes us the men and women that we are.
|
{
"id": "28651"
}
|
3
|
HATTY.
|
The brief silence was broken by Edna.
"What a nice boy your brother is!" she observed, in rather a patronizing tone.
Bessie looked up in some surprise.
"Tom does not consider himself a boy, I assure you; he is one-and-twenty, and ever since he has gone to Oxford he thinks himself of great consequence. I dare say we spoil him among us, as he is our only brother now. If Frank had lived," and here Bessie sighed, "he would have been five-and-twenty by this time; but he died four years ago. It was such a blow to poor father and mother; he was so good and clever, and he was studying for a doctor; but he caught a severe chill, and congestion of the lungs came on, and in a few days he was dead. I don't think mother has ever been quite the same since his death--Frank was so much to her."
"How very sad!" returned Edna sympathetically, for Bessie's eyes had grown soft and misty as she touched this chord of sadness; "it must be terrible to lose any one whom one loves." And then she added, with a smile, "I did not mean to hurt your feelings by calling your brother a boy, but he seemed very young to me. You see, I am engaged, and Mr. Sinclair (that is my fiancé) is nearly thirty, and he is so grave and quiet that any one like your brother seems like a boy beside him."
"You are engaged?" ejaculated Bessie, in an awestruck tone.
"Yes; it seems a pity, does it not? at least mamma says so; she thinks I am too young and giddy to know my own mind; and yet she is very fond of Neville--Mr. Sinclair, I mean. She will have it that we are not a bit suited to each other, and I dare say she is right, for certainly we do not think alike on a single point."
Bessie's eyes opened rather widely at this candid statement. She was a simple little soul, and had not yet learned the creed of emancipation. She held the old-fashioned views that her mother had held before her. Her mother seldom talked on these subjects, and Bessie had inherited this reticence. She listened with a sort of wondering disgust when her girl acquaintances chattered flippantly about their lovers, and boasted openly of their power over them.
"If this sort of thing ever comes to me," thought Bessie on these occasions, "I shall think it too wonderful and precious to make it the subject of idle conversation. How can any one take upon themselves the responsibility of another human being's happiness--for that is what it really means--and turn it into a jest? It is far too sacred and beautiful a thing for such treatment. I think mother is right when she says, 'Girls of the present day have so little reticence.'"
She hardly knew what to make of Edna's speech; it was not exactly flippant, but it seemed so strange to hear so young a creature speak in that cool, matter-of-fact way.
"I don't see how people are to get on together, if they do not think alike," she observed, in a perplexed voice; but Edna only laughed.
"I am afraid we don't get on. Mother says she never saw such a couple; that we are always quarrelling and making up like two children; but I put it to you, Miss Lambert, how are things to be better? I am used to my own way, and Mr. Sinclair is used to his. I like fun and plenty of change, and dread nothing so much as being bored--_ennuyée_, in fact, and he is all for quiet. Then he is terribly clever, and has every sort of knowledge at his fingers' end. He is a barrister, and rising in his profession, and I seldom open a book unless it be a novel."
"I wonder why he chose you," observed Bessie naïvely, and Edna seemed much amused by her frankness.
"Oh, how deliciously downright you are, Miss Lambert. Well, do you know I have not the faintest notion why Neville asked me to marry him, any more than I know why I listened to him. I tell him sometimes that it was the most ridiculous mistake in the world, and that either he or I, or both of us, must have been bewitched. I am really very sorry for him sometimes; I do make him so unhappy; and sometimes I am sorry for myself. But there, the whole thing is beyond my comprehension. If I could alter myself or alter Neville, things would be more comfortable and less unpleasantly exciting." And here Edna laughed again, and then stifled another yawn; and this time Bessie declared she would not stop a moment longer. Christine would be asleep.
"Well, perhaps I should only talk nonsense if you remained, and I can see you are easily shocked, so I will allow you to wish me good-night." But, to Bessie's surprise, Edna kissed her affectionately.
"You have been a Good Samaritan to me," she said quietly, "and I am really very grateful." And Bessie withdrew, touched by the unexpected caress.
"What a strange mixture she is!" she thought, as she softly closed the door. "I think she must have been badly brought up; perhaps her mother has spoiled her. I fancy she is affectionate by nature, but she is worldly, and cares too much for pleasure; anyhow, one cannot help being interested in her." But here she broke off abruptly as she passed a half-opened door, and a voice from within summoned her.
"Oh, Hatty, you naughty child, are you awake? Do you know it is nearly twelve o'clock?"
"What does that matter?" returned Hatty fretfully, as Bessie groped her way carefully toward the bed. "I could not sleep until you had said good-night to me. I suppose you had forgotten me; you never thought I was lying here waiting for you, while you were talking to Miss Sefton."
"Now, Hatty, I hope you are not going to be tiresome;" and Bessie's voice was a little weary; and then she relented, and said gently, "You know I never forget you, Hatty dear."
"No, of course not," returned the other eagerly. "I did not mean to be cross. Put your head down beside me on the pillow, Bessie darling, for I know you are just as tired as possible. You don't mind stopping with me for a few minutes, do you? for I have not spoken to you for three weeks."
"No, I am not so tired as all that, and I am quite comfortable," as a thin, soft cheek laid itself against her's in the darkness. "What has gone wrong, Hatty dear? for I know by your tone you have been making yourself miserable about something. You have wanted me back to scold you into cheerfulness."
"I have wanted you dreadfully," sighed Hatty. "Mother and Christine have been very kind, but they don't help me as you do, and Tom teases me dreadfully. What do you think he said yesterday to mother? I was in the room and heard him myself. He actually said, 'I wonder my father allows you all to spoil Hatty as you do. You all give in to her, however cross and unreasonable she is, and so her temper gets worse every day.'"
"Well, you are very often cross, you know," returned Bessie truthfully.
"Yes, but I try not to be," replied Hatty, with a little sob. "Tom would have been cross too if his head and back had ached as mine were aching, but he always feels well and strong. I think it is cruel of him to say such things to mother, when he knows how much I have to suffer."
"Tom did not mean to be unkind, Hatty; you are always finding fault with the poor boy. It is difficult for a young man, who does not know what an ache means, nor what it is to wake up tired, to realize what real suffering all your little ailments cause you. Tom is really very kind and good-natured, only your sharp little speeches irritate him."
"I am always irritating some one," moaned Hatty. "I can't think how any of you can love me. I often cry myself to sleep, to think how horrid and disagreeable I have been in the day. I make good resolutions then, but the next morning I am as bad as ever, and then I think it is no use trying any more. Last night Tom made me so unhappy that I could not say my prayers."
"Poor little Hatty!"
"Yes, I know you are sorry for me; you are such a dear that I cannot be as cross with you as I am with Tom; but, Bessie, I wish you would comfort me a little; if you would only tell me that I am not so much to blame."
"We have talked that over a great many times before. You know what I think, Hatty; you are not to blame for your weakness; that is a trial laid upon you; but you are to blame if that weakness is so impatiently borne that it leads you to sin."
"I am sure father thinks that I cannot help my irritability; he will never let Tom scold me if he is in the room."
"That is because father is so kind, and he knows you have such a hard time of it, you poor child, and that makes us all so sorry for you; but, Hatty, you must not let all this love spoil you; we are patient with you because we know your weakness, but we cannot help you if you do not help yourself. Don't you recollect what dear Mr. Robertson said in his sermon? that 'harassed nerves must be striven against, as we strive against anything that hinders our daily growth in grace.' He said people were more tolerant of this form of weakness than of any other, and yet it caused much misery in homes, and he went on to tell us that every irritable word left unspoken, every peevish complaint hushed, was as real a victory as though we had done some great thing. 'If we must suffer,' he said, 'at least let us suffer quietly, and not spend our breath in fruitless complaint. People will avoid a fretful person as though they were plague-tainted; and why? because they trouble the very atmosphere round them, and no one can enjoy peace in their neighborhood.'"
"I am sure Mr. Robertson must have meant me, Bessie."
"No, darling, no; I won't have you exaggerate or judge yourself too harshly. You are not always cross, or we should not be so fond of you. You make us sad sometimes, when you sit apart, brooding over some imaginary grievance; that is why father calls you Little Miss Much-Afraid."
"Yes, you all laugh at me, but indeed the darkness is very real. Sometimes I wonder why I have been sent into the world, if I am not to be happy myself, nor to make other people happy. You are like a sunbeam yourself, Bessie, and so you hardly understand what I mean."
"Oh, yes, I do; but I never see any good in putting questions that we cannot answer; only I am quite sure you have your duty to do, quite as much as I have mine, only you have not found it out."
"Perhaps I am the thorn in the flesh to discipline you all into patience," returned Hatty quaintly, for she was not without humor.
"Very well, then, my thorn; fulfil your mission," returned Bessie, kissing her. "But I cannot keep awake and speak words of wisdom any longer." And she scrambled over the bed, and with another cheerful "good-night," vanished; but Hatty's troubled thoughts were lulled by sisterly sympathy, and she soon slept peacefully. Late as it was before Bessie laid her weary head on the pillow beside her sleeping sister, it was long before her eyes closed and she sunk into utter forgetfulness. Her mind seemed crowded with vague images and disconnected thoughts. Recollections of the hours spent in Sheen Valley, the weird effect of the dusky figures passing and repassing in the dim, uncertain light, the faint streaks of light across the snow, the dull winter sky, the eager welcome of the lonely girl, the long friendly talk ripening into budding intimacy, all passed vividly before her, followed by Hatty's artless confession.
"Poor little thing!" thought Bessie compassionately, for there was a specially soft place in her heart for Hatty. She had always been her particular charge. All Hatty's failures, her miserable derelictions of duty, her morbid self-accusations and nervous fancies, bred of a sickly body and over-anxious temperament, were breathed into Bessie's sympathizing ear. Hatty's feebleness borrowed strength and courage from Bessie's vigorous counsels. She felt braced by mere contact with such a strong, healthy organization. She was always less fretful and impatient when Bessie was near; her cheery influence cleared away many a cloud that threatened to obscure Hatty's horizon.
"Bear ye one another's burdens," was a command literally obeyed by Bessie in her unselfish devotion to Hatty, her self-sacrificing efforts to cheer and rouse her; but she never could be made to understand that there was any merit in her conduct.
"I know Hatty is often cross, and ready to take offence," she would say; "but I think we ought to make allowances for her. I don't think we realize how much she has to bear--that she never feels well."
"Oh, that is all very well," Christine would answer, for she had a quick temper too, and would fire up after one of Hatty's sarcastic little speeches; "but it is time Hatty learned self-control. I dare say you are often tired after your Sunday class, but no one hears a cross word from you."
"Oh, I keep it all in," Bessie returned, laughing. "But I dare say I feel cross all the same. I don't think any of us can guess what it must be to wake depressed and languid every morning. A louder voice than usual does not make our heads ache, yet I have seen Hatty wince with pain when Tom indulged in one of his laughs."
"Yes, I know," replied Christine, only half convinced by this. "Of course it is very trying, but Hatty must be used to it by this time, for she has never been strong from a baby; and yet she is always bemoaning herself, as though it were something fresh."
"It is not easy to get used to this sort of trouble," answered Bessie, rather sadly. "And I must say I always feel very sorry for Hatty," and so the conversation closed.
But in her heart Bessie said: "It is all very well to preach patience, and I for one am always preaching it to Hatty, but it is not so easy to practice it. Mother and Christine are always praising me for being so good tempered; but if one feels strong and well, and has a healthy appetite and good digestion, it is very easy to keep from being cross; but in other ways I am not half so good as Hatty; she is the purest, humblest little soul breathing."
In spite of late hours, Bessie was downstairs the next morning at her usual time; she always presided at the breakfast-table. Since her eldest son's death, Mrs. Lambert had lost much of her strength and energy, and though her husband refused to acknowledge her as an invalid, or to treat her as one, yet most of her duties had devolved upon Bessie, whose useful energy supplemented her mother's failing powers.
Bessie had briefly hinted at her family sorrow; she was not one at any time to dwell upon her feelings, nor to indulge in morbid retrospection, but it was true that the loss of that dearly loved son and brother had clouded the bright home atmosphere. Mrs. Lambert had borne her trouble meekly, and had striven to comfort her husband who had broken down under the sudden blow. She spoke little, even to her daughters, of the grief that was slowly consuming her; but as time went on, and Dr. Lambert recovered his cheerfulness, he noticed that his wife drooped and ailed more than usual; she had grown into slow quiet ways that seemed to point to failing strength.
"Bessie, your mother is not as young as she used to be," he said abruptly, one morning, "She does not complain, but then she is not one of the complaining sort; she was always a quiet creature; but you girls must put your shoulders to the wheel, and spare her as much as possible." And from that day Bessie had become her mother's crutch.
It was a wonderful relief to the harassed mother when she found a confidante to whom she could pour out all her anxieties.
Dr. Lambert was not a rich man; his practice was large, but many of his patients were poor, and he had heavy expenses. The hilly roads and long distances obliged him to keep two horses. He had sent both his sons to Oxford, thinking a good education would be their best inheritance, and this had obliged him to curtail domestic expenses. He was a careful man, too, who looked forward to the future, and thought it his duty to lay aside a yearly sum to make provision for his wife and children.
"I have only one son now, and Hatty will always be a care, poor child," he said more than once.
So, though there was always a liberal table kept in the doctor's house, it being Dr. Lambert's theory that growing girls needed plenty of nourishing food, the young people were taught economy in every other matter. The girls dressed simply and made their own gowns. Carpets and furniture grew the worse for wear, and were not always replaced at once. Tom grumbled sometimes when one of his Oxford friends came to dinner. He and Christine used to bewail the shabby covers in the drawing-room.
"It is such a pretty room if it were only furbished off a bit," Tom said once. "Why don't you girls coax the governor to let you do it up?" Tom never used the word governor unless he was in a grumbling mood, for he knew how his father hated it.
"I don't think father can afford anything this year, Tom," Bessie returned, in her fearless way. "Why do you ask your grand friends if you think they will look down on us? We don't pretend to be rich people. They will find the chairs very comfortable if they will condescend to sit on them, and the tables as strong as other people's tables; and though the carpet is a little faded, there are no holes to trip your friends up."
"Oh, shut up, Betty!" returned Tom, restored to good humor by her honest sarcasm. "Ferguson will come if I ask him. I think he is a bit taken with old Chrissy." And so ended the argument.
|
{
"id": "28651"
}
|
4
|
A COSY MORNING.
|
Breakfast was half over before Miss Sefton made her appearance; but her graceful apology for her tardiness was received by Dr. Lambert in the most indulgent manner. In spite of his love of punctuality, and his stringent rules for his household in this respect, he could not have found it in his heart to rebuke the pretty, smiling creature who told him so naïvely that early rising disagreed with her and put her out for the day.
"I tell mamma that I require a good deal of sleep, and, fortunately, she believes me," finished Edna complacently.
Well, it was not like the doctor to hold his peace at this glaring opposition to his favorite theory, and yet, to Tom's astonishment, he forebore to quote that threadbare and detestable adage, "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise"--proverbial and uncomfortable philosophy that Tom hated with all his foolish young heart. Tom, in his budding manhood, often thought fit to set this domestic tyranny at defiance, and would argue at some length that his father was wrong in laying down rules for the younger generation.
"If my father likes to get up early, no one can find any fault with him for doing it," Tom would say; "but he need not impose his venerable and benighted opinions upon us. Great men are not always wise; even intellectual veterans like Dr. Johnson, and others I can mention, if you only give me time, have their hallucinations, fads, fancies, and flummeries. For example, every one speaks of Dr. Johnson with respect; no one hints that he had a bee in his bonnet, and yet a man who could make a big hole for a cat and a little one for a kitten--was it Johnson or Newton who did that? --must have had a screw loose somewhere. And so it is with my father; early rising is his hobby--his pet theory--the keystone that binds the structure of health together. Well, it is a respectable theory, but my father need not expect an enlightened and progressive generation to subscribe to it. The early hours of the morning are not good for men and mice, only for birds and bricklayers, and worms weary of existence."
Tom looked on, secretly amused, as his father smiled indulgently at Miss Sefton's confession of indolence. He asked her how she had slept, and made room for her beside him, and then questioned her about her intended journey, and finally arranged to drive her to the station before he went on his usual round.
An hour afterward the whole family collected in the hall to see Miss Sefton off. Edna bid them good-bye in her easy, friendly fashion, but as she took Bessie's hand, she said: "Good-bye, dear. I have an idea that we shall soon meet again. I shall not let you forget me;" and then she put up her face to be kissed.
"I am not likely to forget you," thought Bessie, as Edna waved her little gloved hand to them all; "one could soon get fond of her."
"How nice it must be to be rich," sighed Christine, who was standing beside Bessie. "Miss Sefton is very little older than we are, and yet she has lovely diamond and emerald rings. Did you see her dressing bag? It was filled up so beautifully; its bottles silver mounted; it must have cost thirty guineas, at least. And then her furs; I should like to be in her place."
"I should not envy Miss Sefton because she is rich," retorted Hatty disdainfully. "I would rather change places with her because she is so strong and so pretty. I did like looking at her so much, and so did Tom. Didn't you, Tom?"
"I say, I wish you girls would shut up or clear off," responded Tom crossly; for things felt a little flat this morning. "How is a fellow to work with all this chattering going on round him?"
"Why, you haven't opened your books yet," replied Hatty, in an aggrieved voice; but Bessie hastily interposed: "Tom is quite right to want the room to himself. Come along, girls, let us go to mother in the morning-room; we might do some of our plain sewing, and then I can tell you about Aunt Charlotte. It is so long since we have been cosy together, and our needles will fly while we talk--eh, Hatty?"
"There are those night shirts to finish," said Christine disconsolately; "they ought to have been done long ago, but Hatty was always saying her back ached when I wanted her help, and I could not get on with them by myself."
"Never mind, we will all set to work vigorously," and Bessie tripped away to find her work basket. The morning-room, as they called it, was a small room leading out of the drawing-room, with an old-fashioned bay window looking out on the garden.
There was a circular cushioned seat running round the bay, with a small table in the middle, and this was the place where the girls loved to sit and sew, while their tongues kept pace with their needles. When Hatty's back ached, or the light made her head throb with pain, she used to bring her low chair and leave the recess to Bessie and Christine.
The two younger girls went to school.
As Hatty brought her work (she was very skilful with the needle, and neither of her sisters could vie with her in delicate embroidery), she slipped a cold little hand into Bessie's.
"It is so lovely to have you back, Betty, dear," she whispered. "I woke quite happy this morning to know I should see you downstairs."
"I think it is lovely to be home," returned Bessie, with a beaming smile. "I am sure that is half the pleasure of going away--the coming back again. I don't know how I should feel if I went to stay at any grand place; but it always seems to me now that home is the most delicious place in the world; it never looks shabby to me as it does to Tom; it is just homelike."
Mrs. Lambert, who was sitting apart from the girls, busy with her weekly accounts, looked up at hearing her daughter's speech.
"That is right, dear," she said gently, "that is just how I like to hear you speak; it would grieve me if my girls were to grow discontented with their home, as some young ladies do."
"Bessie is not like that, mother," interposed Hatty eagerly.
"No, Hatty, we know that, do we not? What do you think father said the other day, Bessie? He said, 'I shall be glad when we get Bessie back, for the place does not seem like itself when she is away.' That was a high compliment from father."
"Indeed it was," returned Bessie; and she blushed with pleasure. "Every one likes to be missed; but I hope you didn't want me too much, mother."
"No, dear; but, like father, I am glad to get you back again." And the mother's eyes rested fondly on the girl's face. "Now you must not make me idle, for I have all these accounts to do, and some notes to write. Go on with your talking; it will not interrupt me."
It spoke well for the Lambert girls that their mother's presence never interfered with them; they talked as freely before her as other girls do in their parent's absence. From children they had never been repressed nor unnaturally subdued; their childish preferences and tastes had been known and respected; no thoughtless criticism had wounded their susceptibility; imperceptibly and gently maternal advice had guided and restrained them.
"We tell mother everything, and she likes to hear it," Ella and Katie would say to their school-fellows.
"We never have secrets from her," Ella added. "Katie did once, and mother was so hurt that she cried about it. Don't you recollect, Katie?"
"Yes, and it is horrid of you to remind me," returned Katie wrathfully, and she walked away in high dudgeon; the recollection was not a pleasant one. Katie's soft heart had been pierced by her mother's unfeigned grief and tender reproaches.
"You are the only one of all my little girls who ever hid anything from me. No, I am not angry with you, Katie, and I will kiss you as much as you like," for Katie's arms were round her neck in a moment; "but you have made mother cry, because you do not love her as she does you."
"Mother shall never cry again on my account," thought Katie; and, strange to say, the tendency to secretiveness in the child's nature seemed cured from that day. Katie ever afterward confessed her misdemeanors and the accidents that happen to the best-regulated children with a frankness that bordered on bluntness.
"I have done it, mother," she would say, "but somehow I don't feel a bit sorry. I rather liked hurting Ella's feelings; it seemed to serve her right."
"Perhaps when we have talked about it a little you will feel sorry," her mother would reply quietly; "but I have no time for talking just now."
Mrs. Lambert was always very busy; on these occasions she never found time for a heated and angry discussion. When Katie's hot cheeks had cooled a little, and her childish wrath had evaporated, she would quietly argue the point with her. It was an odd thing that Katie generally apologized of her own accord afterward--generally owned herself the offender.
"Somehow you make things look different, mother," she would say, "I can't think why they all seem topsy-turvy to me."
"When you are older I will lend you my spectacles," her mother returned, smiling. "Now run and kiss Ella, and pray don't forget next time that she is two years older; it can't possibly be a younger sister's duty to contradict her on every occasion."
It was in this way that Mrs. Lambert had influenced her children, and she had reaped a rich harvest for her painstaking, patient labors with them, in the freely bestowed love and confidence with which her grown-up daughters regarded her. Now, as she sat apart, the sound of their fresh young voices was the sweetest music to her; not for worlds would she have allowed her own inward sadness to damp their spirits, but more than once the pen rested in her hand, and her attention wandered.
Outside the wintry sun was streaming on the leafless trees and snowy lawns; some thrushes and sparrows were bathing in the pan of water that Katie had placed there that morning.
"Let us go for a long walk this afternoon," Christine was saying, "through the Coombe Woods, and round by Summerford, and down by the quarry."
"Even Bessie forgets that it will be Frank's birthday to-morrow," thought Mrs. Lambert. "My darling boy, I wonder if he remembers it there; if the angels tell him that his mother is thinking of him. That is just what one longs to know--if they remember;" and then she sighed, and pushed her papers aside, and no one saw the sadness of her face as she went out. Meanwhile Bessie was relating how she had spent the last three weeks.
"I can't think how you could endure it," observed Christine, as soon as she had finished. "Aunt Charlotte is very nice, of course; she is father's sister, and we ought to think so; but she leads such a dull life, and then Cronyhurst is such an ugly village."
"It is not dull to her, but then you see it is her life. People look on their own lives with such different eyes. Yes, it was very quiet at Cronyhurst; the roads were too bad for walking, and we had a great deal of snow; but we worked and talked, and sometimes I read aloud, and so the days were not so long after all."
"I should have come home at the end of a week," returned Christine; "three weeks at Cronyhurst in the winter is too dreadful. It was real self-sacrifice on your part, Bessie; even father said so; he declared it was too bad of Aunt Charlotte to ask you at such a season of the year."
"I don't see that. Aunt Charlotte liked having me, and I was very willing to stay with her, and we had such nice talks. I don't see that she is to be pitied at all. She has never married, and she lives alone, but she is perfectly contented with her life. She has her garden and her chickens, and her poor people. We used to go into some of the cottages when the weather allowed us to go out, and all the people seemed so pleased to see her. Aunt Charlotte is a good woman, and good people are generally happy. I know what Tom says about old maids," continued Bessie presently, "but that is all nonsense. Aunt Charlotte says she is far better off as she is than many married people she knows. 'Married people may double their pleasures,' as folks say, 'but they treble their cares, too,' I have heard her remark; 'and there is a great deal to be said in favor of freedom. When there is no one to praise there is no one to blame, and if there is no one to love there is no one to lose, and I have always been content myself with single blessedness.' Do you remember poor Uncle Joe's saying, 'The mare that goes in single harness does not get so many kicks?'"
"Yes, I know Aunt Charlotte's way of talking; but I dare say no one wanted to marry her, so she makes the best of her circumstances."
Bessie could not help laughing at Christine's bluntness.
"Well, you are right, Chrissy; but Aunt Charlotte is not the least ashamed of the fact. She told me once that no one had ever fallen in love with her, 'I could not expect them to do so,' she remarked candidly. 'As a girl I was plain featured, and so shy and awkward that your Uncle Joe used to tell me that I was the only ugly duckling that would never turn into a swan.'"
"What a shame of Uncle Joe!"
"I don't think Aunt Charlotte took it much to heart. She says her hard life and many troubles drove all nonsense thoughts out of her head. Why, grandmamma was ill eight years, you know, and Aunt Charlotte nursed her all that time. I am sure when she used to come to my bedside of a night, and tuck me up with a motherly kiss, I used to think her face looked almost beautiful, it was so full of kindness. Somehow I fancy when I am old," added Bessie pensively, "I shall not care so much about my looks nor my wrinkles, if people will only think I am a comfortable, kind-hearted sort of a person."
"You will be the dearest old lady in the world," returned Hatty, dropping her work with an adoring look at her Betty. "You are cosier than other people now, so you are sure to be nicer than ever when you are old. No wonder Aunt Charlotte loved to have you."
"What a little flatterer you are, Hatty! It is a comfort that I don't grow vain. Do you know, I think Aunt Charlotte taught me a great deal. When you get over her little mannerisms and odd ways, you soon find out what a good woman she really is. She is always thinking of other people; what she can do to lighten their burdens; and little things give her so much pleasure. She says the first violet she picks in the hedgerow, or the sight of a pair of thrushes building their nest in the acacia tree, makes her feel as happy as a child; 'for in spring,' she said once, 'all the world is full of young life, and the buds are bursting into flowers, and they remind me that one day I shall be young and beautiful too.'"
"I think I should like to go and stay with Aunt Charlotte," observed Hatty, "if you think she would care to have me."
"I am sure she would, dear. Aunt Charlotte loves to take care of people. You most go in the summer, Hatty; the cottage is so pretty then, and you could be out in the garden or in the lanes all day. June is the best month, for they will be making hay in the meadows, and you could sit on the porch and smell the roses, and watch Aunt Charlotte's bees filling their honey bags. It is just the place for you, Hatty--so still and quiet."
This sort of talk lasted most of the morning, until Ella and Katie returned from school, and Tom sauntered into the room, flushed with his mental labors, and ready to seek relaxation in his sisters' company.
Bessie left the room and went in search of her mother; when she returned, a quarter of an hour later, she found Tom sulky and Hatty in tears.
"It is no use trying to keep the peace," observed Christine, in a vexed tone. "Tom will tease Hatty, and then she gets cross, and there is no silencing either of them."
"Come with me, Hatty dear, and help me put my room in order. I have to finish my unpacking," said Bessie soothingly. "You have been working too long, and so has Tom. I shall leave him to you, Chrissy." And as Hatty only moaned a little in her handkerchief, Bessie took the work forcibly away, and then coaxed her out of the room.
"Why is Tom so horrid to me?" sobbed Hatty "I don't believe he loves me a bit. I was having such a happy morning, and he came in and spoiled all."
"Never mind about Tom. No one cares for his teasing, except you, Hatty. I would not let him see you mind everything he chooses to say. He will only think you a baby for crying. Now, do help me arrange this drawer, for dinner will be ready in a quarter of an hour, and the floor is just strewn with clothes. If it makes your head ache to stoop, I will just hand you the things; but no one else can put them away so tidily."
The artful little bait took. Of all things Hatty loved to be of use to any one. In another moment she had dried her eyes and set to work, her miserable little face grew cheerful, and Tom's sneering speeches were forgotten.
"Why, I do believe that is Hatty laughing!" exclaimed Christine, as the dinner-bell sounded, and she passed the door with her mother. "It is splendid, the way Bessie manages Hatty. I wish some of us could learn the art, for all this wrangling with Tom is so tiresome."
"Bessie never loses patience with her," returned her mother; "never lets her feel that she is a trouble. I think you will find that is the secret of Bessie's influence. Your father and I are often grateful to her. 'What would that poor child do without her?' as your father often says; and I do believe her health would often suffer if Bessie did not turn her thoughts away from the things that were fretting her."
|
{
"id": "28651"
}
|
5
|
THE OATLANDS POST-MARK.
|
One day, about three months after her adventure in the Sheen Valley, Bessie was climbing up the steep road that led to the Lamberts' house. It was a lovely spring afternoon, and Bessie was enjoying the fresh breeze that was blowing up from the bay. Cliffe was steeped in sunshine, the air was permeated with the fragrance of lilac blended with the faint odors of the pink and white May blossoms. The flower-sellers' baskets in the town were full of dark-red wallflowers and lovely hyacinths. The birds were singing nursery lullabies over their nests in the Coombe Woods, and even the sleek donkeys, dragging up some invalids from the Parade in their trim little chairs, seemed to toil more willingly in the sweet spring sunshine.
"How happy the world looks to-day!" said Bessie to herself; and perhaps this pleasant thought was reflected in her face, for more than one passer-by glanced at her half enviously. Bessie did not notice them; her soft gray eyes were fixed on the blue sky above her, or on the glimpses of water between the houses. Just before she turned into the avenue that led to the house, she stopped to admire the view. She was at the summit of the hill now; below her lay the town; where she stood she could look over the housetops to the shining water of the bay, with its rocky island in the middle. Bessie always called it the bay, but in reality it resembled a lake, it was so landlocked, so closed in by the opposite shore, except in one part; but the smooth expanse of water, shining in the sunlight, lacked the freedom and wild freshness of the open sea, though Bessie would look intently to a distant part, where nothing, as she knew, came between her and the Atlantic. "If we only went far enough, we should reach America; that gives one the idea of freedom and vastness," she thought.
Bessie held the idea that Cliffe-on-Sea was one of the prettiest places in England, and it was certainly not devoid of picturesqueness.
The houses were mostly built of stone, hewn out of the quarry, and were perched up in surprisingly unexpected places--some of them built against the rock, their windows commanding extensive views of the surrounding country. The quarry was near the Lamberts' house, and the Coombe Woods stretched above it for miles. Bessie's favorite walk was the long road that skirted the woods. On one side were the hanging woods, and on the other the bay. Through the trees one could see the gleam of water, and on summer evenings the Lambert girls would often sit on the rocks with their work and books, preferring the peaceful stillness to the Parade crowded with strangers listening to the band. When their mother or Tom was with them, they would often linger until the stars came out or the moon rose. How glorious the water looked then, bathed in silvery radiance, like an enchanted lake! How dark and sombre the woods! What strange shadows used to lurk among the trees! Hatty would creep to Bessie's side, as they walked, especially if Tom indulged in one of his ghost stories.
"What is the use of repeating all that rubbish, Tom?" Bessie would say, in her sturdy fashion. "Do you think any one would hear us if we sung one of our glees? That will be better than talking about headless bogies to scare Hatty. I like singing by moonlight."
Well, they were just healthy, happy young people, who knew how to make the most of small pleasures. "Every one could have air and sunshine and good spirits," Bessie used to say, "if they ailed nothing and kept their consciences in good order. Laughing cost nothing, and talking was the cheapest amusement she knew."
"That depends," replied her father oracularly, on overhearing this remark. "Words are dear enough sometimes. You are a wise woman, Bessie, but you have plenty to learn yet. We all have to buy experience ourselves. I don't want you to get your wisdom second-hand; second-hand articles don't last; so laugh away, child, as long as you can."
"I love spring," thought Bessie, as she walked on. "I always did like bright things best. I wonder why I feel so hopeful to-day, just as though I expected something pleasant to happen. Nothing ever does happen, as Chriss says. Just a letter from Tom, telling us his news, or an invitation to tea with a neighbor, or perhaps a drive out into the country with father. Well, they are not big things, but they are pleasant, for all that. I do like a long talk with father, when he has no troublesome case on his mind, and can give me all his attention. I think there is no treat like it; but I mean Hatty to have the next turn. She has been good lately; but she looks pale and dwindled. I am not half comfortable about her." And here Bessie broke off her cogitations, for at that moment Katie rushed out of the house and began dancing up and down, waving a letter over her head.
"What a time you have been!" cried the child excitedly. "I have been watching for you for half an hour. Here is a letter for your own self, and it is not from Aunt Charlotte nor Uncle Charles, nor any old fogy at all."
"Give it to me, please," returned Bessie. "I suppose it is from Tom, though why you should make such a fuss about it, as though no one ever got a letter, passes my comprehension. No, it is from Miss Sefton; I recognize her handwriting;" which was true, as Bessie had received a note from Edna a few days after she had left them, conveying her own and her mother's thanks for the kind hospitality she had received.
"Of course it is from Miss Sefton; there's the Oatlands post-mark. Ella and I were trying to guess what was in it; we thought that perhaps, as Mrs. Sefton is so rich, she might have sent you a present for being so kind to her daughter; that was Ella's idea. Do open it quickly, Bessie; what is the use of looking at the envelope?"
"I am afraid I can't satisfy your curiosity just yet, Kitty. Hatty is waiting for the silks I have been matching, and mother will want to know how old Mrs. Wright is. Duty before pleasure," finished Bessie, with good-humored peremptoriness, as she marched off in the direction of the morning-room.
"Bessie is getting dreadfully old-maidish," observed Katie, in a sulky voice. "She never used to be so proper. I suppose she thinks it is none of my business."
When Bessie had got through her list of commissions she sat down to enjoy her letter quietly, but before she had read many lines her color rose, and a half-stifled exclamation of surprise came from her lips; but, in spite of Hatty's curious questions, she read steadily to the end, and then laid the letter on her mother's lap.
"Oh, mother, do let me hear it," implored Hatty, with the persistence of a spoiled child. "I am sure there is something splendid about Bessie, and I do hate mysteries."
"So do I, Hatty; we think alike there. Shall I read it aloud, my dear?" and as Bessie nodded, Mrs. Lambert read the letter in her quiet, silvery voice: "MY DEAR MISS LAMBERT," it began; "I told you that I should not allow you to forget me, so, you see, I am keeping my promise like a reliable young woman. Mamma says I have made a bad commencement to my letter--that self-praise is no recommendation. I think I remember that profoundly wise saying in copy-book days; but I hold a more worldly view of the subject. I think people are taken at their own value; so, on principle, I never undervalue myself; and the gist of all this is that I do not intend to be forgotten by a certain young lady who enacted the part of Good Samaritan in the Sheen Valley.
"Now, as I must candidly confess to a sincere wish for a better acquaintance with this same young lady, I am writing in my own and mamma's name to beg you to favor us with your company at The Grange for a few weeks.
"You must not think this is a very unconventional proceeding on our part, as our parents were old friends. Mamma is writing to Dr. Lambert by the same post, and she means to say all sorts of pretty things to induce him to intrust you to our care.
"I wish I had the power of persuasion. Mamma has such a knack of saying nice things, but indeed you must come. The Grange is such a dear old house, and we know such pleasant people, and I want you to see our Kentish lanes, and indeed mamma and I will make you so comfortable. I don't mention Richard, because he is nobody, and he never interferes with our friends.
"Now I am taking it for granted that you will not refuse me, so I will proceed to tell you our arrangements. Mamma and I have been in town the last five weeks, and we are both of us tired to death of Vanity Fair, so we mean to go back to Oatlands next week. You may come to us as soon after that as you like; fix your own day and your train, and I will be at the station to meet you.
"I remain, yours most sincerely, "EDNA SEFTON."
"Oh, Bessie, how delightful! But I don't like to spare you again so soon."
"Now, Hatty, don't be selfish. You must not grudge Bessie the first real treat she has ever had offered to her. We have none of us had such a chance before. Fancy staying at a place like The Grange, and seeing lots of nice people."
"I wish you could go in my place, Chrissy, dear. I am not quite sure how I should like staying with strange people; we have got into homely ways, never going anywhere except to Aunt Charlotte's or Uncle Charles', and I don't know how I should get on with rich people like the Sefton's; besides, father and mother may not wish me to accept the invitation," glancing at her mother's thoughtful face.
"We must see what your father says about it," returned Mrs. Lambert, rousing herself with difficulty from her abstraction. "I would not talk about it any more, girls, until we know his wishes. It will only disappoint Bessie if she makes up her mind that she would like to accept the invitation, and father thinks it wiser to refuse. Let us put it out of our heads until he comes home, and he and I will have a talk about it."
"Yes, that will be best," returned Bessie, putting the letter in the envelope. "Father will not be home until late, but that does not matter; to-morrow will do quite well." And, to her sister's surprise and disappointment, she refused to say any more on the subject.
"Mother is quite right," she observed, as Hatty fussed and grumbled at her silence. "If we talk about it, I shall just long to go, and shall be vexed and disappointed if father wishes me to refuse."
"But you might coax him to change his mind. Father never likes disappointing us when we set our hearts on anything," urged Hatty.
"No, indeed; I never like arguing things with father. He is not one to make up his mind in a hurry, like some people; he thinks over a thing thoroughly, and then he gives his opinion. If he does not wish me to go, he will have a good reason for saying so. I never found either father or mother wrong yet, and I am not going to find fault with them now. Don't let us talk any more about it, Hatty. I want to think of something else." But, in spite of this wise resolution, Bessie did think a good deal about the letter, and in her heart she hoped that her father would allow her to accept Miss Sefton's tempting invitation.
Dr. Lambert did not return home that night until long after his girls had retired to rest, and to Bessie's surprise he said nothing to her at breakfast; but just as she was leaving the room to give out the stores, as usual, he called her back. "Oh, by the by, Bessie," he observed, "I have to drive out as far as Castleton this afternoon. I will take you with me if you care to go."
"I always care to go with you, father dear," replied Bessie, and then she hesitated, as she remembered Hatty's pale cheeks; "but I think you ought to take Hatty instead; it would do her so much good, and she does so love a drive."
"No, I think you shall be my companion this afternoon; I will take Hatty to-morrow," replied the doctor, as he took up his paper again.
"Good child, she always thinks of poor Hatty," he said to himself, and his eyes glistened. "They are all good girls, but not one of them is so unselfish as my little Betty; she takes after her mother in that. Dora never thinks of herself."
Bessie went about her household tasks with a light heart, for she had the prospect of a pleasant afternoon before her. The drive to Castleton would be lovely, and she would hear what her father had to say about the letter. So she was ready and waiting by the time the pretty little victoria came around to the door, and as Dr. Lambert stood on the porch, he thought the happy, sunshiny face looked very attractive under the new gray hat.
"You look very smart, Bessie," he said, smiling. "Have I seen that very becoming hat before?"
"Only last Sunday," returned Bessie brightly; "but I always put on my best things when I drive with you, that your daughter may do you credit;" for Bessie in her heart thought her father the handsomest man in Cliffe; and indeed many people admired the doctor's clever, refined face, and quiet, genial manners.
The sturdy little roan trotted briskly down the lower road, as it was called, and Bessie leaned back and looked dreamily at the golden ripples that lay on the water, while the branches overhead threw flickering shadows on the road before them, until her father's voice roused her.
"You and I are to have some talk together, I believe. Would you like to see Mrs. Sefton's letter, Bessie? Your mother showed me the one you received from her daughter." And as Bessie eagerly assented, he handed it to her.
"It is a very nice letter," she observed, as soon as she had finished it; "it could not be more kindly expressed."
"No; Mrs. Sefton is a ladylike woman, and she knows exactly what to say. It is a grand thing to have tact." And then he paused for a moment, and continued in an amused voice, "The world is a very small place after all. I have lived long enough in it not to be surprised at running against all sorts of odd people in all sorts of odd places, but I must own I was a little taken aback when you brought Miss Sefton into my house that night."
"You knew Mrs. Sefton when you were a young man, father?"
"I suppose I knew her fairly well, for I was engaged to her for six months." And as Bessie started, "Well, you will think that an odd speech for a father to make to his daughter, but, you see, I know our Bessie is a reliable little woman, who can keep her tongue silent. I have my reasons for telling you this. You have always been your mother's companion, as well as my right hand, and I would not let you go to The Grange in ignorance of the character of its inhabitants."
"Oh, father, do you really mean me to go?"
"We will come to that presently; let me finish what I was saying. I was fool enough to engage myself to a beautiful girl, knowing her to be unsuitable in every way for a poor man's wife, and I dare say I should have persisted in my blindness to the bitter end, if I had not been jilted by the young lady."
"My dear father!"
"My dear little Betty, please don't speak in that pitying tone; it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I dare say I had a bad time of it; young men are such fools; but I soon met your mother, and she healed all wounds; but if Eleanor Sartoris treated me badly, she met with her punishment. The man she married was a worthless sort of a fellow; he is dead, so I need not mind saying so now. He was handsome enough and had all the accomplishments that please women, but he could not speak the truth. I never knew a man who could lie so freely, and in other respects he was equally faulty, but Eleanor was infatuated, and she would marry him against the advice of her friends, and the first thing she found out was that he had deceived her on one point. She knew that he had married when almost a boy, and his wife had been long dead, but he kept from her that he had a son living. His excuse was that he had heard her say that nothing would induce her to undertake the duties of a stepmother, and that he feared a refusal on account of Richard. In this he had overreached himself; she never forgave the deception, and she barely tolerated the poor boy. I am afraid, from what I heard, that their short married life was not a happy one. Eleanor had a proud, jealous temper, but she was truthful by nature, and nothing was so odious in her eyes as falsehood and deceit. I can feel sorry for her, for no woman could respect a character like Sefton's, but I have always blamed her for her hardness to her stepson. His father doted on him, and Richard was the chief subject of their dissension on his death bed. He begged his wife to be kinder to the boy, but I do not know if this appeal softened her. The property belongs, of course, to her stepson, and in a sense she and her daughter are dependent on him, but it is not a united household. I know very little about the young man, except that he is industrious and fond of out-of-door pursuits, and farms his own estate; but I hear he is a little clownish in appearance. Now we are stopping, because I have a patient to see here, but I shall not be ten minutes, and we will resume our conversation presently."
|
{
"id": "28651"
}
|
6
|
LITTLE MISS MUCH-AFRAID.
|
Bessie had plenty of food for meditation while Dr. Lambert paid his visit to his patient, and he found her apparently absorbed in a brown study when he returned to the carriage.
"Father dear," she said, rousing herself, as he placed himself beside her, "I have been thinking over all you have told me, and I cannot help wondering why you wish me to visit Mrs. Sefton, when she treated you so badly."
Dr. Lambert was silent for a minute; the question was not an easy one to answer. His wife had said the very same thing to him the previous evening: "I wonder that you care to let Bessie visit at The Grange, when Eleanor Sartoris treated you so badly." And then she added, "I think she is very much to blame, too, for her behavior to her stepson. Margaret Tillotson tells me that he is an honest, good-hearted fellow, though not very clever, but that want of appreciation has made him shy and awkward."
But he had been able to satisfy his wife without much difficulty. All their married life there had never been a shadow of a doubt between them; her calm, reasonable judgment had wholly approved her husband's conduct on all occasions; whatever he did or said had been right in her eyes, and she had brought up her daughters to think the same.
"Well, do you know, Bessie," he said playfully, "I have more reasons than one for wishing you to go to The Grange? I have taken a fancy to Miss Sefton, and I want her mother to be acquainted with my daughter; and I think it will be good for you to extend your knowledge of the world. You girls are tied too much to your mother's apron-strings, and you must learn to do without her sometimes."
This was all very well, but though Bessie smilingly accepted this explanation of her father's motives in permitting her to go to Oatlands, she was clever enough to know that more lay behind.
Dr. Lambert had long ago forgiven the injury that had been done to him. His nature was a generous one; good had come out of evil, and he was tolerant enough to feel a kindly interest in Mrs. Sefton as an old friend. It is true she had created her own troubles, but in spite of that he could be sorry for her. Like a foolish woman she had built her life's hopes upon a shifting, sandy foundation; she had looked on the outward appearance, and a fair exterior had blinded her to the hollowness beneath. The result was bitterness and disappointment.
"I should like her to see our Bessie," he had said to his wife. "Bessie is just like a sunbeam; she will do her good, and even if things are different from what she sees at home, it will do her no harm to know how other people live. Our girls are good girls, but I do not want them to live like nuns behind a grating; let them go out into the world a little, and enlarge their minds. If it were Christine, I might hesitate before such an experiment, but I have perfect confidence in Bessie."
And his wife's answer to this had been: "I am quite sure you are right, Herbert, and I am perfectly willing to let Bessie visit your old friend." And so the matter ended. The doctor got his way as usual, simply by wishing for it.
The drive was a long one, but it seemed short to Bessie, and she was quite sorry when it was over.
"Thank you, father dear, it has been such a treat," she said, with a loving little squeeze of his arm; and then she ran in to find her mother.
Mrs. Lambert looked up inquiringly as Bessie took off her hat and gloves.
"Well, my dear, have father and you settled it?"
"Yes, indeed, mother; and I am really to go. Father seems to like the idea. He has evidently fallen in love with Miss Sefton. I am afraid I am a great deal too much excited about it at present, but Hatty will soon damp me."
"Poor child! she never likes you to go away. She does not mean to be selfish, and I know she struggles hard to control her feelings, but she will have a good cry when she hears you are going to Oatlands."
"We must not let her mope, mother. If I thought it were good for Hatty I would stay at home, to prevent her feeling so miserable, but it would be false kindness to give in to her; she would hate herself for her selfishness, and she would not be a bit happy if she knew she had prevented my visit. I would rather see her fret before I go, and bear it as well as I can, and then I know she will cheer up soon and be looking forward to my return."
"You are quite right, Bessie, and neither your father nor I would allow you to sacrifice yourself for Hatty. Too much indulgence on your part would only feed the poor child's nervous fancies. I know she feels her parting with you for a week or two as a serious trial, and I dare say it is a trial to her, but she must take it as one, and not selfishly spoil your pleasure. Now we will forget Hatty for a few minutes; there is something else troubling me. How are you to be fitted out for your visit, when I dare not ask your father for any more money?"
"Well, I have thought about that, too," returned Bessie briskly. "I was reviewing my wardrobe all the time father was at Castleton House. He was quite half an hour away, so I had plenty of time. I was a little worried at first, thinking how I should manage, but somehow I made it all straight. Listen to me, mother, dear," as Mrs. Lambert sighed and shook her head. "Miss Sefton has been here, so she knows we are not rich people, and she will not expect to see many smart dresses. I don't want to pretend to be what I am not. We cannot afford to dress grandly, nor to have many new frocks, but I am sure we are just as happy without them."
"Yes; but you never have stayed with rich people before, Bessie," returned her mother sadly. "You do not know how shabby your old things will look beside other people's silks and satins. Father does not think about these things, and I do not like to remind him; but you ought to have a new jacket, though we did say the old one would do this year."
"Now, mother, will you be quiet, please, and listen to me? for I am brimful of ideas, and I won't have you worry. The jacket must do, for I do not mean to ask father for a new one. I have my gray dress and hat, and father thinks they are very becoming; and there is my Indian muslin Uncle Charles gave me for best occasions, and if you will let me buy a few yards of white nun's-cloth Chrissy and I will contrive a pretty dinner-dress. I like white best, because one can wear different flowers, and so make a change. Perhaps I must have a pair of new gloves, and some shoes; but those won't cost much."
"You are easily satisfied, darling," replied Mrs. Lambert fondly. "Yes, you shall have the nun's-cloth, and I will give you some of my lace to trim it. And there are the pearls that I wore on my wedding-day. Your father is so fond of them, but I always told him they were put aside for you. Wait a moment; they are in my escritoire, and you may as well have them now." And Mrs. Lambert unlocked the door, and opening a little box, placed the necklace in Bessie's hand. It consisted of three rows of tiny pearls, and was very simple and pretty.
"Oh, mother, how lovely!" exclaimed the girl. "Is it really for me? That is just what I wanted; my gold chain is so thin that I hardly ever dare to wear it. It has been broken twice. But this is far prettier." And Bessie clasped the little necklace around her neck, and then went off proudly to show her treasure to Christine and Hatty, while Mrs. Lambert shed a few tears at the thought how little she had to give her girls. The next moment she dashed them away indignantly.
"I ought to be ashamed of myself," she thought. "What would Herbert say if he found me crying in this childish way? What do our girls want with ornaments and pretty dresses? They have youth and good looks and manners. My Bessie is a perfect gentlewoman, in spite of her shabby frocks. No one could help being pleased with her gentle, modest ways. I expect it is my pride. I did not want Mrs. Sefton to think we are not rich. But I am wrong; my girls are rich. They are rich in having such a father, and in their own happy natures." And then Mrs. Lambert thought of those other ornaments that she desired for them--the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit; the priceless jewels of innocence and purity, which are the fairest adornments of a young girl.
"These will not be lacking," she said to herself. "My Bessie's unobtrusive goodness will soon make itself felt."
Bessie had made up her mind not to trouble about her scanty wardrobe, and she was quite happy planning the nun's-cloth dress with Christine.
But though Dr. Lambert said nothing, he thought a great deal, and the result of his cogitations was, a five-pound note was slipped into Bessie's hand the next evening.
"Go and buy yourself some finery with that," he observed quietly.
Bessie could hardly sleep that night, she was so busy spending the money in anticipation; and the very next day she was the delighted purchaser of a new spring jacket and had laid out the remainder of the five-pound note in a useful black and white tweed for daily use, and a pretty lilac cotton, and she had even eked out a pair of gloves.
Three dresses to be made; no wonder they were busy; even Mrs. Lambert was pressed into the service to sew over seams and make buttonholes.
Hatty never complained her back ached when she worked for Bessie; her thin little hands executed marvelous feats of fine workmanship; all the finer parts were intrusted to Hatty.
"I feel almost as though I were going to be married," observed Bessie, as she surveyed the fresh, dainty dresses. "I never had more than one new gown at a time. Now they are finished, and you are tired, Hatty, and you must go and lie down, like a good child."
"I am not tired, not a bit," returned Hatty touchily; "and I am going out with Ella."
Bessie held her peace. Hatty's temper had been very trying for the last three days; she had slaved for Bessie to the detriment of her health, but had worn an injured manner all the time.
She would not join in the conversation, nor understand a joking remark. When Christine laughed at her in a good-humored way, Hatty pursed up her lips, and drew herself up in a huffy manner, and would not condescend to speak a word. She even rejected Bessie's caresses and little attempts at petting. "Don't, Bessie. I must go on with my work; I wish you would leave me alone," she would say pettishly.
Bessie did leave her alone, but it made her heart ache to see the lines under Hatty's eyes, that showed she had cried herself to sleep. She knew it was unhappiness and not temper that was the cause of her irritability.
"She is ashamed of letting me know that she cannot bear me to go away," she thought. "She is trying to get the better of her selfishness, but it conquers her. I will leave her alone for a little, and then I will have it all out. I could not go away and leave her like that." For Bessie's warm, affectionate nature could not endure the thought of Hatty's pain.
"I have so much, and she has so little," she said to herself, and her pity blunted all Hatty's sharp, sarcastic little speeches and took the sting out of them. "Poor little thing! she does not mean half she says," she remarked, as a sort of apology to Christine, when Hatty had marched off with Ella.
"I don't know how you put up with her as you do," observed Christine, whose patience had been sorely exercised that morning by Hatty's tempers. "She is treating you as badly as possible. I would rather have been without her help, if I had been you; we might have had Miss Markham in for two days; that would have shamed Hatty nicely."
"I don't want to shame her, Chrissy, dear; poor little Hatty! when she has been working so beautifully, too. She is worrying herself about my going away, and that makes her cross."
"As though no one else would miss you," returned Christine stormily, for she was not quite devoid of jealousy. "But there, it is no use my talking; you will all treat Hatty as though she were a baby, and so she behaves like a spoiled child. I should like to give her a bit of my mind." And Christine tossed her pretty head and swept off the last dress, while Bessie cleared the table.
Bessie's visit was fixed for the following Tuesday, so on Sunday evening she made up her mind that the time was come for speaking to Hatty. As it happened, they were keeping house together, for the rest of the family, the servants included, had gone to church. Hatty had just settled herself in a corner of the couch, with a book in her hand, expecting that Bessie would follow her example (for the Lambert girls were all fond of reading), when a hand was suddenly interposed between her eyes and the page.
"This is our last quiet evening, Hatty, and I am going to talk instead of read, so you may as well shut up that big book."
"It takes two to talk," observed Hatty, rather crossly, "and I am not in the mood for conversation, so you had better let me go on with 'Bishop Selwyn's Life.'"
"You are not in the mood for reading either," persisted Bessie, and there was a gleam of fun in her eyes. "When you pucker up your forehead like that, I know your thoughts are not on your book. Let us have a comfortable talk instead. You have not been like yourself the last week, not a bit like my Hatty; so tell me all about it, dear, and see if I cannot make you feel better."
"No, Bessie, don't try; it is not any use, unless I jump into somebody else's body and mind. I can't make myself different. I am just Hatty, a tiresome, disagreeable, selfish little thing."
"What a lot of adjectives! I wonder they don't smother you. You are not big enough to carry so many. I think I could word that sentence better. I should just say, 'Hatty is a poor, weak little body to whom mole-hills are mountains, and the grasshopper a burden.' Does not that sound nicer?"
"Yes, if it were true," returned Hatty sorrowfully, and then her ill-humor vanished. "No, don't pet me, Bessie; I don't deserve it," as Bessie stroked her hand in a petting sort of a way. "I have been cross and ill-tempered all the week, just unbearable, as Christine said; but oh, Bessie, it seemed as though I could not help it. I was so miserable every night to think you were going away, that I could not sleep for ever so long, and then my head ached, and I felt as though I were strung on wires when I came down the next morning, and every time people laughed and said pleasant things I felt just mad, and the only relief was to show every one how disagreeable I could be."
Hatty's description of her overwrought feelings was so droll that Bessie with some difficulty refrained from laughing outright, but she knew how very real all this was to Hatty, so she exercised self-control, and said, quite gravely: "And so you wanted to make us all miserable, too. That was hardly kind, was it, when we were all so sorry for you? I do think you have a great deal to bear, Hatty. I don't mean because you are so weak in health; that could be easily borne; but it must be so sad always to look on the dark side of things. Of course, in some sense, we all project our own shadows; but you are not content with your own proper shadow, you go poking and peering about for imaginary ones, and so you are dark all round."
"But your going away to Oatlands is not imaginary," returned Hatty piteously.
"No, you foolish child. But I hope you do not grudge me a pleasant visit. That would be a great piece of substantial selfishness on your part, of which, I trust, my Hatty would not be capable. Supposing I gave in to this ridiculous fancy and said, 'Hattie hates me to go away, so I will just stop at home, and Miss Sefton shall be disappointed.' I wonder how you would like that?"
"That would not please me, either. I am not so selfish as that. Oh, Bessie, do tell me how I am to conquer this nervous dread of losing you. It is not selfishness, for I do love to have treats; but when you go away I don't seem to take any pleasure in anything; it is all so flat and disagreeable. Sometimes I lie awake and cry when I think what I should do if you were to die. I know how silly and morbid it is, but how am I to help it?" And here Hatty broke down, and hid her face on Bessie's shoulder.
|
{
"id": "28651"
}
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.