In a neat, but scantily furnished apartment of a small, white cottage sat Louise Edson beside the low window which looked forth on a great frowning building with grated bars and ponderous iron doors.
"Is this a prison across the yard, aunt?" she asked of a tall, solemn woman, in a black head-dress, who had just entered the room, and stood laying some fresh fuel on the fire.
"It is the county jail," replied she.
"How it makes me shudder to look at it!" said Louise, turning from the window, and assuming a chair near her aunt, who was taking a quantity of sewing from a work-basket.
"It reminds me of a lady who was my near neighbor in Wimbledon, and who has been my sole companion for several months, to see you constantly occupied with your needle," remarked Louise, looking on her aunt as she assorted her cotton and arranged her work.
"What is the lady's name, of whom you speak?" inquired the woman.
"Mrs. Stanhope," answered Louise; "she is a kind soul. It pains me to think I shall never see her again."
"Do you not intend to return to your late home?" inquired the aunt, somewhat surprised at the words of her niece.
"Never!" returned Louise, with strong emphasis, "I could not endure it."
"Pshaw! you will get over this weakness in a little while," said her aunt. "You have half-conquered it by coming away, and you will complete the victory by returning."
"I tell you no," said Louise, somewhat angered by her aunt's persistence. "I have already written to Mr. Richard Giblet, one of the former firm of Edson & Co., to settle my affairs in Wimbledon, dispose of my late residence, and remit the proceeds to me in drafts."
The aunt looked astonished at this piece of intelligence, and said, "You have been rash and premature, my child, and I fear will regret your hasty proceedings."
"If you knew how much it relieved me to get out of that place, aunt, you would not fear I should ever wish to return. I was so near my enslaver there, and my heart said all the time, 'O, Imustsee him!' while conscience whispered sternly, 'Youdarenot do it.' There was a constant war 'twixt love and reason, which threatened the extermination of the latter."
"I am glad you have been ruled by your better judgment," said her aunt; "passion always leads us astray when we listen to its voice."
"That is very true," answered Louise; "but O that I had known it only by precept, and not by experience!"
"Experience is called the best teacher," remarked the aunt.
"It is the most bitter one," returned Louise. "How I wish you had been with me through the few brief years of my married life! With your kind care and admonitions I think I would never have strayed darkly into sin and error."
"We all err sometimes in our lives," said her aunt; "and I cannot discover as you have wandered so far from the paths of rectitude that your return to them should seem a thing impossible."
"But did I not tell you how I deceived my husband?" asked Louise, looking wofully in the face of her aunt.
"Yes," returned she, calmly. "Did he never deceive you?"
Louise paused a few moments, and answered, "Iwasdeceived when I married him, but it was by my own blindness. However, the deception did not last long," she added, with a spice of her old spirit.
"And when it passed away," said her aunt.
"Don't recall those terrible hours to my mind," interrupted Louise, quickly, "lest I should forget the double share of respect I owe the dead in that I failed to give them their due on earth."
"I would not have the dead wronged," returned her aunt; "but I would have the living righted. You used to be free and unrestrained in your intercourse with me in the glad days of childhood and youth. I often feared some envious sorrow would overtake you to chill and despoil that buoyant exuberance of life and gayety. You were too wildly rich in heart and soul. You wasted more love on a pet rabbit than would eke out the whole passion life of a score of poorer natures. O, Louise, I trembled when you stood before the altar and took the vows of faithfulness to Mr. Leroy Edson. I knew you fancied that you loved him, and thought in the wild potency of your passion to bear him skyward on your soaring pinions; but, ah! I saw how sadly his clogging weight would drag you to the earth."
She paused, and Louise was silent, but her face showed traces of tears.
"Do not think me severe," resumed her aunt; "I am only just. Now tell me with your old-time confidence, why did you love another man while your husband lived?"
"It was because,"—— Louise hesitated, and then added, "because I was wicked."
"And for what other reason?" pursued her aunt.
"And because I was tired," Louise went on in a dreamy tone, as if thinking aloud to herself, "and because I was hungry."
"Your expressions begin to assume the old, quaint, humorous form," said the aunt smiling. "I suppose you mean your soul was tired for want of something on which to rest, and hungry for want of its proper nourishment."
"That's what I mean, aunt; but then I do not seek excuse for the crime of stealing to appease the cravings of my hunger."
"A famishing man has never yet been hung for stealing to sustain life."
"You draw a strong comparison, aunt," said Louise, laughing in spite of herself.
"To meet a strong case," returned she. "It is a duty I owe you to use my best efforts to destroy this morbid melancholy which is preying on your spirits. I know nothing of the man you have loved. He may or may not be worthy of your affections. It is not his cause I plead. But I would divest you of the false glasses through which your sensitive brain, wrought on by high excitement, and shocked by a sudden calamity, has come to regard the events of your past life, and let you behold them again with your own natural sight. If I can effect this, I confidently trust to your good reasoning powers to set all right again."
Louise remained silent after her aunt ceased speaking, but her countenance evinced far more energy and hopefulness than at the commencement of the conversation. At length she rose and said, "Well, aunt, I think I have as much logic as my weak brain can digest in one night, so I'll retire to my bed-room, if you please."
In a few weeks, young Mrs. Edson, under the tuition of her strong-minded, sensible aunt, regained a share of her former vivacity, and declared she would be quite herself again were it not for that great black jail in the adjoining yard, which frowned on her every morning and loomed dismally in her dreams.
CHAPTER XLIII.
"Ah, whyDo you still keep apart, and walk alone,And let such strong emotions stamp your brow,As not betraying their full import, yetDisclose too much!Disclose too much!—of what?What is there to disclose?A heart so ill at ease."
"Ah, whyDo you still keep apart, and walk alone,And let such strong emotions stamp your brow,As not betraying their full import, yetDisclose too much!Disclose too much!—of what?What is there to disclose?A heart so ill at ease."
"Ah, why
Do you still keep apart, and walk alone,
And let such strong emotions stamp your brow,
As not betraying their full import, yet
Disclose too much!
Disclose too much!—of what?
What is there to disclose?
A heart so ill at ease."
The preparations for the nuptials of Florence Howard with Rufus Malcome were rapidly progressing.
The services of Dilly Danforth were put in active requisition. Day after day her tall, thin form was seen moving to and fro the great mansion, washing windows, polishing grates, and brightening the silver knobs and plates of the mahogany doors. Col. Malcome, in his delight at the approaching marriage of his son, resolved to give a large fête on the occasion, and no pains were spared to render it the most costly and sumptuous affair ever presented to the gaze of the people of Wimbledon. The greatest expense was lavished upon the wedding-banquet, and the young bride's trousseau might have vied in magnificence and profusion with that of a royal princess.
All this display and grandeur was revolting to Florence. It humbled and mortified her proud, independent nature to owe the expensive decoration of her approaching bridal to the generosity of the man she was about to marry.
Col. Malcome appeared in the most fitful spirits as the preparations advanced toward their completion. He paced the piazzas for hours together, with hurried, excited steps, pausing often and muttering indistinctly to himself.
Sometimes he stood before a window in a dejected attitude, and gazed mournfully over the intervening gardens and cottages toward the elegant and stately mansion lately occupied by the Edsons, which stood on a small elevation just across the river, in the midst of beautiful grounds. Then, as he turned suddenly away, his countenance would change from its expression of gloomy regret to one of fierceness and angry revenge.
At length the night, whose morrow was to witness the long-expected ceremony, drew on. Great torrents of rain were flooding the streets and dashing dismally against the casements of the mansion which was, ere long, to blaze in the light of the festive scene.
Still, Col. Malcome, unheeding the storm, walked the wet marbles of the piazzas, with arms folded over his chest and head bowed, in a state of absent, moody absorption. At length the hall-door opened, and Rufus advanced to his father's side.
"What do you want with me?" said the colonel, turning quickly toward him.
"Not much," returned the son. "I heard you walking here, and thought I would join you, as there was no one in the house to keep me company."
"Where is Major Howard?"
"With his wife," answered Rufus.
"And Hannah?" continued the colonel.
"Don't mention that detestable creature!" said the young man angrily. "I can't abide her. So she is out of my sight, I care not where she is."
"Why do you hate the woman so?" asked Col. M. "She seems very fond of you."
"Yes! I cannot move but what she follows me. It is strange Major Howard retains such a bold, impudent slut in his service."
The colonel coughed slightly and remained silent.
At length Rufus spoke again hesitatingly, "Father!" said he.
"Well!" returned Col. M., in a tone which indicated for him to proceed.
"I don't want to marry Florence Howard," said the young man, with a great gulp, as though it cost him a mighty effort to pronounce the words.
"Why not?" asked the father, apparently unheeding his son's emotion. "Don't you love the girl?"
"Love her!" repeated Rufus. "I don't know whether I do or not; but I am afraid of her."
"Afraid of a little, puny girl!" exclaimed Col. Malcome, in a towering rage, "I did not think you such a pitiful craven."
The young man seemed angered by his father's words, but made no retort.
"Why are you afraid of her?" inquired the colonel after a while.
"Because she looks so proud and stern upon me, and treats me with such scorn and contempt."
"O, never mind that!" said his father. "When she is once your wife trust me to lower her loftiness, and make her as meek and humble as you could wish. Let us go in now. How wildly this storm is driving! I hope it may clear before the hour for the marriage arrives." Thus speaking, the father and son entered the hall and sought their respective apartments.
While this scene was passing on the piazza, Florence sat in her room with her journal open on the table before her.
"The last evening of my free, unfettered existence has drawn on," she wrote. "How wildly shrieks the wind, driving great torrents of rain against my curtained casements! It is fit a night like this should usher in my day of doom. Father seems delighted with the approaching festival, and mother has lost the dread she formerly evinced, which I now think was occasioned by the fear of losing me from her side. Hannah is almost wild with glee. She follows the steps of Rufus closely as his shadow. He hates her, and in this one point our feelings sympathize, but in no other. It is impossible to describe the loathing and abhorrence with which I regard the man who in a few more hours will be my husband. O, heavens! will no power save me from a fate so dreadful as a lifetime passed with him? Alas, no! Our beautiful home is gone, and we are poor, and had been shelterless but for these walls, which opened their doors to take us in. And can I make so poor a return for this friendly generosity, or so ungratefully scorn and reject the means presented to reïnstate my father in wealth and magnificence, as to refuse to perform the act which will repay the kindness and restore to him the elegant home whose loss he so deeply deplores? O, no! I must not be so selfish and ungrateful. Still, it seems a great sacrifice even to insure a father's ease and happiness. I have an increasing dread and horror of this Col. Malcome, which I cannot overcome, despite all his apparent generosity and sympathy in our misfortune, and lavish display of profusion and splendor with which he surrounds this approaching bridal. It seems to me all this munificence goes to serve some fell purpose of his own. His strange power over my easy-natured father excites dark apprehensions in my bosom. But why torture myself with imagined ills, when the dread realities are sufficient to unnerve my soul! Now, amid this piteous wailing of storm and wind, I write the last words on these dear old leaves as Florence Howard, and betake me to my pillow,—but O, not to sleep! The bride of to-morrow will make a sorry figure in her silks and jewels."
CHAPTER XLIV.
"As Heaven is my spirit's trust,So may its gracious powerBe near to aid and strengthen meWhen comes the trial hour."
"As Heaven is my spirit's trust,So may its gracious powerBe near to aid and strengthen meWhen comes the trial hour."
"As Heaven is my spirit's trust,
So may its gracious power
Be near to aid and strengthen me
When comes the trial hour."
The hour drew on; the guests assembled, and the minister waited the entrance of the bridal party to perform the solemn ceremony.
The storm drove wildly without the mansion, in strange contrast with the glowing warmth and luxuriance of the apartments within.
Col. Malcome sat on a velvet sofa, in graceful attire, supporting the wasted form of his daughter; who, thin, pale, and white as the garb she wore, leaned her head, all shorn of its beautiful curls, heavily against his shoulder. It was a sad sight to behold that feeble, emaciated figure rising from a bed of disease and pain, to mingle among the festive groups which filled those splendid drawing-rooms.
Suddenly there was a stir in the hall, and the bridal group entered. Florence, with the tips of her gloved fingers just touching the arm of the man who was in a few moments to become her husband, moved gracefully to the seat assigned her. She was magnificently arrayed in rose-colored satin, with an over-skirt of elegantly-wrought Parisian lace, and a spray of pearls and diamonds flashed their brilliant rays through the luxuriant dark curls that clustered round her pale, sweet brow, and fell in rich profusion over her white, uncovered shoulders.
Rufus was arrayed in a glossy garb of the finest black broadcloth, with a spotless vest of pearl-tinted satin, and immaculate white kids. His dark visage, small, peering black eyes, and low-bred, clownish aspect, contrasted strangely with the brilliant creature at his side.
The maids and groomsmen were in splendid attire, and looked proud and delighted with the notice their position attracted from the assembled groups.
Then came Major Howard, with a beaming countenance; his invalid lady, who had summoned all her strength and fortitude to be present on the occasion, leaning on his arm.
Col. Malcome rose politely and gave her a seat on the sofa beside his daughter, assuming himself a chair on the opposite side of the room.
Hannah Doliver, in a very elaborate dress of gay plaided silk, her jet black hair twisted into wiry ringlets, sat before her mistress, holding a fan and silver vial, to serve the invalid's need, should the unusual excitement produce a sudden nervous attack.
A significant glance was exchanged between Major Howard and Col. Malcome, when the latter arose, and, bowing to the clergyman who was to officiate on the occasion, said: "All is in readiness to proceed with the ceremony."
The man of God came slowly forward, with a grave and solemn aspect. As he was about to request the bridal group to rise, a stamping of heavy feet on the piazza outside the windows arrested his words; and directly the hall door was flung open with furious vehemence, and a party, consisting of four tall, brawny men, in dripping hats and overcoats, rushed into the apartment, leaving the door wide open behind them, with the storm rushing in upon the assembly in its wildest fury.
Col. Malcome sprang to his feet, his face glowing with anger at this most untimely and insulting intrusion.
"Arrest that man!" exclaimed the foremost of the strangers, pointing his arm toward the form of the colonel, who stood glowering upon the speaker with wrathful aspect.
"For what?" said Major Howard, leaping from his seat, as two strong men rushed forward to execute the command.
"For destroying your buildings by fire, on the night of the twelfth of January last," said the man who had ordered the arrest, whom the major now recognized as the sheriff of the county.
"Prove your words! prove your words!" exclaimed Col. Malcome, darting back from the grasp of the men who approached to imprison him.
"I am prepared to do so," returned the sheriff, motioning a tall, lank form, in a long overcoat and broad-brimmed hat, which stood near the door, to advance.
"You were in the grounds adjoining Major Howard's mansion on the night of the twelfth of January last," said he, addressing the singular-looking man, whose features were so entirely hidden by his collar and hat-brim, as to be indiscernible.
The figure bowed low in token of assent.
"What did you see there?"
TheHermit of the Cedarshesitated a moment, as if to collect his thoughts, while the gaze of every person in the room was riveted upon him, and a breathless silence reigned as he commenced to speak in a low, measured tone of assurance and courage.
"I saw a man in dark clothes standing on the piazza of the doomed mansion. A figure in female garb appeared from within, and, after a brief, whispered conversation, left a small basket in his hand, and retired whence she had come. Then the man, after glancing cautiously around him, descended the steps and proceeded to light the fires. In three different places the devouring element was kindled, and, as he stooped to blow the light fragments with his breath, the flames suddenly leaped forth and revealed in startling distinctness the face and features of the incendiary. His hat had fallen to the ground and left his head exposed, which was covered with a profusion of light, auburn hair, clustering in short, thick curls around a high, pale forehead."
Major Howard sprang from his seat.
"Sir!" said he, darting an enraged glance on the strange man, "are you a fool? Do you not see the hair of the man you would accuse is black as midnight, while you affirm that of the one who fired my mansion to have been of a flaxen hue?"
The hermit seemed not in the least disconcerted by this speech. Raising the long cane on which his arms had been resting, he lifted the black cloud of curls from the head of Col. Malcome and dashed it upon the floor.
"Herbert Mervale!" shrieked the invalided Mrs. Howard.
On hearing this voice the muffled man, who had thrown off his broad-brimmed hat, turned suddenly round.
"And Ralph Greyson!" she added.
Then throwing her arms around the wasted form of Edith Malcome, she exclaimed: "My daughter! my daughter! is it thus I find you?" and sank insensible on the sofa beside her.
Hannah Doliver sprang toward Rufus, covering him with kisses and calling him her "dear, dear son."
The young man threw her roughly to the floor, and, alarmed by the sudden scene of tumult and confusion, rushed into the street.
Florence clung close to the side of her father, who seemed struck dumb with horror and amaze.
At length the sheriff approached him. "Do you wish further proofs against the man we accuse?" he demanded.
"Take the villain away!" roared Major Howard, bursting suddenly into a terrific ebullition of anger, "and burn him at the stake. Hanging is too easy death for such a monster of wickedness!"
The assembly, terrified by the angry, tumultuous scene, began to disperse.
"Pause for a brief moment, my friends," said the major, growing somewhat calmer; "I have a few words of explanation 'tis meet you should hear. That man," pointing to Col. Malcome, who stood in the strong grasp of his keepers, glaring around him with the ferocity of a baffled tiger, "is the wretch who married my sister to steal her fortune, and leave her in poverty and distress with a young babe at her breast, to debauch himself with her serving-woman, by whom he had also a child. There lies the woman he has wronged," said he, his face growing fiercer, as he pointed to the form of the supposed Mrs. Howard, cast lifelessly on the sofa beside Edith Malcome, "at the feet of her daughter, and there stands the vile creature," pointing a wrathful finger toward Hannah Doliver, "who was his leman. But her bastard boy has fled the embrace of his polluted mother. My sister returned to me, after suffering inhuman barbarities from this monster, but he withheld her child. Her heart was broken by misfortune, and her only wish was to pass the remainder of her life in quiet and seclusion. My wife died when this dear girl was an infant," said he, taking the hand of Florence in his, who stood with her eyes fixed immovably on her father's face; "and I besought my sister to stand in the place of a mother to my little daughter."
Florence directed a quick, troubled glance toward the form which still lay motionless on the sofa beside Edith, but did not move.
"I have no more to say," resumed the major more calmly; "the artful wickedness which has threatened my ruin is exposed. Officers of justice, do your duty! Take Herbert Mervale from my presence!"
The strong men grasped the form of the prisoner and marched him from the room. The baffled villain made no resistance. He closed his eyes to avoid beholding the loathing, abhorrent glances which were showered on him from all sides.
As the hermit was slowly following the receding group, Major Howard stepped to his side, and, laying his hand lightly on his arm, said:
"Will you not remain till the guests have retired?"
"No," answered the recluse, shaking his head sadly, "I have done my duty and had better depart."
"You have saved me from destruction," said Major Howard, in a tone trembling with grateful emotion, as he seized the thin, emaciated hand of the hermit, and pressed it warmly to his bosom; "how shall I reward you?"
"I seek no reward from your generosity," returned the solitary, escaping from the grasp which detained him; "the consciousness of having done right is sufficient recompense."
Thus speaking, he turned away. Major Howard returned to the parlors. The guests were departing, and the several members of the family had disappeared.
He hurried to the apartment occupied by his sister, and there beheld her and Edith lying side by side, apparently in tranquil sleep, with Florence and Sylva, Edith's maid, watching at the bed-side.
Hannah Doliver was nowhere to be seen.
Florence advanced to meet her father, and, twining her arm affectionately round his neck, turned a tender glance on the pale faces of the sleepers, and said:
"O, father! father! let us kneel by this low couch and thank God for this merciful deliverance!"
CHAPTER XLV.
—————————"All this is well;For this will pass away, and be succeededBy an auspicious hope, which shall look upWith calm assurance to that blessed placeWhich all who seek may win, whatever beTheir earthly errors, so they be atoned;And the commencement of atonement isThe sense of its necessity."
—————————"All this is well;For this will pass away, and be succeededBy an auspicious hope, which shall look upWith calm assurance to that blessed placeWhich all who seek may win, whatever beTheir earthly errors, so they be atoned;And the commencement of atonement isThe sense of its necessity."
—————————"All this is well;
For this will pass away, and be succeeded
By an auspicious hope, which shall look up
With calm assurance to that blessed place
Which all who seek may win, whatever be
Their earthly errors, so they be atoned;
And the commencement of atonement is
The sense of its necessity."
Baby No. 2, had appeared at the home of Mrs. Salsify Mumbles, and the delighted grandmother held the tiny little creature this way and that way, gazing on its features with the most doting fondness, and nearly smothering it with affectionate kisses.
And baby No. 2 did not squeal like its lusty-lunged predecessor. O, no! it had the softest little feminine quackle, for all the world like a downy young gosling; and Mrs. Salsify said she would have it called Goslina, it quackled so sweetly. So Goslina Shaw was the euphonious sobriquet of baby No. 2, and the joyful grandame returned it to the bed beside the pale face of its mother, where 'twas quackling off to sleep, when Mr. Salsify came in from the store, his features glowing, as if he had some startling intelligence to convey.
"My sakes! what is it, Mr. Mumbles?" asked the fond wife quickly marking her husband's excited manner.
"I guess folks will have something to talk about besides my getting gagged at the Woman's Convention," said Mr. Salsify, rather maliciously, drawing a chair before the grate and placing his feet on the fender.
"Why, what has happened?" inquired his wife, eagerly.
"Enough has happened," returned he, "if all Martha Pinkerton has just been telling me is true."
"Where did you see her?" asked Mrs. Salsify.
"She came into the store to-night to buy a chunk of cheese; so I asked her what was the news? when she told me of the awfulest tragedy that occurred at Col. Malcome's the night they undertook to get Florence Howard married to the colonel's son."
"O, mercy, who was killed?" exclaimed Mrs. S., with uplifted hands.
"Nobody as I know of," returned Mr. Mumbles, whose ideas of a tragedy were different from those of his good wife; "but then the whole company might have been, for they had a murderer amongst them."
"Mercy to me, how awful!" said Mrs. Salsify. "What was his name and how did he get there?"
"His name was Col. Malcome, and he got there by his own wickedness."
"You don't mean to tell me that handsome Col. Malcome is a murderer!" exclaimed Mrs. Salsify, with terror depicted on her features.
"Yes I do, and worse than that; he burned Major Howard's house, and tried to get his pretty daughter married to her own brother."
"How can Rufus Malcome be a brother to Florence Howard?" asked Mrs. Mumbles, in amaze. "You are talking nonsense to me, I fear."
"O, no," returned her husband. "I tell you this Colonel Malcome has turned out the strangest. He is Major Howard's mother, and Dilly Danforth's aunt, and that old hermit's sister, and the Lord knows who and what else; but they have carried him off to jail, so there'll be no chance for him to burn any more houses."
Here Mr. Mumbles drew a long breath and rested a while.
"I am glad I didn't marry him," said a feeble voice from the bed.
"So am I, my daughter," said the father quickly; "and you may thank me for having saved you from a fate so deplorable. Your mother was mightily taken with this colonel when he came fawning round us, and she was pretty cross when I told her it would not do to let him marry you. I knew that great black head was full of wickedness, and so it has proved."
Mrs. Salsify sat rather uneasily while her husband vaunted his superior knowledge of human nature, but the gentle Goslina began to quackle from the bed, and she soon forgot all else in care for the dear little creature.
While this conversation was passing at the home of the Mumbles, the Hermit of the Cedars sat before the glowing fire which brightened the rough walls of Dilly Danforth's humble abode. He had acknowledged himself as her long-absent brother, and great was her joy at beholding him again, though she grieved to know how one deep sorrow had blasted his early promise and made him a wretched, solitary recluse.
"I fear," said she, at length, "you must still feel bitterly toward me for the low connection I was so unfortunate as to form, which biased the mind of your fair lady's brother against your suit."
"No, my sister," returned the hermit, in a tone of tender sadness; "I deeply regret the harshness and wrong I visited upon you in the wild fury of that early disappointment, for I have learned no act of yours influenced Major Howard against my suit. It was the wily artfulness of my rival, who breathed specious tales of my unworthiness in the ear of the brother, and caused her, the fair, unsuspecting girl, to turn from me and give her hand to Mervale."
The hermit's voice trembled as he pronounced these latter words, and he bowed his head in silence. The sister pitied the sorrow which she knew not how to soothe.
At length Willie entered, his face all bright with smiles.
"What makes you look so glad?" asked his mother, gazing with fond admiration on the tall, handsome boy; for she still regarded him as a child, though he was nearly grown to man's estate.
"I have got something for Uncle Ralph," said he, looking cunningly in the hermit's face.
"What is it, William?" inquired he, with a solemn smile.
The youth drew a letter from his pocket and placed it in his uncle's hand.
"It is from Edgar," said he, eagerly breaking the seal.
All were silent while he was occupied in the perusal.
"Edgar has received the disclosures in regard to the pretended Col. Malcome with unaffected astonishment," remarked the hermit, as he refolded the letter and placed it in his bosom. "He appears delighted to learn that Willie Danforth, of whom he has heard me speak so regardfully, is his cousin, and sends much love to him and also to his new-found aunt."
Mrs. Danforth looked gratified at these words, as did also Willie.
"I am sure I want to see him very much," said the latter. "When is he coming home, uncle?"
"In summer, when the woods are green, he says," returned the hermit; "he is now taking sketches in the vicinity of Richmond, Va."
"Was his father an artist?" asked Mrs. D.
"Yes," answered the recluse. "I well remember where sister Fanny first met him, and how quick a wild, deep love grew out of the romantic adventure. It was a few months after we left this country—I to forget in travel my cankering sorrows, she to companion my wanderings. How it affects me now to think that we left you in suffering poverty without even a kind good-by! Our shares in the estate of our deceased parents furnished us with funds for travel, while yours had been squandered by a dissolute man. But we should have given you of ours to alleviate your wants and distresses. Fanny often told me so; but my worst passions were roused by the misfortune I conceived you had helped to bring upon me, and I would not hear her pleadings in your behalf. What a hard-hearted wretch I have been!"
The hermit paused and covered his face.
Willie looked from his uncle to his mother, and at length approached him. "Do not fall into one of your gloomy reveries," said he; "tell us more of Edgar's mother."
"Ay, yes," said the hermit, rousing himself; "I was speaking of her first meeting with her future husband. It was among the ruins of the Eternal City. She had wandered forth by herself one day, and, intoxicated by the scenes that met her eye on every hand, roamed so far that when the shades of night began to fall, she discovered herself in the midst of gloomy, crumbling walls and tottering columns, without knowing whither to direct her steps. While she stood indeterminate, a gentleman approached, and kindly inquired if she had lost her way. She answered in the affirmative, and he offered to escort her home. I remember how glowing bright was her face that night, as she came bounding up the steps of our habitation, and presented the 'young artist she had found beneath the walls of Rome,' as she termed her companion, and laughingly recounted her adventure. I believe our family are predisposed to strong feelings, for I never witnessed a love more engrossing than was hers for the young Lindenwood; nor was his devotion to her less remarkable. They were married, and I left them to pursue my wanderings alone.
"When, after a lapse of several years, I returned, it was to stand over their death-beds, and receive their boy under my protection. His father was rich, and a large fortune was left to his only child. A few more years I roamed, and then with the young Edgar sought my native shores.
"You know the rest. It is a long yarn I have spun you," said he, rising, "and I marvel you are not both asleep."
"Are you going back to the forest to-night?" asked Mrs. Danforth, as he wrapped the long coat about his thin form, and placed the broad-brimmed hat over his gray locks.
"Yes, Delia," answered he. "I sleep best with the roar of the cedars in my ears."
"I will go with you," said Willie, springing for his cap.
The twain set forth together, while the lonely woman sought her couch and thought mournfully of long-past days and years.
CHAPTER XLVI.
"She is a bustling, stalwart dame, and oneThat well might fright a timid, modest man.Look how she swings her arms, and treads the floorWith direful strides!"
"She is a bustling, stalwart dame, and oneThat well might fright a timid, modest man.Look how she swings her arms, and treads the floorWith direful strides!"
"She is a bustling, stalwart dame, and one
That well might fright a timid, modest man.
Look how she swings her arms, and treads the floor
With direful strides!"
It was a bright, sunny spring morning, and Wimbledon was beautiful in budding foliage, singing blue-birds and placid little river, with the sunbeams silvering its ripply surface.
The windows of Mr. Pimble's kitchen were raised and therein Peggy Nonce moved vigorously to and fro, with rolled-up sleeves and glowing face, stirring a great fire which roared and crackled in the jaws of a huge oven, and then back to the pantry, where she wielded the sceptre of an immense rolling-pin triumphantly over whole trays of revolting pie-crust, marched forth long files of submissive pies, and lodged them in the red-hot prison.
While the stalwart house-keeper was thus occupied, Mr. Pimble, with a yellow silk handkerchief tied over his straggling locks, and his pale, palm-figured wrapper drawn closely around him, scraped the stubbed claw of a worn-out corn broom over the kitchen floor, clapping his heelless slippers after him as he moved slowly along. Peggy never heeded him at all, but rushed to and fro, as if there had been no presence in the kitchen save her own, often dragging the dirt away, on her trailing skirts, just as the indefatigable sweeper had collected it in a pile.
All at once, pert little Susey Pimble opened the parlor door and swinging herself outward, said, "I want the dining-room castors and tea-cups, and mamma says I am to have them and you are to come and give them to me."
The father rested his arms on the broom handle, and turning his face toward his hopeful daughter, who was a "scion of the old stock," said, "I will come soon as I have swept the floor."
"I cannot wait," returned Susey, sharply, "I must have them this moment."
The father laid down his broom passively, and saying, "What an impatient little miss you are!" clappered off to the dining-room, and brought forth the desired articles on a waiter.
Miss Susey, all atilt with delight, danced forward and caught it from her father's hands; but its weight proved too much for her little arms, and down it went to the floor with a fearful crash! Susey sprang back with a frightened aspect at the mischief she had done, and Peggy Nonce, dropping her rolling-pin, rushed out of the pantry and beheld the fragments of broken china scattered over the floor. Her face crimsoned with anger.
"What a destructive little minx!" she exclaimed, glaring on the offending Susey. "How dared you meddle with those dishes?"
"Mamma said I might have them to play house with," answered Susey, with flashing eyes.
"Who ever heard of such a thing as giving a child a china tea set to play with?" said Peggy, holding up her bare, brawny arms in amazement.
"My mother has heard of such a thing; and she knows more than fifteen women like you, old aunt Peggy Nonce," returned Miss Susey, with the air of a tragedy queen.
The unusual sounds aroused Mrs. Pimble, who appeared at the parlor door with a goose-quill behind her ear, and a written scroll in her hand. When her eyes fell on the spectacle in the centre of the kitchen, she stamped violently, and exclaimed, in a tempestuous tone, "What does this mean?" Mr. Pimble slunk away into a corner, while Peggy pursed up her lips with a defiant expression, and Susey grew suddenly very meek and blushing-faced.
Mrs. Pimble's eyes followed her husband. "You crawling, contemptible thing," she exclaimed, "have you grown so stupid and insensate that you cannot comprehend a simple question? Again I demand of you, what does this mean?" and she pointed her finger sternly to the broken fragments which strewed the floor.
"Susey said you told her she might have the castors and tea things, and that I was to give them to her," said Mr. Pimble, without lifting his eyes from the hearth he was contemplating.
"Very well, I did tell Susey she might have the articles mentioned to amuse herself with, and it was fitting she should have them, or I had not given my consent. But why do I find them dashed to the floor and rendered useless? Answer me that, you slip-shod sloven?"
With an awful air, Mrs. Pimble folded her arms and looked down upon her husband, who cringed away before her ireful presence, and said, "Susey dropped the waiter."
"Dropped the waiter!" repeated Mrs. Pimble, her anger freshening to a gale. "And could you not prevent her from dropping it? or had you no more sense than to load an avalanche of china on the arms of a little child?"
"She took the waiter from me," said Pimble, in a dogged tone, his eyes still studying the tiles in the hearth.
Mrs. Pimble darted upon him one glance of the most withering contempt, and taking Susey by the hand led her from the room, without deigning to utter another word.
Soon as she disappeared Peggy set about clearing up the broken crockery, and Mr. Pimble crawled off into the recess of a window where the sun might shine on his shivering frame, and at length fell asleep. He had hardly concluded his first dream of fragmentary tea-cups, ere a violent pulling at his draggling coat-tails, which hung over the sill, caused him to wake with a start, when he beheld Peggy Nonce at his side, saying, "Dilly Danforth was come to see him." With a hopeless yawn he crawled out of his sunny nook, and, turning his dull, sleepy eyes toward the disturber of his quiet, demanded, in a surly tone, "what she wanted with him."
"I have come to pay my quarter's rent," said Mrs. Danforth, placing a bank note in his grimy hand. He closed his skinny fingers on it with an eager clutch, and looked in the woman's face with a vague expression of wonder.
"I am glad to get a shilling from you at last," said he, fondling the note; "but this will not quite pay up the last quarter's rent. There's about half a dollar more my due. You can come and do the spring cleaning, and then I'll call matters square between us."
"I thought ten dollars was the sum specified, for three months' rent," remarked Mrs. Danforth.
"It was," returned he, "but you know you had the pig's feet and ears at the fall butchering, and Mrs. Pimble gave you a petticoat in the winter. These things would amount to more than fifty cents, if I put their real value upon them; but as you have cashed this payment, I will, as I said before, call all square with a few days' light work from you."
Mrs. Danforth drew another note from her pocket, and, placing it in his hand, asked him to satisfy himself of his claims upon her, as she could not favor him with her services as he desired, having work of her own to do. Mr. Pimble looked still more astonished when he felt the second note between his fingers. He put it in his pocket and returned her a silver piece. She took it, and, turning to depart, said, "I shall not want your house any longer, Mr. Pimble. I am going to move away to-day."
"Where are you going?" he asked, opening his sleepy eyes very wide.
"I have hired a room in Deacon Allen's cottage," answered she. "It is near the seminary, where William attends school."
Mr. Pimble continued to stare on the woman, with distended eyeballs.
"You have been a very peaceable tenant," he said at length; "I would rent my house cheaper, if you would remain another year."
"I have made my arrangements to move, and would prefer to do so," returned Mrs. Danforth, bidding him good-morning.
He looked very much disconcerted after she was gone, and muttered, he "did not see what had set Dilly Danforth up so, all at once."
CHAPTER XLVII.
"'Tis silent all!—but on my earThe well-remembered echoes thrill;I hear a voice I should not hear,A voice that now might well be still.Yet oft my doubting soul 't will shake;Even slumber owns its gentle tone,Till consciousness will vainly wake,To listen though the dream be flown."
"'Tis silent all!—but on my earThe well-remembered echoes thrill;I hear a voice I should not hear,A voice that now might well be still.Yet oft my doubting soul 't will shake;Even slumber owns its gentle tone,Till consciousness will vainly wake,To listen though the dream be flown."
"'Tis silent all!—but on my ear
The well-remembered echoes thrill;
I hear a voice I should not hear,
A voice that now might well be still.
Yet oft my doubting soul 't will shake;
Even slumber owns its gentle tone,
Till consciousness will vainly wake,
To listen though the dream be flown."
"O, it is ever the wildest storms that lull to the sweetest calms!" wrote Florence Howard, on a new-turned leaf of her well-treasured journal. "My heart is singing grateful anthems to the all-wise Father, who stretched forth his friendly arm to save me from the 'snare of the spoiler.' As I sit here to-night, with a young May moon gleaming down through the far depths of liquid ether, like a sweet, angel face of pity and love, how dimly o'er my memory come the stormy scenes of sin and passion which conspired to render terrible the winter that has passed away! My soul, long torn and rent by grief and wild-contending emotions, grows tranquil in the calm and quiet which have succeeded the furious storm, and settles to peaceful rest.
"It is enough for me to know my father's wrongs are righted and I am still his own, and only his. The clown, from whose polluting arms kind Providence rescued me, has never shown his hateful form among us since the day that witnessed the disclosure of his father's baseness. His vile mother has also disappeared, in search of her son. Great Heaven! to think I was so near becoming the wife of that woman's child of sin; and, but for that strange, wild hermit, who lifted the black curls that veiled the monster who sought our destruction, O, where had we all been now? And was it not a striking instance of Jehovah's righteous retributions, that the man who was once the betrothed of my aunt, should be the instrument selected by Heaven to disclose the villany and wickedness of the wretch who seduced her affections by artful falsehoods, and made her his wife, but to steal her fortune and blast her life? Poor, dear aunt Mary! I mourn not nor pine to find she is not my mother, for surely the fragile Edith, so rudely shocked by the disclosures of her father's crimes, would have drooped and died, had she not found a mother's fond affection to comfort and sustain her in the trial hour. It is a beautiful sight, this reünion of parent and child. How trustingly they cling to each other, and how their wan aspects brighten in the warmth of their mutual affection! But I think there's a love in the mother's heart yet stronger than that she feels for her child. I watch her emotional excitement when the name of the hermit is mentioned, and I think that early devotion has survived all disappointments and afflictions. What a romantic thing it would be for them to meet in the evening of life and renew the promises of their youth! But it may not be, for the conviction steals coldly o'er me that my dear aunt has been too deeply tried to long survive her sorrows. Even the joy of discovering a daughter may not save her from the tomb which opens to receive her weary form in its oblivious arms. Father looks on the thin, wasted form, following Edith closely as her shadow, with a fond, earnest gaze fixed on the gentle girl, and turns to hide a tear. O, would the blow might be a while averted! All is so bright and sunny around us now. I even try to nurse the belief that Icouldnot be happier, but my heart will rebel against the specious falsehood. Still, still it wears the fetters love so enduringly fastened. Still I remember that double dawn which rose on me as I stood on the cloud-veiled summit of old, hoary-headed Mount Washington.