"'To scorn delights and live laborious days.'
"'To scorn delights and live laborious days.'
"But he has measure in everything,—and it is something to say of a boy of his ardent temper. He observes the balance between physical and mental exercise. He follows the counsel Languet gave to Sir Philip Sidney,—to 'take care of his health, and not be like one who, on a long journey, attends to himself, but not to the horse that is to carry him.'"
"Do his parents wish him to follow the law?" my mother asked.
"They wish whatever he does. It seems they hold their boy something sacred, and do not dare to interfere with him. But I wish it. The law is the threshold of public life. I want to see him in his place."
The Doctor sat smiling to himself for a little while, nodded his head once or twice, and then, fixing his clear, cool blue eyes on my face, said, in an emphatic voice,—"That boy will make his mark. Depend upon it, he will make his mark in one way or another!" A shadow fell over the eyes; the voice was lowered:—"I have only one fear for him. It is that he may throw himself away on some fanaticism."
"How long have you known Harry Dudley?" I asked, when the pause had lasted so long that I thought the Doctor would not begin again without being prompted.
"All his life. Our families are connected;—not so nearly by blood; but they have run down side by side for four or five generations. His father and I pass for cousins. We were in college together. He was my Senior, but I was more with him than with any of my own classmates until he was graduated. He married very soon after, and then his house was like a brother's to me. I went abroad after I left college, and was gone three years. When I came back, we took things up just where we left them. Dudley went to Europe himself afterwards with his family, but I was backwards and forwards, so that I have never lost sight of them. I have nobody nearer to me."
"I was surprised to learn, from what you saidlast evening, that Harry had passed a good deal of time in Europe."
The Doctor turned upon me briskly. Perhaps my tone may have implied that I was sorry to learn it.
"He has lost nothing by that. He has lost nothing by it, but that fixed stamp of place and time that most men wear. Though I don't know whether he would have had it at any rate: he was always himself. You have seen some shallow fellow who has been spoiled for living at home by a few years of sauntering and lounging about Europe. But rely on it, he who comes back a coxcomb went out one. Never fear! Harry is as good an American as if he had not been away,—and better. Living abroad, he has had the simplicity to study the history of his own country as carefully as if it had been a foreign one, not aware that it is with us no necessary part of a polite education. As for its institutions, he has an enthusiasm for them that I could almost envy him while it lasts, though I know he has got to be cured of it."
"How long was he abroad?"
"More than seven years."
"Was he with his parents all the time?"
"They were near him. His home was always within reach. But he was for several years at a large school in Paris, and again at one in Germany.At sixteen he had done with school and took his education into his own hands. He lived at home, but his parents did not meddle with him, except to aid him to carry out his plans. It was a course that would not answer with every young man, perhaps; but I don't know that any other would have done with him. He is one to cut out his own path. He chose not only his own studies, but, to a great extent, his own acquaintances; took journeys when he pleased and as he pleased. Wherever he was, with whomever, he always held his own walk straight and firm. You would not think that boy had seen so much of the world?"
"I could have thought he had been carefully guarded from it, and shielded almost from the very knowledge of wrong."
"He has never been kept out of danger of any kind; but it seems there was none anywhere for him. He is now, as you say, just as much a simple, innocent boy as if he were nothing more."
"His wings are grown, and shed off evil as the birds' do rain."
The Doctor started as this voice came from behind his chair. Tabitha, who had disappeared as soon as her attendance on the table was no longer needed, had reëntered unobserved, and stood, her basket of vegetables poised on her head, absorbed in our conversation, until she forgot herself into joining in it.
Sunday, April 7, 1844.
The storm which has been gathering since Friday evening came on last night. This morning the rain pelts heavily against the windows. This is not the Easter-Sunday I was looking forward to when I urged Harry Dudley to stay for it. He would have been glad to stay, I know; but he did not think it right to ask Dr. Borrow to change his plans again, and merely for a matter of pleasure. When I addressed the Doctor himself on the subject, he showed me a paper on which he had planned out occupation for every day and almost for every hour of the two weeks that were to pass before our meeting at Omocqua. I had not the courage to remonstrate.
I am afraid we shall have none of the neighbors here to-day. But the table is set out with all the prettiest things the house affords, ready for the collation which is to follow the morning reading. This is a munificence we allow ourselves at Christmas and Easter. We keep ceremoniously and heartily the chief holy days, the religious and the national. In your large cities, where sources of emotion and instruction are open on every hand, where the actual day is so full and so animated that it is conscious of wanting nothing outsideof itself, it is not strange, perhaps, that men should become careless of these commemorations or yield them only a formal regard. Our life must widen and enrich itself, by stretching its sympathies and claims far beyond its material limits. We cannot forego our part in the sorrows and joys of universal humanity.
It was a pleasure to me to find that Harry, who has lived so long in countries where the public observance of the Christian festivals is too marked to allow even the indifferent to overlook them, remembers them from affection as well as by habit. When I came into the parlor, early last Sunday morning, I saw by the branches over the windows that he had not forgotten it was Palm-Sunday. He was sitting on the doorstep trimming some long sprays of a beautiful vine, which he had brought from the thicket. As soon as I appeared, he called on me to help him twine them round the engraving of the Transfiguration. You did right to tell me to bring that engraving down-stairs. It hangs between the windows. I have made a simple frame for it, which answers very well; but next winter I am going to carve out quite an elaborate one, after an Italian pattern which Harry has sketched for me. If I could think that you would ever see it!
Harry and I had a walk before breakfast,—the first of the early morning walks that were afterwards our rule. He is not a great talker. The sweet modesty of his nature retains its sway even in the most familiar moments. He is earnest; sometimes impassioned; but never voluble, never excited, never diffuse. What he has to say is generally put in the form of simple and concise statement or suggestion; but he gives, and perhaps for that very reason, a great deal to be thought and felt in an hour.
The bouquet that Harry brought in that morning was of green of different shades, only in the centre there were a few delicate wood-flowers.
"Has Dr. Borrow seen these?" my mother asked, looking at them with pleasure.
"No," the Doctor answered for himself, laying down on the window-seat beside him the microscope with which he had been engaged. "No," he said, with a good-humored smile; "but I know Harry's choice in flowers. He begins to have a nice tact as to what's what, when it is a question of helping me; but, for himself, he still likes flowers for their looks, or sometimes, I think, for their names. His favorites are the May-flower and the Forget-me-not. They represent for him the New World and the Old,—that of hope, and that of memory. But he is a friend of all wild-flowers, especially of spring wild-flowers,—and more especially of those of New England. He loves the blood-root, though he oughtnot, for it is a dissembler; it wears outwardly the garb of peace and innocence, but, out of sight, wraps itself in the red robes of tyranny and war."
"No," Harry answered; "red is the color of tyrants only because they have usurped that with the rest. Red, in the old tradition, is symbolic of Divine Love, the source of righteous power. White is the symbol of Divine Wisdom, and is that of peace, because where this wisdom is there must be harmony."
This talk of New-England wild-flowers, the mention of names once so familiar, was very pleasant to me. I must have the blood-root, if it will grow here. I could never see it again without seeing in it a great deal more than itself. For me, the pure white of the flower will symbolize the wisdom of God, always manifest; the red of the root, His love, sometimes latent, yet still there.
The Doctor, having made his protest, put the microscope into its case, and came to my mother's table to examine. When he spied the little flowers nestled in the green, he exclaimed,—
"Where did you find these, Harry? You must have gone far for them."
"No; I found them where the old forest used to be, among the stumps."
"Waiting for a new generation of protectors to grow up about them," said the Doctor, looking atthem kindly; "this generous climate leaves nothing long despoiled. If Nature is let alone, she will soon have a forest there again. But, Harry, you must take me to that spot. We'll see what else there is to find."
"Are these flowers scarce?" Harry asked.
"They are getting to be."
"I should have shown them to you, but they are so pretty I thought they must be common."
"Well, to do you justice, you don't often make a mistake now.—When we first set out," continued the Doctor, turning to me, "he was always asking me to see this beautiful flower or that superb tree; but now he never calls my attention to anything that is not worth looking at."
"I called you to see one superb tree that you found worth looking at," said Harry,—"Brompton's oak at Omocqua. Colvil, when you see that tree!"
Love of trees is one of the things that Harry and I are alike in.
"Yes, that is one of the finest specimens of the live-oak I have met with," affirmed the Doctor.
"We will hold our meeting under it on the nineteenth," said Harry. "Colvil, come on the afternoon of the eighteenth. Be there before sunset."
"Harry will bespeak fine weather," said the Doctor.
"You know how Omocqua stands?" asked Harry. "It is in a plain, but a high plain."
"I have heard that it is a beautiful place."
"It is beautiful from a distance," said the Doctor; "and when you are in it, the distant views are beautiful. The hotel we were at,—the Jefferson Hotel, Harry?"
"The Jackson, I believe, Doctor."
"No, the Jefferson," decided the Doctor, after a moment's thought. "We heard the two hotels discussed at Cyclops, and decided for the oldest."
"They are opposite each other on Union Square," said Harry, waiving the question.
"The hotel we were at," the Doctor began again, "is on the northern side of the town. From the field behind it, where Harry's tree stands, the prospect is certainly very grand. Hills, mountains, to the north and east,—and west, a fine free country, intersected by a river, and happily varied with low, round, wooded hills, and soft meadows, and cultivated fields. Harry drew me there almost against my will, but it needed no force to keep me there. I had my flowers to see to. Harry brought out my press and my portfolios, and established me in a shed that runs out from the barn, at right angles with it, fronting west. He found a bench there that served me for a table, and brought me a wooden block for a seat. So there I could sit andwork,—my plants and papers sheltered from the wind,—and look up at the view when I chose. Harry is right. Meet us there on the afternoon of the eighteenth. I wish it as much as he does; and the sunset will be worth seeing, if there is one."
"Come on the eighteenth," said Harry,—"and if you arrive before us, wait for us under that tree; if after, and you do not find me at the door, look for me there. You go through the house by the main entry, across the court, through the great barn; the field is in front of you, and the tree."
"Or, if you like better," said the Doctor, "you can enter by a gate on a side-street, from which a wagon-road leads straight to my work-shed. The street runs west of the hotel. In any case, don't fail us on the nineteenth. We'll hold your celebration under your tree, Harry,—that is, if Colvil agrees to it."
There was no doubt about that.
After breakfast, I went up into the study to prepare for the morning's reading. I had intended to choose a sermon suited to Palm-Sunday; but I happened to take down first a volume of South, and, opening on the text, "I have called you friends," could not lay it down again. What lesson fitter to read on that beautiful day, and in that dear company, than this, which aids us to comprehend the inexhaustible resources of the Divine Affection,—its forbearance, its constancy, its eager forgiveness, beforehand even with our prayer for it,—by drawing for us the portrait of a true, manly friendship?
I have never been able to accept the doctrine that the Great Source of Love is jealous of His own bounty, and reproaches us for bestowing again what He has freely bestowed. Yet, though unassenting, I feel pain when I read in the works of pious men that a devoted regard yielded to a mortal is an infringement of the Highest Right, and I am grateful to the teachers who permit us to learn to love the Father whom we have not seen by loving the brother whom we have seen. In those seasons which happen to us all, when a shadow seems to pass between the spirit and its sun, I have brought myself back to a full and delighted sense of the Supreme Benignity by supposing the generosity and tenderness of a noble human heart infinitely augmented; and I have invigorated my trust in the promises of God, the spoken and the implied, by calling to mind what I have known of the loyalty of man.
Human ties wind themselves very quickly and very closely round my heart. I cannot be brought even casually into contact with others so nearly that I am made aware of their interests and aims, without in some sort receiving their lives into my own,—sharing, perhaps, in disappointments, that, in my own person, I should not have encountered, and rejoicing in successes which would have been none to me. But friendship is still something very different from this,—different even from a kind and pleasant intimacy. Nor can we create it at will. I feel deeply the truth of South's assurance, that "it is not a human production." "A friend," he says, "is the gift of God: He only who made hearts can unite them. For it is He who creates those sympathies and suitablenesses of nature that are the foundation of all true friendship, and then by His providence brings persons so affected together."
Last Sunday was one of those days that are remembered for their own perfection, apart from the associations that may have gathered about them; and it seems to be one of the properties of these transcendent seasons to come attended by all harmonious circumstances. Nothing was wanting to last Sunday. It stands cloudless and faultless in my memory.
Harry proposed that we should hold our services in the open air. My mother approved. We took up her couch and carried it out to your favorite dreaming-ground, setting it down near the old tree that goes, for your sake, by the name of Keith's Pine. The place is not rough as when you werehere. I have had the stumps cleared away, and your pine no longer looks so lonely, now that it seems to have been always alone.
We brought out a bench and all the chairs in the house. We placed the bench opposite my mother's couch, about thirty feet off. We set the great arm-chair for the Doctor, near the head of the couch, which we considered the place of honor. My straight-backed oak chair was put near the foot, with my mother's little table before it for the books. The other chairs were arranged in a semicircle on each side, with liberal spaces. Tabitha assisted at these dispositions, and chose a place for her own favorite willow chair close to the trunk of the pine-tree, between it and the couch, where, as she said, she had a full view of the congregation. I understood very well that the poor soul had another motive, and was guarding her dignity by selecting a distinguished and at the same time a secluded station. When she saw that all was in order, she went back to the house to stay until the last moment, in order to direct late comers.
Harry, at first, sat down on the grass near me; but when Karl and Fritz came, they looked toward him, evidently divided between their desire to be near him and their fear of presuming. Discretion prevailed, and they took their seats on the ground at a little distance from the bench. Harry perceived their hesitation, and saw Hans consulting me with his eyes. He was up in a moment, brought a chair and put it beside mine for the old man, who is getting a little deaf, and then exchanging a smiling recognition with the boys, took his own place near them.
Barton, the landlord of the Rapid Run, at Quickster, came that morning. You cannot have forgotten Quickster, the pretty village with a water-fall, which charmed you so much,—about five miles from Tenpinville, to the north. And I hope you remember Barton, the landlord of the inn that takes its name and its sign from the swift little river that courses by his door. He never sees me without inquiring after you. He shows the delights of his neighborhood always with the same zeal. He guided the Doctor and Harry about it for an hour or two the day they passed through Quickster, coming from Omocqua. It was to him the Doctor had recourse, when he went back to hire a wagon for poor Orphy. I thought at first that Barton had forgotten the custom of our Sunday morning, and had only meant to pay me a visit. But it was not so. He had his son with him,—Isaac Davis Barton,—who is now ten years old, and in whom, he says, he wants to keep a little of the New-Englander, if he can, and so shall bring him over to our reading every fair Sunday. I did not know whether I ought to feelpleased or not. There is no church at Quickster yet; but there is one at Tenpinville,—two, I think. I have no doubt at all that I have done well to invite our few neighbors, who have no chance of hearing a good word in any other way, to listen to a chapter in the Bible and a sermon here on Sunday. I have had evidence that some of them have been made happier, and I almost dare to think better, by coming. But it is another thing when there is an opportunity of attending regular religious services. I did not think it well to discourage Barton by telling him my scruples on this first occasion. It would have been rather ungracious after his ten miles' ride. I like the little boy very much, and hope we shall be good friends. I shall feel a better right to advise by and by. Barton had a chair near Dr. Borrow's; his son sat in front of him on the grass.
Next to Barton came an old man and his wife, who have established themselves in one of the empty houses on the Shaler plantation,—whether by permission or as squatters I do not know, and nobody about here does. But as the man has a smattering of two or three trades through which he makes himself acceptable, and the woman some secrets in cookery and other household arts which she imparts very readily, no umbrage is taken at them. Their name is Franket. They have simple,honest faces, and bring nothing discordant with them.
The next place in this semicircle was filled by a man who has not a very good name in the neighborhood. Meeting him one day, I asked him to join us on Sundays, only because I ask all who live near enough to come easily. I did it with a little trouble, expecting to see a sneer on his face; but he thanked me quite civilly, and, though several weeks passed without his taking any further notice of my invitation, it seems he had not forgotten it. He is not an ill-looking man, when you see him fairly. His expression is melancholy rather than morose, as I used to think it. After this, I shall never take refusal for granted, when I have anything to offer which I believe worth accepting. This man's name is Winford. I assigned to him, as a stranger, one of two remaining chairs; but he declined it, taking his seat on the ground. The chairs were immediately after occupied by the wife and daughter of Rufe Hantham, a man tolerated for abilities convenient rather than useful. He is one of the class of parasites that spring up about every large plantation. He is a hanger-on of the Westlake estate, which lies just beyond Shaler's, between that and Tenpinville. The wife is a poor little woman, whose face wears an habitual expression of entreaty. It is the daughter who brings her, Ithink. This young girl, of fifteen or less, has a look of thought and determination, as if she held in her mind some clearly formed plan which she will carry out to the end, towards which her coming here is possibly one of the first steps. She keeps her eyes fixed on the ground, but evidently is listening intently,—committing, as it seems, everything she hears to a memory that never lets go what it has once taken hold of. They have been twice before. When the reading is over, the mother looks as if she would like to have a little chat with somebody; but the daughter holds her in check with hand and eye,—not unkindly, but effectually. They wait until some one sets the example of going, and then follow quickly and silently. We have made no attempt to invade a reserve which seems deliberate.
Harvey's plantation is on the other side of Tenpinville, more than eighteen miles from us; but it had a representative here, in young Lenox, one of the sons of the overseer. He came for the first time. He sat in the opposite semicircle, next to Harry, with whom he was already acquainted. The chairs on that side were occupied by the Segrufs and Blantys, respectable neighbors, whom you may remember.
Another new-comer was a little boy whom we met in our morning walk, and who joined himself tous at once with a confidence which was very pleasant. Harry took a great fancy to him. I asked him to come to us at ten, hardly hoping he would accept; but he did, eagerly. He does not belong to our part of the world. He is the son of a carpenter who has work here for a few months. I was glad to see him come in, and another little fellow whose father has brought him once or twice, but who has not been alone before. The father is not often well enough to come.
There are one or two persons whom I am always gladnotto see; and that morning my wishes were answered in those who came and in those who stayed away. Of these last is Phil Phinn, who thinks to make up for the time of mine he uses in the adjustment of his neighborly differences by devoting an hour of his own, once in two or three weeks, to the penance of listening to me. I could well spare his vacant solemnity that day. His absence was of good augury, too, for he is strict in attendance when an occasion for mediation is imminent.
At ten o'clock precisely we heard the great bell rung by Tabitha, who until then kept watch at the house. While it was ringing, a family came in of which I must speak more particularly, because I feel already that I shall speak of it often. This family has only recently arrived in the neighborhood. The father, I think, is Southern born; the mother must be from the North. They brought all their children, down to the baby, three years old, that listened with all its eyes, as the rest with all their hearts. They had been here only twice before; but the perfect unity of this little family, which seemed always influenced by one feeling, moved by one will, the anxious watchfulness of the parents, the close dependence of the children, had already greatly interested me. This man and woman have certainly known more prosperous, if not better days. The lines of their faces, their whole bearing, tell of successive reverses, worthily, though not resolutely borne,—of a down-hill path long trodden by patient, but unresisting feet. There are no signs of struggle against adverse fortune. But, in such a struggle, how often do the charm and joy of life perish, torn and trampled by their very rescuers! These people have maintained their equanimity, if not their cheerfulness. They have no reproaches for themselves or each other. The bench was for this family. The father, the mother with the baby in her lap, the daughter, and the second son filled it; the eldest sat at his mother's feet, and, when he was particularly moved or pleased by anything that was read, looked up to her to see if he was right. A great gravity held the whole group,—deepest on the elder faces, and gradually shading off into the undue tranquillity of the infantile look.
When Tabitha came, she brought the little white vase with Harry's flowers, and put it on the table, where, indeed, it ought to have been.
I seldom read the whole of a sermon. I like to keep more time for the Bible. And then I omit those passages which I foresee might provoke questions which I should not dare to assume the responsibility of answering. I do not presume to take upon myself the office of religious teacher. I only strive, in the absence of one, to keep alive in myself and those near me a constant sense of God's presence and care, and of the bond which, uniting us to Him, unites us to each other. This I do by reading the words of those who have had this sense most strongly and have expressed it most vividly.
Of the sermon I had chosen I read the first paragraph, and then, turning over nine pages, began with the Privileges of Friendship. I do not know whether this discourse of South's is to others what it is to me. Perhaps there is something in it particularly adapted to my needs,—or perhaps it is because it came to me first at a time when I was very eager for the assurances it gives; but I never read it without feeling a new inflow of peace and security. At least some of those who heard it with me that day felt with me. Harry I was sure ofbeforehand. When we broke up, and I went forward to speak to the strangers on the bench, it seemed to me that their anxieties were soothed by something softer than patience. An indefinable change had passed over the whole family. They all seemed lightened of a part of the habitual burden. I took them up to my mother. She asked them to be sure and come on Easter Sunday; they accepted in earnest; but with their poor little wagon and poor old mule they will hardly encounter the rain and the mud to-day.
I was so intent on my letter, that I forgot the weather, until, writing the wordrain, I looked towards the window. It does not rain, and has apparently held up for some time. And now I hear a racket in the road, and a stumping, that can come only from the poor little wagon and the poor old mule.
Afternoon, 3 o'clock.
It is raining again; but I think our friends had time to reach their homes before it began. We have had a happy day, notwithstanding its dull promise. I read an Easter sermon,—"Because it was not possible that he should be holden of it." The text itself is more than a thousand sermons.
The name of the family that was arriving thismorning when I left off writing is Linton. They are from Western Virginia. They stayed with us for an hour after the reading was over. Our interest in them is still increased. Winford came again. I asked him to stay; he declined; but I think he was pleased at being invited. The Hanthams came, mother and daughter. They arrived at the last moment, and went at the closing of the book. The corner in which the table stood was curtained off, so that there was no visible sign of unusual hospitality; but they had perhaps heard of the custom of the day. Mrs. Hantham would not have been inexorable; but she was summoned away by a gesture a little too imperative, perhaps, from a daughter to her mother. Davis Barton came on horseback, without his father. I set him off again at one o'clock; for the sky threatened, and his road home was a difficult one at best.
But let me go back to last Sunday. I was just at the breaking-up of our little assembly by the pine.
The Lintons—they had no name then—were the first to go. The Hanthams were the next. Then the others dropped off, one by one and two by two: some taking leave as if they felt themselves guests; others withdrawing silently, as considering themselves only part of a congregation. Barton went round shaking hands with one and another. I was surprised to see him show this attention toWinford. Barton likes to be well with the world,—that is, with as much of it as he respects; but he respects himself, and does not seek popularity at the expense of sincerity. I am confirmed in my belief that there is good in Winford.
When all the rest were gone, Barton came up to have a talk with the Doctor, for whom he evidently has a great admiration. Harry remained with Karl and Fritz, who were holding him in conversation, apparently on some important matter,—old Hans, a critical listener, completing the group.
Barton inquired after the success of the Doctor's late excursions, and complimented him warmly on his powers of endurance, which seemed almost miraculous in a city man. This Doctor Borrow freely admitted, declaring that he had hardly ever undertaken an expedition with a party of people which had not turned out a disappointment,—that he seldom, indeed, found even a single companion who could walk with him, or who could rough it as he could.
"You've got one now, though," said Barton.
"Oh, for that," the Doctor answered, laughing, "Harry is a degree beyond me. I can bear as much as any man, but I know that I'm bearing, and like to give myself credit for it. Harry never feels either heat or cold or damp or dust. Nothing disagreeable is able to get at him. There is no suchthing as hard fare for him; and if he knows what fatigue is, he has never confessed to it."
"And yet I suppose he's something of a scholar, too?" asked Barton; and he looked thoughtfully down at his son, who always kept close to him, and who had been drinking all this in eagerly.
As the Doctor hesitated to reply, Barton added,—"I asked him, that day you were at Quickster, if he had read a book that I had seen a good deal of talk about in the newspapers, and he said, No, that he had hardly read anything yet."
"Of course, of course, at his age! Still, you need not precisely take him at his own estimate. His modesty misleads, as much as some people's conceit does the other way. He is not always up to the fashion of the moment in literature; does not try to read everything that is talked about; but he has read the best of the best."
"Is that the best way, do you think?" asked Barton, anxiously.
"What do you think yourself?" asked the Doctor.
"I should think it must be a good one."
"It depends altogether on what you want to have," said the Doctor, following the track of Barton's thought, and fixing a searching look on Davis, as if to ascertain what material was there. "The queen-bee is fed on special and choice food from thefirst; if you want a king-man, you must follow the same course."
"You've seen some fine countries abroad, Sir?" said Barton, presently. "Any finer than ours?"
"Finer than yours? No. You've a fine country here, Mr. Barton, and a fresh country: Nature stands on her own merits, as yet. No 'associations' here; no 'scenes of historical interest' for sightseers to gape at and enthusiasts to dream over. You have your Indian mounds, to be sure; but these are simple objects of curiosity, and don't exact any tribute of feeling: you've no 'glorious traditions,' and I assure you, it is reposing to be out of their reach."
"We've only what we bring with us," answered Barton, a little touched; "we don't leave our country when we come here."
"Colvil looks now as if he had something in reserve. But I'm not alarmed. If there had been anything about here that had a tinge of poetry, I should have heard of it long ago from Harry. Most people think this sort of folly is in good taste only in Europe. But Harry brought it home with him in full force. Before he'd been on land a week, he'd seen Concord and Lexington."
"Had he, though?" cried Barton. "I am an Acton boy, you know," he added, in a subdued tone, a little abashed by his own vivacity.
"Upon my word, Dudley has waked up the old-fashioned patriot in you already."—Harry had now come up, and made one of the Doctor's listeners.—"I saw he was getting hold of you that morning at Quickster, when you were talking up your State to us. You were beginning to feel that you had something to do about it. It isn't the country that belongs to her sons, according to him, but her sons that belong to the country. Take care! give him time, and he'll make a convert of you."
"I will give him time," answered Barton, laughing.
"Don't be too confident of yourself. I have to stand on my guard, myself, sometimes. And don't be misled into supposing that his notions are the fashion in the part of the world we come from, or in any other civilized part of it. Harry, you were born some hundreds of years too late or too early. Fervor in anything, but above all in public service, is out of place in the world of our day.
"'Love your country; wish it well;Not with too intense a care:Let it suffice, that, when it fell,Thou its ruin didst not share.'
"'Love your country; wish it well;Not with too intense a care:Let it suffice, that, when it fell,Thou its ruin didst not share.'
"That's modern patriotism, the patriotism of Europe. Ours is of the same strain, only modified by our circumstances. Our Mother-land is a good housekeeper. She spreads a plentiful table, and hersons appreciate it. She wants no sentimental affection, and receives none. She is not obliged to ask for painful sacrifice; and lucky for her that she is not!"
Harry's cheek flushed, and his eye kindled:—
"Let her only have need of them, and it will be seen whether her sons love her!"
Davis Barton was in more danger of conversion than his father; his eyes were fixed ardently on Harry; his face glowed in sympathy.
"The nearest thing we have to a place with 'associations,'" I began quickly, preventing whatever sarcastic answer may have been ready on the Doctor's lips, "is the Shaler plantation."
"Yes," said Barton, "the Colonel was an old Revolutioner."
"The father?" asked the Doctor.
"Yes."
"To be sure. The son's title is an inherited one, like my friend Harvey's, who, now he is beginning to get a little gray, is 'the Judge,' I find, with everybody."
"And he looks it very well," said Barton. "I don't know whether it will go down farther."
"And the present Colonel is anewRevolutioner, probably," said the Doctor, inquiringly.
"I suppose some people might think he only followed after his father," Barton answered.
We were getting on delicate ground. Barton is no trimmer, but he is landlord of the Rapid Run. He made a diversion by inquiring after Orphy, and the Doctor gave him the account of their journey as he had given it to me,—yet not forgetting that he had given it to me. The same in substantial facts, his story was amplified and varied in details and in ornament, so that I heard it with as much interest as if it had been the first time.
"Is musical genius of the force of Orphy's common among the negroes of your plantations?" The Doctor addressed this question to me.
"Not common, certainly,—nor yet entirely singular. Almost all our large plantations have their minstrel, of greater or less talent. Your friend, Mr. Frank Harvey, has a boy on his place, who, if not equal to Orphy, has yet a remarkable gift. Did not Mr. Harvey speak to you of him?"
"I dare say. He had several prodigies of different kinds to exhibit to us. But we were there so short a time! He introduced us to a blacksmith of genius; to a specimen of ugliness supposed to be the most superior extant,—out of Guinea; and to a few other notabilities. But we had hardly time to see even the place itself, which really offers a great deal to admire. I could have given a few more days to it, but I saw that Harry was in a hurry to be off."
"I am sorry you did not see that boy. He would have taken hold of your imagination, I think, and certainly of Harry's. Airy has seen only the sunny side of life. He has all theespièglerieof the African child."
"Orphy has not much of that," said the Doctor.
You ought to have seen little Airy, too, Keith. He was already famous when you were here. He is rightly named; a very Ariel for grace and sportiveness. With the African light-heartedness, he has also something of African pathos. In his silent smile there is a delicate sadness,—not the trace of any pain he has known, but like the lingering of an inherited regret. His transitions are more rapid than belong to our race: while you are still laughing at his drollery, you see that he has suddenly passed far away from you; his soft, shadowy eyes are looking out from under their drooping lashes into a land where your sight cannot follow them.
"If you were to go there again, it would be worth while to ask for him," I said to the Doctor. "Airy Harvey is one of the wonders of our world."
"Airy Harvey!" cried the Doctor; "does Harvey allow his servants to bear his name? Westlake strictly forbids the use of his to his people. But then he supplies them with magnificent substitutes. He doesn't think any name but his own too good for them."
"Does he forbid them to take it?" asked Barton. "I heard so, but thought it was a joke. Why, there isn't a living thing on his place but goes by his name, down to that handsome hound that follows him, who's known everywhere about as Nero Westlake."
Barton seemed to enjoy Westlake's failure, and so, I am afraid, did the Doctor. He laughed heartily.
"He's rather unlucky," he said, "considering it's almost the only thing he is particular about."
"I don't believe Mr. Harvey could change the custom either, if he wished," I said; "but I do not think he does wish it. A name is a strong bond."
"That's true," said the Doctor. "Harvey's a wise man; it's a means of government."
"If I had to live under one of them," said Barton, "Westlake's haphazard fashions would suit me better than Harvey's regular system: a life in which everything is known beforehand tells on the nerves. But, strangely enough, Mr. Harvey never loses one of his people, and Westlake's are always slipping off."
"If Harvey carried on his plantation himself, as Westlake does," replied the Doctor, "he would be adored where now he is only loved. His rule would abound in that element of uncertainty whosecharm you appreciate so justly. But he is wisely content to reign and not to govern."
"Mr. Harvey has a good overseer, I understand," said Barton,—"supervisor, though, I believe it is."
"Lenox; yes. He is able, perfectly temperate, cool, inflexible, and just."
"You have learned his character from Mr. Harvey?"
"And from what I have myself seen. The estate is really well ordered,—all things considered; Harvey tells me it is rare that a complaint is heard from his negroes."
"Lenox takes care of that," said Harry.
"And he ought. I walked round among the cabins with Harvey. Not a creature but had his petition; not one but would have had his grievance, if he had dared."
"Do you suppose they have no real grievances, then?"
"I suppose no such thing. I never saw the man yet—the grown man—without one; and as I did not expect to meet with him here, I didn't look for him. Harvey allows no unnecessary severity; his plantation is governed by fixed laws, to which the overseer is amenable as well as the slaves. Every deviation from them has to be accounted for. He sees that his people have justice done them,—that is to say, as far as justice ever is done on this earth. He has wrought no miracles, and probably did not expect to work any. He has run into no extravagances of benevolence; and I respect him for it all the more that I know he is by nature an impetuous man. I cannot but think our friend Shaler would have done better to follow his example than to abandon his negroes as he has."
"He gave them something to begin their new life with," said Harry.
"So much thrown away. Just a sop to his conscience, like the rest; a mode of excusing himself to himself for shifting off his own responsibilities upon other people. Two thirds of his rabble are paupers by this time."
Harry looked to me for the answer.
"They have been free four years. Two of them have fallen back on his hands,—two out of one hundred and seventy-three. He has not abandoned them. They still apply to him when they need advice or aid."
"I was not so much arguing about this particular case, which I don't pretend to have much knowledge of, as reasoning upon general grounds. I still think he would have done better to keep his slaves and try to make something of them here."
"The law would not let him make men of them here," Harry answered.
"A great deal may be done, still keeping within the law," replied the Doctor, "by a man more intent on doing good than on doing it precisely in his own way."
"Even in what it allowed, the law did not protect him. Where injustice is made law, law loses respect,—most of all with those who have perverted it to their service. You know Mr. Westlake's maxim,—'Those who make the laws can judge what they are made for.'"
"The power of opinion in what are called free countries," replied the Doctor, "is indeed excessive. It has long been a question with me, whether a single hand to hold the sceptre is not preferable to this Briareus. But we have chosen. I am not disposed to deliver myself up, bound hand and foot, to this fetich of public opinion. Still, a man owes some respect to the feelings and principles of the community in which he lives. I may think the best way of disposing of old houses is to burn them down; but my neighbors will have something to say, and justly."
Harry did not reply; nor did I at that time.
Tabitha appeared and bore off three chairs,—one on her head and one in each hand. We understood the signal. Harry and I took up my mother's couch; Barton and his son loaded themselves with two chairs each; the Doctor liftedthe arm-chair with both hands, and, holding it out before him, led the way, somewhat impeded by his burden; and so we moved in slow procession to the house.
In the afternoon, when Barton and his son were gone, the Doctor, Harry, and I took a walk to the site of the old forest. We found a few more flowers like those Harry had brought to my mother in the morning, but nothing else that the Doctor cared for. On our way back, I told him the story of Shaler's attempt and failure. I wonder I did not tell it to you when you were here. But we had so much to ask and to say, and the time was so short! I will tell it to you now.
Shaler did not wish to burn down the old house, nor even to pull it down. He wished to renew and remodel it so slowly and so cautiously that those who were in it should hardly be aware of change until they learned it by increase of comfort. He was not a self-centred, but a very public-spirited man. He had a great ambition for his State. He wished it to be a model of prosperity, material and moral. He saw that its natural advantages entitled it to take this position. The most practical of reformers, he began with himself. He found fault with nobody; he preached to nobody; he meant to let his plantation speak for him. His plan was simply to substitute inducement for coercion,—to givehis men a healthy interest in their labor by letting them share the profits,—in short, to bring them under the ordinary motives to exertion. This does not appear to you a very original scheme, nor, probably, a very dangerous one. He entered upon it, however, with great precautions, having due regard to law, and, as he thought, to opinion. He did not pay his people wages, nor even make them presents in money. He gave them better food, better clothes, better houses, letting their comforts and luxuries increase in exact proportion to their industry. The result was what he had hoped,—or rather, it was beyond his hopes. The pecuniary advantage was greater and more speedy than he had expected. He did not boast himself. He waited for his abundant crops, his fine gardens and orchards, and his hard-working people to bring him enviers and imitators. The report, in fact, soon spread, that Shaler was trying a new system, and that it was succeeding. Neighbors came to inspect and inquire,—first the near, then the more distant. Shaler forgot his caution. He was an enthusiast, after all. He saw proselytes in his guests. He laid bare his schemes and hopes. These aimed at nothing less than the conversion of the whole State, through his success, to more enlightened views; thence, a revisal of the laws, a withdrawal of the checks on benevolent effort; and finally, the merging of slavery in a new system, which should have nothing of the past but the tradition of grateful dependence on the part of the employed and of responsibility on that of the employer, rendering their relation more kindly and more permanent.
Among his visitors and hearers were generous men to be moved by his ideas, and wise men to appreciate their practical fruit; but the sensitiveness of delicate minds, and the caution of judicious ones, withholding from prompt speech and action, too often leave the sway in society to men of small heart, narrow mind, and strong, selfish instincts. Such never hesitate. Their sight is not far enough or strong enough to show them distant advantages or dangers. Their nearest interest is all they inquire after. These men combine easily; they know each other, and are sure of each other. The sensitive shrink aside and let them pass on; the prudent deliberate until the moment for arresting them has gone by. Men who are both good and brave come singly, and, for the most part, stand and fall alone.