“Maggie, are you never going to tell us that story?”
“Yes, dears, presently, when I’ve done here. Yes, she is quite a dear little thing, and Sally Irish, who lives with them, you know, says she’s so good and so gentle, and goes about every thing so nicely and so pleasantly, that she has quite won Sally’s heart already, and that, you know, is not very easy to do. It was only a day or two after they moved up, before they had got all fixed to rights, that she came up to Sally, who was washing out some things, and said to her, as she held out a bundle of nice muslins—‘Do, Sally, please wash these out for me this time, and I will stand by whilst you do it and learn how, and then, you know, another time I can do it myself, and perhaps, in time, I may learn to do it almost as well as you, Sally.’”
“Well, I am glad to hear she’s not so set up with her piany and such nicknakeries as to be above being willing to help herself some. When I heard what a heap of help they had down there, I thought sure as how they were going to bring all their city notions as well as their piany down here into the country.”
“Why, what harm can there be in a piano,” said the oldest of the Holmes girls, before whose eyes visions of a boarding-school, and a piano, and such like things had been for some time dancing; “I can’t see what harm there can be in having a piano. For my part I think it must be very nice, and I mean to go over and see that dear, pretty Mrs. Dawson, and perhaps she will play on hers for me.”
“No doubt she will, my dear,” said Miss Susan Bitterly; “accomplished ladies like her when they’re settled down among such barbarians as we, are glad to find some one as accomplished as yourself with whom to associate.”
A tart reply arose to Susan Holmes’ tongue, but an opportune look from her mother arrested it.
“I should think,” resumed Mrs. Hardmoney, “that their help would eat up all they make at any time. The Gilbert farm was never a very profitable one, and this man, Dawson, they say, knows nothing about farming. He’s hired Sara Bromley and Jim Clodpole to work on the place. Sam told my old man he was to have a kind of management of things, for Dawson hardly knew the tines of the fork from the handle. We all know that Sam is a managing fellow, and if he don’t contrive to get more out of the place than Dawson, I’m mistaken.”
“I think you do Sam injustice,” said Mrs. Holmes. “Mr. Holmes told me that Mr. Dawson came to see him about hiring Sam, and that he took him on his recommendation. Dawson is to pay him high wages, but Sam is a smart hand, and if Dawson will only keep his eyes open, he may learn a good deal from him.”
“One thing is very certain,” broke in our friend, Miss Chatterton—“I shall go see her as soon as she’s fixed, and I hope all the neighbors will. From what Sally Irish told me, I’m sure she is not a bit uppish, but will be glad to see us all. And you know, Mrs. Holmes, you can give her some of your nice recipes for country dishes, and teach her so many things, if you choose, about managing her dairy, and I am certain, from what Sally says, she will be much obliged to you for doing so.”
“Well, my dear,” said the lady, addressed, “I have been thinking about it for some time, only I thought perhaps she would not care to have any visitors until she got quite settled and began to feel quite at home. It was only to-day Mr. Holmes told me he thought it would be neighborly for me to go, and he was sure she would take it quite kindly. Mr. Dawson and he are quite sociable, and he often drops in to see how things are getting on as he goes by, and Mr. Dawson consults with him a good deal about things and is quite thankful to him for his advice.”
Mr. Holmes was one of the principal men in that part of the world. In addition to the very fine farm on which he lived, he was the owner of two or three others, and had some very comfortable snug sums invested in mortgages, and some stocks. Mr. Holmes’ opinion on any subject was then that of a man entitled to be heard, for it is astonishing what an additional force of wisdom those little things called dollars, when counted in tens of thousands, and especially in hundreds of thousands, lend to their possessor. Should it chance that they should mount into millions, Solomon himself, could he revisit the earth, would not be more regarded than are their fortunate possessors—their words are cherished as the very oracles of wisdom, and their breath is as it were the divine afflatus—men who possess them may pass their lives without contributing in the slightest degree to the comfort or happiness of their fellow men, the very incarnation of selfish avarice; but should they after their death, unable to carry it with them, build and endow an hospital, a college or a library, their names immediately ascend to heaven in grateful pæans for their wondrous bounties, and they live in brick and marble for ages, whilst those whose lives have been past in one constant act of beneficence to their fellows, sink into their graves and are forgotten in a month.
Mr. Holmes’ opinions then, were of weight in the circle in which he moved, and his good lady re-echoing them, they bore down all feeling which the natural rancor of Miss Bitterly and the contracted views of Mrs. Hardmoney might have engendered in the breasts of the females around, against our sweet Maria. None of them had yet seen her; she had not been a month in their neighborhood, but they all had heard something good about her, and after wondering why the Dawsons had not yet been seen in any place of worship, and whether they didn’t mean to go, and if they did which—the conversation turned into other channels, and Maggie Chatterton at last yielded to the solicitations of the children to go over into their corner and tell them “that nice story.”
The village of Euston, though numbering less than a thousand inhabitants, was well supplied with places of public worship, for, as we have said, it was surrounded by a populous neighborhood. First, stood the old and venerable brick building, destitute of any ornament, unless the glazed ends of the blue-colored bricks scattered profusely through the walls couldbe called such, with its small, venerable porch. The building was, however, becoming too large for the worshipers, or rather the worshipers were becoming too few for the building, for the great dissension, some years previous, which rent the society in twain had reached here, and a large number had gone off to seek another building other than that in which, in contemplative silence, their sires and grandsires before them had worshiped. Then came the Baptists and Methodists, in their almost equally plain buildings but with large congregations, and the Presbyterians and Episcopalians, with more pretending buildings but much fewer numbers, brought up the rear.
It was not from want of a chance that the Protestant could not worship, and the number of emigrants in the neighborhood was so small that the chapel of the Roman Catholic had not yet appeared. Before removing to the country Dawson and his wife had been regular attendants on every Sunday morning, or at least on every not very wet or stormy Sunday morning, at a church of the Episcopal denomination. They went, especially the gentleman, more from a feeling that it was a tribute rendered to propriety than from any other motive. Not that he was an irreligious man; he was simply a careless one. Of religion in the abstract, he professed when he spoke of it, which was very seldom, great respect. He had never been led off either by reading or the influence of companionship to any thing beyond simple indifference. He saw that those who were called “religious people”—“church members”—most of them declined frequenting the opera, or the theatre, or ball-room. He could not understand this—he could not comprehend why what he considered the innocent pleasures of life were to be thus given up. It is true he often met these very persons in the concert-room, or at what he thought very large parties, provided there was no dancing—he could not understand those which he considered distinctions without a difference, except that the music of the concert-room would be improved by scenic representations in costume, or that the scandal of the tea-party might be advantageously broken in upon by the music of the dance. This was the reasoning of one who merely regarded the surface—beyond this he had not penetrated. Religion itself, as a vital, soul-giving principle, he had never studied. A large portion of the Bible was familiar to him—he admired the psalms of David for their exquisite pathos and simplicity—the sublimity of Isaiah, and the mournful imagery of Jeremiah had touched his fancy, but his heart had been unmoved, either by these or the gentle teachings and lofty morality of the New Testament. He read the Bible as he did the works of other great authors, to please his fancy, his imagination, but not as the Book in which choice of life and death, the mode of attaining the one and avoiding the other, is offered to mankind. Maria, like most women, possessed deeply religious sensibilities. The Bible was not to her a sealed book, and she was unconsciously most probably to herself, much influenced in her actions by its teachings. But her mode of life and that of her husband had not been such as to allow it to make any very deep impression on her. Had one charged her with being deficient in religious feeling she would have shrunk back from it with horror. But, in very truth, though the germs may have been planted in her heart, the requisite sun and rain had not yet reached them to mature them. With such views, they had not hastened their motions churchward, and, since their removal, were under some feeling of embarrassment at a first meeting with a congregation all strangers to them.
——
On the Sunday succeeding the tea-party at Mrs. Holmes’, our hero and heroine solved the problem in regard to their church-going by appearing in the Episcopal church at Euston. Thus it was settled that they did intend to go to church, and also where they intended to go; two very important points for the gossips of the neighborhood. Mr. Dawson had called on the church-warden to obtain a pew a day or two before; the fact was duly communicated to his wife, and by her to some of the ladies of the congregation, so that when the Sunday morning arrived the new comers were duly expected. She would of course be dressed in her best silk dress, made in newest fashion; and her hat of the same material, would also be a glass in which the ladies of Euston could mould their own. Great was the surprise of sundry good ladies, who cast furtive glances over their shoulder, when a young lady of graceful mien and carriage, and who could be no other than the expected one, followed the warden, who politely pointed out their seats to the strangers, up the aisle. Attired in a simple, white muslin dress, with a plain straw hat, slightly trimmed with green ribbon, Maria, holding her little boy by the hand, disappointed expedition. There was no time for criticism, for immediately after the clergyman entered the desk, and as there was no grand preliminary flourish by the organ of some favorite aria from Rossini or Bellini, the services commenced.
They were conducted with an earnest fervor which chained and held the attention of all. There was no attempt at display, but the lofty and sublime beauty of the liturgy was brought out in all its force by the heartfelt utterance of the speaker. The congregation soon seemed to enter into the spirit of the rector. The responses were deep and fervent—the music, plain and unaccompanied by an instrument, seemed to the new arrivers, joined in as it was by the whole congregation, as more expressive of deep devotion than the more finished efforts of the choir, accompanied by a superb instrument, to which they had been accustomed. The sermon which followed was in keeping with what had passed. It was a plain, practical discourse on our duties here as connected with our state hereafter. There was no eloquence, but much earnestness—the sentences were not rounded and polished to the highest elegance of finish, but brief and pithy, and the language strong and nervous, went directly home to the heart andconscience. Although devoid of ornament, it was entirely free from any thing like commonplace, and proclaimed the utterer to be no commonplace man. A few months only settled in the place, he had already made a forcible impression on his people, as was apparent from their manner both during the prayers and the sermon.
Mr. Stapleton was indeed no ordinary man. His talents were more than usually fall to the common herd. They had been highly cultivated, and would fit him to adorn any position to which he might be called. His ambition was, however, to do good to his fellow man. To this all the energies of his mind and heart were directed. Holding sincerely to the distinctive principles of his own denomination, he could yet see in every man a brother. The road to heaven was not in his opinion over one narrow plank, which alone must be trodden in conformity with the creeds and synods of certain men in order to reach it. In his preaching as in his practice, it was justification by faith in a crucified Redeemer who died to save all who sincerely trusted in him. Where disease and sorrow were, there was the rector found—nor were his attentions confined to those who were called of his own denomination—it was enough for him to know that pain or suffering existed to draw him to its home. In humble imitation of his Divine Master, “he went about doing good.” The effects of this were already apparent in many cases—universal respect and esteem awaited him whenever he approached—the careless, the indifferent, the profane, all awarded to him a consistency of life and conduct in keeping with the doctrines and principles he enforced. The influence of such a life in a man placed in such a situation could not but be felt in the surrounding community, and especially among those whose spiritual guide he was—accordingly, already the fruits of it were beginning to be shown in a deeper, and more earnest spirit of devotion in his congregation. Their attendance on the regular services of the church was more numerous and more regular; increasing attention was given by them to the spiritual education of their children through the medium of the Sunday-schools into which he had breathed a renewed vitality.
Yet with all his energy and devotedness in his sacred calling Mr. Stapleton was no bigot, no ascetic. In the social circle no one contributed more largely to the entertainment and amusement of those around him. He took an active interest in the temporal affairs of those among whom he lived—he had a keen relish for the innumerable blessings with which God has strewed our pathway through life, recommending the use, but strongly deprecating the abuse of them; in a word, inculcating both by precept and example temperance in all things.
Such was the man upon whose ministrations the hero and heroine of our tale now for the first time attended. They were unknown to him except by reputation, their former history being familiar to him, and fear of intrusion having thus long deterred him from seeking an acquaintance, which must have been most agreeable to a man of as cultivated a mind and refined taste as his. Now, however, that they had enrolled themselves among his parishioners, the case was different, and in the discharge of his pastoral duties he could seek them out with propriety. This was accordingly done, and Dawson and his wife felt pleasure that among those who were likely to be their future life associates there was one so refined in taste, so cultivated in intellect, so gentlemanly in manner as their pastor. Nor was the pastor on his side less pleased. The charms of conversation with persons of refined taste and cultivation were a source of positive pleasure to him, and of relief to a mind worn by study and anxiety. The lighter literature in which Dawson delighted was not unknown to him, and from the shelves of his new friend (the “back-parlor” had been transformed into the “library”) he could obtain authors of rare merit which his own library did not afford. Maria’s piano and voice were always put into requisition at the pastor’s call, and thus in a comparatively short time an intimacy was established, which under other circumstances would in all probability have only been brought about in months, if not in years.
Let it not be supposed, however, that in his intercourse with the Dawsons, Mr. Stapleton ever lost sight of the great object of his life—the salvation of the souls of his fellow-men. The greater his intimacy became, the more he found himself the habitual frequenter of the house of his new friends, the deeper became his interest, the more anxious his desire to raise their thoughts from the concerns of time to those of eternity. Gradually and gently would he lead the conversation into channels which enabled him to dwell more and more on the thoughts that were nearest and dearest to himself. He found attentive listeners. There were no doubts of a sceptical kind to be overcome. Both Dawson and Maria yielded a belief of the head to all the doctrines of Christianity, to which they had been accustomed to listen from their childhood. With her, too, as she had increased in years, had—in her more thoughtful moments—increased an earnest respect for the precepts which were familiar to her. In the midst of all her former gaiety and splendor, she not unfrequently felt that she was created for some higher and nobler purpose than to pass her life in the frivolities of which she was the center. An aching void, filled—as she thought—first, by her husband, and then still fuller by her children, she could not but at times experience, as who of us has not. Stapleton now showed her that even these cherished objects of affection were not sufficient. These ties death might rend asunder—the cherished objects might be wrested from her, at any rate, for a season; but, that there was one, to whom, if she gave her affections, He never would part from her. To do this, it was not necessary for her to abate one iota of her domestic feelings—the love for those on earth and for Him in heaven were not only compatible with each other, but would actually increase the purity and devotion of each.
So sped away the fall and winter. The new comers had become perfectly at home in their newposition. Many and various had been the neighborly calls upon them, which had been duly returned. Strange was the contrast between their new and old acquaintances in much of the outward forms of society, but they both found that beneath these plainer exteriors were frequently met with hearts as large and pure, and minds as strong and vigorous, if not as polished and cultivated, as those to which they had been accustomed. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes had been invaluable adjuncts to both. The former had conveyed many an useful piece of practical knowledge to Dawson, who had entered on his new pursuits with a fixed determination to succeed, and with his mind unfettered by any of those prejudices arising from the fact that “his father had done so before him,” or that “it was the practice in their neighborhood,” was enabled to avail himself of all the improvements which modern skill and the experience of others now bring to the aid of the tiller of the soil. His life was passed in an even, quiet tenor. If his meals were not as luxurious as they once had been, labor of some kind gave to them a most excellent relish, and no butter was ever so good as that which he now ate, for the hands of Maria had made it; no pastry so light and delicious, for the same fair hands had prepared it; no bread so sweet, for she had kneaded it herself; and her light cakes, a recipe from Mrs. Holmes, were pronounced equal to those of that thrifty lady, whose housewifery was the theme of admiration the country round. Thus they conformed themselves to their circumstances; and, in so doing, enjoyed the many blessings Heaven still reserved for them. The children had thriven apace. Harry had learned not only to take care of himself without the assistance of Mrs. Harris and Jenny, but aspired to take charge of the cows, also; being never so happy as when permitted to assist in driving them to and from the pasture-grounds. Little Maria’s great delight, too, wasto feed the “chickes,” and baby, left to roll about a good deal by itself, was fast attaining that happy period, when it is its glorious privilege to waddle up and down stairs alone, to the imminent danger of its own neck, and the perpetual alarm of all careful mammas.
But had the true seed sown by Mr. Stapleton produced no fruit during this time?—It had. An increased and more earnest attention to those things of which he spake was seen on the part of both Dawson and his wife. The mode of operation on their minds and hearts was different. He reasoned—she felt. With the almost unerring instinct of the female character she had reached her conclusions, whilst her husband was deliberating with slower reason. She felt that here was the something which was to fill that aching void in her heart, which, despite her ardent affection for her husband and children, she had long felt there. With her usual prompt determination she acted. She communicated her resolves to her husband, whose only reply was a warmer, more fervent kiss than usual. Thus sanctioned by her husband, in the early spring she made a public confession of her faith by joining in that communion a remembrance of a Saviour’s love from which she had before abstained.
Let it not, however, be supposed that this was the result of sudden and hasty determination. Many and earnest were her communings with her own mind. Long and earnest had been her conversations with Mr. Stapleton—attentive and careful her perusal of the sacred volume; and when, at last, after frequent and fervent prayer to God, for enlightenment and guidance, she fully determined to pursue the path she had considered, she felt her heart lightened of a load, and the peace of mind which the world can neither give nor take away.
One care now oppressed her—one desire actuated her: it was that her husband should also join with her in her new profession. To obtain this end was now her constant aim. Fervently did she address her prayers to God for such a consummation. Earnest and loving were her conversations with him. His head and his mind were (she knew) right; but his heart had been untouched. Well she knew, that for her sake he would do almost any thing—but for his own sake it was that the devoted wife, leaning upon his arm as they sometimes rambled together, or, at other times, with her hand resting in his pressed her gentle pleadings upon him. She opened for him such passages of the sacred volume as she thought most suited for him, and then, not unfrequently, retiring to the privacy of her own chamber would throw herself upon her knees, and pour out all her full, gushing soul to God in earnest prayer, that he would touch the heart of her husband and bring him to Him. (God answereth prayer.) Nor were hers in vain; and, oh! who could tell the unutterable joy of that fond heart when, at last, pressing her fondly to his heart, he avowed his determination to join her, on the following Sunday, in an open profession of his Saviour before men, adding—
“To you, my own sweet wife, I owe this change which has come upon me. Your gentle pleadings, your fond prayers have opened this stubborn heart, and prepared the way for the reception of those better things which were hereafter to be his.”
“Not unto me, dearest Henry, not unto me, but unto God above be the praise. Too happy, indeed, am I, if I have been the feeble instrument in His hands of your enlightenment.”
Close we the scene. It would indeed be a privilege, had we the ability, to follow our heroine further. Never had she looked so lovely. A heavenly radiance and serenity shone from her young brow. Her eyes wore a subdued and softened expression which rendered them even more attractive than of old. And how was her care for her childrenheightened—not for their bodies only, as formerly, but now for their souls. Never afterward did either she or Dawson cast a regretful glance backward, for they felt that, if they had lost the world, they had gained Heaven.
T. R. N.
FATHER BROMLEY’S TALE.
———
BY WILLIAM ALBERT SUTLIFFE.
———
“I will tell you a tale,” said Father Bromley.
Father Bromley sat on the piazza of his cottage, looking over the green breadth of lawn which stretched down to Willow Brook. The sun had just gone down, and the western sky, still a-glow, seemed—seen through the willows—like a splendid tissue—gold and green; and the stream, as it rolled, might have been supposed to have its rise in that strange El Dorado which filled our country’s ancestral dreams. On his right sat his daughter Alice, needing to be but a shade paler to be wrapped in a shroud, and laid to her dreamless sleep with a white rose-bud pressed between her slender fingers, and on his left his other daughter, Margaret, fresh as a June rose at sunrise. The father sat between them; the very pattern of paternal grace and quiet benignity. His worldly cares had been slight, so his face had been left smooth, full, and sunny; so sunny, in fact, that it appeared to have taken and retained the quintessence of every sunbeam which had fallen upon it. But now, like external nature, it had a sort of twilight expression, approaching to spirituality, which would awaken in the beholder an abiding interest, and lead him to pause and study ere he passed. Various circumstances conspired to this—the time, the place, and the proximity of his pale child, propt up with pillows, and almost as ethereal as a moonbeam. For a long time they had been sitting in a deepening silence, which neither wished to disturb; and so absorbed were the two daughters with their own thoughts, that the first words of the gray father fell upon unheeding ears.
“I will tell you a story,” he repeated, after a little pause, and in a firmer tone.
Slowly, and with a sigh, like one awakening from a pleasant dream to an unpleasant reality, Alice lifted the lids, and upturned her eyes, filled with a gathering dreaminess, to the dawning love-look of her only parent. Those deep, dark eyes, they must have known many tears.
“Do let us hear it, papa,” she murmured, “but let it be in harmony with gathering stars and slanting moonbeams, and let it have a true golden tinge from the sunset which lights up the gloaming.”
“And do let us hear it!” echoed Margaret, turning quite away from the moon, which was just rising.
“And of what shall it be?” asked Father Bromley, as he looked inquiringly from one to the other.
“O, something that will please Alice!” returned the sweet girl. “For who knows how many times we shall have it in our power to please her,” she thought but did not say, for all of that household knew that sooner or later death would knock at their door.
There was a long pause, and then Alice said—
“Let it be of the picture, with the angel-face, which hangs in the green parlor?” There must have been strange thoughts suggested by it, for her face in the white moonshine grew a shade paler, and her hands trembled a little, as if nervously affected, but no one noticed it.
There was another pause, and then she continued, as if to explain the reason of her wish—
“I have been reading to-day a beautiful poem, in which a lovely lady died of a broken heart, and her spirit nightly haunted her old home. Thinking on the sad tale, I paused to weep, and sat for a few moments with shut eyes. When I opened them, the first thing that I saw was the portrait, and—will you believe it?—it had acquired a new sadness, such as I never saw on a mortal face. It seemed to be looking at me with an incomprehensible intensity of earnestness; and, as I still gazed, a tear—I saw it as plainly as I see the moon—started in the eyes, and rolled down the face. And then another, and another,” she went on in higher tones, as if trying to impress a burning truth on incredulous listeners, “and all the while it looked at me so sadly—but not with pity, and seemed so to invite me, that I fancied that I heard the lips say—‘Come!’Thatwasonlyfancy, but, as I live, I saw it weep.”
Father Bromley looked with deep and tender anxiety upon the pale face at his side. He well knew of a report, formerly current in the house, to the effect that this same picture was seen to shed tears just before the death of any member of the family. But this piece of information he restrained, justly deeming it not pertinent for the occasion. Margaret looked anxious and perplexed, but said nothing; and the father, after a little pause, began—in a low voice—his tale. Let us listen, dear reader, seated attentively on the sward, at the corner of the dim old mansion. We may be as sceptical as we please, since neither of us ever saw a strip of paintedcanvas, in a gilt frame, weep.
“My great grandfather’s second wife—for so far back his story was to date—was a strange, bad woman. There was no peace in her vicinity. The estate had become involved, and my great-grandfather, knowing her to be possessed of some money, married her. But he always had cause to bitterly rue that day and hour which made her his. He had two daughters—both sweet girls, and she one son, who had inherited all her bad qualities, with an additional coarseness and ugliness of manner, which she—if she possessed it—from superiority of education, seldom showed. Her son, whose name was Andrew, had that sensual perception of beauty which always marks vulgar natures, and he hadbeen but a short time in the family before he gave evidence of the impression which the beauty of the younger sister made upon him. Lisette, from the first, rejected his overtures, and withdrew from his society to that of her elder sister as much as possible; but Andrew, not heeding her contempt, and abetted moreover by his mother, still pressed his suit with all the pertinacity and regardlessness of feeling, which characterize such semi-barbarous beings. The persecuted girl sought her father’s protection, and he, in giving it, alienated from himself the spark of affection which the bosom of the step-mother might have known. From that time she ‘hated him with the hate of hell;’ but, with all the cunning of her perfidious heart, she covered it with a smile. She softened toward her step-daughters, and, by her open advice, Andrew discontinued the attentions which had made him so odious in their sight. All was, seemingly, about to be harmonious and well again, when the father suddenly sickened and died. There were strange circumstances attending his death, which made it to be as much talked of as an eighth wonder. Sturdy men put their bushy heads together, and whispered mysteriously in corners, and old dames—stooping over the few last embers on the hearth, as the hours drew on toward the ghostly midnight—muttered to each other in underbreath, starting ever and anon if the wind but wailed a little louder, or flapped a clapboard which chanced to hang loose. Children whimpered if they were put to bed alone in the dark; and young women, in broad daylight, would not go ten rods unattended over an unfrequented road. Dame Burton had had, for a long time before this, an unfavorable reputation with a few, and the assertions of this few were latterly gaining believers. It was now currently reported that she was in the habit of going, nightly, to the Devil’s Crag, under which was a cave, whose black recesses had never been seen by mortal eye. It was furthermore reported, that whenever any one approached it, a dark vapor issued from its mouth, in the midst of which were sometimes seen two fiery eyes, and ominous voices also added to the fright of whomsoever might chance to be lost or stray in this vicinity.
“The foundation for all this was the testimony of two superstitious woodmen; who, in plying their trade, occasionally ventured into the vicinity, and, besides what has been here told, one of them gave out—as a piece of definite information—that, being one night belated in the neighborhood of the cave, and coming toward home in great terror, he suddenly heard the sound of rapid footsteps, and pausing, he saw Dame Burton come into an open spot not twelve feet from him. Suddenly there appeared a man as black as ebony at her side. Whence he came he could not tell, but hisidentitywas not to be mistaken.
“‘Why are you so late?’ asked the dark personage.
“‘Mercy, mercy!’ cried the cringing dame, piteously.
“But mercy did not seem to be one of his component parts; for, seizing her roughly by the arm, and rushing off with her like lightning through the dense underbrush, he made directly for the cave, leaving nothing but an overpowering smell of brimstone, and a line of blue light, pointing like a guide-board toward the place of rendezvous.
“How the man ever got home he could not tell: but it was not at all uncertain that he did get home, and tell the tale here given to a thousand incredulous hearers.
“Father Burton died and was laid with his fathers, and Esther and Lisette wept together in their sorrow, and arrayed themselves sadly in mourning weeds. The suspicions of their neighbors never troubled them. The thought that their step-mother could be to utterly depraved would have killed them at once, had it entered their minds. The father had not, however, been long gone to rest when they perceived a change in the mother and son. The mother’s face assumed a crafty and hag-like expression, and the son’s face seemed to have gotten a look of stupid cunning quite foreign to it. Except this, for some time, nothing was to be seen; but soon matters took a more overt and decided turn, Andrew again renewed his odious attentions, but with a confidence which he formerly lacked. He was met with the same coldness as before, to which was added an entreaty—coached in the most conciliatory language, to the effect—that he would desist. But coldness and entreaty were alike vain. He still persisted, and Dame Burton, at last, seconded his suit by commanding Lisette, in unequivocal terms, to marry him.
“‘I cannot! I will not!’ said Lisette, with a passionate burst of tears, at the close of an interview in which the matter had been pressed upon her with more than ordinary vehemence and fiendish show of malignity.
“‘Cannot? will not?’ muttered the dame, half to herself and half to her auditor, accompanying the same with an impatient gesture, and a laugh hissed through her closed teeth—‘we will see! we will see!’
“‘I beg to hear no more of this,’ continued the persecuted girl, ‘or I shall expect our poor dead father to come in his shroud to defend me from such cruelty.’
“‘Thy poor dead father in his shroud!’ echoed the step-mother. ‘Ah, ha! it was a good drug—a friendly drug,’ she muttered on in an undertone, ‘a pleasant potion, for a peevish child!’ and then she laughed at her devilish wit. ‘Thy father sleeps well, child. Did thy keen wit ever take exception at the friendly nursing which waited on him to the grave?’
“Lisette started, and looked fearfully at her; but, recovering herself, she proceeded to state her refusal more definitely.
“‘I will took upon thy son as a brother, but do not think I can ever do more. Why will he persist in asking what he has so often been told I cannot give? We are dissimilar, and I cannot love him—but I do not hate him. I repeat, I will continue toregard him as a brother, but in any other light I cannot—ay, Iwillnot—look upon him!’
“Rising with the last words she would have passed from the room, but she was detained.
“‘Dost love another?’ queried the crone, looking her full in the face.
“The blood rushed to the young girl’s cheeks.
“‘Ah! I see! I heard Andrew tell of the young painter, who—’
“Lisette’s face was scarlet.
“‘Let me go!’ she cried impatiently. ‘Have not I told thee that I will not marry thy son?’
“‘But you will! you shall!—you cannot escape me! I will summon every fiend in hell to my aid! I will torture thee to submission!—I will melt thee in the crucible of my wrath!’
“The last words were lost on the object of her anger, and the dame stood with her arms akimbo, and a peculiar exultation of expression, such as a fiend, conscious of his diabolical power might be supposed to wear.
“Lisette rushed to her room, and threw herself, half-fainting, into the arms of her sister.
“‘Strange things at the Burton house, Neighbor Guernsey,’ said Widow Hamersley, as she lighted her pipe, and, having taken an initiatory whiff, drew her chair toward the bright wood fire.
“It was now Autumn, and the winds were growing colder day by day, and the external aspect of Nature more dreary.
“‘Yes, yes,’ returned she who was addressed. ‘Since Mistress Alton lost her two little children in Marsden Forest, who were no doubt eaten of the wolves, there has not been the like of it. I pity poor Esther, who is left all alone with so ungracious a woman as Dame Burton.’
“‘Ay, ay, Neighbor Guernsey. Many a long year have I known this strange woman, and I have yet to discover if there be any good thing in her. And the dolt Andrew is no better man a stupid beast. It has been noised about, that the step-mother has been trying to force the younger girl to marry him. Heaven knows what might happen if the poor child would not yield!’
“Here the widow puffed forth a volume of smoke as large as a small thunder-cloud, and gazed knowingly among the embers.
“‘And the young painter in the village, they say, is going distracted at her loss,’ continued Mistress Guernsey, not observing the drift of the other’s remarks. ‘He has been painting a portrait of her, and now he has left all and gone off to search for her in the woods.’
“‘Small chance of his finding her, Neighbor Guernsey,’ answered the widow, drily; her remarks still tending in a direction which her companion did not perceive. ‘It is no wolf of the forest which will have the pleasure of picking her bones.’
“‘Heaven grant it may be as you say!’ was the reply, referring to the last clause of the sentence, whose ambiguity was unnoticed.
“‘Hast thou not heard tales about this dame?’ asked the widow, dropping her disguise and speaking more openly.
“‘Ay, ay, many a time and oft; tales smacking of mystery and mischief, which boded no good to Dame Burton. They say she has unholy company o’nights in the wood. But, after all, they were only tales about which I knew nothing certain.’
“‘Hast thou not,’ continued the widow, ‘noticed a strange twinkle in her eyes, a shrillness in her voice, and that her hair is becoming coarse and grizzled? What does this portend?’
“‘Alas! I cannot tell,’ replied Mistress Guernsey. ‘There were strange hints when her good man died, and now I bethink me that they might have been true, and the remorse of the inner conscience might thus have developed itself outwardly.’
“Here there ensued a pause, and the two sat awhile quietly listening to the hollow moaning of the wind among the trees of the old forest hard by. Superstition, which always attends ignorance, was a prominent point in the characters of both; but more especially in that of the widow. No doubt she heard demon voices in the wind wailing in the crannies, and fancied the air filled with evil spirits, hurrying like lightning upon their various errands of mischief. When she spoke again her voice quivered, and her frame shook as with an ague-fit.
“‘I tell thee, Mistress Guernsey, I have seen—’ said she, at last, her gaze fixed intently on vacancy.
“‘Seen what?’ asked the other, drawing closer, and looking distrustfully into every corner of the room.
“‘Seen—’ repeated the widow, still looking into vacancy.
“‘Seen what?’ repeated her auditor, drawing still nearer, and looking with still greater scrutiny into all the dark nooks of the apartment.
“But the expected speech still hung half-way between conception and utterance, as if some impalpable auditor were present, who might convey the tale to the ears of the object of both her aversion and fear.
“The sad moaning of the wind filled up the chasm in the conversation, and the subtle influences of the place, and their loneliness, seemed to be rapidly gathering about the two lonely women. The speech was still unspoken, when the thread of the proceedings was broken short by the abrupt entrance of Mistress Hamersley’s son. Whether or not the embryo disclosure might have embodied new and startling developments, or only old statements re-hashed, we cannot tell; but, certain it is that, the vein of mystery was explored no further that night. The son piled new fagots on the fire—the widow refilled and relighted her pipe, and the conversation took a more cheerful turn, and the place took again that air of rude pleasantness which belongs particularly to a farm-house-kitchen, while the weird lady was, for the moment, forgotten.
“As may have been gathered from the remarks in the preceding conversation, Lisette had disappeared, lost, it was supposed, in the forest, into which shesometimes strayed alone; for, as to superstition, she had none of it, and wild animals had mostly retired to a safe distance before the advance of civilization. Every possible means had been tried for her recovery, seconded by apparently every effort of Dame Burton and her son. They seemed inconsolable, and some of those who looked upon her as a slandered person affirmed that she spent the nights for a week in weeping. Esther was now alone and friendless, thrown entirely into the power of these protectors. Surmises and ill-boding opinions passed occasionally from mouth to mouth, but never reached her ears. She wept in silent sorrow away from all intercourse. Thus matters went on for some weeks, until one night, at dusk, Andrew was brought to his mother a corpse. He had been accidentally shot in a hunting excursion. Her sorrow at this occurrence was real. Every other tie had been to her nothing, while this had absorbed all her soul’s capability of affection. She had indulged him in every thing, and had attempted to gratify his every wish. Now that he was gone, all that she possessed was gone, and all her thoughts and deeds glared upon her in all their malignity. She had nothing now to take from herself those hell-hound thoughts which bred in her a bitter remorse. One night she lay by his coffin—another by his grave, and a third she would have spent thus, but they led her away. She yielded as pliantly as a child. Thenceforth, she was completely broken down. She could do nothing more, and all day she sat like a fixture in the chimney-corner, while all the house-affairs fell into Esther’s hands. But, at dusk, the dame would be gone mysteriously for an hour. Esther never questioned concerning it, nor cared; but the ignorant neighbors whispered, wondered, surmised, and told of strange things that happened at these times, until it became so much a matter of course, that nothing more could be said. At the end of a year she married my grandfather Bromley. The portrait of the lost sister was taken from the painter’s studio, and hung in her room. Each succeeding year added a new balm to her wounds, until they seemed so far back in the past, that sometimes she would almost question with herself whether or not they had had actual existence.
“Thus twenty years of married life passed calmly and pleasantly. Sons and daughters were growing up around her in full bloom, and all promised that the afternoon of her life should be peace. Dame Burton had grown old and decrepit, and bent nearly double. Her hair was white as snow, and her face had a sort of blank, passive expression, except at times, when her eyes would glow like half-extinguished coals, and she would start as if some frightful object looked in upon her visions. Through all the long day she sat in the chimney-corner, and never stirred until the bats wheeled in the dusk, and the rude noises of day were displaced by a stillness, so still that the bark of life might be said to move down the noiseless river of time with muffled oars.
“One night, in the early autumn, my grandfather was gone, and my grandmother was left alone with the family. All were quietly at rest before she retired. That day she had been laboring hard and was overwearied, and now a strange restlessness and loneliness of feeling came across her. It was just at the moonrise. The moon came up looking red and angrily over the ripening fields, glistening with dew, near at hand, the mill-pond still and large further off, and the black and massive woods in the distance. Those weird influences were at work, which incline every mind at times to retrospection. And now, as over a dim sea, from a dim seen island, came the memories of the past. She saw, as in a dream, the mother of her childhood, who pressed her childish hand in hers. A few years past, and she saw her die, and felt the intense agony of that moment. A few years more were gone, and she saw the deathbed of her other parent, and felt the keener and more enduring pain which maturer minds must feel. Still farther, and she saw the sister-branch, which had grown side by side with her upon the parental tree, torn rudely away. And now she could think no more. It was too much pain. Turning from the window, she hastily disrobed herself, and dropped wearily upon the bed. It was some time before slumber came, and when it did come it brought a dream. Memory, in the guise of a headless figure with a lantern, seemed to lead her through all the past, which was nothing more than a field covered with brambles and underbrush, and filled with pitfalls into which she continually fell. Her flesh was torn and bloody; but still she went on, and on, and on, and still there was no end.
“She might have slept thus nearly an hour, when she became conscious that there was another presence in the room. She stirred a little, and the village-clock drowsily clanged to tell the midnight. She opened her eyes. The moon was far up, and poured a flood of white light through the casement. A tall, attenuated figure, in a long, loose, and tattered gown, which showed ghostly white, stooped over her.
“The shape stood between the bed and the window, and yet so ethereal was it, that she seemed to see the casement, the climbing moon, and the white church spire, as though nothing intervened. But the face, so ghastly white, so thin with want and woe—cross-lined and interlined—and the eyes—so faded and expressionless, she had never seen any thing like it.
(Here Margaret pressed her father’s arm, and pointed to Alice, whose fingers were quivering like aspen-leaves—but he did not pause.)
“Like two pictures on a wall, her imagination placed the image of her lost sister beside this form, so unlike in every particular. The conclusion was irresistible. It was her sister, or—as her disturbed fancy would rather indicate—her ghostly representative. Overcome by her emotions she fainted, and when she recovered, the visitor was gone. She lay quite still, in her terror, until the approach of dawn, and then arising, she dressed herself all in a tremor, and prepared to descend. All was still as death, for it lacked a half-hour yet of sunrise. She heardChanticleer’s shrill cry without, just as he emerged from his dormitory, and she noticed a cricket’s sharp voice within, and even the tick of a death-watch in the wall fell distinctly on her ears. A chill crept over her, like the forerunner of some frightful calamity.
(Here Margaret pressed the narrator’s arm again, but with the same success as before.)
“She crept, rather than walked down the stairs, and peeped through the kitchen door, which stood ajar. The eastern shutter was swung partially back, and admitted a streak of the cold, gray light of dawn, which fell upon the features of the midnight visitor, who sat erect at one side of the room. She did not stir, though Esther, staggering in her terror, thrust the door back with considerable noise. Perfectly still she sat, gazing, as if in fright, at the hideous face of old Dame Burton, who sat a little more in the dusk, regarding her attentively. The old crone was inclined a little forward, her shriveled lips separated in a grin, and one lean finger threateningly raised in a gesture which said more than words. Neither spoke; but, cold, still, and pale, they gazed at one another, and then was felt around—