Towards evening, one day late in the summer, the sun was shining, as its manner is, on that marvellous combination of domes, arches, mosaics and carvings which goes by the name of St. Mark's at Venice. The soft Italian sky, glowing and rich, gave a very benediction of colour; all around was the still peace of the lagoon city; only in the great square there was a gentle stir and flutter and rustle and movement; for thousands of doves were flying about, and coming down to be fed, and a crowd of varied human nature, but chiefly not belonging to the place, were watching and distributing food to the feathered multitude. People were engaged with the doves, or with each other; few had a look to spare for the great church; nobody even glanced at the columns bearing St. Theodore and the Lion.
That is, speaking generally. For under one of the arcades, leaning against one of the great pillars of the same, a man stood whose look by turns went to everything. He had been standing there motionless for half an hour; and it passed to him like a minute. Sometimes he studied that combination aforesaid, where feeling and fancy and faith have made such glorious work together; and to which, as I hinted, the Venetian evening was lending such indescribable magnificence. His eye dwelt on details of loveliness, of which it was constantly discovering new revelations; or rested on the whole colour-glorified pile with meditative remembrance of what it had seen and done, and whence it had come. Then with sudden transition he would give his attention to the motley crowd before him, and the soft-winged doves fluttering up and down and filling the air. And, tiring of these, his look would go off again to the bronze lion on his place of honour in the Piazzetta, his thought probably wandering back to the time when he was set there. The man himself was noticed by nobody. He stood in the shade of the pillar and did not stir. He was a gentleman evidently; one sees that by slight characteristics, which are nevertheless quite unmistakeable and not to be counterfeited. His dress of course was the quiet, unobtrusive, and yet perfectly correct thing, which dress ought to be. His attitude was that of a man who knew both how to move and how to be still, and did both easily; and further, the look of him betrayed the habit of travel. This man had seen so much that he was not moved by any young curiosity; knew so much, that he could weigh and compare what he knew. His figure was very good; his face agreeable and intelligent, with good observant grey eyes; the whole appearance striking. But nobody noted him.
And he had noted nobody; the crowd before him was to him simply a crowd, which excited no interest except as a whole. Until, suddenly, he caught sight of a head and shoulders in the moving throng, which started him out of his carelessness. They were but a few yards from him, seen and lost again in the swaying mass of human beings; but though half seen he was sure he could not mistake. He spoke out a little loud the word "Tom!"
He was not heard, and the person spoken to moved out of sight again. The speaker, however, now left his place and plunged among the people. Presently he had another glimpse of the head and shoulders, and was yet more sure of his man; lost sight of him anew, but, following in the direction taken by the chase, gradually won his way nearer, and at length overtook the man, who was then standing between the pillars of the Lion and St. Theodore, and looking out towards the water.
"Tom!" said his pursuer, clapping him on the shoulder.
"Philip Dillwyn!" said the other, turning. "Philip! Where did you come from? What a lucky turn-up! That I should find you here!"
"I found you, man. Where haveyoucome from?"
"O, from everywhere."
"Are you alone? Where are your people?"
"O, Julia and Lenox are gone home. Mamma and I are here yet. I left mamma in apensionin Switzerland, where I could not hold it out any longer; and I have been wandering about—Florence, and Pisa, and I don't know all—till now I have brought up in Venice. It is so jolly to get you!"
"What are you doing here?"
"Nothing."
"What are you going to do?"
"Nothing. O, I have done everything, you know. There is nothing left to a fellow."
"That sounds hopeless," said Dillwyn, laughing.
"It is hopeless. Really I don't see, sometimes, what a fellow's life is good for. I believe the people who have to work for it, have after all the best time!"
"They work to live," said the other.
"I suppose they do."
"Therefore you are going round in a circle. If life is worth nothing, why should one work to keep it up?"
"Well, what is it worth, Dillwyn? Upon my word, I have never made it out satisfactorily."
"Look here—we cannot talk in this place. Have you ever been toTorcello?"
"No."
"Suppose we take a gondola and go?"
"Now? What is there?"
"An old church."
"There are old churches all over. The thing is to find a new one."
"You prefer the new ones?"
"Just for the rarity," said Tom, smiling.
"I do not believe you have studied the old ones yet. Do you know the mosaics in St. Mark's?"
"I never study mosaics."
"And I'll wager you have not seen the Tintorets in the Palace of theDoges?"
"There are Tintorets all over!" said Tom, shrugging his shoulders wearily.
"Then have you seen Murano?"
"The glass-works, yes."
"I do not mean the glass-works. Come along—anywhere in a gondola will do, such an evening as this; and we can talk comfortably. You need not look at anything."
They entered a gondola, and were presently gliding smoothly over the coloured waters of the lagoon; shining with richer sky reflections than any mortal painter could put on canvas. Not long in silence.
"Where have you been, Tom, all this while?"
"I told you, everywhere!" said Tom, with another shrug of his shoulders. "The one thing one comes abroad for, you know, is to run away from the winter; so we have been doing that, as long as there was any winter to run from, and since then we have been running away from the summer. Let me see—we came over in November, didn't we? or December; we went to Rome as fast as we could. There was very good society in Rome last winter. Then, as spring came on, we coasted down to Naples and Palermo. We staid at Palermo a while. From there we went back to England; and from England we came to Switzerland. And there we have been till I couldn't stand Switzerland any longer; and I bolted."
"Palermo isn't a bad place to spend a while in."
"No;—but Sicily is stupid generally. It's all ridiculous, Philip.Except for the name of the thing, one can get just as good nearer home.I could getbettersport at Appledore last summer, than in any placeI've been at in Europe."
"Ah! Appledore," said Philip slowly, and dipping his hand in the water."I surmise the society also was good there?"
"Would have been," Tom returned discontentedly, "if there had not been a little too much of it."
"Too much of it!"
"Yes. I couldn't stir without two or three at my heels. It's very kind, you know; but it rather hampers a fellow."
"Miss Lothrop was there, wasn't she?"
"Of course she was! That made all the trouble."
"And all the sport too; hey, Tom? Things usually are two-sided in this world."
"She made no trouble. It was my mother and sister. They were so awfully afraid of her. And they drilled George in; so among them they were too many for me. But I think Appledore is the nicest place I know."
"You might buy one of the islands—a little money would do it—build a lodge, and have your Europe always at hand; when the winter is gone, as you say. Even the winter you might manage to live through, if you could secure the right sort of society. Hey, Tom? Isn't that an idea? I wonder it never occurred to you. I think one might bid defiance to the world, if one were settled at the Isles of Shoals."
"Yes," said Tom, with something very like a groan. "If one hadn't a mother and sister."
"You are heathenish!"
"I'm not, at all!" returned Tom passionately. "See here, Philip. There is one thing goes before mother and sister; and that you know. It's a man's wife. And I've seen my wife, and I can't get her."
"Why?" said Dillwyri dryly. He was hanging over the side of the gondola, and looking attentively at the play of colour in the water; which reflecting the sky in still splendour where it lay quiet, broke up in ripples under the gondolier's oar, and seemed to scatter diamonds and amethysts and topazes in fairy-like prodigality all around.
"I've told you!" said Tom fretfully.
"Yes, but I do not comprehend. Does not the lady in question likeAppledore as well as you do?"
"She likes Appledore well enough. I do not know how well she likes me. I never had a chance to find out. I don't think she _dis_likes me, though," said Tom meditatively.
"It is not too late to find out yet," Philip said, with even more dryness in his tone.
"O, isn't it, though!" said Tom. "I'm tied up from ever asking her now.I'm engaged to another woman."
"Tom!" said the other, suddenly straightening himself up.
"Don't shout at a fellow! What could I do? They wouldn't let me have what I wanted; and now they're quite pleased, and Julia has gone home. She has done her work. O, I am making an excellent match. 'An old family, and three hundred thousand dollars,' as my mother says. That's all one wants, you know."
"Who is the lady?"
"It don't matter, you know, when you have heard her qualifications. It's Miss Dulcimer—one of the Philadelphia Dulcimers. Of course one couldn't make a better bargain for oneself. And I'm as fond of her as I can be; in fact, I was afraid I was gettingtoofond. So I ran away, as I told you, to think over my happiness at leisure, and moderate my feelings."
"Tom, Tom, I never heard you bitter before," said his friend, regarding him with real concern.
"Because I neverwasbitter before. O, I shall be all right now. I haven't had a soul on whom I could pour out my mind, till this hour. I know you're as safe as a mine. It does me good to talk to you. I tell you, I shall be all right. I'm a very happy bridegroom expectant. You know, if the Caruthers have plenty of money, the Dulcimers have twice as much. Money's really everything."
"Have you any idea how this news will touch Miss—the other lady you were talking about?"
"I suppose it won't touch her at all. She's different; that's one reason why I liked her. She would not care a farthing for me because I'm a Caruthers, or because I have money; not a brass farthing! She is the _real_est person I ever saw. She would go about Appledore from morning to night in the greatest state of delight you ever saw anybody; where my sister, for instance, would see nothing but rocks and weeds, Lois would have her hands full of what Julia would call trash, and what to her was better than if the fairies had done it. Things pulled out of the shingle and mud,—I can just see her,—and flowers, and stones, and shells. What she would make ofthisnow!—But you couldn't set that girl down anywhere, I believe, that she wouldn't find something to make her feel rich. She's a richer woman this minute, than my Dulcimer with her thousands. And she's got good blood in her too, Philip. I learned that from Mrs. Wishart. She has the blood of ever so many of the old Pilgrims in her veins; and that is good descent, Philip?"
"They think so in New England."
"Well, they are right, I am ready to believe. Anyhow, I don't care—"
He broke off, and there was a silence of some minutes' length. The gondola swam along over the quiet water, under the magnificent sky; the reflected colours glanced upon two faces, grave and self-absorbed.
"Old boy," said Philip at length, "I hardly think you are right."
"Right in what? I am right in all I have told you."
"I meant, right in your proposed plan of action. You may say it is none of my business."
"I shall not say it, though. What's the wrong you mean?"
"It seems to me Miss Dulcimer would not feel obliged to you, if she knew all."
"She doesn't feel obliged to me at all," said Tom. "She gives a good as she gets."
"No better?"
"What do you mean?"
"Pardon me, Tom; but you have been frank with me. By your own account, she will get very little."
"All she wants. I'll give her a local habitation and a name."
"I am sure you are unjust."
"Not at all. That is all half the girls want; all they try for. She's very content. O, I'm very good to her when we are together; and I mean to be. You needn't look at me," said Tom, trying to laugh. "Three-quarters of all the marriages that are made are on the same pattern. Why, Phil, what do the men and women of this world live for? What's the purpose in all I've been doing since I left college? What's the good of floating round in the world as I have been doing all summer and winter here this year? and at home it is different only in the manner of it. People live for nothing, and don't enjoy life. I don't know at this minute a single man or woman, of our sort, you know, that enjoys life; except that one. Andsheisn't our sort. She has no money, and no society, and no Europe to wander round in! O, they wouldsaythey enjoy life; but their way shows they don't."
"Enjoyment is not the first thing," Philip said thoughtfully.
"O, isn't it! It's what we're all after, anyhow; you'll allow that."
"Perhaps that is the way we miss it."
"So Dulcimer and I are all right, you see," pursued Tom, without heeding this remark. "We shall be a very happy couple. All the world will have us at their houses, and we shall have all the world at ours. There won't be room left for any thing but happiness; and that'll squeeze in anywhere, you know. It's like chips floating round on the surface of a whirlpool—they fly round and round splendidly—till they get sucked in."
"Tom!" cried his companion. "What has come to you? Your life is not so different now from what it has always been;—and I have always known you for a light-hearted fellow. I can't have you take this tone."
Tom was silent, biting the ends of his moustache in a nervous way, which bespoke a good deal of mental excitement; Philip feared, of mental trouble.
"If a friend may ask, how came you to do what is so unsatisfactory to you?" he said at length.
"My mother and sister! They were so preciously afraid I should ruin myself. Philip, Icould notmake head against them. They were too much for me, and too many for me; they were all round me; they were ahead of me; I had no chance at all. So I gave up in despair. Women are the overpowering when they take a thing in their head! A man's nowhere. I gave in, and gave up, and came away, and now—they're satisfied."
"Then the affair is definitely concluded?"
"As definitely as if my head was off."
Philip did not laugh, and there was a pause again. The colours were fading from sky and water, and a yellow, soft moonlight began to assert her turn. It was a change of beauty for beauty; but neither of the two young men seemed to take notice of it.
"Tom," began the other after a time, "what you say about the way most of us live, is more or less true; and it ought not to be true."
"Of course it is true!" said Tom.
"But it ought not to be true."
"What are you going to do about it? One must do as everybody else does;I suppose."
"Mustone? That is the very question."
"What can you do else, as long as you haven't your bread to get?"
"I believe the people whohavetheir bread to get have the best of it. But there must be some use in the world, I suppose, for those who are under no such necessity. Did you ever hear that Miss—Lothrop's family were strictly religious?"
"No—yes, I have," said Tom. "I knowsheis."
"That would not have suited you."
"Yes, it would. Anything she did would have suited me. I have a great respect for religion, Philip."
"What do you mean by religion?"
"I don't know—what everybody means by it. It is the care of the spiritual part of our nature, I suppose."
"And how does that care work?"
"I don't know," said Tom. "It works altar-cloths; and it seems to mean church-going, and choral music, and teaching ragged schools; and that sort of thing. I don't understand it; but I should never interfere with it. It seems to suit the women particularly."
Again there fell a pause.
"Where haveyoubeen, Dillwyn? and what brought you here again?" Tom began now.
"I came to pass the time," the other said musingly.
"Ah! And where have you passed it?"
"Along the shores of the Adriatic, part of the time. At Abazzia, andSebenico, and the islands."
"What's in all that? I never heard of Abazzia."
"The world is a large place," said Philip absently.
"But what is Abazzia?"
"A little paradise of a place, so sheltered that it is like a nest of all lovely things. Really; it has its own climate, through certain favouring circumstances; and it is a hidden little nook of delight."
"Ah!—What took you to the shores of the Adriatic, anyhow?"
"Full of interest," said Philip.
"Pray, of what kind?"
"Every kind. Historical, industrial, mechanical, natural, and artistic. But I grant you, Tom, that was not why I went there. I went there to get out of the ruts of travel and break new ground. Like you, being a little tired of going round in a circle for ever. And it occurs to me that man must have been made for somewhat else than such a purposeless circle. No other creature is a burden to himself."
"Because no other creature thinks," said Tom.
"The power of thought can surely be no final disadvantage."
"I don't see what it amounts to," Tom returned. "A man is happy enough, I suppose, as long as he is busy thinking out some new thing—inventing, creating, discovering, or working out his discoveries; but as soon as he has brought his invention to perfection and set it going, he is tired of it, and drives after something else."
"You are coming to Solomon's judgment," said the other, leaning back upon the cushions and clasping his hands above his head,—"what the preacher says—'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'"
"Well, so are you," said Tom.
"It makes me ashamed."
"Of what?"
"Myself."
"Why?"
"That I should have lived to be thirty-two years old, and never have done anything, or found any way to be of any good in the world! There isn't a butterfly of less use than I!"
"You weren't made to be of use," said Tom.
"Upon my word, my dear fellow, you have said the most disparaging thing, I hope, that ever was said of me! You cannot better that statement, if you think an hour! You mean it of me as a human being, I trust? not as an individual? In the one case it would be indeed melancholy, but in the other it would be humiliating. You take the race, not the personal view. The practical view is, that what is of no use had better not be in existence. Look here—here we are at Murano; I had not noticed it. Shall we land, and see things by moonlight? or go back to Venice?"
"Back, and have dinner," said Tom.
"By way of prolonging this existence, which to you is burdensome and to me is unsatisfactory. Where is the logic of that?"
But they went back, and had a very good dinner too.
It happened not far from this same time in the end of August, when Mr. Dillwyn and Tom Caruthers came together on the Piazzetta of St. Mark, that another meeting took place in the far-away regions of Shampuashuh. A train going to Boston was stopped by a broken bridge ahead, and its passengers discharged in one of the small towns along the coast, to wait until the means of getting over the little river could be arranged. People on a railway journey commonly do not like to wait; it was different no doubt in the days of stage-coaches, when patience had some exercise frequently; now, we are spoiled, and you may notice that ten minutes' delay is often more than can be endured with complacency. Our fathers and mothers had hours to wait, and took it as a matter of course.
Among the impatient passengers thrown out at Independence were two specially impatient.
"What on earth shall we do with ourselves?" said the lady.
"Pity the break-down had not occurred a little further on," said the gentleman. "You might have visited your friend—or Tom's friend—Miss Lothrop. We are just a few miles from Shampuashuh."
"Shampuashuh!—Miss Lothrop!—Was that where she lived? How far,George?"
"A few miles—half a dozen, perhaps."
"O George, let us get horses and drive there!"
"But then you may not catch the train this evening again."
"I don't care. I cannot waithere. It would be a great deal better to have the drive and see the other place. Yes, we will go and visit her. Get horses, George, please! Quick.Thisis terrible."
"Will you ask for their hospitality?"
"Yes, of course. They would be delighted. That is just what the better sort of country people like, to have somebody come and see them. Make haste, George."
With a queer little smile on his face, Mr. Lenox however did as he was desired. A waggon was procured without very much delay, in which they could be driven to Shampuashuh.
It was a very warm day, and the travellers had just the height of it. Hot sunbeams poured down upon them; the level, shadeless country through which lay their way, showed as little as it could of the attractive features which really belonged to it. The lady declared herself exceeded by the heat and dust; the gentleman opined they might as well have stayed in Independence, where they were. Between two and three o'clock they entered the long green street of Shampuashuh. The sunbeams seemed tempered there, but it was only a mental effect produced by the quiet beauty and airy space of the village avenue, and the shade of great elms which fell so frequently upon the wayside grass.
"What a sweet place!" cried the lady.
"Comfortable-looking houses," suggested the gentleman.
"It seems cooler here," the lady went on.
"It is getting to a cooler time of day."
"Why, no, George! Three o'clock is just the crown of the heat. Don't it look as if nobody ever did anything here? There's no stir at all."
"My eyes see different tokens; they are more versed in business than yours are—naturally."
"What do your eyes see?"—a little impatiently.
"You may notice that nothing is out of order. There is no bit of fence out of repair; and never a gate hanging upon its hinges. There is no carelessness. Do you observe the neatness of this broad street?"
"What should make it unneat? with so few travellers?"
"Ground is the last thing to keep itself in order. I notice, too, the neat stacks of wood in the wood-sheds. And in the fields we have passed, the work is all done, up to the minute; nothing hanging by the eyelids. The houses are full of windows, and all of them shining bright."
"You might be a newspaper reporter, George! Is this the house we are coming to? It is quite a large house; quite respectable."
"Did you think that little girl had come out of any but a respectable house?"
"Pshaw, George! you know what I mean. They are very poor and very plain people. I suppose we might go straight in?"
They dismissed their vehicle, so burning their ships, and knocked at the front door. A moment after it was opened by Charity. Her tall figure was arrayed in a homely print gown, of no particular fashion; a little shawl was over her shoulders, notwithstanding the heat, and on her head a sun-bonnet.
"Does Miss Lothrop live here?"
"Three of us," said Charity, confronting the pair with a doubtful face.
"Is Miss Lois at home?"
"She's as near as possible not," said the door-keeper; "but I guess she is. You may come in, and I'll see."
She opened a door in the hall which led to a room on the north side of it, corresponding to Mrs. Barclay's on the south; and there she left them. It was large and pleasant and cool, if it was also very plain; and Mrs. Lenox sank into a rocking-chair, repeating to herself that it was 'very respectable.' On a table at one side lay a few books, which drew Mr. Lenox's curiosity.
"Ruskin's 'Modern Painters'!" he exclaimed, looking at his wife.
"Selections, I suppose."
"No, this is Vol. 5. And the next is Thiers' 'Consulate and Empire'!"
"Translation."
"No. Original. And 'the Old Red Sandstone.'"
"What's that?"
"Hugh Miller."
"Who's Hugh Miller?"
"He is, or was, a gentleman whom you would not admit to your society.He began life as a Scotch mason."
Meanwhile, Charity, going back to the living-room of the family, found there Lois busied in arraying old Mrs. Armadale for some sort of excursion; putting a light shawl about her, and drawing a white sun-bonnet over her cap. Lois herself was in an old nankeen dress with a cape, and had her hat on.
"There's some folks that want you, Lois," her sister announced.
"Want me!" said Lois. "Who is it? why didn't you tell them we were just going out?"
"I don't usually say things without I know that it's so," respondedCharity. "Maybe we're going to be hindered."
"We must not be hindered," returned Lois. "Grandmother is ready, andMrs. Barclay is ready, and the cart is here. We must go, whoever comes.You get mother into the cart, and the baskets and everything, and I'llbe as quick as I can."
So Lois went into the parlour. A great surprise came over her when she saw who was there, and with the surprise a slight feeling of amusement; along with some other feeling, she could not have told what, which put her gently upon her mettle. She received her visitors frankly and pleasantly, and also with a calm ease which at the moment was superior to their own. So she heard their explanation of what had befallen them, and of their resolution to visit her; and a slight account of their drive from Independence; all which Mrs. Lenox gave with more prolixity than she had intended or previously thought necessary.
"And now," said Lois, "I will invite you to another drive. We are just going down to the Sound, to smell the salt air and get cooled off. We shall have supper down there before we come home. I do not think I could give you anything pleasanter, if I had the choice; but it happens that all is arranged for this. Do come with us; it will be a variety for you, at least."
The lady and gentleman looked at each other.
"It's so hot!" objected the former.
"It will be cooler every minute now," said Lois.
"We ought to take the train—when it comes along—"
"You cannot tell when that will be," said Mr. Lenox. "You would find it very tedious waiting at the station. We might take the night train. That will pass about ten o'clock, or should."
"But we should be in your way, I am afraid," Mrs. Lenox went on, turning to Lois. "You are not prepared for two more in your party."
"Always!" said Lois, smiling. "We should never think ourselves prepared at all, in Shampuashuh, if we were not ready for two more than the party. And the cart will hold us all."
"The cart!" cried the other.
"Yes. O yes! I did not tell you that," said Lois, smiling more broadly. "We are going in an ox cart. That will be a novel experience for you too."
If Mrs. Lenox had not half accepted the invitation already, I am not sure but this intimation would have been too much for her courage. However, she was an outwardly well-bred woman; that is, like so many others, well-bred when there was nothing to gain by being otherwise; and so she excused her hesitation and doubt by the plea of being "so dusty." There was help for that; Lois took her upstairs to a neat chamber, and furnished her with water and towels.
It was new experience to the city lady. She took note, half disdainfully, of the plainness of the room; the painted floor, yellow and shining, which boasted only one or two little strips of carpet; the common earthenware toilet-set; the rush-bottomed chairs. On the other hand, there was an old mahogany dressing bureau; a neat bed; and water and towels (the latter coarse) were exceedingly fresh and sweet. She made up her mind to go through with the adventure, and rejoined her husband with a composed mind.
Lois took them first to the sitting-room, where they were introduced to Mrs. Barclay, and then they all went out at the back door of the house, and across a little grassy space, to a gate leading into a lane. Here stood the cart, in which the rest of the family was already bestowed; Mrs. Armadale being in an arm-chair with short legs, while Madge and Charity sat in the straw with which the whole bottom of the cart was spread. A tall, oldish man, with an ox whip, stood leaning against the fence and surveying things.
"Are we to go inthere?" said Mrs. Lenox, with perceptible doubt.
"It's the only carriage we have to offer you," said Lois merrily. "For your sake, I wish we had a better; for my own, I like nothing so well as an ox cart. Mrs. Barclay, will you get in? and stimulate this lady's courage?"
A kitchen chair had been brought out to facilitate the operation; and Mrs. Barclay stepped lightly in, curled herself down in the soft bed of straw, and declared that it was very comfortable. With an expression of face which made Lois and Madge laugh for weeks after when they recalled it, Mrs. Lenox stepped gingerly in, following, and took her place.
"Grandmother," said Lois, "this is Mrs. Lenox, whom you have heard me speak about. And these are my sisters, Madge and Charity, Mrs. Lenox. And grandmother, this is Mr. Lenox. Now, you see the cart has room enough," she added, as herself and the gentleman also took their seats.
"Is that the hull of ye?" inquired now the man with the ox whip, coming forward. "And be all your stores got in for the v'yage? I don't want to be comin' back from somewheres about half-way."
"All right, Mr. Sears," said Lois. "You may drive on. Mother, are you comfortable?"
And then there was a "whoa"-ing and a "gee"-ing and a mysterious flourishing of the long leathern whip, with which the driver seemed to be playing; for if its tip touched the shoulders of the oxen it did no more, though it waved over them vigorously. But the oxen understood, and pulled the cart forward; lifting and setting down their heavy feet with great deliberation seemingly, but with equal certain'ty, and swaying their great heads gently from side to side as they went. Lois was so much amused at her guests' situation, that she had some difficulty to keep her features in their due calmness and sobriety. Mrs. Lenox eyed the oxen, then the contents of the cart, then the fields.
"Slow travelling!" said Lois, with a smile.
"Can they go no faster?"
"They could go a little faster if they were urged; but that would spoil the comfort of the whole thing. The entire genius of a ride in an ox cart is, that everybody should take his ease."
"Oxen included?" said Mr. Lenox.
"Why not?"
"Why not, indeed!" said the gentleman, smiling. "Only, ordinary people cannot get rid easily of the notion that the object of going is to get somewhere."
"That's not the object in this case," Lois answered merrily. "The one sole object is fun."
Mrs. Lenox said nothing more, but her face spoke as plainly as possible, And you callthisfun!
"I am enjoying myself very much," said Mrs. Barclay. "I think it is delightful."
Something in her manner of speech made Mr. Lenox look at her. She was sitting next him on the cart bottom.
"Perhaps this is a new experience also to you?" he said.
"Delightfully new. Never rode in an ox cart before in my life; hardly ever saw one, in fact. We are quite out of the race and struggle and uneasiness of the world, don't you see? There comes down a feeling of repose upon one, softly, as Longfellow says—
'As a feather is wafted downwardFrom an eagle in his flight.'
Only I should say in this case it was from the wing of an angel."
"Mrs. Barclay, you are too poetical for an ox cart," said Lois, laughing. "If we began to be poetical, I am afraid the repose would be troubled."
"'Twont du Poetry no harm to go in an ox cart," remarked here the ox driver.
"I agree with you, sir," said Mrs. Barclay. "Poetry would not be Poetry if she could not ride anywhere. But why should she trouble repose. Lois?"
"Yes," added Mr. Lenox; "I was about to ask that question. I thought poetry was always soothing. Or that the ladies at least think so."
"I like it well enough," said Lois, "but I think it is apt to be melancholy. Except in hymns."
"Excepthymns!" said Mrs. Lenox. "I thought hymns were always sad. They deal so much with death and the grave."
"And the resurrection!" said Lois.
"They always makemegloomy," the lady went on. "The resurrection! do you call that a lively subject?"
"Depends on how you look at it, I suppose," said her husband. "But, Miss Lothrop, I cannot recover from my surprise at your assertion respecting non-religious poetry."
Lois left that statement alone. She did not care whether he recovered or not. Mr. Lenox, however, was curious.
"I wish you would show me on what your opinion is founded," he went on pleasantly.
"Yes, Lois, justify yourself," said Mrs. Barclay.
"I could not do that without making quotations, Mrs. Barclay, and I am afraid I cannot remember enough. Besides, it would hardly be interesting."
"To me it would," said Mrs. Barclay. "Where could one have a better time? The oxen go so comfortably, and leisure is so graciously abundant."
"Pray go on, Miss Lothrop!" Mr. Lenox urged.
"And then I hope you'll go on and prove hymns lively," added his wife.
The conversation which followed was long enough to have a chapter to itself; and so may be comfortably skipped by any who are so inclined.
"Perhaps you will none of you agree with me," Lois said; "and I do not know much poetry; but there seems to me to run an undertone of lament and weariness through most of what I know. Now take the 'Death of the Flowers,'—that you were reading yesterday, Mrs. Barclay—
'The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.'
That is the tone I mean; a sigh and a regret."
"But the 'Death of the Flowers' isexquisite," pleaded Mrs. Lenox.
"Certainly it is," said Lois; "but is it gay?
'The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.'"
"How you remember it, Lois!" said Mrs. Barclay.
"But is not that all true?" asked Mr. Lenox.
"True in fact," said Lois. "The flowers do die. But the frost does not fall like a plague; and nobody that was right happy would say so, or think so. Take Pringle's 'Afar in the Desert,' Mrs. Barclay—
'When the sorrows of life the soul o'ercast,And sick of the present I turn to the past;When the eye is suffused with regretful tearsFrom the fond recollections of former years,And shadows of things that are long since fled,Flit over the brain like the ghosts of the dead;Bright visions—'
I forget how it goes on."
"But that is as old as the hills!" exclaimed Mrs. Lenox.
"It shows what I mean."
"I am afraid you will not better your case by coming down into modern time, Mrs. Lenox," remarked Mrs. Barclay. "Take Tennyson—
'With weary steps I loiter on,Though always under altered skies;The purple from the distance dies,My prospect and horizon gone.'"
"Take Byron," said Lois—
'My days are in the yellow leaf,The flower and fruit of life are gone;The worm, the canker, and the grief,Are mine alone.'"
"O, Byron was morbid," said Mrs. Lenox.
"Take Moore," Mrs. Barclay went on, humouring the discussion on purpose. "Do you remember?—
'My birthday! what a different soundThat word had in my younger years!And now, each time the day comes round,Less and less white its mark appears.'"
"Well, I am sure that is true," said the other lady.
"Do you remember Robert Herrick's lines to daffodils?—
'Fair daffodils, we weep to seeYou haste away so soon.'
And then—
'We have short time to stay as you;We have as short a spring;As quick a growth to meet decay,As you or anything:
We dieAs your showers do; and dryAwayLike to the summer's rain,Or as the pearls of morning dew,Ne'er to be found again.'
And Waller to the rose—
'Then die! that sheThe common fate of all things rareMay read in thee.How small a part of time they share,That are so wondrous sweet and fair!'
"And Burns to the daisy," said Lois—
'There in thy scanty mantle clad,Thy snowy bosom sunward spread,Thou lifts thy unassuming headIn humble guise;But now the share uptears thy bed,And low thou lies!
'Even thou who mournst the Daisy's fate,That fate is thine—no distant date;Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,Full on thy bloom,Till, crushed beneath the furrow's weight,Shall be thy doom!'"
"O, you are getting very gloomy!" exclaimed Mrs. Lenox.
"Not we," said Lois merrily laughing, "but your poets."
"Mend your cause, Julia," said her husband.
"I haven't got the poets in my head," said the lady. "They are not all like that. I am very fond of Elizabeth Barrett Browning."
"The 'Cry of the Children'?" said Mrs. Barclay.
"O no, indeed! She's not all like that."
"She is not all like that. There is 'Hector in the Garden.'"
"O, that is pretty!" said Lois. "But do you remember how it runs?—
'Nine years old! The first of anySeem the happiest years that come—'"
"Go on, Lois," said her friend. And the request being seconded, Lois gave the whole, ending with—
'Oh the birds, the tree, the ruddyAnd white blossoms, sleek with rain!Oh my garden, rich with pansies!Oh my childhood's bright romances!All revive, like Hector's body,And I see them stir again!
'And despite life's changes—chances,And despite the deathbell's toll,They press on me in full seeming!Help, some angel! stay this dreaming!As the birds sang in the branches,Sing God's patience through my soul!
'That no dreamer, no neglecterOf the present work unsped,I may wake up and be doing,Life's heroic ends pursuing,Though my past is dead as Hector,And though Hector is twice dead.'"
"Well," said Mrs. Lenox slowly, "of course that is all true."
"From her standpoint," said Lois. "That is according to my charge, which you disallowed."
"From her standpoint?" repeated Mr. Lenox. "May I ask for an explanation?"
"I mean, that as she saw things,—
'The first of anySeem the happiest years that come.'"
"Well, of course!" said Mrs. Lenox. "Does not everybody say so?"
Nobody answered.
"Does not everybody agree in that judgment, Miss Lothrop?" urged the gentleman.
"I dare say—everybody looking from that standpoint," said Lois. "And the poets write accordingly. They are all of them seeing shadows."
"How can they help seeing shadows?" returned Mrs. Lenox impatiently."The shadows are there!"
"Yes," said Lois, "the shadows are there." But there was a reservation in her voice.
"Do notyou, then, reckon the years of childhood the happiest?" Mr.Lenox inquired.
"No."
"But you cannot have had much experience of life," said Mrs. Lenox, "to say so. I don't see how they canhelpbeing the happiest, to any one."
"I believe," Lois answered, lowering her voice a little, "that if we could see all, we should see that the oldest person in our company is the happiest here."
The eyes of the strangers glanced towards the old lady in her low chair at the front of the ox cart. In her wrinkled face there was not a line of beauty, perhaps never had been; in spite of its sense and character unmistakeable; it was grave, she was thinking her own thoughts; it was weather-beaten, so to say, with the storms of life; and yet there was an expression of unruffled repose upon it, as calm as the glint of stars in a still lake. Mrs. Lenox's look was curiously incredulous, scornful, and wistful, together; it touched Lois.
"One's young years ought not to be one's best," she said.
"How are you going to help it?" came almost querulously. Lois thought, ifshewere Mr. Lenox, she would not feel flattered.
"When one is young, one does not know disappointment," the other went on.
"And when one is old, one may get the better of disappointment."
"When one is young, everything is fresh."
"I think things grow fresher to me with every year," said Lois, laughing. "Mrs. Lenox, it is possible to keep one's youth."
"Then you have found the philosopher's stone?" said Mr. Lenox.
Lois's smile was brilliant, but she said nothing to that. She was beginning to feel that she had talked more than her share, and was inclined to draw back. Then there came a voice from the arm-chair, it came upon a pause of stillness, with its quiet, firm tones:
'He satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.'"
The voice came like an oracle, and was listened to with somewhat of the same silent reverence. But after that pause Mr. Lenox remarked that he never understood that comparison. What was it about an eagle's youth?
"Why," said Lois, "an eagle never grows old!"
"Is that it! But I wish you would go on a little further, Miss Lothrop. You spoke of hymn-writers having a different standpoint, and of their words as more cheerful than the utterances of other poets. Do you know, I had never thought other poets were not cheerful, until now; and I certainly never got the notion that hymns were an enlivening sort of literature. I thought they dealt with the shadowy side of life almost exclusively."
"Well—yes, perhaps they do," said Lois; "but they go kindling beacons everywhere to light it up; and it is the beacons you see, and not the darkness. Now the secular poets turn that about. They deal with the brightest things they can find; but, to change the figure, they cannot keep the minor chord out of their music."
Mr. and Mrs. Lenox looked at each other.
"Do you mean to say," said the latter, "that the hymn-writers do not use the minor key? They write in it, or they sing in it, more properly, altogether!"
"Yes," said Lois, into whose cheeks a slight colour was mounting; "yes, perhaps; but it is with the blast of the trumpet and the clash of the cymbals of triumph. There may be the confession of pain, but the cry of victory is there too!"
"Victory—over what?" said Mrs. Lenox rather scornfully,
"Over pain, for one thing," said Lois; "and over loss, and weariness, and disappointment."
"You will have to confirm your words by examples again, Lois," saidMrs. Barclay. "We do not all know hymn literature as well as you do."
"I never saw anything of all that in hymns," said Mrs. Lenox. "They always sound a little, to me, like dirges."
Lois hesitated. The cart was plodding along through the smooth lanes at the rate of less than a mile an hour, the oxen swaying from side to side with their slow, patient steps. The level country around lay sleepily still under the hot afternoon sun; it was rarely that any human stir was to be seen, save only the ox driver walking beside the cart. He walked beside thecart, not the oxen; evidently lending a curious ear to what was spoken in the company; on which account also the progress of the vehicle was a little less lively than it might have been.
"My Cynthy's writ a lot o' hymns," he remarked just here. "I never heerd no trumpets in 'em, though. I don' know what them other things is."
"Cymbals?" said Lois. "They are round, thin plates of metal, Mr. Sears, with handles on one side to hold them by; and the player clashes them together, at certain parts of the music—as you would slap the palms of your hands."
"Doos, hey? I want to know! And what doos they sound like?"
"I can't tell," said Lois. "They sound shrill, and sweet, and gay."
"But that's cur'ous sort o' church music!" said the farmer.
"Now, Miss Lothrop,—you must let us hear the figurative cymbals," Mr.Lenox reminded her.
"Do!" said Mrs. Barclay.
"There cannot be much of it," opined Mrs. Lenox.
"On the contrary," said Lois; "there is so much of it that I am at a loss where to begin.
'I love yon pale blue sky; it is the floorOf that glad home where I shall shortly be;A home from which I shall go out no more,From toil and grief and vanity set free.
'I gaze upon yon everlasting arch,Up which the bright stars wander as they shine;And, as I mark them in their nightly march,I think how soon that journey shall be mine!
'Yon silver drift of silent cloud, far upIn the still heaven—through you my pathway lies:Yon rugged mountain peak—how soon your topShall I behold beneath me, as I rise!
'Not many more of life's slow-pacing hours,Shaded with sorrow's melancholy hue;Oh what a glad ascending shall be ours,Oh what a pathway up yon starry blue!
'A journey like Elijah's, swift and bright,Caught gently upward to an early crown,In heaven's own chariot of all-blazing light,With death untasted and the grave unknown.'"
"That's not like any hymn I ever heard," remarked Mrs. Lenox, after a pause had followed the last words.
"That is a hymn of Dr. Bonar's," said Lois. "I took it merely because it came first into my head. Long ago somebody else wrote something very like it—
'Ye stars are but the shining dustOf my divine abode;The pavement of those heavenly courtsWhere I shall see my God.
'The Father of unnumbered lightsShall there his beams display;And not one moment's darkness mixWith that unvaried day.'
Do you hear the cymbals, Mrs. Lenox?"
There came here a long breath, it sounded like a breath of satisfaction or rest; it was breathed by Mrs. Armadale. In the stillness of their progress, the slowly revolving wheels making no noise on the smooth road, and the feet of the oxen falling almost soundlessly, they all heard it; and they all felt it. It was nothing less than an echo of what Lois had been repeating; a mute "Even so!"—probably unconscious, and certainly undesigned. Mrs. Lenox glanced that way. There was a far-off look on the old worn face, and lines of peace all about the lips and the brow and the quiet folded hands. Mrs. Lenox did not know that a sigh came from herself as her eyes turned away.
Her husband eyed the three women curiously. They were a study to him, albeit he hardly knew the grammar of the language in which so many things seemed to be written on their faces. Mrs. Armadale's features, if strong, were of the homeliest kind; work-worn and weather-worn, to boot; yet the young man was filled with reverence as he looked from the hands in their cotton gloves, folded on her lap, to the hard features shaded and framed by the white sun-bonnet. The absolute, profound calm was imposing to him; the still peace of the spirit was attractive. He looked at his wife; and the contrast struck even him. Her face was murky. It was impatience, in part, he guessed, which made it so;butwhy was she impatient? It was cloudy with unhappiness; and she ought to be very happy, Mr. Lenox thought; had she not everything in the world that she cared about? How could there be a cloud of unrest and discontent on her brow, and those displeased lines about her lips? His eye turned to Lois, and lingered as long as it dared. There was peace too, very sunny, and a look of lofty thought, and a brightness that seemed to know no shadow; though at the moment she was not smiling.
"Are you not going on, Miss Lothrop?" he said gently; for he felt Mrs. Barclay's eye upon him. And, besides, he wanted to provoke the girl to speak more.
"I could go on till I tired you," said Lois.
"I do not think you could," he returned pleasantly. "What can we do better? We are in a most pastoral frame of mind, with pastoral surroundings; poetry could not be better accompanied."
"When one gets excited in talking, perhaps one had better stop," Lois said modestly.
"On the contrary! Then the truth will come out best."
Lois smiled and shook her head. "We shall soon be at the shore.Look,—this way we turn down to go to it, and leave the high road."
"Then make haste!" said Mr. Lenox. "It will sound nowhere better than here."
"Yes, go on," said his wife now, raising her heavy eyelids.
"Well," said Lois. "Do you remember Bryant's 'Thanatopsis'?"
"Of course.Thatis bright enough at any rate," said the lady.
"Do you think so?"
"Yes! What is the matter with it?"
"Dark—and earthly."
"I don't think so at all!" cried Mrs. Lenox, now becoming excited in her turn. "What would you have? I think it is beautiful! And elevated; and hopeful."
"Can you repeat the last lines?"
"No; but I dare say you can. You seem to me to have a library of poets in your head."
"I can," said Mrs. Barclay here, putting in her word at this not very civil speech. And she went on—
'The gay will laughWhen thou art gone, the solemn brood of carePlod on, and each one as before will chaseHis favourite phantom; yet all these shall leaveTheir mirth and their employments, and shall comeAnd make their bed with thee.'"
"Well, of course," said Mrs. Lenox. "That is true."
"Is it cheerful?" said Mrs. Barclay. "But that is not the last.—
'So live, that when thy summons comes to joinThe innumerable caravan, which movesTo that mysterious realm, where each shall takeHis chamber in the silent halls of death,Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night,Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothedBy an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,Like one who wraps the drapery of his couchAbout him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.'"
"There!" Mrs. Lenox exclaimed. "What would you have, better than that?"
Lois looked at her, and said nothing. The look irritated husband and wife, in different ways; her to impatience, him to curiosity.
"Have you got anything better, Miss Lothrop?" he asked.
"You can judge. Compare that with a dying Christian's address to his soul—
'Deathless principle, arise;Soar, thou native of the skies.Pearl of price, by Jesus bought,To his glorious likeness wrought,Go, to shine before the throne;Deck the mediatorial crown;Go, his triumphs to adorn;Made for God, to God return.'
I won't give you the whole of it—
'Is thy earthly house distressed?Willing to retain her guest?'Tis not thou, but she, must die;Fly, celestial tenant, fly.'Burst thy shackles, drop thy clay,Sweetly breathe thyself away:Singing, to thy crown remove,Swift of wing, and fired with love.'
'Shudder not to pass the stream;Venture all thy care on him;Him whose dying love and powerStilled its tossing, hushed its roar.Safe is the expanded wave,Gentle as a summer's eve;Not one object of his careEver suffered shipwreck there.'"
"That ain't no hymn in the book, is it?" inquired the ox driver."Haw!—go 'long. That ain't in the book, is it, Lois?"
"Not in the one we use in church, Mr. Sears."
"I wisht it was!—like it fust-rate. Never heerd it afore in my life."
"There's as good as thatinthe church book," remarked Mrs. Armadale.
"Yes," said Lois; "I like Wesley's hymn even better—
'Come, let us join our friends aboveThat have obtained the prize;And on the eagle wings of loveTo joys celestial rise.
. . . .
'One army of the living God,To his command we bow;Part of his host have crossed the floodAnd part are crossing now.
. . . . . .
'His militant embodied host,With wishful looks we stand,And long to see that happy coast,And reach the heavenly land.
'E'en now, by faith, we join our handsWith those that went before;And greet the blood-besprinkled bandsOn the eternal shore.'"