"We may as well look at it, dear," said he, gravely; "it must come to that - sooner or later but you mustn't distress yourself about it beforehand. Don't cry don't dear!" said he, tenderly kissing her. "I didn't mean to trouble you so. There there look up, dear let's take the good we have and be thankful for it. God will arrange the rest, in his own good way. Fleda! I wouldn't have said a word if I had thought it would have worried you so."
He would not indeed. But he had spoken as men so often speak, out of the depths of their own passion or bitterness, forgetting that they are wringing the chords of a delicate harp, and not knowing what mischief they have done till they find the instrument all out of tune, more often not knowing it ever. It is pity, for how frequently a discord is left that jars all life long; and how much more frequently still the harp, though retaining its sweetness and truth of tone to the end, is gradually unstrung.
Poor Fleda could hardly hold up her head for a long time, and recalling bitterly her unlucky innocent remark which had led to all this trouble, she almost made up her mind, with a certain heroine of Miss Edgeworth's, that "it is best never to mention things". Mr. Ringgan, now thoroughly alive to the wounds he had been inflicting, held his little pet in his arms, pillowed her head on his breast, and by every tender and soothing action and word endeavoured to undo what he had done. And after a while the agony was over, the wet eyelashes were lifted up, and the meek sorrowful little face lay quietly upon Mr. Ringgan's breast, gazing out into the fire as gravely as if the panorama of life were there. She little heeded at first her grandfather's cheering talk, she knew it was for a purpose.
"Aint it most time for you to go to bed?" whispered Mr.Ringgan, when he thought the purpose was effected.
"Shall I tell Cynthy to get you your milk, grandpa?" said the little girl, rousing herself.
"Yes dear. Stop, what if you and me were to have some roast apples? wouldn't you like it?"
"Well yes, I should, grandpa," said Fleda, understanding perfectly why he wished it, and wishing it herself for that same reason and no other.
"Cynthy, let's have some of those roast apples," said Mr.Ringgan, "and a couple of bowls of milk here."
"No, I'll get the apples myself, Cynthy," said Fleda.
"And you needn't take any of the cream off, Cynthy," added Mr.Ringgan.
One corner of the kitchen table was hauled up to the fire, to be comfortable, Fleda said, and she and her grandfather sat down on the opposite sides of it to do honour to the apples and milk; each with the simple intent of keeping up appearances and cheating the other into cheerfulness. There is, however, deny it who can, an exhilarating effect in good wholesome food taken when one is in some need of it; and Fleda at least found the supper relish exceeding well. Every one furthermore knows the relief of a hearty flow of tears when a secret weight has been pressing on the mind. She was just ready for anything reviving. After the third mouthful she began to talk, and before the bottom of the bowls was reached, she had smiled more than once. So her grandfather thought no harm was done, and went to bed quite comforted; and Fleda climbed the steep stairs that led from his door to her little chamber just over his head. It was small and mean, immediately under the roof, with only one window. There were plenty of better rooms in the house, but Fleda liked this because it kept her near her grandfather; and indeed she had always had it ever since her father's death, and never thought of taking any other.
She had a fashion, this child, in whom the simplicity of practical life and the poetry of imaginative life were curiously blended, she had a fashion of going to her window every night when the moon or stars were shining, to look out for a minute or two before she went to bed; and sometimes the minutes were more than any good grandmother or aunt would have considered wholesome for little Fleda in the fresh night air. But there was no one to watch or reprimand; and whatever it was that Fleda read in earth or sky, the charm which held her one bright night was sure to bring her to her window the next. This evening a faint young moon lighted up but dimly the meadow and what was called the "east-hill," over against which the window in question looked. The air was calm and mild; there was no frost to-night; the stillness was entire, and the stars shone in a cloudless sky. Fleda set open the window, and looked out with a face that again bore tokens of the experiences of that day. She wanted the soothing speech of nature's voice; and child as she was, she could hear it. She did not know, in her simplicity, what it was that comforted and soothed her, but she stood at her window enjoying.
It was so perfectly still, her fancy presently went to all those people who had hushed their various work and were now resting, or soon would be, in the unconsciousness and the helplessness of sleep. Thehelplessness, and then that Eye that never sleeps; that Hand that keeps them all, that is never idle, that is the safety and the strength alike of all the earth, and of them that wake or sleep upon it,
"And if he takes care of them all, will he not take care of poor little me?" thought Fleda. "Oh, how glad I am I know there is a God! How glad I am I know he is such a God! and that I can trust in him; and he will make everything go right. How I forget this sometimes! But Jesus does not forget his children. Oh, I am a happy little girl! Grandpa's saying what he did don't make it so perhaps I shall die the first but I hope not, for what would become of him! But this and everything will all be arranged right, and I have nothing to do with it but to obey God and please him, and he will take care of the rest. He has forbiddenusto be careful about it too."
With grateful tears of relief Fleda shut the window and began to undress herself, her heart so lightened of its burden, that her thoughts presently took leave to go out again upon pleasure excursions in various directions; and one of the last things in Fleda's mind before sleep surprised her was, what a nice thing it was for any one to bow and smile so as Mr. Carleton did!
I know each lane, and every alley green,Dingle or bushy dell of this wild wood,And every bosky bourne from side to side;My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood.MILTON.
Fleda and her grandfather had but just risen from a tolerably early breakfast the next morning, when the two young sportsmen entered the room.
"Ha!" said Mr. Ringgan, "I declare! you're stirring betimes. Come five or six miles this morning a'ready. Well that's the stuff to make sportsmen of. Off for the woodcock, hey? And I was to go with you and show you the ground? I declare I don't know how in the world I can do it this morning, I'm so very stiff ten times as bad as I was yesterday. I had a window open in my room last night, I expect that must have been the cause. I don't see how I could have overlooked it; but I never gave it a thought, till this morning I found myself so lame I could hardly get out of bed. I am very sorry, upon my word!"
"I am very sorry we must lose your company, Sir," said the young Englishman, "and for such a cause; but as to the rest, I dare say your directions will guide us sufficiently."
"I don't know about that," said the old gentleman. " It is pretty hard to steer by a chart that is only laid down in the imagination. I set out once to go in New York from one side of the city over into the other, and the first thing I knew I found myself travelling along half a mile out of town. I had to get in a stage and ride back, and take a fresh start. Out at the West they say, when you are in the woods you can tell which is north by the moss growing on that side of the trees; but if you're lost, you'll be pretty apt to find the moss grows onallsides of the trees. I couldn't make out any waymarks at all, in such a labyrinth of brick corners. Well, let us see if I tell you now it is so easy to mistake one hill for another Fleda, child, you put on your sun-bonnet, and take these gentlemen back to the twenty-acre lot, and from there you can tell 'em how to go, so I guess they wont mistake it."
"By no means!" said Mr. Carleton; "we cannot give her so much trouble; it would be buying our pleasure at much too dear a rate."
"Tut, tut," said the old gentleman; "she thinks nothing of trouble, and the walk 'll do her good. She'd like to be out all day, I believe, if she had any one to go along with; but I'm rather a stupid companion for such a spry little pair of feet. Fleda, look here; when they get to the lot, they can find their own way after that. You know where the place is where your cousin Seth shot so many woodcock last year, over in Mr. Hurlbut's land; when you get to the big lot you must tell these gentlemen to go straight over the hill, not Squire Thornton's hill, but mine, at the back of the lot. They must go straight over it, till they come to cleared land on the other side; then they must keep along by the edge of the wood, to the right, till they come to the brook; they mustcross the brook, and follow up the opposite bank, and they'll know the ground when they come to it; or they don't deserve to. Do you understand? Now run and get your hat, for they ought to be off."
Fleda went, but neither her step nor her look showed any great willingness to the business.
"I am sure, Mr. Ringgan," said Mr. Carleton, "your little granddaughter has some reason for not wishing to take such a long walk this morning. Pray allow us to go without her."
"Pho, pho," said the old gentleman, "she wants to go."
"I guess she's skeered o' the guns," said Cynthy, happy to get a chance to edge in a word before such company; "it's that ails her."
"Well, well; she must get used to it," said Mr. Ringgan. "Here she is!"
Fleda had it in her mind to whisper to him a word of hope about Mr. Jolly; but she recollected that it was at best an uncertain hope, and that if her grandfather's thoughts were off the subject it was better to leave them so. She only kissed him for good-by, and went out with the two gentlemen.
As they took up their guns, Mr. Carleton caught the timid shunning glance her eye gave at them.
"Do you dislike the company of these noisy friends of ours,Miss Fleda?" said he.
Fleda hesitated, and finally said, "she didn't much like to be very near them when they were fired."
"Put that fear away then," said he, " for they shall keep a respectful silence so long as they have the honour to be in your company. If the woodcock come about us as tame as quails our guns shall not be provoked to say anything till your departure gives them leave."
Fleda smiled her thanks, and set forward, privately much confirmed in her opinion that Mr. Carleton had handsome eyes.
At a little distance from the house Fleda left the meadow for an old apple-orchard at the left, lying on a steep side hill. Up this hill-side they toiled; and then found themselves on a ridge of tableland, stretching back for some distance along the edge of a little valley or bottom of perfectly flat smooth pasture-ground. The valley was very narrow, only divided into fields by fences running from side to side. The table-land might be a hundred feet or more above the level of the bottom, with a steep face towards it. A little way back from the edge the woods began; between them and the brow of the hill the ground was smooth and green, planted as if by art with flourishing young silver pines, and once in a while a hemlock, some standing in all their luxuriance alone, and some in groups. With now and then a smooth grey rock, or large boulderstone, which had somehow inexplicably stopped on the brow of the hill instead of rolling down into what at some former time no doubt was a bed of water, all this open strip of the table-land might have stood with very little coaxing for a piece of a gentleman's pleasure-ground. On the opposite side of the little valley was a low rocky height, covered with wood, now in the splendour of varied red and green and purple and brown and gold; between, at their feet, lay the soft quiet green meadow; and off to the left, beyond the far end of the valley, was the glory of the autumn woods again, softened in the distance. A true October sky seemed to pervade all, mildly blue, transparently pure, with that clearness of atmosphere that no other month gives us; a sky that would have conferred a patent of nobility on any landscape. The scene was certainly contracted and nowise remarkable in any of its features, but Nature had shaken out all her colours over the land, and drawn a veil from the sky, and breathed through the woods and over the hill-side the very breath of health, enjoyment, and vigour.
When they were about over-against the middle of the valley, Mr. Carleton suddenly made a pause and stood for some minutes silently looking. His two companions came to a halt on either side of him, one not a little pleased, the other a little impatient.
"Beautiful!" Mr. Carleton said, at length.
"Yes," said Fleda, gravely, "I think it's a pretty place. I like it up here."
"We sha'n't catch many woodcock among these pines," said youngRossitur.
"I wonder," said Mr. Carleton, presently, "how any one should have called these 'melancholy days.' "
"Who has?" said Rossitur.
"A countryman of yours," said his friend, glancing at him. "If he had been a countryman of mine there would have been less marvel. But here is none of the sadness of decay none of the withering if the tokens of old age are seen at all it is in the majestic honours that crown a glorious life the graces of a matured and ripened character. This has nothing in common, Rossitur, with those dull moralists who are always dinning decay and death into one's ears; this speaks of Life. Instead of freezing all one's hopes and energies, it quickens the pulse with the desire todo. 'The saddest of the year' Bryant was wrong."
"Bryant? oh!" said young Rossitur; "I didn't know who you were speaking of."
"I believe, now I think of it, he was writing of a somewhat later time of the year, I don't know how all this will look in November."
"I think it is very pleasant in November," said little Fleda, sedately.
"Don't you know Bryant's 'Death of the Flowers,' Rossitur?" said his friend, smiling. "What have you been doing all your life?"
"Not studying the fine arts at West Point, Mr. Carleton."
"Then sit down here, and let me mend that place in your education. Sit down! and I'll give you something better than woodcock. You keep a game-bag for thoughts, don't you?"
Mr. Rossitur wished Mr. Carleton didn't. But he sat down, however, and listened with an unedified face; while his friend, more to please himself, it must be confessed, than for any other reason, and perhaps with half a notion to try Fleda, repeated the beautiful words. He presently saw they were not lost upon one of his hearers; she listened intently.
"It is very pretty," said Rossitur, when he had done. "I believe I have seen it before somewhere."
"There is no 'smoky light' to-day," said Fleda.
"No," said Mr. Carleton, smiling to himself. "Nothing but that could improve the beauty of all this, Miss Fleda."
"Ilike it better as it is," said Fleda.
"I am surprised at that," said young Rossitur. "I thought you lived on smoke."
There was nothing in the words, but the tone was not exactly polite. Fleda granted him neither smile nor look.
"I am glad you like it up here," she went on, gravely doing the honours of the place. "I came this way because we shouldn't have so many fences to climb."
"You are the best little guide possible, and I have no doubt would always lead one the right way," said Mr. Carleton.
Again the same gentle, kind,appreciatinglook. Fleda unconsciously drew a step nearer. There was a certain undefined confidence established between them.
"There's a little brook down there in spring," said she, pointing to a small, grass-grown water-course in the meadow, hardly discernible from the height, "but there's no water in it now. It runs quite full for a while after the snow breaks up; but it dries away by June or July."
"What are those trees so beautifully tinged with red and orange, down there by the fence in the meadow?"
"I am not woodsman enough to inform you," replied Rossitur.
"Those are maples," said Fleda "sugar maples. The one all orange is a hickory."
"How do you know?" said Mr. Carleton, turning to her. "By your wit as a fairy?"
"I know by the colour," said Fleda, modestly; "and by the shape too."
"Fairy," said Mr. Rossitur, "if you have any of the stuff about you, I wish you would knock this gentleman over the head with your wand, and put the spirit of moving into him. He is going to sit dreaming here all day."
"Not at all," said his friend, springing up; "I am ready for you; but I want other game than woodcock just now, I confess."
They walked along in silence, and had near reached the extremity of the table-land, which, towards the end of the valley, descended into ground of a lower level covered with woods; when Mr. Carleton, who was a little ahead, was startled by Fleda's voice, exclaiming, in a tone of distress, "Oh, not the robins!" and turning about, perceived Mr. Rossitur standing still with levelled gun, and just in the act to shoot. Fleda had stopped her ears. In the same instant, Mr. Carleton had thrown up the gun, demanding of Rossitur, with a singular change of expression "what he meant!"
"Mean?" said the young gentleman, meeting with an astonished face the indignant fire of his companion's eyes "why, I mean not to meddle with other people's guns, Mr. Carleton. What doyoumean?"
"Nothing, but to protect myself."
"Protect yourself!" said Rossitur, heating as the other cooled "from what, in the name of wonder?"
"Only from having my word blown away by your fire," said Carleton, smiling. "Come, Rossitur, recollect yourself remember our compact."
"Compact! one isn't bound to keep compacts with unearthly personages," said Rossitur, half sulkily and half angrily; "and besides, I made none."
Mr. Carleton turned from him very coolly, and walked on.
They left the table-land and the wood, entered the valley again, and passed through a large orchard, the last of the succession of fields which stretched along it. Beyond this orchard the ground rose suddenly, and on the steep hill-side there had been a large plantation of Indian corn. The corn was harvested, but the ground was still covered with numberless little stacks of the cornstalks. Halfway up the hill stood three ancient chestnut-trees; veritable patriarchs of the nut tribe they were, and respected and esteemed as patriarchs should be.
"There are no 'dropping nuts' to-day, either," said Fleda, to whom the sight of her forest friends in the distance probably suggested the thought, for she had not spoken for some time. "I suppose there hasn't been frost enough yet."
"Why, you have a good memory, Fairy," said Mr. Carleton. "Do you give the nuts leave to fall of themselves?"
"Oh, sometimes grandpa and I go a nutting," said the little girl, getting lightly over the fence "but we haven't been this year."
"Then it is a pleasure to come yet?"
"No," said Fleda, quietly; "the trees near the house have been stripped; and the only other nice place there is for us to go to, Mr. Didenhover let the Shakers have the nuts. I sha'n't get any this year."
"Live in the woods and not get any nuts! that wont do, Fairy. Here are some fine chestnuts we are coming to what should hinder our reaping a good harvest from these?"
"I don't think there will be any on them," said Fleda; "Mr. Didenhover has been here lately with the men getting in the corn; I guess they have cleared the trees."
"Who is Mr. Didenhover?"
"He is grandpa's man."
"Why didn't you bid Mr. Didenhover let the nuts alone?"
"Oh, he wouldn't mind if he was told," said Fleda. "He does everything just as he has a mind to, and nobody can hinder him. Yes, they've cleared the trees I thought so."
"Don't you know of any other trees that are out of this Mr.Didenhover's way?"
"Yes," said Fleda; "I know a place where there used to be beautiful hickory trees, and some chestnuts too, I think; but it is too far off for grandpa, and I couldn't go there alone. This is the twenty-acre lot," said she, looking, though she did not say it, "Here I leave you."
"I am glad to hear it," said her cousin. "Now give us our directions, Fleda, and thank you for your services."
"Stop a minute," said Mr. Carleton. "What if you and I should try to find those same hickory-trees, Miss Fleda? Will you take me with you or is it too long a walk?"
"For me? oh no!" said Fleda, with a face of awakening hope; "but," she added, timidly, "you were going a shooting, Sir?"
"What on earth are you thinking of, Carleton?" said youngRossitur." Let the nuts and Fleda alone, do!"
"By your leave, Mr. Rossitur," said Carleton. "My murderous intents have all left me, Miss Fleda; I suppose your wand has been playing about me, and I should like nothing better than to go with you over the hills this morning. I have been a nutting many a time in my own woods at home, and I want to try it for once in the New World. Will you take me?"
"Oh, thank you, Sir!" said Fleda; " but we have passed the turning a long way; we must go back ever so far the same way we came to get to the place where we turn off to go up the mountain."
"I don't wish for a prettier way if it isn't so far as to tire you, Fairy?"
"Oh, it wont tire me!" said Fleda, overjoyed.
"Carleton!" exclaimed young Rossitur. "Can you be so absurd! Lose this splendid day for the woodcock, when we may not have another while we are here!"
"You are not a true sportsman, Mr. Rossitur," said the other, coolly, "or you would know what it is to have some sympathy with the sports of others. Butyouwill have the day for the woodcock, and bring us home a great many, I hope. Miss Fleda, suppose we give this impatient young gentleman his orders and despatch him."
"I thought you were more of a sportsman," said the vexed WestPointer, "or your sympathy would be with me."
"I tell you the sporting mania was never stronger on me," said the other, carelessly. "Something less than a rifle, however, will do to bring down the game I am after. We will rendezvous at the little village over yonder, unless I go home before you, which I think is more probable. Au revoir!"
With careless gracefulness he saluted his disconcerted companion, who moved off with ungraceful displeasure. Fleda and Mr. Carleton then began to follow back the road they had come, in the highest good humour both. Her sparkling face told him with even greater emphasis than her words,
"I am so much obliged to you, Sir."
"How you go over fences!" said he, "like a sprite, as you are."
"Oh, I have climbed a great many," said Fleda, accepting, however, again with that infallible instinct, the help which she did not need. "I shall be so glad to get some nuts, for I thought I wasn't going to have any this year; and it is so pleasant to have them to crack in the long winter evenings."
"You must find them long evenings indeed, I should think."
"Oh no, we don't," said Fleda. "I didn't mean they were long inthatway. Grandpa cracks the nuts, and I pick them out, and he tells me stories; and then you know he likes to go to bed early. The evenings never seem long."
"But you are not always cracking nuts."
"Oh no, to be sure not; but there are plenty of other pleasant things to do. I dare say grandpa would have bought some nuts, but I had a great deal rather have those we get ourselves, and then the fun of getting them, besides, is the best part."
Fleda was tramping over the ground at a furious rate.
"How many do you count upon securing to-day?" said Mr.Carleton, gravely.
"I don't know," said Fleda, with a business face, "there are a good many trees, and fine large ones, and I don't believe anybody has found them out they are so far out of the way; there ought to be a good parcel of nuts."
"But," said Mr. Carleton, with perfect gravity, "if we should be lucky enough to find a supply for your winter's store, it would be too much for you and me to bring home, Miss Fleda, unless you have a broomstick in the service of fairydom."
"A broomstick!" said Fleda.
"Yes, did you never hear of the man who had a broomstick that would fetch pails of water at his bidding?"
"No," said Fleda, laughing. "What a convenient broomstick! I wish we had one. But I know what I can do, Mr. Carleton, if there should be too many nuts for us to bring home, I can take Cynthy afterwards and get the rest of them. Cynthy and I could go grandpa couldn't, even if he was as well as usual, for the trees are in a hollow away over on the other side of the mountain. It's a beautiful place."
"Well," said Mr. Carleton, smiling curiously to himself, "in that case I shall be even of more use than I had hoped. But shan't we want a basket, Miss Fleda?"
"Yes, indeed," said Fleda, "a good large one I am going to run down to the house for it as soon as we get to the turning- off place, if you'll be so good as to sit down and wait for me, Sir, I wont be long after it."
"No," said he; "I will walk with you and leave my gun in safe quarters. You had better not travel so fast, or I am afraid you will never reach the hickory-trees."
Fleda smiled, and said there was no danger, but she slackened her pace, and they proceeded at a more reasonable rate till they reached the house.
Mr. Carleton would not go in, placing his gun in an outer shelter. Fleda dashed into the kitchen, and after a few minutes' delay came out again with a huge basket, which Mr. Carleton took from her without suffering his inward amusement to reach his face, and a little tin pail which she kept under her own guardianship. In vain Mr. Carleton offered to take it with the basket, or even to put it in the basket, where he showed her it would go very well; it must go nowhere but in Fleda's own hand.
Fleda was in restless haste till they had passed over the already twice-trodden ground and entered upon the mountain road. It was hardly a road; in some places a beaten track was visible, in others Mr. Carleton wondered how his little companion found her way, where nothing but fresh-fallen leaves and scattered rocks and stones could be seen, covering the whole surface. But her foot never faltered, her eye read way- marks where he saw none; she went on, he did not doubt unerringly, over the leaf-strewn and rock-strewn way, over ridge and hollow, with a steady light swiftness that he could not help admiring. Once they came to a little brawling stream of spring water, hardly three inches deep anywhere, but making quite a wide bed for itself in its bright way to the lowlands. Mr. Carleton was considering how he should contrive to get his little guide over it in safety, when quick, over the little round stones which lifted their heads above the surface of the water, on the tips of her toes, Fleda tripped across before he had done thinking about it. He told her he had no doubt now that she was a fairy, and had powers of walking that did not belong to other people. Fleda laughed, and on her little demure figure went picking out the way, always with that little tin pail hanging at her side, like Mr. Carleton busied himself in finding out similes for her. It wasn't very easy.
For a long distance their way was through a thick woodland, clear of underbrush and very pleasant walking, but permitting no look at the distant country. They wound about, now up hill and now down, till at last they began to ascend in good earnest; the road became better marked, and Mr. Carleton came up with his guide again. Both were obliged to walk more slowly. He had overcome a good deal of Fleda's reserve, and she talked to him now quite freely, without however losing the grace of a most exquisite modesty in everything she said or did.
"What do you suppose I have been amusing myself with all this while, Miss Fleda?" said he, after walking for some time alongside of her in silence. "I have been trying to fancy what you looked like as you travelled on before me with that mysterious tin pail."
"Well, whatdidI look like?" said Fleda, laughing.
"Little Red Riding-Hood, the first thing, carrying her grandmother the pot of butter."
"Ah, but I haven't got any butter in this, as it happens," said Fleda; "and I hope you are not anything like the wolf, Mr. Carleton?"
"I hope not," said he, laughing. "Well, then, I thought you might be one of those young ladies the fairy-stories tell of, who set out over the world to seek their fortune. That might hold, you know, a little provision to last for a day or two till you found it."
"No," said Fleda, "I should never go to seek my fortune."
"Why not, pray?"
"I don't think I should find it any the sooner."
Mr. Carleton looked at her, and could not make up his mind whether or not she spoke wittingly.
Well, but after all, are we not seeking our fortune?" said he. "We are doing something very like it. Now up here on the mountain-top perhaps we shall find only empty trees perhaps trees with a harvest of nuts on them."
"Yes, but that wouldn't be like finding a fortune," said Fleda; "if we were to come to a great heap of nuts all picked out ready for us to carry away,thatwould be a fortune; but now if we find the trees full, we have got to knock them down, and gather them up, and shuck them."
"Make our own fortunes, eh?" said Mr. Carleton, smiling.
"Well! people do say those are the sweetest nuts. I don't know how it may be. Ha! that is fine. What an atmosphere!"
They had reached a height of the mountain that cleared them a view, and over the tops of the trees they looked abroad to a very wide extent of country undulating with hill and vale, hill and valley alike far below at their feet. Fair and rich, the gently swelling hills, one beyond another, in the patchwork dress of their many-coloured fields, the gay hues of the woodland softened and melted into a rich autumn glow, and far away, beyond even where this glow was sobered and lost in the distance, the faint blue line of the Catskill faint, but clear and distinct, through the transparent air. Such a sky! of such etherialized purity as if made for spirits to travel in, and tempting them to rise and free themselves from the soil; and the stillness, like nature's hand laid upon the soul, bidding it think. In view of all that vastness and grandeur, man's littleness does bespeak itself. And yet, for every one, the voice of the scene is not more humbling to pride than rousing to all that is really noble and strong in character. Not only "What thou art," but "What thou mayest be!" What place thou oughtest to fill what work thou hast to do, in this magnificent world. A very extended landscape, however genial, is also sober in its effect on the mind. One seems to emerge from the narrowness of individual existence, and take a larger view of Life as well as of Creation.
Perhaps Mr. Carleton felt it so, for, after his first expression of pleasure, he stood silently and gravely looking for a long time. Little Fleda's eye loved it too, but she looked her fill, and then sat down on a stone to await her companion's pleasure, glancing now and then up at his face, which gave her no encouragement to interrupt him. It was gravely, and even gloomily thoughtful. He stood so long without stirring, that poor Fleda began to have sad thoughts of the possibility of gathering all the nuts from the hickory- trees, and she heaved a very gentle sigh once or twice; but the dark blue eye which she with reason admired, remained fixed on the broad scene below, as if it were reading, or trying to read there a difficult lesson. And when at last he turned and began to go up the path again, he kept the same face, and went moodily swinging his arm up and down, as if in disturbed thought. Fleda was too happy to be moving to care for her companion's silence; she would have compounded for no more conversation, so they might but reach the nut-trees. But before they had got quite so far, Mr. Carleton broke the silence, speaking in precisely the same tone and manner he had used the last time.
"Look here, Fairy," said he, pointing to a small heap of chestnut burs piled at the foot of a tree "here's a little fortune for you already."
"That's a squirrel!" said Fleda, looking at the place very attentively. "There has been nobody else here. He has put them together, ready to be carried off to his nest."
"We'll save him that trouble," said Mr. Carleton. "Little rascal! he's a Didenhover in miniature."
"Oh, no!" said Fleda; "he had as good a right to the nuts, I am sure, as we have, poor fellow. Mr. Carleton "
Mr. Carleton was throwing the nuts into the basket. At the anxious and undecided tone in which his name was pronounced, he stopped, and looked up at a very wistful face.
"Mightn't we leave these nuts till we come back? If we find the trees over here full, we shan't want them; and if we don't, these would be only a handful "
"And the squirrel would be disappointed?" said Mr. Carleton, smiling. "You would rather we should leave them to him!"
Fleda said yes, with a relieved face, and Mr. Carleton, still smiling, emptied his basket of the few nuts he had put in, and they walked on.
In a hollow, rather a deep hollow, behind the crest of the hill, as Fleda had said, they came at last to a noble group of large hickory-trees, with one or two chestnuts standing in attendance on the outskirts. And, also, as Fleda had said, or hoped, the place was so far from convenient access, that nobody had visited them; they were thick hung with fruit. If the spirit of the game had been wanting or failing in Mr. Carleton, it must have roused again into full life at the joyous heartiness of Fleda's exclamations. At any rate, no boy could have taken to the business better. He cut, with her permission, a stout long pole in the woods; and swinging himself lightly into one of the trees, showed that he was a master in the art of whipping them. Fleda was delighted, but not surprised; for, from the first moment of Mr. Carleton's proposing to go with her, she had been privately sure that he would not prove an inactive or inefficient ally. By whatever slight tokens she might read this, in whatsoever fine characters of the eye, or speech, or manner, she knew it; and knew it just as well before they reached the hickory-trees as she did afterwards.
When one of the trees was well stripped, the young gentleman mounted into another, while Fleda set herself to hull and gather up the nuts under the one first beaten. She could make but little headway, however, compared with her companion; the nuts fell a great deal faster than she could put them in her basket. The trees were heavy laden, and Mr. Carleton seemed determined to have the whole crop; from the second tree he went to the third. Fleda was bewildered with her happiness; this was doing business in style. She tried to calculate what the whole quantity would be, but it went beyond her; one basketful would not take it, nor two, nor three, it wouldn'tbegin to, Fleda said to herself. She went on hulling and gathering with all possible industry.
After the third tree was finished, Mr. Carleton threw down his pole, and resting himself upon the ground at the foot, told Fleda he would wait a few moments before he began again.. Fleda thereupon left off her work too, and going for her little tin pail, presently offered it to him temptingly stocked with pieces of apple-pie. When he had smilingly taken one, she next brought him a sheet of white paper, with slices of young cheese.
"No, thank you," said he.
"Cheese is very good with apple-pie," said Fleda, competently.
"Is it?" said he laughing. "Well upon that I think you would teach me a good many things, Miss Fleda, if I were to stay here long enough."
"I wish you would stay and try, Sir," said Fleda, who did not know exactly what to make of the shade of seriousness which crossed his face. It was gone almost instantly.
"I think anything is better eaten out in the woods than it is at home," said Fleda.
"Well, I don't know," said her friend. "I have no doubt that is the case with cheese and apple-pie, and especially under hickory trees which one has been contending with pretty sharply. If a touch of your wand, Fairy, could transform one of these shells into a goblet of Lafitte, or Amontillado, we should have nothing to wish for."
'Amontillado' was Hebrew to Fleda, but 'goblet' was intelligible.
"I am sorry!" she said; "I don't know where there is any spring up here, but we shall come to one going down the mountain."
"Do you know where all the springs are?"
"No, not all, I suppose," said Fleda; "but I know a good many. I have gone about through the woods so much, and I always look for the springs."
"And who roams about through the woods with you?"
"Oh, nobody but grandpa," said Fleda. "He used to be out with me a great deal, but he can't go much now this year or two."
"Don't you go to school?"
"O no!" said Fleda, smiling.
"Then your grandfather teaches you at home?"
"No," said Fleda; father used to teach me; grandpa doesn't teach me much."
"What do you do with yourself all day long?"
"O, plenty of things," said Fleda, smiling again. "I read, and talk to grandpa, and go riding, and do a great many things."
"Has your home always been here, Fairy?" said Mr. Carleton, after a few minutes' pause.
Fleda said, "No, Sir," and there stopped; and then seeming to think that politeness called upon her to say more, she added
"I have lived with grandpa ever since father left me here, when he was going away among the Indians; I used to be always with him before."
"And how long ago is that?"
"It is four years, Sir; more, I believe. He was sick when he came back, and we never went away from Queechy again."
Mr. Carleton looked again silently at the child, who had given him these pieces of information with a singular, grave propriety of manner; and even as it were reluctantly.
"And what do you read, Fairy?" he said, after a minute."Stories of fairy-land?"
"No," said Fleda; "I haven't any. We haven't a great many books there are only a few up in the cupboard, and the Encyclopaedia; father had some books, but they are locked up in a chest. But there is a great deal in the Encyclopaedia."
"The Encyclopaedia!" said Mr. Carleton; "what do you read in that? what can you find to like there?"
"I like all about the insects, and birds, and animals; and about flowers, and lives of people, and curious things. There are a great many in it."
"And what are the other books in the cupboard, which you read?"
"There's Quentin Durward," said Fleda, "and Rob Roy, and GuyMannering in two little bits of volumes; and theKnickerbocker, and the Christian's Magazine, and an odd volumeof Redgauntlet, and the Beauties of Scotland."
"And have you read all these, Miss Fleda?" said her companion, commanding his countenance with difficulty.
"I haven't read quite all of the Christian's Magazine, nor all of the Beauties of Scotland."
"All the rest."
"O yes," said Fleda, "and two or three times over. And there are three great red volumes besides, Robertson's History of something, I believe. I haven't read that either."
"And which of them all do you like the best?"
"I don't know," said Fleda, "I don't know but I like to read the Encyclopaedia as well as any of them. And then I have the newspapers to read too."
"I think, Miss Fleda," said Mr. Carleton, a minute after, "you had better let me take you with my mother over the sea, when we go back again, to Paris."
"Why, Sir?"
"You know," said he, half smiling, "your aunt wants you, and has engaged my mother to bring you with her, if she can."
"I know it," said Fleda. "But I am not going."
It was spoken not rudely, but in a tone of quiet determination.
"Aren't you too tired, Sir?" said she gently, when she saw Mr.Carleton preparing to launch into the remaining hickory trees.
"Not I!" said he. "I am not tired till I have done, Fairy. And besides, cheese is working man's fare, you know, isn't it?"
"No," said Fleda, gravely, "I don't think it is."
"What then?" said Mr. Carleton, stopping as he was about to spring into the tree, and looking at her with a face of comical amusement.
"It isn't what our men live on," said Fleda, demurely eyeing the fallen nuts, with a head full of business.
They set both to work again with renewed energy, and rested not till the treasures of the trees had been all brought to the ground, and as large a portion of them as could be coaxed and shaken into Fleda's basket, had been cleared from the hulls and bestowed there. But there remained a vast quantity. These with a good deal of labour, Mr. Carleton and Fleda gathered into a large heap in rather a sheltered place by the side of a rock, and took what measures they might to conceal them. This was entirely at Fleda's instance
"You and your maid Cynthia will have to make a good many journeys, Miss Fleda, to get all these home, unless you can muster a larger basket."
"Othat's nothing," said Fleda. "It will be all fun. I don't care how many times we have to come. You areverygood, Mr. Carleton."
"Do you think so?" said he. "I wish I did. I wish you would make your wand rest on me, Fairy."
"My wand?" said Fleda.
"Yes you know your grandfather says you are a fairy, and carry a wand. What does he say that for, Miss Fleda?"
Fleda said she supposed it was because he loved her so much; but the rosy smile with which she said it would have let her hearer, if he had needed enlightening, far more into the secret than she was herself. And if the simplicity in her face had not been equal to the wit, Mr. Carleton would never have ventured the look of admiration he bestowed on her. He knew it was safe.Approbationshe saw, and it made her smile the rosier; but the admiration was a step beyond her; Fleda could make nothing of it.
They descended the mountain now with a hasty step, for the day was wearing well on. At the spot where he had stood so long when they went up, Mr. Carleton paused again for a minute. In mountain scenery every hour makes a change. The sun was lower now, the lights and shadows more strongly contrasted, the sky of a yet calmer blue, cool and clear towards the horizon. The scene said still the same that it had said a few hours before, with a touch more of sadness; it seemed to whisper, "All things have an end thy time may not be for ever do what thou wouldest do 'while ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be children of the light.' "
Whether Mr. Carleton read it so or not, he stood for a minute motionless, and went down the mountain looking so grave, that Fleda did not venture to speak to him till they reached the neighbourhood of the spring.
"What are you searching for, Miss Fleda?" said her friend.
She was making a busy quest here and there by the side of the little stream.
"I was looking to see if I could find a mullein leaf," saidFleda.
"A mullein leaf? what do you want it for?"
"I want it to make a drinking-cup of," said Fleda, her intent bright eyes peering keenly about in every direction.
"A mullein leaf! that is too rough; one of these golden leaveswhat are they? will do better, wont it?"
"That is hickory," said Fleda. " No; the mullein leaf is the best because it holds the water so nicely. Here it is."
And folding up one of the largest leaves into a most artist- like cup, she presented it to Mr. Carleton.
"For me was all that trouble?" said he. "I don't deserve it."
"You wanted something, Sir," said Fleda. "The water is very cold and nice."
He stooped to the bright little stream, and filled his rural goblet several times.
"I never knew what it was to have a fairy for my cup-bearer before," said he. "That was better than anything Bordeaux or Xeres ever sent forth."
He seemed to have swallowed his seriousness, or thrown it away with the mullein leaf. It was quite gone.
"This is the best spring in all grandpa's ground," said Fleda."The water is as good as can be."
How come you to be such a wood and water spirit? you must live out of doors. Do the trees ever talk to you? I sometimes think they do to me."
"I don't know I thinkItalk tothem," said Fleda.
"It's the same thing," said her companion, smiling. "Such beautiful woods!"
"Were you never in the country before in the fall, Sir?"
"Not here in my own country often enough; but the woods in England do not put on such a gay face, Miss Fleda, when they are going to be stripped of their summer dress they look sober upon it the leaves wither and grow brown, and the woods have a dull russet colour. Your trees are true Yankees they 'never say die.' "
"Why are the Americans more obstinate than the English?" saidFleda.
"It is difficult to compare unknown quantities," said Mr. Carleton laughing, and shaking his head. "I see you have good ears for the key-note of patriotism."
Fleda looked a little hard at him, but he did not explain; and indeed they were hurrying along too much for talking; leaping from stone to stone, and running down the smooth orchard slope. When they reached the last fence, but a little way from the house, Fleda made a resolute pause.
"Mr. Carleton," said she.
Mr. Carleton put down his basket, and looked in some surprise at the hesitating anxious little face that looked up at him.
"Wont you please not say anything to grandpa about my going away?"
"Why not, Fairy?" said he, kindly.
"Because I don't think I ought to go."
"But may it not be possible," said he, "that your grandfather can judge better in the matter than you can do?"
"No," said Fleda, "I don't think he can. He would do anything he thought would be most for my happiness; but it wouldn't be for my happiness," she said, with an unsteady lip, "I don't know what he would do if I went!"
"You think he would have no sunshine if your wand didn't touch him?" said Mr. Carleton, smiling.
"No, Sir," said Fleda, gravely, "I don't think that, but wont you please, Mr. Carleton, not to speak about it?"
"But are you sure," he said, sitting down on a stone hard by, and taking one of her hands, "are you sure that you would not like to go with us? I wish you would change your mind about it. My mother will love you very much, and I will take the especial charge of you till we give you to your aunt in Paris; if the wind blows a little too rough I will always put myself between it and you," he added, smiling.
Fleda smiled faintly, but immediately begged Mr. Carleton "not to say anything to put it into her grandfather's head."
"It must be there already, I think, Miss Fleda; but at any rate you know my mother must perform her promise to your aunt Mrs. Rossitur; and she would not do that without letting your grandfather know how glad she would be to take you."
Fleda stood silent a moment, and then with a touching look of waiting patience in her sweet face suffered Mr. Carleton to help her over the fence; and they went home.
To Fleda's unspeakable surprise it was found to be past four o'clock, and Cynthy had supper ready. Mr. Ringgan with great cordiality invited Mr. Carleton to stay with them, but he could not; his mother would expect him to dinner.
"Where is your mother?"
"At Montepoole, Sir; we have been to Niagara, and came this way on our return, partly that my mother might fulfil the promise she made Mrs. Rossitur to let you know, Sir, with how much pleasure she will take charge of your little granddaughter, and convey her to her friends in Paris, if you can think it best to let her go."
"Hum! she is very kind," said Mr. Ringgan, with a look of grave and not unmoved consideration which Fleda did not in the least like; "How long will you stay at Montepoole Sir?"
"It might be several days," Mr. Carleton said.
"Hum You have given up this day to Fleda, Mr. Carleton, suppose you take to-morrow for the game, and come here and try our country fare when you have got through shooting? you and young Mr. Rossitur? and I'll think over this question and let you know about it."
Fleda was delighted to see that her friend accepted this invitation with apparent pleasure.
"You will be kind enough to give my respects to your mother," Mr. Ringgan went on, "and thanks for her kind offer. I may perhaps I don't know avail myself of it. If anything should bring Mrs. Carleton this way we should like to see her. I am glad to see my friends," he said, shaking the young gentleman's hand, "as long as I have a house to ask 'em to!"
"That will be for many years, I trust," said Mr. Carleton, respectfully, struck with something in the old gentleman's manner.
"I don't know, Sir!" said Mr. Ringgan, with again the dignified look of trouble: " it may not be! I wish you good day, Sir."
A mind that in a calm angelic moodOf happy wisdom, meditating good,Beholds, of all from her high powers required,Much done, and much designed, and more desired.WORDSWORTH.
"I've had such a delicious day, dear grandpa," said littleFleda, as they sat at supper; "you can't think how kind Mr.Carleton has been."
"Has he? Well, dear, I'm glad on't; he seems a very nice young man."
"He's a smart-looking feller," said Cynthy, who was pouring out the tea.
"And we have got the greatest quantity of nuts!" Fleda went on; "enough for all winter. Cynthy and I will have to make ever so many journeys to fetch 'em all; and they are splendid big ones. Don't you say anything to Mr. Didenhover, Cynthy."
"I don't desire to meddle with Mr. Didenhover unless I've got to," said Cynthy, with an expression of considerable disgust. "You needn't give no charges to me."
"But you'll go with me, Cynthy?"
"I s'pose I'll have to," said Miss Gall, drily, after a short interval of sipping tea and helping herself to sweet-meats.
This lady had a pervading acidity of face and temper, but it was no more. To take her name as standing for a fair setting forth of her character would be highly injurious to a really respectable composition, which the world's neglect (there was no other imaginable cause) had soured a little.
Almost Fleda's first thought on coming home had been about Mr. Jolly. But she knew very well, without asking, that he had not been there; she would not touch the subject.
"I haven't had such a fine day of nutting in a great while, grandpa," she said again; "and you never saw such a good hand as Mr. Carleton is at whipping the trees."
"How came he to go with you?"
"I don't know; I suppose it was to please me, in the first place; but I am sure he enjoyed it himself; and he liked the pie and cheese, too, Cynthy."
"Where did your cousin go?"
"O, he went off after the woodcock. I hope he didn't find any."
"What do you think of those two young men, Fairy?"
"In what way, grandpa?"
"I mean, which of them do you like the best?"
"Mr. Carleton."
"But t'other one's your cousin," said Mr. Ringgan, bending forward and examining his little granddaughter's face with a curious, pleased look, as he often did when expecting an answer from her.
"Yes," said Fleda; "but he isn't so much of a gentleman."
"How do you know that?"
"I don't think he is," said Fleda, quietly.
"But why, Fairy?"
"He doesn't know how to keep his word as well, grandpa."
"Ay, ay? let's hear about that," said Mr. Ringgan.
A little reluctantly, for Cynthia was present, Fleda told the story of the robins, and how Mr. Carleton would not let the gun be fired.
"Wa'n't your cousin a little put out by that?"
"They were both put out," said Fleda; "Mr. Carleton was very angry for a minute, and then Mr. Rossitur was angry, but I think he could have been angrier if he had chosen."
Mr. Ringgan laughed, and then seemed in a sort of amused triumph about something.
"Well, dear!" he remarked after a while; "you'll never buy wooden nutmegs, I expect."
Fleda laughed, and hoped not, and asked him why he said so.But he didn't tell her.
"Mr. Ringgan," said Cynthy, "hadn't I better run up the hill after supper, and ask Mis' Plumfield to come down and help to- morrow? I s'pose you'll want considerable of a set-out; and if both them young men comes, you'll want some more help to entertain 'em than I can give you, it's likely."
"Do so do so," said the old gentleman. "Tell her who I expect, and ask her if she can come and help you, and me too."
"O, and I'll go with you, Cynthy," said Fleda. "I'll get auntMiriam to come, I know."
"I should think you'd be run off your legs already, Flidda," said Miss Cynthia; " what ails you to want to be going again?"
But this remonstrance availed nothing. Supper was hurried through, and leaving the table standing, Cynthia and Fleda set off to "run up the hill."
They were hardly a few steps from the gate when they heard the clatter of horses' hoofs behind them, and the two young gentlemen came riding hurriedly past, having joined company and taken their horses at Queechy Run. Rossitur did not seem to see his little cousin and her companion; but the doffed cap and low inclination of the other rider as they flew by called up a smile and blush of pleasure to Fleda's face; and the sound of their horses' hoofs had died away in the distance, before the light had faded from her cheeks, or she was quite at home to Cynthia's observations. She was possessed with the feeling, what a delightful thing it was to have people do things in such a manner.
"That was your cousin, wa'n't it?" said Cynthy, when the spell was off.
"No," said Fleda, "the other one was my cousin."
"Well I mean one of them fellers that went by. He's a soldier, ain't he?"
"An officer," said Fleda.
"Well, it does give a man an elegant look to be in the militie, don't it? I should admire to have a cousin like that. It's dreadful becoming to have that what is it they call it? to let the beard grow over the mouth. I s'pose they can't do that without they be in the army, can they?"
"I don't know," said Fleda. "I hope not. I think it is very ugly."
"Do you? Oh! I admire it. It makes a man look so spry!"
A few hundred yards from Mr. Ringgan's gate the road began to wind up a very long heavy hill. Just at the hill's foot, it crossed by a rude bridge the bed of a noisy brook that came roaring down from the higher grounds turning sundry mill and factory wheels in its way. About half-way up the hill one of these was placed, belonging to a mill for sawing boards. The little building stood alone, no other in sight, with a dark background of wood rising behind it on the other side of the brook; the stream itself running smoothly for a small space above the mill, and leaping down madly below, as if it disdained its bed, and would clear at a bound every impediment in its way to the sea. When the mill was not going, the quantity of water that found its way down the hill was indeed very small, enough only to keep up a pleasant chattering with the stones; but as soon as the stream was allowed to gather all its force and run free, its loquacity was such that it would prevent a traveller from suspecting his approach to the mill, until, very near, the monotonous hum of its saw could be heard. This was a place Fleda dearly loved. The wild sound of the waters, and the lonely keeping of the scene, with the delicious smell of the new-sawn boards, and the fascination of seeing the great logs of wood walk up to the relentless, tireless, up-and-down-going steel; as the generations of men in turn present themselves to the course of those sharp events which are the teeth of Time's saw; until all of a sudden the master spirit, the man regulator of this machinery, would perform some conjuration on lever and wheel, and at once, as at the touch of an enchanter, the log would be still and the saw stay its work; the business of life came to a stand, and the romance of the little brook sprang up again. Fleda never tired of it never. She would watch the saw play and stop, and go on again; she would have her ears dinned with the hoarse clang of the machinery, and then listen to the laugh of the mill-stream; she would see with untiring patience one board after another cut and cast aside, and log succeed to log; and never turned weary away from that mysterious image of Time's doings. Fleda had, besides, without knowing it, the eye of a painter. In the lonely hill-side, the odd-shaped little mill, with its accompaniments of wood and water, and the great logs of timber lying about the ground in all directions and varieties of position, there was a picturesque charm for her, where the country people saw nothing but business and a place fit for it. Their hands grew hard where her mind was refining. Where they made dollars and cents, she was growing rich in stores of thought and associations of beauty. How many purposes the same thing serves!
"That had ought to be your grandpa's mill this minute," observed Cynthy.
"I wish it was!" sighed Fleda. "Who's got it now, Cynthy?"
"O, it's that chap McGowan, I expect; he's got pretty much the hull of everything. I told Mr. Ringgan I wouldn't let him have it if it was me, at the time. Your grandpa 'd be glad to get it back now, I guess."
Fleda guessed so too; but also guessed that Miss Gall was probably very far from being possessed of the whole rationale of the matter. So she made her no answer.
After reaching the brow of the hill, the road continued on a very gentle ascent towards a little settlement half a quarter of a mile off; passing, now and then, a few scattered cottages, or an occasional mill or turner's shop. Several mills and factories, with a store and a very few dwelling- houses, were all the settlement; not enough to entitle it to the name of a village. Beyond these and the millponds, of which in the course of the road there were three or four, and with a brief intervening space of cultivated fields, a single farmhouse stood alone; just upon the borders of a large and very fair sheet of water, from which all the others had their supply; so large and fair, that nobody cavilled at its taking the style of a lake, and giving its own pretty name of Deepwater both to the settlement and the farm that half embraced it. This farm was Seth Plumfield's.
At the garden gate Fleda quitted Cynthy, and rushed forward to meet her aunt, whom she saw coming round the corner of the house, with her gown pinned up behind her, from attending to some domestic concern among the pigs, the cows, or the poultry.
"O, aunt Miriam," said Fleda, eagerly, "we are going to have company to tea to-morrow wont you come and help us?"
Aunt Miriam laid her hands upon Fleda's shoulders, and looked at Cynthy.
"I came up to see if you wouldn't come down to-morrow, Mis' Plumfield," said that personage, with her usual dry, business tone, always a little on the wrong side of sweet; "your brother has taken a notion to ask two young fellers from the Pool to supper, and they're grand folks, I s'pose, and have got to have a fuss made for 'em. I don't know what Mr. Ringgan was thinkin' of, or whether he thinks I have got anything to do or not; but anyhow, they're a comin', I s'pose, and must have somethin' to eat; and I thought the best thing I could do would be to come and get you into the works, if I could. I should feel a little queer to have nobody but me to say nothin' to them at the table."
"Ah, do come, aunt Miriam!" said Fleda; "it will be twice as pleasant if you do; and besides, we want to have everything very nice, you know."
Aunt Miriam smiled at Fleda, and inquired of Miss Gall what she had in the house.
"Why, I don't know, Mis' Plumfield," said the lady, while Fleda threw her arms round her aunt, and thanked her; "there ain't nothin' particler pork and beef, and the old story. I've got some first-rate pickles. I calculated to make some sort o' cake in the morning."
"Any of those small hams left?"
"Not a bone of 'em, these six weeks.Idon't see how they've gone, for my part. I'd lay any wager there were two in the smoke-house when I took the last one out. If Mr. Didenhover was a little more like a weasel I should think he'd been in."
"Have you cooked that roaster I sent down."
"No, Mis' Plumfield, I ha'n't; it's such a plaguy sight of trouble!" said Cynthy, with a little apologetic giggle; "I was keepin' it for some day when I hadn't much to do."
"I'll take the trouble of it. l'll be down bright and early in the morning, and we'll see what's best to do. How's your last churning, Cynthy?"
"Well, I guess it's pretty middlin', Mis' Plumfield."
" 'T isn't anything very remarkable, aunt Miriam," said Fleda, shaking her head.
"Well, well," said Mrs. Plumfield, smiling; "run away down home now, and I'll come to-morrow, and I guess we'll fix it. But who is it that grandpa has asked?"
Fleda and Cynthy both opened at once.
"One of them is my cousin, aunt Miriam, that was at West Point, and the other is the nicest English gentleman you ever saw; you will like him very much; he has been with me getting nuts all to-day."
"They're a smart enough couple of chaps," said Cynthia; "they look as if they lived where money was plenty."
"Well, I'll come to-morrow," repeated Mrs. Plumfield, "and we'll see about it. Good night, dear!"
She took Fleda's head in both her hands, and gave her a most affectionate kiss; and the two petitioners set off homewards again.
Aunt Miriam was not at all like her brother, in feature, though the moral characteristics suited the relationship sufficiently well. There was the expression of strong sense and great benevolence; the unbending uprightness of mind and body at once; and the dignity of an essentially noble character, not the same as Mr. Ringgan's, but such as well became his sister. She had been brought up among the Quakers, and though now, and for many years, a staunch Presbyterian, she still retained a tincture of the calm efficient gentleness of mind and manner that belongs so inexplicably to them. More womanly sweetness than was in Mr. Ringgan's blue eye, a woman need not wish to have; and perhaps his sister's had not so much. There was no want of it in her heart, nor in her manner, but the many and singular excellences of her character were a little overshadowed by super-excellent housekeeping. Not a taint of the littleness that sometimes grows therefrom, not a trace of the narrowness of mind that over-attention to such pursuits is too apt to bring; on every important occasion aunt Miriam would come out, free and unshackled, from all the cobweb entanglements of housewifery; she would have tossed housewifery to the winds, if need were, (but it never was, for in a new sense she always contrived to make both ends meet). It was only in the unbroken everyday course of affairs that aunt Miriam's face showed any tokens of that incessant train ofsmall careswhich had never left their impertinent footprints upon the broad high brow of her brother. Mr. Ringgan had no affinity with small cares; deep serious matters received his deep and serious consideration; but he had as dignified a disdain of trifling annoyances or concernments as any great mastiff or Newfoundlander ever had for the yelping of a little cur.