I gave him a moment.
"You'll do me the same favor, if I don't happen to turn up," I said; and we seized each other's hands. "You have the compass,—you know the way. There is nothing more, I believe, Ned?" I said, hastily, and looked into his eyes.
"I shall watch my chance as the wagons pass; there is nothing more," he replied; and we parted immediately.
It was as if we had agreed to toss pennies for the guillotine. I had no time to think further of him, for my own plans were maturing.
It was soon whispered about that we were to let the trains get ahead of us, since it was necessary that they should move faster; and the Rebel authorities, I presume, had decided to save their transportation, at the risk even of their captives. One or other, then, it seemed likely, would be taken. The Yankees were driving us before them, having reversed the fortunes of the day, and, perhaps, might liberate the prisoners who so impeded this retreat. We stood, I presume, for half an hour, drawn up in a compressed mass upon the skirt of the highway, whilst, startled by fear, a powerful task-master over teamsters, the late drowsy drivers urged forward their toil-worn trains. It was seasonable, but I believed that my time had not yet come. The deep shades encouraged me, but I awaited the hour that I had hit upon. I thought for a moment of the Adjutant, perhaps then ducking his head beneath the bushes, and watching, with his heart beating time, the heavy mass by degrees moving on. I trusted that the wheel of Fortune, whilst these other wheels were moving Rebelward, had turned in his favor.
At a little after seven we again fell into line, not having allowed all the teams to pass us; and as the same Fortune would have it, we left the woods behind us, and marched between open meadows. It had now grown quite dark. My face wore a look of anxiety as I noted the wide stretch of open field beyond me.
But there were as anxious faces as mine among the groups of Rebel officers who rode slowly along the lines. This was the chill season of perturbation to the hot-blooded gentlemen. Some communications were passing rapidly between the commander of our detachment and the commander of the army. Things were not working satisfactorily to either. Orderlies were dispatched to the front and to the rear, and the air-blasting bugle was sounded on ahead, as if to chide the teamsters. When we had marched up an ascent, and were on the brow of a low ridge, we were halted,and then turned into an open field. It was decided, apparently, that the rest of the train should pass us.
No doubt I should here have all the graces of a ready pen at my beck, honey-dipped, or Vulcan-forged, in accordance with my humor, whether sad or harsh, in making up the climax of my account; for at this spot the good writer would be most impressive in his language, and set the reader in a tremble. We waited for seventy minutes in this road-side field, the prisoners resignedly huddling together, with the callous guards making a circle about them. Let me enlarge upon our circumstances. The time, about eight o'clock; the atmosphere thick and murky; the sky overcast, promising a warm September night. I asked the Sergeant if it would rain, and said carelessly some other trifles. I feigned an excess of sleepiness. Our detachment lay some thirty yards from the highway, spread into a thin line of no evenness, running parallel with the road, which, in the gloom, our eyes could scarcely find. The exigencies of the service had proved the ruin of the fences; and only here and there in the vague darkness could one make out the black bunch of a shadowy tree. Just beyond us—for my Sergeant and myself stood at the rear extremity, the land's—end of this shoal of prisoners, outside of the ring of guards sparely posted, on the very top of the ridge which we had ascended—was a low clump of bushes, (perhaps neck-high,) squat and opaque, with much the appearance of a ball of garden boxwood. The hill, I thought, rolled away on either side,—taking some comfort to myself in the conjecture; and the inky leaf-globe, only a little more sombre than its background, could not be seen in a hasty glance. This clump, in its innocent blackness, would cover my purposed guilt; and I resolved to confide to it alone the secret crime of my attempted escape.
But there were calculations to be made, which I set about with the eagerness which the occasion required, watching my Sergeant very closely as my head ran over its prospectus. And, first, if he stood by my side, I revolved, I could not by any chance whisper my tale to the silent bushes; although, if, at the favorable moment, when the squad was ordered to march, he but stepped a feather's-throw in advance of me, the confession could be readily made. His presence would frustrate my plans. There was one expedient at my beck, but quite hazardous, by the adoption of which against odds I might compass his death and my freedom,—a thought which I dismissed on the instant, as it savored of murder and ingratitude. I must trust that he would give me his back, in spite of his sense of responsibility, for a breathing-space ere we "fell in." With his fellow watch-dogs my ruminations had nothing to do. The nearest of them, owing to their scarcity, (and they had grown trebly valuable this campaign, as they had grown rarer,) was not within twenty yards of me. My new world was scarce that distance in the rear. The moment of all moments, the crisis, the vision of a life-time, eddying through the brain in the flash of a powder-pan, and stamping red-hot impressions there, (which in some cases bleach men's hair-roots,) was finally upon me. My Sergeant turned from me, and I glided with tiger-tread to the bushes, and laid myself down.
I was, of course, between him and my new friends, and I pretended to sleep, so that, if he found me, he could scarce suppose that I meditated leaving him in so loose a manner; and, moreover, my being asleep would follow naturally upon my reiterated statement that I was sleepy. It would have been madness to have taken the other side, since, if there found, the case against me would have been clear. I depended, as is ever man's wont, upon mere shadows to do much for me where I was.
I have thought often since, however, (then other than the deliberate thought which every man in trying circumstances has experienced, and which centres upon one subject, being so severe a tension of all the faculties as to seem no thoughtat all, was impossible,) that it would be unwise, and perhaps a stumbling-block to future Union captives in the custody of that horrid host, to ascribe my unbroken rest under those dry, dusty bush-branches simply to the heavy darkness of the evening, excluding all other causes from participation in my affairs. It was unusually cloudy, the sky resting overhead like a hanging pall, and threatening rain with thunder every moment, as is almost always the case after a hotly contested engagement. The fight that morning had been a grand one, (quite a Horace Vernet picture,) and hence the clouds that night. But I must own that I give my Sergeant a place in my memory now with a feeling of gratitude, induced thereto by the strong supposition that he did not allow himself to see me as I glided under cover. I count much upon his heart, as shown in his little proffered narrative. The other guards on the line might readily have failed to notice me, the more so as I had a special attendant to see to my wants; and I should have been very sorry, indeed, had one of them disturbed my rest. But my Sergeant was not three body-lengths from me when I slipped away from his protection; and although he had his back turned, I am inclined to think that he had only fewer eyes than Argus. His general reputation, to be read in his bearing, pronounced him vigilant, and his every act betokened circumspection. Far be it from me, however, to bespatter his character by avowing him negligent in performing his duty in this case, whilst lauding him for his honest devotion to his masters. Perhaps it may have been a part of his care to see the squad "fall in," and he could not abandon that line of his duty to search for a stray officer, smooth-spoken and amiable, to whom he had just shown a kindness. The bustle and unnatural darkness of the moment could not inspire one who was not a demon with a demoniacal desire to set a screeching and rash body of troopers upon my track. The detachment of melancholy mutes was moving off when I tried my fate; and he could have had but little time to think ere the miserable men were in the distance. The farther my Sergeant journeyed, the more likely he was to keep quiet upon my subject.
I experienced very peculiar emotions as I lay there and found myself alone. I even seemed to hear the whine of the soldiery, the ringing of canteens and sabres, and the peculiar sound of the tramping feet, long after they had passed away,—chanting, in my soul's depths, my fluttering song of triumph to that imagined accompaniment. I had an almost accurate idea of where I was, having observed our course quite closely during the day, and proposed going over very nearly the same ground in the next twenty-four hours. I had already decided in my own mind that the Rebel general was making a retreat before the gallant General Sheridan, whose outposts I hoped soon to come upon. But dangers many, and some hidden, lay thick-strewn upon my path, which had not run over roses hither; and I deemed it best to encumber the cold earth for an hour, ere I sallied from my Moses-harbor.
The highway lay within a hundred feet of me; and as I intended taking up my lost stitches of the morning in a peculiar (and, I hoped, original) manner, having no knowledge of the country beyond the line of our late march, I was obliged to count upon keeping within sound of the troops and wagons travelling there, if I desired at all to gain my end. The Adjutant T—— had my compass, and was, I trusted, quite free from danger as I remained supinely within hail of men who would be delighted to shoot me. His image, as I fancied him, cumbersome and crouching, as he hurried along, dodging from tree to tree, reminded me of the hunts which the chivalry indulge in farther south, (near that very horrible Andersonville slaughter-house,) where the bay of the blood-hound rings over the marshes, and the pack is let loose in the clear morning air, crystal-bright and all aglow, to lap up the dew with overhanging tongues, and to run down escaped prisoners. There is no poetical charm attaching to that pack, although Pannever played his reeds in a more poetical country; and its existence and employment are solemnly sober truths. They made me very grave, suggesting, as they did, some other dangers to which I was then liable. After working myself into a nervous state of body, I began pulling off my coat, leaving my shoulder-straps therewith, to play the part of asterisks, and explain who was within. My pantaloons the soil would soon make as white as a gray-back's; and my cap was to stay with the uniform, to grace some indigent discoverer of the other side.
When I had secreted my money in my waistband, (not deeming my orderly's suggestion feasible,) and had strapped my suspenders tightly about my body, I worked my way round the bushes to the other side of the clump. As I had expected, I found an even sweep downwards of meadow-land, stretching parallel with the road, and as far before me as I could see through the darkness.
I got myself flat upon the ground, with my feet, as in Christian burial, pointing towards the east,—for there the highway ran,—and with my handkerchief bound about my head. I then commenced rolling as gently as possible down the grassy declivity.
I should be unable to give any account of my thoughts during the first ten minutes of my novel evolutions. I moved at one time slowly, at another rapidly, as the ideas of prudence and danger by turns reigned in my bosom. I risked much in being obliged to keep in line with the current of life flowing so noisily the other way, the thought of which spurred me onward; and I had far to go, and not very great endurance to fall back upon,—a reflection which counselled a cautious expenditure of effort. I was anon anxious to fly over the hard lumps of earth and pricking straw-blades,—anon, eager to move gently, with deliberate hand upon the brake. I suffered much at my elbows, which were crushed as my body passed over them, (a pulverizing process,) and which, as I had clasped my arms across my breast, were most palpably in the way. It seemed as if they would be unhinged. My feet, too, demonstrated to me the causes of the circular motion of a penholder or a ruler when started down a desk-lid, and had the same influence upon my course as the pin-point has upon the whole pin when in motion. My head and upper members inclined to swing in a circle about my feet. I spent much labor upon this defaulting portion of Æsop's body of sovereign independencies, which threatened the greatest difficulties. My neck, also, in the narrow space between the band of my low woollen shirt and my hair-roots, was harassed at every turn by the needle-bed of short grass that I passed over; and the loose stones, stubble, and gravel, that had irritated the skin, worked their way beneath the garment. I was quite a child's rattle, full of pebbles. I could have endured all this for a long while, however, the spirit then actuating me being one of those unreflecting forces which would (as a last resort) have carried me down the same slope in a Regulus-cask. But after travelling quite a distance, I began to revolve, not any complete remedy for these manifold ills, but some amelioration of the exaggerated violence of their sway. I tore one sleeve from my undershirt and wound that around my neck. I held my arms straight down my side and flat against my body. Nothing short of amputation could have crushed the rebellion in my lower members, and so (with the power to amputate not abandoned) I nursed them into insolence with a compromise.
A psychological history of the uneven progress of that billowy retreat would be as far beyond my reach as of the ten minutes of outset trial. I thought only vaguely of my home, of my regiment, of my moments of danger in past life. I listened during that night till my sense of hearing changed from a passive to an active sense. I got my neck sadly cramped in lifting my head from the ground every time my body rolled face upward to gain some knowledge of the enemy. My imagination started up all sorts of shapes about me.The damp, heavy atmosphere sent a chill through my veins. I apprehended rain. I soon, also, began to think of daylight, (before which I had many hours,) and to wonder how I should secrete myself after sunrise. I did not feel hungry; but I had not gone far before I felt the faint longings of thirst.
The ground, too, over which I travelled, was not all meadow land, and had worse features than grass-swords and gravel bullets. I did not find many fences, but I crossed innumerable small streams and one heavy hedge.
I noticed that by degrees, judging from the sound, the Rebel troops were getting by, only dropping along finally in dish-water driblets,—and that, at last, but scattering bodies of infantry, and at intervals some wagons, occupied the road, moving like dark lobsters in the midnight mists. I could not take to it myself, because of them; and I knew too well how full it would be of stragglers, those worthless gleanings of an army, even after the rear-guard had swept onwards. But I did not hesitate to erect my body from its voluntary abasement and to make walking a branch of my exercise, when convinced that only vagrants could chance to see me. They never capture prisoners on either side. Thus was I enabled for two hours before sunrise to accomplish more than twice as much as my five hours' rolling labors had attained.
The long-expected rain began to fall in a heavy mist at about dawn, and shortly grew in importance, till the windows of heaven were wide open and it became a settled pour. Most fortunately, by that time I had entered some of the first woods we had passed through in the journey of the previous day, and had fair shelter (from Aurora, not Pluvius) within my reach. It was a colossal pepper-box lid, that could keep men from seeing through it, but not the rain from dropping in. My first impulse was to make a fire, so chilled to the very marrow was I in the early morning air, that chilliest of all atmospheres, and so wet was I also in my light summer garments. But of course Prudence had no word in that matter, nor any countenance for a suggestion so reckless, and my soberer senses got to casting about for a fitting retreat ere broad day lay before me. I must reconnoitre, I thought, dripping at every point, like a convict in the marshes, before I continued a tramp here that might expose me to a scouting-party at any moment. That hunger, too, which had not troubled me in the night-hours, came upon me now and urged very suggestive hints. I had made a cup of my hands more than once, and slaked my thirst from the streams in my way, Narcissus-fashion; but nothing solid had passed my lips for seventeen hours. First, logs and leaves for a cover, then food, then a critical examination of my position, were my objects, as I hastily settled my plans. The thought of the intelligent contraband, so beyond ordinary human excellence in the richness of his heart, who might minister to all my wants, (as without question many such had done to my distressed brethren flying from Libby,) and whose homely traits become to us golden virtues in moments of suffering, crossed my brain as the depression of hunger increased. Very dim visions of clean and savory cooking haunted me as I took off my boots and shook the water from them. I could not imagine anything to equal in value a good steak or a hot hash; nor could I check my feeling of discontent, a hopeless feeling, at having many a time and oft partaken of like viands, perhaps, unappreciatively. The slimy dirt of my uppers soiled my hands, as I endeavored to make myself less uncomfortable, and I took the shirtsleeve from my neck as the driest article about me upon which to wipe them, Near by lay the trunk of a large walnut-tree, water-logged and growing sponge-moss; and small bushes, like coral reefs in this sea of troubles, were on all sides of me. I had not accomplished much when I heard distinctly the sound of a bugle.
It was, I supposed, about half a mile distant; but there was no knowing how near the wet horsemen whom it signalledmight be to my proposed hiding place; and, accordingly, I got hastily down by the walnut, a good squirrel-cover, without shelter or head-piece. I lay along that side of it which was farthest from the road, and durst not move for fear of capture. The woods were quite thick at that place, and from the hidden pathway (now become scarce a highway) a body of the enemy might emerge at any moment. The unwelcome music of their bugle broke the Sabbath stillness of the morning, and interrupted the harmony of the falling rain-drops as they pattered through the great cathedral branches overhead. I spent, I presume, two hours in this lazy manner, without thought of any food, and scarce daring to look about me. During the first half of that period I heard the bugle thrice send its clear, ringing notes—for it is sometimes lark-throated—through the tree-aisles and under the half-arches above me, the tones lingering in waves on the air, and not failing to startle me. At the first commanding blast I got to watching for the troops that did not come forth at all. Being quite three grasshopper's flights from the road, I could reconnoitre the few rods of it passing near me with comparative ease and safety, and the intentness of my look-out drove thoughts of discomfort from my head. The silence grew oppressive to one who had been perforce so long alone. The thought that at times man has to avoid his fellow-beings in his misery, lest his misery be augmented, was productive of a tender feeling of self-pity in my bosom, which, perhaps, (strange to say,) was a source of some comfort to me. I had, I found, awakened a present sympathy in my case, the passive part of my nature having enlisted its kindly feelings in behalf of the bespattered, dripping gentleman who lay there before it, a sad mass of ooze, soaking on wet leaves. I was growing reflective over my woes, when the second blast broke upon my ear, and I started much as young ladies do at the sudden gun which, on the boards, sends the unholy Caspar to his account.
In a word, I was worn out, wet, and hungry; and had become so unstrung, in the accumulated discomforts of the roll from Rebeldom, and the rain of the last stages of my journey, that I could not control my growing nervousness. Having waited a full hour from the third signal-call of the bugle, I jumped desperately to my feet, with a mind made up to hazard everything. Many unlucky fellows, escaping from their captors, have toiled with a wonderful energy, and have failed, when worthy of immediate success, if we rate them by (the war standard) their bravery and coolness. They succumb to fever, and despair finally, but a few moments ere the object of their toils would drop before them. It is ill-advised ever to cast one's hopes adrift as long as life is in us,—an imprudence of which I myself was guilty, and which might have carried me back to thraldom. The dragging anchor may fasten, spell-bound by some fluke-enamored reef, as the vessel seems on the point of striking. I jumped to my feet in desperation, and walked hastily a few rods nearer home. I allowed no after-thought in the premises, but decided to dodge from tree to tree, like the hunting Indian, as long as my present humor impelled me.
I know not how far I advanced thus, through the most desperate (but to the reader, whom I commiserate, least interesting) stage of my adventure,—nor anything of my thoughts or emotions, after the hot resolve had taken hold of me. I was in a fever, a mad fever, the evidence of cold, and the handiwork of the past night's rolling-mill, and, I doubt not, was entirely unfitted to evade the enemy with presence of mind or skill. I did not pause till I heard the sound of axes, and the confused noises of a body of men.
I then again took the serpent's position upon the earth, after he, like myself, had lost his Eden, and summoned my oft-trusted counsellors, my ears, to their familiar duty of serving for all my senses in one. The sounds were very distinct indeed; I could even hear the men's voices, chopped up by theiractive tools; and I knew, by the noise of their labors, that they were driving stakes into the ground. It could scarce be the Rebels, I thought, in camp this distance in the rear: it might be our men, I hoped, pushing our advance up the Valley. I drew carefully forward on hands and knees.
In a little while I saw a bending figure, with its back to me, holding something that I could not see over a smoking bundle of fagots. There was a poncho about the neck, that covered it down to the ground, and in the morning gray, the figure, the colonnade of tree-trunks, the lazy smoke, a cabinet picture, wore an India-rubber look.
Presently another came up to my first discovery, as if emerging from the bustle elsewhere, and stood erect before him, seeming almost as wet as myself. There was a tasselled bugle in his hand, covered with a corner of his poncho, under which he had a cavalry sabre. He wore, also, a dripping cavalry cord round his hat. After a few words, the two sat upon their heels before the fire, which they bent over, paternally, to protect, watching the thing that was cooking.
Having drawn myself cautiously nearer, I waited a long while for one of the men to display his colors.
The bugler was burnishing his instrument upon his blouse beneath his rubber, hazarding some chance notes under shelter, as he laughed and chatted with his friend. He would, apparently, consult with him of his performance; and he finally lifted himself upon his feet, with the instrument tight to his lips. He then blew a rasping, grating blast upon the air, ear-splitting and dissonant, that was his own rendition of a few bars of Yankee Doodle.
The blouse, being dark, had given me much hope; the air gave me certainty; and before the bugler could wind his final note, I became one of the group.
My pantaloons showed that I was an officer, but in all other respects I appeared less than a highwayman. Accustomed to roughnesses, however, the men before me would not have divined that I was miserable, had not my appearance been by a few degrees more wretched than that of the most dilapidated of warriors. They gave over, the one his mess, the other his music, for a second, to inquire into my circumstances, and then conducted me to the Major who had command of the detachment some quarter of a mile in the rear.
The eight days' leave-of-absence that was given me, after a full report at headquarters, garnished with less ornament than the present record, afforded me an opportunity to reach my physician in time to have it extended by ten more; and in that period I learned from a letter, written in a thin, peaked hand, that the Adjutant T—— had escaped, but had been shot in the thigh. The compass, that had been his cloud by day and pillar of fire by night during his sad exodus, was returned to me, with his old lady-mother's thanks. Many simple, yet touching, speeches welled up from her rich heart, and shone on the thin white paper; and, no doubt, her great, manly son was tended by another, whilst, at her escritoire, the kindly epistle was made for me. In the subsequent hurry of camp-life, I received a second, that contained all those mournful expressions of resignation, and dependence upon the Higher Power, which broken-hearted Christians so sweetly utter. The Adjutant T——, indeed, had received his solemn quietus in running from the Libby Prison, and the extinguisher of his life was down.
"Doctor, we miss Reuby," said the Tew partners.
And the good old people said it with feeling,—though, over and over, at winter's dusk, the boy had given a sharp rattle to their shop-door, and the warning bell called them away from their snug fire only to see his light pair of heels whisking around the corner of the Eagle Tavern. The mischief in the lad was, indeed, of such elastic, irrepressible temper, that even the gravest of the parishioners were disposed to regard it with a frown in which a comic pardon was always lurking. Perhaps this may have been by reason of the tender recollections of the poor young mother Rachel, who had so suddenly yielded up her life, and taken away the charm of her smiles to another country; or it may have been that the pranks of the parson's boy found greater toleration by reason of their contrast with the sturdy and unyielding gravity of the Doctor; they made up a good average of mirth for the household of the parsonage,—a sort of average which the wicked world craves, and which, it is to be feared, will be craved until we take on a wholly new moral shape. Or, to put the reflection in other form, if the Doctor's immovable serenity was a type of the highest embodiment of good in this world, the playful humors of the boy were reckoned by the good-natured villagers as the most pardonable shape which the inevitable principle of evil that belongs to our heritage could possibly take on; and thus, while the father challenged their admiration, only the more, by reason of the contrast, the boy challenged all their tenderest sympathies.
Even the Tourtelots "quite missed the boy"; though over and over the brindled cow of the Deacon was found to have slipped the bars, (a thing the orderly creature was never known to do of her own head,) and was reported at twilight by the sober-faced Reuben as strolling far down upon the Common.
It is but a small bit of canvas we have chosen for the painting in of these figures of ours; and returning to the old town of Ashfield, as we do now, where the central interest must lie, there is little of change to declare, still less of dramatic incident. A serene quietude, year after year, is the characteristic of most of the interior New England towns. The elections come and go with their fury of previous declamation. The Squire presides over the deliberations of his party, and some leading Adams man presides over the deliberations of the other; even the boys are all Jackson men or Adams men; but when the result is declared, there is an acquiescence on all hands that is beautiful to behold; and in process of time, Mr. Troop, the postmaster, yields up the mail pouches and locks and canvas bags to some active little Jackson partisan with the utmost suavity, and smokes off his discontent upon the porch of the Eagle Tavern, under the very shadow of the tall hickory pole, which for one third of its height is protected by old wagon-tire heavily spiked on, against the axes of zealous political opponents.
The old blear-eyed Boody is not so cheery as we have seen him, although his party has won brilliant success. There is a sad story of domestic grief that has marked a new wrinkle in his forehead and given a droop to his eye, which, had all gone fairly, he might have weathered for ten years more. The glory of the ringleted Suke has indeed gone, as Phil had told; but it has not gone in the way of marriage. God only knows where those pink cheeks are showing their graces now,—not, surely, in any home of hers,—not in any home at all. God only knows what repinings have come, all too late, over the glitter and the triumph of an hour.The elderly, grave ones shake their heads dismally over this fall, and talk of the terribly demoralizing associations amidst which the poor child has lived; but do they ask themselves if they did their best to mend them? Decoyed toward evil fast and frequently enough, without doubt; but were there any decoys, such as kind hands and welcoming words, in the other direction? The meeting-house doors have, indeed, been always open, for the just and for the unjust. But have not the starched, good women of the parish been a little disposed to count the pretty tavern-keeper's daughter as outside the fold—so far as all social influences were concerned—from the beginning? That exuberant life in her which led to the dance at a tavern ball, was there any palliative for it,—any hope for it, except to go on in the way of destruction?
But we would not judge unjustly. Certain it is, that Miss Johns indulged in such scathing condemnation of the poor sinner as made Adèle shiver: with the spinster at least, there would be little hope for a Magdalen, or a child of a Magdalen. Nor could such as she fully understand the measured and subdued tone with which the good Doctor talked of a lapse from virtue which had so shocked the little community. But the parson lived so closely in that spiritual world where all his labor and love centred, that he saw under its ineffable light only two great ranks of people pressing toward the inevitable goal: a lesser rank, which had found favor of God; and a greater, tumultuous one, toward whom his heart yearned, that with wavering and doubt and evil intention pressed on to destruction. What mattered to him the color of the sin, or who was he to judge it? When the secret places of the heart were so full of wickedness, why anathematize above the rest those plague-spots which revealed themselves to mortals? "Fearful above all others," he was wont to say, "will be those sins which, being kept cautiously smouldering through life, will, at the blast of the Archangel's trump, blaze out in inextinguishable fire!"
The Doctor kept himself and his pulpit mostly free of that theological fermentation which in those years was going on throughout New England,—at least of all such forms of it as marked a division in the orthodox churches. If he had a leaning, it was certainly in favor of the utmost severity of Calvinism. He distrusted human philosophy, and would rather have accepted the theory of natural inability in all its harshness than see it explained away by any metaphysic subtilties that should seem to veil or place in doubt the paramount efficiency of the Spirit.
But though slow to accept theological reforms, the Doctor was not slow to advocate those which promised good influence upon public morals. Thus he had entered with zeal into the Temperance movement; and after 1830, or 1832 at the latest, there was no private locker in the parsonage for any black bottle of choice Santa Cruz. His example had its bearing upon others of the parish; and whether by dint of the Doctor's effective preaching, or whether it were by reason of the dilapidated state of the buildings and the leaky condition of the stills, it is certain that about this time Deacon Simmons, of whom casual mention has been made, abandoned his distillery, and invested such spare capital as he chose to keep afloat in the business of his son-in-law, Mr. Bowrigg of New York, who had up to this time sold the Deacon's gin upon commission.
Mr. Bowrigg was a thriving merchant, and continued his wholesale traffic with eminent success. In proof of this success, he astonished the good people of Ashfield by building, in the summer of 1833, at the instigation of his wife, an elegant country residence upon the main street of the town; and the following year, the little Bowriggs—two daughters of blooming girl age—brought such a flutter of city ribbons and silks into the main aisle of the meeting-house as had not been seen in many a day. Anne and Sophia Bowrigg, aged respectively thirteen and fifteen, fell naturally into somewhat intimate associationswith our little friends, Adèle and Rose: an association that was not much to the taste of the Doctor, who feared that under it Adèle might launch again into those old coquetries of dress against which Maverick had cautioned him, and which in their quiet country atmosphere had been subdued into a modest homeliness that was certainly very charming.
Miss Sophia, however, the elder of the two Bowrigg daughters, was a young lady not easily balked of her intent; and conceiving a violent fondness for Adèle, whether by reason of the graces of her character, or by reason of her foreign speech, in which she could stammeringly join, to the great mystification of all others, she soon forced herself into a patronizing intimacy with Adèle, and was a frequent visitor at the parsonage. With a great fund of assurance, a rare and unappeasable glibness of tongue, and that lack of refined delicacy which invariably belongs to such noisy demonstrativeness, Miss Sophia had after only one or two interviews ferreted out from Adèle all that the little stranger herself knew respecting her history.
"And not to know your mother, Adèle! that s so very queer!"
Adèle winces at this, but seems—to so coarse an observer—only preoccupied with her work.
"Is'nt it queer?" persists the garrulous creature. "I knew a girl in the city who did not see her mother after she was three,—think of that! But then, you know, she was a bad woman."
The hot Provençal blood mounts to the cheek and brow of Adèle in an instant, and her eye flashes. But it is quite impossible to show anger in view of the stolid face of her companion, with nothing in it but an unthinking, girlish curiosity.
"We will talk of something else, Sophie."
"Oh! then you don't like to speak of it! Dear me! I certainly wont, then."
Yet this rattle-brained girl has no real ill-nature; and it is surprising what a number of such well-meaning people go blundering about society, inflicting cheerful wounds in all directions by mere reason of their bluntness and lack of all delicacy of feeling.
But it is by no means the first time the sensibilities of Adèle have been touched to the quick. She is approaching that age when they ripen with marvellous rapidity. There is never an evening now at that cheerful home of the Elderkins—lighted up as it is with the beaming smiles of that Christian mother, Mrs. Elderkin—but there sweeps over the mind of the poor girl, at some interval in the games or the chat, a terrible sense of some great loss she has suffered, of which she knows not the limits,—a cruel sense of isolation in which she wanders, and on which comes betimes the recollection of a father's kindly face, that in the growing distance makes her isolation seem even more appalling.
Rose, good soul, detects these humors by a keen, girlish instinct, and, gliding up to her, passes her arm around her,—
"What is it now, Adèle, dear?"
And she, looking down at her, (for Adèle was the taller by half a head,) says,—
"What a good mother you have, Rose!"
"Only that!"—and Rose laughs gleefully for a moment, when, bethinking herself where the secret grief lay, her sweet face is overcast in an instant, and reaching up her two hands, she draws down the face of Adèle to hers, and kisses her on either cheek.
Phil, who is at a game of chess with Grace, pretends not to see this side demonstration; but his next move is to sacrifice his only remaining castle in the most needless manner.
Dame Tourtelot, too, has pressed her womanly prerogative of knowing whatever could be known about the French girl who comes occasionally with Miss Eliza to her tea-drinkings, and who, with a native taste for music, is specially interested in the piano of Miss Almira.
"It must be very tedious," says theDame, "to be so long away from home and from those that love you. Almiry, now, hardly goes for a week to Cousin Jerushy's at Har'ford but she is a-frettin' to be back in her old home. Don't you feel it, Adeel?" (The Dame is not to be driven out of her own notions of pronunciation by any French accents.) "But don't be down-hearted, my child; it's God's providence that's brought you away from a Popish country."
And she pushes her inquiries regarding the previous life of Adèle with an earnestness and an authoritative air which at times do not fail to provoke a passionate retort. To this the old lady is wholly unused; and condemning her straightway as a hot-headed Romanist, it is to be feared that we must regard the Dame henceforth as one disposed to look upon the least favorable lights which may appear, whether in the past history of Adèle or in the developments to come.
The spinster, also, who is mistress of the parsonage, though never giving up her admiring patronage of Adèle, and governing her curiosity with far more tact than belongs to Dame Tourtelot, has yet shown a persistent zeal in pushing her investigations in regard to all that concerned the family history of her littleprotégée. She has lent an eager ear to all the communications which Maverick has addressed to the Doctor; and in moments of what seemed exceptional fondness, when she has toyed with the head-gear of Adèle, has plied the little brain with motherly questions that have somehow widely failed of their intent.
Under all this, Adèle ripens into a certain reserve and individuality of character which might never have belonged to her, had the earlier circumstances of her life been altogether familiar to the circle in which she was placed. The Doctor fastens, perhaps, an undue reliance upon this growing reserve of hers: sure it is that an increasing confidence is establishing itself between them, which it is to be hoped nothing will shake.
And as for Phil, when the Squire teases him with his growing fondness for the little Jesuit of the parsonage, the boy, though past seventeen now, and "with views of his own," (as most young men have at that age,) blushes like a girl.
Rose, seeing it, and her eyes flashing with sisterly pride, says to herself,—
"Oh, I hope it may come true!"
From time to time Maverick had written in reply to the periodical reports of the Doctor, and always with unabating confidence in his discretion and kindness.
"I have remarked what you say" (he had written thus in a letter which had elicited the close attention of Miss Eliza) "in regard to the rosary found among the girlish treasures of Adèle. I am not aware how she can have come by such a trinket from the source named; but I must beg you to take as little notice as possible of the matter, and please allow her possession of it to remain entirely unremarked. I am specially anxious that no factitious importance be given to the relic by opposition to her wishes."
Heavy losses incident to the political changes of the year 1831 in France had kept him fastened at his post; and with the reviving trade under the peacefulrégimeof Louis Philippe, he had been more actively engaged even than before. Yet there was no interruption to his correspondence with Adèle, and no falling off in its expressions of earnest affection and devotion.
"I fancy you almost a woman grown now, dear Adèle. Those cheeks of yours have, I hope, not lost their roundness or their rosiness. But, however much you may have grown, I am sure that my heart would guide me so truly that I could single you out from a great crowd of the little Puritan people about you. I can fancy you in some simple New England dress,—in which I would rather see you, my child, than in the richest silks of those about me here,——glidingup the pathway that leads to the door of the old parsonage; I can fancy you dropping a word of greeting to the good Doctor within his study (he must be wearing spectacles now); and at evening I seem to see you kneeling in the long back dining-room, as the parson leads in family prayer. Well, well, don't forget to pray for your old father, my child. I shall be all the safer for it, in what the Doctor calls 'this wicked land.' And what of Reuben, whose mischief, you told me, threatened such fearful results? Sobered down, I suppose, long before this, wearing a stout jacket of homespun, driving home the 'keow' at night, and singing in the choir of a Sunday. Don't lose your heart, Adèle, with any of the youngsters about you. I claim the whole of it; and every day and every night mine beats for you, my child."
And Adèle writes back:—
"My heart is all yours, papa,—only why do you never come and take it? So many, many years that I have not seen you!
"Yes, I like Ashfield still; it is almost a home to me now, you know. New Papa is very kind, but just as grave and stiff as at the first. I know he loves me, but he never tells me so. I don't believe he ever told Reuben so. But when I sing some song that he loves to hear, I see a little quirk by his temple, and a glistening in his eye, as he thanks me, that tells it plain enough; and most of all when he prays, as he sometimes does after talking to me very gravely, with his arm tight clasped around me, oh, I am sure that he loves me!—and indeed, and indeed, I love him back again!
"It was funny what you said of Reuben; for you must know that he is living in the city now, and happens upon us here sometimes with a very grand air,—as fine, I dare say, as the people about Marseilles. But I don't think I like him any better; I don't know if I like him as well. Miss Eliza is, of course, very proud of him, as she always was."
As the nicer observing faculties of his child develop,—of which, ample traces appear in her letters,—Maverick begs her to detail to him as fully as she can all the little events of her every-day life. He has an eagerness, which only an absent parent can feel, to know how his pet is received by those about her; and would supply himself, so far as he may, with a full picture of the scenes amid which his child is growing up. Sheet after sheet of this simple, girlish narrative of hers Maverick delights himself with, as he sits upon his balcony, after business hours, looking down upon the harbor of Marseilles.
"After morning prayers, which are very early, you know, Esther places the smoking dishes on the table, and New Papa asks a blessing,—always. Then he says, 'I hope Adaly has not forgotten her text of yesterday.' And I repeat it to him. Such a quantity of texts as I can repeat now! Then Aunt Eliza says, 'I hope, too, that Adèle will make no mistake in her "Paradise Lost" to-day. Are you sure you've not forgotten that lesson in the parsing, child?' Indeed, papa, I can parse almost any page in the book.
"'I think,' says New Papa, appealing to Miss Eliza, 'that Larkin may grease the wheels of the chaise this morning, and, if it should be fair, I will make a visit or two at the north end of the town; and I think Adaly would like to go with me.'
"'Yes, dearly, New Papa,' I say,—which is very true.
"And Miss Eliza says, very gravely, 'I am perfectly willing, Doctor.'
"After breakfast is over, Miss Eliza will sometimes walk with me a short way down the street, and will say to me, 'Hold yourself erect, Adèle; walk trimly.'Shewalks very trimly. Then we pass by the Hapgood house, which is one of the grand houses; and I know the old Miss Hapgoods are looking through the blinds at us, though they never show themselves until they have taken out their curl-papers in the afternoon.
"Dame Tourtelot isn't so shy; andwe see her great, gaunt figure in a broad sun-bonnet, stooping down with her trowel, at work among the flower-patches before her door; and Miss Almira is reading at an upper window, in pink muslin. And when the Dame hears us, she lifts herself straight, sets her old flapping bonnet as square as she can, and stares through her spectacles until she has made us out; then says,—
"'Good mornin', Miss Johns. You're 'arly this mornin'.'
"'Quite early,' says Miss Eliza. 'Your flowers are looking nicely, Mrs. Tourtelot.'
"'Well, the pi'nys is blowed pretty good. Wouldn't Adeel like a pi'ny?'
"It's a great red monster of a flower, papa; but I thank her for it, and put it in my belt. Then the Dame goes on to tell how she has shifted the striped grass, and how the bouncing-Bets are spreading, and where she means to put her nasturtiums the next year, and brandishes her trowel, as the brigands in the story-books brandish their swords.
"And Miss Eliza says, 'Almira is at her reading, I see.'
"'Dear me!' says the Dame, glancing up; 'she's always a-readin'. What with novils and histories, she's injurin' her health, Miss Johns, as sure as you're alive.'
"Then, as we set off again,—the Dame calling out some last word, and brandishing her trowel over the fence,—old Squire Elderkin comes swinging up the street with the 'Courant' in his hand; and he lifts his hat, and says, 'Good morning to you, Miss Johns; and how is the little French lady this morning? Bright as ever, I see,' (for he doesn't wait to be answered,)—'a peony in her belt, and two roses in her cheeks.' Yet my cheeks are not very red, papa; but it's his way....
"After school, I go for the drive with the Doctor, which I enjoy very much. I ask him about all the flowers along the way, and he tells me everything, and I have learned the names of all the birds; and it is much better, I think, than learning at school. And he always says, 'It's God's infinite love, my child, that has given us all these beautiful things, and these songsters that choir His praises.' When I hear him say it, I believe it, papa. I am very sure that the priest who came to see godmother was not a better man than he is.
"Then, very often, he lifts my hand in his, and says, 'Adaly, my dear, God is very good to us, sinners though we are. We cannot tell His meaning always, but we may be very sure that He has only a good meaning. You do not know it, Adaly, but there was once a dear one, whom I loved perhaps too well;—she was the mother of my poor Reuben; God only knows how I loved her! But He took her from me.'—Oh, how the hand of New Papa griped on mine, when he said this!—'He took her from me, my child; He has carried her to His home. He is just. Learn to love Him, Adaly. The love we give to Him we can carry with us always. He does not die and leave us. He is everywhere. The birds are messengers of His, when they sing; the flowers you love come from His bounty: oh, Adaly, can you not, will you not, love Him?'
"'I do! I do!' I said.
"He looked me full in the face, (I shall never forget how he looked,) 'Ah, Adaly, is this a fantasy of yours,' said he, 'or is it true? Could you give up the world and all its charms, could you forego the admiration and the love of all others, if only He who is the Saviour of us all would smile upon you?'
"I felt I could,—I felt I could, papa.
"But then, directly after, he repeated to me some of those dreary things I had been used to hear in the Catechism week after week. I wassosorry he repeated them, for they seemed to give a change to all my thought. I amsureI was trustful before, when he talked to me so earnestly; but when he repeated only what I had learned over and over, every Saturday night, then I am afraid my faith drooped.
"'Don'ttell me that, New Papa,' said I, 'it is so old; talk to me as youweretalking.'
"And then the Doctor looked at mewith the keenest eyes I ever saw, and said,—
"'My child, are you right, and are the Doctors wrong?'
"'Is it the Catechism that you call the Doctors?' said I.
"'Yes,' said he.
"'But were they better men than you, New Papa?'
"'All men alike, Adaly, all struggling toward the truth,—all wearying themselves to interpret it in such way that the world may accept it, and praise God who has given us His Son a sacrifice, by whom, and whom only, we may be saved.' And at this he took my hand and said, 'Adaly, trust Him!'
"By this time" (for Adèle's letter is a true transcript of a day) "we have reached the door of some one of his people to whom he is to pay a visit. The blinds are all closed, and nothing seems to be stirring but a gray cat that is prowling about under the lilac bushes. Dobbins is hitched to the post, and the Doctor pounds away at the big knocker. Presently two or three white-headed children come peeping around the bushes, and rush away to tell who has come. After a little the stout mistress opens the door, and wipes her fingers on her apron, and shakes hands, and bounces into the keeping-room to throw up the window and open the blinds, and dusts off the great rocking-chair for the Doctor, and keeps saying all the while that they are 'very back'ard with the spring work, and she really had no time to slick up,' and asks after Miss Eliza and Reuben, and the Tourtelots, and all the people on the street, so fast that I wonder she can keep her breath; and the Doctor looks so calm, and has no time to say anything yet. Then she looks at me, 'Sissy is looking well,' says she, and dashes out to bring in a great plate of gingerbread, which I never like at all, and say, 'No.' But she says, 'It won't hurt ye; it a'n't p'ison, child.' So I find I must eat a little; and while I sit mumbling it, the Doctor and she talk on about a great deal I don't understand, and I am glad when she bounces up again, and says, 'Sis would like to get some posies, p'raps,' and leads me out of doors. 'There's lalocs, child, and flower-de-luce: pick what you want.'
"So I go wandering among the beds along the garden, with the bees humming round me; and there are great tufts of blue-bell, and spider-wort, and moss-pink; and the white-haired grandchildren come and put their faces to the paling, looking at me through the bars like animals in a cage; and if I beckon to them, they glance at each other, and dash away."
Thus much of Adèle's account. But there are three or four more visits to complete the parson's day. Possibly he comes upon some member of his flock in the field, when he draws up Dobbins to the fence, and his parishioner, spying the old chaise, leaves his team to blow a moment while he strides forward with his long ox-goad in hand, and, seating himself upon a stump within easy earshot, says,—
"Good mornin', Doctor."
And the parson, in his kindly way, "Good morning, Mr. Pettibone. Your family pretty well?"
"Waäl, middlin', Doctor,—only middlin'. Miss Pettibone is a-havin' faint-ish spells along back; complains o' pain in her side."
"Sorry, sorry," says the good man: and then, "Your team is looking pretty well, Mr. Pettibone."
"Waäl, only tol'able, Doctor. That nigh ox, what with spring work an' grass feed is gittin' kind o' thin in the flesh. Any news abaout, Doctor?"
"Not that I learn, Mr. Pettibone. We're having fine growing weather for your crops."
"Waäl, only tol'able, Doctor. You see, arter them heavy spring rains, the sun has kind o' baked the graound; the seed don't seem to start well. I don't know as you remember, but in '29, along in the spring, we had jist sich a spell o' wet, an' corn hung back that season amazin'ly."
"Well, Mr. Pettibone, we must hope for the best: it's all in God's hands."
"Waäl, I s'pose it is, Doctor,—I s'pose it is." And he makes a cut at aclover-head with the lash upon his ox-goad; then—as if in recognition of the change of subject—he says,—
"Any more talk on the street abaout repairin' the ruff o' the meetin'-house, Doctor?"
At sundown, all visits being paid, they go jogging into town again,—the Doctor silent by this time, and thinking of his sermon, Dobbins is tied always at the same post,—always the hitch-rein buckled in the third hole from the end.
After tea, perhaps, Phil and Rose come sauntering by, and ask if Adèle will go up 'to the house'? Which request, if Miss Eliza meet it with a nod of approval, puts Adèle by their side: Rose, with a beautiful recklessness common to New England girls of that day, wearing her hat drooping half down her neck, and baring her clear forehead to the falling night-dews. Phil, with a pebble in his hand, makes a feint of throwing into a flock of goslings that are waddling disturbedly after a pair of staid old geese, but is arrested by Rose's prompt "Behave, Phil!"
The Squire is reading his paper by the evening lamp, but cannot forbear a greeting to Adèle:—
"Ah, here we are again! and how is Madamòizel?" (this is the Squire's style of French,)—"and has she brought me the peony? Phil would have given his head for it,—eh, Phil?"
Rose is so bright, and glowing, and happy!
Mrs. Elderkin in her rocking-chair, with her gray hair carefully plaited under the white lace cap whose broad strings fall on either shoulder, is a picture of motherly dignity. Her pleasant "Good evening, Adèle," would alone have paid the warm-hearted exile for her walk.
Then follow games, chat, and an occasional noisy joke from the Squire, until the nine o'clock town-bell gives warning, and Adèle wends homeward under convoy of the gallant Phil.
"Good night, Adèle!"
"Good night, Phil!"
Only this at the gate. Then the Doctor's evening prayer; and after it,—in the quiet chamber, where her sweet head lay upon the pillow,—dreams. With recollections more barren than those of most of her years, of any early home, Adèle still dreamed as hopefully as any of a home to come.
In the autumn of 1836, Maverick wrote to his friend, the Doctor, that, in view of the settled condition of business, he intended to visit America some time in the course of the following season. He preferred, however, that Adèle should not be made acquainted with his expected coming. He believed that it would be a pleasant surprise for his child; nor did he wish her anticipations of his arrival to divert her from the usual current of her study and every-day life.
"Above all," he writes, "I wish to see her as she is, without any note of preparation. You will therefore, I beg, my dear Johns, keep from her scrupulously all knowledge of my present intentions, (which may possibly miscarry, after all,) and let me see, to the very finest touch, whether of a ribbon or of a ringlet, how far you have New-Englandized my dear girl. I form a hundred pictures in my fancy; but every new letter from her somehow disturbs the old image, and another is conjured up. The onlyrealthing in my mind is, after all, a little child of eight, rosy and piquantly coquettish, who slaps my cheek when I tease her, and who, as I bid her adieu at last upon the ship's deck, looks through her tears at me and waves her little kerchief.
"It is quite possible that I may manage for her return with me, (of this plan, too, I beg you to give no hint,) and in view of it I would suggest that any available occasion be seized upon to revive her knowledge of French, which, I fear, in your staid household she may almost have forgotten. Tell dear Adèle that I am sometimes at Le Pin, where her godmother never fails to inquire after her and call down blessings on the dear child."
Upon this the Doctor and Miss Johns take counsel. Both are not a little disturbed by the anticipation of Adèle's leave. The grave Doctor finds his heart wrapped about by the winning ways of the little stranger in a manner he could hardly have conceived possible on the day when he first greeted her. On the score of her religious beliefs, he is not, indeed, as yet thoroughly satisfied; but he feels sure that she is at least in a safe path. The old idols are broken: God, in His own time, will do the rest.
The spinster, though she has become unconsciously attached to Adèle to a degree of which she hardly believes herself capable, is yet not so much disconcerted by the thought of any violence to her affections,—for all violence of this kind she has schooled herself to regard with cool stoicism,—but the possible interruption of her ambitious schemes with respect to Reuben and Adèle discomposes her sadly. Such a scheme she has never given over for one moment. No plan of hers is ever given over lightly; and she has that persistent faith in her own sagacity and prudence which is not easily shaken. The growing intercourse with the Elderkins, in view of the evident devotion of Phil, has been, indeed, the source of a little uneasiness; but even this intimacy she has moderated to a certain degree by occasional judicious fears in regard to Adèle's exposure to the night air; and has made the most—in her quiet manner—of Phil's exceptional, but somewhat noisy, attentions to that dashing girl, Sophie Bowrigg.
"A very suitable match it would be," she says some evening, casually, to the Doctor; "and I really think that Phil, if there were any seriousness about the lad, would meet his father's wishes in the matter. Adèle, child," (she is sitting by at her worsted,) "are you sure you've the right shade of brown there?"
But, like most cool schemers in what concerns the affections, she makes her errors. Her assurance in regard to the improved habits and character of Reuben, and her iteration of the wonderful attachment which the Brindlocks bear to the lad, have a somewhat strained air to the ear of Adèle. And when the spinster says,—folding up his last letter,—"Good fellow! always some tender little message for you, my dear," Adèle thinks—as most girls of her age would be apt to think—that she would like to see the tender message with her own eyes.
But what of the French? Where is there to be found a competent teacher? Not, surely, in Ashfield. Miss Eliza, with grave doubts, however, suggests a winter in New York with the Brindlocks. The Doctor shakes his head:—
"Not to be thought of, Eliza. It is enough that my boy should undergo the perils of such godless association: Adaly shall not."
The question, however, of the desired opportunity is not confined to the parsonage; it has currency up and down the street; and within a week the buoyant Miss Bowrigg comes to the rescue.
"Delighted above all things to hear it. They have a charming teacher in the city, Madame Arles, who has the best accent. And now, Adèle, dear, you must come down and pass the winter with us. It will be charming."
It is, indeed, a mere girlish proposal at first; but, much to the delight of Miss Eliza, it is abundantly confirmed by a formal invitation from Mrs. Bowrigg, a few weeks after, who, besides being attracted by the manners and character of Adèle, sees in it an admirable opportunity for the accomplishment of her daughters in French. Her demonstrative girls and a son of twenty comprise her family. For these reasons, she will regard it as a favor, if the Doctor will allow Miss Maverick to establish herself with them for the winter.
Miss Eliza is delighted with the scheme, but fears the cool judgment of the Doctor: and she has abundant reason.
"It cannot be," he said, and was quite inexorable.
The truth is, that Mrs. Bowrigg, like a good many educated with a narrow severity, had expanded her views underthe city influences in directions that were by no means approved by the good Doctor. Hers was not only a godless household, but given over to the lusts of the eye and the pride of life. It was quite impossible for him to entertain the idea of submitting Adèle to any such worldly associations.
Miss Eliza pleaded the exigencies of the case in vain; and even Adèle, attracted by the novelty of the proposed situation, urged her claim in the cheeriest little manner conceivable.
"Only for the winter, New Papa; please say 'Yes'!"
And the tender hands patted the grave face, as she seated herself with a childish coquetry upon the elbow of his chair.
"Impossible, quite impossible," says the Doctor. "You are too dear to me, Adaly."
"Oh, now, New Papa, you don't mean that,—notpositively?"—and the winning fingers tap his cheek again.
But for this time, at least, Adèle is to lose her claim; the Doctor well knows that to suffer such endearments were to yield; so he rises brusquely,—
"I must be just, my child, to the charge your father has imposed upon me. It cannot be."
It will not be counted strange, if a little ill-disguised petulance appeared in the face of Adèle that day and the next.
The winter of 1836-7 was a very severe one throughout New England. Perhaps it was in view of its severity, that, on or about New Year's Day, there came to the parsonage a gift from Reuben for Adèle, in the shape of a fur tippet, very much to the gratification of Miss Eliza and to the pleasant surprise of the Doctor.
Rose and Phil, sitting by the fire next day, Rose says, in a timid voice, with less than her usual sprightliness,—
"Do you know who has sent a beautiful fur tippet to Adèle, Phil?"
"No," says Phil, briskly. "Who?"
"Reuben," says Rose,—in a tone as if a blush ran over her face at the utterance.
If there was one, however, Phil could not have seen it; he was looking steadfastly into the fire, and said only,—
"I don't care."
A little after, (nothing having been said, meantime,) he has occasion to rearrange the wood upon the hearth, and does it with such preposterous violence that the timid little voice beside him says,—
"Don't, Phil, be angry with the fire!"
It was a winter, as we have said, for fur tippets and for glowing cheeks; and Adèle had now been long enough under a Northern sky to partake of that exhilaration of spirits which belongs to every true-born New-Englander in presence of one of those old-fashioned snowstorms, which, all through the day and through the night, sifts out from the gray sky its fleecy crystals,—covering the frosted high-roads, covering the withered grasses, covering the whole summer's wreck in one glorious white burial; and after it, keen frosty mornings, the pleasant jingling of scores of bells, jets of white vapor from the nostrils of the prancing horses, and a quick electric tingle to the blood, that makes every pulse beat a thanksgiving. Squire Elderkin never made better jokes, the flame upon his hearth never danced more merrily,—the Doctor never preached better sermons, and the people never listened more patiently than in those weeks of the dead of winter.
But in the midst of them a black shadow fell upon the little town. News came overland, (the river being closed,) that Mrs. Bowrigg, after an illness of three days, was dead; and the body of the poor woman was to come home for burial. She had been reared, as we have said, under a harsh regimen, and had signalized her married escape from the somewhat oppressive formalities of home by a pretty free entertainment of all the indulgences accessible in her new life. Not that she offended against any of the larger or lesser proprieties of society, but she showed a zest for the pleasures of the world, and for a certain measure of display, which had been the occasion of many a sober shake ofthe head along the streets of Ashfield, and the subject of particular commiseration on the part of the good Doctor.
Now that her brilliant career (as it seemed to many of the staid folk of Ashfield) was so suddenly closed, the Doctor could not forbear taking advantage of the opportunity to press home upon his people, under the influences of this sombre funeral procession, the vanities of the world and the fleeting character of its wealth and pride. "We may build palaces," said he, (and people thought of the elegant Bowrigg mansion,) "but God locks the door and assigns to us a narrower home; we may court the intoxicating air of cities, but its breath, in a day, may blast our strength, and, except He keep us, may blast our souls." Never had the Doctor been more eloquent, and never had he so moved his people. After the evening prayer, Adèle stole into the study of the Doctor, and said,—
"New Papa, it was well I stayed with you."
The old gentleman took her hand in his,—
"Right, I believe, Adaly; but vain, utterly vain, except you be counted among the elect."
The poor girl had no reply, save only to drop a kiss upon his forehead and pass out.
With the opening of the spring the townspeople were busy with the question, if the Bowriggs would come again to occupy their summer residence, that, with its closed doors and windows, was mournfully silent. But soon the gardeners were set to work; it was understood that a housekeeper had been engaged, and the family were to occupy it as usual. Sophie writes to Adèle, confirming it all, and adding,—"Madame Arles had proposed to make us a visit, which papa hearing, and wishing us to keep up our studies, has given her an invitation to pass the summer with us. She says she will. I am so glad! We had told her very much of you, and I know she will be delighted to have you as a scholar."
At this Adèle feels a thrill of satisfaction, and looks longingly forward to the time when she shall hear again from native lips the language of her childhood.
"Ma fille! ma fille!"
The voices of her early home seem to ring again in her ear. She basks once more in the delicious flow of the sunshine, and the perfume of the orange-blossoms regales her.
----"Ma fille!"
Is it the echo of your voice, good old godmother, that comes rocking over the great reach of sea, and so touches the heart of the exile?