I am not sure that the old man did not kiss the face that was lifted smilingly to his. There was no one by, and he was so very happy all the morning—who could wonder at it? The old lady, at any rate, made no ado about the matter, but nestled a little closer to his side, and asked "if he saw Nelson and Katharine yet?"
"They are sitting on the rock together, wife, talking, no doubt; but we must not be watching them. Young folks don't like that, you know."
"Well, only just say that you think there's something in it, and I won't turn my eyes that way again; though it's a trial for a mother not to look on her son anywhere, after he has been away from home so long."
The father himself seemed to feel that it was a hardship, for, after walking across the room once or twice, he came back to the window where his wife still remained.
"See, husband, how Katharine jumps up and seems to be wringing her hands. What can ail her?"
"Maybe Nelson is telling her about leaving her half-brother on the wreck; that is enough to make the poor girl wring her hands—as for Mrs. Allen, nothing but the grace of God can carry her through this trouble. She hasn't seen her son for years, and was just expecting him home."
"Supposing I go right down and comfort her," whispered the good woman, her heart full of tender pity. "Or would she rather be left alone, I wonder?"
"Wait till the first grief goes off; after that, company may do her good."
"Poor girl, how she takes on, while Nelson sits there as if nothing was the matter. No, no, I am wrong; he's taken hold of her hands. He's talking to her—how kind of him. See, Katharine is quieter already. She sits down again; I know well enough, if any thing on earth could pacify her, he could. The dear boy!"
Truly,KatharineAllen had sprung to her feet, and was wringing her hands in wild, bitter grief, at the news of her half-brother's death, for such she considered the account Thrasher gave her. True, she had never seen Rice since she was a little girl, and he was scarcely known in the neighborhood, as Mrs. Allen had moved to her present home with her second husband, and her son had gone to sea long before that. In her second widowhood, he had sometimes sent her money and warm-hearted letters, written in a great, cramped hand, which no one but a mother could have read. In her retired life, Mrs. Allen, who was a middle-aged woman when Katharine was born, had looked forward to news from her son as the great event of her life. With only her house, a few acres of land, and her pretty daughter's labor to depend on for a livelihood, the twenty and thirty dollars which came to her from this son, at the end of each voyage, was a great help. Without it, the widow and her beautiful daughter must have come to want, especially when sickness was in the house.
Now he was dead—the brave, generous man, whom Katharine had been taught to love like a father; and even while Thrasher told his own story, and her loving heart was almost given up to fond credulity, she was not quite satisfied that Rice might not have been saved. To leave him on the wreck even at his own request, seemed to her a terrible cruelty.
"He was my brother," she said; "the only support we had. He was so generous—so good to us both! Oh, Nelson, you should have saved him!"
"How did I know he was your brother, Katharine? He never told me a word about it; and if I ever heard the name, it had escaped me."
"But he was a human being; a mother waited for him, somewhere. You should have remembered that."
"It is useless talking in this way, Katharine," replied Thrasher, striving to pacify her grief. "I could only have saved him by violence. He would not come with us, but stuck to the wreck, under some wild idea that she might yet be taken into port. I could have died with him, but nothing beyond that was possible."
"Oh, my mother! my poor mother! must I tell her this?" moaned Katharine.
"Perhaps it would have pleased you better had I gone down with him?"
"You!—you! Oh, that would have completed our desolation! The news would have killed me dead!"
"Then don't attempt to make me out a murderer."
"I haven't—I haven't!"
"Sit down,Katharine. These wild gestures will be seen from the house, and the old people won't know what to make of it. Sit down and compose yourself. This is not the only subject we have to talk about."
"I know it—I know it; but the thought of carrying the grief to my mother kills me."
"This is childish—I will submit to it no longer," cried Thrasher, beginning to lose patience. "Sit down, I say, and control yourself!" He took hold of her hands, grasping them till they burned with pain, and drew her forcibly to the rock. She looked at him breathlessly; the expression of his face frightened her.
"Now that you can be still," he said, sternly, "I have a great deal to say about our conversation last night. Will you try and listen like a rational creature?"
She was sobbing bitterly, and could only give an assent by a motion of the head.
"Well, regarding the senseless event which you make so much of——"
"Senseless, Nelson!" She looked up, as the words left her lips, and gazed at him reproachfully through her tears.
"Yes, senseless! What else could an act like that be considered? I was a man—and should have known better. What good has it done to be in such desperate haste?"
"What good?—what good? Did we not love each other?"
Something like a sneer came to Thrasher's lip. He longed to tell her the truth. It seemed the surest means of putting her out of the way.
"You don't speak, Nelson. You look strange when I say, 'Did we not love each other?'"
"No wonder, Katharine—why should you ask the question? If to make a fool of one's self is a proof of love, you have it!"
"To make a fool of one's self?" The poor girl turned white to the lips as she repeated these insulting words. "What does this mean, Nelson?"
"It means that you and I went off, like a couple of dunces, and got married!"
Katharine stopped crying. Surprise, for a moment, kept her mute; but directly there came into her eyes a proud, almost fierce determination, that Thrasher had never witnessed before.
"Do you mean this?" she said at last, in a low, clear voice, that made him start.
"Mean what?"
"That you are sorry for having married me."
There was something in her face that startled him—that woman's character had a depth and strength which he had not dreamed of until then. It was not his habit to evade or equivocate much, but now he saw the necessity.
"I haven't said that, and did not mean it, my sparrow-hawk. How could I?"
"Then, what did you say?—what did you mean?"
"Nothing, except that it was a great folly—but a very pleasant one—when we got married in that private way. It would have been better to have waited."
"But it was you that urged me."
"To the marriage, but not the secrecy, that was your own doings entirely, Kate. I wanted you to go at once and live with the old folks, while I went this voyage, but you begged and pleaded to stay with your mother, and what could I do but consent. Of course, as my wife, you must have lived with my family, so you preferred secrecy and your mother. It was a foolish arrangement altogether."
"My poor mother was so sad and lonely then, I could not bear to leave her; besides, I did not dare tell her about it while she was in poor health—she would have taken on dreadfully—for somehow——"
"Yes, I know she hated me."
"No, not that; but mother has strange prejudices."
"I should think she had. I have not forgotten her forbidding me the house; but for that——"
"What were you saying, Nelson? your voice is very husky."
"I was saying that we should not have been led into the weakness of this concealment if she had been more reasonable."
"Well, if it was a weakness or a sin I have suffered for it keenly enough, Nelson. While my mother had those hard feelings I could not tell her. Oh, Nelson, it seemed as if I should die when the time for your return came and we heard nothing of the brig. If you had been lost, what would have become of me? No one would have believed that I had ever been married, no matter what I had said."
"But you had the certificate?"
"Yes, but the people here don't understand those things. They're used to a publishment and all that. They never would see the difference between Connecticut and York State. Then, if they had sent to my uncle he knew nothing about it, you remember, and could not have helped me. Besides, I didn't even know where to find the people that stood up with us."
"Why, child, all these fears are nonsense. The certificate is enough."
"But it's all of no consequence now. You are here and we can speak out. It isn't like a poor girl being all alone without knowing any thing of the law."
Thrashersat with his hands clasped over one knee, looking thoughtfully on the ground as she spoke. Katharinehad nestled close to his side, and was looking wistfully into his face.
"There isn't any trouble now, Nelson. Mother may be angry for awhile, but it won't be forever."
"I was thinking," said Thrasher, with his eyes resolutely fixed on the ground, "I was thinking that, as it had gone so far, we had better put off telling about it till after my next trip."
Katharine turned white, and suddenly shrank away from him. He did not seem to notice it, but went on in the same even voice.
"It will not be long—not more than two or three months at the most."
Katharine held her breath and listened, but sobs were gathering thick and heavy in her bosom.
"Three months!—three months! Oh, Nelson!" and now the sobs broke forth with painful violence.
"It may be less than that—I will get the shortest voyage that can be found. But for the shipwreck this might not have been so necessary; as it is, one must have a little money to go to housekeeping with. You wouldn't have me ask my father for that?"
"No, no. Besides, what would mother do without me just now—with this dreadful news to bear up against?" cried Katharine, hushing her sobs.
"I was sure you would see the whole thing in this sensible way, dear."
Katharine wiped her eyes and made a miserable effort to smile.
"Yes, I suppose it is best. But what if something happens to keep you away longer?—I should die! I should die!"
"But nothing can happen. If it should—that is, if Ido not come back in three months at the furthest—take your certificate, go up to my mother, show it to her, and tell the old folks to take care of you for my sake; for after that, you may consider yourself a widow!"
"A widow?"
"Yes, beyond a doubt; for if I do not come back in three months, be sure that nothing but death keeps me!"
"Don't! don't!" cried the poor wife, lifting her hands as if to ward off a blow.
"Well, well; there's nothing so dreadful about all this. One would think, by that face, you saw me in the water now, with a stone at my feet."
Again Katharine held up her hands and shut her eyes. The picture was too dreadful.
Spite of himself, Thrasher was touched by this evidence of affection; he changed his position, and stole his arm around her waist.
"There, now, we have settled all this terrible business, and can talk of brighter things," he said, caressingly. "Have you seen much of the old people since I went away?"
"I had no heart to go there often; but sometimes I saw your father at the gate. He always stopped if I was there when he rode by; and when mother was sick, Mrs. Thrasher always came."
"Dear old lady!" said Thrasher, with emotion. "When was she ever away when help could be given? Under all circumstances she will be good to you, wife or widow."
"Don't use that word widow; it makes me cold."
"Yet it is sometimes a pleasant word," said Thrasher, forgetting her presence in thoughts of another.
"A pleasant word, Nelson?"
"Pleasant!-did I say so? How strange that one's tongue will make such blunders."
Katharine was thoughtful for a moment. Something in her husband's manner brought back the feelings she had experienced at Mrs. Mason's house the night before. Vague spasms of jealousy, that culminated in a sharp pang when she remembered that the beautiful woman who had almost taunted her, was a widow now.
"Nelson," she said, awaking from her grief, for there was something of indignation mingled with it now, "last night I was at Mrs. Mason's."
"Indeed? Have you visited her often?"
"Only when I went to get news of the ship; for I don't much like her."
"Indeed?"
"No; she hurts one's feelings without meaning it, I dare say. Her haughtiness keeps every one at a distance."
Thrasher turned his face away, to conceal the proud smile that broke over it. He longed to defend the haughtiness of which Katharine complained—to say that it was the birthright of Ellen's great superiority over all other women. But he checked the impulse and only answered:
"Perhaps it is so. I have seen very little of her since she married that—that—I mean since she married Captain Mason."
"She told me something last night that surprised me."
"What was it?"
"She said that you had loved her before she accepted Captain Mason, and that she refused you."
"Ah, she told you that; and did her ladyship tell you why she took Mason instead of me?"
"Because you was a third or second mate, I forget which, and he was a captain; that was the reason she gave—but you speak as if it were true."
"Well, when I say that I had never been to sea in my life when John Mason married Ellen Palmer, you'll probably believe this nonsense."
"Then it was not true!" cried Katharine, smiling happily the first time that day.
"When women boast of their conquests, they seldom are true, Kate."
"But how unfeeling to say all this to me, your wife!"
"She didn't know that; with a secret like ours, one is always getting into trouble, Kate; as for this haughty woman, I would not go near her again—she'll find you out in no time."
Katharine smiled with a little bitterness.
"I suppose she would, for when the heart is full, it is hard to look calm. Last night I longed to tell the woman to her face, that I had a right to inquire after you—just as good a right as she had to be taking on about her husband."
"But you did not?"
"Certainly not. I only sat and cried. The little girl seemed to grudge me that comfort, for she said I had no husband nor father off to sea, and she couldn't tell what I wanted to cry for like her own mother."
"The little fool!" sneered Thrasher. "So they were having a general season of mourning, because Mason did not present himself?"
"Not exactly that," said Katharine; "still, I was sorry for Mrs. Mason and the little girl, for they felt bad enough; and now, when you are safe—when I ought to be so happy—it is a shame to talk over their faults. I dare say she didn't mean any thing. Such women sometimes fancy that men want to offer themselves who never had the idea. Besides, I told Mrs. Mason to her face that I didn't believe a word of it."
Thrasher laughed.
"And so you managed to get up a little sparring-match between you, and all upon my account?"
"Not quite that," answered Katharine, laughing also. "But I was so disappointed that every thing went wrong. Besides, it's no use denying it, Mrs. Mason made me angry. The idea of a married woman speaking of her offers! But then, you never did make her an offer—and I knew it."
"Well, any way, you have a pretty sure safeguard that I never shall make her one."
Katharine's face brightened beautifully. She looked toward him with a long, steady glance of affection. Tears trembled on her long lashes, and shone like dew where they had fallen on the damask of her cheek. But the smile upon her mouth, and the tenderness in her eyes, were enough to excuse any man for remembering, just then, that she was his own wife.
Thrasher drew her toward him, and kissed her with hearty warmth for the first time since his return home.
I am afraid the dear old people standing by the window saw it, for they looked at each other slyly and turned away.
"Mother!"
"Well, Katharine?"
"Nelson Thrasher came home last night."
"Better have stayed away!" answered the stern old lady, thrusting her knitting-needle into the goose-quill tube of her sheath, which was fastened, like the leaf of some great, red flower, on the right side of her waist. "No good ever followed his coming, that I ever heard of."
The color came into Katharine's face at this, for no woman likes to hear the man she loves spoken lightly of. Still she was striving to lead her mother's mind quietly to the bad news which lay heavy at her own heart, and did not feel the scornful tones in which the words were spoken, as she would have done.
For a little time there was no sound save the rattle of Mrs. Allen's needle in its sheath, which grew quicker and sharper each moment—a sure sign that the old lady was disturbed in her mind. After knitting twice round the top of a mixed stocking with unceasing vigor, amid a great click and rattle of the needles, she drew a length of yarn from the ball in her lap, with a jerk, and commenced again more deliberately. Katharine sat still, for she knew that this was preliminary to a renewal of the conversation. The first words, however, came out with a suddenness that made her start.
"Have you seen that fellow?"
Katharine could keep a secret, to her sorrow, poor thing; but she was incapable of a direct falsehood, so she answered truly, but with a quiver of fear in her voice.
"Yes, mother, he overtook me on my way home from Mrs. Mason's, last night."
"You saw him last night, last night, and got no word of my son. Where is he—when will he come, Katharine Allen? You could not have forgotten to ask."
"No, mother; but I—I was afraid to say any thing—indeed,I did not know until this morning, for I saw him under the great butternut tree by the road, and went out—I did not know what sad news he brought."
"Sad news of my son!" cried the woman, drawing herself up as if to ward off a blow; "did you say sad news, Katharine?"
"Yes, mother," answered the beautiful girl, stealing close to the high-backed chair that her own face might be concealed, but her voice and limbs shook with the emotion she strove to suppress, and this the old woman felt to the core of her heart.
"Is my son dead?" she inquired, in a deep, hoarse voice.
"I fear so, mother."
"Fear! if you are not sure, speak out. Can't you see that I must know, or—or drop dead in my chair!"
"They were wrecked. My brother, my poor, poor brother would not abandon the vessel. They were compelled to leave him."
"They—who?"
"Every soul on board—no, I remember a negro and a little boy stayed with him."
"And the man Nelson Thrasher left my son on the stormy seas to die?"
"No, no, he only went with the rest; besides, he did not know, 'till I told him, that David was my brother, or your son."
"And they left him alone on the high seas to starve or drown," said the old woman, hoarsely. "Katharine Allen, never mention that man's name to me while you live. If you see him passing my house, give warning, that I may turn away and not curse him."
"Oh! mother, mother!"
"Be still, girl!"
The old woman's face was bloodless as parchment. She tried to go on with her work, but it fell from her hands, while she, unconscious of the loss, kept on with the motion of knitting, and looked down with her heavy black eyes as if she were counting the stitches that were only made in air.
"Mother, dear mother!"
The old lady did not speak, but the two hands dropped heavily in her lap, and her face fell down upon her bosom. The stillness of her grief was appalling. Katharine knelt before her, pale as death.
"Ob, mother, speak to me!"
All at once the old woman sat upright.
"Katharine Allen, tell me word for word what that man said to you of my son David."
"Be composed, don't look so hard, and I will—you shake so, mother."
"No, I do not shake. Pick up that knitting needle. There, do I knit evenly?" She placed the needle in its sheath, and began taking her stitches with slow precision.
True enough, her nerves were braced like steel, and like steel were her features locked. Katharine, poor soul, repeated what Thrasher had told her of the shipwreck, faithfully; softening it with the sweet tenderness of her voice, and putting in a word of excuse here and there. Then she came to the end, and told how that little boy and his noble slave insisted upon staying with Rice, after they had been saved from the very jaws of death—a terrible death—like that which threatened him.
Now the old woman's heart began to heave, and her great, heavy eyes kindled with living fire.
"Katharine," she said, "were these three martyrs alive when the cowards left them?"
"Yes, mother."
"Brave spirits," cried the old lady, rising suddenly. "They were in the hands of a merciful God, and he will save them! We will not mourn David as lost till that wreck is heard from. He is wise, and had courage. Had there been no hope he would have left with the rest."
Katharine's face brightened.
"Oh, mother, if it should prove so!"
"God did not inspire that brave child and the negro to stand by him for nothing. Ifeelthat he is alive in the return of my own strength. When a strong man dies, his mother should feel weak, though he were a thousand miles off. But I, look, am I feeble and drooping, as if the staff of my age were torn from under me. If I stand upright, it is because he was, he is a good man. If I feel a power of vitality here, it is a proof that kindred life beats somewhere in response to it."
Katharine gazed at her mother in astonishment. There was something sublime in her great faith, a grandeur in her attitude like that which we give to a prophetess of the Bible. In her language and voice she seemed lifted out of herself.
Katharine always held her mother in profound reverence, in which love and fear were so equally blended, that she was seldom quite at rest in her presence. Now these feelings arose almost to religious exaltation. With all the softening influence of love and youth about her, she possessed many of the vigorous and noble traits which gave the old woman an acknowledged superiority in the neighborhood. With her mother's faithher hopes arose, and coming out of their deep grief the two sat down together, and strove to wrest some assurance of the son and brother's safety from the news that had reached them.
"He is alive—I feel that he is alive—my noble, strong boy!" said the old woman, as she laid her head on the pillow, but a heavy fear lay at her heart all the time.
"He was alive, and while there is life we may hope," whispered Katharine, sadly, as she sank to an unquiet sleep. A heavier sorrow, alas, lay upon her; the sorrow of a corroding secret which the last few hours had rendered almost a guilty burden from the new causes of detestation that had sprung up between her mother and the man she had so rashly married.
Thus every thing conspired to keep that young creature silent—Thrasher's request and the mother's prejudices, made more bitter by that man's desertion of her son in his hour of need, kept the secret weighed down in her bosom. True, this prejudice seemed very unreasonable; no one had compelled Rice to remain on the wreck. The same means of escape which brought the others home in safety was free to him; but a feeling stronger than facts possessed the old lady. Dead or alive, she believed that some treachery had been practiced on her son, and that the traitor was Nelson Thrasher.
Katharine remembered that the man was her husband—that in a few months she might be called upon to choose between the mother whom she regarded with loving reverence and the husband whom she almost adored. No wonder the poor girl shrunk from the moment which was to force the heart-rending decision upon her. It was a terrible position for one so young and sohelpless. Between these two strong, positive characters, there was little hope of tranquillity for her, even though a partial reconciliation should take place.
One gleam of consolation did break upon her that night, when she remembered her mother's faith. David Rice was as good, as noble-hearted a man as ever drew breath. It was the forlorn hope that he yet lived, and would mediate for her and her husband with the stern mother.
It was impossible for Thrasher to visit Mrs. Allen's house; Katharine told him so on their next interview. Thus the young wife had no cause to complain that he spent but little time with her, and seemed both occupied and anxious when they did meet.
After the news which had disturbed her so, the old lady kept her room, and all the duties of the house fell upon Katharine, so that she had little opportunity to go any distance from home, and the gossip of the neighborhood seldom reached her.
Indeed, there was almost nothing for her to hear. Thrasher held very slight intercourse with the neighbors; and as his father's farm was, like Mrs. Allen's house, isolated among the hills, they knew little of his movements. That he occasionally was seen going down the footpath that led to Mrs. Mason's cottage in the pine woods, counted for nothing. Mason had been his captain, and it was but kind and right that he should offer sympathy to the widow. All the neighborhood was excited to pity in her behalf. What could she do, so proud and helpless, with that pretty child to support?
The widow was very desponding at first, and went about the house mournfully, her beautiful eyes heavy with tears, and her red lips ready to tremble if any onespoke to her. Compassion for her became general. The kind farmers stopped on their way from mill, and insisted on leaving a baking of flour at the gate. Pretty girls came with their aprons full of newly-laid eggs; and a little fellow, diverging every morning from his way to school, set a small tin pail, bright as silver, through the fence, and ran away as if he had been stealing. The pail always contained milk, with more cream in it than ever came there naturally, and sometimes, on the grass close by it, Mrs. Mason found a roll of golden butter folded up in a cool cabbage leaf.
Was it these kindnesses that softened the widow's grief, and brought the rich bloom back to her cheek so early after her loss? or had she some hidden source of consolation which kindled her face into more superb beauty, as the earth looks fresher and more heavenly after a tempest? Certain it was, her step soon regained its firmness, and her person its haughty poise. She spoke of Captain Mason less frequently, and there was in her manner something that surprised the good neighbors and repelled their sympathies. She seemed ashamed of the meagre attempts at mourning that she had been enabled to make; and exhausted quantities of vinegar and cold tea in refreshing bits of French crape and breadths of bombazine, which would look worn and rusty spite of all she could do, and this brought tears into her eyes when they had ceased to weep for deeper cares.
But, as I have said, after awhile all her beauty and animation came back. She began to talk hopefully of an uncle, who lived away off in the South, who would, perhaps, send for her and little Rose, when he received her letter, informing him of the helpless state in which they had been left. No one of the neighbors had everheard of this uncle before, and her constant boasting about his wealth and the style in which he lived, rather set them aback. It cast their own little kindness quite into the shade. How could they offer fresh eggs and rolls of butter to a woman who wore her cheap black dress like a queen, and talked of pearls and diamonds all the day long, as if she had discovered a mine, and wanted to find out its exact value.
Atlast, Mrs. Mason announced that the expected letter had arrived, with money for her expenses to the South—she never told the exact locality—and that she and little Rose would set forth at once, taking the steamboat from New Haven to New York, where her passage southward was already engaged.
All this was very magnificent and almost startling, but corroborated by a supply of money which the widow evidently possessed, and by the disposition of her little household furniture, which she distributed among her friends with the careless prodigality of a princess.
The preparations for her departure went on spiritedly. With nothing to prepare; for all her new mourning dresses, she announced, were to be made in New York; it was only packing a small trunk, and taking leave of the old neighbors, and she was ready with little Rose to go forth into her new life. A neighbor had been engagedto take her to town in a dashing, one horse wagon, which he had just bought, and in this way the whole arrangement promised to go off with the eclat which the widow Mason always affected.
Thus time passed until the night before her journey. The furniture had not yet been removed, and every thing retained the old homelike aspect; from any appearance of confusion that existed, you would have fancied that the mistress of the house was only going out for a morning drive. She seemed rather elated than otherwise, and received her friends with half royal condescension, not absolutely offensive, but calculated to check the honest grief with which old neighbors parted on those days when a household was breaking up. Many kind wishes were, however, exchanged, little presents were brought in, such as patchwork holders, work bags, and pincushions, besides a pair of fine, lambs' wool mittens, knitted by the oldest woman in the town, was presented to her with a gentle message of farewell, followed by various other trifles, calculated to appeal eloquently to a kind heart. All these, the widow received with concealed and smiling indifference, thinking in her soul how paltry such things were to a person of her expectations.
But little Rose made up for all her mother's lack of feeling. She was broken-hearted at the thought of leaving her playmates, burst into tears when the old people patted her on the head, and refused to be comforted by all the promises of grandeur which were whispered in her ear, either by her mother or her friends.
That night—after the neighbors had gone away, and Rose was in bed hugging a home-made doll which one of the little girls had brought her—a boy who had beenkept late with his lessons, climbed softly over the door yard fence. He was afraid that the gate would creak, and disturb the family if Rose should be in bed; so with a long string of robins' eggs held in one hand, he leaped into the grass and stole softly up to one of the front windows. A corner of the paper blind was turned up by the back of a chair which it had fallen against, and through this opening, our little adventurer saw clearly into the room. First, he looked for Rose, the object of his juvenile idolatry; but her little chair was empty, and her tiny morocco shoes and red worsted stockings lay in a heap on the seat, sure proofs that she had gone to bed.
This was a sad disappointment to the lad, but he soon forgot it in the surprise which followed. Mrs. Mason and some strange man were sitting by a work table, which stood near the window. A tallow candle shed its light on the widow's face, but the man sat with his back to the window, his features all in deep shadow. His hand was extended half over the table, clutching a quantity of gold or silver coins, the boy could not tell which, for gold money he had never seen, and the pieces that escaped between the man's fingers, and fell ringing on the table, might have been Spanish quarters, or guineas, for aught he knew. At any rate, that great handful of money seemed a marvellous sum to him, and when Mrs. Mason received it in her two hands, he wondered that she did not jump for joy. But instead of this, she took a variegated work bag from the table drawer, poured the money into it with some smiling remark, and crossing the room, unlocked her trunk and placed the bag in one corner.
While she was thus occupied, the lad observed astrange looking box upon the table, which the person still sitting there had opened. A bright flash came out of the box, as if something had struck fire within. Mrs. Mason came back to the table. She had taken off her mourning dress, replacing it with a black silk skirt and dimity short gown, with loose, open sleeves that left her fine arms partially exposed, every time she lifted them. She came up to the table and seemed struck with wonder, for lifting up both arms, she uttered an exclamation of delight which the boy heard clearly.
The man snatched something from the box, arose, and seized her arm. A little struggle followed, quick, impassioned words, which the listener did not understand, but he saw that the man was pleading for something which she smilingly refused. That boy knew at last what it meant; he had begged and coaxed exactly in the same way for a good-by kiss, which little Rose resisted, almost as her mother was doing now. He had promised the very string of robins' eggs in his hand, as a temptation, and all to no effect. He remembered his own disappointment, and rather pitied the poor man, who, baffled and mortified, bent down and kissed Mrs. Mason's arm, just above a glittering band which circled the wrist, flashing there like a ribbon of fire.
Mrs. Mason was evidently angry and resentful, even of this liberty. She tore the bracelet from her arm, and tossed it haughtily into the box. Still the man's back was toward the window, so it was impossible to mark the effect this had on him, save by the droop of his shoulders, and a deprecating action of the hands. But the widow motioned him away, frowning heavily. The man sat down, closed the box, and bent his forehead upon it. She leaned over the table and spoke to him.He started up with a suddenness that frightened the lad, who leaped the fence like a deer, and fled up the road.
It was a long time before the boy ever mentioned what he had witnessed that night. The remembrance of his own shy feelings about little Rose kept him silent. Besides this, he had a consciousness that there was something to be ashamed of in peeping through the windows of a neighbor's house, and so wisely kept his peace about what he had discovered in thissurreptitiousmanner.
The next morning, a little group of neighbors gathered to see Mrs. Mason off. A light, yellow wagon, stood before the gate, a restive, gray horse, stamped and chafed beneath his harness till it rattled again. The widow was shaking hands in the entry, while the proud owner of that equipage carried out her little hair trunk, and put it behind the seat. Rose was crying bitterly over a gray kitten that came and rubbed itself against her ankles, and purred as if it rather enjoyed the unusual commotion. This pretty child really seemed to feel the parting from her home much more keenly than her mother.
It was the father of the bright boy that had so naughtily looked into the window—who owned the wagon. With his heart full of grief, the poor fellow had begged a ride, and stood dolefully by the gate, peeping at little Rose through an opening of the boards.
At last Mrs. Mason came forth into the morning sunshine, prepared for her journey. The earth was wet, and she gathered up the skirt of her dark dress, as a queen manages her train, revealing a finely shaped foot, with which she trod daintily through the grass. Reallyit was difficult to say which struck the beholder most forcibly in that woman; the regal style with which she carried herself, or the marvellous physical beauty which gave grace to her very haughtiness. No one could deny that she was a superb creature, even in that cheap bombazine dress and gloomy black bonnet.
Mrs. Mason took her seat in the wagon. The owner placed himself by her side, and began to unwind the long lash from his whip handle, with the air of a man who meant to do the thing up handsomely. Little Rose had been lifted over the wheel, and placed into the centre of the seat, like an exclamation point in the middle of a short sentence. Thus they were all crowded together a little uncomfortably.
"Wait, wait," cried the lad, dashing into the house, and bringing forth Rose's tiny arm-chair with its pretty crimson cushion. "There," he said, choking back a great sob, "if pa brings it back in the wagon, maybe you'll let me keep it; nobody shall ever sit in it, Rose, 'till you come home again."
Then Rose covered her face with two dimpled little hands that were wet all over in a moment. "Oh, don't—la, don't!"
The lad sprang up on the hub of the front wheel, and laid the string of robins' eggs into her lap, his face all in a blaze, and his eyes full of tears.
"Don't forget me, Rose, don't—no boy will ever love you half so much as I do."
Rose dropped her hands, looked down at the blue eggs in her lap, and throwing her arms around his neck, kissed him three or four times.
The farmer and Mrs. Mason looked at each other, and laughed softly. The boy heard them, sprang downfrom the wheel, and dashed into the house, where no one could see what a great baby he was ready to make of himself. Then he watched the wagon drive off through a flood of blinding tears, while little Rose flung kisses back at random, sobbing as if her heart would break, and wondering if any of them would reach him.
When the farmer returned from his ten miles' drive into New Haven, he brought news that a steamboat lay at the foot of "Long Wharf," ready to sail in half an hour after Mrs. Mason reached it, and that he saw her go on board in great spirits, with Rose, who had cried all the way, but seemed a little pacified by the sight of the broad waters, and the great puffing boat in which she was about to cross them.
Nelson Thrasher happened to be standing near when the farmer said this, and one of the rare smiles I have spoken of crossed his face, but he made no observations, and soon took a cross-cut through the fields which led him by Mrs. Allen's, on his way home. Katharine was watching for him at the back window. She had heard of Mrs. Mason's journey, and exulted a little when Nelson passed the house on his way to Falls Hill, an hour after she had started. All that night she had been troubled lest he should wish to bid the widow farewell; for, spite of herself, a lingering distrust still kept its hold on her heart, when she remembered the conversation of that evening.
Thrasher saw her at the window, and made a signal, which soon brought her outside of the stone wall, and under a huge apple tree, which flung its branches across it and into the garden.
Never since his return had Thrasher seemed so cheerful.He even inquired after the old lady with something of interest, and spoke of the time when she would regard him with less prejudice. All this gave Katharine a lighter heart; her beauty, which had been dimmed by adversity of late, bloomed out again. If not so stately as Mrs. Mason, she was far more lovely, and her fair, sweet face was mobile with sentiments which the widow could not have understood. Compared to that woman, she was like the apple blossoms of May contrasted with autumn fruit—one a child of the pure, bright spring, appealing to the imagination; the other a growth of storm, sunshine, and dew, mellowing down from its first delicate beauty to a perfection of ripeness which sense alone can appreciate. There existed elements in that young creature's character from which the best poetry of life is wrought. Heroism, self-abnegation, endurance, and truthfulness—all these rendered her moral character beautiful as her person.
But, alas! our future pages will prove all this. Why should we attempt to foreshadow in words a destiny and a nature like hers? It is enough that she looked lovely as an April morning that bright day, as she stood under the apple tree, leaning against the mossy old wall, talking to her husband, sometimes with her lips, sometimes with her wonderful eyes, which said a thousand loving things that her voice refused to utter. He fell into the current of her cheerfulness, and chatted pleasantly, till the slanting shadows warned her that the tea hour had arrived, and that her mother would be impatient. With his kisses warm upon her mouth, she went singing into the house, happy and rich in sudden joyousness.
Itwas about two weeks after Mrs. Mason's departure, when Thrasher began to talk of going to sea again. This depressed his parents greatly. They had hoped that his attachment to Katharine Allen would have kept him at the homestead. Thus they had carefully avoided any allusion to the subject of his departure, satisfied that every thing was progressing to forward their wishes. When he spoke of going away in the course of another week, it was a terrible shock to them, and seemed a painful subject to himself.
Katharine had, from the first, expected his departure—its necessity had been urged upon her on their first meeting under the butternut tree. She acquiesced in his decision then, and never thought of disputing it afterward. But, as the time drew near, she became very sad—vague doubts beset her night and day—formless, reasonless, as she strove to convince herself; but the struggle was always going on—the feelings reasoned out of her mind overnight, were certain to return in the morning.
It was a sorrowful position for a young creature like her, inexperienced every way, needing counsel as no human being ever required it before, yet afraid to breathe a word of the trouble that oppressed her, lest it should alienate her entirely from her suffering mother, whom, next to Thrasher, she loved with the tenderest devotion.
It was an honor to this young creature that she boreall this load of anxiety without a single word of complaint. She felt that all the concealment that followed her marriage had sprung from her own desire. But the dread of giving pain to her mother had exerted an overpowering influence over her. Thrasher had not seemed to care about the matter. Whether his marriage was proclaimed at once or not, had been a subject of indifference. If secrecy had become more important now, she did not realize it; but imagined that he was still indulging her fears rather than guiding them. The sad news that he had brought, the sickness it had inflicted upon her mother, were stern reasons why she should not speak then.
All this Thrasher knew, and was content to leave things to their natural course. So, instead of offering hindrance to his departure, Katharine was almost anxious for him to go, that his return within the promised time might be more certain.
Still the young man lingered at the homestead, though letters reached him from New York twice in one week, from ship owners, he said, urging him to be on hand for a fresh voyage, where, he could not exactly tell. The vessel belonged to no established line, but traded with the West Indies, generally.
The old people were inconsolable. It seemed, they both said plaintively, as if they were parting with their son forever. Why must he leave them again? The homestead and all they possessed in the world should be his if he would but marry and settle down. They only wanted a comfortable room in some corner of the old house, where, with a knowledge of his presence and happiness, their content would be perfect.
He could not answer these tender entreaties, but satmoodily, striving not to listen. His mind was made up—his career marked out. The great loves of his life were antagonistic; one must be surrendered—the holy or the unholy. He turned from the wholesome fruit, and took that which was ashen at the core.
Thrasher might have avoided the last farewell; but painful as it was, he could not force himself to leave the old people unawares. The last evening must come, the last good-night must be said. He would listen to the old man's voice on his knees once more, and let his mother kiss him, as of old, before he went to sleep in that house for the last time. It was all very painful—worse than leaving his young wife; worse than death, he said to himself, a hundred times; all his innocent memories, all his household affections, to be torn up at the roots by his own hands. For what, and for whom?
Would other love come into his life and compensate for this which he threw away? His teeth were clenched, and great drops stood on his forehead, as he asked these questions. But his resolve was made; nothing could change that—not even the gentle old woman, with sweet motherly love in her eyes, who came and sat by him so meekly, and talked of the next thanksgiving, when he would be at home again, and they would have such a dinner. She had set aside the plumpest young turkey on the farm, and it should not be killed till he came back—thanksgiving or no thanksgiving.
God help the man! He stood out against all this; every affectionate string in his heart trembled in the struggle, but his bad, strong will, carried him through.
That night he met Katharine by the old stone wall, when they bade each other farewell. He was gentle to her then, and his voice was so full of anguish, that shegathered up her strength to comfort him. The poor girl spoke hopefully of the little time they would be apart, and how constantly she would think of him—pray for him. She dwelt, too, on other things—on the great happiness that would come in the future. Her voice grew soft with tenderness, and her sweet face looked heavenly in the starlight, as she made this womanly effort to console him; but his eyes were cast down, and a heavy, leaden feeling, weighed upon his shoulders. Dumb and granite-hearted, he listened, striving not to hear.
Katharine's time was up; in a few minutes her old mother would be calling for her. She already saw her tall person casting its shadow across the window, as she walked to and fro, impatient of her loneliness.
"Nelson, I must go!"
The anguish that broke forth in these words smote through his heart, making it leap and tremble, but leaving only a gleam of tenderness behind. The rock of his stern will was unbroken even by that cry, from a heart as true and loving as ever beat in a woman's bosom.
He trembled from head to foot, within the clasp of her arms; cold, spasmodic kisses were pressed on her face. The hands which grasped hers at last, were cold as ice.
They parted thus. He turned and walked heavily away, while Katharine went back to her mother, entreating God to help her bear this separation. It was only for a little time, she murmured over and over again; but even then, she had need of strength from heaven.
Few words were uttered in the Thrasher homestead that night. The old man sat upon the hearth, grave and heavy hearted, smoking at intervals, but quite unconscious when the pipe went out between his lips.The mother held her knitting work—she would not have been herself without it—but her fingers rested motionless on the needles half the time, and she sat gazing wistfully upon the floor till the tears blinded her. Then she would start, look meekly around, to be sure that she was not observed, and wipe her eyes with the cotton handkerchief which she softly drew from her pocket.
Thrasher saw all this, and the iron heart almost melted within him. If the dear old people suffered thus at a temporary parting, what would the future bring them? Again the struggle commenced, battled, strove, tortured him, but ended as before.
In the morning, long before daylight, he arose, and with a valise in his hand, went away, leaving every thing behind him in darkness. When the old people missed him, they said very gently to one another, "He could not bear to say good-by. It was his kind heart. Our Nelson always was kind-hearted."
Katharine, who had watched at her window from dawn until the sun was high, growing pale and sad every moment, heard that he was gone, and whispered, amid her tears, "His heart failed him; he shrunk from seeing my poor face again—my own dear husband; how kind-hearted he is!"
I daresay that the village to which I take my reader is a town of some importance now; but years ago, itwas nothing but a cluster of houses snugly nested in a valley, through which a small stream wound itself, sinuously creeping through the meadows and along the base of the hills, in so many picturesque windings, that you really could not tell in what direction it was destined to run at last, north or south.
The village stood at two crossroads, which the river intersected three or four times; besides, a brook from the hills met it just below the corners, demanding a little plank bridge for itself, over which a clump of golden willows bent and sighed pleasantly all the day long. A great, square, barnlike meeting-house, with pews laid out like town lots, and aisles broader than any street in Constantinople, occupied the centre of the village. A range of wagon sheds stood behind it, and a small prairie of greensward lay all around it. There had been some vague attempt at a steeple, which the prejudices of the community had cut short at the belfry, and left without a spire, which gave the edifice a broad, flat look, which would have driven a modern architect mad.
On the top of a broad platform, which rose half way to the ceiling, and was approached by two steep flights of steps, was perched a little sentry box of a pulpit, surmounted by something in the shape of a huge toadstool, which the architects of that day called a sounding board.
In this pulpit, Sunday after Sunday, Mr. Prior, minister of the parish, held forth after the good old fashion, when sermons had more heads than a centipede has legs, and hearers got the value of the minister's salary in good, sound gospel. Besides, Mr. Prior had other sources of popularity—his doctrine was sound, and his sentences offered rare opportunities for short snoozes,which came oftenest between seventhly and eighthly, or thereabout. Not that minister Prior was dull—nothing of the kind; he was a very learned man, educated solemnly in a gloomy college, and lifted so completely out of the world during his clerical studies that he never quite found his way back again.
After Mr. Prior had settled himself in the ministry some ten or fifteen years, he married the most accomplished and correct person of all that region, a lady who had kept the district school, to general acceptance, six consecutive summers, had embroidered a cover for the communion table with her own hands, and was only prevented adding a gorgeous book mark and a pair of slippers for the minister, by the fear of what people might say.
I think it was one of his deacons who first put a vague idea of matrimony in the minister's head. One day the two were standing on a little swell of ground which overlooked the juncture of the mountain rivulet and the river. The clump of golden willows looked beautiful that morning; the yellow boughs and twigs glanced in the sunshine, and the thick leaves were all in a quiver under the kisses of the wind. Have I said that the brook clove one of the greenest meadows you ever set eyes on, before it crossed the road? If not, understand that pleasant fact now, and more, that groups of trees had been left near the brook, all along its banks, and one of its grand curves hedged in the loveliest spot for a house your imagination ever dwelt upon.
"I say, minister," said the deacon—this was some time before our story, remember—"I say, what if you get married, and settle down in that ere meadow?"
The minister blushed, and looked, as the deacon afterward said, every which way, before he answered.
"Me marry, Deacon Smith; me!"
"And why not? there's acres of Scripture for it, and not one word agin it; for how could St. Paul know any thing about it, never having had experience like us married men?"
"Us married men," how strange the words sounded. "Us married men." The minister turned the bow of his white cravat more in front and settled himself complacently in his rusty black clothes. "Us married men."
"We talked about it in vestry meeting t'other night, and the notion seemed to take wonderfully. We all agreed to a T about the person, but our land for a home lot, building the house, and all that, was rather a puzzler."
"I should think so," said the minister, taking out a broad silk handkerchief, and wiping his forehead, which was getting crimson again. "Then you agreed on—on—on the person."
"Unanimous," answered the deacon. "Not a dissenting voice."
"And—and—"
"Oh, yes, of course you've the best right of anybody to know first. It's Miss Bruce—salt of the earth—salt of the earth, minister."
"You think so?" said the pastor, meekly.
"We know it; trust the vestry for discretion and sound judgment too. Isn't that a building spot, now."
"Beautiful," said the minister, in a confused way; "but the lady, did you ask her?"
"Not exactly; agreed to put it to vote first. Then I promised to inform you of the sense of the meeting, and brother Wells will speak to Miss Bruce. It's all settled before this time, I dare say."
The minister drew a deep breath, as if he had just come out of a shower bath, and then, his vision being cleared, took a survey of the meadow lot. The deacon saw how his attention was directed, and went on.
"I agreed to give the lot, the hull meadow, understand. Deacon Styles will find the timber, and the rest'll be divided up, sort of ginerally, among the congregation. Then the women folks are going to get up quiltings, and spinning frolics, and so on. In about three months, I reckon, all will be ready."
Again the minister gave a shower bath gasp.
"There is brother Wells coming now, on his black horse, all fixed up in his Sunday clothes," cried the deacon, triumphantly.
The brother rode up, looking as if he had something portentous on his mind. "Well," said the deacon, "how did you get along, brother Wells?"
"Tolerably, tolerably; she was a little sot on having the minister come over himself, but when I told her it was the solemn sense of the vestry, of course she gave in."
"And she—no objections," said the minister.
"Objections!" cried both the men at once, "how could she?"
"Well, I don't know," answered the pastor. "That is, I didn't know but she might think it a little sudden."
"Sudden! why it has been on our minds a whole year. It isn't just the thing for our minister to be boarding about like a schoolmaster. A servant of the Lord should set under his own vine and fig tree."
The minister wiped his face again, and cast a glance toward the meadow, which began to look like home already.
"I stopped at the saw-mill and bespoke the timber," said brother Wells; "so if you'd just as lief, we'll go down and pick out the exact spot."
A smile glowed out on the minister's face. The deacons saw it, and nodded pleasantly one to the other.
"Minister," said Wells, leaning down from his horse, "if you should take a notion to go over yonder any time afore the house is built, just consider this ere black horse as your own."
"Thank you kindly, brother."
"And," said Deacon French, "I stopped at the tailor's coming along; he's got a firstrate piece of English broadcloth, but he says it's seven years since you have been measured, minister, and to make a good fit you'll have to go again."
"Doubtless—doubtless!" answered the minister, ready to cry under all this goodness—a house, a wife, and a new suit of clothes all at once! It really was too much of a mercy; he didn't know how to be thankful enough.
Well, they went down to the meadow, selected a lovely spot for the house, and stopped at the tailor's on their way home. That very week a little boy came over to Deacon Wells, and asked, in a mysterious way, if he would let the minister have his black horse to ride over the hill.
Deacon Wells smiled grimly, and brought out the horse himself, taking great pains to tighten the saddle girth and shorten the stirrup leathers properly, before he gave the bridle into the boy's hand.
It wasn't the last time that black horse was sent for to go over the hill, and the result exhibited itself, in thecourse of a few months, in a pretty, white house, with a porch and dormer windows, standing in the greenest curve of the brook; a thicket of wild roses, only half shutting out a view of the water; ducks were swimming up and down the little stream, and a flock of hens running riot in the meadow grass. Besides this, a neat, little body, with the quaintest bonnet and neatest dress in the world, came into the meeting-house with the minister, who appeared in a new suit of black, separated from him in the broad aisle in front of the deacon's seat, and while he mounted the pulpit stairs, she turned into a side pew, and listened to his discourse, from beginning to end, with unbroken interest.
But it is the weakness of vestry-men to vote money which they have not the power to collect. The minister was married, and his house built, but a debt lay on it, which troubled him as only studious men can be troubled by monied claims.
The little wife came to his aid. She was a highly accomplished, well educated woman, who had earned her own living from early girlhood, and was not ashamed or afraid to help her husband in any womanly fashion that presented itself. She had plenty of room, good health, and a clear brain, all sources of usefulness, which she was prompt to put into action. Teaching was her business. If she could obtain a couple of boarding scholars into her own house, at city prices, the debts upon their home would soon be removed.
The dainty little housewife began to talk with her husband about the project one morning just as he was resolving the fifth head of his next sermon, at which time he never heard a syllable addressed to him by any mortal being, but always assented blandly to every thing proposed.
So, under the full conviction that he approved her plan, she wrote to a friend in New York, requesting her to aid in obtaining the desired pupils.
When his sermon was over, the minister received the news of this arrangement with considerable astonishment, but he submitted without protest, as the letter had already gone.