And, true to his word, on the following morning Crebillon returned to the Place Maubert, where he hired a little apartment near his father-in-law, who could still offer ourpoet and his wife, when hard pressed, a glass of hisvin ordinaireand a share of his dinner. Out of all his rich furniture Crebillon selected but a dozen cats and dogs, whom he chose as the companions of his exile. To quote d'Alembert's words—"Like Alcibiades, in former days, he passed from Persian luxury to Spartan austerity, and, what in all probability Alcibiades was not, he was happier in the second state than he had been in the first."
His wife was in retirement what she had been in the world. She never complained. Perhaps even she showed herself in a more charming light, as the kind and devoted companion of the hissed and penniless poet, than as the admired wife of the popular dramatist. Poor Madame Crebillon hid their poverty from her husband with touching delicacy; he almost fancied himself rich, such a magic charm did she contrive to cast over their humble dwelling. Like Midas, she appeared to possess the gift of changing whatever she touched into gold, that is to say, of giving life and light by her winning grace to every thing with which she came in contact. Blessed, thrice blessed is that man, be he poet or philosopher, who, like Crebillon, has felt and understood that amiability and a contented mind are in a wife treasures inexhaustible, compared to which mere mundane wealth fades into utter insignificance. No word of complaint or peevish expression ever passed Madame Crebillon's lips; she was proud of her poet's glory, and endeavored always to sustain him in his independent ideas; she would listen resignedly to all his dreams of future triumphs, and knew how to cast herself into his arms when he would declare that he desired nothing more from mankind. One day, however, when there was no money in the house, on seeing him return with a dog under each arm, she ventured on a quiet remonstrance. "Take care, Monsieur de Crebillon," she said, with a smile, "we have already eight dogs and fifteen cats."
"Well, I know that," replied Crebillon; "but see how piteously these poor dogs look at us; could I leave them to die of hunger in the street?"
"But did it not strike you that they might possibly die of hunger here? I can fully understand and enter into your feelings of love and pity for these poor animals, but we must not convert the house into a hospital for foundling dogs."
"Why despair?" said Crebillon. "Providence never abandons genius and virtue. The report goes that I am to be of the Academy."
"I do not believe it," said Madame Crebillon. "Fontenelle and La Motte, who are butbeaux esprits, will never permit a man like you to seat himself beside them, for if you were of the Academy, would you not be the king of it?"
Crebillon, however, began his canvass, but as his wife had foreseen, Fontenelle and La Motte succeeded in having him black-balled.
All these little literary thorns, however, only imparted greater charms to the calm felicity of Crebillon's domestic hearth; but we must now open the saddest page of our poet's hitherto peaceful and happy existence.
One evening, on his return from the Café Procope, the resort of all the wits andlitterateursof the eighteenth century, Crebillon found his wife in a state of great agitation, half-undressed, and pressing their sleeping infant to her bosom.
"Why, Charlotte, what is the matter?" he exclaimed.
"I am afraid," replied she, trembling, and looking towards the bed.
"What folly! you are like the children, you are frightened at shadows."
"Yes, I am frightened at shadows; just now, as I was undressing, I saw a spectre glide along at the foot of the bed. I was ready to sink to the earth with terror, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I could muster strength enough to reach the child's cradle."
"Child yourself," said Crebillon, playfully; "you merely saw the shadow of the bed-curtains."
"No, no," cried the young wife, seizing the poet's hand—"it was Death! I recognized him; for it is not the first time that he has shown himself to me. Ah!mon ami, with what grief and terror shall I prepare to lie down in the cold earth! If you love me as I love you, do not leave me for an instant; help me to die, for if you are by my side at that hour, I shall fancy I am but dropping asleep."
Greatly shocked at what he heard, Crebillon took his child in his arms, and carried it back to its cradle. He returned to his wife, pressed her to his bosom, and sought vainly for words to relieve her apprehensions, and to lead back her thoughts into less sombre channels. He at length succeeded, but not without great difficulty, in persuading her to retire to rest; she scarcely closed an eye. Poor Crebillon sat in silence by the bedside of his wife praying fervently in his heart; for perhaps he believed in omens and presentiments even to a greater degree than did Charlotte. Finding, at length, that she had dropped asleep, he got into bed himself. When he awoke in the morning, he beheld Charlotte bending over him in a half-raised posture, as though she had been attentively regarding him as he slept. Terrified at the deadly paleness of her cheeks, and the unnatural brilliancy of her eyes, and sensitive and tender-hearted as a child, he was unable to restrain his tears. She cast herself passionately into his arms, and covered his cheeks with tears and kisses.
"'Tis all over now," she whispered, in a broken voice; "my heart beats too strongly to beat much longer, but I die contented and happy, for I see by your tears that you will not forget me."
Crebillon rose hastily and ran to his father-in-law. "Alas!" said the poor apothecary, "her mother, who was as beautiful and as good as she, died young of a disease of the heart, and her child will go the same way."
All the most celebrated physicians of the day were called in, but before they could determine upon a method of treatment, the spirit of poor Charlotte had taken flight from its earthly tabernacle.
Crebillon, inconsolable at his loss, feared not the ridicule (for in the eighteenth century all such exhibitions of feeling were considered highly ridiculous) of lamenting his wife; he wept her loss during half a century—in other words, to his last hour.
During the space of two years he scarcely appeared once at the Théâtre Française. He had the air of a man of another age, so completely a stranger did he seem to all that was going on around him. One might say that he still lived with his divine Charlotte; he would speak to her unceasingly, as if her gentle presence was still making the wilderness of his solitary dwelling blossom like the rose. After fifteen years of mourning, some friends one day surprised him in his solitude, speaking aloud to his dear Charlotte, relating to her his projects for the future, and recalling their past days of happiness: "Ah, Charlotte," he exclaimed, "they all tell me of my glory, yet I think but of thee!"
The friends of Crebillon, uneasy respecting his future destiny, had advised him during the preceding year to present himself at court, where he was received and recognized as a man of genius. In the early days of his widowhood, he quitted Paris suddenly and took up his residence at Versailles. But at Versailles he lived as he had done in Paris, immured in his chamber, and entirely engrossed with his own sombre and lugubrious thoughts and visions; in consequence of this, he was scarcely noticed; the king seeing before him a species of Danubian peasant, proud of his genius and his poverty, treated him with an almost disdainful coldness of manner. Crebillon did not at first comprehend his position at Versailles. He was a simple-minded philosopher, who had studied heroes and not men. At length, convinced that a poet at court is like a fish out of water, he returned to Paris to live more nobly with his heroes and his poverty. He retired to the Marais, to the Rue des Deux-Portes, taking with him only a bed, a table, two chairs, and an arm-chair, "in case," to use his own words, "an honest man should come to visit him."
Irritated at the rebuff he had met with at Versailles, ashamed of having solicited in vain the justice of the king, he believed henceforth only in liberty. "Liberty," said he, "is the most vivid sentiment engraven on my heart." Unintentionally, perhaps, he avenged himself in the first work he undertook after this event: the tragedy of "Cromwell,"—"an altar," as he said, "which I erect to liberty." According to D'Alembert, he read to his friends some scenes of this play, in which our British aversion for absolutism was painted with wild and startling energy; in consequence thereof, he received an order forbidding him to continue his piece. His Cromwell was a villain certainly, but a villain which would have told well upon the stage, from the degree of grandeur and heroic dignity with which the author had invested the character. From that day he had enemies; but indeed it might be said that he had had enemies from the evening of the first representation of his "Electre." Success here below has no other retinue.
Crebillon was now almost penniless. By degrees, without having foreseen such an occurrence, he began to hear his numerous creditors buzzing around him like a swarm of hornets. Not having any thing else to seize, they seized at the theatre his author's rights. The affair was brought before the courts, and led to a decree of parliament which ordained that the works of the intellect were not seizable, consequently Crebillon retained the income arising from the performance of his tragedies.
Some years now passed away without bringing any fresh successes. Compelled by the court party to discontinue "Cromwell," he gave "Semiramis," which, like "Xerxes," some time previously, was a failure. Under the impression that the public could not bring itself to relish "sombre horrors of human tempests," he sought to arm himself as it were against his own nature, to subdue and soften it. The tragedy of "Pyrrhus," which recalled the tender colors of Racine, cost him five years' labor. At that time, so strong in France was the empire of habit, that this tragedy, though utterly valueless as a work of art, and wanting both in style, relief, and expression, was received with enthusiasm. But Crebillon possessed too much good sense to be blinded by this spurious triumph. "It is," said he, when speaking of his work, "but the shadow of a tragedy."
"Pyrrhus" obtained, after all, but a transitory success. After a brief period, the public began to discover that it was a foreign plant, which under a new sky gave out but a factitious brilliancy. In despair at having wasted so much precious time in fruitless labor, and disgusted besides at the conduct of some shameless intriguers who frequented the literary cafés of the capital, singing his defeat in trashy verse, Crebillon now retired almost wholly from the world. He would visit the theatre, however, occasionally to chat with a few friends over the literary topics of the day; but at length even this recreation was abandoned, and he was seen in the world no more.
He lived now without any other friends than his heroes and his cats and dogs, devouring the novels of La Calprenède, and relating long-winded romances to himself. His sonaffirms having seen fifteen dogs and as many cats barking and mewing at one time round his father, who would speak to them much more tenderly than he would to himself. According to Freron's account, Crebillon would pick up and carry home under his cloak all the wandering dogs he met with in the street, and give them shelter and hospitality. But in return for this, he would require from them an aptitude for certain exercises; when, at the termination of the prescribed period, the pupil was convicted of not having profited by the education he had received, the poet would take him under his cloak again, put him down at the corner of a street and fly from the spot with tears in his eyes.
On the death of La Motte, Crebillon was at length admitted into the Academy. As he was always an eccentric man, he wrote his "Discourse" of reception in verse, a thing which had never been done before. On pronouncing this line, which has not yet been forgotten—
Aucun fiel n'a jamais empoisonné ma plume—
Aucun fiel n'a jamais empoisonné ma plume—
he was enthusiastically applauded. From that day, but from that day only, Crebillon was recognized by his countrymen as a man of honor and virtue, as well as genius. It was rather late in the day, however; he had lost his wife, his son was mixing in the fashionable world, he was completely alone, and almost forgotten, expecting nothing more from the fickle public. More idle than a lazzarone, he passed years without writing a single line, though his ever-active imagination would still produce, mentally, tragedy after tragedy. As he possessed a wonderful memory, he would compose and rhyme off-hand the entire five acts of a piece without having occasion to put pen to paper. One evening, under the impression that he had produced a masterpiece, he invited certain of his brother Academicians to his house to hear his new play. When the party had assembled, he commenced, and declaimed the entire tragedy from beginning to end without stopping. Judging by the ominous silence with which the conclusion was received, that his audience was not over delighted with his play, he exclaimed, in a pet—
"You see, my friends, I was right in not putting my tragedy on paper."
"Why so?" asked Godoyn.
"Because, I should have had the trouble of throwing it into the fire. Now, I shall merely have to forget it, which is easier done."
When Crebillon seemed no longer formidable in the literary world, and all were agreed he was in the decline of his genius, the very men who had previously denied his power, now thought fit to combat Voltaire by exalting Crebillon, in the same way as they afterwards exalted Voltaire so soon as another star appeared on the literary horizon.
"With the intention of humbling the pride of Voltaire, they proceeded," says a writer of the time, "to seek out in his lonely retreat the now aged and forsaken Crebillon, who, mute and solitary for the last thirty years, was no longer a formidable enemy for them, but whom they flattered themselves they could oppose as a species of phantom to the illustrious writer by whom they were eclipsed; just as, in former days, the Leaguers drew an old cardinal from out the obscurity in which he lived, to give him the empty title of king, only that they themselves might reign under his name."
The literary world was then divided into two adverse parties—the Crebillonists, and the Voltairians. The first, being masters of all the avenues, succeeded for a length of time in blinding the public. Voltaire passed for a mere wit; Crebillon, for the sole heir of the sceptre of Corneille and Racine. It was this clique which invented the formula ever afterwards employed in the designation of these three poets—Corneille the great, Racine the tender, and Crebillon the tragic. One great advantage Crebillon possessed over Voltaire: he had written nothing for the last thirty years. His friends, or rather Voltaire's enemies, now began to give out that the author of "Rhadamiste" was engaged in putting the finishing hand to a tragedy, a veritable dramatic wonder, by name "Catilina." Madame de Pompadour herself, tired of Voltaire's importunate ambition, now went over with her forces to the camp of the Crebillonists. She received Crebillon at court, and recommended him to the particular care of Louis XV., who conferred a pension on him, and also appointed him to the office of censor royal.
"Catilina" was at length produced with greatéclat. The court party, which was present in force at the first performance, doubtless contributed in a great measure to the success of the piece. The old poet, thus encouraged, set to work on a new play, the "Triumvirat," with fresh ardor; but as was Voltaire's lot in after years, it was soon perceptible that the poet was but the shadow of what he had been. Out of respect, however, for Crebillon's eighty-eight years, the tragedy was applauded, but in a few days the "Triumvirat" was played to empty benches. Crebillon had now but one thing left to do: to die, which, in fact, he did in the year 1762.
It cannot be denied that Crebillon was one of the remarkable men of his century. That untutored genius, so striking in the boldness and brilliancy of its creations, but which more frequently repels through its own native barbarity, was eminently the genius of Crebillon. But what, above all, characterizes the genius of the French nation—wit, grace, and polish—Crebillon never possessed; consequently, with all his vigor and all his force, he never succeeded in creating a living work. He has depicted human perversity with a proud and daring hand—he has shownthe fratricide, the infanticide, the parricide, but he never succeeded in attaining the sublimity of the Greek drama. And yet J. J. Rousseau affirmed that of all the French tragic poets, Crebillon alone had recalled to him the grandeur of the Greeks. If so, it was only through the nudity of terror, for the "French Æschylus" was utterly wanting in what may be termed human and philosophical sentiment.
There is a very beautiful portrait of Crebillon extant, by Latour. It would doubtless be supposed that the man, so terrible in his dramatic furies, was of a dark and sombre appearance. Far from it; Crebillon was of a fair complexion, and had an artless expression of countenance, and a pair of beautiful blue eyes. It must, however, be confessed, that by his method of borrowing the gestures of his heroes, coupled, moreover, with the habit he had acquired of contracting his eyebrows in the fervor of composition, Crebillon in the end became a little more the man of his works. He was, moreover, impatient and irritable, even with his favorite dogs and cats, and occasionally with his sweet-tempered and angelic wife, the ever cheerful partner alike of his joys and sorrows, who had so nobly resigned herself to the chances and changes of his good and ill-fortune; that loving companion of his hours of profusion and gaiety, when he aped thegrand seigneur, as well as the devoted sharer of those days of poverty and neglect, when he retired from the world in disgust, to the old dwelling-house of the Place Maubert.
The principal part of the life of this great monarch was spent in camp, and in a constant struggle with a host of enemies. Yet even then, when the busy day scarcely afforded a vacant moment, that moment, if it came, was sure to be given to study. Let the young shopocracy of Glasgow never forget that Frederic hadvery earlyformed an attachment to reading, which neither the opposition of his father—who thought that the scholar would spoil the soldier—nor the schemes of ambition and conquest, which occupied him so much in after life, were able to destroy or weaken. When at last, therefore, he felt himself at liberty to sheathe the sword, he gave himself up to the cultivation and patronage of literature and the arts of peace, as eagerly as he had ever done to the pursuit of military renown. Even before his accession to the throne, and while yet but a young man, he had established in his residence at Rheimsberg nearly the same system of studious application and economy in the management of his time to which he ever afterwards continued to adhere. His relaxations even then were almost entirely of an intellectual character; and he had collected around him a circle of literary associates, with whom it was his highest enjoyment to spend his hours in philosophic conversation, or in amusements not unfitted to adorn a life of philosophy. In a letter written to one of his friends, he says—"I become every day more covetous of my time; I render an account of it to myself, and lose none of it but with great regret. My mind is entirely turned toward philosophy; it has rendered me admirable services, and I am greatly indebted to it. I find myself happy, abundantly more tranquil than formerly; my soul is less subject to violent agitations; and I do nothing till I have considered what course of action I ought to adopt." Let young men contrast such conduct with the frivolities of other noble and royal persons, and be faithful to her whose ways are pleasantness, and whose paths are peace. I shall conclude this paper with a sketch of his doings for the ordinary four-and-twenty hours. Dr. Towers, who has written a history of his reign, informs us that it was his general custom to rise at five o'clock in the morning, and sometimes earlier. He commonly dressed his hair himself, and seldom employed more than two minutes for that purpose. His boots were put at the bedside, for he scarcely ever wore shoes. After he was dressed, the adjutant of the first battalion of his guards brought him a list of all the persons that had arrived at Potsdam, or departed from thence. When he had delivered his orders to this officer he retired into an inner cabinet, where he employed himself in private till seven o'clock. He then went into another apartment, where he drank coffee or chocolate, and here he found all the letters addressed to him from Potsdam and Berlin. Foreign letters were placed upon a separate table. After reading all these letters, he wrote hints or notes on the margin of those which his secretaries were to answer, and then returning into the inner cabinet carried with him such as he meant to write or dictate an answer to himself. Here he employed himself until nine o'clock. At ten the generals who were about his person attended. At eleven he mounted his horse and rode to the parade, when he reviewed and exercised his guards; and at the same hour, says Voltaire, all the colonels did the same throughout the provinces. He afterwards walked for some time in the garden with his generals. At one o'clock he sat down to dinner. He had no carver, but did the honors of the table like a private gentleman. His dinner-time did not much exceed an hour. He then retired into his private apartment, making low bows to his company. He remained in private till five o'clock, when his reader waited on him. His reading lasted about two hours, and this was succeeded by a concert upon the flute which lasted till nine. He supped at half-past nine with his favoriteliterati, and at twelve the king went to bed.—Communication from David Vedder, in the Glasgow Citizen.
Change is the order of nature; the old makes way for the new; over the perished growth of last year brighten the blossoms of this. What changes are to be counted, even in a little noiseless life like mine! How many graves have grown green; how many locks have grown gray; how many, lately young, and strong in hope and courage, are faltering and fainting; how many hands that reached eagerly for the roses are drawn back bleeding and full of thorns; and, saddest of all, how many hearts are broken! I remember when I had no sad memory, when I first made room in my bosom for the consciousness of death.
We have gained the world's cold wisdom now,We have learned to pause and fear;But where are the living founts whose flowWas a joy of heart to hear!
We have gained the world's cold wisdom now,We have learned to pause and fear;But where are the living founts whose flowWas a joy of heart to hear!
I remember the twilight, as though it were yesterday—grey, and dim, and cold, for it was late in October, when the shadow first came over my heart, that no subsequent sunshine has ever swept entirely away. From the window of our cottage home, streamed a column of light, in which I sat stringing the red berries of the brier rose.
I had heard of death, but regarded it only with that vague apprehension which I felt for the demons and witches that gather poison herbs under the new moon, in fairy forests, or strangle harmless travelers with wands of the willow, or with vines of the wild grape or ivy. I did not much like to think about them, and yet I felt safe from their influence.
There might be people, somewhere, that would die some time; I did'nt know, but it would not be myself, or any one I knew. They were so well and so strong, so full of joyous hopes, how could their feet falter, and their smiles grow dim, and their fainting hands lay away their work, and fold themselves together! No, no—it was not a thing to be believed.
Drifts of sunshine from that season of blissful ignorance often come back, as lightly
As the winds of the May-time flow,And lift up the shadows brightlyAs the daffodil lifts the snow—
As the winds of the May-time flow,And lift up the shadows brightlyAs the daffodil lifts the snow—
the shadows that have gathered with the years! It is pleasant to have them thus swept off—to find myself a child again—the crown of pale pain and sorrow that presses heavily now, unfelt, and the graves that lie lonesomely along my way, covered up with flowers—to feel my mother's dark locks fall upon my cheek, as she teaches me the lesson or the prayer—to see my father, now a sorrowful old man whose hair has thinned and whitened almost to the limit of three score years and ten, fresh and vigorous, strong for the race—and to see myself a little child, happy with a new hat and a pink ribbon, or even with the string of briar buds that I called coral. Now I tie it about my neck, and now around my forehead, and now twist it among my hair, as I have somewhere read great ladies do their pearls. The winds are blowing the last yellow leaves from the cherry tree—I know not why, but it makes me sad. I draw closer to the light of the window, and slyly peep within—all is quiet and cheerful; the logs on the hearth are ablaze; my father is mending a bridle-rein, which "Traveller," the favorite riding horse, snapt in two yesterday, when frightened at the elephant that (covered with a great white cloth), went by to be exhibited at the coming show,—my mother is hemming a ruffle, perhaps for me to wear to school next quarter—my brother is reading in a newspaper, I know not what, but I see, on one side, the picture of a bear: Let me listen—and flattening my cheek against the pane, I catch his words distinctly, for he reads loud and very clearly—it is an improbable story of a wild man who has recently been discovered in the woods of some far-away island—he seems to have been there a long time, for his nails are grown like claws, and his hair, in rough and matted strings, hangs to his knees; he makes a noise like something between the howl of a beast and a human cry, and, when pursued, runs with a nimbleness and swiftness that baffle the pursuers, though mounted on the fleetest of steeds, urged through brake and bush to their utmost speed. When first seen, he was sitting on the ground and cracking nuts with his teeth; his arms are corded with sinews that make it probable his strength is sufficient to strangle a dozen men; and yet on seeing human beings, he runs into the thick woods, lifting such a hideous scream, the while, as make his discoverers clasp their hands to their ears. It is suggested that this is not a solitary individual, become wild by isolation, but that a race exists, many of which are perhaps larger and of more terrible aspects; but whether they have any intelligible language, and whether they live in caverns of rocks or in trunks of hollow trees, remains for discovery by some future and more daring explorers.
My brother puts down the paper and looks at the picture of the bear. "I would not read such foolish stories," says my father, as he holds the bridle up to the light, to see that it is nearly mended; my mother breaks the thread which gathers the ruffle; she is gentle and loving, and does not like to hear even implied reproof, but she says nothing; little Harry, who is playing on the floor, upsets his block-house, and my father, clapping his hands together, exclaims, "This is the house that Jack built!" and adds, patting Harry on the head, "Where is my little boy? this is not he, this is a little carpenter; you must make your houses stronger, little carpenter!" But Harry insists that he is the veritable little Harry, and no carpenter, and hides his tearful eyes in the lap of my mother, who assureshim that he is her own little boy, and soothes his childish grief by buttoning on his neck the ruffle she has just completed; and off he scampers again, building a new house, the roof of which he makes very steep, and calls it grandfather's house, at which all laugh heartily.
While listening to the story of the wild man I am half afraid, but now, as the joyous laughter rings out, I am ashamed of my fears, and skipping forth, I sit down on a green ridge which cuts the door-yard diagonally, and where, I am told, there was once a fence. Did the rose-bushes and lilacs and flags that are in the garden, ever grow here? I think—no, it must have been a long while ago, if indeed the fence were ever here, for I can't conceive the possibility of such change, and then I fall to arranging my string of brier-buds into letters that will spell some name, now my own, and now that of some one I love. A dull strip of cloud, from which the hues of pink and red and gold have but lately faded out, hangs low in the west; below is a long reach of withering woods—the gray sprays of the beech clinging thickly still, and the gorgeous maples shooting up here and there like sparks of fire among the darkly magnificent oaks and silvery columned sycamores—the gray and murmurous twilight gives way to darker shadows and a deeper hush.
I hear, far away, the beating of quick hoof-strokes on the pavement; the horseman, I think to myself, is just coming down the hill through the thick woods beyond the bridge. I listen close, and presently a hollow rumbling sound indicates that I was right; and now I hear the strokes more faintly—he is climbing the hill that slopes directly away from me; but now again I hear distinctly—he has almost reached the hollow below me—the hollow that in summer is starry with dandelions and now is full of brown nettles and withered weeds—he will presently have passed—where can he be going, and what is his errand? I will rise up and watch. The cloud passes from the face of the moon, and the light streams full and broad on the horseman—he tightens his rein, and looks eagerly toward the house—surely I know him, the long red curls, streaming down his neck, and the straw hat, are not to be mistaken—it is Oliver Hillhouse, the miller, whom my grandfather, who lives in the steep-roofed house, has employed three years—longer than I can remember! He calls to me, and I laughingly bound forward, with an exclamation of delight, and put my arms about the slender neck of his horse, that is champing the bit and pawing the pavement, and I say, "Why do you not come in?"
He smiles, but there is something ominous in his smile, as he hands me a folded paper, saying, "Give this to your mother;" and, gathering up his reins, he rides hurriedly forward. In a moment I am in the house, for my errand, "Here mother is a paper which Oliver Hillhouse gave me for you." Her hand trembles as she receives it, and waiting timidly near, I watch her as she reads; the tears come, and without speaking a word she hands it to my father.
That night there came upon my soul the shadow of an awful fear; sorrowful moans and plaints disturbed my dreams that have never since been wholly forgot. How cold and spectral-like the moonlight streamed across my pillow; how dismal the chirping of the cricket in the hearth; and how more than dismal the winds among the naked boughs that creaked against my window. For the first time in my life I could not sleep, and I longed for the light of the morning. At last it came, whitening up the East, and the stars faded away, and there came a flush of crimson and purple fire, which was presently pushed aside by the golden disk of the sun. Daylight without, but within there was thick darkness still.
I kept close about my mother, for in her presence I felt a shelter and protection that I found no where else.
"Be a good girl till I come back," she said, stooping and kissing my forehead; "mother is going away to-day, your poor grandfather is very sick."
"Let me go too," I said, clinging close to her hand. We were soon ready; little Harry pouted his lips and reached out his hands, and my father gave him his pocket-knife to play with; and the wind blowing the yellow curls over his eyes and forehead, he stood on the porch looking eagerly while my mother turned to see him again and again. We had before us a walk of perhaps two miles—northwardly along the turnpike nearly a mile, next, striking into a grass-grown road that crossed it, in an easternly direction nearly another mile, and then turning northwardly again, a narrow lane, bordered on each side by old and decaying cherry-trees, led us to the house, ancient fashioned, with high steep gables, narrow windows, and low, heavy chimneys of stone. In the rear was an old mill, with a plank sloping from the door-sill to the ground, by way of step, and a square open window in the gable, through which, with ropes and pulleys, the grain was drawn up.
This mill was an especial object of terror to me, and it was only when my aunt Carry led me by the hand, and the cheerful smile of Oliver Hillhouse lighted up the dusky interior, that I could be persuaded to enter it. In truth it was a lonesome sort of place, with dark lofts and curious binns, and ladders leading from place to place; and there were cats creeping stealthily along the beams in wait for mice or swallows, if, as sometimes happened, the clay nest should be loosened from the rafter, and the whole tumble ruinously down. I used to wonder that aunt Carry was not afraid in the old place, with its eternal rumble, and its great dusty wheelmoving slowly round and round, beneath the steady tread of the two sober horses that never gained a hair's breadth for their pains; but on the contrary, she seemed to like the mill, and never failed to show me through all its intricacies, on my visits. I have unraveled the mystery now, or rather, from the recollections I still retain, have apprehended what must have been clear to older eyes at the time.
A forest of oak and walnut stretched along this extremity of the farm, and on either side of the improvements (as the house and barn and mill were called) shot out two dark forks, completely cutting off the view, save toward the unfrequented road to the south, which was traversed mostly by persons coming to the mill, for my grandfather made the flour for all the neighbourhood round about, besides making corn-meal for Johny-cakes, and "chops" for the cows.
He was an old man now, with a tall, athletic frame, slightly bent, thin locks white as the snow, and deep blue eyes full of fire and intelligence, and after long years of uninterrupted health and useful labor, he was suddenly stricken down, with no prospect of recovery.
"I hope he is better," said my mother, hearing the rumbling of the mill-wheel. She might have known my grandfather would permit no interruption of the usual business on account of his illness—the neighbors, he said, could not do without bread because he was sick, nor need they all be idle, waiting for him to die. When the time drew near, he would call them to take his farewell and his blessing, but till then let them sew and spin, and prepare dinner just as usual, so they would please him best. He was a stern man—even his kindness was uncompromising and unbending, and I remember of his making toward me no manifestation of fondness, such as grandchildren usually receive, save once, when he gave me a bright red apple, without speaking a word till my timid thanks brought out his "Save your thanks for something better." The apple gave me no pleasure, and I even slipt into the mill to escape from his cold, forbidding presence.
Nevertheless, he was a good man, strictly honest, and upright in all his dealings, and respected, almost reverenced, by everybody. I remember once, when young Winters, the tenant of Deacon Granger's farm, who paid a great deal too much for his ground, as I have heard my father say, came to mill with some withered wheat, my grandfather filled up the sacks out of his own flour, while Tommy was in the house at dinner. That was a good deed, but Tommy Winters never suspected how his wheat happened to turn out so well.
As we drew near the house, it seemed to me more lonesome and desolate than it ever looked before. I wished I had staid at home with little Harry. So eagerly I noted every thing, that I remember to this day, that near a trough of water, in the lane, stood a little surly looking cow, of a red color, and with a white line running along her back. I had gone with aunt Carry often when she went to milk her, but, to-day she seemed not to have been milked. Near her was a black and white heifer, with sharp short horns, and a square board tied over her eyes; two horses, one of them gray, and the other sorrel, with a short tail, were reaching their long necks into the garden, and browsing from the currant bushes. As we approached they trotted forward a little, and one of them, half playfully, half angrily, bit the other on the shoulder, after which they returned quietly to their cropping of the bushes, heedless of the voice that from across the field was calling to them.
A flock of turkeys were sunning themselves about the door, for no one came to scare them away; some were black, and some speckled, some with heads erect and tails spread, and some nibbling the grass; and with a gabbling noise, and a staid and dignified march, they made way for us. The smoke arose from the chimney in blue, graceful curls, and drifted away to the woods; the dead morning-glory vines had partly fallen from the windows, but the hands that tended them were grown careless, and they were suffered to remain blackened and void of beauty, as they were. Under these, the white curtain was partly put aside, and my grandmother, with the speckled handkerchief pinned across her bosom, and her pale face, a shade paler than usual, was looking out, and seeing us she came forth, and in answer to my mother's look of inquiry, shook her head, and silently led the way in. The room we entered had some home-made carpet, about the size of a large table-cloth, spread in the middle of the floor, the remainder of which was scoured very white; the ceiling was of walnut wood, and the side walls were white-washed—a table, an old-fashioned desk, and some wooden chairs, comprised the furniture. On one of the chairs was a leather cushion; this was set to one side, my grandmother neither offering it to my mother, nor sitting in it herself, while, by way of composing herself, I suppose, she took off the black ribbon with which her cap was trimmed. This was a more simple process than the reader may fancy, the trimming, consisting merely of a ribbon, always black, which she tied around her head after the cap was on, forming a bow and two ends just above the forehead. Aunt Carry, who was of what is termed an even disposition, received us with her usual cheerful demeanor, and then, re-seating herself comfortably near the fire, resumed her work, the netting of some white fringe.
I liked aunt Carry, for that she always took especial pains to entertain me, showing me her patchwork, taking me with her to thecowyard and dairy, as also to the mill, though in this last I fear she was a little selfish; however, that made no difference to me at the time, and I have always been sincerely grateful to her: children know more, and want more, and feel more, than people are apt to imagine.
On this occasion she called me to her, and tried to teach me the mysteries of her netting, telling me I must get my father to buy me a little bureau, and then I could net fringe and make a nice cover for it. For a little time I thought I could, and arranged in my mind where it should be placed, and what should be put into it, and even went so far as to inquire how much fringe she thought would be necessary. I never attained to much proficiency in the netting of fringe, nor did I ever get the little bureau, and now it is quite reasonable to suppose I never shall.
Presently my father and mother were shown into an adjoining room, the interior of which I felt an irrepressible desire to see, and by stealth I obtained a glimpse of it before the door closed behind them. There was a dull brown and yellow carpet on the floor, and near the bed, on which was a blue and white coverlid, stood a high backed wooden chair, over which hung a towel, and on the bottom of which stood a pitcher, of an unique pattern. I know not how I saw this, but I did, and perfectly remember it, notwithstanding my attention was in a moment completely absorbed by the sick man's face, which was turned towards the opening door, pale, livid, and ghastly. I trembled, and was transfixed; the rings beneath the eyes, which had always been deeply marked, were now almost black, and the blue eyes within looked glassy and cold, and terrible. The expression of agony on the lips (for his disease was one of a most painful nature) gave place to a sort of smile, and the hand, twisted among the gray locks, was withdrawn and extended to welcome my parents, as the door closed. That was a fearful moment; I was near the dark steep edges of the grave; I felt, for the first time, that I was mortal too, and I was afraid.
Aunt Carry put away her work, and taking from a nail in the window-frame a brown muslin sun bonnet, which seemed to me of half a yard in depth, she tied it on my head, and then clapt her hands as she looked into my face, saying, "bopeep!" at which I half laughed and half cried, and making provision for herself in grandmother's bonnet, which hung on the opposite side of the window, and was similar to mine, except that it was perhaps a little larger, she took my hand and we proceeded to the mill. Oliver, who was very busy on our entrance, came forward, as aunt Carry said, by way of introduction, "A little visitor I've brought you," and arranged a seat on a bag of meal for us, and taking off his straw hat pushed the red curls from his low white forehead, and looked bewildered and anxious.
"It's quite warm for the season," said aunt Carry, by way of breaking silence, I suppose. The young man said "yes," abstractedly, and then asked if the rumble of the mill were not a disturbance to the sick room, to which aunt Carry answered, "No, my father says it is his music."
"A good old man," said Oliver, "he will not hear it much longer," and then, even more sadly, "every thing will be changed." Aunt Carry was silent, and he added, "I have been here a long time, and it will make me very sorry to go away, especially when such trouble is about you all."
"Oh, Oliver," said aunt Carra, "you don't mean to go away?" "I see no alternative," he replied; "I shall have nothing to do; if I had gone a year ago it would have been better." "Why?" asked aunt Carry; but I think she understood why, and Oliver did not answer directly, but said, "Almost the last thing your father said to me was, that you should never marry any who had not a house and twenty acres of land; if he has not, he will exact that promise of you, and I cannot ask you not to make it, nor would you refuse him if I did; I might have owned that long ago, but for my sister (she had lost her reason) and my lame brother, whom I must educate to be a school-master, because he never can work, and my blind mother; but God forgive me! I must not and do not complain; you will forget me, before long, Carry, and some body who is richer and better, will be to you all I once hoped to be, and perhaps more."
I did not understand the meaning of the conversation at the time, but I felt out of place some way, and so, going to another part of the mill, I watched the sifting of the flour through the snowy bolter, listening to the rumbling of the wheel. When I looked around I perceived that Oliver had taken my place on the meal bag, and that he had put his arm around the waist of aunt Carry in a way I did not much like.
Great sorrow, like a storm, sweeps us aside from ordinary feelings, and we give our hearts into kindly hands—so cold and hollow and meaningless seem the formulæ of the world. They had probably never spoken of love before, and now talked of it as calmly as they would have talked of any thing else; but they felt that hope was hopeless; at best, any union was deferred, perhaps, for long years; the future was full of uncertainties. At last their tones became very low, so low I could not hear what they said; but I saw that they looked very sorrowful, and that aunt Carry's hand lay in that of Oliver as though he were her brother.
"Why don't the flour come through?" I said, for the sifting had become thinner and lighter, and at length quite ceased. Oliver smiled, faintly, as he arose, and saying, "This will never buy the child a frock," poured asack of wheat into the hopper, so that it nearly run over. Seeing no child but myself, I supposed he meant to buy me a new frock, and at once resolved to put it in my little bureau, if he did.
"We have bothered Mr. Hillhouse long enough," said aunt Carry, taking my hand, "and will go to the house, shall we not?"
I wondered why she said "Mr. Hillhouse," for I had never heard her say so before; and Oliver seemed to wonder, too, for he said reproachfully, laying particular stress on his own name, "You don't bother Mr. Hillhouse, I am sure, but I must not insist on your remaining if you wish to go."
"I don't want to insist on my staying," said aunt Carry, "if you don't want to, and I see you don't," and lifting me out to the sloping plank, that bent beneath us, we descended.
"Carry," called a voice behind us; but she neither answered nor looked back, but seeming to feel a sudden and expressive fondness for me, took me up in her arms, though I was almost too heavy for her to lift, and kissing me over and over, said I was light as a feather, at which she laughed as though neither sorrowful nor lacking for employment.
This little passage I could never precisely explain, aside from the ground that "the course of true love never did run smooth." Half an hour after we returned to the house, Oliver presented himself at the door, saying, "Miss Caroline, shall I trouble you for a cup, to get a drink of water?" Carry accompanied him to the well, where they lingered some time, and when she returned her face was sunshiny and cheerful as usual.
The day went slowly by, dinner was prepared, and removed, scarcely tasted; aunt Carry wrought at her fringe, and grandmother moved softly about, preparing teas and cordials.
Towards sunset the sick man became easy, and expressed a wish that the door of his chamber might be opened, that he might watch our occupations and hear our talk. It was done accordingly, and he was left alone. My mother smiled, saying she hoped he might yet get well, but my father shook his head mournfully, and answered, "He wishes to go without our knowledge." He made amplest provision for his family always, and I believe had a kind nature, but he manifested no little fondnesses, nor did he wish caresses for himself. Contrary to the general tenor of his character, was a love of quiet jests, that remained to the last. Once, as Carry gave him some drink, he said, "You know my wishes about your future, I expect you to be mindful."
I stole to the door of his room in the hope that he would say something to me, but he did not, and I went nearer, close to the bed, and timidly took his hand in mine; how damp and cold it felt! yet he spoke not, and climbing upon the chair, I put back his thin locks, and kissed his forehead. "Child, you trouble me," he said, and these were the last words he ever spoke to me.
The sun sunk lower and lower, throwing a beam of light through the little window, quite across the carpet, and now it reached the sick man's room, climbed over the bed and up the wall; he turned his face away, and seemed to watch its glimmer upon the ceiling The atmosphere grew dense and dusky, but without clouds, and the orange light changed to a dull lurid red, and the dying and dead leaves dropt silently to the ground, for there was no wind, and the fowls flew into the trees, and the grey moths came from beneath the bushes and fluttered in the waning light. From the hollow tree by the mill came the bat, wheeling and flitting blindly about, and once or twice its wings struck the window of the sick man's chamber. The last sunlight faded off at length, and the rumbling of the mill-wheel was still: he has fallen asleep in listening to its music.
The next day came the funeral. What a desolate time it was! All down the lane were wagons and carriages and horses, for every body that knew my grandfather had come to pay him the last honors. "We can do him no further good," they said, "but it seemed right that we should come." Close by the gate waited the little brown wagon to bear the coffin to the grave, the wagon in which he was used to ride while living. The heads of the horses were drooping, and I thought they looked consciously sad.
The day was mild and the doors and windows of the old house stood all open, so that the people without could hear the words of the preacher. I remember nothing he said; I remember of hearing my mother sob, and of seeing my grandmother with her face buried in her hands, and of seeing aunt Carra sitting erect, her face pale but tearless, and Oliver near her, with his hands folded across his breast save once or twice, when he lifted them to brush away tears.
I did not cry, save from a frightened and strange feeling, but kept wishing that we were not so near the dead, and that it were another day. I tried to push the reality away with thoughts of pleasant things—in vain. I remember the hymn, and the very air in which it was sung.