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diff --git a/old/elsie10.txt b/old/elsie10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..33947b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/elsie10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14644 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Etext Elsie Venner, by Oliver Wendell Holmes +#5 in our series by Oliver Wendell Holmes + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Etext prepared for Gutenberg by David Widger, widger@cecomet.net + + + + + +ELSIE VENNER + +by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + + + +PREFACE. + +This tale was published in successive parts in the "Atlantic +Monthly," under the name of "The Professor's Story," the first number +having appeared in the third week of December, 1859. The critic who +is curious in coincidences must refer to the Magazine for the date of +publication of the chapter he is examining. + +In calling this narrative a "romance," the Author wishes to make sure +of being indulged in the common privileges of the poetic license. +Through all the disguise of fiction a grave scientific doctrine may +be detected lying beneath some of the delineations of character. He +has used this doctrine as a part of the machinery of his story +without pledging his absolute belief in it to the extent to which it +is asserted or implied. It was adopted as a convenient medium of +truth rather than as an accepted scientific conclusion. The reader +must judge for himself what is the value of various stories cited +from old authors. He must decide how much of what has been told he +can accept either as having actually happened, or as possible and +more or less probable. The Author must be permitted, however, to say +here, in his personal character, and as responsible to the students +of the human mind and body, that since this story has been in +progress he has received the most startling confirmation of the +possibility of the existence of a character like that which he had +drawn as a purely imaginary conception in Elsie Venner. + +BOSTON, January, 1861. + + + + +A SECOND PREFACE. + +This is the story which a dear old lady, my very good friend, spoke +of as "a medicated novel," and quite properly refused to read. I was +always pleased with her discriminating criticism. It is a medicated +novel, and if she wished to read for mere amusement and helpful +recreation there was no need of troubling herself with a story +written with a different end in view. + +This story has called forth so many curious inquiries that it seems +worth while to answer the more important questions which have +occurred to its readers. + +In the first place, it is not based on any well-ascertained +physiological fact. There are old fables about patients who have +barked like dogs or crowed like cocks, after being bitten or wounded +by those animals. There is nothing impossible in the idea that +Romulus and Remus may have imbibed wolfish traits of character from +the wet nurse the legend assigned them, but the legend is not sound +history, and the supposition is nothing more than a speculative +fancy. Still, there is a limbo of curious evidence bearing on the +subject of pre-natal influences sufficient to form the starting-point +of an imaginative composition. + +The real aim, of the story was to test the doctrine of "original sin" +and human responsibility for the disordered volition coming under +that technical denomination. Was Elsie Venner, poisoned by the venom +of a crotalus before she was born, morally responsible for the +"volitional" aberrations, which translated into acts become what is +known as sin, and, it may be, what is punished as crime? If, on +presentation of the evidence, she becomes by the verdict of the human +conscience a proper object of divine pity and not of divine wrath, as +a subject of moral poisoning, wherein lies the difference between her +position at the bar of judgment, human or divine, and that of the +unfortunate victim who received a moral poison from a remote ancestor +before he drew his first breath? + +It might be supposed that the character of Elsie Veneer was suggested +by some of the fabulous personages of classical or mediaeval story. +I remember that a French critic spoke of her as cette pauvre +Melusine. I ought to have been ashamed, perhaps, but I had, not the +slightest idea who Melusina was until I hunted up the story, and +found that she was a fairy, who for some offence was changed every +Saturday to a serpent from her waist downward. I was of course +familiar with Keats's Lamia, another imaginary being, the subject of +magical transformation into a serpent. My story was well advanced +before Hawthorne's wonderful "Marble Faun," which might be thought to +have furnished me with the hint of a mixed nature,--human, with an +alien element,--was published or known to me. So that my poor +heroine found her origin, not in fable or romance, but in a +physiological conception fertilized by a theological dogma. + +I had the dissatisfaction of enjoying from a quiet corner a well- +meant effort to dramatize "Elsie Veneer." Unfortunately, a +physiological romance, as I knew beforehand, is hardly adapted for +the melodramatic efforts of stage representation. I can therefore +say, with perfect truth, that I was not disappointed. It is to the +mind, and not to the senses, that such a story must appeal, and all +attempts to render the character and events objective on the stage, +or to make them real by artistic illustrations, are almost of +necessity failures. The story has won the attention and enjoyed the +favor of a limited class of readers, and if it still continues to +interest others of the same tastes and habits of thought I can ask +nothing more of it. + +January 23, 1883. + + + + + + +PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. + +I have nothing of importance to add to the two preceding Prefaces. +The continued call for this story, which was not written for +popularity, but with a very serious purpose, has somewhat surprised +and, I need not add, gratified me. I can only restate the motive +idea of the tale in a little different language. Believing, as I do, +that our prevailing theologies are founded upon an utterly false view +of the relation of man to his Creator, I attempted to illustrate the +doctrine of inherited moral responsibility for other people's +misbehavior. I tried to make out a case for my poor Elsie, whom the +most hardened theologian would find it hard to blame for her +inherited ophidian tastes and tendencies. How, then, is he to blame +mankind for inheriting "sinfulness" from their first parents? May +not the serpent have bitten Eve before the birth of Cain, her first- +born? That would have made an excuse for Cain's children, as Elsie's +ante-natal misfortune made an excuse for her. But what difference +does it make in the child's responsibility whether his inherited +tendencies come from a snake-bite or some other source which he knew +nothing about and could not have prevented from acting? All this is +plain enough, and the only use of the story is to bring the dogma of +inherited guilt and its consequences into a clearer point of view. + +But, after all, the tale must have proved readable as a story to +account for the large number of editions which it has reached. + +Some readers have been curious about the locality the writer was +thought to have in view. No particular place was intended. Some of +the characters may have been thought to have been drawn from life; +but the personages mentioned are mostly composites, like Mr. Galton's +compound photographic likenesses, and are not calculated to provoke +scandal or suits for libel. + +O. W. H. + +BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., August 3, 1891. + + + + + + + +ELSIE VENNER. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE BRAHMIN CASTE OF NEW ENGLAND. + +There is nothing in New England corresponding at all to the feudal +aristocracies of the Old World. Whether it be owing to the stock +from which we were derived, or to the practical working of our +institutions, or to the abrogation of the technical "law of honor," +which draws a sharp line between the personally responsible class of +"gentlemen" and the unnamed multitude of those who are not expected +to risk their lives for an abstraction,--whatever be the cause, we +have no such aristocracy here as that which grew up out of the +military systems of the Middle Ages. + +What we mean by "aristocracy" is merely the richer part of the +community, that live in the tallest houses, drive real carriages, +(not "kerridges,") kidglove their hands, and French-bonnet their +ladies' heads, give parties where the persons who call them by the +above title are not invited, and have a provokingly easy way of +dressing, walking, talking, and nodding to people, as if they felt +entirely at home, and would not be embarrassed in the least, if they +met the Governor, or even the President of the United States, face to +face. Some of these great folks are really well-bred, some of them +are only purse-proud and assuming,--but they form a class, and are +named as above in the common speech. + +It is in the nature of large fortunes to diminish rapidly, when +subdivided and distributed. A million is the unit of wealth, now and +here in America. It splits into four handsome properties; each of +these into four good inheritances; these, again, into scanty +competences for four ancient maidens,--with whom it is best the +family should die out, unless it can begin again as its great- +grandfather did. Now a million is a kind of golden cheese, which +represents in a compendious form the summer's growth of a fat meadow +of craft or commerce; and as this kind of meadow rarely bears more +than one crop, it is pretty certain that sons and grandsons will not +get another golden cheese out of it, whether they milk the same cows +or turn in new ones. In other words, the millionocracy, considered +in a large way, is not at all an affair of persons and families, but +a perpetual fact of money with a variable human element, which a +philosopher might leave out of consideration without falling into +serious error. Of course, this trivial and, fugitive fact of +personal wealth does not create a permanent class, unless some +special means are taken to arrest the process of disintegration in +the third generation. This is so rarely done, at least successfully, +that one need not live a very long life to see most of the rich +families he knew in childhood more or less reduced, and the millions +shifted into the hands of the country-boys who were sweeping stores +and carrying parcels when the now decayed gentry were driving their +chariots, eating their venison over silver chafing-dishes, drinking +Madeira chilled in embossed coolers, wearing their hair in powder, +and casing their legs in long boots with silken tassels. + +There is, however, in New England, an aristocracy, if you choose to +call it so, which has a far greater character of permanence. It has +grown to be a caste,--not in any odious sense;--but, by the +repetition of the same influences, generation after generation, it +has acquired a distinct organization and physiognomy, which not to +recognize is mere stupidity, and not to be willing to describe would +show a distrust of the good-nature and intelligence of our readers, +who like to have us see all we can and tell all we see. + +If you will look carefully at any class of students in one of our +colleges, you will have no difficulty in selecting specimens of two +different aspects of youthful manhood. Of course I shall choose +extreme cases to illustrate the contrast between them. In the first, +the figure is perhaps robust, but often otherwise,--inelegant, partly +from careless attitudes, partly from ill-dressing,--the face is +uncouth in feature, or at least common,--the mouth coarse and +unformed,--the eye unsympathetic, even if bright,--the movements of +the face are clumsy, like those of the limbs,--the voice is +unmusical,--and the enunciation as if the words were coarse castings, +instead of fine carvings. The youth of the other aspect is commonly +slender, his face is smooth, and apt to be pallid,--his features are +regular and of a certain delicacy,--his eye is bright and quick,--his +lips play over the thought he utters as a pianist's fingers dance +over their music, and his whole air, though it may be timid, and even +awkward, has nothing clownish. If you are a teacher, you know what +to expect from each of these young men. With equal willingness, the +first will be slow at learning; the second will take to his books as +a pointer or a setter to his field-work. + +The first youth is the common country-boy, whose race has been bred +to bodily labor. Nature has adapted the family organization to the +kind of life it has lived. The hands and feet by constant use have +got more than their share of development,--the organs of thought and +expression less than their share. The finer instincts are latent and +must be developed. A youth of this kind is raw material in its first +stage of elaboration. You must not expect too much of any such. +Many of them have force of will and character, and become +distinguished in practical life; but very few of them ever become +great scholars. A scholar is, in a large proportion of cases, the +son of scholars or scholarly persons. + +That is exactly what the other young man is. He comes of the Brahmin +caste of New England. This is the harmless, inoffensive, untitled +aristocracy referred to, and which many readers will at once +acknowledge. There are races of scholars among us, in which aptitude +for learning, and all these marks of it I have spoken of, are +congenital and hereditary. Their names are always on some college +catalogue or other. They break out every generation or two in some +learned labor which calls them up after they seem to have died out. +At last some newer name takes their place, it maybe,--but you inquire +a little and you find it is the blood of the Edwardses or the +Chauncys or the Ellerys or some of the old historic scholars, +disguised under the altered name of a female descendant. + +There probably is not an experienced instructor anywhere in our +Northern States who will not recognize at once the truth of this +general distinction. But the reader who has never been a teacher +will very probably object, that some of our most illustrious public +men have come direct from the homespun-clad class of the people,--and +he may, perhaps, even find a noted scholar or two whose parents were +masters of the English alphabet, but of no other. + +It is not fair to pit a few chosen families against the great +multitude of those who are continually working their way up into the +intellectual classes. The results which are habitually reached by +hereditary training are occasionally brought about without it. There +are natural filters as well as artificial ones; and though the great +rivers are commonly more or less turbid, if you will look long +enough, you may find a spring that sparkles as no water does which +drips through your apparatus of sands and sponges. So there are +families which refine themselves into intellectual aptitude without +having had much opportunity for intellectual acquirements. A series +of felicitous crosses develops an improved strain of blood, and +reaches its maximum perfection at last in the large uncombed youth +who goes to college and startles the hereditary class-leaders by +striding past them all. That is Nature's republicanism; thank God +for it, but do not let it make you illogical. The race of the +hereditary scholar has exchanged a certain portion of its animal +vigor for its new instincts, and it is hard to lead men without a +good deal of animal vigor. The scholar who comes by Nature's special +grace from an unworn stock of broad-chested sires and deep-bosomed +mothers must always overmatch an equal intelligence with a +compromised and lowered vitality. A man's breathing and digestive +apparatus (one is tempted to add muscular) are just as important to +him on the floor of the Senate as his thinking organs. You broke +down in your great speech, did you? Yes, your grandfather had an +attack of dyspepsia in '82, after working too hard on his famous +Election Sermon. All this does not touch the main fact: our scholars +come chiefly from a privileged order, just as our best fruits come +from well-known grafts, though now and then a seedling apple, like +the Northern Spy, or a seedling pear, like the Seckel, springs from a +nameless ancestry and grows to be the pride of all the gardens in the +land. + +Let me introduce you to a young man who belongs to the Brahmin caste +of New England. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE STUDENT AND HIS CERTIFICATE. + +Bernard C. Langdon, a young man attending Medical Lectures at the +school connected with one of our principal colleges, remained after +the Lecture one day and wished to speak with the Professor. He was a +student of mark,--first favorite of his year, as they say of the +Derby colts. There are in every class half a dozen bright faces to +which the teacher naturally, directs his discourse, and by the +intermediation of whose attention he seems to hold that of the mass +of listeners. Among these some one is pretty sure to take the lead, +by virtue of a personal magnetism, or some peculiarity of expression, +which places the face in quick sympathetic relations with the +lecturer. This was a young man with such a face; and I found,--for +you have guessed that I was the "Professor" above-mentioned,--that, +when there was anything difficult to be explained, or when I was +bringing out some favorite illustration of a nice point, (as, for +instance; when I compared the cell-growth, by which Nature builds up +a plant or an animal, to the glassblower's similar mode of +beginning,--always with a hollow sphere, or vesicle, whatever he is +going to make,) I naturally looked in his face and gauged my success +by its expression. + +It was a handsome face,--a little too pale, perhaps, and would have +borne something more of fulness without becoming heavy. I put the +organization to which it belongs in Section B of Class 1 of my Anglo- +American Anthropology (unpublished). The jaw in this section is but +slightly narrowed,--just enough to make the width of the forehead +tell more decidedly. The moustache often grows vigorously, but the +whiskers are thin. The skin is like that of Jacob, rather than like +Esau's. One string of the animal nature has been taken away, but +this gives only a greater predominance to the intellectual chords. +To see just how the vital energy has been toned down, you must +contrast one of this section with a specimen of Section A of the same +class,--say, for instance, one of the old-fashioned, full-whiskered, +red-faced, roaring, big Commodores of the last generation, whom you +remember, at least by their portraits, in ruffled shirts, looking as +hearty as butchers and as plucky as bull-terriers, with their hair +combed straight up from their foreheads, which were not commonly very +high or broad. The special form of physical life I have been +describing gives you a right to expect more delicate perceptions and +a more reflective, nature than you commonly find in shaggy-throated +men, clad in heavy suits of muscles. + +The student lingered in the lecture-room, looking all the time as if +he wanted to say something in private, and waiting for two or three +others, who were still hanging about, to be gone. + +Something is wrong!---I said to myself, when I noticed his +expression. --Well, Mr. Langdon,--I said to him, when we were +alone,--can I do anything for you to-day? + +You can, Sir,--he said.---I am going to leave the class, for the +present, and keep school. + +Why, that 's a pity, and you so near graduating! You'd better stay +and finish this course and take your degree in the spring, rather +than break up your whole plan of study. + +I can't help myself, Sir,--the young man answered.---There 's trouble +at home, and they cannot keep me here as they have done. So I must +look out for myself for a while. It's what I've done before, and am +ready to do again. I came to ask you for a certificate of my fitness +to teach a common school, or a high school, if you think I am up to +that. Are you willing to give it to me? + +Willing? Yes, to be sure,--but I don't want you to go. Stay; we'll +make it easy for you. There's a fund will do something for you, +perhaps. Then you can take both the annual prizes, if you like,--and +claim them in money, if you want that more than medals. + +I have thought it all over,--he answered,--and have pretty much made +up my mind to go. + +A perfectly gentlemanly young man, of courteous address and mild +utterance, but means at least as much as he says. There are some +people whose rhetoric consists of a slight habitual under-statement. +I often tell Mrs. Professor that one of her "I think it's sos" is +worth the Bible-oath of all the rest of the household that they "know +it's so." When you find a person a little better than his word, a +little more liberal than his promise, a little more than borne out in +his statement by his facts, a little larger in deed than in speech, +you recognize a kind of eloquence in that person's utterance not laid +down in Blair or Campbell. + +This was a proud fellow, self-trusting, sensitive, with family- +recollections that made him unwilling to accept the kind of aid which +many students would have thankfully welcomed. I knew him too well to +urge him, after the few words which implied that he was determined to +go. Besides, I have great confidence in young men who believe in +themselves, and are accustomed to rely on their own resources from an +early period. When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great +bully, the World, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often +surprised to find it come off in his hand, and that it was only tied +on to scare away timid adventurers. I have seen young men more than +once, who came to a great city without a single friend, support +themselves and pay for their education, lay up money in a few years, +grow rich enough to travel, and establish themselves in life, without +ever asking a dollar of any person which they had not earned. But +these are exceptional cases. There are horse-tamers, born so,--as we +all know; there are woman-tamers, who bewitch the sex as the pied +piper bedeviled the children of Hamelin; and there are world-tamers, +who can make any community, even a Yankee one, get down and let them +jump on its back as easily as Mr. Rarey saddled Cruiser. + +Whether Langdon was of this sort or not I could not say positively; +but he had spirit, and, as I have said, a family-pride which would +not let him be dependent. The New England Brahmin caste often gets +blended with connections of political influence or commercial +distinction. It is a charming thing for the scholar, when his +fortune carries him in this way into some of the "old families" who +have fine old houses, and city-lots that have risen in the market, +and names written in all the stock-books of all the dividend-paying +companies. His narrow study expands into a stately library, his +books are counted by thousands instead of hundreds, and his favorites +are dressed in gilded calf in place of plebeian sheepskin or its +pauper substitutes of cloth and paper. + +The Reverend Jedediah Langdon, grandfather of our young gentleman, +had made an advantageous alliance of this kind. Miss Dorothea +Wentworth had read one of his sermons which had been printed "by +request," and became deeply interested in the young author, whom she +had never seen. Out of this circumstance grew a correspondence, an +interview, a declaration, a matrimonial alliance, and a family of +half a dozen children. Wentworth Langdon, Esquire, was the oldest of +these, and lived in the old family-mansion. Unfortunately, that +principle of the diminution of estates by division, to which I have +referred, rendered it somewhat difficult to maintain the +establishment upon the fractional income which the proprietor +received from his share of the property. Wentworth Langdon, Esq., +represented a certain intermediate condition of life not at all +infrequent in our old families. He was the connecting link between +the generation which lived in ease, and even a kind of state, upon +its own resources, and the new brood, which must live mainly by its +wits or industry, and make itself rich, or shabbily subside into that +lower stratum known to social geologists by a deposit of +Kidderminster carpets and the peculiar aspect of the fossils +constituting the family furniture and wardrobe. This slack-water +period of a race, which comes before the rapid ebb of its prosperity, +is familiar to all who live in cities. There are no more quiet, +inoffensive people than these children of rich families, just above +the necessity of active employment, yet not in a condition to place +their own children advantageously, if they happen to have families. +Many of them are content to live unmarried. Some mend their broken +fortunes by prudent alliances, and some leave a numerous progeny to +pass into the obscurity from which their ancestors emerged; so that +you may see on handcarts and cobblers' stalls names which, a few +generations back, were upon parchments with broad seals, and +tombstones with armorial bearings. + +In a large city, this class of citizens is familiar to us in the +streets. They are very courteous in their salutations; they have +time enough to bow and take their hats off,--which, of course, no +businessman can afford to do. Their beavers are smoothly brushed, +and their boots well polished; all their appointments are tidy; they +look the respectable walking gentleman to perfection. They are prone +to habits,--they frequent reading-rooms,--insurance-offices,--they +walk the same streets at the same hours,--so that one becomes +familiar with their faces and persons, as a part of the street- +furniture. + +There is one curious circumstance, that all city-people must have +noticed, which is often illustrated in our experience of the slack- +water gentry. We shall know a certain person by his looks, +familiarly, for years, but never have learned his name. About this +person we shall have accumulated no little circumstantial knowledge; +--thus, his face, figure, gait, his mode of dressing, of saluting, +perhaps even of speaking, may be familiar to us; yet who he is we +know not. In another department of our consciousness, there is a +very familiar name, which we have never found the person to match. +We have heard it so often, that it has idealized itself, and become +one of that multitude of permanent shapes which walk the chambers of +the brain in velvet slippers in the company of Falstaff and Hamlet +and General Washington and Mr. Pickwick. Sometimes the person dies, +but the name lives on indefinitely. But now and then it happens, +perhaps after years of this independent existence of the name and its +shadowy image in the brain, on the one part, and the person and all +its real attributes, as we see them daily, on the other, that some +accident reveals their relation, and we find the name we have carried +so long in our memory belongs to the person we have known so long as +a fellow-citizen. Now the slack--water gentry are among the persons +most likely to be the subjects of this curious divorce of title and +reality,--for the reason, that, playing no important part in the +community, there is nothing to tie the floating name to the actual +individual, as is the case with the men who belong in any way to the +public, while yet their names have a certain historical currency, and +we cannot help meeting them, either in their haunts, or going to and +from them. + +To this class belonged Wentworth Langdon, Esq. He had been "dead- +headed" into the world some fifty years ago, and had sat with his +hands in his pockets staring at the show ever since. I shall not +tell you, for reasons before hinted, the whole name of the place in +which he lived. I will only point you in the right direction, by +saying that there are three towns lying in a line with each other, as +you go "down East," each of them with a Port in its name, and each of +them having a peculiar interest which gives it individuality, in +addition to the Oriental character they have in common. I need not +tell you that these towns are Newburyport, Portsmouth, and Portland. +The Oriental character they have in common consists in their large, +square, palatial mansions, with sunny gardens round them. The two +first have seen better days. They are in perfect harmony with the +condition of weakened, but not impoverished, gentility. Each of them +is a "paradise of demi-fortunes." Each of them is of that +intermediate size between a village and a city which any place has +outgrown when the presence of a well-dressed stranger walking up and +down the main street ceases to be a matter of public curiosity and +private speculation, as frequently happens, during the busier months +of the year, in considerable commercial centres like Salem. They +both have grand old recollections to fall back upon,--times when they +looked forward to commercial greatness, and when the portly gentlemen +in cocked hats, who built their now decaying wharves and sent out +their ships all over the world, dreamed that their fast-growing port +was to be the Tyre or the Carthage of the rich British Colony. Great +houses, like that once lived in by Lord Timothy Dexter, in +Newburyport, remain as evidence of the fortunes amassed in these +places of old. Other mansions--like the Rockingham House in +Portsmouth (look at the white horse's tail before you mount the broad +staircase)--show that there was not only wealth, but style and state, +in these quiet old towns during the last century. It is not with any +thought of pity or depreciation that we speak of them as in a certain +sense decayed towns; they did not fulfil their early promise of +expansion, but they remain incomparably the most interesting places +of their size in any of the three northernmost New England States. +They have even now prosperity enough to keep them in good condition, +and offer the most attractive residences for quiet families, which, +if they had been English, would have lived in a palazzo at Genoa or +Pisa, or some other Continental Newburyport or Portsmouth. + +As for the last of the three Ports, or Portland, it is getting too +prosperous to be as attractive as its less northerly neighbors. +Meant for a fine old town, to ripen like a Cheshire cheese within its +walls of ancient rind, burrowed by crooked alleys and mottled with +venerable mould, it seems likely to sacrifice its mellow future to a +vulgar material prosperity. Still it remains invested with many of +its old charms, as yet, and will forfeit its place among this +admirable trio only when it gets a hotel with unequivocal marks of +having been built and organized in the present century. + +--It was one of the old square palaces of the North, in which Bernard +Langdon, the son of Wentworth, was born. If he had had the luck to +be an only child, he might have lived as his father had done, letting +his meagre competence smoulder on almost without consuming, like the +fuel in an air-tight stove. But after Master Bernard came Miss +Dorothea Elizabeth Wentworth Langdon, and then Master William +Pepperell Langdon, and others, equally well named,--a string of them, +looking, when they stood in a row in prayer-time, as if they would +fit a set of Pandean pipes, of from three feet upward in dimensions. +The door of the air-tight stove has to be opened, under such +circumstances, you may well suppose! So it happened that our young +man had been obliged, from an early period, to do something to +support himself, and found himself stopped short in his studies by +the inability of the good people at home to furnish him the present +means of support as a student. + +You will understand now why the young man wanted me to give him a +certificate of his fitness to teach, and why I did not choose to urge +him to accept the aid which a meek country-boy from a family without +ante-Revolutionary recollections would have thankfully received. Go +he must,--that was plain enough. He would not be content otherwise. +He was not, however, to give up his studies; and as it is customary +to allow half-time to students engaged in school-keeping,--that is, +to count a year, so employed, if the student also keep on with his +professional studies, as equal to six months of the three years he is +expected to be under an instructor before applying for his degree,-- +he would not necessarily lose more than a few months of time. He had +a small library of professional books, which he could take with him. + +So he left my teaching and that of my estimable colleagues, carrying +with him my certificate, that Mr. Bernard C. Langdon was a young +gentleman of excellent moral character, of high intelligence and good +education, and that his services would be of great value in any +school, academy, or other institution, where young persons of-either +sex were to be instructed. + +I confess, that expression, "either sex," ran a little thick, as I +may say, from my pen. For, although the young man bore a very fair +character, and there was no special cause for doubting his +discretion, I considered him altogether too good-looking, in the +first place, to be let loose in a roomful of young girls. I didn't +want him to fall in love just then--and if half a dozen girls fell in +love with him, as they most assuredly would, if brought into too near +relations with him, why, there was no telling what gratitude and +natural sensibility might bring about. + +Certificates are, for the most part, like ostrich-eggs; the giver +never knows what is hatched out of them. But once in a thousand +times they act as curses are said to,--come home to roost. Give them +often enough, until it gets to be a mechanical business, and, some +day or other, you will get caught warranting somebody's ice not to +melt in any climate, or somebody's razors to be safe in the hands of +the youngest children. + +I had an uneasy feeling, after giving this certificate. It might be +all right enough; but if it happened to end badly, I should always +reproach myself. There was a chance, certainly, that it would lead +him or others into danger or wretchedness. Any one who looked at +this young man could not fail to see that he was capable of +fascinating and being fascinated. Those large, dark eyes of his +would sink into the white soul of a young girl as the black cloth +sunk into the snow in Franklin's famous experiment. Or, on the other +hand, if the rays of a passionate nature should ever be concentrated +on them, they would be absorbed into the very depths of his nature, +and then his blood would turn to flame and burn his life out of him, +until his cheeks grew as white as the ashes that cover a burning +coal. + +I wish I had not said either sex in my certificate. An academy for +young gentlemen, now; that sounds cool and unimaginative. A boys' +school, that would be a very good place for him;--some of them are +pretty rough, but there is nerve enough in that old Wentworth strain +of blood; he can give any country fellow, of the common stock, twenty +pounds, and hit him out of time in ten minutes. But to send such a +young fellow as that out a girl's-nesting! to give this falcon a free +pass into all the dove-cotes! I was a fool,--that's all. + +I brooded over the mischief which might come out of these two words +until it seemed to me that they were charged with destiny. I could +hardly sleep for thinking what a train I might have been laying, +which might take a spark any day, and blow up nobody knows whose +peace or prospects. What I dreaded most was one of those miserable +matrimonial misalliances where a young fellow who does not know +himself as yet flings his magnificent future into the checked apron- +lap of some fresh-faced, half-bred country-girl, no more fit to be +mated with him than her father's horse to go in double harness with +Flora Temple. To think of the eagle's wings, being clipped so that +he shall never lift himself over the farm-yard fence! Such things +happen, and always must,--because, as one of us said awhile ago, a +man always loves, a woman, and a woman a man, unless some good reason +exists to the contrary. You think yourself a very fastidious young +man, my friend; but there are probably at least five-thousand young +women in these United States, any one of whom you would certainly +marry, if you were thrown much into her company, and nobody more +attractive were near, and she had no objection. And you, my dear +young lady, justly pride yourself on your discerning delicacy; but if +I should say that there are twenty thousand young men, any one of +whom, if he offered his hand and heart under favorable circumstances, +you would + + "First endure, then pity, then embrace," + +I should be much more imprudent than I mean to be, and you would, no +doubt, throw down a story in which I hope to interest you. + +I had settled it in my mind that this young fellow had a career +marked out for him. He should begin in the natural way, by taking +care of poor patients in one of the public charities, and work his +way up to a better kind of practice,--better, that is, in the vulgar, +worldly sense. The great and good Boerhaave used to say, as I +remember very well, that the poor were his best patients; for God was +their paymaster. But everybody is not as patient as Boerhaave, nor +as deserving; so that the rich, though not, perhaps, the best +patients, are good enough for common practitioners. I suppose +Boerhaave put up with them when he could not get poor ones, as he +left his daughter two millions of florins when he died. + +Now if this young man once got into the wide streets, he would sweep +them clear of his rivals of the same standing; and as I was getting +indifferent to business, and old Dr. Kilham was growing careless, and +had once or twice prescribed morphine when he meant quinine, there +would soon be an opening into the Doctor's Paradise,--the streets +with only one side to them. Then I would have him strike a bold +stroke,--set up a nice little coach, and be driven round like a +first-class London doctor, instead of coasting about in a shabby one- +horse concern and casting anchor opposite his patients' doors like a +Cape Ann fishing-smack. By the time he was thirty, he would have +knocked the social pawns out of his way, and be ready to challenge a +wife from the row of great pieces in the background. I would not +have a man marry above his level, so as to become the appendage of a +powerful family-connection; but I would not have him marry until he +knew his level,--that is, again, looking at the matter in a purely +worldly point of view, and not taking the sentiments at all into +consideration. But remember, that a young man, using large +endowments wisely and fortunately, may put himself on a level with +the highest in the land in ten brilliant years of spirited, +unflagging labor. And to stand at the very top of your calling in a +great city is something in itself,--that is, if you like money, and +influence, and a seat on the platform at public lectures, and +gratuitous tickets to all sorts of places where you don't want to go, +and, what is a good deal better than any of these things, a sense of +power, limited, it may be, but absolute in its range, so that all the +Caesars and Napoleons would have to stand aside, if they came between +you and the exercise of your special vocation. + +That is what I thought this young fellow might have come to; and now +I have let him go off into the country with my certificate, that he +is fit to teach in a school for either sex! Ten to one he will run +like a moth into a candle, right into one of those girls'-nests, and +get tangled up in some sentimental folly or other, and there will be +the end of him. Oh, yes! country doctor,--half a dollar a visit,-- +drive, drive, drive all day,--get up at night and harness your own +horse,--drive again ten miles in a snow-storm, shake powders out of +two phials, (pulv. glycyrrhiz., pulv. gum. acac. as partes +equates,)--drive back again, if you don't happen to get stuck in a +drift, no home, no peace, no continuous meals, no unbroken sleep, no +Sunday, no holiday, no social intercourse, but one eternal jog, jog, +jog, in a sulky, until you feel like the mummy of an Indian who had +been buried in the sitting posture, and was dug up a hundred years +afterwards! Why did n't I warn him about love and all that nonsense? +Why didn't I tell him he had nothing to do with it, yet awhile? Why +did n't I hold up to him those awful examples I could have cited, +where poor young fellows who could just keep themselves afloat have +hung a matrimonial millstone round their necks, taking it for a life- +preserver? All this of two words in a certificate! + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. BERNARD TRIES HIS HAND. + +Whether the Student advertised for a school, or whether he fell in +with the advertisement of a school-committee, is not certain. At any +rate, it was not long before he found himself the head of a large +district, or, as it was called by the inhabitants, "deestric " +school, in the flourishing inland village of Pequawkett, or, as it is +commonly spelt, Pigwacket Centre. The natives of this place would be +surprised, if they should hear that any of the readers of a work +published in Boston were unacquainted with so remarkable a locality. +As, however, some copies of it may be read at a distance from this +distinguished metropolis, it may be well to give a few particulars +respecting the place, taken from the Universal Gazetteer. + +"PIGWACKET, sometimes spelt Pequawkett. A post-village and township +in _________ Co., State of _________,situated in a fine agricultural +region, 2 thriving villages, Pigwacket Centre and Smithville, 3 +churches, several school houses, and many handsome private +residences. Mink River runs through the town, navigable for small +boats after heavy rains. Muddy Pond at N. E. section, well stocked +with horn pouts, eels, and shiners. Products, beef, pork, butter, +cheese. Manufactures, shoe-pegs, clothes-pins, and tin-ware. Pop. +1373." + +The reader may think there is nothing very remarkable implied in this +description. If, however he had read the town-history, by the Rev. +Jabez Grubb, he would have learned, that, like the celebrated Little +Pedlington, it was distinguished by many very remarkable advantages. +Thus: + +"The situation of Pigwacket is eminently beautiful, looking down the +lovely valley of Mink River, a tributary of the Musquash. The air is +salubrious, and many of the inhabitants have attained great age, +several having passed the allotted period of 'three-score years and +ten' before succumbing to any of the various 'ills that flesh is heir +to.' Widow Comfort Leevins died in 1836 AEt. LXXXVII. years. +Venus, an African, died in 1841, supposed to be C. years old. The +people are distinguished for intelligence, as has been frequently +remarked by eminent lyceum-lecturers, who have invariably spoken in +the highest terms of a Pigwacket audience. There is a public +library, containing nearly a hundred volumes, free to all +subscribers. The preached word is well attended, there is a +flourishing temperance society, and the schools are excellent. It is +a residence admirably adapted to refined families who relish the +beauties of Nature and the charms of society. The Honorable John +Smith, formerly a member of the State Senate, was a native of this +town." + +That is the way they all talk. After all, it is probably pretty much +like other inland New England towns in point of "salubrity,"--that +is, gives people their choice of dysentery or fever every autumn, +with a season-ticket for consumption, good all the year round. And +so of the other pretences. "Pigwacket audience," forsooth! Was +there ever an audience anywhere, though there wasn't a pair of eyes +in it brighter than pickled oysters, that did n't think it was +"distinguished for intelligence"?-- "The preached word"! That means +the Rev. Jabez Grubb's sermons. "Temperance society"! "Excellent +schools"! Ah, that is just what we were talking about. + +The truth was, that District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, had had a good +deal of trouble of late with its schoolmasters. The committee had +done their best, but there were a number of well-grown and pretty +rough young fellows who had got the upper-hand of the masters, and +meant to keep it. Two dynasties had fallen before the uprising of +this fierce democracy. This was a thing that used to be not very +uncommon; but in so "intelligent" a community as that of Pigwacket +Centre, in an era of public libraries and lyceum-lectures, it was +portentous and alarming. + +The rebellion began under the ferule of Master Weeks, a slender youth +from a country college, underfed, thin-blooded, sloping-shouldered, +knock-kneed, straight-haired, weak-bearded, pale-eyed, wide-pupilled, +half-colored; a common type enough in in-door races, not rich enough +to pick and choose in their alliances. Nature kills off a good many +of this sort in the first teething-time, a few in later childhood, a +good many again in early adolescence; but every now and then one runs +the gauntlet of her various diseases, or rather forms of one disease, +and grows up, as Master Weeks had done. + +It was a very foolish thing for him to try to inflict personal +punishment on such a lusty young fellow as Abner Briggs, Junior, one +of the "hardest customers " in the way of a rough-and-tumble fight +that there were anywhere round. No doubt he had been insolent, but +it would have been better to overlook it. It pains me to report the +events which took place when the master made his rash attempt to +maintain his authority. Abner Briggs, Junior, was a great, hulking +fellow, who had been bred to butchering, but urged by his parents to +attend school, in order to learn the elegant accomplishments of +reading and writing, in which he was sadly deficient. He was in the +habit of talking and laughing pretty loud in school-hours, of +throwing wads of paper reduced to a pulp by a natural and easy +process, of occasional insolence and general negligence. One of the +soft, but unpleasant missiles just alluded to flew by the master's +head one morning, and flattened itself against the wall, where it +adhered in the form of a convex mass in alto rilievo. The master +looked round and saw the young butcher's arm in an attitude which +pointed to it unequivocally as the source from which the projectile +had taken its flight. + +Master Weeks turned pale. He must "lick" Abner Briggs, Junior, or +abdicate. So he determined to lick Abner Briggs, Junior. + +"Come here, Sir!" he said; "you have insulted me and outraged the +decency of the schoolroom often enough! Hold out your hand!" + +The young fellow grinned and held it out. The master struck at it +with his black ruler, with a will in the blow and a snapping of the +eyes, as much as to say that he meant to make him smart this time. +The young fellow pulled his hand back as the ruler came down, and the +master hit himself a vicious blow with it on the right knee. There +are things no man can stand. The master caught the refractory youth +by the collar and began shaking him, or rather shaking himself +against him. + +"Le' go o' that are coat, naow," said the fellow, "or I 'll make ye! +'T 'll take tew on yet' handle me, I tell ye, 'n' then ye caant dew +it!"--and the young pupil returned the master's attention by catching +hold of his collar. + +When it comes to that, the best man, not exactly in the moral sense, +but rather in the material, and more especially the muscular point of +view, is very apt to have the best of it, irrespectively of the +merits of the case. So it happened now. The unfortunate +schoolmaster found himself taking the measure of the sanded floor, +amidst the general uproar of the school. From that moment his ferule +was broken, and the school-committee very soon had a vacancy to fill. + +Master Pigeon, the successor of Master Weeks, was of better stature, +but loosely put together, and slender-limbed. A dreadfully nervous +kind of man he was, walked on tiptoe, started at sudden noises, was +distressed when he heard a whisper, had a quick, suspicious look, and +was always saying, "Hush?" and putting his hands to his ears. The +boys were not long in finding out this nervous weakness, of course. +In less than a week a regular system of torments was inaugurated, +full of the most diabolical malice and ingenuity. The exercises of +the conspirators varied from day to day, but consisted mainly of +foot-scraping, solos on the slate-pencil, (making it screech on the +slate,) falling of heavy books, attacks of coughing, banging of desk- +lids, boot-creaking, with sounds as of drawing a cork from time to +time, followed by suppressed chuckles. + +Master Pigeon grew worse and worse under these inflictions. The +rascally boys always had an excuse for any one trick they were caught +at. "Could n' help coughin', Sir." "Slipped out o' m' han', Sir." +"Did n' go to, Sir." "Did n' dew't o' purpose, Sir." And so on,-- +always the best of reasons for the most outrageous of behavior. The +master weighed himself at the grocer's on a platform balance, some +ten days after he began keeping the school. At the end of a week he +weighed himself again. He had lost two pounds. At the end of +another week he had lost five. He made a little calculation, based +on these data, from which he learned that in a certain number of +months, going on at this rate, he should come to weigh precisely +nothing at all; and as this was a sum in subtraction he did not care +to work out in practice, Master Pigeon took to himself wings and left +the school-committee in possession of a letter of resignation and a +vacant place to fill once more. + +This was the school to which Mr. Bernard Langdon found himself +appointed as master. He accepted the place conditionally, with the +understanding that he should leave it at the end of a month, if he +were tired of it. + +The advent of Master Langdon to Pigwacket Centre created a much more +lively sensation than had attended that of either of his +predecessors. Looks go a good way all the world over, and though +there were several good-looking people in the place, and Major Bush +was what the natives of the town called a "hahnsome mahn," that is, +big, fat, and red, yet the sight of a really elegant young fellow, +with the natural air which grows up with carefully-bred young +persons, was a novelty. The Brahmin blood which came from his +grandfather as well as from his mother, a direct descendant of the +old Flynt family, well known by the famous tutor, Henry Flynt, (see +Cat. Harv. Anno 1693,) had been enlivened and enriched by that of +the Wentworths, which had had a good deal of ripe old Madeira and +other generous elements mingled with it, so that it ran to gout +sometimes in the old folks and to high spirit, warm complexion, and +curly hair in some of the younger ones. The soft curling hair Mr. +Bernard had inherited,--something, perhaps, of the high spirit; but +that we shall have a chance of finding out by and by. But the long +sermons and the frugal board of his Brahmin ancestry, with his own +habits of study, had told upon his color, which was subdued to +something more of delicacy than one would care to see in a young +fellow with rough work before him. This, however, made him look more +interesting, or, as the young ladies at Major Bush's said, +"interestin'." + +When Mr. Bernard showed himself at meeting, on the first Sunday after +his arrival, it may be supposed that a good many eyes were turned +upon the young schoolmaster. There was something heroic in his +coming forward so readily to take a place which called for a strong +hand, and a prompt, steady will to guide it. In fact, his position +was that of a military chieftain on the eve of a battle. Everybody +knew everything in Pigwacket Centre; and it was an understood thing +that the young rebels meant to put down the new master, if they +could. It was natural that the two prettiest girls in the village, +called in the local dialect, as nearly as our limited alphabet will +represent it, Alminy Cutterr, and Arvilly Braowne, should feel and +express an interest in the good-looking stranger, and that, when +their flattering comments were repeated in the hearing of their +indigenous admirers, among whom were some of the older "boys " of the +school, it should not add to the amiable dispositions of the +turbulent youth. + +Monday came, and the new schoolmaster was in his chair at the upper +end of the schoolhouse, on the raised platform. The rustics looked +at his handsome face, thoughtful, peaceful, pleasant, cheerful, but +sharply cut round the lips and proudly lighted about the eyes. The +ringleader of the mischief-makers, the young butcher who has before +figured in this narrative, looked at him stealthily, whenever he got +a chance to study him unobserved; for the truth was, he felt +uncomfortable, whenever he found the large, dark eyes fixed on his +own little, sharp, deep-set, gray ones. But he managed to study him +pretty well,--first his face, then his neck and shoulders, the set of +his arms, the narrowing at the loins, the make of his legs, and the +way he moved. In short, he examined him as he would have examined a +steer, to see what he could do and how he would cut up. If he could +only have gone to him and felt of his muscles, he would have been +entirely satisfied. He was not a very wise youth, but he did know +well enough, that, though big arms and legs are very good things, +there is something besides size that goes to make a man; and he had +heard stories of a fighting-man, called "The Spider," from his +attenuated proportions, who was yet a terrible hitter in the ring, +and had whipped many a big-limbed fellow, in and out of the roped +arena. + +Nothing could be smoother than the way in which everything went on +for the first day or two. The new master was so kind and courteous, +he seemed to take everything in such a natural, easy way, that there +was no chance to pick a quarrel with him. He in the mean time +thought it best to watch the boys and young men for a day or two with +as little show of authority as possible. It was easy enough to see +that he would have occasion for it before long. + +The schoolhouse was a grim, old, red, one-story building, perched on +a bare rock at the top of a hill,--partly because this was a +conspicuous site for the temple of learning, and partly because land +is cheap where there is no chance even for rye or buckwheat, and the +very sheep find nothing to nibble. About the little porch were +carved initials and dates, at various heights, from the stature of +nine to that of eighteen. Inside were old unpainted desks,-- +unpainted, but browned with the umber of human contact,--and hacked +by innumerable jack-knives. It was long since the walls had been +whitewashed, as might be conjectured by the various traces left upon +them, wherever idle hands or sleepy heads could reach them. A +curious appearance was noticeable on various higher parts of the +wall: namely, a wart-like eruption, as one would be tempted to call +it, being in reality a crop of the soft missiles before mentioned, +which, adhering in considerable numbers, and hardening after the +usual fashion of papier-mache, formed at last permanent ornaments of +the edifice. + +The young master's quick eye soon noticed that a particular part of +the wall was most favored with these ornamental appendages. Their +position pointed sufficiently clearly to the part of the room they +came from. In fact, there was a nest of young mutineers just there, +which must be broken up by a coup d'etat. This was easily effected +by redistributing the seats and arranging the scholars according to +classes, so that a mischievous fellow, charged full of the rebellious +imponderable, should find himself between two non-conductors, in the +shape of small boys of studious habits. It was managed quietly +enough, in such a plausible sort of way that its motive was not +thought of. But its effects were soon felt; and then began a system +of correspondence by signs, and the throwing of little scrawls done +up in pellets, and announced by preliminary a'h'ms! to call the +attention of the distant youth addressed. Some of these were +incendiary documents, devoting the schoolmaster to the lower +divinities, as "a stuck-up dandy," as "a purse-proud aristocrat," as +"a sight too big for his, etc.," and holding him up in a variety of +equally forcible phrases to the indignation of the youthful community +of School District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre. + +Presently the draughtsman of the school set a caricature in +circulation, labelled, to prevent mistakes, with the schoolmaster's +name. An immense bell-crowned hat, and a long, pointed, swallow- +tailed coat showed that the artist had in his mind the conventional +dandy, as shown in prints of thirty or forty years ago, rather than +any actual human aspect of the time. But it was passed round among +the boys and made its laugh, helping of course to undermine the +master's authority, as "Punch" or the "Charivari" takes the dignity +out of an obnoxious minister. One morning, on going to the +schoolroom, Master Langdon found an enlarged copy of this sketch, +with its label, pinned on the door. He took it down, smiled a +little, put it into his pocket, and entered the schoolroom. An +insidious silence prevailed, which looked as if some plot were +brewing. The boys were ripe for mischief, but afraid. They had +really no fault to find with the master, except that he was dressed +like a gentleman, which a certain class of fellows always consider a +personal insult to themselves. But the older ones were evidently +plotting, and more than once the warning a'h'm! was heard, and a +dirty little scrap of paper rolled into a wad shot from one seat to +another. One of these happened to strike the stove-funnel, and +lodged on the master's desk. He was cool enough not to seem to +notice it. He secured it, however, and found an opportunity to look +at it, without being observed by the boys. It required no immediate +notice. + +He who should have enjoyed the privilege of looking upon Mr. Bernard +Langdon the next morning, when his toilet was about half finished, +would have had a very pleasant gratuitous exhibition. First he +buckled the strap of his trousers pretty tightly. Then he took up a +pair of heavy dumb-bells, and swung them for a few minutes; then two +great "Indian clubs," with which he enacted all sorts of impossible- +looking feats. His limbs were not very large, nor his shoulders +remarkably broad; but if you knew as much of the muscles as all +persons who look at statues and pictures with a critical eye ought to +have learned,--if you knew the trapezius, lying diamond-shaped over +the back and shoulders like a monk's cowl,--or the deltoid, which +caps the shoulder like an epaulette,--or the triceps, which furnishes +the calf of the upper arm,--or the hard-knotted biceps,--any of the +great sculptural landmarks, in fact,--you would have said there was a +pretty show of them, beneath the white satiny skin of Mr. Bernard +Langdon. And if you had seen him, when he had laid down the Indian +clubs, catch hold of a leather strap that hung from the beam of the +old-fashioned ceiling,--and lift and lower himself over and over +again by his left hand alone, you might have thought it a very simple +and easy thing to do, until you tried to do it yourself. Mr. Bernard +looked at himself with the eye of an expert. "Pretty well!" he +said;--"not so much fallen off as I expected." Then he set up his +bolster in a very knowing sort of way, and delivered two or three +blows straight as rulers and swift as winks. "That will do," he +said. Then, as if determined to make a certainty of his condition, +he took a dynamometer from one of the drawers in his old veneered +bureau. First he squeezed it with his two hands. Then he placed it +on the floor and lifted, steadily, strongly. The springs creaked and +cracked; the index swept with a great stride far up into the high +figures of the scale; it was a good lift. He was satisfied. He sat +down on the edge of his bed and looked at his cleanly-shaped arms. +"If I strike one of those boobies, I am afraid I shall spoil him," he +said. Yet this young man, when weighed with his class at the +college, could barely turn one hundred and forty-two pounds in the +scale,--not a heavy weight, surely; but some of the middle weights, +as the present English champion, for instance, seem to be of a far +finer quality of muscle than the bulkier fellows. + +The master took his breakfast with a good appetite that morning, but +was perhaps rather more quiet than usual. After breakfast he went +up-stairs and put, on a light loose frock, instead of that which he +commonly wore, which was a close-fitting and rather stylish one. On +his way to school he met Alminy Cutterr, who happened to be walking +in the other direction. "Good-morning, Miss Cutter," he said; for +she and another young lady had been introduced to him, on a former +occasion, in the usual phrase of polite society in presenting ladies +to gentlemen,--"Mr. Langdon, let me make y' acquainted with Miss +Cutterr;--let me make y' acquainted with Miss Braowne." So he said, +"Good-morning"; to which she replied, "Good-mornin', Mr. Langdon. +Haow's your haalth?" The answer to this question ought naturally to +have been the end of the talk; but Alminy Cutterr lingered and looked +as if she had something more on her mind. + +A young fellow does not require a great experience to read a simple +country-girl's face as if it were a sign-board. Alminy was a good +soul, with red cheeks and bright eyes, kind-hearted as she could be, +and it was out of the question for her to hide her thoughts or +feelings like a fine lady. Her bright eyes were moist and her red +cheeks paler than their wont, as she said, with her lips quivering, +"Oh, Mr. Langdon, them boys 'll be the death of ye, if ye don't take +caar!" + +"Why, what's the matter, my dear?" said Mr. Bernard.---Don't think +there was anything very odd in that "my dear," at the second +interview with a village belle;--some of these woman-tamers call a +girl "My dear," after five minutes' acquaintance, and it sounds all +right as they say it. But you had better not try it at a venture. + +It sounded all right to Alminy, as Mr. Bernard said it.---"I 'll tell +ye what's the mahtterr," she said, in a frightened voice. "Ahbner 's +go'n' to car' his dog, 'n' he'll set him on ye'z sure 'z y' 'r' +alive. 'T's the same cretur that haaf eat up Eben Squires's little +Jo, a year come nex' Faast day." + +Now this last statement was undoubtedly overcolored; as little Jo +Squires was running about the village,--with an ugly scar on his arm, +it is true, where the beast had caught him with his teeth, on the +occasion of the child's taking liberties with him, as he had been +accustomed to do with a good-tempered Newfoundland dog, who seemed to +like being pulled and hauled round by children. After this the +creature was commonly muzzled, and, as he was fed on raw meat +chiefly, was always ready for a fight, which he was occasionally +indulged in, when anything stout enough to match him could be found +in any of the neighboring villages. + +Tiger, or, more briefly, Tige, the property of Abner Briggs, Junior, +belonged to a species not distinctly named in scientific books, but +well known to our country-folks under the name "Yallah dog." They do +not use this expression as they would say black dog or white dog, but +with almost as definite a meaning as when they speak of a terrier or +a spaniel. A "yallah dog " is a large canine brute, of a dingy old- +flannel color, of no particular breed except his own, who hangs round +a tavern or a butcher's shop, or trots alongside of a team, looking +as if he were disgusted with the world, and the world with him. Our +inland population, while they tolerate him, speak of him with +contempt. Old ______ , of Meredith Bridge, used to twit the sun for +not shining on cloudy days, swearing, that, if he hung up his "yallah +dog," he would make a better show of daylight. A country fellow, +abusing a horse of his neighbor's, vowed, that, "if he had such a +hoss, he'd swap him for a `yallah dog,'--and then shoot the dog." + +Tige was an ill-conditioned brute by nature, and art had not improved +him by cropping his ears and tail and investing him with a spiked +collar. He bore on his person, also, various not ornamental scars, +marks of old battles; for Tige had fight in him, as was said before, +and as might be guessed by a certain bluntness about the muzzle, with +a projection of the lower jaw, which looked as if there might be a +bull-dog stripe among the numerous bar-sinisters of his lineage. + +It was hardly fair, however, to leave Alminy Cutterr waiting while +this piece of natural history was telling. --As she spoke of little +Jo, who had been "haaf eat up" by Tige, she could not contain her +sympathies, and began to cry. + +"Why, my dear little soul," said Mr. Bernard, "what are you worried +about? I used to play with a bear when I was a boy; and the bear +used to hug me, and I used to kiss him,--so!" + +It was too bad of Mr. Bernard, only the second time he had seen +Alminy; but her kind feelings had touched him, and that seemed the +most natural way of expressing his gratitude. Ahniny looked round to +see if anybody was near; she saw nobody, so of course it would do no +good to "holler." She saw nobody; but a stout young fellow, leading +a yellow dog, muzzled, saw her through a crack in a picket fence, not +a great way off the road. Many a year he had been "hangin' 'raoun'" +Alminy, and never did he see any encouraging look, or hear any +"Behave, naow!" or "Come, naow, a'n't ye 'shamed?" or other +forbidding phrase of acquiescence, such as village belles under stand +as well as ever did the nymph who fled to the willows in the eclogue +we all remember. + +No wonder he was furious, when he saw the school master, who had +never seen the girl until within a week, touching with his lips those +rosy cheeks which he had never dared to approach. But that was all; +it was a sudden impulse; and the master turned away from the young +girl, laughing, and telling her not to fret herself about him,--he +would take care of himself. + +So Master Langdon walked on toward his school-house, not displeased, +perhaps, with his little adventure, nor immensely elated by it; for +he was one of the natural class of the sex-subduers, and had had many +a smile without asking, which had been denied to the feeble youth who +try to win favor by pleading their passion in rhyme, and even to the +more formidable approaches of young officers in volunteer companies, +considered by many to be quite irresistible to the fair who have once +beheld them from their windows in the epaulettes and plumes and +sashes of the "Pigwacket Invincibles," or the "Hackmatack Rangers." + +Master Langdon took his seat and began the exercises of his school. +The smaller boys recited their lessons well enough, but some of the +larger ones were negligent and surly. He noticed one or two of them +looking toward the door, as if expecting somebody or something in +that direction. At half past nine o'clock, Abner Briggs, Junior, who +had not yet shown himself, made his appearance. He was followed by +his "yallah dog," without his muzzle, who squatted down very grimly +near the door, and gave a wolfish look round the room, as if he were +considering which was the plumpest boy to begin with. The young +butcher, meanwhile, went to his seat, looking somewhat flushed, +except round the lips, which were hardly as red as common, and set +pretty sharply. + +"Put out that dog, Abner Briggs!"--The master spoke as the captain +speaks to the helmsman, when there are rocks foaming at the lips, +right under his lee. + +Abner Briggs answered as the helmsman answers, when he knows he has a +mutinous crew round him that mean to run the ship on the reef, and is +one of the mutineers himself. "Put him aout y'rself, 'f ye a'n't +afeard on him!" + +The master stepped into the aisle: The great cur showed his teeth,-- +and the devilish instincts of his old wolf-ancestry looked out of his +eyes, and flashed from his sharp tusks, and yawned in his wide mouth +and deep red gullet. + +The movements of animals are so much quicker than those of human +beings commonly are, that they avoid blows as easily as one of us +steps out of the way of an ox-cart. It must be a very stupid dog +that lets himself be run over by a fast driver in his gig; he can +jump out of the wheel's way after the tire has already touched him. +So, while one is lifting a stick to strike or drawing back his foot +to kick, the beast makes his spring, and the blow or the kick comes +too late. + +It was not so this time. The master was a fencer, and something of a +boxer; he had played at singlestick, and was used to watching an +adversary's eye and coming down on him without any of those +premonitory symptoms by which unpractised persons show long +beforehand what mischief they meditate. + +"Out with you!" he said, fiercely,--and explained what he meant by a +sudden flash of his foot that clashed the yellow dog's white teeth +together like the springing of a bear-trap. The cur knew he had +found his master at the first word and glance, as low animals on four +legs, or a smaller number, always do; and the blow took him so by +surprise, that it curled him up in an instant, and he went bundling +out of the open schoolhouse-door with a most pitiable yelp, and his +stump of a tail shut down as close as his owner ever shut the short, +stubbed blade of his jack-knife. + +It was time for the other cur to find who his master. + +"Follow your dog, Abner Briggs!" said Master Langdon. + +The stout butcher-youth looked round, but the rebels were all cowed +and sat still. + +"I'll go when I'm ready," he said,--"'n' I guess I won't go afore I'm +ready." + +"You're ready now," said Master Langdon, turning up his cuffs so that +the little boys noticed the yellow gleam of a pair of gold sleeve- +buttons, once worn by Colonel Percy Wentworth, famous in the Old +French War. + +Abner Briggs, Junior, did not apparently think he was ready, at any +rate; for he rose up in his place, and stood with clenched fists, +defiant, as the master strode towards him. The master knew the +fellow was really frightened, for all his looks, and that he must +have no time to rally. So he caught him suddenly by the collar, and, +with one great pull, had him out over his desk and on the open floor. +He gave him a sharp fling backwards and stood looking at him. + +The rough-and-tumble fighters all clinch, as everybody knows; and +Abner Briggs, Junior, was one of that kind. He remembered how he had +floored Master Weeks, and he had just "spunk" enough left in him to +try to repeat his former successful experiment an the new master. He +sprang at him, open-handed, to clutch him. So the master had to +strike,--once, but very hard, and just in the place to tell. No +doubt, the authority that doth hedge a schoolmaster added to the +effect of the blow; but the blow was itself a neat one, and did not +require to be repeated. + +"Now go home," said the master, "and don't let me see you or your dog +here again." And he turned his cuffs down over the gold sleeve- +buttons. + +This finished the great Pigwacket Centre School rebellion. What +could be done with a master who was so pleasant as long as the boys +behaved decently, and such a terrible fellow when he got "riled," as +they called it? In a week's time everything was reduced to order, +and the school-committee were delighted. The master, however, had +received a proposition so much more agreeable and advantageous, that +he informed the committee he should leave at the end of his month, +having in his eye a sensible and energetic young college-graduate who +would be willing and fully competent to take his place. + +So, at the expiration of the appointed time, Bernard Langdon, late +master of the School District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, took his +departure from that place for another locality, whither we shall +follow him, carrying with him the regrets of the committee, of most +of the scholars, and of several young ladies; also two locks of hair, +sent unbeknown to payrents, one dark and one warmish auburn, +inscribed with the respective initials of Alminy Cutterr and Arvilly +Braowne. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MOTH FLIES INTO THE CANDLE. + +The invitation which Mr. Bernard Langdon had accepted came from the +Board of Trustees of the "Apollinean Female Institute," a school for +the education of young ladies, situated in the flourishing town of +Rockland. This was an establishment on a considerable scale, in +which a hundred scholars or thereabouts were taught the ordinary +English branches, several of the modern languages, something of +Latin, if desired, with a little natural philosophy, metaphysics, and +rhetoric, to finish off with in the last year, and music at any time +when they would pay for it. At the close of their career in the +Institute, they were submitted to a grand public examination, and +received diplomas tied in blue ribbons, which proclaimed them with a +great flourish of capitals to be graduates of the Apollinean Female +Institute. + +Rockland was a town of no inconsiderable pretensions. It was +ennobled by lying at the foot of a mountain,--called by the working- +folks of the place "the Maounting,"--which sufficiently showed that +it was the principal high land of the district in which it was +situated. It lay to the south of this, and basked in the sunshine as +Italy stretches herself before the Alps. To pass from the town of +Tamarack on the north of the mountain to Rockland on the south was +like crossing from Coire to Chiavenna. + +There is nothing gives glory and grandeur and romance and mystery to +a place like the impending presence of a high mountain. Our +beautiful Northampton with its fair meadows and noble stream is +lovely enough, but owes its surpassing attraction to those twin +summits which brood over it like living presences, looking down into +its streets as if they were its tutelary divinities, dressing and +undressing their green shrines, robing themselves in jubilant +sunshine or in sorrowing clouds, and doing penance in the snowy +shroud of winter, as if they had living hearts under their rocky ribs +and changed their mood like the children of the soil at their feet, +who grow up under their almost parental smiles and frowns. Happy is +the child whose first dreams of heaven are blended with the evening +glories of Mount Holyoke, when the sun is firing its treetops, and +gilding the white walls that mark its one human dwelling! If the +other and the wilder of the two summits has a scowl of terror in its +overhanging brows, yet is it a pleasing fear to look upon its savage +solitudes through the barred nursery-windows in the heart of the +sweet, companionable village.---And how the mountains love their +children! The sea is of a facile virtue, and will run to kiss the +first comer in any port he visits; but the chaste mountains sit +apart, and show their faces only in the midst of their own families. + +The Mountain which kept watch to the north of Rockland lay waste and +almost inviolate through much of its domain. The catamount still +glared from the branches of its old hemlocks on the lesser beasts +that strayed beneath him. It was not long since a wolf had wandered +down, famished in the winter's dearth, and left a few bones and some +tufts of wool of what had been a lamb in the morning. Nay, there +were broad-footed tracks in the snow only two years previously, which +could not be mistaken;--the black bear alone could have set that +plantigrade seal, and little children must come home early from +school and play, for he is an indiscriminate feeder when he is +hungry, and a little child would not come amiss when other game was +wanting. + +But these occasional visitors may have been mere wanderers, which, +straying along in the woods by day, and perhaps stalking through the +streets of still villages by night, had worked their way along down +from the ragged mountain-spurs of higher latitudes. The one feature +of The Mountain that shed the brownest horror on its woods was the +existence of the terrible region known as Rattlesnake Ledge, and +still tenanted by those damnable reptiles, which distil a fiercer +venom under our cold northern sky than the cobra himself in the land +of tropical spices and poisons. + +>From the earliest settlement of the place, this fact had been, next +to the Indians, the reigning nightmare of the inhabitants. It was +easy enough, after a time, to drive away the savages; for +"a screeching Indian Divell," as our fathers called him, could not +crawl into the crack of a rock to escape from his pursuers. But the +venomous population of Rattlesnake Ledge had a Gibraltar for their +fortress that might have defied the siege-train dragged to the walls +of Sebastopol. In its deep embrasures and its impregnable easemates +they reared their families, they met in love or wrath, they twined +together in family knots, they hissed defiance in hostile clans, they +fed, slept, hibernated, and in due time died in peace. Many a foray +had the towns-people made, and many a stuffed skin was shown as a +trophy,--nay, there were families where the children's first toy was +made from the warning appendage that once vibrated to the wrath of +one of these "cruel serpents." Sometimes one of them, coaxed out by +a warm sun, would writhe himself down the hillside into the roads, up +the walks that led to houses,--worse than this, into the long grass, +where the barefooted mowers would soon pass with their swinging +scythes,--more rarely into houses, and on one memorable occasion, +early in the last century, into the meeting-house, where he took a +position on the pulpit-stairs,--as is narrated in the "Account of +Some Remarkable Providences," etc., where it is suggested that a +strong tendency of the Rev. Didymus Bean, the Minister at that time, +towards the Arminian Heresy may have had something to do with it, and +that the Serpent supposed to have been killed on the Pulpit-Stairs +was a false show of the Daemon's Contrivance, he having come in to +listen to a Discourse which was a sweet Savour in his Nostrils, and, +of course, not being capable of being killed Himself. Others said, +however, that, though there was good Reason to think it was a Damon, +yet he did come with Intent to bite the Heel of that faithful +Servant,--etc. + +One Gilson is said to have died of the bite of a rattlesnake in this +town early in the present century. After this there was a great +snake-hunt, in which very many of these venomous beasts were killed, +--one in particular, said to have been as big round as a stout man's +arm, and to have had no less than forty joints to his rattle,-- +indicating, according to some, that he had lived forty years, but, if +we might put any faith in the Indian tradition, that he had killed +forty human beings,--an idle fancy, clearly. This hunt, however, had +no permanent effect in keeping down the serpent population. +Viviparous, creatures are a kind of specie-paying lot, but oviparous +ones only give their notes, as it were, for a future brood,--an egg +being, so to speak, a promise to pay a young one by and by, if +nothing happen. Now the domestic habits of the rattlesnake are not +studied very closely, for obvious reasons; but it is, no doubt, to +all intents and purposes oviparous. Consequently it has large +families, and is not easy to kill out. + +In the year 184-, a melancholy proof was afforded to the inhabitants +of Rockland, that the brood which infested The Mountain was not +extirpated. A very interesting young married woman, detained at home +at the time by the state of her health, was bitten in the entry of +her own house by a rattlesnake which had found its way down from The +Mountain. Owing to the almost instant employment of powerful +remedies, the bite did not prove immediately fatal; but she died +within a few months of the time when she was bitten. + +All this seemed to throw a lurid kind of shadow over The Mountain. +Yet, as many years passed without any accident, people grew +comparatively careless, and it might rather be said to add a fearful +kind of interest to the romantic hillside, that the banded reptiles, +which had been the terror of the red men for nobody knows how many +thousand years, were there still, with the same poison-bags and +spring-teeth at the white men's service, if they meddled with them. + +The other natural features of Rockland were such as many of our +pleasant country-towns can boast of. A brook came tumbling down the +mountain-side and skirted the most thickly settled portion of the +village. In the parts of its course where it ran through the woods, +the water looked almost as brown as coffee flowing from its urn,--to +say like smoky quartz would perhaps give a better idea,--but in the +open plain it sparkled over the pebbles white as a queen's diamonds. +There were huckleberry-pastures on the lower flanks of The Mountain, +with plenty of the sweet-scented bayberry mingled with the other +bushes. In other fields grew great store of high-bush blackberries. +Along the roadside were bayberry-bushes, hung all over with bright +red coral pendants in autumn and far into the winter. Then there +were swamps set thick with dingy alders, where the three-leaved arum +and the skunk's-cabbage grew broad and succulent, shelving down into +black boggy pools here and there at the edge of which the green frog, +stupidest of his tribe, sat waiting to be victimized by boy or +snapping-turtle long after the shy and agile leopard-frog had taken +the six-foot spring that plumped him into the middle of the pool. +And on the neighboring banks the maiden-hair spread its flat disk of +embroidered fronds on the wire-like stem that glistened polished and +brown as the darkest tortoise-shell, and pale violets, cheated by the +cold skies of their hues and perfume, sunned themselves like white- +cheeked invalids. Over these rose the old forest-trees,--the maple, +scarred with the wounds which had drained away its sweet life-blood, +--the beech, its smooth gray bark mottled so as to look like the body +of one of those great snakes of old that used to frighten armies, +always the mark of lovers' knives, as in the days of Musidora and her +swain,--the yellow birch, rough as the breast of Silenus in old +marbles,--the wild cherry, its little bitter fruit lying unheeded at +its foot,--and, soaring over all, the huge, coarse-barked, splintery- +limbed, dark-mantled hemlock, in the depth of whose aerial solitudes +the crow brooded on her nest unscared, and the gray squirrel lived +unharmed till his incisors grew to look like ram's-horns. + +Rockland would have been but half a town without its pond; Guinnepeg +Pond was the name of it, but the young ladies of the Apollinean +Institute were very anxious that it should be called Crystalline +Lake. It was here that the young folks used to sail in summer and +skate in winter; here, too, those queer, old, rum-scented good-for- +nothing, lazy, story-telling, half-vagabonds, who sawed a little wood +or dug a few potatoes now and then under the pretence of working for +their living, used to go and fish through the ice for pickerel every +winter. And here those three young people were drowned, a few +summers ago, by the upsetting of a sail-boat in a sudden flaw of +wind. There is not one of these smiling ponds which has not devoured +more youths and maidens than any of those monsters the ancients used +to tell such lies about. But it was a pretty pond, and never looked +more innocent--so the native "bard" of Rockland said in his elegy-- +than on the morning when they found Sarah Jane and Ellen Maria +floating among the lily-pads. + +The Apollinean Institute, or Institoot, as it was more commonly +called, was, in the language of its Prospectus, a "first-class +Educational Establishment." It employed a considerable corps of +instructors to rough out and finish the hundred young lady scholars +it sheltered beneath its roof. First, Mr. and Mrs. Peckham, the +Principal and the Matron of the school. Silas Peckham was a thorough +Yankee, born on a windy part of the coast, and reared chiefly on +salt-fish. Everybody knows the type of Yankee produced by this +climate and diet: thin, as if he had been split and dried; with an +ashen kind of complexion, like the tint of the food he is made of; +and about as sharp, tough, juiceless, and biting to deal with as the +other is to the taste. Silas Peckham kept a young ladies' school +exactly as he would have kept a hundred head of cattle,--for the +simple, unadorned purpose of making just as much money in just as few +years as could be safely done. Mr. Peckham gave very little personal +attention to the department of instruction, but was always busy with +contracts for flour and potatoes, beef and pork, and other nutritive +staples, the amount of which required for such an establishment was +enough to frighten a quartermaster. Mrs. Peckham was from the West, +raised on Indian corn and pork, which give a fuller outline and a +more humid temperament, but may perhaps be thought to render people a +little coarse-fibred. Her specialty was to look after the +feathering, cackling, roosting, rising, and general behavior of these +hundred chicks. An honest, ignorant woman, she could not have passed +an examination in the youngest class. So this distinguished +institution was under the charge of a commissary and a housekeeper, +and its real business was making money by taking young girls in as +boarders. + +Connected with this, however, was the incidental fact, which the +public took for the principal one, namely, the business of +instruction. Mr. Peckham knew well enough that it was just as well +to have good instructors as bad ones, so far as cost was concerned, +and a great deal better for the reputation of his feeding- +establishment. He tried to get the best he could without paying too +much, and, having got them, to screw all the work out of them that +could possibly be extracted. + +There was a master for the English branches, with a young lady +assistant. There was another young lady who taught French, of the +ahvaung and baundahng style, which does not exactly smack of the +asphalt of the Boulevards. There was also a German teacher of music, +who sometimes helped in French of the ahfaung and bauntaung style,-- +so that, between the two, the young ladies could hardly have been +mistaken for Parisians, by a Committee of the French Academy. The +German teacher also taught a Latin class after his fashion,--benna, a +ben, gahboot, ahead, and so forth. + +The master for the English branches had lately left the school for +private reasons, which need not be here mentioned,--but he had gone, +at any rate, and it was his place which had been offered to Mr. +Bernard Langdon. The offer came just in season,--as, for various +causes, he was willing to leave the place where he had begun his new +experience. + +It was on a fine morning that Mr. Bernard, ushered in by Mr. Peckham, +made his appearance in the great schoolroom of the Apollinean +Institute. A general rustle ran all round the seats when the +handsome young man was introduced. The principal carried him to the +desk of the young lady English assistant, Miss Darley by name, and +introduced him to her. + +There was not a great deal of study done that day. The young lady +assistant had to point out to the new master the whole routine in +which the classes were engaged when their late teacher left, and +which had gone on as well as it could since. Then Master Langdon had +a great many questions to ask, some relating to his new duties, and +some, perhaps, implying a degree of curiosity not very unnatural +under the circumstances. The truth is, the general effect of the +schoolroom, with its scores of young girls, all their eyes naturally +centring on him with fixed or furtive glances, was enough to bewilder +and confuse a young man like Master Langdon, though he was not +destitute of self-possession, as we have already seen. + +You cannot get together a hundred girls, taking them as they come, +from the comfortable and affluent classes, probably anywhere, +certainly not in New England, without seeing a good deal of beauty. +In fact, we very commonly mean by beauty the way young girls look +when there is nothing to hinder their looking as Nature meant them +to. And the great schoolroom of the Apollinean Institute did really +make so pretty a show on the morning when Master Langdon entered it, +that he might be pardoned for asking Miss Darley more questions about +his scholars than about their lessons. + +There were girls of all ages: little creatures, some pallid and +delicate-looking, the offspring of invalid parents,--much given to +books, not much to mischief, commonly spoken of as particularly good +children, and contrasted with another sort, girls of more vigorous +organization, who were disposed to laughing and play, and required a +strong hand to manage them; then young growing misses of every shade +of Saxon complexion, and here and there one of more Southern hue: +blondes, some of them so translucent-looking that it seemed as if you +could see the souls in their bodies, like bubbles in glass, if souls +were objects of sight; brunettes, some with rose-red colors, and some +with that swarthy hue which often carries with it a heavily-shaded +lip, and which, with pure outlines and outspoken reliefs, gives us +some of our handsomest women,--the women whom ornaments of plain gold +adorn more than any other parures; and again, but only here and +there, one with dark hair and gray or blue eyes, a Celtic type, +perhaps, but found in our native stock occasionally; rarest of all, a +light-haired girl with dark eyes, hazel, brown, or of the color of +that mountain-brook spoken of in this chapter, where it ran through +shadowy woodlands. With these were to be seen at intervals some of +maturer years, full-blown flowers among the opening buds, with that +conscious look upon their faces which so many women wear during the +period when they never meet a single man without having his +monosyllable ready for him,--tied as they are, poor things! on the +rock of expectation, each of them an Andromeda waiting for her +Perseus. + +"Who is that girl in ringlets,--the fourth in the third row on the +right?" said Master Langdon. + +"Charlotte Ann Wood," said Miss Darley; "writes very pretty poems." + +"Oh!--And the pink one, three seats from her? Looks bright; anything +in her?" + +"Emma Dean,--day-scholar,--Squire Dean's daughter,--nice girl,-- +second medal last year." + +The master asked these two questions in a careless kind of way, and +did not seem to pay any too much attention to the answers. + +"And who and what is that," he said,--"sitting a little apart +there,--that strange, wild-looking girl? " + +This time he put the real question he wanted answered;--the other two +were asked at random, as masks for the third. + +The lady-teacher's face changed;--one would have said she was +frightened or troubled. She looked at the girl doubtfully, as if she +might hear the master's question and its answer. But the girl did +not look up;--she was winding a gold chain about her wrist, and then +uncoiling it, as if in a kind of reverie. + +Miss Darley drew close to the master and placed her hand so as to +hide her lips. "Don't look at her as if we were talking about her," +she whispered softly; "that is Elsie Venner." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +AN OLD-FASHIONED DESCRIPTIVE CHAPTER. + +It was a comfort to get to a place with something like society, with +residences which had pretensions to elegance, with people of some +breeding, with a newspaper, and "stores" to advertise in it, and with +two or three churches to keep each other alive by wholesome +agitation. Rockland was such a place. + +Some of the natural features of the town have been described already. +The Mountain, of course, was what gave it its character, and redeemed +it from wearing the commonplace expression which belongs to ordinary +country-villages. Beautiful, wild, invested with the mystery which +belongs to untrodden spaces, and with enough of terror to give it +dignity, it had yet closer relations with the town over which it +brooded than the passing stranger knew of. Thus, it made a local +climate by cutting off the northern winds and holding the sun's heat +like a garden-wall. Peachtrees, which, on the northern side of the +mountain, hardly ever came to fruit, ripened abundant crops in +Rockland. + +But there was still another relation between the mountain and the +town at its foot, which strangers were not likely to hear alluded to, +and which was oftener thought of than spoken of by its inhabitants. +Those high-impending forests,--"hangers," as White of Selborne would +have called them,--sloping far upward and backward into the distance, +had always an air of menace blended with their wild beauty. It +seemed as if some heaven-scaling Titan had thrown his shaggy robe +over the bare, precipitous flanks of the rocky summit, and it might +at any moment slide like a garment flung carelessly on the nearest +chance-support, and, so sliding, crush the village out of being, as +the Rossberg when it tumbled over on the valley of Goldau. + +Persons have been known to remove from the place, after a short +residence in it, because they were haunted day and night by the +thought of this awful green wall, piled up into the air over their +heads. They would lie awake of nights, thinking they heard the +muffed snapping of roots, as if a thousand acres of the mountain-side +were tugging to break away, like the snow from a house-roof, and a +hundred thousand trees were clinging with all their fibres to hold +back the soil just ready to peel away and crash down with all its +rocks and forest-growths. And yet, by one of those strange +contradictions we are constantly finding in human nature, there were +natives of the town who would come back thirty or forty years after +leaving it, just to nestle under this same threatening mountainside, +as old men sun themselves against southward-facing walls. The old +dreams and legends of danger added to the attraction. If the +mountain should ever slide, they had a kind of feeling as if they +ought to be there. It was a fascination like that which the +rattlesnake is said to exert. + +This comparison naturally suggests the recollection of that other +source of danger which was an element in the every-day life of the +Rockland people. The folks in some of the neighboring towns had a +joke against them, that a Rocklander could n't hear a beanpod rattle +without saying, "The Lord have mercy on us! "It is very true, that +many a nervous old lady has had a terrible start, caused by some +mischievous young rogue's giving a sudden shake to one of these noisy +vegetable products in her immediate vicinity. Yet, strangely enough, +many persons missed the excitement of the possibility of a fatal bite +in other regions, where there were nothing but black and green and +striped snakes, mean ophidians, having the spite of the nobler +serpent without his venom,--poor crawling creatures, whom Nature +would not trust with a poison-bag. Many natives of Rockland did +unquestionably experience a certain gratification in this +infinitesimal sense of danger. It was noted that the old people +retained their hearing longer than in other places. Some said it was +the softened climate, but others believed it was owing to the habit +of keeping their ears open whenever they were walking through the +grass or in the woods. At any rate, a slight sense of danger is +often an agreeable stimulus. People sip their creme de noyau with a +peculiar tremulous pleasure, because there is a bare possibility that +it may contain prussic acid enough to knock them over; in which case +they will lie as dead as if a thunder-cloud had emptied itself into +the earth through their brain and marrow. + +But Rockland had other features which helped to give it a special +character. First of all, there was one grand street which was its +chief glory. Elm Street it was called, naturally enough, for its +elms made a long, pointed-arched gallery of it through most of its +extent. No natural Gothic arch compares, for a moment, with that +formed by two American elms, where their lofty jets of foliage shoot +across each other's ascending curves, to intermingle their showery +flakes of green. When one looks through a long double row of these, +as in that lovely avenue which the poets of Yale remember so well, + +"Oh, could the vista of my life but now as bright appear +As when I first through Temple Street looked down thine espalier!" + +he beholds a temple not built with hands, fairer than any minster, +with all its clustered stems and flowering capitals, that ever grew +in stone. + +Nobody knows New England who is not on terms of intimacy with one of +its elms. The elm comes nearer to having a soul than any other +vegetable creature among us. It loves man as man loves it. It is +modest and patient. It has a small flake of a seed which blows in +everywhere and makes arrangements for coming up by and by. So, in +spring, one finds a crop of baby-elms among his carrots and parsnips, +very weak and small compared to those succulent vegetables. The +baby-elms die, most of them, slain, unrecognized or unheeded, by hand +or hoe, as meekly as Herod's innocents. One of them gets overlooked, +perhaps, until it has established a kind of right to stay. Three +generations of carrot and parsnip consumers have passed away, +yourself among them, and now let your great-grandson look for the +baby-elm. Twenty-two feet of clean girth, three hundred and sixty +feet in the line that bounds its leafy circle, it covers the boy with +such a canopy as neither glossy-leafed oak nor insect-haunted linden +ever lifted into the summer skies. + +Elm Street was the pride of Rockland, but not only on account of its +Gothic-arched vista. In this street were most of the great houses, +or "mansion-houses," as it was usual to call them. Along this +street, also, the more nicely kept and neatly painted dwellings were +chiefly congregated. It was the correct thing for a Rockland +dignitary to have a house in Elm Street. A New England "mansion- +house" is naturally square, with dormer windows projecting from the +roof, which has a balustrade with turned posts round it. It shows a +good breadth of front-yard before its door, as its owner shows a +respectable expanse of a clean shirt-front. It has a lateral margin +beyond its stables and offices, as its master wears his white wrist +bands showing beyond his coat-cuffs. It may not have what can +properly be called grounds, but it must have elbow-room, at any rate. +Without it, it is like a man who is always tight-buttoned for want of +any linen to show. The mansion-house which has had to "button itself +up tight in fences, for want of green or gravel margin, will be +advertising for boarders presently. The old English pattern of the +New England mansion-house, only on a somewhat grander scale, is Sir +Thomas Abney's place, where dear, good Dr. Watts said prayers for the +family, and wrote those blessed hymns of his that sing us into +consciousness in our cradles, and come back to us in sweet, single +verses, between the moments of wandering and of stupor, when we lie +dying, and sound over us when we can no longer hear them, bringing +grateful tears to the hot, aching eyes beneath the thick, black +veils, and carrying the holy calm with them which filled the good +man's heart, as he prayed and sung under the shelter of the old +English mansion-house. Next to the mansion-houses, came the two- +story trim, white-painted, "genteel" houses, which, being more +gossipy and less nicely bred, crowded close up to the street, instead +of standing back from it with arms akimbo, like the mansion-houses. +Their little front-yards were very commonly full of lilac and syringa +and other bushes, which were allowed to smother the lower story +almost to the exclusion of light and airy so that, what with small +windows and small windowpanes, and the darkness made by these choking +growths of shrubbery, the front parlors of some of these houses were +the most tomb-like, melancholy places that could be found anywhere +among the abodes of the living. Their garnishing was apt to assist +this impression. Large-patterned carpets, which always look +discontented in little rooms, haircloth furniture, black and shiny as +beetles' wing cases, and centre-tables, with a sullen oil-lamp of the +kind called astral by our imaginative ancestors, in the centre,-- +these things were inevitable. In set piles round the lamp was ranged +the current literature of the day, in the form of Temperance +Documents, unbound numbers of one of the Unknown Public's Magazines +with worn-out steel engravings and high-colored fashion-plates, the +Poems of a distinguished British author whom it is unnecessary to +mention, a volume of sermons, or a novel or two, or both, according +to the tastes of the family, and the Good Book, which is always +Itself in the cheapest and commonest company. The father of the +family with his hand in the breast of his coat, the mother of the +same in a wide-bordered cap, sometimes a print of the Last Supper, by +no means Morghen's, or the Father of his Country, or the old General, +or the Defender of the Constitution, or an unknown clergyman with an +open book before him,--these were the usual ornaments of the walls, +the first two a matter of rigor, the others according to politics and +other tendencies. + +This intermediate class of houses, wherever one finds them in New +England towns, are very apt to be cheerless and unsatisfactory. They +have neither the luxury of the mansion-house nor the comfort of the +farm-house. They are rarely kept at an agreeable temperature. The +mansion-house has large fireplaces and generous chimneys, and is open +to the sunshine. The farm-house makes no pretensions, but it has a +good warm kitchen, at any rate, and one can be comfortable there with +the rest of the family, without fear and without reproach. These +lesser country-houses of genteel aspirations are much given to patent +subterfuges of one kind and another to get heat without combustion. +The chilly parlor and the slippery hair-cloth seat take the life out +of the warmest welcome. If one would make these places wholesome, +happy, and cheerful, the first precept would be,--The dearest fuel, +plenty of it, and let half the heat go up the chimney. If you can't +afford this, don't try to live in a "genteel " fashion, but stick to +the ways of the honest farm-house. + +There were a good many comfortable farm-houses scattered about +Rockland. The best of them were something of the following pattern, +which is too often superseded of late by a more pretentious, but +infinitely less pleasing kind of rustic architecture. A little back +from the road, seated directly on the green sod, rose a plain wooden +building, two stories in front, with a long roof sloping backwards to +within a few feet of the ground. This, like the "mansion-house," is +copied from an old English pattern. Cottages of this model may be +seen in Lancashire, for instance, always with the same honest, homely +look, as if their roofs acknowledged their relationship to the soil +out of which they sprung. The walls were unpainted, but turned by +the slow action of sun and air and rain to a quiet dove or slate +color. An old broken millstone at the door,--a well-sweep pointing +like a finger to the heavens, which the shining round of water +beneath looked up at like a dark unsleeping eye,--a single large elm +a little at one side,--a barn twice as big as the house,--a cattle- +yard, with + + "The white horns tossing above the wall,"-- + +some fields, in pasture or in crops, with low stone walls round +them,--a row of beehives,--a gardenpatch, with roots, and currant- +bushes, and many-hued hollyhocks, and swollen-stemmed, globe-headed, +seedling onions, and marigolds and flower-de-luces, and lady's- +delights, and peonies, crowding in together, with southernwood in the +borders, and woodbine and hops and morning-glories climbing as they +got a chance,--these were the features by which the Rockland-born +children remembered the farm-house, when they had grown to be men. +Such are the recollections that come over poor sailor-boys crawling +out on reeling yards to reef topsails as their vessels stagger round +the stormy Cape; and such are the flitting images that make the eyes +of old country-born merchants look dim and dreamy, as they sit in +their city palaces, warm with the after-dinner flush of the red wave +out of which Memory arises, as Aphrodite arose from the green waves +of the ocean. + +Two meeting-houses stood on two eminences, facing each other, and +looking like a couple of fighting-cocks with their necks straight up +in the air,--as if they would flap their roofs, the next thing, and +crow out of their upstretched steeples, and peck at each other's +glass eyes with their sharp-pointed weathercocks. + +The first was a good pattern of the real old-fashioned New England +meeting-house. It was a large barn with windows, fronted by a square +tower crowned with a kind of wooden bell inverted and raised on legs, +out of which rose a slender spire with the sharp-billed weathercock +at its summit. Inside, tall, square pews with flapping seats, and a +gallery running round three sides of the building. On the fourth +side the pulpit, with a huge, dusty sounding-board hanging over it. +Here preached the Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D. D., successor, +after a number of generations, to the office and the parsonage of the +Reverend Didymus Bean, before mentioned, but not suspected of any of +his alleged heresies. He held to the old faith of the Puritans, and +occasionally delivered a discourse which was considered by the hard- +headed theologians of his parish to have settled the whole matter +fully and finally, so that now there was a good logical basis laid +down for the Millennium, which might begin at once upon the platform +of his demonstrations. Yet the Reverend Dr. Honeywood was fonder of +preaching plain, practical sermons about the duties of life, and +showing his Christianity in abundant good works among his people. It +was noticed by some few of his flock, not without comment, that the +great majority of his texts came from the Gospels, and this more and +more as he became interested in various benevolent enterprises which +brought him into relations with-ministers and kindhearted laymen of +other denominations. He was in fact a man of a very warm, open, and +exceedingly human disposition, and, although bred by a clerical +father, whose motto was "Sit anima mea cum Puritanis," he exercised +his human faculties in the harness of his ancient faith with such +freedom that the straps of it got so loose they did not interfere +greatly with the circulation of the warm blood through his system. +Once in a while he seemed to think it necessary to come out with a +grand doctrinal sermon, and them he would lapse away for a while into +preaching on men's duties to each other and to society, and hit hard, +perhaps, at some of the actual vices of the time and place, and +insist with such tenderness and eloquence on the great depth and +breadth of true Christian love and charity, that his oldest deacon +shook his head, and wished he had shown as much interest when he was +preaching, three Sabbaths back, on Predestinaticn, or in his +discourse against the Sabellians. But he was sound in the faith; no +doubt of that. Did he not preside at the council held in the town of +Tamarack, on the other side of the mountain, which expelled its +clergyman for maintaining heretical doctrines? As presiding officer, +he did not vote, of course, but there was no doubt that he was all +right; he had some of the Edwards blood in him, and that couldn't +very well let him go wrong. + +The meeting-house on the other and opposite summit was of a more +modern style, considered by many a great improvement on the old New +England model, so that it is not uncommon for a country parish to +pull down its old meeting-house, which has been preached in for a +hundred years or so, and put up one of these more elegant edifices. +The new building was in what may be called the florid shingle-Gothic +manner. Its pinnacles and crockets and other ornaments were, like +the body of the building, all of pine wood,--an admirable material, +as it is very soft and easily worked, and can be painted of any color +desired. Inside, the walls were stuccoed in imitation of stone,-- +first a dark brown square, then two light brown squares, then another +dark brown square, and so on, to represent the accidental differences +of shade always noticeable in the real stones of which walls are +built. To be sure, the architect could not help getting his party- +colored squares in almost as regular rhythmical order as those of a +chess-board; but nobody can avoid doing things in a systematic and +serial way; indeed, people who wish to plant trees in natural chimps +know very well that they cannot keep from making regular lines and +symmetrical figures, unless by some trick or other, as that one of +throwing a peck of potatoes up into the air and sticking in a tree +wherever a potato happens to fall. The pews of this meeting-house +were the usual oblong ones, where people sit close together, with a +ledge before them to support their hymn-books, liable only to +occasional contact with the back of the next pew's heads or bonnets, +and a place running under the seat of that pew where hats could be +deposited,--always at the risk of the owner, in case of injury by +boots or crickets. + +In this meeting-house preached the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather, a +divine of the "Liberal" school, as it is commonly called, bred at +that famous college which used to be thought, twenty or thirty years +ago, to have the monopoly of training young men in the milder forms +of heresy. His ministrations were attended with decency, but not +followed with enthusiasm. "The beauty of virtue" got to be an old +story at last. "The moral dignity of human nature" ceased to excite +a thrill of satisfaction, after some hundred repetitions. It grew to +be a dull business, this preaching against stealing and intemperance, +while he knew very well that the thieves were prowling round orchards +and empty houses, instead of being there to hear the sermon, and that +the drunkards, being rarely church-goers, get little good by the +statistics and eloquent appeals of the preacher. Every now and then, +however, the Reverend Mr. Fairweather let off a polemic discourse +against his neighbor opposite, which waked his people up a little; +but it was a languid congregation, at best,--very apt to stay away +from meeting in the afternoon, and not at all given to extra evening +services. The minister, unlike his rival of the other side of the +way, was a down-hearted and timid kind of man. He went on preaching +as he had been taught to preach, but he had misgivings at times. +There was a little Roman Catholic church at the foot of the hill +where his own was placed, which he always had to pass on Sundays. He +could never look on the thronging multitudes that crowded its pews +and aisles or knelt bare-headed on its steps, without a longing to +get in among them and go down on his knees and enjoy that luxury of +devotional contact which makes a worshipping throng as different from +the same numbers praying apart as a bed of coals is from a trail of +scattered cinders. + +"Oh, if I could but huddle in with those poor laborers and working- +women! "he would say to himself. "If I could but breathe that +atmosphere, stifling though it be, yet made holy by ancient litanies, +and cloudy with the smoke of hallowed incense, for one hour, instead +of droning over these moral precepts to my half-sleeping +congregation!" The intellectual isolation of his sect preyed upon +him; for, of all terrible things to natures like his, the most +terrible is to belong to a minority. No person that looked at his +thin and sallow cheek, his sunken and sad eye, his tremulous lip, his +contracted forehead, or who heard his querulous, though not unmusical +voice, could fail to see that his life was an uneasy one, that he was +engaged in some inward conflict. His dark, melancholic aspect +contrasted with his seemingly cheerful creed, and was all the more +striking, as the worthy Dr. Honeywood, professing a belief which made +him a passenger on board a shipwrecked planet, was yet a most good- +humored and companionable gentleman, whose laugh on week-days did one +as much good to listen to as the best sermon he ever delivered on a +Sunday. + +A mile or two from the centre of Rockland was a pretty little +Episcopal church, with a roof like a wedge of cheese, a square tower, +a stained window, and a trained rector, who read the service with +such ventral depth of utterance and rrreduplication of the rrresonant +letter, that his own mother would not have known him for her son, if +the good woman had not ironed his surplice and put it on with her own +hands. + +There were two public-houses in the place: one dignified with the +name of the Mountain House, somewhat frequented by city people in the +summer months, large-fronted, three-storied, balconied, boasting a +distinct ladies'-drawing-room, and spreading a table d'hote of some +pretensions; the other, "Pollard's Tahvern," in the common speech,--a +two-story building, with a bar-room, once famous, where there was a +great smell of hay and boots and pipes and all other bucolic-flavored +elements,--where games of checkers were played on the back of the +bellows with red and white kernels of corn, or with beans and coffee, +where a man slept in a box-settle at night, to wake up early +passengers,--where teamsters came in, with wooden-handled whips and +coarse frocks, reinforcing the bucolic flavor of the atmosphere, and +middle-aged male gossips, sometimes including the squire of the +neighboring law-office, gathered to exchange a question or two about +the news, and then fall into that solemn state of suspended animation +which the temperance bar-rooms of modern days produce in human +beings, as the Grotta del Cane does in dogs in the well-known +experiments related by travellers. This bar-room used to be famous +for drinking and storytelling, and sometimes fighting, in old times. +That was when there were rows of decanters on the shelf behind the +bar, and a hissing vessel of hot water ready, to make punch, and +three or four loggerheads (long irons clubbed at the end) were always +lying in the fire in the cold season, waiting to be plunged into +sputtering and foaming mugs of flip,--a goodly compound; speaking +according to the flesh, made with beer and sugar, and a certain +suspicion of strong waters, over which a little nutmeg being grated, +and in it the hot iron being then allowed to sizzle, there results a +peculiar singed aroma, which the wise regard as a warning to remove +themselves at once out of the reach of temptation. + +But the bar of Pollard's Tahvern no longer presented its old +attractions, and the loggerheads had long disappeared from the fire. +In place of the decanters, were boxes containing "lozengers," as they +were commonly called, sticks of candy in jars, cigars in tumblers, a +few lemons, grown hard-skinned and marvellously shrunken by long +exposure, but still feebly suggestive of possible lemonade,--the +whole ornamented by festoons of yellow and blue cut flypaper. On the +front shelf of the bar stood a large German-silver pitcher of water, +and scattered about were ill-conditioned lamps, with wicks that +always wanted picking, which burned red and smoked a good deal, and +were apt to go out without any obvious cause, leaving strong +reminiscences of the whale-fishery in the circumambient air. + +The common schoolhouses of Rockland were dwarfed by the grandeur of +the Apollinean Institute. The master passed one of them, in a walk +he was taking, soon after his arrival at Rockland. He looked in at + +the rows of desks, and recalled his late experiences. He could not +help laughing, as he thought how neatly he had knocked the young +butcher off his pins. + +"A little science is a dangerous thing,' as well as a little +'learning,'" he said to himself; "only it's dangerous to the fellow +you' try it on." And he cut him a good stick, and began climbing the +side of The Mountain to get a look at that famous Rattlesnake Ledge. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE SUNBEAM AND THE SHADOW. + +The virtue of the world is not mainly in its leaders. In the midst +of the multitude which follows there is often something better than +in the one that goes before. Old generals wanted to take Toulon, but +one of their young colonels showed them how. The junior counsel has +been known not unfrequently to make a better argument than his senior +fellow,--if, indeed, he did not make both their arguments. Good +ministers will tell you they have parishioners who beat them in the +practice of the virtues. A great establishment, got up on commercial +principles, like the Apollinean Institute, might yet be well carried +on, if it happened to get good teachers. And when Master Langdon +came to see its management, he recognized that there must be fidelity +and intelligence somewhere among the instructors. It was only +necessary to look for a moment at the fair, open forehead, the still, +tranquil eye of gentle, habitual authority, the sweet gravity that +lay upon the lips, to hear the clear answers to the pupils' +questions, to notice how every request had the force without the form +of a command, and the young man could not doubt that the good genius +of the school stood before him in the person of Helen barley. + +It was the old story. A poor country-clergyman dies, and leaves a +widow and a daughter. In Old England the daughter would have eaten +the bitter bread of a governess in some rich family. In New England +she must keep a school. So, rising from one sphere to another, she +at length finds herself the prima donna in the department of +instruction in Mr. Silas Peckham's educational establishment. + +What a miserable thing it is to be poor. She was dependent, frail, +sensitive, conscientious. She was in the power of a hard, grasping, +thin-blooded, tough-fibred, trading educator, who neither knew nor +cared for a tender woman's sensibilities, but who paid her and meant +to have his money's worth out of her brains, and as much more than +his money's worth as he could get. She was consequently, in plain +English, overworked, and an overworked woman is always a sad sight,-- +sadder a great deal than an overworked man, because she is so much +more fertile in capacities of suffering than a man. She has so many +varieties of headache,--sometimes as if Jael were driving the nail +that killed Sisera into her temples,--sometimes letting her work with +half her brain while the other half throbs as if it would go to +pieces,--sometimes tightening round the brows as if her cap-band were +a ring of iron,--and then her neuralgias, and her backaches, and her +fits of depression, in which she thinks she is nothing and less than +nothing, and those paroxysms which men speak slightingly of as +hysterical,--convulsions, that is all, only not commonly fatal ones, +--so many trials which belong to her fine and mobile structure,--that +she is always entitled to pity, when she is placed in conditions +which develop her nervous tendencies. + +The poor young lady's work had, of course, been doubled since the +departure of Master Langdon's predecessor. Nobody knows what the +weariness of instruction is, as soon as the teacher's faculties begin +to be overtasked, but those who have tried it. The relays of fresh +pupils, each new set with its exhausting powers in full action, +coming one after another, take out all the reserved forces and +faculties of resistance from the subject of their draining process. + +The day's work was over, and it was late in the evening, when she sat +down, tired and faint, with a great bundle of girls' themes or +compositions to read over before she could rest her weary head on the +pillow of her narrow trundle-bed, and forget for a while the +treadmill stair of labor she was daily climbing. + +How she dreaded this most forlorn of all a teacher's tasks! She was +conscientious in her duties, and would insist on reading every +sentence,--there was no saying where she might find faults of grammar +or bad spelling. There might have been twenty or thirty of these +themes in the bundle before her. Of course she knew pretty well the +leading sentiments they could contain: that beauty was subject to the +accidents of time; that wealth was inconstant, and existence +uncertain; that virtue was its own reward; that youth exhaled, like +the dewdrop from the flower, ere the sun had reached its meridian; +that life was o'ershadowed with trials; that the lessons of virtue +instilled by our beloved teachers were to be our guides through all +our future career. The imagery employed consisted principally of +roses, lilies, birds, clouds, and brooks, with the celebrated +comparison of wayward genius to meteor. Who does not know the small, +slanted, Italian hand of these girls'-compositions, their stringing +together of the good old traditional copy-book phrases; their +occasional gushes of sentiment, their profound estimates of the +world, sounding to the old folks that read them as the experience of +a bantam pullet's last-hatched young one with the chips of its shell +on its head would sound to a Mother Cary's chicken, who knew the +great ocean with all its typhoons and tornadoes? Yet every now and +then one is liable to be surprised with strange clairvoyant flashes, +that can hardly be explained, except by the mysterious inspiration +which every now and then seizes a young girl and exalts her +intelligence, just as hysteria in other instances exalts the +sensibility,--a little something of that which made Joan of Arc, and +the Burney girl who prophesied "Evelina," and the Davidson sisters. +In the midst of these commonplace exercises which Miss Darley read +over so carefully were two or three that had something of individual +flavor about them, and here and there there was an image or an +epithet which showed the footprint of a passionate nature, as a +fallen scarlet feather marks the path the wild flamingo has trodden. + +The young lady-teacher read them with a certain indifference of +manner, as one reads proofs--noting defects of detail, but not +commonly arrested by the matters treated of. Even Miss Charlotte Ann +Wood's poem, beginning + + "How sweet at evening's balmy hour," + +did not excite her. She marked the inevitable false rhyme of Cockney +and Yankee beginners, morn and dawn, and tossed the verses on the +pile of papers she had finished. She was looking over some of the +last of them in a rather listless way,--for the poor thing was +getting sleepy in spite of herself,--when she came to one which +seemed to rouse her attention, and lifted her drooping lids. She +looked at it a moment before she would touch it. Then she took hold +of it by one corner and slid it off from the rest. One would have +said she was afraid of it, or had some undefined antipathy which made +it hateful to her. Such odd fancies are common enough in young +persons in her nervous state. Many of these young people will jump +up twenty times a day and run to dabble the tips of their fingers in +water, after touching the most inoffensive objects. + +This composition was written in a singular, sharp-pointed, long, +slender hand, on a kind of wavy, ribbed paper. There was something +strangely suggestive about the look of it, but exactly of what, Miss +barley either could not or did not try to think. The subject of the +paper was The Mountain,--the composition being a sort of descriptive +rhapsody. It showed a startling familiarity with some of the savage +scenery of the region. One would have said that the writer must have +threaded its wildest solitudes by the light of the moon and stars as +well as by day. As the teacher read on, her color changed, and a +kind of tremulous agitation came over her. There were hints in this +strange paper she did not know what to make of. There was something +in its descriptions and imagery that recalled,--Miss Darley could not +say what,--but it made her frightfully nervous. Still she could not +help reading, till she came to one passage which so agitated her, +that the tired and over-wearied girl's self-control left her +entirely. She sobbed once or twice, then laughed convulsively; and +flung herself on the bed, where she worked out a set hysteric spasm +as she best might, without anybody to rub her hands and see that she +did not hurt herself. + +By and by she got quiet, rose and went to her bookcase, took down a +volume of Coleridge, and read a short time, and so to bed, to sleep +and wake from time to time with a sudden start out of uneasy dreams. + +Perhaps it is of no great consequence what it was in the composition +which set her off into this nervous paroxysm. She was in such a +state that almost any slight agitation would have brought on the +attack, and it was the accident of her transient excitability, very +probably, which made a trifling cause the seeming occasion of so much +disturbance. The theme was signed, in the same peculiar, sharp, +slender hand, E. Venner, and was, of course, written by that wild- +looking girl who had excited the master's curiosity and prompted his +question, as before mentioned. The next morning the lady-teacher +looked pale and wearied, naturally enough, but she was in her place +at the usual hour, and Master Langdon in his own. + +The girls had not yet entered the school room. + +"You have been ill, I am afraid," said Mr. Bernard. + +"I was not well yesterday," she, answered. "I had a worry and a kind +of fright. It is so dreadful to have the charge of all these young +souls and bodies. Every young girl ought to walk locked close, arm +in arm, between two guardian angels. Sometimes I faint almost with +the thought of all that I ought to do, and of my own weakness and +wants. --Tell me, are there not natures born so out of parallel with +the lines of natural law that nothing short of a miracle can bring +them right?" + +Mr. Bernard had speculated somewhat, as all thoughtful persons of his +profession are forced to do, on the innate organic tendencies with +which individuals, families, and races are born. He replied, +therefore, with a smile, as one to whom the question suggested a very +familiar class of facts. + +"Why, of course. Each of us is only the footing-up of a double +column of figures that goes back to the first pair. Every unit +tells,--and some of them are plus, and some minus. If the columns +don't add up right, it is commonly because we can't make out all the +figures. I don't mean to say that something may not be added by +Nature to make up for losses and keep the race to its average, but we +are mainly nothing but the answer to a long sum in addition and +subtraction. No doubt there are people born with impulses at every +possible angle to the parallels of Nature, as you call them. If they +happen to cut these at right angles, of course they are beyond the +reach of common influences. Slight obliquities are what we have most +to do with in education. Penitentiaries and insane asylums take care +of most of the right-angle cases. --I am afraid I have put it too +much like a professor, and I am only a student, you know. Pray, what +set you to asking me this? Any strange cases among the scholars?" + +The meek teacher's blue eyes met the luminous glance that came with +the question. She, too, was of gentle blood,--not meaning by that +that she was of any noted lineage, but that she came of a cultivated +stock, never rich, but long trained to intellectual callings. A +thousand decencies, amenities, reticences, graces, which no one +thinks of until he misses them, are the traditional right of those +who spring from such families. And when two persons of this +exceptional breeding meet in the midst of the common multitude, they +seek each other's company at once by the natural law of elective +affinity. It is wonderful how men and women know their peers. If +two stranger queens, sole survivors of two shipwrecked vessels, were +cast, half-naked, on a rock together, each would at once address the +other as "Our Royal Sister." + +Helen Darley looked into the dark eyes of Bernard Langdon glittering +with the light which flashed from them with his question. Not as +those foolish, innocent country-girls of the small village did she +look into them, to be fascinated and bewildered, but to sound them +with a calm, steadfast purpose. "A gentleman," she said to herself, +as she read his expression and his features with a woman's rapid, but +exhausting glance. "A lady," he said to himself, as he met her +questioning look,--so brief, so quiet, yet so assured, as of one whom +necessity had taught to read faces quickly without offence, as +children read the faces of parents, as wives read the faces of hard- +souled husbands. All this was but a few seconds' work, and yet the +main point was settled. If there had been any vulgar curiosity or +coarseness of any kind lurking in his expression, she would have +detected it. If she had not lifted her eyes to his face so softly +and kept them there so calmly and withdrawn them so quietly, he would +not have said to himself, "She is a LADY," for that word meant a good +deal to the descendant of the courtly Wentworths and the scholarly +Langdons. + +"There are strange people everywhere, Mr. Langdon," she said, "and I +don't think our schoolroom is an exception. I am glad you believe in +the force of transmitted tendencies. It would break my heart, if I +did not think that there are faults beyond the reach of everything +but God's special grace. I should die, if I thought that my +negligence or incapacity was alone responsible for the errors and +sins of those I have charge of. Yet there are mysteries I do not +know how to account for." She looked all round the schoolroom, and +then said, in a whisper, "Mr. Langdon, we had a girl that stole, in +the school, not long ago. Worse than that, we had a girl who tried +to set us on fire. Children of good people, both of them. And we +have a girl now that frightens me so"-- + +The door opened, and three misses came in to take their seats: three +types, as it happened, of certain classes, into which it would not +have been difficult to distribute the greater number of the girls in +the school.---Hannah Martin. Fourteen years and three months old. +Short-necked, thick-waisted, round-cheeked, smooth, vacant forehead, +large, dull eyes. Looks good-natured, with little other expression. +Three buns in her bag, and a large apple. Has a habit of attacking +her provisions in school-hours. --Rosa Milburn. Sixteen. Brunette, +with a rare-ripe flush in her cheeks. Color comes and goes easily. +Eyes wandering, apt to be downcast. Moody at times. Said to be +passionate, if irritated. Finished in high relief. Carries +shoulders well back and walks well, as if proud of her woman's life, +with a slight rocking movement, being one of the wide-flanged +pattern, but seems restless,--a hard girl to look after. Has a +romance in her pocket, which she means to read in school-time. +--Charlotte Ann Wood. Fifteen. The poetess before mentioned. Long, +light ringlets, pallid complexion, blue eyes. Delicate child, half +unfolded. Gentle, but languid and despondent. Does not go much with +the other girls, but reads a good deal, especially poetry, +underscoring favorite passages. Writes a great many verses, very +fast, not very correctly; full of the usual human sentiments, +expressed in the accustomed phrases. Under-vitalized. Sensibilities +not covered with their normal integuments. A negative condition, +often confounded with genius, and sometimes running into it. Young +people who fall out of line through weakness of the active faculties +are often confounded with those who step out of it through strength +of the intellectual ones. + +The girls kept coming in, one after another, or in pairs or groups, +until the schoolroom was nearly full. Then there was a little pause, +and a light step was heard in the passage. The lady-teacher's eyes +turned to the door, and the master's followed them in the same +direction. + +A girl of about seventeen entered. She was tall and slender, but +rounded, with a peculiar undulation of movement, such as one +sometimes sees in perfectly untutored country-girls, whom Nature, the +queen of graces, has taken in hand, but more commonly in connection +with the very highest breeding of the most thoroughly trained +society. She was a splendid scowling beauty, black-browed, with a +flash of white teeth which was always like a surprise when her lips +parted. She wore a checkered dress, of a curious pattern, and a +camel's-hair scarf twisted a little fantastically about her. She +went to her seat, which she had moved a short distance apart from the +rest, and, sitting down, began playing listlessly with her gold +chain, as was a common habit with her, coiling it and uncoiling it +about her slender wrist, and braiding it in with her long, delicate +fingers. Presently she looked up. Black, piercing eyes, not large, +--a low forehead, as low as that of Clytie in the Townley bust,-- +black hair, twisted in heavy braids,--a face that one could not help +looking at for its beauty, yet that one wanted to look away from for +something in its expression, and could not for those diamond eyes. +They were fixed on the lady-teacher now. The latter turned her own +away, and let them wander over the other scholars.'4 But they could +not help coming back again for a sin gle glance at the wild beauty. +The diamond eyes were on her still. She turned the leaves of several +of her books, as if in search of some passage, and, when she thought +she had waited long enough to be safe, once more stole a quick look +at the dark girl. The diamond eyes were still upon her. She put her +kerchief to her forehead, which had grown,slightly moist; she sighed +once, almost shivered, for she felt cold; then, following some ill- +defined impulse, which she could not resist, she left her place and +went to the young girl's desk. + +"What do you want of me, Elsie Venner?" It was a strange question to +put, for the girl had not signified that she wished the teacher to +come to her. + +"Nothing," she said. "I thought I could make you come." The girl +spoke in a low tone, a kind of half-whisper. She did not lisp, yet +her articulation of one or two consonants was not absolutely perfect. + +"Where did you get that flower, Elsie?" said Miss Darley. It was a +rare alpine flower, which was found only in one spot among the rocks +of The Mountain. + +"Where it grew," said Elsie Veneer. "Take it." The teacher could not +refuse her. The girl's finger tips touched hers as she took it. How +cold they were for a girl of such an organization! + +The teacher went back to her seat. She made an excuse for quitting +the schoolroom soon afterwards. The first thing she did was to fling +the flower into her fireplace and rake the ashes over it. The second +was to wash the tips of her fingers, as if she had been another Lady +Macbeth. A poor, over-tasked, nervous creature,--we must not think +too much of her fancies. + +After school was done, she finished the talk with the master which +had been so suddenly interrupted. There were things spoken of which +may prove interesting by and by, but there are other matters we must +first attend to. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE EVENT OF THE SEASON. + +"Mr. and Mrs. Colonel Sprowle's compliments to Mr. Langdon and +requests the pleasure of his company at a social entertainment on +Wednesday evening next. + +" Elm St. Monday." + + +On paper of a pinkish color and musky smell, with a large "S" at the +top, and an embossed border. Envelop adherent, not sealed. +Addressed + + LANGDON ESQ. + Present. + +Brought by H. Frederic Sprowle, youngest son of the Colonel,--the H. +of course standing for the paternal Hezekiah, put in to please the +father, and reduced to its initial to please the mother, she having a +marked preference for Frederic. Boy directed to wait for an answer. + +"Mr. Langdon has the pleasure of accepting Mr. and Mrs. Colonel +Sprowle's polite invitation for Wednesday evening." + +On plain paper, sealed with an initial. + +In walking along the main street, Mr. Bernard had noticed a large +house of some pretensions to architectural display, namely, +unnecessarily projecting eaves, giving it a mushroomy aspect, wooden +mouldings at various available points, and a grandiose arched +portico. It looked a little swaggering by the side of one or two of +the mansion-houses that were not far from it, was painted too bright +for Mr. Bernard's taste, had rather too fanciful a fence before it, +and had some fruit-trees planted in the front-yard, which to this +fastidious young gentleman implied a defective sense of the fitness +of things, not promising in people who lived in so large a house, +with a mushroom roof and a triumphal arch for its entrance. + +This place was known as "Colonel Sprowle's villa," (genteel +friends,)--as "the elegant residence of our distinguished fellow- +citizen, Colonel Sprowle," (Rockland Weekly Universe,)--as "the neew +haouse," (old settlers,)--as "Spraowle's Folly, "(disaffected and +possibly envious neighbors,)--and in common discourse, as "the +Colonel's." + +Hezekiah Sprowle, Esquire, Colonel Sprowle of the Commonwealth's +Militia, was a retired "merchant." An India merchant he might, +perhaps, have been properly called; for he used to deal in West India +goods, such as coffee, sugar, and molasses, not to speak of rum,-- +also in tea, salt fish, butter and cheese, oil and candles, dried +fruit, agricultural "p'doose " generally, industrial products, such +as boots and shoes, and various kinds of iron and wooden ware, and at +one end of the establishment in calicoes and other stuffs,--to say +nothing of miscellaneous objects of the most varied nature, from +sticks of candy, which tempted in the smaller youth with coppers in +their fists, up to ornamental articles of apparel, pocket-books, +breast-pins, gilt-edged Bibles, stationery, in short, everything +which was like to prove seductive to the rural population. The +Colonel had made money in trade, and also by matrimony. He had +married Sarah, daughter and heiress of the late Tekel Jordan, Esq., +an old miser, who gave the town-clock, which carries his name to +posterity in large gilt letters as a generous benefactor of his +native place. In due time the Colonel reaped the reward of well- +placed affections. When his wife's inheritance fell in, he thought +he had money enough to give up trade, and therefore sold out his +"store," called in some dialects of the English language shop, and +his business. + +Life became pretty hard work to him, of course, as soon as he had +nothing particular to do. Country people with money enough not to +have to work are in much more danger than city people in the same +condition. They get a specific look and character, which are the +same in all the villages where one studies them. They very commonly +fall into a routine, the basis of which is going to some lounging- +place or other, a bar-room, a reading-room, or something of the kind. +They grow slovenly in dress, and wear the same hat forever. They +have a feeble curiosity for news perhaps, which they take daily as a +man takes his bitters, and then fall silent and think they are +thinking. But the mind goes out under this regimen, like a fire +without a draught; and it is not very strange, if the instinct of +mental self-preservation drives them to brandy-and-water, which makes +the hoarse whisper of memory musical for a few brief moments, and +puts a weak leer of promise on the features of the hollow-eyed +future. The Colonel was kept pretty well in hand as yet by his wife, +and though it had happened to him once or twice to come home rather +late at night with a curious tendency to say the same thing twice and +even three times over, it had always been in very cold weather,--and +everybody knows that no one is safe to drink a couple of glasses of +wine in a warm room and go suddenly out into the cold air. + +Miss Matilda Sprowle, sole daughter of the house, had reached the age +at which young ladies are supposed in technical language to have come +out, and thereafter are considered to be in company. + +"There's one piece o' goods," said the Colonel to his wife, "that we +ha'n't disposed of, nor got a customer for yet. That 's Matildy. I +don't mean to set HER up at vaandoo. I guess she can have her pick +of a dozen." + +"She 's never seen anybody yet," said Mrs. Sprowle, who had had a +certain project for some time, but had kept quiet about it. "Let's +have a party, and give her a chance to show herself and see some of +the young folks." + +The Colonel was not very clear-headed, and he thought, naturally +enough, that the party was his own suggestion, because his remark led +to the first starting of the idea. He entered into the plan, +therefore, with a feeling of pride as well as pleasure, and the great +project was resolved upon in a family council without a dissentient +voice. This was the party, then, to which Mr. Bernard was going. +The town had been full of it for a week. "Everybody was asked." So +everybody said that was invited. But how in respect of those who +were not asked? If it had been one of the old mansion-houses that +was giving a party, the boundary between the favored and the slighted +families would have been known pretty well beforehand, and there +would have been no great amount of grumbling. But the Colonel, for +all his title, had a forest of poor relations and a brushwood swamp +of shabby friends, for he had scrambled up to fortune, and now the +time was come when he must define his new social position. + +This is always an awkward business in town or country. An exclusive +alliance between two powers is often the same thing as a declaration +of war against a third. Rockland was soon split into a triumphant +minority, invited to Mrs. Sprowle's party, and a great majority, +uninvited, of which the fraction just on the border line between +recognized "gentility" and the level of the ungloved masses was in an +active state of excitement and indignation. + +"Who is she, I should like to know?" said Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's +wife. "There was plenty of folks in Rockland as good as ever Sally +Jordan was, if she had managed to pick up a merchant. Other folks +could have married merchants, if their families was n't as wealthy as +them old skinflints that willed her their money," etc., etc. Mrs. +Saymore expressed the feeling of many beside herself. She had, +however, a special right to be proud of the name she bore. Her +husband was own cousin to the Saymores of Freestone Avenue (who write +the name Seymour, and claim to be of the Duke of Somerset's family, +showing a clear descent from the Protector to Edward Seymour, +(1630,)--then a jump that would break a herald's neck to one Seth +Saymore,(1783,)--from whom to the head of the present family the line +is clear again). Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's wife, was not invited, +because her husband mended clothes. If he had confined himself +strictly to making them, it would have put a different face upon the +matter. + +The landlord of the Mountain House and his lady were invited to Mrs. +Sprowle's party. Not so the landlord of Pollard's Tahvern and his +lady. Whereupon the latter vowed that they would have a party at +their house too, and made arrangements for a dance of twenty or +thirty couples, to be followed by an entertainment. Tickets to this +"Social Ball" were soon circulated, and, being accessible to all at a +moderate price, admission to the "Elegant Supper" included, this +second festival promised to be as merry, if not as select, as the +great party. + +Wednesday came. Such doings had never been heard of in Rockland as +went on that day at the "villa." The carpet had been taken up in the +long room, so that the young folks might have a dance. Miss +Matilda's piano had been moved in, and two fiddlers and a clarionet- +player engaged to make music. All kinds of lamps had been put in +requisition, and even colored wax-candles figured on the mantel- +pieces. The costumes of the family had been tried on the day before: +the Colonel's black suit fitted exceedingly well; his lady's velvet +dress displayed her contours to advantage; Miss Matilda's flowered +silk was considered superb; the eldest son of the family, Mr. T. +Jordan Sprowle, called affectionately and elegantly "Geordie," voted +himself "stunnin'"; and even the small youth who had borne Mr. +Bernard's invitation was effective in a new jacket and trousers, +buttony in front, and baggy in the reverse aspect, as is wont to be +the case with the home-made garments of inland youngsters. + +Great preparations had been made for the refection which was to be +part of the entertainment. There was much clinking of borrowed +spoons, which were to be carefully counted, and much clicking of +borrowed china, which was to be tenderly handled, for nobody in the +country keeps those vast closets full of such things which one may +see in rich city-houses. Not a great deal could be done in the way +of flowers, for there were no greenhouses, and few plants were out as +yet; but there were paper ornaments for the candlesticks, and colored +mats for the lamps, and all the tassels of the curtains and bells +were taken out of those brown linen bags, in which, for reasons +hitherto undiscovered, they are habitually concealed in some +households. In the remoter apartments every imaginable operation was +going on at once,--roasting, boiling, baking, beating, rolling, +pounding in mortars, frying, freezing; for there was to be ice-cream +to-night of domestic manufacture;--and in the midst of all these +labors, Mrs. Sprowle and Miss Matilda were moving about, directing +and helping as they best might, all day long. When the evening came, +it might be feared they would not be in just the state of mind and +body to entertain company. + +--One would like to give a party now and then, if one could be a +billionnaire.--"Antoine, I am going to have twenty people to dine to- +day." "Biens, Madame." Not a word or thought more about it, but get +home in season to dress, and come down to your own table, one of your +own guests.--"Giuseppe, we are to have a party a week from to-night, +--five hundred invitations--there is the list." The day comes. +"Madam, do you remember you have your party tonight?" "Why, so I +have! Everything right? supper and all?" "All as it should be, +Madam." + +"Send up Victorine." "Victorine, full toilet for this evening,-- +pink, diamonds, and emeralds. Coiffeur at seven. Allez."-- +Billionism, or even millionism, must be a blessed kind of state, with +health and clear conscience and youth and good looks,--but most +blessed is this, that it takes off all the mean cares which give +people the three wrinkles between the eyebrows, and leaves them free +to have a good time and make others have a good time, all the way +along from the charity that tips up unexpected loads of wood before +widows' houses, and leaves foundling turkeys upon poor men's door- +steps, and sets lean clergymen crying at the sight of anonymous +fifty-dollar bills, to the taste which orders a perfect banquet in +such sweet accord with every sense that everybody's nature flowers +out full--blown in its golden--glowing, fragrant atmosphere. + +--A great party given by the smaller gentry of the interior is a kind +of solemnity, so to speak. It involves so much labor and anxiety,-- +its spasmodic splendors are so violently contrasted with the +homeliness of every-day family-life,--it is such a formidable matter +to break in the raw subordinates to the manege of the cloak-room and +the table,--there is such a terrible uncertainty in the results of +unfamiliar culinary operations,--so many feuds are involved in +drawing that fatal line which divides the invited from the uninvited +fraction of the local universe,--that, if the notes requested the +pleasure of the guests' company on "this solemn occasion," they would +pretty nearly express the true state of things. + +The Colonel himself had been pressed into the service. He had +pounded something in the great mortar. He had agitated a quantity of +sweetened and thickened milk in what was called a cream-freezer. At +eleven o'clock, A. M., he retired for a space. On returning, his +color was noted to be somewhat heightened, and he showed a +disposition to be jocular with the female help,--which tendency, +displaying itself in livelier demonstrations than were approved at +head-quarters, led to his being detailed to out-of-door duties, such +as raking gravel, arranging places for horses to be hitched to, and +assisting in the construction of an arch of wintergreen at the porch +of the mansion. + +A whiff from Mr. Geordie's cigar refreshed the toiling females from +time to time; for the windows had to be opened occasionally, while +all these operations were going on, and the youth amused himself with +inspecting the interior, encouraging the operatives now and then in +the phrases commonly employed by genteel young men,--for he had +perused an odd volume of "Verdant Green," and was acquainted with a +Sophomore from one of the fresh-water colleges. "Go it on the feed!" +exclaimed this spirited young man. "Nothin' like a good spread. +Grub enough and good liquor, that's the ticket. Guv'nor'll do the +heavy polite, and let me alone for polishin' off the young charmers." +And Mr. Geordie looked expressively at a handmaid who was rolling +gingerbread, as if he were rehearsing for "Don Giovanni." + +Evening came at last, and the ladies were forced to leave the scene +of their labors to array themselves for the coming festivities. The +tables had been set in a back room, the meats were ready, the pickles +were displayed, the cake was baked, the blanc-mange had stiffened, +and the ice-cream had frozen. + +At half past seven o'clock, the Colonel, in costume, came into the +front parlor, and proceeded to light the lamps. Some were good- +humored enough and took the hint of a lighted match at once. Others +were as vicious as they could be,--would not light on any terms, any +more than if they were filled with water, or lighted and smoked one +side of the chimney, or spattered a few sparks and sulked themselves +out, or kept up a faint show of burning, so that their ground glasses +looked as feebly phosphorescent as so many invalid fireflies. With +much coaxing and screwing and pricking, a tolerable illumination was +at last achieved. At eight there was a grand rustling of silks, and +Mrs. and Miss Sprowle descended from their respective bowers or +boudoirs. Of course they were pretty well tired by this time, and +very glad to sit down,--having the prospect before them of being +obliged to stand for hours. The Colonel walked about the parlor, +inspecting his regiment of lamps. By and by Mr. Geordie entered. + +"Mph! mph!" he sniffed, as he came in. "You smell of lamp-smoke +here." + +That always galls people,--to have a new-comer accuse them of smoke +or close air, which they have got used to and do not perceive. The +Colonel raged at the thought of his lamps' smoking, and tongued a few +anathemas inside of his shut teeth, but turned down two or three +wicks that burned higher than the rest. + +Master H. Frederic next made his appearance, with questionable marks +upon his fingers and countenance. Had been tampering with something +brown and sticky. His elder brother grew playful, and caught him by +the baggy reverse of his more essential garment. + +"Hush!" said Mrs. Sprowle,--"there 's the bell!" + +Everybody took position at once, and began to look very smiling and +altogether at ease. --False alarm. Only a parcel of spoons,-- +"loaned," as the inland folks say when they mean lent, by a neighbor. + +"Better late than never!" said the Colonel, "let me heft them +spoons." + +Mrs. Sprowle came down into her chair again as if all her bones had +been bewitched out of her. + +"I'm pretty nigh beat out a'ready," said she, "before any of the +folks has come." + +They sat silent awhile, waiting for the first arrival. How nervous +they got! and how their senses were sharpened! + +"Hark!" said Miss Matilda,--"what 's that rumblin'?" + +It was a cart going over a bridge more than a mile off, which at any +other time they would not have heard. After this there was a lull, +and poor Mrs. Sprowle's head nodded once or twice. Presently a +crackling and grinding of gravel;--how much that means, when we are +waiting for those whom we long or dread to see! Then a change in the +tone of the gravel-crackling. + +"Yes, they have turned in at our gate. They're comin'! Mother! +mother!" + +Everybody in position, smiling and at ease. Bell rings. Enter the +first set of visitors. The Event of the Season has begun. + +"Law! it's nothin' but the Cranes' folks! I do believe Mahala 's +come in that old green de-laine she wore at the Surprise Party!" + +Miss Matilda had peeped through a crack of the door and made this +observation and the remark founded thereon. Continuing her attitude +of attention, she overheard Mrs. Crane and her two daughters +conversing in the attiring-room, up one flight. + +"How fine everything is in the great house!" said Mrs. Crane,--"jest +look at the picters!" + +"Matildy Sprowle's drawin's," said Ada Azuba, the eldest daughter. + +"I should think so," said Mahala Crane, her younger sister,--a wide- +awake girl, who had n't been to school for nothing, and performed a +little on the lead pencil herself. "I should like to know whether +that's a hay-cock or a mountain!" + +Miss Matilda winced; for this must refer to her favorite monochrome, +executed by laying on heavy shadows and stumping them down into +mellow harmony,--the style of drawing which is taught in six lessons, +and the kind of specimen which is executed in something less than one +hour. Parents and other very near relatives are sometimes gratified +with these productions, and cause them to be framed and hung up, as +in the present instance. + +"I guess we won't go down jest yet," said Mrs. Crane, "as folks don't +seem to have come." + +So she began a systematic inspection of the dressing-room and its +conveniences. + +"Mahogany four-poster;--come from the Jordans', I cal'la,te. +Marseilles quilt. Ruffles all round the piller. Chintz curtings,-- +jest put up,--o' purpose for the party, I'll lay ye a dollar.---What +a nice washbowl!" (Taps it with a white knuckle belonging to a red +finger.) "Stone chaney. --Here's a bran'-new brush and comb,--and +here's a scent-bottle. Come here, girls, and fix yourselves in the +glass, and scent your pocket-handkerchers." + +And Mrs. Crane bedewed her own kerchief with some of the eau de +Cologne of native manufacture,--said on its label to be much superior +to the German article. + +It was a relief to Mrs. and the Miss Cranes when the bell rang and +the next guests were admitted. Deacon and Mrs. Soper,--Deacon Soper +of the Rev. Mr. Fairweather's church, and his lady. Mrs. Deacon +Soper was directed, of course, to the ladies' dressing-room, and her +husband to the other apartment, where gentlemen were to leave their +outside coats and hats. Then came Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, and then the +three Miss Spinneys, then Silas Peckham, Head of the Apollinean +Institute, and Mrs. Peckham, and more after them, until at last the +ladies' dressing-room got so full that one might have thought it was +a trap none of them could get out of. In truth, they all felt a +little awkwardly. Nobody wanted to be first to venture down-stairs. +At last Mr. Silas Peckham thought it was time to make a move for the +parlor, and for this purpose presented himself at the door of the +ladies' dressing-room. + +"Lorindy, my dear!" he exclaimed to Mrs. Peckham,--"I think there +can be no impropriety in our joining the family down-stairs." + +Mrs. Peckham laid her large, flaccid arm in the sharp angle made by +the black sleeve which held the bony limb her husband offered, and +the two took the stair and struck out for the parlor. The ice was +broken, and the dressing-room began to empty itself into the +spacious, lighted apartments below. + +Mr. Silas Peckham slid into the room with Mrs. Peckham alongside, +like a shad convoying a jelly-fish. + +"Good-evenin', Mrs. Sprowle! I hope I see you well this evenin'. +How 's your haalth, Colonel Sprowle?" + +"Very well, much obleeged to you. Hope you and your good lady are +well. Much pleased to see you. Hope you'll enjoy yourselves. We've +laid out to have everything in good shape,--spared no trouble nor +ex"--- + +"pence,"--said Silas Peckham. + +Mrs. Colonel Sprowle, who, you remember, was a Jordan, had nipped the +Colonel's statement in the middle of the word Mr. Peckham finished, +with a look that jerked him like one of those sharp twitches women +keep giving a horse when they get a chance to drive one. + +Mr. and Mrs. Crane, Miss Ada Azuba, and Miss Mahala Crane made their +entrance. There had been a discussion about the necessity and +propriety of inviting this family, the head of which kept a small +shop for hats and boots and shoes. The Colonel's casting vote had +carried it in the affirmative. --How terribly the poor old green +de-laine did cut up in the blaze of so many lamps and candles. + +--Deluded little wretch, male or female, in town or country, going to +your first great party, how little you know the nature of the +ceremony in which you are to bear the part of victim! What! are not +these garlands and gauzy mists and many-colored streamers which adorn +you, is not this music which welcomes you, this radiance that glows +about you, meant solely for your enjoyment, young miss of seventeen +or eighteen summers, now for the first time swimming unto the frothy, +chatoyant, sparkling, undulating sea of laces and silks and satins, +and white-armed, flower-crowned maidens struggling in their waves +beneath the lustres that make the false summer of the drawing-room? + +Stop at the threshold! This is a hall of judgment you are entering; +the court is in session; and if you move five steps forward, you will +be at its bar. + +There was a tribunal once in France, as you may remember, called the +Chambre Ardente, the Burning Chamber. It was hung all round with +lamps, and hence its name. The burning chamber for the trial of +young maidens is the blazing ball-room. What have they full-dressed +you, or rather half-dressed you for, do you think? To make you look +pretty, of course! Why have they hung a chandelier above you, +flickering all over with flames, so that it searches you like the +noonday sun, and your deepest dimple cannot hold a shadow? To give +brilliancy to the gay scene, no doubt!--No, my clear! Society is +inspecting you, and it finds undisguised surfaces and strong lights a +convenience in the process. The dance answers the purpose of the +revolving pedestal upon which the "White Captive" turns, to show us +the soft, kneaded marble, which looks as if it had never been hard, +in all its manifold aspects of living loveliness. No mercy for you, +my love! Justice, strict justice, you shall certainly have,--neither +more nor less. For, look you, there are dozens, scores, hundreds, +with whom you must be weighed in the balance; and you have got to +learn that the "struggle for life" Mr. Charles Darwin talks about +reaches to vertebrates clad in crinoline, as well as to mollusks in +shells, or articulates in jointed scales, or anything that fights for +breathing-room and food and love in any coat of fur or feather! +Happy they who can flash defiance from bright eyes and snowy +shoulders back into the pendants of the insolent lustres ! + +--Miss Mahala Crane did not have these reflections; and no young girl +ever did, or ever will, thank Heaven! Her keen eyes sparkled under +her plainly parted hair and the green de-laine moulded itself in +those unmistakable lines of natural symmetry in which Nature indulges +a small shopkeeper's daughter occasionally as well as a wholesale +dealer's young ladies. She would have liked a new dress as much as +any other girl, but she meant to go and have a good time at any rate. + +The guests were now arriving in the drawing-room pretty fast, and the +Colonel's hand began to burn a good deal with the sharp squeezes +which many of the visitors gave it. Conversation, which had begun +like a summer-shower, in scattering drops, was fast becoming +continuous, and occasionally rising into gusty swells, with now and +then a broad-chested laugh from some Captain or Major or other +military personage,--for it may be noted that all large and loud men +in the unpaved districts bear military titles. + +Deacon Soper came up presently, and entered into conversation with +Colonel Sprowle. + +"I hope to see our pastor present this evenin'," said the Deacon. + +"I don't feel quite sure," the Colonel answered. "His dyspepsy has +been bad on him lately. He wrote to say, that, Providence +permittin', it would be agreeable to him to take a part in the +exercises of the evenin' ; but I mistrusted he did n't mean to come. +To tell the truth, Deacon Soper, I rather guess he don't like the +idee of dancin', and some of the other little arrangements." + +"Well," said the Deacon, "I know there's some condemns dancin'. I've +heerd a good deal of talk about it among the folks round. Some have +it that it never brings a blessin' on a house to have dancin' in it. +Judge Tileston died, you remember, within a month after he had his +great ball, twelve year ago, and some thought it was in the natur' of +a judgment. I don't believe in any of them notions. If a man +happened to be struck dead the night after he'd been givin' a ball," +(the Colonel loosened his black stock a little, and winked and +swallowed two or three times,) "I should n't call it a judgment,--I +should call it a coincidence. But I 'm a little afraid our pastor +won't come. Somethin' or other's the matter with Mr. Fairweather. I +should sooner expect to see the old Doctor come over out of the +Orthodox parsonage-house." + +"I've asked him," said the Colonel. + +"Well?" said Deacon Soper. + +"He said he should like to come, but he did n't know what his people +would say. For his part, he loved to see young folks havin' their +sports together, and very often felt as if he should like to be one +of 'em himself. 'But,' says I, 'Doctor, I don't say there won't be a +little dancin'.' ' Don't!' says he, 'for I want Letty to go,' (she's +his granddaughter that's been stayin' with him,) 'and Letty 's mighty +fond of dancin'. You know,' says the Doctor, 'it is n't my business +to settle whether other people's children should dance or not.' And +the Doctor looked as if he should like to rigadoon and sashy across +as well as the young one he was talkin' about. He 's got blood in +him, the old Doctor has. I wish our little man and him would swop +pulpits." + +Deacon Soper started and looked up into the Colonel's face, as if to +see whether he was in earnest. + +Mr. Silas Peckham and his lady joined the group. + +"Is this to be a Temperance Celebration, Mrs. Sprowle?" asked Mr. +Silas Peckham. + +Mrs. Sprowle replied, "that there would be lemonade and srub for +those that preferred such drinks, but that the Colonel had given +folks to understand that he did n't mean to set in judgment on the +marriage in Canaan, and that those that didn't like srub and such +things would find somethin' that would suit them better." + +Deacon Soper's countenance assumed a certain air of restrained +cheerfulness. The conversation rose into one of its gusty paroxysms +just then. Master H. Frederic got behind a door and began performing +the experiment of stopping and unstopping his ears in rapid +alternation, greatly rejoicing in the singular effect of mixed +conversation chopped very small, like the contents of a mince-pie, or +meat-pie, as it is more forcibly called in the deep-rutted villages +lying along the unsalted streams. All at once it grew silent just +round the door, where it had been loudest,--and the silence spread +itself like a stain, till it hushed everything but a few corner- +duets. A dark, sad-looking, middle-aged gentleman entered the +parlor, with a young lady on his arm,--his daughter, as it seemed, +for she was not wholly unlike him in feature, and of the same dark +complexion. + +"Dudley Venner," exclaimed a dozen people, in startled, but half- +suppressed tones. + +"What can have brought Dudley out to-night?" said Jefferson Buck, a +young fellow, who had been interrupted in one of the corner-duets +which he was executing in concert with Miss Susy Pettingill. + +"How do I know, Jeff?" was Miss Susy's answer. Then, after a +pause,--"Elsie made him come, I guess. Go ask Dr. Kittredge; he +knows all about 'em both, they say." + +Dr. Kittredge, the leading physician of Rockland, was a shrewd old +man, who looked pretty keenly into his patients through his +spectacles, and pretty widely at men, women, and things in general +over them. Sixty-three years old,--just the year of the grand +climacteric. A bald crown, as every doctor should have. A +consulting practitioner's mouth; that is, movable round the corners +while the case is under examination, but both corners well drawn down +and kept so when the final opinion is made up. In fact, the Doctor +was often sent for to act as "caounsel," all over the county, and +beyond it. He kept three or four horses, sometimes riding in the +saddle, commonly driving in a sulky, pretty fast, and looking +straight before him, so that people got out of the way of bowing to +him as he passed on the road. There was some talk about his not +being so long-sighted as other folks, but his old patients laughed +and looked knowing when this was spoken of. + +The Doctor knew a good many things besides how to drop tinctures and +shake out powders. Thus, he knew a horse, and, what is harder to +understand, a horse-dealer, and was a match for him. He knew what a +nervous woman is, and how to manage her. He could tell at a glance +when she is in that condition of unstable equilibrium in which a +rough word is like a blow to her, and the touch of unmagnetized +fingers reverses all her nervous currents. It is not everybody that +enters into the soul of Mozart's or Beethoven's harmonies; and there +are vital symphonies in B flat, and other low, sad keys, which a +doctor may know as little of as a hurdy-gurdy player of the essence +of those divine musical mysteries. The Doctor knew the difference +between what men say and what they mean as well as most people. When +he was listening to common talk, he was in the habit of looking over +his spectacles; if he lifted his head so as to look through them at +the person talking, he was busier with that person's thoughts than +with his words. + +Jefferson Buck was not bold enough to confront the Doctor with Miss +Susy's question, for he did not look as if he were in the mood to +answer queries put by curious young people. His eyes were fixed +steadily on the dark girl, every movement of whom he seemed to +follow. + +She was, indeed, an apparition of wild beauty, so unlike the girls +about her that it seemed nothing more than natural, that, when she +moved, the groups should part to let her pass through them, and that +she should carry the centre of all looks and thoughts with her. She +was dressed to please her own fancy, evidently, with small regard to +the modes declared correct by the Rockland milliners and mantua- +makers. Her heavy black hair lay in a braided coil, with a long gold +pin shat through it like a javelin. Round her neck was a golden +torque, a round, cord-like chain, such as the Gaols used to wear; the +"Dying Gladiator" has it. Her dress was a grayish watered silk; her +collar was pinned with a flashing diamond brooch, the stones looking +as fresh as morning dew-drops, but the silver setting of the past +generation; her arms were bare, round, but slender rather than large, +in keeping with her lithe round figure. On her wrists she wore +bracelets: one was a circlet of enamelled scales; the other looked as +if it might have been Cleopatra's asp, with its body turned to gold +and its, eyes to emeralds. + +Her father--for Dudley Venner was her father--looked like a man of +culture and breeding, but melancholy and with a distracted air, as +one whose life had met some fatal cross or blight. He saluted hardly +anybody except his entertainers and the Doctor. One would have said, +to look at him, that he was not at the party by choice; and it was +natural enough to think, with Susy Pettingill, that it must have been +a freak of the dark girl's which brought him there, for he had the +air of a shy and sad-hearted recluse. + +It was hard to say what could have brought Elsie Venner to the party. +Hardly anybody seemed to know her, and she seemed not at all disposed +to make acquaintances. Here and there was one of the older girls +from the Institute, but she appeared to have nothing in common with +them. Even in the schoolroom, it may be remembered, she sat apart by +her own choice, and now in the midst of the crowd she made a circle +of isolation round herself. Drawing her arm out of her father's, she +stood against the wall, and looked, with a strange, cold glitter in +her eyes, at the crowd which moved and babbled before her. + +The old Doctor came up to her by and by. + +"Well, Elsie, I am quite surprised to find you here. Do tell me how +you happened to do such a good-natured thing as to let us see you at +such a great party." + +"It's been dull at the mansion-house," she said, "and I wanted to get +out of it. It's too lonely there,--there's nobody to hate since +Dick's gone." + +The Doctor laughed good-naturedly, as if this were an amusing bit of +pleasantry,--but he lifted his head and dropped his eyes a little, so +as to see her through his spectacles. She narrowed her lids +slightly, as one often sees a sleepy cat narrow hers,--somewhat as +you may remember our famous Margaret used to, if you remember her at +all,--so that her eyes looked very small, but bright as the diamonds +on her breast. The old Doctor felt very oddly as she looked at him; +be did not like the feeling, so he dropped his head and lifted his +eyes and looked at her over his spectacles again. + +"And how have you all been at the mansion house?" said the Doctor. + +"Oh, well enough. But Dick's gone, and there's nobody left but +Dudley and I and the people. I'm tired of it. What kills anybody +quickest, Doctor?" Then, in a whisper, "I ran away again the other +day, you know." + +"Where did you go?" The Doctor spoke in a low, serious tone. + +"Oh, to the old place. Here, I brought this for you." + +The Doctor started as she handed him a flower of the Atragene +Americana, for he knew that there was only one spot where it grew, +and that not one where any rash foot, least of all a thin-shod +woman's foot, should venture. + +"How long were you gone?" said the Doctor. + +"Only one night. You should have heard the horns blowing and the +guns firing. Dudley was frightened out of his wits. Old Sophy told +him she'd had a dream, and that I should be found in Dead-Man's +Hollow, with a great rock lying on me. They hunted all over it, but +they did n't find me,--I was farther up." + +Doctor Kittredge looked cloudy and worried while she was speaking, +but forced a pleasant professional smile, as he said cheerily, and as +if wishing to change the subject, + +"Have a good dance this evening, Elsie. The fiddlers are tuning up. +Where 's the young master? has he come yet? or is he going to be +late, with the other great folks?" + +The girl turned away without answering, and looked toward the door. + +The "great folks," meaning the mansion-house gentry, were just +beginning to come; Dudley Venner and his daughter had been the first +of them. Judge Thornton, white-headed, fresh-faced, as good at sixty +as he was at forty, with a youngish second wife, and one noble +daughter, Arabella, who, they said, knew as much law as her father, a +stately, Portia like girl, fit for a premier's wife, not like to find +her match even in the great cities she sometimes visited; the +Trecothicks, the family of a merchant, (in the larger sense,) who, +having made himself rich enough by the time he had reached middle +life, threw down his ledger as Sylla did his dagger, and retired to +make a little paradise around him in one of the stateliest residences +of the town, a family inheritance; the Vaughans, an old Rockland +race, descended from its first settlers, Toryish in tendency in +Revolutionary times, and barely escaping confiscation or worse; the +Dunhams, a new family, dating its gentility only as far back as the +Honorable Washington Dunham, M. C., but turning out a clever boy or +two that went to college; and some showy girls with white necks and +fat arms who had picked up professional husbands: these were the +principal mansion-house people. All of them had made it a point to +come; and as each of them entered, it seemed to Colonel and Mrs. +Sprowle that the lamps burned up with a more cheerful light, and that +the fiddles which sounded from the uncarpeted room were all half a +tone higher and half a beat quicker. + +Mr. Bernard came in later than any of them; he had been busy with his +new duties. He looked well and that is saying a good deal; for +nothing but a gentleman is endurable in full dress. Hair that masses +well, a head set on with an air, a neckerchief tied cleverly by an +easy, practised hand, close-fitting gloves, feet well shaped and well +covered,---these advantages can make us forgive the odious sable +broadcloth suit, which appears to have been adopted by society on the +same principle that condemned all the Venetian gondolas to perpetual +and uniform blackness. Mr. Bernard, introduced by Mr. Geordie, made +his bow to the Colonel and his lady and to Miss Matilda, from whom he +got a particularly gracious curtsy, and then began looking about him +for acquaintances. He found two or three faces he knew,--many more +strangers. There was Silas Peckham,--there was no mistaking him; +there was the inelastic amplitude of Mrs. Peckham; few of the +Apollinean girls, of course, they not being recognized members of +society,--but there is one with the flame in her cheeks and the fire +in her eyes, the girl of vigorous tints and emphatic outlines, whom +we saw entering the schoolroom the other day. Old Judge Thornton has +his eyes on her, and the Colonel steals a look every now and then at +the red brooch which lifts itself so superbly into the light, as if +he thought it a wonderfully becoming ornament. Mr. Bernard himself +was not displeased with the general effect of the rich-blooded +schoolgirl, as she stood under the bright lamps, fanning herself in +the warm, languid air, fixed in a kind of passionate surprise at the +new life which seemed to be flowering out in her consciousness. +Perhaps he looked at her somewhat steadily, as some others had done; +at any rate, she seemed to feel that she was looked at, as people +often do, and, turning her eyes suddenly on him, caught his own on +her face, gave him a half-bashful smile, and threw in a blush +involuntarily which made it more charming. + +"What can I do better," he said to himself, "than have a dance with +Rosa Milburn? "So he carried his handsome pupil into the next room +and took his place with her in a cotillon. Whether the breath of the +Goddess of Love could intoxicate like the cup of Circe,--whether a +woman is ever phosphorescent with the luminous vapor of life that she +exhales,--these and other questions which relate to occult influences +exercised by certain women we will not now discuss. It is enough +that Mr. Bernard was sensible of a strange fascination, not wholly +new to him, nor unprecedented in the history of human experience, but +always a revelation when it comes over us for the first or the +hundredth time, so pale is the most recent memory by the side of the +passing moment with the flush of any new-born passion on its cheek. +Remember that Nature makes every man love all women, and trusts the +trivial matter of special choice to the commonest accident. + +If Mr. Bernard had had nothing to distract his attention, he might +have thought too much about his handsome partner, and then gone home +and dreamed about her, which is always dangerous, and waked up +thinking of her still, and then begun to be deeply interested in her +studies, and so on, through the whole syllogism which ends in +Nature's supreme quod erat demonstrandum. What was there to distract +him or disturb him? He did not know,--but there was something. This +sumptuous creature, this Eve just within the gate of an untried +Paradise, untutored in the ways of the world, but on tiptoe to reach +the fruit of the tree of knowledge,--alive to the moist vitality of +that warm atmosphere palpitating with voices and music, as the flower +of some dioecious plant which has grown in a lone corner and suddenly +unfolding its corolla on some hot-breathing June evening, feels that +the air is perfumed with strange odors and loaded with golden dust +wafted from those other blossoms with which its double life is +shared,--this almost over-womanized woman might well have bewitched +him, but that he had a vague sense of a counter-charm. It was, +perhaps, only the same consciousness that some one was looking at him +which he himself had just given occasion to in his partner. +Presently, in one of the turns of the dance, he felt his eyes drawn +to a figure he had not distinctly recognized, though he had dimly +felt its presence, and saw that Elsie Venner was looking at him as if +she saw nothing else but him. He was not a nervous person, like the +poor lady-teacher, yet the glitter of the diamond eyes affected him +strangely. It seemed to disenchant the air, so full a moment before +of strange attractions. He became silent, and dreamy, as it were. +The round-limbed beauty at his side crushed her gauzy draperies +against him, as they trod the figure of the dance together, but it +was no more to him than if an old nurse had laid her hand on his +sleeve. The young girl chafed at his seeming neglect, and her +imperious blood mounted into her cheeks; but he appeared unconscious +of it. + +"There is one of our young ladies I must speak to," he said,--and was +just leaving his partner's side. + +"Four hands all round?" shouted the first violin,--and Mr. Bernard +found himself seized and whirled in a circle out of which he could +not escape, and then forced to "cross over," and then to "dozy do," +as the maestro had it,--and when, on getting back to his place, he +looked for Elsie Venner, she was gone. + +The dancing went on briskly. Some of the old folks looked on, others +conversed in groups and pairs, and so the evening wore along, until a +little after ten o'clock. About this time there was noticed an +increased bustle in the passages, with a considerable opening and +shutting of doors. Presently it began to be whispered about that +they were going to have supper. Many, who had never been to any +large party before, held their breath for a moment at this +announcement. It was rather with a tremulous interest than with open +hilarity that the rumor was generally received. + +One point the Colonel had entirely forgotten to settle. It was a +point involving not merely propriety, but perhaps principle also, or +at least the good report of the house,--and he had never thought to +arrange it. He took Judge Thornton aside and whispered the important +question to him,--in his distress of mind, mistaking pockets and +taking out his bandanna instead of his white handkerchief to wipe his +forehead. + +"Judge," he said, "do you think, that, before we commence refreshing +ourselves at the tables, it would be the proper thing to--crave a--to +request Deacon Soper or some other elderly person--to ask a +blessing?" + +The Judge looked as grave as if he were about giving the opinion of +the Court in the great India-rubber case. + +"On the whole," he answered, after a pause, "I should think it might, +perhaps, be dispensed with on this occasion. Young folks are noisy, +and it is awkward to have talking and laughing going on while +blessing is being asked. Unless a clergyman is present and makes a +point of it, I think it will hardly be expected." + +The Colonel was infinitely relieved. "Judge, will you take Mrs. +Sprowle in to supper? "And the Colonel returned the compliment by +offering his arm to Mrs. Judge Thornton. + +The door of the supper-room was now open, and the company, following +the lead of the host and hostess, began to stream into it, until it +was pretty well filled. + +There was an awful kind of pause. Many were beginning to drop their +heads and shut their eyes, in anticipation of the usual petition +before a meal; some expected the music to strike up,--others, that an +oration would now be delivered by the Colonel. + +"Make yourselves at home, ladies and gentlemen," said the Colonel; +"good things were made to eat, and you're welcome to all you see +before you." + +So saying he attacked a huge turkey which stood at the head of the +table; and his example being followed first by the bold, then by the +doubtful, and lastly by the timid, the clatter soon made the circuit +of the tables. Some were shocked, however, as the Colonel had feared +they would be, at the want of the customary invocation. Widow Leech, +a kind of relation, who had to be invited, and who came with her old, +back-country-looking string of gold beads round her neck, seemed to +feel very serious about it. + +"If she'd ha' known that folks would begrutch cravin' a blessin' over +sech a heap o' provisions, she'd rather ha' staid t' home. It was a +bad sign, when folks was n't grateful for the baounties of +Providence." + +The elder Miss Spinney, to whom she made this remark, assented to it, +at the same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently +appropriated with great refinement of manner,--taking it between her +thumb and forefinger, keeping the others well spread and the little +finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful undulation of the neck, +and a queer little sound in her throat, as of an M that wanted to get +out and perished in the attempt. + +The tables now presented an animated spectacle. Young fellows of the +more dashing sort, with high stand-up collars and voluminous bows to +their neckerchiefs, distinguished themselves by cutting up fowls and +offering portions thereof to the buxom girls these knowing ones had +commonly selected. + +"A bit of the wing, Roxy, or of the--under limb?" + +The first laugh broke out at this, but it was premature, a sporadic +laugh, as Dr. Kittredge would have said, which did not become +epidemic. People were very solemn as yet, many of them being new to +such splendid scenes, and crushed, as it were, in the presence of so +much crockery and so many silver spoons, and such a variety of +unusual viands and beverages. When the laugh rose around Roxy and +her saucy beau, several looked in that direction with an anxious +expression, as if something had happened, a lady fainted, for +instance, or a couple of lively fellows come to high words. + +"Young folks will be young folks," said Deacon Soper. "No harm done. +Least said soonest mended." + +"Have some of these shell-oysters?" said the Colonel to Mrs. +Trecothick. + +A delicate emphasis on the word shell implied that the Colonel knew +what was what. To the New England inland native, beyond the reach of +the east winds, the oyster unconditioned, the oyster absolute, +without a qualifying adjective, is the pickled oyster. Mrs. +Trecothick, who knew very well that an oyster long out of his shell +(as is apt to be the case with the rural bivalve) gets homesick and +loses his sprightliness, replied, with the pleasantest smile in the +world, that the chicken she had been helped to was too delicate to be +given up even for the greater rarity. But the word "shell-oysters " +had been overheard; and there was a perceptible crowding movement +towards their newly discovered habitat, a large soup-tureen. + +Silas Peckham had meantime fallen upon another locality of these +recent mollusks. He said nothing, but helped himself freely, and +made a sign to Mrs. Peckham. + +"Lorindy," he whispered, "shell-oysters" + +And ladled them out to her largely, without betraying any emotion, +just as if they had been the natural inland or pickled article. + +After the more solid portion of the banquet had been duly honored, +the cakes and sweet preparations of various kinds began to get their +share of attention. There were great cakes and little cakes, cakes +with raisins in them, cakes with currants, and cakes without either; +there were brown cakes and yellow cakes, frosted cakes, glazed cakes, +hearts and rounds, and jumbles, which playful youth slip over the +forefinger before spoiling their annular outline. There were mounds +of blo'monje, of the arrowroot variety,--that being undistinguishable +from such as is made with Russia isinglass. There were jellies, +which had been shaking, all the time the young folks were dancing in +the next room, as if they were balancing to partners. There were +built-up fabrics, called Charlottes, caky externally, pulpy within; +there were also marangs, and likewise custards,--some of the +indolent-fluid sort, others firm, in which every stroke of the +teaspoon left a smooth, conchoidal surface like the fracture of +chalcedony, with here and there a little eye like what one sees in +cheeses. Nor was that most wonderful object of domestic art called +trifle wanting, with its charming confusion of cream and cake and +almonds and jam and jelly and wine and cinnamon and froth; nor yet +the marvellous floating-island,---name suggestive of all that is +romantic in the imaginations of youthful palates. + +"It must have cost you a sight of work, to say nothin' of money, to +get all this beautiful confectionery made for the party," said Mrs. +Crane to Mrs. Sprowle. + +"Well, it cost some consid'able labor, no doubt," said Mrs. Sprowle. +"Matilda and our girls and I made 'most all the cake with our own +hands, and we all feel some tired; but if folks get what suits 'em, +we don't begrudge the time nor the work. But I do feel thirsty," +said the poor lady, "and I think a glass of srub would do my throat +good; it's dreadful dry. Mr. Peckham, would you be so polite as to +pass me a glass of srub?" + +Silas Peckham bowed with great alacrity, and took from the table a +small glass cup, containing a fluid reddish in hue and subacid in +taste. This was srub, a beverage in local repute, of questionable +nature, but suspected of owing its tint and sharpness to some kind of +syrup derived from the maroon-colored fruit of the sumac. There were +similar small cups on the table filled with lemonade, and here and +there a decanter of Madeira wine, of the Marsala kind, which some +prefer to, and many more cannot distinguish from, that which comes +from the Atlantic island. + +"Take a glass of wine, Judge," said, the Colonel; "here is an article +that I rather think 'll suit you." + +The Judge knew something of wines, and could tell all the famous old +Madeiras from each other, "Eclipse," "Juno," the almost fabulously +scarce and precious "White-top," and the rest. He struck the +nativity of the Mediterranean Madeira before it had fairly moistened +his lip. + +"A sound wine, Colonel, and I should think of a genuine vintage. +Your very good health." + +"Deacon Soper," said the Colonel, "here is some Madary Judge Thornton +recommends. Let me fill you a glass of it." + +The Deacon's eyes glistened. He was one of those consistent +Christians who stick firmly by the first miracle and Paul's advice to +Timothy. + +"A little good wine won't hurt anybody," said the Deacon. "Plenty,-- +plenty,--plenty. There!" He had not withdrawn his glass, while the +Colonel was pouring, for fear it should spill, and now it was running +over. + +--It is very odd how all a man's philosophy and theology are at the +mercy of a few drops of a fluid which the chemists say consists of +nothing but C4,O2, H6. The Deacon's theology fell off several points +towards latitudinarianism in the course of the next ten minutes. He +had a deep inward sense that everything was as it should be, human +nature included. The little accidents of humanity, known +collectively to moralists as sin, looked very venial to his growing +sense of universal brotherhood and benevolence. + +"It will all come right," the Deacon said to himself,--"I feel a +joyful conviction that everything is for the best. I am favored with +a blessed peace of mind, and a very precious season of good feelin' +toward my fellow-creturs." + +A lusty young fellow happened to make a quick step backward just at +that instant, and put his heel, with his weight on top of it, upon +the Deacon's toes. + +"Aigh! What the d' d' didos are y' abaout with them great huffs o' +yourn?" said the Deacon, with an expression upon his features not +exactly that of peace and good-will to men. The lusty young fellow +apologized; but the Deacon's face did not come right, and his +theology backed round several points in the direction of total +depravity. + +Some of the dashing young men in stand-up collars and extensive +neckties, encouraged by Mr. Geordie, made quite free with the +"Ma,dary," and even induced some of the more stylish girls--not of +the mansion-house set, but of the tip-top two-story families--to +taste a little. Most of these young ladies made faces at it, and +declared it was "perfectly horrid," with that aspect of veracity +peculiar to their age and sex. + +About this time a movement was made on the part of some of the +mansion-house people to leave the supper-table. Miss Jane Trecothick +had quietly hinted to her mother that she had had enough of it. Miss +Arabella Thornton had whispered to her father that he had better +adjourn this court to the next room. There were signs of migration, +--a loosening of people in their places,--a looking about for arms to +hitch on to. + +"Stop!" said the Colonel. "There's something coming yet. +--Ice-cream!" + +The great folks saw that the play was not over yet, and that it was +only polite to stay and see it out. The word "ice-cream" was no +sooner whispered than it passed from one to another all down the +tables. The effect was what might have been anticipated. Many of +the guests had never seen this celebrated product of human skill, and +to all the two-story population of Rockland it was the last +expression of the art of pleasing and astonishing the human palate. +Its appearance had been deferred for several reasons: first, because +everybody would have attacked it, if it had come in with the other +luxuries; secondly, because undue apprehensions were entertained +(owing to want of experience) of its tendency to deliquesce and +resolve itself with alarming rapidity into puddles of creamy fluid; +and, thirdly, because the surprise would make a grand climax to +finish off the banquet. + +There is something so audacious in the conception of ice-cream, that +it is not strange that a population undebauched by the luxury of +great cities looks upon it with a kind of awe and speaks of it with a +certain emotion. This defiance of the seasons, forcing Nature to do +her work of congelation in the face of her sultriest noon, might well +inspire a timid mind with fear lest human art were revolting against +the Higher Powers, and raise the same scruples which resisted the use +of ether and chloroform in certain contingencies. Whatever may be +the cause, it is well known that the announcement at any private +rural entertainment that there is to be ice-cream produces an +immediate and profound impression. It may be remarked, as aiding +this impression, that exaggerated ideas are entertained as to the +dangerous effects this congealed food may produce on persons not in +the most robust health. + +There was silence as the pyramids of ice were placed on the table, +everybody looking on in admiration. The Colonel took a knife and +assailed the one at the head of the table. When he tried to cut off +a slice, it didn't seem to understand it, however, and only tipped, +as if it wanted to upset. The Colonel attacked it on the other side, +and it tipped just as badly the other way. It was awkward for the +Colonel. "Permit me," said the Judge,--and he took the knife and +struck a sharp slanting stroke which sliced off a piece just of the +right size, and offered it to Mrs. Sprowle. This act of dexterity +was much admired by the company. + +The tables were all alive again. + +"Lorindy, here's a plate of ice-cream," said Silas Peckham. + +"Come, Mahaly," said a fresh-looking young-fellow with a saucerful in +each hand, "here's your ice-cream;--let's go in the corner and have a +celebration, us two." And the old green de-lame, with the young +curves under it to make it sit well, moved off as pleased apparently +as if it had been silk velvet with thousand-dollar laces over it. + +"Oh, now, Miss Green! do you think it's safe to put that cold stuff +into your stomick?" said the Widow Leech to a young married lady, +who, finding the air rather warm, thought a little ice would cool her +down very nicely. "It's jest like eatin' snowballs. You don't look +very rugged; and I should be dreadful afeard, if I was you " + +"Carrie," said old Dr. Kittredge, who had overheard this,--"how well +you're looking this evening! But you must be tired and heated;--sit +down here, and let me give you a good slice of ice-cream. How you +young folks do grow up, to be sure! I don't feel quite certain +whether it's you or your older sister, but I know it 's somebody I +call Carrie, and that I 've known ever since " + +A sound something between a howl and an oath startled the company and +broke off the Doctor's sentence. Everybody's eyes turned in the +direction from which it came. A group instantly gathered round the +person who had uttered it, who was no other than Deacon Soper. + +"He's chokin'! he's chokin'!" was the first exclamation,--"slap him +on the back!" + +Several heavy fists beat such a tattoo on his spine that the Deacon +felt as if at least one of his vertebrae would come up. + +"He's black in the face," said Widow Leech, "he 's swallered +somethin' the wrong way. Where's the Doctor?--let the Doctor get to +him, can't ye? " + +"If you will move, my good lady, perhaps I can," said Doctor +Kittredge, in a calm tone of voice. "He's not choking, my friends," +the Doctor added immediately, when he got sight of him. + +"It 's apoplexy,--I told you so,--don't you see how red he is in the +face?" said old Mrs. Peake, a famous woman for "nussin" sick folks, +--determined to be a little ahead of the Doctor. + +"It's not apoplexy," said Dr. Kittredge. + +"What is it, Doctor? what is it? Will he die? Is he dead? --Here's +his poor wife, the Widow Soper that is to be, if she a'n't a'ready" + +"Do be quiet, my good woman," said Dr. Kittredge. --"Nothing serious, +I think, Mrs. Soper. Deacon!" + +The sudden attack of Deacon Soper had begun with the extraordinary +sound mentioned above. His features had immediately assumed an +expression of intense pain, his eyes staring wildly, and, clapping +his hands to his face, he had rocked his head backward and forward in +speechless agony. + +At the Doctor's sharp appeal the Deacon lifted his head. + +"It's all right," said the Doctor, as soon as he saw his face. "The +Deacon had a smart attack of neuralgic pain. That 's all. Very +severe, but not at all dangerous." + +The Doctor kept his countenance, but his diaphragm was shaking the +change in iris waistcoat-pockets with subterranean laughter. He had +looked through his spectacles and seen at once what had happened. +The Deacon, not being in the habit of taking his nourishment in the +congealed state, had treated the ice-cream as a pudding of a rare +species, and, to make sure of doing himself justice in its +distribution, had taken a large mouthful of it without the least +precaution. The consequence was a sensation as if a dentist were +killing the nerves of twenty-five teeth at once with hot irons, or +cold ones, which would hurt rather worse. + +The Deacon swallowed something with a spasmodic effort, and recovered +pretty soon and received the congratulations of his friends. There +were different versions of the expressions he had used at the onset +of his complaint,--some of the reported exclamations involving a +breach of propriety, to say the least,--but it was agreed that a man +in an attack of neuralgy wasn't to be judged of by the rules that +applied to other folks. + +The company soon after this retired from the supper-room. The +mansion-house gentry took their leave, and the two-story people soon +followed. Mr. Bernard had stayed an hour or two, and left soon after +he found that Elsie Venner and her father had disappeared. As he +passed by the dormitory of the Institute, he saw a light glimmering +from one of its upper rooms, where the lady-teacher was still waking. +His heart ached, when he remembered, that, through all these hours of +gayety, or what was meant for it, the patient girl had been at work +in her little chamber; and he looked up at the silent stars, as if to +see that they were watching over her. The planet Mars was burning +like a red coal; the northern constellation was slanting downward +about its central point of flame; and while he looked, a falling star +slid from the zenith and was lost. + +He reached his chamber and was soon dreaming over the Event of the +Season. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE MORNING AFTER. + +Colonel Sprowle's family arose late the next morning. The fatigues +and excitements of the evening and the preparation for it were +followed by a natural collapse, of which somnolence was a leading +symptom. The sun shone into the window at a pretty well opened angle +when the Colonel first found himself sufficiently awake to address +his yet slumbering spouse. + +"Sally!" said the Colonel, in a voice that was a little husky,--for +he had finished off the evening with an extra glass or two of +"Madary," and had a somewhat rusty and headachy sense of renewed +existence, on greeting the rather advanced dawn,--"Sally!" + +"Take care o' them custard-cups! There they go!" + +Poor Mrs. Sprowle was fighting the party over in her dream; and as +the visionary custard-cups crashed down through one lobe of her brain +into another, she gave a start as if an inch of lightning from a +quart Leyden jar had jumped into one of her knuckles with its sudden +and lively poonk! + +"Sally!" said the Colonel,--"wake up, wake up. What 'r' y' dreamin' +abaout?" + +Mrs. Sprowle raised herself, by a sort of spasm, sur son seant, as +they say in France,--up on end, as we have it in New England. She +looked first to the left, then to the right, then straight before +her, apparently without seeing anything, and at last slowly settled +down, with her two eyes, blank of any particular meaning, directed +upon the Colonel. + +"What time is 't?" she said. + +"Ten o'clock. What y' been dreamin' abaout? Y' giv a jump like a +hopper-grass. Wake up, wake UP! Th' party 's over, and y' been +asleep all the mornin'. The party's over, I tell ye! Wake up!" + +"Over!" said Mrs. Sprowle, who began to define her position at +last,--"over! I should think 't was time 't was over! It's lasted a +hundud year. I've been workin' for that party longer 'n Methuselah's +lifetime, sence I been asleep. The pies would n' bake, and the +blo'monje would n' set, and the ice-cream would n' freeze, and all +the folks kep' comin' 'n' comin' 'n' comin',--everybody I ever knew +in all my life,--some of 'em 's been dead this twenty year 'n' more, +--'n' nothin' for 'em to eat nor drink. The fire would n' burn to +cook anything, all we could do. We blowed with the belluses, 'n' we +stuffed in paper 'n' pitch-pine kindlin's, but nothin' could make +that fire burn; 'n' all the time the folks kep' comin', as if they'd +never stop,--'n' nothin' for 'em but empty dishes, 'n' all the +borrowed chaney slippin' round on the waiters 'n' chippin' 'n' +crackin',--I would n' go through what I been through t'-night for all +th' money in th' Bank,--I do believe it's harder t' have a party than +t'"--- + +Mrs. Sprowle stated the case strongly. + +The Colonel said he did n't know how that might be. She was a better +judge than he was. It was bother enough, anyhow, and he was glad +that it was over. After this, the worthy pair commenced preparations +for rejoining the waking world, and in due time proceeded downstairs. + +Everybody was late that morning, and nothing had got put to rights. +The house looked as if a small army had been quartered in it over +night. The tables were of course in huge disorder, after the +protracted assault they had undergone. There had been a great battle +evidently, and it had gone against the provisions. Some points had +been stormed, and all their defences annihilated, but here and there +were centres of resistance which had held out against all attacks,-- +large rounds of beef, and solid loaves of cake, against which the +inexperienced had wasted their energies in the enthusiasm of youth or +uninformed maturity, while the longer-headed guests were making +discoveries of "shell-oysters" and "patridges" and similar +delicacies. + +The breakfast was naturally of a somewhat fragmentary character. A +chicken that had lost his legs in the service of the preceding +campaign was once more put on duty. A great ham stuck with cloves, +as Saint Sebastian was with arrows, was again offered for martyrdom. +It would have been a pleasant sight for a medical man of a +speculative turn to have seen the prospect before the Colonel's +family of the next week's breakfasts, dinners, and suppers. The +trail that one of these great rural parties leaves after it is one of +its most formidable considerations. Every door-handle in the house +is suggestive of sweetmeats for the next week, at least. The most +unnatural articles of diet displace the frugal but nutritious food of +unconvulsed periods of existence. If there is a walking infant about +the house, it will certainly have a more or less fatal fit from +overmuch of some indigestible delicacy. Before the week is out, +everybody will be tired to death of sugary forms of nourishment and +long to see the last of the remnants of the festival. + +The family had not yet arrived at this condition. On the contrary, +the first inspection of the tables suggested the prospect of days of +unstinted luxury; and the younger portion of the household, +especially, were in a state of great excitement as the account of +stock was taken with reference to future internal investments. Some +curious facts came to light during these researches. + +"Where's all the oranges gone to?" said Mrs. Sprowle. "I expected +there'd be ever so many of 'em left. I did n't see many of the folks +eatin' oranges. Where's the skins of 'em? There ought to be six +dozen orange-skins round on the plates, and there a'n't one dozen. +And all the small cakes, too, and all the sugar things that was stuck +on the big cakes. Has anybody counted the spoons? Some of 'em got +swallered, perhaps. I hope they was plated ones, if they did!" + +The failure of the morning's orange-crop and the deficit in other +expected residual delicacies were not very difficult to account for. +In many of the two-story Rockland families, and in those favored +households of the neighboring villages whose members had been invited +to the great party, there was a very general excitement among the +younger people on the morning after the great event. "Did y' bring +home somethin' from the party? What is it? What is it? Is it frut- +cake? Is it nuts and oranges and apples? Give me some! Give me +some!" Such a concert of treble voices uttering accents like these +had not been heard since the great Temperance Festival with the +celebrated "colation" in the open air under the trees of the +Parnassian Grove,--as the place was christened by the young ladies of +the Institute. The cry of the children was not in vain. From the +pockets of demure fathers, from the bags of sharp-eyed spinsters, +from the folded handkerchiefs of light-fingered sisters, from the +tall hats of sly-winking brothers, there was a resurrection of the +missing oranges and cakes and sugar-things in many a rejoicing +family-circle, enough to astonish the most hardened "caterer" that +ever contracted to feed a thousand people under canvas. + +The tender recollections of those dear little ones whom extreme youth +or other pressing considerations detain from scenes of festivity--a +trait of affection by no means uncommon among our thoughtful people-- +dignifies those social meetings where it is manifested, and sheds a +ray of sunshine on our common nature. It is "an oasis in the +desert,"--to use the striking expression of the last year's +"Valedictorian" of the Apollinean Institute. In the midst of so much +that is purely selfish, it is delightful to meet such disinterested +care for others. When a large family of children are expecting a +parent's return from an entertainment, it will often require great +exertions on his part to freight himself so as to meet their +reasonable expectations. A few rules are worth remembering by all +who attend anniversary dinners in Faneuil Hall or elsewhere. Thus: +Lobsters' claws are always acceptable to children of all ages. +Oranges and apples are to be taken one at a time, until the coat- +pockets begin to become inconveniently heavy. Cakes are injured by +sitting upon them; it is, therefore, well to carry a stout tin box of +a size to hold as many pieces as there are children in the domestic +circle. A very pleasant amusement, at the close of one of these +banquets, is grabbing for the flowers with which the table is +embellished. These will please the ladies at home very greatly, and, +if the children are at the same time abundantly supplied with fruits, +nuts, cakes, and any little ornamental articles of confectionery +which are of a nature to be unostentatiously removed, the kind- +hearted parent will make a whole household happy, without any +additional expense beyond the outlay for his ticket. + +There were fragmentary delicacies enough left, of one kind and +another, at any rate, to make all the Colonel's family uncomfortable +for the next week. It bid fair to take as long to get rid of the +remains of the great party as it had taken to make ready for it. + +In the mean time Mr. Bernard had been dreaming, as young men dream, +of gliding shapes with bright eyes and burning cheeks, strangely +blended with red planets and hissing meteors, and, shining over all, +the white, un-wandering star of the North, girt with its tethered +constellations. + +After breakfast he walked into the parlor, where he found Miss +Darley. She was alone, and, holding a school-book in her hand, was +at work with one of the morning's lessons. She hardly noticed him as +he entered, being very busy with her book,--and he paused a moment +before speaking, and looked at her with a kind of reverence. It +would not have been strictly true to call her beautiful. For years, +--since her earliest womanhood,--those slender hands had taken the +bread which repaid the toil of heart and brain from the coarse palms +which offered it in the world's rude market. It was not for herself +alone that she had bartered away the life of her youth, that she had +breathed the hot air of schoolrooms, that she had forced her +intelligence to posture before her will, as the exigencies of her +place required,--waking to mental labor,--sleeping to dream of +problems,--rolling up the stone of education for an endless +twelvemonth's term, to find it at the bottom of the hill again when +another year called her to its renewed duties, schooling her temper +in unending inward and outward conflicts, until neither dulness nor +obstinacy nor ingratitude nor insolence could reach her serene self- +possession. Not for herself alone. Poorly as her prodigal labors +were repaid in proportion to the waste of life they cost, her value +was too well established to leave her without what, under other +circumstances, would have been a more than sufficient compensation. +But there were others who looked to her in their need, and so the +modest fountain which might have been filled to its brim was +continually drained through silent-flowing, hidden sluices. + +Out of such a life, inherited from a race which had lived in +conditions not unlike her own, beauty, in the common sense of the +term, could hardly find leisure to develop and shape itself. For it +must be remembered, that symmetry and elegance of features and +figure, like perfectly formed crystals in the mineral world, are +reached only by insuring a certain necessary repose to individuals +and to generations. Human beauty is an agricultural product in the +country, growing up in men and women as in corn and cattle, where the +soil is good. It is a luxury almost monopolized by the rich in +cities, bred under glass like their forced pine-apples and peaches. +Both in city and country, the evolution of the physical harmonies +which make music to our eyes requires a combination of favorable +circumstances, of which alternations of unburdened tranquillity with +intervals of varied excitement of mind and body are among the most +important. Where sufficient excitement is wanting, as often happens +in the country, the features, however rich in red and white, get +heavy, and the movements sluggish; where excitement is furnished in +excess, as is frequently the case in cities, the contours and colors +are impoverished, and the nerves begin to make their existence known +to the consciousness, as the face very soon informs us. + +Helen Darley could not, in the nature of things, have possessed the +kind of beauty which pleases the common taste. Her eye was calm, +sad-looking, her features very still, except when her pleasant smile +changed them for a moment, all her outlines were delicate, her voice +was very gentle, but somewhat subdued by years of thoughtful labor, +and on her smooth forehead one little hinted line whispered already +that Care was beginning to mark the trace which Time sooner or later +would make a furrow. She could not be a beauty; if she had been, it +would have been much harder for many persons to be interested in her. +For, although in the abstract we all love beauty, and although, if we +were sent naked souls into some ultramundane warehouse of soulless +bodies and told to select one to our liking, we should each choose a +handsome one, and never think of the consequences,--it is quite +certain that beauty carries an atmosphere of repulsion as well as of +attraction with it, alike in both sexes. We may be well assured that +there are many persons who no more think of specializing their love +of the other sex upon one endowed with signal beauty, than they think +of wanting great diamonds or thousand-dollar horses. No man or woman +can appropriate beauty without paying for it,--in endowments, in +fortune, in position, in self-surrender, or other valuable stock; and +there are a great many who are too poor, too ordinary, too humble, +too busy, too proud, to pay any of these prices for it. So the +unbeautiful get many more lovers than the beauties; only, as there +are more of them, their lovers are spread thinner and do not make so +much show. + +The young master stood looking at Helen Darley with a kind of tender +admiration. She was such a picture of the martyr by the slow social +combustive process, that it almost seemed to him he could see a pale +lambent nimbus round her head. + +"I did not see you at the great party last evening," he said, +presently. + +She looked up and answered, "No. I have not much taste for such +large companies. Besides, I do not feel as if my time belonged to me +after it has been paid for. There is always something to do, some +lesson or exercise,--and it so happened, I was very busy last night +with the new problems in geometry. I hope you had a good time." + +"Very. Two or three of our girls were there. Rosa Milburn. What a +beauty she is! I wonder what she feeds on! Wine and musk and +chloroform and coals of fire, I believe; I didn't think there was +such color and flavor in a woman outside the tropics." + +Miss Darley smiled rather faintly; the imagery was not just to her +taste: femineity often finds it very hard to accept the fact of +muliebrity. + +"Was"--? + +She stopped short; but her question had asked itself. + + +"Elsie there? She was, for an hour or so. She looked frightfully +handsome. I meant to have spoken to her, but she slipped away before +I knew it." + +"I thought she meant to go to the party," said Miss Darley. "Did she +look at you?" + +"She did. Why?" + +"And you did not speak to her?" + +"No. I should have spoken to her, but she was gone when I looked for +her. A strange creature! Is n't there an odd sort of fascination +about her? You have not explained all the mystery about the girl. +What does she come to this school for? She seems to do pretty much +as she likes about studying." + +Miss Darley answered in very low tones. "It was a fancy of hers to +come, and they let her have her way. I don't know what there is +about her, except that she seems to take my life out of me when she +looks at me. I don't like to ask other people about our girls. She +says very little to anybody, and studies, or makes believe to study, +almost what she likes. I don't know what she is," (Miss Darley laid +her hand, trembling, on the young master's sleeve,) "but I can tell +when she is in the room without seeing or hearing her. Oh, Mr. +Langdon, I am weak and nervous, and no doubt foolish,--but--if there +were women now, as in the days of our Saviour, possessed of devils, I +should think there was something not human looking out of Elsie +Venner's eyes!" + +The poor girl's breast rose and fell tumultuously as she spoke, and +her voice labored, as if some obstruction were rising in her throat. + +A scene might possibly have come of it, but the door opened. Mr. +Silas Peckham. Miss Darley got away as soon as she well could. + +"Why did not Miss Darley go to the party last evening?" said Mr. +Bernard. + +"Well, the fact is," answered Mr. Silas Peckham, "Miss Darley, she's +pooty much took up with the school. She's an industris young. +woman, --yis, she is industris,--but perhaps she a'n't quite so spry +a worker as some. Maybe, considerin' she's paid for her time, she is +n't fur out o' the way in occoopyin' herself evenin's,--that--is, if +so be she a'n't smart enough to finish up all her work in the +daytime. Edoocation is the great business of the Institoot. +Amoosements are objec's of a secondary natur', accordin' to my v'oo." +[The unspellable pronunciation of this word is the touchstone of New +England Brahminism.] + +Mr. Bernard drew a deep breath, his thin nostrils dilating, as if the +air did not rush in fast enough to cool his blood, while Silas +Peckham was speaking. The Head of the Apollinean Institute delivered +himself of these judicious sentiments in that peculiar acid, +penetrating tone, thickened with a nasal twang, which not rarely +becomes hereditary after three or four generations raised upon east +winds, salt fish, and large, white-bellied, pickled cucumbers. He +spoke deliberately, as if weighing his words well, so that, during +his few remarks, Mr. Bernard had time for a mental accompaniment with +variations, accented by certain bodily changes, which escaped Mr. +Peckham's observation. First there was a feeling of disgust and +shame at hearing Helen Darley spoken of like a dumb working animal. +That sent the blood up into his cheeks. Then the slur upon her +probable want of force--her incapacity, who made the character of the +school and left this man to pocket its profits--sent a thrill of the +old Wentworth fire through him, so that his muscles hardened, his +hands closed, and he took the measure of Mr. Silas Peckham, to see if +his head would strike the wall in case he went over backwards all of +a sudden. This would not do, of course, and so the thrill passed off +and the muscles softened again. Then came that state of tenderness +in the heart, overlying wrath in the stomach, in which the eyes grow +moist like a woman's, and there is also a great boiling-up of +objectionable terms out of the deep-water vocabulary, so that +Prudence and Propriety and all the other pious P's have to jump upon +the lid of speech to keep them from boiling over into fierce +articulation. All this was internal, chiefly, and of course not +recognized by Mr. Silas Peckham. The idea, that any full-grown, +sensible man should have any other notion than that of getting the +most work for the least money out of his assistants, had never +suggested itself to him. + +Mr. Bernard had gone through this paroxysm, and cooled down, in the +period while Mr. Peckham was uttering these words in his thin, +shallow whine, twanging up into the frontal sinuses. What was the +use of losing his temper and throwing away his place, and so, among +the consequences which would necessarily follow, leaving the poor +lady-teacher without a friend to stand by her ready to lay his hand +on the grand-inquisitor before the windlass of his rack had taken one +turn too many? + +"No doubt, Mr. Peckham," he said, in a grave, calm voice, "there is a +great deal of work to be done in the school; but perhaps we can +distribute the duties a little more evenly after a time. I shall +look over the girls' themes myself, after this week. Perhaps there +will be some other parts of her labor that I can take on myself. We +can arrange a new programme of studies and recitations." + +"We can do that," said Mr. Silas Peckham. "But I don't propose +mater'lly alterin' Miss Darley's dooties. I don't think she works to +hurt herself. Some of the Trustees have proposed interdoosin' new +branches of study, and I expect you will be pooty much occoopied with +the dooties that belong to your place. On the Sahbath you will be +able to attend divine service three times, which is expected of our +teachers. I shall continoo myself to give Sahbath Scriptur' readin's +to the young ladies. That is a solemn dooty I can't make up my mind +to commit to other people. My teachers enjoy the Lord's day as a day +of rest. In it they do no manner of work, except in cases of +necessity or mercy, such as fillin' out diplomas, or when we git +crowded jest at the end of a term, or when there is an extry number +of p'oopils, or other Providential call to dispense with the +ordinance." + +Mr. Bernard had a fine glow in his cheeks by this time,--doubtless +kindled by the thought of the kind consideration Mr. Peckham showed +for his subordinates in allowing them the between meeting-time on +Sundays except for some special reason. But the morning was wearing +away; so he went to the schoolroom, taking leave very properly of his +respected principal, who soon took his hat and departed. + +Mr. Peckham visited certain "stores" or shops, where he made +inquiries after various articles in the provision-line, and effected +a purchase or two. Two or three barrels of potatoes, which had +sprouted in a promising way, he secured at a bargain. A side of +feminine beef was also obtained at a low figure. He was entirely +satisfied with a couple of barrels of flour, which, being invoiced +"slightly damaged," were to be had at a reasonable price. + +After this, Silas Peckham felt in good spirits. He had done a pretty +stroke of business. It came into his head whether he might not +follow it up with a still more brilliant speculation. So he turned +his steps in the direction of Colonel Sprowle's. + +It was now eleven o'clock, and the battle-field of last evening was +as we left it. Mr. Peckham's visit was unexpected, perhaps not very +well timed, but the Colonel received him civilly. + +"Beautifully lighted,--these rooms last night!" said Mr. Peckham. +"Winter-strained?" + +The Colonel nodded. + +"How much do you pay for your winter-strained?" + +The Colonel told him the price. + +"Very hahnsome supper,--very hahnsome. Nothin' ever seen like it in +Rockland. Must have been a great heap of things leftover." + +The compliment was not ungrateful, and the Colonel acknowledged it by +smiling and saying, "I should think the' was a trifle? Come and +look." + +When Silas Peckham saw how many delicacies had survived the evening's +conflict, his commercial spirit rose at once to the point of a +proposal. + +"Colonel Sprowle," said he, "there's 'meat and cakes and pies and +pickles enough on that table to spread a hahnsome colation. If you'd +like to trade reasonable, I think perhaps I should be willin' to take +'em off your hands. There's been a talk about our havin' a +celebration in the Parnassian Grove, and I think I could work in what +your folks don't want and make myself whole by chargin' a small sum +for tickets. Broken meats, of course, a'n't of the same valoo as +fresh provisions; so I think you might be willin' to trade +reasonable." + +Mr. Peckham paused and rested on his proposal. It would not, +perhaps, have been very extraordinary, if Colonel Sprowle had +entertained the proposition. There is no telling beforehand how such +things will strike people. It didn't happen to strike the Colonel +favorably. He had a little red-blooded manhood in him. + +"Sell you them things to make a colation out of?" the Colonel +replied. "Walk up to that table, Mr. Peckham, and help yourself! +Fill your pockets; Mr. Peckham! Fetch a basket, and our hired folks +shall fill it full for ye! Send a cart, if y' like, 'n' carry off +them leavin's to make a celebration for your pupils with! Only let +me tell ye this:--as sure 's my name's Hezekiah Spraowle, you 'll be +known through the taown 'n' through the caounty, from that day +forrard, as the Principal of the Broken-Victuals Institoot!" + +Even provincial human-nature sometimes has a touch of sublimity about +it. Mr. Silas Peckham had gone a little deeper than he meant, and +come upon the "hard pan," as the well-diggers call it, of the +Colonel's character, before he thought of it. A militia-colonel +standing on his sentiments is not to be despised. That was shown +pretty well in New England two or three generations ago. There were +a good many plain officers that talked about their "rigiment " and +their "caounty" who knew very well how to say "Make ready!" "Take +aim!" "Fire! --in the face of a line of grenadiers with bullets in +their guns and bayonets on them. And though a rustic uniform is not +always unexceptionable in its cut and trimmings, yet there was many +an ill-made coat in those old times that was good enough to be shown +to the enemy's front rank too often to be left on the field with a +round hole in its left lapel that matched another going right through +the brave heart of the plain country captain or major or colonel who +was buried in it under the crimson turf. + +Mr. Silas Peckham said little or nothing. His sensibilities were not +acute, but he perceived that he had made a miscalculation. He hoped +that there was no offence,--thought it might have been mutooally +agreeable, conclooded he would give up the idee of a colation, and +backed himself out as if unwilling to expose the less guarded aspect +of his person to the risk of accelerating impulses. + +The Colonel shut the door,--cast his eye on the toe of his right +boot, as if it had had a strong temptation,--looked at his watch, +then round the room, and, going to a cupboard, swallowed a glass of +deep-red brandy and water to compose his feelings. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE DOCTOR ORDERS THE BEST SULKY. +(With a Digression on "Hired Help.") + +"ABEL! Slip Cassia into the new sulky, and fetch her round." + +Abel was Dr. Kittredge's hired man. He was born in New Hampshire, a +queer sort of State, with fat streaks of soil and population where +they breed giants in mind and body, and lean streaks which export +imperfectly nourished young men with promising but neglected +appetites, who may be found in great numbers in all the large towns, +or could be until of late years, when they have been half driven out +of their favorite basement-stories by foreigners, and half coaxed +away from them by California. New Hampshire is in more than one +sense the Switzerland of New England. The "Granite State" being +naturally enough deficient in pudding-stone, its children are apt to +wander southward in search of that deposit,--in the unpetrified +condition. + +Abel Stebbins was a good specimen of that extraordinary hybrid or +mule between democracy and chrysocracy, a native-born New-England +serving-man. The Old World has nothing at all like him. He is at +once an emperor and a subordinate. In one hand he holds one five- +millionth part (be the same more or less) of the power that sways the +destinies of the Great Republic. His other hand is in your boot, +which he is about to polish. It is impossible to turn a fellow +citizen whose vote may make his master--say, rather, employer-- +Governor or President, or who may be one or both himself, into a +flunky. That article must be imported ready-made from other centres +of civilization. When a New Englander has lost his self-respect as a +citizen and as a man, he is demoralized, and cannot be trusted with +the money to pay for a dinner. + +It may be supposed, therefore, that this fractional emperor, this +continent-shaper, finds his position awkward when he goes into +service, and that his employer is apt to find it still more +embarrassing. It is always under protest that the hired man does his +duty. Every act of service is subject to the drawback, "I am as good +as you are." This is so common, at least, as almost to be the rule, +and partly accounts for the rapid disappearance of the indigenous +"domestic" from the basements above mentioned. Paleontologists will +by and by be examining the floors of our kitchens for tracks of the +extinct native species of serving-man. The female of the same race +is fast dying out; indeed, the time is not far distant when all the +varieties of young woman will have vanished from New England, as the +dodo has perished in the Mauritius. The young lady is all that we +shall have left, and the mop and duster of the last Ahnira or Loizy +will be stared at by generations of Bridgets and Noras as that famous +head and foot of the lost bird are stared at in the Ashmolean Museum. + +Abel Stebbins, the Doctor's man, took the true American view of his +difficult position. He sold his time to the Doctor, and, having sold +it, he took care to fulfil his half of the bargain. The Doctor, on +his part, treated him, not like a gentleman, because one does not +order a gentleman to bring up his horse or run his errands, but he +treated him like a man. Every order was given in courteous terms. +His reasonable privileges were respected as much as if they had been +guaranteed under hand and seal. The Doctor lent him books from his +own library, and gave him all friendly counsel, as if he were a son +or a younger brother. + +Abel had Revolutionary blood in his veins, and though he saw fit to +"hire out," he could never stand the word "servant," or consider +himself the inferior one of the two high contracting parties. When +he came to live with the Doctor, he made up his mind he would dismiss +the old gentleman, if he did not behave according to his notions of +propriety. But he soon found that the Doctor was one of the right +sort, and so determined to keep him. The Doctor soon found, on his +side, that he had a trustworthy, intelligent fellow, who would be +invaluable to him, if he only let him have his own way of doing what +was to be done. + +The Doctor's hired man had not the manners of a French valet. He was +grave and taciturn for the most part, he never bowed and rarely +smiled, but was always at work in the daytime, and always reading in +the evening. He was hostler, and did all the housework that a man +could properly do, would go to the door or "tend table," bought the +provisions for the family,--in short, did almost everything for them +but get their clothing. There was no office in a perfectly appointed +household, from that of steward down to that of stable-boy, which he +did not cheerfully assume. His round of work not consuming all his +energies, he must needs cultivate the Doctor's garden, which he kept +in one perpetual bloom, from the blowing of the first crocus to the +fading of the last dahlia. + +This garden was Abel's poem. Its half-dozen beds were so many +cantos. Nature crowded them for him with imagery such as no Laureate +could copy in the cold mosaic of language. The rhythm of alternating +dawn and sunset, the strophe and antistrophe still perceptible +through all the sudden shifts of our dithyrambic seasons and echoed +in corresponding floral harmonies, made melody in the soul of Abel, +the plain serving-man. It softened his whole otherwise rigid aspect. +He worshipped God according to the strict way of his fathers; but a +florist's Puritanism is always colored by the petals of his flowers, +--and Nature never shows him a black corolla. + +He may or may not figure again in this narrative; but as there must +be some who confound the New England hired man, native-born, with the +servant of foreign birth, and as there is the difference of two +continents and two civilizations between them, it did not seem fair +to let Abel bring round the Doctor's mare and sulky without touching +his features in half-shadow into our background. + +The Doctor's mare, Cassia, was so called by her master from her +cinnamon color, cassia being one of the professional names for that +spice or drug. She was of the shade we call sorrel, or, as an +Englishman would perhaps say, chestnut,--a genuine "Morgan" mare, +with a low forehand, as is common in this breed, but with strong +quarters and flat hocks, well ribbed up, with a good eye and a pair +of lively ears,--a first-rate doctor's beast, would stand until her +harness dropped off her back at the door of a tedious case, and trot +over hill and dale thirty miles in three hours, if there was a child +in the next county with a bean in its windpipe and the Doctor gave +her a hint of the fact. Cassia was not large, but she had a good +deal of action, and was the Doctor's show-horse. There were two. +other animals in his stable: Quassia or Quashy, the black horse, and +Caustic, the old bay, with whom he jogged round the village. + +"A long ride to-day?" said Abel, as he brought up the equipage. + +"Just out of the village,--that 's all.---There 's a kink in her +mane,--pull it out, will you?" + +"Goin' to visit some of the great folks," Abel said to himself." +Wonder who it is."--Then to the Doctor,--"Anybody get sick at +Sprowles's? They say Deacon Soper had a fit, after eatin' some o' +their frozen victuals." + +The Doctor smiled. He guessed the Deacon would do well enough. He +was only going to ride over to the Dudley mansion-house. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE DOCTOR CALLS ON ELSIE VENNER. + +If that primitive physician, Chiron, M. D., appears as a Centaur, as +we look at him through the lapse of thirty centuries, the modern +country-doctor, if he could be seen about thirty miles off, could not +be distinguished from a wheel-animalcule. He inhabits a wheel- +carriage. He thinks of stationary dwellings as Long Tom Coffin did +of land in general; a house may be well enough for incidental +purposes, but for a "stiddy" residence give him a "kerridge." If he +is classified in the Linnaean scale, he must be set down thus: Genus +Homo; Species Rotifer infusorius, the wheel-animal of infusions. + +The Dudley mansion was not a mile from the Doctor's; but it never +occurred to him to think of walking to see any of his patients' +families, if he had any professional object in his visit. Whenever +the narrow sulky turned in at a gate, the rustic who was digging +potatoes, or hoeing corn, or swishing through the grass with his +scythe, in wave-like crescents, or stepping short behind a loaded +wheelbarrow, or trudging lazily by the side of the swinging, loose- +throated, short-legged oxen, rocking along the road as if they had +just been landed after a three-months' voyage, the toiling native, +whatever he was doing, stopped and looked up at the house the Doctor +was visiting. + +"Somebody sick over there t' Haynes's. Guess th' old man's ailin' +ag'in. Winder's half-way open in the chamber,--should n' wonder 'f +he was dead and laid aout. Docterin' a'n't no use, when y' see th' +winders open like that. Wahl, money a'n't much to speak of to th' +old man naow! He don' want but tew cents,--'n' old Widah Peake, she +knows what he wants them for!" + +Or again,-- + +"Measles raound pooty thick. Briggs's folks buried two children with +'em lass' week. Th' of Doctor, he'd h' ker'd 'em threugh. Struck in +'n' p'dooced mo't'f'cation,--so they say." + +This is only meant as a sample of the kind of way they used to think +or talk, when the narrow sulky turned in at the gate of some house +where there was a visit to be made. + +Oh, that narrow sulky! What hopes, what fears, what comfort, what +anguish, what despair, in the roll of its coming or its parting +wheels! In the spring, when the old people get the coughs which give +them a few shakes and their lives drop in pieces like the ashes of a +burned thread which have kept the threadlike shape until they were +stirred,--in the hot summer noons, when the strong man comes in from +the fields, like the son of the Shunamite, crying, "My head, my +head,"--in the dying autumn days, when youth and maiden lie fever- +stricken in many a household, still-faced, dull-eyed, dark-flushed, +dry-lipped, low-muttering in their daylight dreams, their fingers +moving singly like those of slumbering harpers,--in the dead winter, +when the white plague of the North has caged its wasted victims, +shuddering as they think of the frozen soil which must be quarried +like rock to receive them, if their perpetual convalescence should +happen to be interfered with by any untoward accident,--at every +season, the narrow sulky rolled round freighted with unmeasured +burdens of joy and woe. + +The Doctor drove along the southern foot of The Mountain. The +"Dudley Mansion" was near the eastern edge of this declivity, where +it rose steepest, with baldest cliffs and densest patches of +overhanging wood. It seemed almost too steep to climb, but a +practised eye could see from a distance the zigzag lines of the +sheep-paths which scaled it like miniature Alpine roads. A few +hundred feet up The Mountain's side was a dark deep dell, unwooded, +save for a few spindling, crazy-looking hackmatacks or native +larches, with pallid green tufts sticking out fantastically all over +them. It shelved so deeply, that, while the hemlock-tassels were +swinging on the trees around its border, all would be still at its +springy bottom, save that perhaps a single fern would wave slowly +backward and forward like a sabre with a twist as of a feathered +oar,--and this when not a breath could be felt, and every other stem +and blade were motionless. There was an old story of one having +perished here in the winter of '86, and his body having been found in +the spring,--whence its common name of "Dead-Man's Hollow." Higher +up there were huge cliffs with chasms, and, it was thought, concealed +caves, where in old times they said that Tories lay hid,--some hinted +not without occasional aid and comfort from the Dudleys then living +in the mansion-house. Still higher and farther west lay the accursed +ledge,--shunned by all, unless it were now and then a daring youth, +or a wandering naturalist who ventured to its edge in the hope of +securing some infantile Crotalus durissus, who had not yet cut his +poison teeth. + +Long, long ago, in old Colonial times, the Honorable Thomas Dudley, +Esquire, a man of note and name and great resources, allied by +descent to the family of "Tom Dudley," as the early Governor is +sometimes irreverently called by our most venerable, but still +youthful antiquary,--and to the other public Dudleys, of course,--of +all of whom he made small account, as being himself an English +gentleman, with little taste for the splendors of provincial office, +early in the last century, Thomas Dudley had built this mansion. For +several generations it had been dwelt in by descendants of the same +name, but soon after the Revolution it passed by marriage into the +hands of the Venners, by whom it had ever since been held and +tenanted. + +As the doctor turned an angle in the road, all at once the stately +old house rose before him. It was a skilfully managed effect, as it +well might be, for it was no vulgar English architect who had planned +the mansion and arranged its position and approach. The old house +rose before the Doctor, crowning a terraced garden, flanked at the +left by an avenue of tall elms. The flower-beds were edged with box, +which diffused around it that dreamy balsamic odor, full of ante- +natal reminiscences of a lost Paradise, dimly fragrant as might be +the bdellium of ancient Havilah, the land compassed by the river +Pison that went out of Eden. The garden was somewhat neglected, but +not in disgrace,--and in the time of tulips and hyacinths, of roses, +of "snowballs," of honeysuckles, of lilacs, of syringas, it was rich +with blossoms. + +>From the front-windows of the mansion the eye reached a far blue +mountain-summit,--no rounded heap, such as often shuts in a village- +landscape, but a sharp peak, clean-angled as Ascutney from the +Dartmouth green. A wide gap through miles of woods had opened this +distant view, and showed more, perhaps, than all the labors of the +architect and the landscape-gardener the large style of the early +Dudleys. + +The great stone-chimney of the mansion-house was the centre from +which all the artificial features of the scene appeared to flow. The +roofs, the gables, the dormer-windows, the porches, the clustered +offices in the rear, all seemed to crowd about the great chimney. To +this central pillar the paths all converged. The single poplar +behind the house,--Nature is jealous of proud chimneys, and always +loves to put a poplar near one, so that it may fling a leaf or two +down its black throat every autumn,--the one tall poplar behind the +house seemed to nod and whisper to the grave square column, the elms +to sway their branches towards it. And when the blue smoke rose from +its summit, it seemed to be wafted away to join the azure haze which +hung around the peak in the far distance, so that both should bathe +in a common atmosphere. + +Behind the house were clumps of lilacs with a century's growth upon +them, and looking more like trees than like shrubs. Shaded by a +group of these was the ancient well, of huge circuit, and with a low +arch opening out of its wall about ten feet below the surface,-- +whether the door of a crypt for the concealment of treasure, or of a +subterranean passage, or merely of a vault for keeping provisions +cool in hot weather, opinions differed. + +On looking at the house, it was plain that it was built with Old- +World notions of strength and durability, and, so far as might be, +with Old-World materials. The hinges of the doors stretched out like +arms, instead of like hands, as we make them. The bolts were massive +enough for a donjon-keep. The small window-panes were actually +inclosed in the wood of the sashes instead of being stuck to them +with putty, as in our modern windows. The broad staircase was of +easy ascent, and was guarded by quaintly turned and twisted +balusters. The ceilings of the two rooms of state were moulded with +medallion-portraits and rustic figures, such as may have been seen by +many readers in the famous old Philipse house,--Washington's head- +quarters,--in the town of Yorkers. The fire-places, worthy of the +wide-throated central chimney, were bordered by pictured tiles, some +of them with Scripture stories, some with Watteau-like figures,--tall +damsels in slim waists and with spread enough of skirt for a modern +ballroom, with bowing, reclining, or musical swains of what everybody +calls the "conventional" sort,--that is, the swain adapted to genteel +society rather than to a literal sheep-compelling existence. + +The house was furnished, soon after it was completed, with many heavy +articles made in London from a rare wood just then come into fashion, +not so rare now, and commonly known as mahogany. Time had turned it +very dark, and the stately bedsteads and tall cabinets and claw- +footed chairs and tables were in keeping with the sober dignity of +the ancient mansion. The old "hangings" were yet preserved in the +chambers, faded, but still showing their rich patterns,--properly +entitled to their name, for they were literally hung upon flat wooden +frames like trellis-work, which again were secured to the naked +partitions. + +There were portraits of different date on the walls of the various +apartments, old painted coats-of-arms, bevel-edged mirrors, and in +one sleeping-room a glass case of wax-work flowers and spangly +symbols, with a legend signifying that E. M. (supposed to be +Elizabeth Mascarene) wished not to be "forgot" + + "When I am dead and lay'd in dust + And all my bones are"--- + +Poor E. M.! Poor everybody that sighs for earthly remembrance in a +planet with a core of fire and a crust of fossils! + +Such was the Dudley mansion-house,--for it kept its ancient name in +spite of the change in the line of descent. Its spacious apartments +looked dreary and desolate; for here Dudley Venner and his daughter +dwelt by themselves, with such servants only as their quiet mode of +life required. He almost lived in his library, the western room on +the ground-floor. Its window looked upon a small plat of green, in +the midst of which was a single grave marked by a plain marble slab. +Except this room, and the chamber where he slept, and the servants' +wing, the rest of the house was all Elsie's. She was always a +restless, wandering child from her early years, and would have her +little bed moved from one chamber to another,--flitting round as the +fancy took her. Sometimes she would drag a mat and a pillow into one +of the great empty rooms, and, wrapping herself in a shawl, coil up +and go to sleep in a corner. Nothing frightened her; the "haunted" +chamber, with the torn hangings that flapped like wings when there +was air stirring, was one of her favorite retreats. She had been a +very hard creature to manage. Her father could influence, but not +govern her. Old Sophy, born of a slave mother in the house, could do +more with her than anybody, knowing her by long instinctive study. +The other servants were afraid of her. Her father had sent for +governesses, but none of them ever stayed long. She made them +nervous; one of them had a strange fit of sickness; not one of them +ever came back to the house to see her. A young Spanish woman who +taught her dancing succeeded best with her, for she had a passion for +that exercise, and had mastered some of the most difficult dances. +Long before this period, she had manifested some most extraordinary +singularities of taste or instinct. The extreme sensitiveness of her +father on this point prevented any allusion to them; but there were +stories floating round, some of them even getting into the papers,-- +without her name, of course,--which were of a kind to excite intense +curiosity, if not more anxious feelings. This thing was certain, +that at the age of twelve she was missed one night, and was found +sleeping in the open air under a tree, like a wild creature. Very +often she would wander off by day, always without a companion, +bringing home with her a nest, a flower, or even a more questionable +trophy of her ramble, such as showed that there was no place where +she was afraid to venture. Once in a while she had stayed out over +night, in which case the alarm was spread, and men went in search of +her, but never successfully,--so--that some said she hid herself in +trees, and others that she had found one of the old Tory caves. + +Some, of course, said she was a crazy girl, and ought to be sent to +an Asylum. But old Dr. Kittredge had shaken his head, and told them +to bear with her, and let her have her way as much as they could, but +watch her, as far as possible, without making her suspicious of them. +He visited her now and then, under the pretext of seeing her father +on business, or of only making a friendly call. + +The Doctor fastened his horse outside the gate, and walked up the +garden-alley. He stopped suddenly ,with a start. A strange sound +had jarred upon his ear. It was a sharp prolonged rattle, +continuous, but rising and falling as if in rhythmical cadence. He +moved softly towards the open window from which the sound seemed to +proceed. + +Elsie was alone in the room, dancing one of those wild Moorish +fandangos, such as a matador hot from the Plaza de Toros of Seville +or Madrid might love to lie and gaze at. She was a figure to look +upon in silence. The dancing frenzy must have seized upon her while +she was dressing; for she was in her bodice, bare-armed, her hair +floating unbound far below the waist of her barred or banded skirt. +She had caught up her castanets, and rattled them as she danced with +a kind of passionate fierceness, her lithe body undulating with +flexuous grace, her diamond eyes glittering, her round arms wreathing +and unwinding, alive and vibrant to the tips of the slender fingers. +Some passion seemed to exhaust itself in this dancing paroxysm; for +all at once she reeled from the middle of the floor, and flung +herself, as it were in a careless coil, upon a great tiger's-skin +which was spread out in one corner of the apartment. + +The old Doctor stood motionless, looking at her as she lay panting on +the tawny, black-lined robe of the dead monster which stretched out +beneath her, its rude flattened outline recalling the Terror of the +Jungle as he crouched for his fatal spring. In a few moments her +head drooped upon her arm, and her glittering eyes closed,--she was +sleeping. He stood looking at her still, steadily, thoughtfully, +tenderly. Presently he lifted his hand to his forehead, as if +recalling some fading remembrance of other years. + +"Poor Catalina!" + +This was all he said. He shook his head,--implying that his visit +would be in vain to-day,--returned to his sulky, and rode away, as if +in a dream. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +COUSIN RICHARD'S VISIT. + +The Doctor was roused from his revery by the clatter of approaching +hoofs. He looked forward and saw a young fellow galloping rapidly +towards him. + +A common New-England rider with his toes turned out, his elbows +jerking and the daylight showing under him at every step, bestriding +a cantering beast of the plebeian breed, thick at every point where +he should be thin, and thin at every point where he should be thick, +is not one of those noble objects that bewitch the world. The best +horsemen outside of the cities are the unshod countryboys, who ride +"bareback," with only a halter round the horse's neck, digging their +brown heels into his ribs, and slanting over backwards, but sticking +on like leeches, and taking the hardest trot as if they loved it.--- +This was a different sight on which the Doctor was looking. The +streaming mane and tail of the unshorn, savage-looking, black horse, +the dashing grace with which the young fellow in the shadowy +sombrero, and armed with the huge spurs, sat in his high-peaked +saddle, could belong only to the mustang of the Pampas and his +master. This bold rider was a young man whose sudden apparition in +the quiet inland town had reminded some of the good people of a +bright, curly-haired boy they had known some eight or ten years +before as little Dick Venner. + +This boy had passed several of his early years at the Dudley mansion, +the playmate of Elsie, being her cousin, two or three years older +than herself, the son of Captain Richard Venner, a South American +trader, who, as he changed his residence often, was glad to leave the +boy in his brother's charge. The Captain's wife, this boy's mother, +was a lady of Buenos Ayres, of Spanish descent, and had died while +the child was in his cradle. These two motherless children were as +strange a pair as one roof could well cover. Both handsome, wild, +impetuous, unmanageable, they played and fought together like two +young leopards, beautiful, but dangerous, their lawless instincts +showing through all their graceful movements. + +The boy was little else than a young Gaucho when he first came to +Rockland; for he had learned to ride almost as soon as to walk, and +could jump on his pony and trip up a runaway pig with the bolas or +noose him with his miniature lasso at an age when some city-children +would hardly be trusted out of sight of a nursery-maid. It makes men +imperious to sit a horse; no man governs his fellows so well as from +this living throne. And so, from Marcus Aurelius in Roman bronze, +down to the "man on horseback" in General Cushing's prophetic speech, +the saddle has always been the true seat of empire. The absolute +tyranny of the human will over a noble and powerful beast develops +the instinct of personal prevalence and dominion; so that horse- +subduer and hero were almost synonymous in simpler times, and are +closely related still. An ancestry of wild riders naturally enough +bequeaths also those other tendencies which we see in the Tartars, +the Cossacks, and our own Indian Centaurs, and as well, perhaps, in +the old-fashioned fox-hunting squire as in any of these. Sharp +alternations of violent action and self-indulgent repose; a hard run, +and a long revel after it; this is what over-much horse tends to +animalize a man into. Such antecedents may have helped to make +little Dick Venner a self-willed, capricious boy, and a rough +playmate for Elsie. + +Elsie was the wilder of the two. Old Sophy, who used to watch them +with those quick, animal-looking eyes of hers,--she was said to be +the granddaughter of a cannibal chief, and inherited the keen senses +belonging to all creatures which are hunted as game, Old Sophy, who +watched them in their play and their quarrels, always seemed to be +more afraid for the boy than the girl. "Masse Dick! Masse Dick! +don' you be too rough wi' dat gal! She scratch you las' week, 'n' +some day she bite you; 'n' if she bite you, Masse Dick! "Old Sophy +nodded her head ominously, as if she could say a great deal more; +while, in grateful acknowledgment of her caution, Master Dick put his +two little fingers in the angles of his mouth, and his forefingers on +his lower eyelids, drawing upon these features until his expression +reminded her of something she vaguely recollected in her infancy,-- +the face of a favorite deity executed in wood by an African artist +for her grandfather, brought over by her mother, and burned when she +became a Christian. + +These two wild children had much in common. They loved to ramble +together, to build huts, to climb trees for nests, to ride the colts, +to dance, to race, and to play at boys' rude games as if both were +boys. But wherever two natures have a great deal in common, the +conditions of a first-rate quarrel are furnished ready-made. +Relations are very apt to hate each other just because they are too +much alike. It is so frightful to be in an atmosphere of family +idiosyncrasies; to see all the hereditary uncomeliness or infirmity +of body, all the defects of speech, all the failings of temper, +intensified by concentration, so that every fault of our own finds +itself multiplied by reflections, like our images in a saloon lined. +with mirrors! Nature knows what she is about. The centrifugal +principle which grows out of the antipathy of like to like is only +the repetition in character of the arrangement we see expressed +materially in certain seed-capsules, which burst and throw the seed +to all points of the compass. A house is a large pod with a human +germ or two in each of its cells or chambers; it opens by dehiscence +of the front-door by and by, and projects one of its germs to Kansas, +another to San Francisco, another to Chicago, and so on; and this +that Smith may not be Smithed to death and Brown may not be Browned +into a mad-house, but mix in with the world again and struggle back +to average humanity. + +Elsie's father, whose fault was to indulge her in everything, found +that it would never do to let these children grow up together. They +would either love each other as they got older, and pair like wild +creatures, or take some fierce antipathy, which might end nobody +could tell where. It was not safe to try. The boy must be sent +away. A sharper quarrel than common decided this point. Master Dick +forgot Old Sophy's caution, and vexed the girl into a paroxysm of +wrath, in which she sprang at him and bit his arm. Perhaps they made +too much of it; for they sent for the old Doctor, who came at once +when he heard what had happened. He had a good deal to say about the +danger there was from the teeth of animals or human beings when +enraged; and as he emphasized his remarks by the application of a +pencil of lunar caustic to each of the marks left by the sharp white +teeth, they were like to be remembered by at least one of his +hearers. + +So Master Dick went off on his travels, which led him into strange +places and stranger company. Elsie was half pleased and half sorry +to have him go; the children had a kind of mingled liking and hate +for each other, just such as is very common among relations. Whether +the girl had most satisfaction in the plays they shared, or in +teasing him, or taking her small revenge upon him for teasing her, it +would have been hard to say. At any rate, she was lonely without +him. She had more fondness for the old black woman than anybody; but +Sophy could not follow her far beyond her own old rocking-chair. As +for her father, she had made him afraid of her, not for his sake, but +for her own. Sometimes she would seem to be fond of him, and the +parent's heart would yearn within him as she twined her supple arms +about him; and then some look she gave him, some half-articulated +expression, would turn his cheek pale and almost make him shiver, and +he would say kindly, "Now go, Elsie, dear," and smile upon her as +she went, and close and lock the door softly after her. Then his +forehead would knot and furrow itself, and the drops of anguish stand +thick upon it. He would go to the western window of his study and +look at the solitary mound with the marble slab for its head-stone. +After his grief had had its way, he would kneel down and pray for his +child as one who has no hope save in that special grace which can +bring the most rebellious spirit into sweet subjection. All this +might seem like weakness in a parent having the charge of one sole +daughter of his house and heart; but he had tried authority and +tenderness by turns so long without any good effect, that he had +become sore perplexed, and, surrounding her with cautious +watchfulness as he best might, left her in the main to her own +guidance and the merciful influences which Heaven might send down to +direct her footsteps. + +Meantime the boy grew up to youth and early manhood through a strange +succession of adventures. He had been at school at Buenos Ayres,-- +had quarrelled with his mother's relatives,--had run off to the +Pampas, and lived with the Gauchos;--had made friends with the +Indians, and ridden with them, it was rumored, in some of their +savage forays,--had returned and made up his quarrel,--had got money +by inheritance or otherwise,--had troubled the peace of certain +magistrates,--had found it convenient to leave the City of Wholesome +Breezes for a time, and had galloped off on a fast horse of his, (so +it was said,) with some officers riding after him, who took good care +(but this was only the popular story) not to catch him. A few days +after this he was taking his ice on the Alameda of Mendoza, and a +week or two later sailed from Valparaiso for New York, carrying with +him the horse with which he had scampered over the Plains, a trunk or +two with his newly purchased outfit of, clothing and other +conveniences, and a belt heavy with gold and with a few Brazilian +diamonds sewed in it, enough in value to serve him for a long +journey. + +Dick Venner had seen life enough to wear out the earlier +sensibilities of adolescence. He was tired of worshipping or +tyrannizing over the bistred or umbered beauties of mingled blood +among whom he had been living. Even that piquant exhibition which +the Rio de Mendoza presents to the amateur of breathing sculpture +failed to interest him. He was thinking of a far-off village on the +other side of the equator, and of the wild girl with whom he used to +play and quarrel, a creature of a different race from these +degenerate mongrels. + +"A game little devil she was, sure enough!" --And as Dick spoke, he +bared his wrist to look for the marks she had left on it: two small +white scars, where the two small sharp upper teeth had struck when +she flashed at him with her eyes sparkling as bright as those +glittering stones sewed up in the belt he wore. "That's a filly +worth noosing!" said Dick to himself, as he looked in admiration at +the sign of her spirit and passion. "I wonder if she will bite at +eighteen as she did at eight! She shall have a chance to try, at any +rate!" + +Such was the self-sacrificing disposition with which Richard Venner, +Esq., a passenger by the Condor from Valparaiso, set foot upon his +native shore, and turned his face in the direction of Rockland, The +Mountain, and the mansion-house. He had heard something, from time +to time, of his New-England relatives, and knew that they were living +together as he left them. And so he heralded himself to "My dear +Uncle" by a letter signed "Your loving nephew, Richard Venner," in +which letter he told a very frank story of travel and mercantile +adventure, expressed much gratitude for the excellent counsel and +example which had helped to form his character and preserve him in +the midst of temptation, inquired affectionately after his uncle's +health, was much interested to know whether his lively cousin who +used to be his playmate had grown up as handsome as she promised to +be, and announced his intention of paying his respects to them both +at Rockland. Not long after this came the trunks marked R. V. which +he had sent before him, forerunners of his advent: he was not going +to wait for a reply or an invitation. + +What a sound that is,--the banging down of the preliminary trunk, +without its claimant to give it the life which is borrowed by all +personal appendages, so long as the owner's hand or eye is on them! +If it announce the coming of one loved and longed for, how we delight +to look at it, to sit down on it, to caress it in our fancies, as a +lone exile walking out on a windy pier yearns towards the merchantman +lying alongside, with the colors of his own native land at her peak, +and the name of the port he sailed from long ago upon her stern! But +if it tell the near approach of the undesired, inevitable guest, what +sound short of the muffled noises made by the undertakers as they +turn the corners in the dim-lighted house, with low shuffle of feet +and whispered cautions, carries such a sense of knocking-kneed +collapse with it as the thumping down in the front entry of the heavy +portmanteau, rammed with the changes of uncounted coming weeks? + +Whether the R. V. portmanteaus brought one or the other of these +emotions to the tenants of the Dudley mansion, it might not be easy +to settle. Elsie professed to be pleased with the thought of having +an adventurous young stranger, with stories to tell, an inmate of +their quiet, not to say dull, family. Under almost any other +circumstances, her father would have been unwilling to take a young +fellow of whom he knew so little under his roof; but this was his +nephew, and anything that seemed like to amuse or please Elsie was +agreeable to him. He had grown almost desperate, and felt as if any +change in the current of her life and feelings might save her from +some strange paroxysm of dangerous mental exaltation or sullen +perversion of disposition, from which some fearful calamity might +come to herself or others. + +Dick had been several weeks at the Dudley mansion. A few days +before, he had made a sudden dash for the nearest large city,--and +when the Doctor met him, he was just returning from his visit. + +It had been a curious meeting between the two young persons, who had +parted so young and after such strange relations with each other. +When Dick first presented himself at the mansion, not one in the +house would have known him for the boy who had left them all so +suddenly years ago. He was so dark, partly from his descent, partly +from long habits of exposure, that Elsie looked almost fair beside +him. He had something of the family beauty which belonged to his +cousin, but his eye had a fierce passion in it, very unlike the cold +glitter of Elsie's. Like many people of strong and imperious temper, +he was soft-voiced and very gentle in his address, when he had no +special reason for being otherwise. He soon found reasons enough to +be as amiable as he could force himself to be with his uncle and his +cousin. Elsie was to his fancy. She had a strange attraction for +him, quite unlike anything he had ever known in other women. There +was something, too, in early associations: when those who parted as +children meet as man and woman, there is always a renewal of that +early experience which followed the taste of the forbidden fruit,--a +natural blush of consciousness, not without its charm. + +Nothing could be more becoming than the behavior of "Richard Venner, +Esquire, the guest of Dudley Venner, Esquire, at his noble mansion," +as he was announced in the Court column of the "Rockland Weekly +Universe." He was pleased to find himself treated with kindness and +attention as a relative. He made himself very agreeable by abundant +details concerning the religious, political, social, commercial, and +educational progress of the South American cities and states. He was +himself much interested in everything that was going on about the +Dudley mansion, walked all over it, noticed its valuable wood-lots +with special approbation, was delighted with the grand old house and +its furniture, and would not be easy until he had seen all the family +silver and heard its history. In return, he had much to tell of his +father, now dead,--the only one of the Venners, beside themselves, in +whose fate his uncle was interested. With Elsie, he was subdued and +almost tender in his manner; with the few visitors whom they saw, shy +and silent,--perhaps a little watchful, if any young man happened to +be among them. + +Young fellows placed on their good behavior are apt to get restless +and nervous, all ready to fly off into some mischief or other. Dick +Venner had his half-tamed horse with him to work off his suppressed +life with. When the savage passion of his young blood came over him, +he would fetch out the mustang, screaming and kicking as these +amiable beasts are wont to do, strap the Spanish saddle tight to his +back, vault into it, and, after getting away from the village, strike +the long spurs into his sides and whirl away in a wild gallop, until +the black horse was flecked with white foam, and the cruel steel +points were red with his blood. When horse and rider were alike +fired, he would fling the bridle on his neck and saunter homeward, +always contriving to get to the stable in a quiet way, and coming +into the house as calm as a bishop after a sober trot on his steady- +going cob. + +After a few weeks of this kind of life, he began to want some more +fierce excitement. He had tried making downright love to Elsie, with +no great success as yet, in his own opinion. The girl was capricious +in her treatment of him, sometimes scowling and repellent, sometimes +familiar, very often, as she used to be of old, teasing and +malicious. All this, perhaps, made her more interesting to a young +man who was tired of easy conquests. There was a strange fascination +in her eyes, too, which at times was quite irresistible, so that he +would feel himself drawn to her by a power which seemed to take away +his will for the moment. It may have been nothing but the common +charm of bright eyes; but he had never before experienced the same +kind of attraction. + +Perhaps she was not so very different from what she had been as a +child, after all. At any rate, so it seemed to Dick Venner, who, as +was said before, had tried making love to her. They were sitting +alone in the study one day; Elsie had round her neck that somewhat +peculiar ornament, the golden torque, which she had worn to the great +party. Youth is adventurous and very curious about necklaces, +brooches, chains, and other such adornments, so long as they are worn +by young persons of the female sex. Dick was seized with a great +passion for examining this curious chain, and, after some preliminary +questions, was rash enough to lean towards her and put out his hand +toward the neck that lay in the golden coil. + +She threw her head back, her eyes narrowing and her forehead drawing +down so that Dick thought her head actually flattened itself. He +started involuntarily; for she looked so like the little girl who had +struck him with those sharp flashing teeth, that the whole scene came +back, and he felt the stroke again as if it had just been given, and +the two white scars began to sting as they did after the old Doctor +had burned them with that stick of gray caustic, which looked so like +a slate pencil, and felt so much like the end of a red-hot poker. + +It took something more than a gallop to set him right after this. +The next day he mentioned having received a letter from a mercantile +agent with whom he had dealings. What his business was is, perhaps, +none of our business. At any rate, it required him to go at once to +the city where his correspondent resided. + +Independently of this "business" which called him, there may have +been other motives, such as have been hinted at. People who have +been living for a long time in dreary country-places, without any +emotion beyond such as are occasioned by a trivial pleasure or +annoyance, often get crazy at last for a vital paroxysm of some kind +or other. In this state they rush to the great cities for a plunge +into their turbid life-baths, with a frantic thirst for every +exciting pleasure, which makes them the willing and easy victims of +all those who sell the Devil's wares on commission. The less +intelligent and instructed class of unfortunates, who venture with +their ignorance and their instincts into what is sometimes called the +"life" of great cities, are put through a rapid course of instruction +which entitles them very commonly to a diploma from the police court. +But they only illustrate the working of the same tendency in mankind +at large which has been occasionally noticed in the sons of ministers +and other eminently worthy people, by many ascribed to that intense +congenital hatred for goodness which distinguishes human nature from +that of the brute, but perhaps as readily accounted for by +considering it as the yawning and stretching of a young soul cramped +too long in one moral posture. + +Richard Veneer was a young man of remarkable experience for his +years. He ran less risk, therefore, in exposing himself to the +temptations and dangers of a great city than many older men, who, +seeking the livelier scenes of excitement to be found in large towns +as a relaxation after the monotonous routine of family life, are too +often taken advantage of and made the victims of their sentiments or +their generous confidence in their fellow-creatures. Such was not +his destiny. There was something about him which looked as if he +would not take bullying kindly. He had also the advantage of being +acquainted with most of those ingenious devices by which the +proverbial inconstancy of fortune is steadied to something more +nearly approaching fixed laws, and the dangerous risks which have so +often led young men to ruin and suicide are practically reduced to +somewhat less than nothing. So that Mr. Richard Veneer worked off +his nervous energies without any troublesome adventure, and was ready +to return to Rockland in less than a week, without having lightened +the money-belt he wore round his body, or tarnished the long +glittering knife he carried in his boot. + +Dick had sent his trunk to the nearest town through which the +railroad leading to the city passed. He rode off on his black horse +and left him at the place where he took the cars. On arriving at the +city station, he took a coach and drove to one of the great hotels. +Thither drove also a sagacious-looking, middle-aged man, who entered +his name as "W. Thompson " in the book at the office immediately +after that of "R. Venner." Mr. "Thompson" kept a carelessly +observant eye upon Mr. Venner during his stay at the hotel, and +followed him to the cars when he left, looking over his shoulder when +he bought his ticket at the station, and seeing him fairly off +without obtruding himself in any offensive way upon his attention. +Mr. Thompson, known in other quarters as Detective Policeman Terry, +got very little by his trouble. Richard Venner did not turn out to +be the wife-poisoner, the defaulting cashier, the river-pirate, or +the great counterfeiter. He paid his hotel-bill as a gentleman +should always do, if he has the money and can spare it. The +detective had probably overrated his own sagacity when he ventured to +suspect Mr. Venner. He reported to his chief that there was a +knowing-looking fellow he had been round after, but he rather guessed +he was nothing more than "one o' them Southern sportsmen." + +The poor fellows at the stable where Dick had left his horse had had +trouble enough with him. One of the ostlers was limping about with a +lame leg, and another had lost a mouthful of his coat, which came +very near carrying a piece of his shoulder with it. When Mr. Venner +came back for his beast, he was as wild as if he had just been +lassoed, screaming, kicking, rolling over to get rid of his saddle, +and when his rider was at last mounted, jumping about in a way to +dislodge any common horseman. To all this Dick replied by sticking +his long spurs deeper and deeper into his flanks, until the creature +found he was mastered, and dashed off as if all the thistles of the +Pampas were pricking him. + +"One more gallop, Juan?" This was in the last mile of the road +before he came to the town which brought him in sight of the mansion- +house. It was in this last gallop that the fiery mustang and his +rider flashed by the old Doctor. Cassia pointed her sharp ears and +shied to let them pass. The Doctor turned and looked through the +little round glass in the back of his sulky. + +"Dick Turpin, there, will find more than his match!" said the Doctor. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE APOLLINEAN INSTITUTE. +(With Extracts from the "Report of the committee.") + +The readers of this narrative will hardly expect any elaborate +details of the educational management of the Apollinean Institute. +They cannot be supposed to take the same interest in its affairs as +was shown by the Annual Committees who reported upon its condition +and prospects. As these Committees were, however, an important part +of the mechanism of the establishment, some general account of their +organization and a few extracts from the Report of the one last +appointed may not be out of place. + +Whether Mr. Silas Peckham had some contrivance for packing his +Committees, whether they happened always to be made up of optimists +by nature, whether they were cajoled into good-humor by polite +attentions, or whether they were always really delighted with the +wonderful acquirements of the pupils and the admirable order of the +school, it is certain that their Annual Reports were couched in +language which might warm the heart of the most cold-blooded and +calculating father that ever had a family of daughters to educate. +In fact, these Annual Reports were considered by Mr. Peckham as his +most effective advertisements. + +The first thing, therefore, was to see that the Committee was made up +of persons known to the public. + +Some worn-out politician, in that leisurely and amiable transition- +state which comes between official extinction and the paralysis which +will finish him as soon as his brain gets a little softer, made an +admirable Chairman for Mr. Peckham, when he had the luck to pick up +such an article. Old reputations, like old fashions, are more prized +in the grassy than in the stony districts. An effete celebrity, who +would never be heard of again in the great places until the funeral +sermon waked up his memory for one parting spasm, finds himself in +full flavor of renown a little farther back from the changing winds +of the sea-coast. If such a public character was not to be had, so +that there was no chance of heading the Report with the name of the +Honorable Mr. Somebody, the next best thing was to get the Reverend +Dr. Somebody to take that conspicuous position. Then would follow +two or three local worthies with Esquire after their names. If any +stray literary personage from one of the great cities happened to be +within reach, he was pounced upon by Mr. Silas Peckham. It was a +hard case for the poor man, who had travelled a hundred miles or two +to the outside suburbs after peace and unwatered milk, to be pumped +for a speech in this unexpected way. It was harder still, if he had +been induced to venture a few tremulous remarks, to be obliged to +write them out for the "Rockland Weekly Universe," with the chance of +seeing them used as an advertising certificate as long as he lived, +if he lived as long as the late Dr. Waterhouse did after giving his +certificate in favor of Whitwell's celebrated Cephalic Snuff. + +The Report of the last Committee had been signed by the Honorable, +___________late __________ of ____________, as Chairman. (It is with +reluctance that the name and titles are left in blank; but our public +characters are so familiarly known to the whole community that this +reserve becomes necessary.) The other members of the Committee were +the Reverend Mr. Butters, of a neighboring town, who was to make the +prayer before the Exercises of the Exhibition, and two or three +notabilities of Rockland, with geoponic eyes, and glabrous, bumpless +foreheads. A few extracts from the Report are subjoined: + + +"The Committee have great pleasure in recording their unanimous +opinion, that the Institution was never in so flourishing a +condition.... + +"The health of the pupils is excellent; the admirable quality of food +supplied shows itself in their appearance; their blooming aspect +excited the admiration of the Committee, and bears testimony to the +assiduity of the excellent Matron. + +"......moral and religious condition most encouraging, which they +cannot but attribute to the personal efforts and instruction of the +faithful Principal, who considers religious instruction a solemn duty +which he cannot commit to other people. + +"......great progress in their studies, under the intelligent +superintendence of the accomplished Principal, assisted by Mr. +Badger, [Mr. Langdon's predecessor,] Miss Darley, the lady who +superintends the English branches, Miss Crabs, her assistant and +teacher of Modern Languages, and Mr. Schneider, teacher of French, +German, Latin, and Music.... + +"Education is the great business of the Institute. Amusements are +objects of a secondary nature; but these are by no means +neglected.... + +"......English compositions of great originality and beauty, +creditable alike to the head and heart of their accomplished +authors.... several poems of a very high order of merit, which would +do honor to the literature of any age or country.... life-like +drawings, showing great proficiency.... Many converse fluently in +various modern languages.... perform the most difficult airs with +the skill of professional musicians.... + +"......advantages unsurpassed, if equalled by those of any +Institution in the country, and reflecting the highest honor on the +distinguished Head of the Establishment, SILAS PECKHAM, Esquire, and +his admirable Lady, the MATRON, with their worthy assistants...." + + +The perusal of this Report did Mr. Bernard more good than a week's +vacation would have done: It gave him such a laugh as he had not had +for a month. The way in which Silas Peckham had made his Committee +say what he wanted them to--for he recognized a number of expressions +in the Report as coming directly from the lips of his principal, and +could not help thinking how cleverly he had forced his phrases, as +jugglers do the particular card they wish their dupe to take--struck +him as particularly neat and pleasing. + +He had passed through the sympathetic and emotional stages in his new +experience, and had arrived at the philosophical and practical state, +which takes things coolly, and goes to work to set them right. He +had breadth enough of view to see that there was nothing so very +exceptional in this educational trader's dealings with his +subordinates, but he had also manly feeling enough to attack the +particular individual instance of wrong before him. There are plenty +of dealer's in morals, as in ordinary traffic, who confine themselves +to wholesale business. They leave the small necessity of their next- +door neighbor to the retailers, who are poorer in statistics and +general facts, but richer in the every-day charities. Mr. Bernard +felt, at first, as one does who sees a gray rat steal out of a drain +and begin gnawing at the bark of some tree loaded with fruit or +blossoms, which he will soon girdle, if he is let alone. The first +impulse is to murder him with the nearest ragged stone. Then one +remembers that he is a rodent, acting after the law of his kind, and +cools down and is contented to drive him off and guard the tree +against his teeth for the future. As soon as this is done, one can +watch his attempts at mischief with a certain amusement. + +This was the kind of process Mr. Bernard had gone through. First, +the indignant surprise of a generous nature, when it comes +unexpectedly into relations with a mean one. Then the impulse of +extermination,--a divine instinct, intended to keep down vermin of +all classes to their working averages in the economy of Nature. Then +a return of cheerful tolerance,--a feeling, that, if the Deity could +bear with rats and sharpers, he could; with a confident trust, that, +in the long run, terriers and honest men would have the upperhand, +and a grateful consciousness that he had been sent just at the right +time to come between a patient victim and the master who held her in +peonage. + +Having once made up his mind what to do, Mr. Bernard was as good- +natured and hopeful as ever. He had the great advantage, from his +professional training, of knowing how to recognize and deal with +the nervous disturbances to which overtasked women are so liable. He +saw well enough that Helen Darley would certainly kill herself or +lose her wits, if he could not lighten her labors and lift off a +large part of her weight of cares. The worst of it was, that she was +one of those women who naturally overwork themselves, like those +horses who will go at the top of their pace until they drop. Such +women are dreadfully unmanageable. It is as hard reasoning with them +as it would have been reasoning with Io, when she was flying over +land and sea, driven by the sting of the never-sleeping gadfly. + +This was a delicate, interesting game that he played. Under one +innocent pretext or another, he invaded this or that special province +she had made her own. He would collect the themes and have them all +read and marked, answer all the puzzling questions in mathematics, +make the other teachers come to him for directions, and in this way +gradually took upon himself not only all the general superintendence +that belonged to his office, but stole away so many of the special +duties which might fairly have belonged to his assistant, that, +before she knew it, she was looking better and feeling more cheerful +than for many and many a month before. + +When the nervous energy is depressed by any bodily cause, or +exhausted by overworking, there follow effects which have often been +misinterpreted by moralists, and especially by theologians. The +conscience itself becomes neuralgic, sometimes actually inflamed, so +that the least touch is agony. Of all liars and false accusers, a +sick conscience is the most inventive and indefatigable. The devoted +daughter, wife, mother, whose life has been given to unselfish +labors, who has filled a place which it seems to others only an angel +would make good, reproaches herself with incompetence and neglect of +duty. The humble Christian, who has been a model to others, calls +himself a worm of the dust on one page of his diary, and arraigns +himself on the next for coming short of the perfection of an +archangel. + +Conscience itself requires a conscience, or nothing can be more +unscrupulous. It told Saul that he did well in persecuting the +Christians. It has goaded countless multitudes of various creeds to +endless forms of self-torture. The cities of India are full of +cripples it has made. The hill-sides of Syria are riddled with +holes, where miserable hermits, whose lives it had palsied, lived and +died like the vermin they harbored. Our libraries are crammed with +books written by spiritual hypochondriacs, who inspected all their +moral secretions a dozen times a day. They are full of interest, but +they should be transferred from the shelf of the theologian to that +of the medical man who makes a study of insanity. + +This was the state into which too much work and too much +responsibility were bringing Helen Darley, when the new master came +and lifted so much of the burden that was crushing her as must be +removed before she could have a chance to recover her natural +elasticity and buoyancy. Many of the noblest women, suffering like +her, but less fortunate in being relieved at the right moment, die +worried out of life by the perpetual teasing of this inflamed, +neuralgic conscience. So subtile is the line which separates the +true and almost angelic sensibility of a healthy, but exalted nature, +from the soreness of a soul which is sympathizing with a morbid state +of the body that it is no wonder they are often confounded. And thus +many good women are suffered to perish by that form of spontaneous +combustion in which the victim goes on toiling day and night with the +hidden fire consuming her, until all at once her cheek whitens, and, +as we look upon her, she drops away, a heap of ashes. The more they +overwork themselves, the more exacting becomes the sense of duty,--as +the draught of the locomotive's furnace blows stronger and makes the +fire burn more fiercely, the faster it spins along the track. + +It is not very likely, as was said at the beginning of this chapter, +that we shall trouble ourselves a great deal about the internal +affairs of the Apollinean Institute. These schools are, in the +nature of things, not so very unlike each other as to require a +minute description for each particular one among them. They have all +very much the same general features, pleasing and displeasing. All +feeding-establishments have something odious about them,--from the +wretched country-houses where paupers are farmed out to the lowest +bidder, up to the commons-tables at colleges and even the fashionable +boarding-house. A person's appetite should be at war with no other +purse than his own. Young people, especially, who have a bone- +factory at work in them, and have to feed the living looms of +innumerable growing tissues, should be provided for, if possible, by +those who love them like their own flesh and blood. Elsewhere their +appetites will be sure to make them enemies, or, what are almost as +bad, friends whose interests are at variance with the claims of their +exacting necessities and demands. + +Besides, all commercial transactions in regard to the most sacred +interests of life are hateful even to those who profit by them. The +clergyman, the physician, the teacher, must be paid; but each of +them, if his duty be performed in the true spirit, can hardly help a +shiver of disgust when money is counted out to him for administering +the consolations of religion, for saving some precious life, for +sowing the seeds of Christian civilization in young ingenuous souls. + +And yet all these schools, with their provincial French and their +mechanical accomplishments, with their cheap parade of diplomas and +commencements and other public honors, have an ever fresh interest to +all who see the task they are performing in our new social order. +These girls are not being educated for governesses, or to be +exported, with other manufactured articles, to colonies where there +happens to be a surplus of males. Most of them will be wives, and +every American-born husband is a possible President of these United +States. Any one of these girls may be a four-years' queen. There is +no sphere of human activity so exalted that she may not be called +upon to fill it. + +But there is another consideration of far higher interest. The +education of our community to all that is beautiful is flowing in +mainly through its women, and that to a considerable extent by the +aid of these large establishments, the least perfect of which do +something to stimulate the higher tastes and partially instruct them. +Sometimes there is, perhaps, reason to fear that girls will be too +highly educated for their own happiness, if they are lifted by their +culture out of the range of the practical and every-day working youth +by whom they are surrounded. But this is a risk we must take. Our +young men come into active life so early, that, if our girls were not +educated to something beyond mere practical duties, our material +prosperity would outstrip our culture; as it often does in large +places where money is made too rapidly. This is the meaning, +therefore, of that somewhat ambitious programme common to most of +these large institutions, at which we sometimes smile, perhaps +unwisely or uncharitably. + +We shall take it for granted that the routine of instruction went on +at the Apollinean Institute much as it does in other schools of the +same class. People, young or old, are wonderfully different, if we +contrast extremes in pairs. They approach much nearer, if we take +them in groups of twenty. Take two separate hundreds as they come, +without choosing, and you get the gamut of human character in both so +completely that you can strike many chords in each which shall be in +perfect unison with corresponding ones in the other. If we go a step +farther, and compare the population of two villages of the same race +and region, there is such a regularly graduated distribution and +parallelism of character, that it seems as if Nature must turn out +human beings in sets like chessmen. + +It must be confessed that the position in which Mr. Bernard now found +himself had a pleasing danger about it which might well justify all +the fears entertained on his account by more experienced friends, +when they learned that he was engaged in a Young Ladies' Seminary. +The school never went on more smoothly than during the first period +of his administration, after he had arranged its duties, and taken +his share, and even more than his share, upon himself. But human +nature does not wait for the diploma of the Apollinean Institute to +claim the exercise of it, instincts and faculties. These young girls +saw but little of the youth of the neighborhood. The mansion-house +young men were off at college or in the cities, or making love to +each other's sisters, or at any rate unavailable for some reason or +other. There were a few "clerks,"--that is, young men who attended +shops, commonly called "stores,"--who were fond of walking by the +Institute, when they were off duty, for the sake of exchanging a word +or a glance with any one of the young ladies they might happen to +know, if any such were stirring abroad: crude young men, mostly, with +a great many "Sirs" and "Ma'ams" in their speech, and with that style +of address sometimes acquired in the retail business, as if the +salesman were recommending himself to a customer, "First-rate family +article, Ma'am; warranted to wear a lifetime; just one yard and three +quarters in this pattern, Ma'am; sha'n't I have the pleasure?" and so +forth. If there had been ever so many of them, and if they had been +ever so fascinating, the quarantine of the Institute was too rigorous +to allow any romantic infection to be introduced from without. + +Anybody might see what would happen, with a good-looking, well- +dressed, well-bred young man, who had the authority of a master, it +is true, but the manners of a friend and equal, moving about among +these young girls day after day, his eyes meeting theirs, his breath +mingling with theirs, his voice growing familiar to them, never in +any harsh tones, often soothing, encouraging, always sympathetic, +with its male depth and breadth of sound among the chorus of trebles, +as if it were a river in which a hundred of these little piping +streamlets-might lose themselves; anybody might see what would +happen. Young girls wrote home to their parents that they enjoyed +themselves much, this term, at the Institute, and thought they were +making rapid progress in their studies. There was a great enthusiasm +for the young master's reading-classes in English poetry. Some of +the poor little things began to adorn themselves with an extra +ribbon, or a bit of such jewelry as they had before kept for great +occasions. Dear souls! they only half knew what they were doing it +for. Does the bird know why its feathers grow more brilliant and its +voice becomes musical in the pairing season? + +And so, in the midst of this quiet inland town, where a mere accident +had placed Mr. Bernard Langdon, there was a concentration of +explosive materials which might at any time change its Arcadian and +academic repose into a scene of dangerous commotion. What said Helen +Darley, when she saw with her woman's glance that more than one girl, +when she should be looking at her book, was looking over it toward +the master's desk? Was her own heart warmed by any livelier feeling +than gratitude, as its life began to flow with fuller pulses, and the +morning sky again looked bright and the flowers recovered their lost +fragrance? Was there any strange, mysterious affinity between the +master and the dark girl who sat by herself? Could she call him at +will by looking at him? Could it be that--? It made her shiver to +think of it.---And who was that strange horseman who passed Mr. +Bernard at dusk the other evening, looking so like Mephistopheles +galloping hard to be in season at the witches' Sabbath-gathering? +That must be the cousin of Elsie's who wants to marry her, they say. +A dangerous-looking fellow for a rival, if one took a fancy to the +dark girl! And who is she, and what?---by what demon is she haunted, +by what taint is she blighted, by what curse is she followed, by what +destiny is she marked, that her strange beauty has such a terror in +it, and that hardly one shall dare to love her, and her eye glitters +always, but warms for none? + +Some of these questions are ours. Some were Helen Darley's. Some of +them mingled with the dreams of Bernard Langdon, as he slept the +night after meeting the strange horseman. In the morning he happened +to be a little late in entering the schoolroom. There was something +between the leaves of the Virgil which lay upon his desk. He opened +it and saw a freshly gathered mountain-flower. He looked at Elsie, +instinctively, involuntarily. She had another such flower on her +breast. + +A young girl's graceful compliment,--that is all,--no doubt,--no +doubt. It was odd that the flower should have happened to be laid +between the leaves of the Fourth Book of the "AEneid," and at this +line, + + "Incipit effari, mediaque in voce resistit." + +A remembrance of an ancient superstition flashed through the master's +mind, and he determined to try the Sortes Virgilianae. He shut the +volume, and opened it again at a venture.---The story of Laocoon! + +He read with a strange feeling of unwilling fascination, from +"Horresco referees" to "Bis medium amplexi," and flung the book from +him, as if its leaves had been steeped in the subtle poisons that +princes die of. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +CURIOSITY. + +People will talk. Ciascun lo dice is a tune that is played oftener +than the national air of this country or any other. + +"That 's what they say. Means to marry her, if she is his cousin. +Got money himself,--that 's the story,--but wants to come and live in +the old place, and get the Dudley property by and by." "Mother's +folks was wealthy.'! --"Twenty-three to twenty-five year old." --"He +a'n't more 'n twenty, or twenty-one at the outside." --"Looks as if +he knew too much to be only twenty year old." --"Guess he's been +through the mill,--don't look so green, anyhow, hey? Did y' ever +mind that cut over his left eyebrow?" + +So they gossiped in Rockland. The young fellows could make nothing +of Dick Venner. He was shy and proud with the few who made advances +to him. The young ladies called him handsome and romantic, but he +looked at them like a many-tailed pacha who was in the habit of, +ordering his wives by the dozen. + +"What do you think of the young man over there at the Veneers'?" said +Miss Arabella Thornton to her father. + +"Handsome," said the Judge, "but dangerous-looking. His face is +indictable at common law. Do you know, my dear, I think there is a +blank at the Sheriff's office, with a place for his name in it?" + +The Judge paused and looked grave, as if he had just listened to the +verdict of the jury and was going to pronounce sentence. + +"Have you heard anything against him?" said the Judge's daughter. + +"Nothing. But I don't like these mixed bloods and half-told stories. +Besides, I have seen a good many desperate fellows at the bar, and I +have a fancy they all have a look belonging to them. The worst one I +ever sentenced looked a good deal like this fellow. A wicked mouth. +All our other features are made for us; but a man makes his own +mouth." + +"Who was the person you sentenced?" + +"He was a young fellow that undertook to garrote a man who had won +his money at cards. The same slender shape, the same cunning, fierce +look, smoothed over with a plausible air. Depend upon it, there is +an expression in all the sort of people who live by their wits when +they can, and by worse weapons when their wits fail them, that we old +law-doctors know just as well as the medical counsellors know the +marks of disease in a man's face. Dr. Kittredge looks at a man and +says he is going to die; I look at another man and say he is going to +be hanged, if nothing happens. I don't say so of this one, but I +don't like his looks. I wonder Dudley Veneer takes to him so +kindly." + +"It's all for Elsie's sake," said Miss Thornton. "I feel quite sure +of that. He never does anything that is not meant for her in some +way. I suppose it amuses her to have her cousin about the house. +She rides a good deal since he has been here. Have you seen them +galloping about together? He looks like my idea of a Spanish bandit +on that wild horse of his." + +"Possibly he has been one,--or is one," said the Judge,--smiling as +men smile whose lips have often been freighted with the life and +death of their fellow-creatures. "I met them riding the other day. +Perhaps Dudley is right, if it pleases her to have a companion. What +will happen, though, if he makes love to her? Will Elsie be easily +taken with such a fellow? You young folks are supposed to know more +about these matters than we middle-aged people." + +"Nobody can tell. Elsie is not like anybody else. The girls who +have seen most of her think she hates men, all but 'Dudley,' as she +calls her father. Some of them doubt whether she loves him. They +doubt whether she can love anything human, except perhaps the old +black woman who has taken care of her since she was a baby. The +village people have the strangest stories about her; you know what +they call her?" + +She whispered three words in her father's ear. The Judge changed +color as she spoke, sighed deeply, and was silent as if lost in +thought for a moment. + +"I remember her mother," he said, "so well! A sweeter creature never +lived. Elsie has something of her in her look, but those are not her +mother's eyes. They were dark, but soft, as in all I ever saw of her +race. Her father's are dark too, but mild, and even tender, I should +say. I don't know what there is about Elsie's,--but do you know, my +dear, I find myself curiously influenced by them? I have had to face +a good many sharp eyes and hard ones,--murderers' eyes and pirates', +--men who had to be watched in the bar, where they stood on trial, +for fear they should spring on the prosecuting officers like tigers, +--but I never saw such eyes as Elsie's; and yet they have a kind of +drawing virtue or power about them,--I don't know what else to call +it: have you never observed this?" + +His daughter smiled in her turn. + +"Never observed it? Why, of course, nobody could be with Elsie +Venner and not observe it. There are a good many other strange +things about her: did you ever notice how she dresses?" + +"Why, handsomely enough, I should think," the Judge answered. "I +suppose she dresses as she likes, and sends to the city for what she +wants. What do you mean in particular? We men notice effects in +dress, but not much in detail." + +"You never noticed the colors and patterns of her dresses? You never +remarked anything curious about her ornaments? Well! I don't +believe you men know, half the time, whether a lady wears a nine- +penny collar or a thread-lace cape worth a thousand dollars. I don't +believe you know a silk dress from a bombazine one. I don't believe +you can tell whether a woman is in black or in colors, unless you +happen to know she is a widow. Elsie Venner has a strange taste in +dress, let me tell you. She sends for the oddest patterns of stuffs, +and picks out the most curious things at the jeweller's, whenever she +goes to town with her father. They say the old Doctor tells him to +let her have her way about such matters. Afraid of her mind, if she +is contradicted, I suppose. You've heard about her going to school +at that place,--the 'Institoot,' as those people call it? They say +she's bright enough in her way,--has studied at home, you know, with +her father a good deal, knows some modern languages and Latin, I +believe: at any rate, she would have it so,--she must go to the +'Institoot.' They have a very good female teacher there, I hear; and +the new master, that young Mr. Langdon, looks and talks like a well- +educated young man. I wonder what they 'll make of Elsie, between +them!" + +So they talked at the Judge's, in the calm, judicial-looking mansion- +house, in the grave, still library, with the troops of wan-hued law- +books staring blindly out of their titles at them as they talked, +like the ghosts of dead attorneys fixed motionless and speechless, +each with a thin, golden film over his unwinking eyes. + +In the mean time, everything went on quietly enough after Cousin +Richard's return. A man of sense,--that is, a man who knows +perfectly well that a cool head is worth a dozen warm hearts in +carrying the fortress of a woman's affections, (not yours, "Astarte," +nor yours, "Viola,")--who knows that men are rejected by women every +day because they, the men, love them, and are accepted every day +because they do not, and therefore can study the arts of pleasing,--a +man of sense, when he finds he has established his second parallel +too soon, retires quietly to his first, and begins working on his +covered ways again. [The whole art of love may be read in any +Encyclopaedia under the title Fortification, where the terms just +used are explained. After the little adventure of the necklace, Dick +retreated at once to his first parallel. Elsie loved riding,--and +would go off with him on a gallop now and then. He was a master of +all those strange Indian horseback-feats which shame the tricks of +the circus-riders, and used to astonish and almost amuse her +sometimes by disappearing from his saddle, like a phantom horseman +lying flat against the side of the bounding creature that bore him, +as if he were a hunting leopard with his claws in the horse's flank +and flattening himself out against his heaving ribs. Elsie knew a +little Spanish too, which she had learned from the young person who +had taught her dancing, and Dick enlarged her vocabulary with a few +soft phrases, and would sing her a song sometimes, touching the air +upon an ancient-looking guitar they had found with the ghostly things +in the garret,--a quaint old instrument, marked E. M. on the back, +and supposed to have belonged to a certain Elizabeth Mascarene, +before mentioned in connection with a work of art,--a fair, dowerless +lady, who smiled and sung and faded away, unwedded, a hundred years +ago, as dowerless ladies, not a few, are smiling and singing and +fading now,--God grant each of them His love,--and one human heart as +its interpreter! + +As for school, Elsie went or stayed away as she liked. Sometimes, +when they thought she was at her desk in the great schoolroom, she +would be on The Mountain,--alone always. Dick wanted to go with her, +but she would never let him. Once, when she had followed the zigzag +path a little way up, she looked back and caught a glimpse of him +following her. She turned and passed him without a word, but giving +him a look which seemed to make the scars on his wrist tingle, went +to her room, where she locked herself up, and did not come out again +till evening, Old Sophy having brought her food, and set it down, not +speaking, but looking into her eyes inquiringly, like a dumb beast +trying to feel out his master's will in his face. The evening was +clear and the moon shining. As Dick sat at his chamber-window, +looking at the mountain-side, he saw a gray-dressed figure flit +between the trees and steal along the narrow path which led upward. +Elsie's pillow was unpressed that night, but she had not been missed +by the household,--for Dick knew enough to keep his own counsel. The +next morning she avoided him and went off early to school. It was +the same morning that the young master found the flower between the +leaves of his Virgil. + +The girl got over her angry fit, and was pleasant enough with her +cousin for a few days after this; but she shunned rather than sought +him. She had taken a new interest in her books, and especially in +certain poetical readings which the master conducted with the elder +scholars. This gave Master Langdon a good chance to study her ways +when her eye was on her book, to notice the inflections of her voice, +to watch for any expression of her sentiments; for, to tell the +truth, he had a kind of fear that the girl had taken a fancy to him, +and, though she interested him, he did not wish to study her heart +from the inside. + +The more he saw her, the more the sadness of her beauty wrought upon +him. She looked as if she might hate, but could not love. She +hardly smiled at anything, spoke rarely, but seemed to feel that her +natural power of expression lay all in her bright eyes, the force of +which so many had felt, but none perhaps had tried to explain to +themselves. A person accustomed to watch the faces of those who were +ailing in body or mind, and to search in every line and tint for some +underlying source of disorder, could hardly help analyzing the +impression such a face produced upon him. The light of those +beautiful eyes was like the lustre of ice; in all her features there +was nothing of that human warmth which shows that sympathy has +reached the soul beneath the mask of flesh it wears. The look was +that of remoteness, of utter isolation. There was in its stony +apathy, it seemed to him, the pathos which we find in the blind who +show no film or speck over the organs of sight; for Nature had meant +her to be lovely, and left out nothing but love. And yet the master +could not help feeling that some instinct was working in this girl +which was in some way leading her to seek his presence. She did not +lift her glittering eyes upon him as at first. It seemed strange +that she did not, for they were surely her natural weapons of +conquest. Her color did not come and go like that of young girls +under excitement. She had a clear brunette complexion, a little sun- +touched, it may be,--for the master noticed once, when her necklace +was slightly displaced, that a faint ring or band of a little lighter +shade than the rest of the surface encircled her neck. What was the +slight peculiarity of her enunciation, when she read? Not a lisp, +certainly, but the least possible imperfection in articulating some +of the lingual sounds,--just enough to be noticed at first, and quite +forgotten after being a few times heard. + +Not a word about the flower on either side. It was not uncommon for +the schoolgirls to leave a rose or pink or wild flower on the +teacher's desk. Finding it in the Virgil was nothing, after all; it +was a little delicate flower, which looked as if it were made to +press, and it was probably shut in by accident at the particular +place where he found it. He took it into his head to examine it in a +botanical point of view. He found it was not common,--that it grew +only in certain localities,--and that one of these was among the +rocks of the eastern spur of The Mountain. + +It happened to come into his head how the Swiss youth climb the sides +of the Alps to find the flower called the Edelweiss for the maidens +whom they wish to please. It is a pretty fancy, that of scaling some +dangerous height before the dawn, so as to gather the flower in its +freshness, that the favored maiden may wear it to church on Sunday +morning, a proof at once of her lover's devotion and his courage. +Mr. Bernard determined to explore the region where this flower was +said to grow, that he might see where the wild girl sought the +blossoms of which Nature was so jealous. + +It was on a warm, fair Saturday afternoon that he undertook his land- +voyage of discovery. He had more curiosity, it may be, than he would +have owned; for he had heard of the girl's wandering habits, and the +guesses about her sylvan haunts, and was thinking what the chances +were that he should meet her in some strange place, or come upon +traces of her which would tell secrets she would not care to have +known. + +The woods are all alive to one who walks through them with his mind +in an excited state, and his eyes and ears wide open. The trees are +always talking, not merely whispering with their leaves, (for every +tree talks to itself in that way, even when it stands alone in the +middle of a pasture,) but grating their boughs against each other, as +old horn-handed farmers press their dry, rustling palms together, +dropping a nut or a leaf or a twig, clicking to the tap of a +woodpecker, or rustling as a squirrel flashes along a branch. It was +now the season of singing-birds, and the woods were haunted with +mysterious, tender music. The voices of the birds which love the +deeper shades of the forest are sadder than those of the open fields: +these are the nuns who have taken the veil, the hermits that have +hidden themselves away from the world and tell their griefs to the +infinite listening Silences of the wilderness,--for the one deep +inner silence that Nature breaks with her fitful superficial sounds +becomes multiplied as the image of a star in ruffled waters. +Strange! The woods at first convey the impression of profound +repose, and yet, if you watch their ways with open ear, you find the +life which is in them is restless and nervous as that of a woman: the +little twigs are crossing and twining and separating like slender +fingers that cannot be still; the stray leaf is to be flattened into +its place like a truant curl; the limbs sway and twist, impatient of +their constrained attitude; and the rounded masses of foliage swell +upward and subside from time to time with long soft sighs, and, it +may be, the falling of a few rain-drops which had lain hidden among +the deeper shadows. I pray you, notice, in the sweet summer days +which will soon see you among the mountains, this inward tranquillity +that belongs to the heart of the woodland, with this nervousness, for +I do not know what else to call it, of outer movement. One would +say, that Nature, like untrained persons, could not sit still without +nestling about or doing something with her limbs or features, and +that high breeding was only to be looked for in trim gardens, where +the soul of the trees is ill at ease perhaps, but their manners are +unexceptionable, and a rustling branch or leaf falling out of season +is an indecorum. The real forest is hardly still except in the +Indian summer; then there is death in the house, and they are waiting +for the sharp shrunken months to come with white raiment for the +summer's burial. + +There were many hemlocks in this neighborhood, the grandest and most +solemn of all the forest-trees in the mountain regions. Up to a +certain period of growth they are eminently beautiful, their boughs +disposed in the most graceful pagoda-like series of close terraces, +thick and dark with green crystalline leaflets. In spring the tender +shoots come out of a paler green, finger-like, as if they were +pointing to the violets at their feet. But when the trees have grown +old, and their rough boles measure a yard and more through their +diameter, they are no longer beautiful, but they have a sad solemnity +all their own, too full of meaning to require the heart's comment to +be framed in words. Below, all their earthward-looking branches are +sapless and shattered, splintered by the weight of many winters' +snows; above, they are still green and full of life, but their +summits overtop all the deciduous trees around them, and in their +companionship with heaven they are alone. On these the lightning +loves to fall. One such Mr. Bernard saw,--or rather, what had been +one such; for the bolt had torn the tree like an explosion from +within, and the ground was strewed all around the broken stump with +flakes of rough bark and strips and chips of shivered wood, into +which the old tree had been rent by the bursting rocket from the +thunder-cloud. + +--The master had struck up The Mountain obliquely from the western +side of the Dudley mansion-house. In this way he ascended until he +reached a point many hundred feet above the level of the plain, and +commanding all the country beneath and around. Almost at his feet he +saw the mansion-house, the chimney standing out of the middle of the +roof, or rather, like a black square hole in it,--the trees almost +directly over their stems, the fences as lines, the whole nearly as +an architect would draw a ground-plan of the house and the inclosures +round it. It frightened him to see how the huge masses of rock and +old forest-growths hung over the home below. As he descended a +little and drew near the ledge of evil name, he was struck with the +appearance of a long narrow fissure that ran parallel with it and +above it for many rods, not seemingly of very old standing,--for +there were many fibres of roots which had evidently been snapped +asunder when the rent took place, and some of which were still +succulent in both separated portions. + +Mr. Bernard had made up his mind, when he set forth, not to come back +before he had examined the dreaded ledge. He had half persuaded +himself that it was scientific curiosity. He wished to examine the +rocks, to see what flowers grew there, and perhaps to pick up an +adventure in the zoological line; for he had on a pair of high, stout +boots, and he carried a stick in his hand, which was forked at one +extremity, so as to be very convenient to hold down a crotalus with, +if he should happen to encounter one. He knew the aspect of the +ledge from a distance; for its bald and leprous-looking declivities +stood out in their nakedness from the wooded sides of The Mountain, +when this was viewed from certain points of the village. But the +nearer aspect of the blasted region had something frightful in it. +The cliffs were water-worn, as if they had been gnawed for thousands +of years by hungry waves. In some places they overhung their base so +as to look like leaning towers which might topple over at any minute. +In other parts they were scooped into niches or caverns. Here and +there they were cracked in deep fissures, some of them of such width +that one might enter them, if he cared to run the risk of meeting the +regular tenants, who might treat him as an intruder. + +Parts of the ledge were cloven perpendicularly, with nothing but +cracks or slightly projecting edges in which or on which a foot could +find hold. High up on one of these precipitous walls of rock he saw +some tufts of flowers, and knew them at once for the same that he had +found between the leaves of his Virgil. Not there, surely! No woman +would have clung against that steep, rough parapet to gather an idle +blossom. And yet the master looked round everywhere, and even up the +side of that rock, to see if there were no signs of a woman's +footstep. He peered about curiously, as if his eye might fall on some +of those fragments of dress which women leave after them, whenever +they run against each other or against anything else,--in crowded +ballrooms, in the brushwood after picnics, on the fences after +rambles, scattered round over every place which has witnessed an act +of violence, where rude hands have been laid upon them. Nothing-- +Stop, though, one moment. That stone is smooth and polished, as if +it had been somewhat worn by the pressure of human feet. There is +one twig broken among the stems of that clump of shrubs. He put his +foot upon the stone and took hold of the close-clinging shrub. In +this way he turned a sharp angle of the rock and found himself on a +natural platform, which lay in front of one of the wider fissures,-- +whether the mouth of a cavern or not he could not yet tell. A flat +stone made an easy seat, upon which he sat down, as he was very glad +to do, and looked mechanically about him. A small fragment +splintered from the rock was at his feet. He took it and threw it +down the declivity a little below where he sat. He looked about for +a stem or a straw of some kind to bite upon,--a country-instinct,-- +relic, no doubt, of the old vegetable-feeding habits of Eden. Is +that a stem or a straw? He picked it up. It was a hair-pin. + +To say that Mr. Langdon had a strange sort of thrill shoot through +him at the sight of this harmless little implement would be a +statement not at variance with the fact of the case. That smooth +stone had been often trodden, and by what foot he could not doubt. +He rose up from his seat to look round for other signs of a woman's +visits. What if there is a cavern here, where she has a retreat, +fitted up, perhaps, as anchorites fitted their cells,--nay, it may +be, carpeted and mirrored, and with one of those tiger-skins for a +couch, such as they, say the girl loves to lie on? Let us look, at +any rate. + +Mr. Bernard walked to the mouth of the cavern or fissure and looked +into it. His look was met by the glitter of two diamond eyes, small, +sharp, cold, shining out of the darkness, but gliding with a smooth, +steady motion towards the light, and himself. He stood fixed, struck +dumb, staring back into them with dilating pupils and sudden numbness +of fear that cannot move, as in the terror of dreams. The two sparks +of light came forward until they grew to circles of flame, and all at +once lifted themselves up as if in angry surprise. Then for the +first time thrilled in Mr. Bernard's ears the dreadful sound that +nothing which breathes, be it man or brute, can hear unmoved,--the +long, loud, stinging whirr, as the huge, thick bodied reptile shook +his many-jointed rattle and adjusted his loops for the fatal stroke. +His eyes were drawn as with magnets toward the circles of flame. His +ears rung as in the overture to the swooning dream of chloroform. +Nature was before man with her anaesthetics: the cat's first shake +stupefies the mouse; the lion's first shake deadens the man's fear +and feeling; and the crotalus paralyzes before he strikes. He waited +as in a trance,--waited as one that longs to have the blow fall, and +all over, as the man who shall be in two pieces in a second waits for +the axe to drop. But while he looked straight into the flaming eyes, +it seemed to him that they were losing their light and terror, that +they were growing tame and dull; the charm was dissolving, the +numbness was passing away, he could move once more. He heard a light +breathing close to his ear, and, half turning, saw the face of Elsie +Venner, looking motionless into the reptile's eyes, which had shrunk +and faded under the stronger enchantment of her own. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +FAMILY SECRETS. + +It was commonly understood in the town of Rockland that Dudley Venner +had had a great deal of trouble with that daughter of his, so +handsome, yet so peculiar, about whom there were so many strange +stories. There was no end to the tales which were told of her +extraordinary doings. Yet her name was never coupled with that of +any youth or man, until this cousin had provoked remark by his visit; +and even then it was oftener in the shape of wondering conjectures +whether he would dare to make love to her, than in any pretended +knowledge of their relations to each other, that the public tongue +exercised its village-prerogative of tattle. + +The more common version of the trouble at the mansion-house was this: +Elsie was not exactly in her right mind. Her temper was singular, +her tastes were anomalous, her habits were lawless, her antipathies +were many and intense, and she was liable to explosions of +ungovernable anger. Some said that was not the worst of it. At +nearly fifteen years old, when she was growing fast, and in an +irritable state of mind and body, she had had a governess placed over +her for whom she had conceived an aversion. It was whispered among a +few who knew more of the family secrets than others, that, worried +and exasperated by the presence and jealous oversight of this person, +Elsie had attempted to get finally rid of her by unlawful means, such +as young girls have been known to employ in their straits, and to +which the sex at all ages has a certain instinctive tendency, in +preference to more palpable instruments for the righting of its +wrongs. At any rate, this governess had been taken suddenly ill, and +the Doctor had been sent for at midnight. Old Sophy had taken her +master into a room apart, and said a few words to him which turned +him as white as a sheet. As soon as he recovered himself, he sent +Sophy out, called in the old Doctor, and gave him some few hints, on +which he acted at once, and had the satisfaction of seeing his +patient out of danger before he left in the morning. It is proper to +say, that, during the following days, the most thorough search was +made in every nook and cranny of those parts of the house which Elsie +chiefly haunted, but nothing was found which might be accused of +having been the intentional cause of the probably accidental sudden +illness of the governess. From this time forward her father was +never easy. Should he keep her apart, or shut her up, for fear of +risk to others, and so lose every chance of restoring her mind to its +healthy tone by kindly influences and intercourse with wholesome +natures? There was no proof, only presumption, as to the agency of +Elsie in the matter referred to. But the doubt was worse, perhaps, +than certainty would have been,--for then he would have known what to +do. + +He took the old Doctor as his adviser. The shrewd old man listened +to the father's story, his explanations of possibilities, of +probabilities, of dangers, of hopes. When he had got through, the +Doctor looked him in the face steadily, as if he were saying, Is that +all? + +The father's eyes fell. This was not all. There was something at +the bottom of his soul which he could not bear to speak of,--nay, +which, as often as it reared itself through the dark waves of +unworded consciousness into the breathing air of thought, he trod +down as the ruined angels tread down a lost soul, trying to come up +out of the seething sea of torture. Only this one daughter! No! +God never would have ordained such a thing. There was nothing ever +heard of like it; it could not be; she was ill,--she would outgrow +all these singularities; he had had an aunt who was peculiar; he had +heard that hysteric girls showed the strangest forms of moral +obliquity for a time, but came right at last. She would change all +at once, when her health got more firmly settled in the course of her +growth. Are there not rough buds that open into sweet flowers? Are +there not fruits, which, while unripe, are not to be tasted or +endured, which mature into the richest taste and fragrance? In God's +good time she would come to her true nature; her eyes would lose that +frightful, cold glitter; her lips would not feel so cold when she +pressed them against his cheek; and that faint birth-mark, her mother +swooned when she first saw, would fade wholly out,--it was less +marked, surely, now than it used to be! + +So Dudley Venner felt, and would have thought, if he had let his +thoughts breathe the air of his soul. But the Doctor read through +words and thoughts and all into the father's consciousness. There +are states of mind which may be shared by two persons in presence of +each other, which remain not only unworded, but unthoughted, if such +a word may be coined for our special need. Such a mutually +interpenetrative consciousness there was between the father and the +old physician. By a common impulse, both of them rose in a +mechanical way and went to the western window, where each started, as +he saw the other's look directed towards the white stone which stood +in the midst of the small plot of green turf. + +The Doctor had, for a moment, forgotten himself but he looked up at +the clouds, which were angry, and said, as if speaking of the +weather, "It is dark now, but we hope it will clear up by and by. +There are a great many more clouds than rains, and more rains than +strokes of lightning, and more strokes of lightning than there are +people killed. We must let this girl of ours have her way, as far as +it is safe. Send away this woman she hates, quietly. Get her a +foreigner for a governess, if you can,--one that can dance and sing +and will teach her. In the house old Sophy will watch her best. Out +of it you must trust her, I am afraid,--for she will not be followed +round, and she is in less danger than you think. If she wanders at +night, find her, if you can; the woods are not absolutely safe. If +she will be friendly with any young people, have them to see her,-- +young men especially. She will not love any one easily, perhaps not +at all; yet love would be more like to bring her right than anything +else. If any young person seems in danger of falling in love with +her, send him to me for counsel." + +Dry, hard advice, but given from a kind hewn, with a moist eye, and +in tones which tried to be cheerful and were full of sympathy. This +advice was the key to the more than indulgent treatment which, as we +have seen, the girl had received from her father and all about her. +The old Doctor often came in, in the kindest, most natural sort of +way, got into pleasant relations with Elsie by always treating her in +the same easy manner as at the great party, encouraging all her +harmless fancies, and rarely reminding her that he was a professional +adviser, except when she came out of her own accord, as in the talk +they had at the party, telling him of some wild trick she had been +playing. + +"Let her go to the girls' school, by all means," said the Doctor, +when she had begun to talk about it. "Possibly she may take to some +of the girls or of the teachers. Anything to interest her. +Friendship, love, religion, whatever will set her nature at work. We +must have headway on, or there will be no piloting her. Action first +of all, and then we will see what to do with it." + +So, when Cousin Richard came along, the Doctor, though he did not +like his looks any too well, told her father to encourage his staying +for a time. If she liked him, it was good; if she only tolerated +him, it was better than nothing. + +"You know something about that nephew of yours, during these last +years, I suppose?" the Doctor said. "Looks as if he had seen life. +Has a scar that was made by a sword-cut, and a white spot on the side +of his neck that looks like a bullet-mark. I think he has been what +folks call a 'hard customer.'" + +Dudley Venner owned that he had heard little or nothing of him of +late years. He had invited himself, and of course it would not be +decent not to receive him as a relative. He thought Elsie rather +liked having him about the house for a while. She was very +capricious,--acted as if she fancied him one day and disliked him the +next. He did not know,--but sometimes thought that this nephew of +his might take a serious liking to Elsie. What should he do about +it, if it turned out so? + +The Doctor lifted his eyebrows a little. He thought there was no +fear. Elsie was naturally what they call a man-hater, and there was +very little danger of any sudden passion springing up between two +such young persons. Let him stay awhile; it gives her something to +think about. So he stayed awhile, as we have seen. + +The more Mr. Richard became acquainted with the family,--that is, +with the two persons of whom it consisted,--the more favorably the +idea of a permanent residence in the mansion-house seemed to impress +him. The estate was large,--hundreds of acres, with woodlands and +meadows of great value. The father and daughter had been living +quietly, and there could not be a doubt that the property which came +through the Dudleys must have largely increased of late years. It +was evident enough that they had an abundant income, from the way in +which Elsie's caprices were indulged. She had horses and carriages +to suit herself; she sent to the great city for everything she wanted +in the way of dress. Even her diamonds--and the young man knew +something about these gems--must be of considerable value; and yet +she wore them carelessly, as it pleased her fancy. She had precious +old laces, too, almost worth their weight in diamonds; laces which +had been snatched from altars in ancient Spanish cathedrals during +the wars, and which it would not be safe to leave a duchess alone +with for ten minutes. The old house was fat with the deposits of +rich generations which had gone before. The famous "golden" fire-set +was a purchase of one of the family who had been in France during the +Revolution, and must have come from a princely palace, if not from +one of the royal residences. As for silver, the iron closet which +had been made in the dining-room wall was running over with it: tea- +kettles, coffee-pots, heavy-lidded tankards, chafing-dishes, punch- +bowls, all that all the Dudleys had ever used, from the caudle-cup +which used to be handed round the young mother's chamber, and the +porringer from which children scooped their bread-and-milk with +spoons as solid as ingots, to that ominous vessel, on the upper +shelf, far back in the dark, with a spout like a slender italic S, +out of which the sick and dying, all along the last century, and +since, had taken the last drops that passed their lips. Without +being much of a scholar, Dick could see well enough, too, that the +books in the library had been ordered from the great London houses, +whose imprint they bore, by persons who knew what was best and meant +to have it. A man does not require much learning to feel pretty +sure, when he takes one of those solid, smooth, velvet-leaved +quartos, say a Baskerville Addison, for instance, bound in red +morocco, with a margin of gold as rich as the embroidery of a +prince's collar, as Vandyck drew it,--he need not know much to feel +pretty sure that a score or two of shelves full of such books mean +that it took a long purse, as well as a literary taste, to bring them +together. + +To all these attractions the mind of this thoughtful young gentleman +may be said to have been fully open. He did not disguise from +himself, however, that there were a number of drawbacks in the way of +his becoming established as the heir of the Dudley mansion-house and +fortune. In the first place, Cousin Elsie was, unquestionably, very +piquant, very handsome, game as a hawk, and hard to please, which +made her worth trying for. But then there was something about Cousin +Elsie,--(the small, white scars began stinging, as he said this to +himself, and he pushed his sleeve up to look at them)--there was +something about Cousin Elsie he couldn't make out. What was the +matter with her eyes, that they sucked your life out of you in that +strange way? What did she always wear a necklace for? Had she some +such love-token on her neck as the old Don's revolver had left on +his? How safe would anybody feel to live with her? Besides, her +father would last forever, if he was left to himself. And he may +take it into his head to marry again. That would be pleasant! + +So talked Cousin Richard to himself, in the calm of the night and in +the tranquillity of his own soul. There was much to be said on both +sides. It was a balance to be struck after the two columns were +added up. He struck the balance, and came to the conclusion that he +would fall in love with Elsie Venner. + +The intelligent reader will not confound this matured and serious +intention of falling in love with the young lady with that mere +impulse of the moment before mentioned as an instance of making love. +On the contrary, the moment Mr. Richard had made up his mind that he +should fall in love with Elsie, he began to be more reserved with +her, and to try to make friends in other quarters. Sensible men, you +know, care very little what a girl's present fancy is. The question +is: Who manages her, and how can you get at that person or those +persons? Her foolish little sentiments are all very well in their +way; but business is business, and we can't stop for such trifles. +The old political wire-pullers never go near the man they want to +gain, if they can help it; they find out who his intimates and +managers are, and work through them. Always handle any positively +electrical body, whether it is charged with passion or power, with +some non-conductor between you and it, not with your naked hands.--- +The above were some of the young gentleman's working axioms; and he +proceeded to act in accordance with them. + +He began by paying his court more assiduously to his uncle. It was +not very hard to ingratiate himself in that quarter; for his manners +were insinuating, and his precocious experience of life made him +entertaining. The old neglected billiard--room was soon put in +order, and Dick, who was a magnificent player, had a series of games +with his uncle, in which, singularly enough, he was beaten, though +his antagonist had been out of play for years. He evinced a profound +interest in the family history, insisted on having the details of its +early alliances, and professed a great pride in it, which he had +inherited from his father, who, though he had allied himself with the +daughter of an alien race, had yet chosen one with the real azure +blood in her veins, as proud as if she had Castile and Aragon for her +dower and the Cid for her grand-papa. He also asked a great deal of +advice, such as inexperienced young persons are in need of, and +listened to it with due reverence. + +It is not very strange that uncle Dudley took a kinder view of his +nephew than the Judge, who thought he could read a questionable +history in his face,--or the old Doctor, who knew men's temperaments +and organizations pretty well, and had his prejudices about races, +and could tell an old sword-cut and a ballet-mark in two seconds from +a scar got by falling against the fender, or a mark left by king's +evil. He could not be expected to share our own prejudices; for he +had heard nothing of the wild youth's adventures, or his scamper over +the Pampas at short notice. So, then, "Richard Venner, Esquire, +guest of Dudley Venner, Esquire, at his elegant mansion," prolonged +his visit until his presence became something like a matter of habit, +and the neighbors began to think that the fine old house would be +illuminated before long for a grand marriage. + +He had done pretty well with the father: the next thing was to gain +over the nurse. Old Sophy was as cunning as a red fox or a gray +woodchuck. She had nothing in the world to do but to watch Elsie; +she had nothing to care for but this girl and her father. She had +never liked Dick too well; for he used to make faces at her and tease +her when he was a boy, and now he was a man there was something about +him.---she could not tell what--that made her suspicious of him. It +was no small matter to get her over to his side. + +The jet-black Africans know that gold never looks so well as on the +foil of their dark skins. Dick found in his trunk a string of gold +beads, such as are manufactured in some of our cities, which he had +brought from the gold region of Chili,--so he said,--for the express +purpose of giving them to old Sophy. These Africans, too, have a +perfect passion for gay-colored clothing; being condemned by Nature, +as it were, to a perpetual mourning-suit, they love to enliven it +with all sorts of variegated stuffs of sprightly patterns, aflame +with red and yellow. The considerate young man had remembered this, +too, and brought home for Sophy some handkerchiefs of rainbow hues, +which had been strangely overlooked till now, at the bottom of one of +his trunks. Old Sophy took his gifts, but kept her black eyes open +and watched every movement of the young people all the more closely. +It was through her that the father had always known most of the +actions and tendencies of his daughter. + +In the mean time the strange adventure on The Mountain had brought +the young master into new relations with Elsie. She had led him out +of, danger; perhaps saved him from death by the strange power she +exerted. He was grateful, and yet shuddered at the recollection of +the whole scene. In his dreams he was pursued by the glare of cold +glittering eyes, whether they were in the head of a woman or of a +reptile he could not always tell, the images had so run together. +But he could not help seeing that the eyes of the young girl had been +often, very often, turned upon him when he had been looking away, and +fell as his own glance met them. Helen Darley told him very plainly +that this girl was thinking about him more than about her book. Dick +Venner found she was getting more constant in her attendance at +school. He learned, on inquiry, that there was a new master, a +handsome young man. The handsome young man would not have liked the +look that, came over Dick's face when he heard this fact mentioned. + +In short, everything was getting tangled up together, and there would +be no chance of disentangling the threads in this chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +PHYSIOLOGICAL. + +If Master Bernard felt a natural gratitude to his young pupil for +saving him from an imminent peril, he was in a state of infinite +perplexity to know why he should have needed such aid. He, an +active, muscular, courageous, adventurous young fellow, with--a stick +in his hand, ready to hold down the Old Serpent himself, if he had +come in his way, to stand still, staring into those two eyes, until +they came up close to him, and the strange, terrible sound seemed to +freeze him stiff where he stood,--what was the meaning of it? Again, +what was the influence this girl had seemingly exerted, under which +the venomous creature had collapsed in such a sudden way? Whether he +had been awake or dreaming he did not feel quite sure. He knew he +had gone up The Mountain, at any rate; he knew he had come down The +Mountain with the girl walking just before him;--there was no +forgetting her figure, as she walked on in silence, her braided locks +falling a little, for want of the lost hairpin, perhaps, and looking +like a wreathing coil of--Shame on such fancies!--to wrong that +supreme crowning gift of abounding Nature, a rush of shining black +hair, which, shaken loose, would cloud her all round, like Godiva, +from brow to instep! He was sure he had sat down before the fissure +or cave. He was sure that he was led softly away from the place, and +that it was Elsie who had led him. There was the hair-pin to show +that so far it was not a dream. But between these recollections came +a strange confusion; and the more the master thought, the more he was +perplexed to know whether she had waked him, sleeping, as he sat on +the stone, from some frightful dream, such as may come in a very +brief slumber, or whether she had bewitched him into a trance with +those strange eyes of hers, or whether it was all true, and he must +solve its problem as he best might. + +There was another recollection connected with this mountain +adventure. As they approached the mansion-house, they met a young +man, whom Mr. Bernard remembered having seen once at least before, +and whom he had heard of as a cousin of the young girl. As Cousin +Richard Venner, the person in question, passed them, he took the +measure, so to speak, of Mr. Bernard, with a look so piercing, so +exhausting, so practised, so profoundly suspicious, that the young +master felt in an instant that he had an enemy in this handsome +youth,--an enemy, too, who was like to be subtle and dangerous. + +Mr. Bernard had made up his mind, that, come what might, enemy or no +enemy, live or die, he would solve the mystery of Elsie Venner, +sooner or later. He was not a man to be frightened out of his +resolution by a scowl, or a stiletto, or any unknown means of +mischief, of which a whole armory was hinted at in that passing look +Dick Venner had given him. Indeed, like most adventurous young +persons, he found a kind of charm in feeling that there might be some +dangers in the way of his investigations. Some rumors which had +reached him about the supposed suitor of Elsie Venner, who was +thought to be a desperate kind of fellow, and whom some believed to +be an unscrupulous adventurer, added a curious, romantic kind of +interest to the course of physiological and psychological inquiries +he was about instituting. + +The afternoon on The Mountain was still upper-most in his mind. Of +course he knew the common stories--about fascination. He had once +been himself an eyewitness of the charming of a small bird by one of +our common harmless serpents. Whether a human being could be reached +by this subtile agency, he had been skeptical, notwithstanding the +mysterious relation generally felt to exist between man and this +creature, "cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the +field,"--a relation which some interpret as the fruit of the curse, +and others hold to be so instinctive that this animal has been for +that reason adopted as the natural symbol of evil. There was another +solution, however, supplied him by his professional reading. The +curious work of Mr. Braid of Manchester had made him familiar with +the phenomena of a state allied to that produced by animal magnetism, +and called by that writer by the name of hypnotism. He found, by +referring to his note-book, the statement was, that, by fixing the +eyes on a bright object so placed as to produce a strain upon the +eyes and eyelids, and to maintain a steady fixed stare, there comes +on in a few seconds a very singular condition, characterized by +muscular rigidity and inability to move, with a strange exaltation of +most of the senses, and generally a closure of the eyelids,--this +condition being followed by torpor. + +Now this statement of Mr. Braid's, well known to the scientific +world, and the truth of which had been confirmed by Mr. Bernard in +certain experiments he had instituted, as it has been by many other +experimenters, went far to explain the strange impressions, of which, +waking or dreaming, he had certainly been the subject. His nervous +system had been in a high state of exaltation at the time. He +remembered how the little noises that made rings of sound in the +silence of the woods, like pebbles dropped in still waters, had +reached his inner consciousness. He remembered that singular +sensation in the roots of the hair, when he came on the traces of the +girl's presence, reminding him of a line in a certain poem which he +had read lately with a new and peculiar interest. He even recalled a +curious evidence of exalted sensibility and irritability, in the +twitching of the minute muscles of the internal ear at every +unexpected sound, producing an odd little snap in the middle of the +head, which proved to him that he was getting very nervous. + +The next thing was to find out whether it were possible that the +venomous creature's eyes should have served the purpose of Mr. +Braid's "bright object" held very close to the person experimented +on, or whether they had any special power which could be made the +subject of exact observation. + +For this purpose Mr. Bernard considered it necessary to get a live +crotalus or two into his possession, if this were possible. On +inquiry, he found that there was a certain family living far up the +mountainside, not a mile from the ledge, the members of which were +said to have taken these creatures occasionally, and not to be in any +danger, or at least in any fear, of being injured by them. He +applied to these people, and offered a reward sufficient to set them +at work to capture some of these animals, if such a thing were +possible. + +A few days after this, a dark, gypsy-looking woman presented herself +at his door. She held up her apron as if it contained something +precious in the bag she made with it. + +"Y' wanted some rattlers," said the woman. "Here they be." + +She opened her apron and showed a coil of rattlesnakes lying very +peaceably in its fold. They lifted their heads up, as if they wanted +to see what was going on, but showed no sign of anger. + +"Are you crazy?" said Mr. Bernard. "You're dead in an hour, if one +of those creatures strikes you!" + +He drew back a little, as he spoke; it might be simple disgust; it +might be fear; it might be what we call antipathy, which is different +from either, and which will sometimes show itself in paleness, and +even faintness, produced by objects perfectly harmless and not in +themselves offensive to any sense. + +"Lord bless you," said the woman, "rattlers never touches our folks. +I'd jest 'z lieves handle them creaturs as so many striped snakes." + +So saying, she put their heads down with her hand, and packed them +together in her apron as if they had been bits of cart-rope. + +Mr. Bernard had never heard of the power, or, at least, the belief in +the possession of a power by certain persons, which enables them to +handle these frightful reptiles with perfect impunity. The fact, +however, is well known to others, and more especially to a very +distinguished Professor in one of the leading institutions of the +great city of the land, whose experiences in the neighborhood of +Graylock, as he will doubtless inform the curious, were very much +like those of the young master. + +Mr. Bernard had a wired cage ready for his formidable captives, and +studied their habits and expression with a strange sort of interest. +What did the Creator mean to signify, when he made such shapes of +horror, and, as if he had doubly cursed this envenomed wretch, had +set a mark upon him and sent him forth the Cain of the brotherhood of +serpents? It was a very curious fact that the first train of +thoughts Mr. Bernard's small menagerie suggested to him was the +grave, though somewhat worn, subject of the origin of evil. There is +now to be seen in a tall glass jar, in the Museum of Comparative +Anatomy at Cantabridge in the territory of the Massachusetts, a huge +crotalus, of a species which grows to more frightful dimensions than +our own, under the hotter skies of South America. Look at it, ye who +would know what is the tolerance, the freedom from prejudice, which +can suffer such an incarnation of all that is devilish to lie +unharmed in the cradle of Nature! Learn, too, that there are many +things in this world which we are warned to shun, and are even +suffered to slay, if need be, but which we must not hate, unless we +would hate what God loves and cares for. + +Whatever fascination the creature might exercise in his native +haunts, Mr. Bernard found himself not in the least nervous or +affected in any way while looking at his caged reptiles. When their +cage was shaken, they would lift their heads and spring their +rattles; but the sound was by no means so formidable to listen to as +when it reverberated among the chasms of the echoing rocks. The +expression of the creatures was watchful, still, grave, passionless, +fate-like, suggesting a cold malignity which seemed to be waiting for +its opportunity. Their awful, deep-cut mouths were sternly closed +over the long hollow fangs which rested their roots against the +swollen poison-gland, where the venom had been hoarding up ever since +the last stroke had emptied it. They never winked, for ophidians +have no movable eyelids, but kept up that awful fixed stare which +made the two unwinking gladiators the survivors of twenty pairs +matched by one of the Roman Emperors, as Pliny tells us, in his +"Natural History." Their eyes did not flash, but shone with a cold +still light. They were of a pale-golden or straw color, horrible to +look into, with their stony calmness, their pitiless indifference, +hardly enlivened by the almost imperceptible vertical slit of the +pupil, through which Death seemed to be looking out like the archer +behind the long narrow loop-hole in a blank turret-wall. On the +whole, the caged reptiles, horrid as they were, hardly matched his +recollections of what he had seen or dreamed he save at the cavern. +These looked dangerous enough, but yet quiet. A treacherous +stillness, however,--as the unfortunate New York physician found, +when he put his foot out to wake up the torpid creature, and +instantly the fang flashed through his boot, carrying the poison into +his blood, and death with it. + +Mr. Bernard kept these strange creatures, and watched all their +habits with a natural curiosity. In any collection of animals the +venomous beasts are looked at with the greatest interest, just as the +greatest villains are most run after by the unknown public. Nobody +troubles himself for a common striped snake or a petty thief, but a +cobra or a wife-killer is a centre of attraction to all eyes. These +captives did very little to earn their living, but, on the other +hand, their living was not expensive, their diet being nothing but +air, au naturel. Months and months these creatures will live and +seem to thrive well enough, as any showman who has then in his +menagerie will testify, though they never touch anything to eat or +drink. + +In the mean time Mr. Bernard had become very curious about a class of +subjects not treated of in any detail in those text-books accessible +in most country-towns, to the exclusion of the more special +treatises, and especially of the rare and ancient works found on the +shelves of the larger city-libraries. He was on a visit to old Dr. +Kittredge one day, having been asked by him to call in for a few +moments as soon as convenient. The Doctor smiled good-humoredly when +he asked him if he had an extensive collection of medical works. + +"Why, no," said the old Doctor, "I haven't got a great many printed +books; and what I have I don't read quite as often as I might, I'm +afraid. I read and studied in the time of it, when I was in the +midst of the young men who were all at work with their books; but +it's a mighty hard matter, when you go off alone into the country, to +keep up with all that's going on in the Societies and the Colleges. +I'll tell you, though, Mr. Langdon, when a man that's once started +right lives among sick folks for five-and-thirty years, as I've done, +if he has n't got a library of five-and-thirty volumes bound up in +his head at the end of that time, he'd better stop driving round and +sell his horse and sulky. I know the bigger part of the families +within a dozen miles' ride. I know the families that have a way of +living through everything, and I know the other set that have the +trick of dying without any kind of reason for it. I know the years +when the fevers and dysenteries are in earnest, and when they're only +making believe. I know the folks that think they're dying as soon as +they're sick, and the folks that never find out they 're sick till +they're dead. I don't want to undervalue your science, Mr. Langdon. +There are things I never learned, because they came in after my day, +and I am very glad to send my patients to those that do know them, +when I am at fault; but I know these people about here, fathers and +mothers, and children and grandchildren, so as all the science in the +world can't know them, without it takes time about it, and sees them +grow up and grow old, and how the wear and tear of life comes to +them. You can't tell a horse by driving him once, Mr. Langdon, nor a +patient by talking half an hour with him." + +"Do you know much about the Veneer family?" said Mr. Bernard, in a +natural way enough, the Doctor's talk having suggested the question. + +The Doctor lifted his head with his accustomed movement, so as to +command the young man through his spectacles. + +"I know all the families of this place and its neighborhood," he +answered. + +"We have the young lady studying with us at the Institute," said Mr. +Bernard. + +"I know it," the Doctor answered. "Is she a good scholar?" + +All this time the Doctor's eyes were fixed steadily on Mr. Bernard, +looking through the glasses. + +"She is a good scholar enough, but I don't know what to make of her. +Sometimes I think she is a little out of her head. Her father, +I believe, is sensible enough;--what sort of a woman was her mother, +Doctor?---I suppose, of course, you remember all about her?" + +"Yes, I knew her mother. She was a very lovely young woman." --The +Doctor put his hand to his forehead and drew a long breath. --"What +is there you notice out of the way about Elsie Venner?" + +"A good many things," the master answered. "She shuns all the other +girls. She is getting a strange influence over my fellow-teacher, a +young lady,--you know Miss Helen Darley, perhaps? I am afraid this +girl will kill her. I never saw or heard of anything like it, in +prose at least;--do you remember much of Coleridge's Poems, Doctor?" + +The good old Doctor had to plead a negative. + +"Well, no matter. Elsie would have been burned for a witch in old +times. I have seen the girl look at Miss Darley when she had not the +least idea of it, and all at once I would see her grow pale and +moist, and sigh, and move round uneasily, and turn towards Elsie, and +perhaps get up and go to her, or else have slight spasmodic movements +that looked like hysterics;--do you believe in the evil eye, Doctor?" + +"Mr. Langdon," the Doctor said, solemnly, "there are strange things +about Elsie Veneer,--very strange things. This was what I wanted to +speak to you about. Let me advise you all to be very patient with +the girl, but also very careful. Her love is not to be desired, and +"--he spoke in a lower tone--"her hate is to be dreaded. Do you +think she has any special fancy for anybody else in the school +besides Miss Darley?" + +Mr. Bernard could not stand the old Doctor's spectacled eyes without +betraying a little of the feeling natural to a young man to whom a +home question involving a possible sentiment is put suddenly. + +"I have suspected," he said,--"I have had a kind of feeling--that +she--Well, come, Doctor,--I don't know that there 's any use in +disguising the matter,--I have thought Elsie Veneer had rather a +fancy for somebody else,--I mean myself." + +There was something so becoming in the blush with which the young man +made this confession, and so manly, too, in the tone with which he +spoke, so remote from any shallow vanity, such as young men who are +incapable of love are apt to feel, when some loose tendril of a +woman's fancy which a chance wind has blown against them twines about +them for the want of anything better, that the old Doctor looked at +him admiringly, and could not help thinking that it was no wonder any +young girl should be pleased with him. + +"You are a man of nerve, Mr. Langdon?" said the Doctor. + +"I thought so till very lately," he replied. "I am not easily +frightened, but I don't know but I might be bewitched or magnetized, +or whatever it is when one is tied up and cannot move. I think I can +find nerve enough, however, if there is any special use you want to +put it to." + +"Let me ask you one more question, Mr. Langdon. Do you find yourself +disposed to take a special interest in Elsie,--to fall in love with +her, in a word? Pardon me, for I do not ask from curiosity, but a +much more serious motive." + +"Elsie interests me," said the young man, "interests me strangely. +She has a wild flavor in her character which is wholly different from +that of any human creature I ever saw. She has marks of genius, +poetic or dramatic,--I hardly know which. She read a passage from +Keats's 'Lamia' the other day, in the schoolroom, in such a way that +I declare to you I thought some of the girls would faint or go into +fits. Miss Darley got up and left the room, trembling all over. +Then, I pity her, she is so lonely. The girls are afraid of her, and +she seems to have either a dislike or a fear of them. They have all +sorts of painful stories about her. They give her a name which no +human creature ought to bear. They say she hides a mark on her neck +by always wearing a necklace. She is very graceful, you know, and +they will have it that she can twist herself into all sorts of +shapes, or tie herself in a knot, if she wants to. There is not one +of them that will look her in the eyes. I pity the poor girl; but, +Doctor, I do not love her. I would risk my life for her, if it would +do her any good, but it would be in cold blood. If her hand touches +mine, it is not a thrill of passion I feel running through me, but a +very different emotion. Oh, Doctor! there must be something in that +creature's blood which has killed the humanity in her. God only +knows the cause that has blighted such a soul in so beautiful a body! +No, Doctor, I do not love the girl." + +"Mr. Langdon," said the Doctor, "you are young, and I am old. Let me +talk to you with an old man's privilege, as an adviser. You have +come to this country-town without suspicion, and you are moving in +the midst of perils. There are things which I must not tell you now; +but I may warn you. Keep your eyes open and your heart shut. If, +through pitying that girl, you ever come to love her, you are lost. +If you deal carelessly with her, beware! This is not all. There are +other eyes on you beside Elsie Venner's. Do you go armed?" + +"I do!" said Mr. Bernard,--and he "put his hands up" in the shape of +fists, in such a way as to show that he was master of the natural +weapons at any rate. + +The Doctor could not help smiling. But his face fell in an instant. + +"You may want something more than those tools to work with. Come +with me into my sanctum." + +The Doctor led Mr. Bernard into a small room opening out of the +study. It was a place such as anybody but a medical man would shiver +to enter. There was the usual tall box with its bleached, rattling +tenant; there were jars in rows where "interesting cases" outlived +the grief of widows and heirs in alcoholic immortality, --for your +"preparation-jar" is the true "monumentum aere perennius;" there were +various semi-possibilities of minute dimensions and unpromising +developments; there were shining instruments of evil aspect, and grim +plates on the walls, and on one shelf by itself, accursed and apart, +coiled in a long cylinder of spirit, a huge crotalus, rough-scaled, +flatheaded, variegated with dull bands, one of which partially +encircled the neck like a collar,--an awful wretch to look upon, with +murder written all over him in horrid hieroglyphics. Mr. Bernard's +look was riveted on this creature,--not fascinated certainly, for its +eyes looked like white beads, being clouded by the action of the +spirits in which it had been long kept,--but fixed by some indefinite +sense of the renewal of a previous impression;--everybody knows the +feeling, with its suggestion of some past state of existence. There +was a scrap of paper on the jar, with something written on it. He +was reaching up to read it when the Doctor touched him lightly. + +"Look here, Mr. Langdon!" he said, with a certain vivacity of manner, +as if wishing to call away his attention,--"this is my armory." + +The Doctor threw open the door of a small cabinet, where were +disposed in artistic patterns various weapons of offence and +defence,--for he was a virtuoso in his way, and by the side of the +implements of the art of healing had pleased himself with displaying +a collection of those other instruments, the use of which renders the +first necessary. + +"See which of these weapons you would like best to carry about you," +said the Doctor. + +Mr. Bernard laughed, and looked at the Doctor as if he half doubted +whether he was in earnest. + +"This looks dangerous enough," he said,--"for the man who carries it, +at least." + +He took down one of the prohibited Spanish daggers or knives which a +traveller may, occasionally get hold of and smuggle out of the +country. The blade was broad, trowel-like, but the point drawn out +several inches, so as to look like a skewer. + +"This must be a jealous bull-fighter's weapon," he said, and put it +back in its place. + +Then he took down an ancient-looking broad-bladed dagger, with a +complex aspect about it, as if it had some kind of mechanism +connected with it. + +"Take care!" said the Doctor; "there is a trick to that dagger." + +He took it and touched a spring. The dagger split suddenly into +three blades, as when one separates the forefinger and the ring- +finger from the middle one. The outside blades were sharp on their +outer edge. The stab was to be made with the dagger shut, then the +spring touched and the split blades withdrawn. + +Mr. Bernard replaced it, saying, that it would have served for side- +arm to old Suwarrow, who told his men to work their bayonets back and +forward when they pinned a Turk, but to wriggle them about in the +wound when they stabbed a Frenchman. + +"Here," said the Doctor, "this is the thing you want." + +He took down a much more modern and familiar implement,--a small, +beautifully finished revolver. + +"I want you to carry this," he said; "and more than that, I want you +to practise with it often, as for amusement, but so that it maybe +seen and understood that you are apt to have a pistol about you. +Pistol-shooting is pleasant sport enough, and there is no reason why +you should not practise it like other young fellows. And now," the +Doctor said, "I have one other, weapon to give you." + +He took a small piece of parchment and shook a white powder into it +from one of his medicine-jars. The jar was marked with the name of a +mineral salt, of a nature to have been serviceable in case of sudden +illness in the time of the Borgias. The Doctor folded the parchment +carefully, and marked the Latin name of the powder upon it. + +"Here," he said, handing it to Mr. Bernard, "you see what it is, and +you know what service it can render. Keep these two protectors about +your person day and night; they will not harm you, and you may want +one or the other or both before you think of it." + +Mr. Bernard thought it was very odd, and not very old-gentlemanlike, +to be fitting him out for treason, stratagem, and spoils, in this +way. There was no harm, however, in carrying a doctor's powder in +his pocket, or in amusing himself with shooting at a mark, as he had +often done before. If the old gentleman had these fancies, it was as +well to humor him. + +So he thanked old Doctor Kittredge, and shook his hand warmly as he +left him. + +"The fellow's hand did not tremble, nor his color change," the Doctor +said, as he watched him walking away. "He is one of the right sort." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +EPISTOLARY. + +Mr. Langdon to the Professor. + +MY DEAR PROFESSOR, +You were kind enough to promise me that you would assist me in any +professional or scientific investigations in which I might become +engaged. I have of late become deeply interested in a class of +subjects which present peculiar difficulty, and I must exercise the +privilege of questioning you on some points upon which I desire +information I cannot otherwise obtain. I would not trouble you, if I +could find any person or books competent to enlighten me on some of +these singular matters which have so excited me. The leading doctor +here is a shrewd, sensible man, but not versed in the curiosities of +medical literature. + +I proceed, with your leave, to ask a considerable number of +questions,--hoping to get answers to some of them, at least. + +Is there any evidence that human beings can be infected or wrought +upon by poisons, or otherwise, so that they shall manifest any of the +peculiarities belonging to beings of a lower nature? Can such +peculiarities--be transmitted by inheritance? Is there anything to +countenance the stories, long and widely current, about the "evil +eye"? or is it a mere fancy that such a power belongs to any human +being? Have you any personal experience as to the power of +fascination said to be exercised by certain animals? What can you +make of those circumstantial statements we have seen in the papers, +of children forming mysterious friendships with ophidians of +different species, sharing their food with them, and seeming to be +under some subtile influence exercised by those creatures? Have you +read, critically, Coleridge's poem of "Christabel," and Keats's +"Lamia"? --If so, can you understand them, or find any physiological +foundation for the story of either? + +There is another set of questions of a different nature I should like +to ask, but it is hardly fair to put so many on a single sheet. +There is one, however, you must answer. Do you think there may be +predispositions, inherited or ingrafted, but at any rate +constitutional, which shall take out certain apparently voluntary +determinations from the control of the will, and leave them as free +from moral responsibility as the instincts of the lower animals? Do +you not think there may be a crime which is not a sin? + +Pardon me, my dear Sir, for troubling you with such a list of notes +of interrogation. There are some very strange things going on here +in this place, country-town as it is. Country-life is apt to be +dull; but when it once gets going, it beats the city hollow, because +it gives its whole mind to what it is about. These rural sinners +make terrible work with the middle of the Decalogue, when they get +started. However, I hope I shall live through my year's school- +keeping without catastrophes, though there are queer doings about me +which puzzle me and might scare some people. If anything should +happen, you will be one of the first to hear of it, no doubt. But I +trust not to help out the editors of the "Rockland Weekly Universe" +with an obituary of the late lamented, who signed himself in life + +Your friend and pupil, + +BERNARD C. LANGDON. + + + +The Professor to Mr. Langdon. + +MY DEAR MR. LANGDON, +I do not wonder that you find no answer from your country friends to +the curious questions you put. They belong to that middle region +between science and poetry which sensible men, as they are called, +are very shy of meddling with. Some people think that truth and gold +are always to be washed for; but the wiser sort are of opinion, that, +unless there are so many grains to the peck of sand or nonsense +respectively, it does not pay to wash for either, so long as one can +find anything else to do. I don't doubt there is some truth in the +phenomena of animal magnetism, for instance; but when you ask me to +cradle for it, I tell you that the hysteric girls cheat so, and the +professionals are such a set of pickpockets, that I can do something +better than hunt for the grains of truth among their tricks and lies. +Do you remember what I used to say in my lectures?---or were you +asleep just then, or cutting your initials on the rail? (You see I +can ask questions, my young friend.) Leverage is everything,--was +what I used to say;--don't begin to pry till you have got the long +arm on your side. + +To please you, and satisfy your doubts as far as possible, I have +looked into the old books,--into Schenckius and Turner and Kenelm. +Digby and the rest, where I have found plenty of curious stories +which you must take for what they are worth. + +Your first question I can answer in the affirmative upon pretty good +authority. Mizaldus tells, in his "Memorabilia," the well-known +story of the girl fed on poisons, who was sent by the king of the +Indies to Alexander the Great. "When Aristotle saw her eyes +sparkling and snapping like those of serpents, he said, 'Look out for +yourself, Alexander! this is a dangerous companion for you!'"--and +sure enough, the young lady proved to be a very unsafe person to her +friends. Cardanus gets a story from Avicenna, of a certain man bit +by a serpent, who recovered of his bite, the snake dying therefrom. +This man afterwards had a daughter whom venomous serpents could not +harm, though she had a fatal power over them. + +I suppose you may remember the statements of old authors about +Zycanthropy, the disease in which men took on the nature and aspect +of wolves. Actius and Paulus, both men of authority, describe it. +Altomaris gives a horrid case; and Fincelius mentions one occurring +as late as 1541, the subject of which was captured, still insisting +that he was a wolf, only that the hair of his hide was turned in! +Versipelles, it may be remembered, was the Latin name for these +"were-wolves." + +As for the cases where rabid persons have barked and bit like dogs, +there are plenty of such on record. + +More singular, or at least more rare, is the account given by Andreas +Baccius, of a man who was struck in the hand by a cock, with his +beak, and who died on the third day thereafter, looking for all the +world like a fighting-cock, to the great horror of the spectators. + +As to impressions transmitted at a very early period of existence, +every one knows the story of King James's fear of a naked sword, and +the way it is accounted for. Sir Kenelm Digby says,--"I remember +when he dubbed me Knight, in the ceremony of putting the point of a +naked sword upon my shoulder, he could not endure to look upon it, +but turned his face another way, insomuch, that, in lieu of touching +my shoulder, he had almost thrust the point into my eyes, had not the +Duke of Buckingham guided his hand aright." It is he, too, who tells +the story of the mulberry mark upon the neck of a certain lady of +high condition, which "every year, to mulberry season, did swell, +grow big, and itch." And Gaffarel mentions the case of a girl born +with the figure of a fish on one of her limbs, of which the wonder +was, that, when the girl did eat fish, this mark put her to sensible +pain. But there is no end to cases of this kind, and I could give +some of recent date, if necessary, lending a certain plausibility at +least to the doctrine of transmitted impressions. + +I never saw a distinct case of evil eye, though I have seen eyes so +bad that they might produce strange effects on very sensitive +natures. But the belief in it under various names, fascination, +jettcztura, etc., is so permanent and universal, from Egypt to Italy, +and from the days of Solomon to those of Ferdinand of Naples, that +there must be some peculiarity, to say the least, on which the +opinion is based. There is very strong evidence that some such power +is exercised by certain of the lower animals. Thus, it is stated on +good authority that "almost every animal becomes panic-struck at the +sight of the rattlesnake, and seems at once deprived of the power of +motion, or the exercise of its usual instinct of self-preservation." +Other serpents seem to share this power of fascination, as the Cobra +and the Buccephalus Capensis. + +Some think that it is nothing but fright; others attribute it to the + + "strange powers that lie + Within the magic circle of the eye,"-- + +as Churchill said, speaking of Garrick. + +You ask me about those mysterious and frightful intimacies between +children and serpents, of which so many instances have been recorded. +I am sure I cannot tell what to make of them. I have seen several +such accounts in recent papers, but here is one published in the +seventeenth century, which is as striking as any of the more modern +ones: + +"Mr. Herbert Tones of Monmouth, when he was a little Boy, was used to +eat his Milk in a Garden in the Morning, and was no sooner there, but +a large Snake always came, and eat out of the Dish with him, and did +so for a considerable time, till one Morning, he striking the Snake +on the Head, it hissed at him. Upon which he told his Mother that +the Baby (for so he call'd it) cry'd Hiss at him. His Mother had it +kill'd, which occasioned him a great Fit of Sickness, and 'twas +thought would have dy'd, but did recover." + +There was likewise one "William Writtle, condemned at Maidston +Assizes for a double murder, told a Minister that was with him after +he was condemned, that his mother told him, that when he was a Child, +there crept always to him a Snake, wherever she laid him. Sometimes +she would convey him up Stairs, and leave him never so little, she +should be sure to find a Snake in the Cradle with him, but never +perceived it did him any harm." + +One of the most striking alleged facts connected with the mysterious +relation existing between the serpent and-the human species is the +influence which the poison of the Crotulus, taken internally, seemed +to produce over the moral faculties, in the experiments instituted by +Dr. Hering at Surinam. There is something frightful in the +disposition of certain ophidians, as the whipsnake, which darts at +the eyes of cattle without any apparent provocation or other motive. +It is natural enough that the evil principle should have been +represented in the form of a serpent, but it is strange to think of +introducing it into a human being like cow-pox by vaccination. + +You know all about the Psylli, or ancient serpent tamers, I suppose. +Savary gives an account of the modern serpent-tamers in his "Letters +on Egypt." These modern jugglers are in the habit of making the +venomous Naja counterfeit death, lying out straight and stiff, +changing it into a rod, as the ancient magicians did with their +serpents, (probably the same animal,) in the time of Moses. + +I am afraid I cannot throw much light on "Christabel " or "Lamia " by +any criticism I can offer. Geraldine, in the former, seems to be +simply a malignant witch-woman with the evil eye, but with no +absolute ophidian relationship. Lamia is a serpent transformed by +magic into a woman. The idea of both is mythological, and not in any +sense physiological. Some women unquestionably suggest the image of +serpents; men rarely or never. I have been struck, like many +others, with the ophidian head and eye of the famous Rachel. + +Your question about inherited predispositions, as limiting the sphere +of the will, and, consequently, of moral accountability, opens a very +wide range of speculation. I can give you only a brief abstract of +my own opinions on this delicate and difficult subject. Crime and +sin, being the preserves of two great organized interests, have been +guarded against all reforming poachers with as great jealousy as the +Royal Forests. It is so easy to hang a troublesome fellow! It is so +much simpler to consign a soul to perdition, or say masses, for +money, to save it, than to take the blame on ourselves for letting it +grow up in neglect and run to ruin for want of humanizing influences! +They hung poor, crazy Bellingham for shooting Mr. Perceval. The +ordinary of Newgate preached to women who were to swing at Tyburn for +a petty theft as if they were worse than other people,--just as +though he would not have been a pickpocket or shoplifter, himself, if +he had been born in a den of thieves and bred up to steal or starve! +The English law never began to get hold of the idea that a crime was +not necessarily a sin, till Hadfield, who thought he was the Saviour +of mankind, was tried for shooting at George the Third;--lucky for +him that he did not hit his Majesty! + +It is very singular that we recognize all the bodily defects that +unfit a man for military service, and all the intellectual ones that +limit his range of thought, but always talk at him as if all his +moral powers were perfect. I suppose we must punish evil-doers as we +extirpate vermin; but I don't know that we have any more right to +judge them than we have to judge rats and mice, which are just as +good as cats and weasels, though we think it necessary to treat them +as criminals. + +The limitations of human responsibility have never been properly +studied, unless it be by the phrenologists. You know from my lectures +that I consider phrenology, as taught, a pseudo-science, and not a +branch of positive knowledge; but, for all that, we owe it an immense +debt. It has melted the world's conscience in its crucible, and cast +it in a new mould, with features less like those of Moloch and more +like those of humanity. If it has failed to demonstrate its system +of special correspondences, it has proved that there are fixed +relations between organization and mind and character. It has +brought out that great doctrine of moral insanity, which has done +more to make men charitable and soften legal and theological +barbarism than any one doctrine that I can think of since the message +of peace and good-will to men. + +Automatic action in the moral world; the reflex movement which seems +to be self-determination, and has been hanged and howled at as such +(metaphorically) for nobody knows how many centuries: until somebody +shall study this as Marshall Hall has studied reflex nervous action +in the bodily system, I would not give much for men's judgments of +each others' characters. Shut up the robber and the defaulter, we +must. But what if your oldest boy had been stolen from his cradle +and bred in a North-Street cellar? What if you are drinking a little +too much wine and smoking a little too much tobacco, and your son +takes after you, and so your poor grandson's brain being a little +injured in physical texture, he loses the fine moral sense on which +you pride yourself, and doesn't see the difference between signing +another man's name to a draft and his own? + +I suppose the study of automatic action in the moral world (you see +what I mean through the apparent contradiction of terms) may be a +dangerous one in the view of many people. It is liable to abuse, no +doubt. People are always glad to, get hold of anything which limits +their responsibility. But remember that our moral estimates come +down to us from ancestors who hanged children for stealing forty +shillings' worth, and sent their souls to perdition for the sin of +being born,--who punished the unfortunate families of suicides, and +in their eagerness for justice executed one innocent person every +three years, on the average, as Sir James Mackintosh tells us. + +I do not know in what shape the practical question may present itself +to you; but I will tell you my rule in life, and I think you will +find it a good one. Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane. +They are in-sane, out of health, morally. Reason, which is food to +sound minds, is not tolerated, still less assimilated, unless +administered with the greatest caution; perhaps, not at all. Avoid +collision with them, so far as you honorably can; keep your temper, +if you can,--for one angry man is as good as another; restrain them +from violence, promptly, completely, and with the least possible +injury, just as in the case of maniacs,--and when you have got rid of +them, or got them tied hand and foot so that they can do no mischief, +sit down and contemplate them charitably, remembering that nine +tenths of their' perversity comes from outside influences, drunken +ancestors, abuse in childhood, bad company, from which you have +happily been preserved, and for some of which you, as a member of +society, may be fractionally responsible. I think also that there +are special influences which work in the brood lake ferments, and I +have a suspicion that some of those curious old stories I cited may +have more recent parallels. Have you ever met with any cases which +admitted of a solution like that which I have mentioned?, + +Yours very truly, + +_____________ _____________ + + + + Bernard Langdon to Philip Staples. + +MY DEAR PHILIP,-- + +I have been for some months established in this place, turning the +main crank of the machinery for the manufactory of accomplishments +superintended by, or rather worked to the profit of, a certain Mr. +Silas Peckham. He is a poor wretch, with a little thin fishy blood +in his body, lean and flat, long-armed and large-handed, thick- +jointed and thin-muscled,--you know those unwholesome, weak-eyed, +half-fed creatures, that look not fit to be round among live folks, +and yet not quite dead enough to bury. If you ever hear of my being +in court to answer to a charge of assault and battery, you may guess +that I have been giving him a thrashing to settle off old scores; for +he is a tyrant, and has come pretty near killing his principal lady- +assistant with overworking her and keeping her out of all decent +privileges. + +Helen Darley is this lady's name,--twenty two or three years old, I +should think,--a very sweet, pale woman,--daughter of the usual +country-clergyman,--thrown on her own resources from an early age, +and the rest: a common story, but an uncommon person,--very. All +conscience and sensibility, I should say,--a cruel worker,--no kind +of regard for herself, seems as fragile and supple as a young willow- +shoot, but try her and you find she has the spring in her of a steel +cross-bow. I am glad I happened to come to this place, if it were +only for her sake. I have saved that girl's life; I am as sure of it +as if I had pulled her out of the fire or water. + +Of course I'm in love with her, you say,--we always love those whom +we have benefited; "saved her life,--her love was the reward of his +devotion," etc., etc., as in a regular set novel. In love, Philip? +Well, about that,--I love Helen Darley--very much: there is hardly +anybody I love so well. What a noble creature she is! One of those +that just go right on, do their own work and everybody else's, +killing themselves inch by inch without ever thinking about it,-- +singing and dancing at their toil when they begin, worn and saddened +after a while, but pressing steadily on, tottering by and by, and +catching at the rail by the way-side to help them lift one foot +before the other, and at last falling, face down, arms stretched +forward + +Philip, my boy, do you know I am the sort of man that locks his door +sometimes and cries his heart out of his eyes,--that can sob like a +woman and not be ashamed of it? I come of fighting-blood on one +side, you know; I think I could be savage on occasion. But I am +tender,--more and more tender as I come into my fulness of manhood. +I don't like to strike a man, (laugh, if you like,--I know I hit hard +when I do strike,)--but what I can't stand is the sight of these +poor, patient, toiling women, who never find out in this life how +good they are, and never know what it is to be told they are angels +while they still wear the pleasing incumbrances of humanity. I don't +know what to make of these cases. To think that a woman is never to +be a woman again, whatever she may come to as an unsexed angel,--and +that she should die unloved! Why does not somebody come and carry +off this noble woman, waiting here all ready to make a man happy? +Philip, do you know the pathos there is in the eyes of unsought +women, oppressed with the burden of an inner life unshared? I can +see into them now as I could not in those 'earlier days. I sometimes +think their pupils dilate on purpose to let my consciousness glide +through them; indeed, I dread them, I come so close to the nerve of +the soul itself in these momentary intimacies. You used to tell me I +was a Turk,--that my heart was full of pigeon-holes, with +accommodations inside for a whole flock of doves. I don't know but I +am still as Youngish as ever in my ways,--Brigham-Youngish, I mean; +at any rate, T. always want to give a little love to all the poor +things that cannot have a whole man to themselves. If they would +only be contented with a little! + +Here now are two girls in this school where I am teaching. One of +them, Rosa M., is not more than sixteen years old, I think they say; +but Nature has forced her into a tropical luxuriance of beauty, as if +it were July with her, instead of May. I suppose it is all natural +enough that this girl should like a young man's attention, even if he +were a grave schoolmaster; but the eloquence of this young thing's +look is unmistakable,--and yet she does not know the language it is +talking,--they none of them do; and there is where a good many poor +creatures of our good-for-nothing sex are mistaken. There is no +danger of my being rash, but I think this girl will cost somebody his +life yet. She is one of those women men make a quarrel about and +fight to the death for,--the old feral instinct, you know. + +Pray, don't think I am lost in conceit, but there is another girl +here who I begin to think looks with a certain kindness on me. Her +name is Elsie V., and she is the only daughter and heiress of an old +family in this place. She is a portentous and almost fearful +creature. If I should tell you all I know and half of what I fancy +about her, you would tell me to get my life insured at once. Yet she +is the most painfully interesting being,--so handsome! so lonely!--- +for she has no friends among the girls, and sits apart from them,-- +with black hair like the flow of a mountain-brook after a thaw, with +a low-browed, scowling beauty of face, and such eyes as were never +seen before, I really believe, in any human creature. + +Philip, I don't know what to say about this Elsie. There is +something about her I have not fathomed. I have conjectures which I +could not utter to any living soul. I dare not even hint the +possibilities which have suggested themselves to me. This I will +say, that I do take the most intense interest in this young person, +an interest much more like pity than love in its common sense. If +what I guess at is true, of all the tragedies of existence I ever +knew this is the saddest, and yet so full of meaning! Do not ask me +any questions,--I have said more than I meant to already; but I am +involved in strange doubts and perplexities,--in dangers too, very +possibly,--and it is a relief just to speak ever so guardedly of them +to an early and faithful friend. + +Yours ever, BERNARD. + +P. S. I remember you had a copy of Fortunius Licetus' "De Monstris " +among your old books. Can't you lend it to me for a while? I am +curious, and it will amuse me. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +OLD SOPHY CALLS ON THE REVEREND DOCTOR. + +The two meeting-houses which faced each other like a pair of +fighting-cocks had not flapped their wings or crowed at each other +for a considerable time. The Reverend Mr. Fairweather had been +dyspeptic and low-spirited of late, and was too languid for +controversy. The Reverend Doctor Honeywood had been very busy with +his benevolent associations, and had discoursed chiefly on practical +matters, to the neglect of special doctrinal subjects. His senior +deacon ventured to say to him that some of his people required to be +reminded of the great fundamental doctrine of the worthlessness of +all human efforts and motives. Some of them were altogether too much +pleased with the success of the Temperance Society and the +Association for the Relief of the Poor. There was a pestilent heresy +about, concerning the satisfaction to be derived from a good +conscience, as if, anybody ever did anything which was not to be +hated, loathed, despised, and condemned. + +The old minister listened gravely, with an inward smile, and told his +deacon that he would attend to his suggestion. After the deacon had +gone, he tumbled over his manuscripts, until at length he came upon +his first-rate old sermon on "Human Nature." He had read a great +deal of hard theology, and had at last reached that curious state +which is so common in good ministers,--that, namely, in which they +contrive to switch off their logical faculties on the narrow +sidetrack of their technical dogmas, while the great freight-train of +their substantial human qualities keeps in the main highway of +common-sense, in which kindly souls are always found by all who +approach them by their human side. + +The Doctor read his sermon with a pleasant, paternal interest: it was +well argued from his premises. Here and there he dashed his pen +through a harsh expression. Now and then he added an explanation or +qualified abroad statement. But his mind was on the logical side- +track, and he followed the chain of reasoning without fairly +perceiving where it would lead him, if he carried it into real life. + +He was just touching up the final proposition, when his +granddaughter, Letty, once before referred to, came into the room +with her smiling face and lively movement. Miss Letty or Letitia +Forrester was a city-bred girl of some fifteen or sixteen years old, +who was passing the summer with her grandfather for the sake of +country air and quiet. It was a sensible arrangement; for, having +the promise of figuring as a belle by and by, and being a little +given to dancing, and having a voice which drew a pretty dense circle +around the piano when she sat down to play and sing, it was hard to +keep her from being carried into society before her time, by the mere +force of mutual attraction. Fortunately, she had some quiet as well +as some social tastes, and was willing enough to pass two or three of +the summer months in the country, where she was much better bestowed +than she would have been at one of those watering-places where so +many half-formed girls get prematurely hardened in the vice of self- +consciousness. + +Miss Letty was altogether too wholesome, hearty, and high-strung a +young girl to be a model, according to the flat-chested and cachectic +pattern which is the classical type of certain excellent young +females, often the subjects of biographical memoirs. But the old +minister was proud of his granddaughter for all that. She was so +full of life, so graceful, so generous, so vivacious, so ready always +to do all she could for him and for everybody, so perfectly frank in +her avowed delight in the pleasures which this miserable world +offered her in the shape of natural beauty, of poetry, of music, of +companionship, of books, of cheerful cooperation in the tasks of +those about her, that the Reverend Doctor could not find it in his +heart to condemn her because she was deficient in those particular +graces and that signal other-worldliness he had sometimes noticed in +feeble young persons suffering from various chronic diseases which +impaired their vivacity and removed them from the range of +temptation. + +When Letty, therefore, came bounding into the old minister's study, +he glanced up from his manuscript, and, as his eye fell upon her, it +flashed across him that there was nothing so very monstrous and +unnatural about the specimen of congenital perversion he was looking +at, with his features opening into their pleasantest sunshine. +Technically, according to the fifth proposition of the sermon on +Human Nature, very bad, no doubt. Practically, according to the fact +before him, a very pretty piece of the Creator's handiwork, body and +soul. Was it not a conceivable thing that the divine grace might +show itself in different forms in a fresh young girl like Letitia, +and in that poor thing he had visited yesterday, half-grown, half- +colored, in bed for the last year with hip-disease? + +Was it to be supposed that this healthy young girl, with life +throbbing all over her, could, without a miracle, be good according +to the invalid pattern and formula? + +And yet there were mysteries in human nature which pointed to some +tremendous perversion of its tendencies,--to some profound, radical +vice of moral constitution, native or transmitted, as you will have +it, but positive, at any rate, as the leprosy, breaking out in the +blood of races, guard them ever so carefully. Did he not know the +case of a young lady in Rockland, daughter of one of the first +families in the place, a very beautiful and noble creature to look +at, for whose bringing up nothing had been spared,--a girl who had +had governesses to teach her at the house, who had been indulged +almost too kindly,--a girl whose father had given himself, up to her, +he being himself a pure and high-souled man?--and yet this girl was +accused in whispers of having been on the very verge of committing a +fatal crime; she was an object of fear to all who knew the dark hints +which had been let fall about her, and there were some that believed +--Why, what was this but an instance of the total obliquity and +degeneration of the moral principle? and to what could it be owing, +but to an innate organic tendency? + +"Busy, grandpapa?" said Letty, and without waiting for an answer +kissed his cheek with a pair of lips made on purpose for that little +function,--fine, but richly turned out, the corners tucked in with a +finish of pretty dimples, the rose-bud lips of girlhood's June. + +The old gentleman looked at his granddaughter. Nature swelled up +from his heart in a wave that sent a glow to his cheek and a sparkle +to his eye. But it is very hard to be interrupted just as we are +winding up a string of propositions with the grand conclusion which +is the statement in brief of all that has gone before: our own +starting-point, into which we have been trying to back our reader or +listener as one backs a, horse into the shafts. + +"Video meliora, proboque,--I see the better, and approve it; +deteriora sequor, I follow after the worse; 't is that natural +dislike to what is good, pure, holy, and true, that inrooted +selfishness, totally insensible to the claims of"--- + +Here the worthy man was interrupted by Miss Letty. + +"Do come, if you can, grandpapa," said the young girl; "here is a +poor old black woman wants to see you so much!" + +The good minister was as kind-hearted as if he had never groped in +the dust and ashes of those cruel old abstractions which have killed +out so much of the world's life and happiness. "With the heart man +believeth unto righteousness; " a man's love is the measure of his +fitness for good or bad company here or elsewhere. Men are tattooed +with their special beliefs like so many South-Sea Islanders; but a +real human heart, with Divine love in it, beats with the same glow +under all, the patterns of all earth's thousand tribes! + +The Doctor sighed, and folded the sermon, and laid the Quarto Cruden +on it. He rose from his desk, and, looking once more at the young +girl's face, forgot his logical conclusions, and said to himself that +she was a little angel,--which was in violent contradiction to the +leading doctrine of his sermon on Human Nature. And so he followed +her out of the study into the wide entry of the old-fashioned +country-house. + +An old black woman sat on the plain oaken settle which humble +visitors waiting to see the minister were wont to occupy. She was +old, but how old it would be very hard to guess. She might be +seventy. She might be ninety. One could not swear she was not a +hundred. Black women remain at a stationary age (to the eyes of +white people, at least) for thirty years. They do not appear to +change during this period any more than so many Trenton trilobites. +Bent up, wrinkled, yellow-eyed, with long upper-lip, projecting jaws, +retreating chin, still meek features, long arms, large flat hands +with uncolored palms and slightly webbed fingers, it was impossible +not to see in this old creature a hint of the gradations by which +life climbs up through the lower natures to the highest human +developments. We cannot tell such old women's ages because we do not +understand the physiognomy of a race so unlike our own. No doubt +they see a great deal in each other's faces that we cannot,--changes +of color and expression as real as our own, blushes and sudden +betrayals of feeling,--just as these two canaries know what their +single notes and short sentences and full song with this or that +variation mean, though it is a mystery to us unplumed mortals. + +This particular old black woman was a striking specimen of her class. +Old as she looked, her eye was bright and knowing. She wore a red- +and-yellow turban, which set off her complexion well, and hoops of +gold in her ears, and beads of gold about her neck, and an old +funeral ring upon her finger. She had that touching stillness about +her which belongs to animals that wait to be spoken to and then look +up with a kind of sad humility. + +"Why, Sophy!" said the good minister, "is this you?" + +She looked up with the still expression on her face. "It's ol' +Sophy," she said. + +"Why," said the Doctor, "I did not believe you could walk so far as +this to save the Union. Bring Sophy a glass of wine, Letty. Wine's +good for old folks like Sophy and me, after walking a good way, or +preaching a good while." + +The young girl stepped into the back-parlor, where she found the +great pewter flagon in which the wine that was left after each +communion-service was brought to the minister's house. With much +toil she managed to tip it so as to get a couple of glasses filled. +The minister tasted his, and made old Sophy finish hers. + +"I wan' to see you 'n' talk wi' you all alone," she said presently. + +The minister got up and led the way towards his study. "To be sure," +he said; he had only waited for her to rest a moment before he asked +her into the library. The young girl took her gently by the arm, and +helped her feeble steps along the passage. When they reached the +study, she smoothed the cushion of a rocking-chair, and made the old +woman sit down in it. Then she tripped lightly away, and left her +alone with the minister. + +Old Sophy was a member of the Reverend Doctor Honeywood's church. +She had been put through the necessary confessions in a tolerably +satisfactory manner. To be sure, as her grandfather had been a +cannibal chief, according to the common story, and, at any rate, a +terrible wild savage, and as her mother retained to the last some of +the prejudices of her early education, there was a heathen flavor in +her Christianity which had often scandalized the elder of the +minister's two deacons. But, the good minister had smoothed matters +over: had explained that allowances were to be made for those who had +been long sitting without the gate of Zion,--that, no doubt, a part +of the curse which descended to the children of Ham consisted in +"having the understanding darkened," as well as the skin,--and so had +brought his suspicious senior deacon to tolerate old Sophy as one of +the communion of fellow-sinners. + +--Poor things! How little we know the simple notions with which +these rudiments of souls are nourished by the Divine Goodness! Did +not Mrs. Professor come home this very blessed morning with a story +of one of her old black women? + +"And how do you feel to-day, Mrs. Robinson?" + +"Oh, my dear, I have this singing in my head all the time." (What +doctors call tinnitus aurium.) + +"She 's got a cold in the head," said old Mrs. Rider. + +"Oh, no, my dear! Whatever I'm thinking about, it's all this +singing, this music. When I'm thinking of the dear Redeemer, it all +turns into this singing and music. When the clark came to see me, I +asked him if he couldn't cure me, and he said, No,--it was the Holy +Spirit in me, singing to me; and all the time I hear this beautiful +music, and it's the Holy Spirit a-singing to me." + + +The good man waited for Sophy to speak; but she did not open her lips +as yet. + +"I hope you are not troubled in mind or body," he said to her at +length, finding she did not speak. + +The poor old woman took out a white handkerchief, and lifted it--to +her black face. She could not say a word for her tears and sobs. + +The minister would have consoled her; he was used to tears, and could +in most cases withstand their contagion manfully; but something +choked his voice suddenly, and when he called upon it, he got no +answer, but a tremulous movement of the muscles, which was worse than +silence. + +At last she spoke. + +"Oh, no, no, no! It's my poor girl, my darling, my beauty, my baby, +that 's grown up to be a woman; she will come to a bad end; she will +do something that will make them kill her or shut her up all her +life. Or, Doctor, Doctor, save her, pray for her! It a'n't her +fault. It a'n't her fault. If they knew all that I know, they would +n' blame that poor child. I must tell you, Doctor: if I should die, +perhaps nobody else would tell you. Massa Veneer can't talk about +it. Doctor Kittredge won't talk about it. Nobody but old Sophy to +tell you, Doctor; and old Sophy can't die without telling you." + +The kind minister soothed the poor old soul with those gentle, +quieting tones which had carried peace and comfort to so many +chambers of sickness and sorrow, to so many hearts overburdened by +the trials laid upon them. + +Old Sophy became quiet in a few minutes, and proceeded to tell her +story. She told it in the low half-whisper which is the natural +voice of lips oppressed wish grief and fears; with quick glances +around the apartment from time to time, as if she dreaded lest the +dim portraits on the walls and the dark folios on the shelves might +overhear her words. + +It was not one of those conversations which a third person can report +minutely, unless by that miracle of clairvoyance known to the readers +of stories made out of authors' brains. Yet its main character can +be imparted in a much briefer space than the old black woman took to +give all its details. + +She went far back to the time when Dudley Venner was born,--she being +then a middle-aged woman. The heir and hope of a family which had +been narrowing down as if doomed to extinction, he had been +surrounded with every care and trained by the best education he could +have in New England. He had left college, and was studying the +profession which gentlemen of leisure most affect, when he fell in +love with a young girl left in the world almost alone, as he was. +The old woman told the story of his young love and his joyous bridal +with a tenderness which had something more, even, than her family +sympathies to account for it. Had she not hanging over her bed a +paper-cutting of a profile,--jet black, but not blacker than the face +it represented--of one who would have been her own husband in the +small years of this century, if the vessel in which he went to sea, +like Jamie in the ballad, had not sailed away and never come back to +land? Had she not her bits of furniture stowed away which had been +got ready for her own wedding,--two rocking-chairs, one worn with +long use, one kept for him so long that it had grown a superstition +with her never to sit in it,--and might he not come back yet, after +all? Had she not her chest of linen ready for her humble house- +keeping with store of serviceable huckaback and piles of neatly +folded kerchiefs, wherefrom this one that showed so white against her +black face was taken, for that she knew her eyes would betray her in +"the presence"? + +All the first part of the story the old woman told tenderly, and yet +dwelling upon every incident with a loving pleasure. How happy this +young couple had been, what plans and projects of improvement they +had formed, how they lived in each other, always together, so young +and fresh and beautiful as she remembered them in that one early +summer when they walked arm in arm through the wilderness of roses +that ran riot in the garden,--she told of this as loath to leave it +and come to the woe that lay beneath. + +She told the whole story;-shall I repeat it? Not now. If, in the +course of relating the incidents I have undertaken to report, it +tells itself, perhaps this will be better than to run the risk of +producing a painful impression on some of those susceptible readers +whom it would be ill-advised to disturb or excite, when they rather +require to be amused and soothed. In our pictures of life, we must +show the flowering-out of terrible growths which have their roots +deep, deep underground. Just how far we shall lay bare the unseemly +roots themselves is a matter of discretion and taste, and which none +of us are infallible. + +The old woman told the whole story of Elsie, of her birth, of her +peculiarities of person and disposition, of the passionate fears and +hopes with which her father had watched the course of her +development. She recounted all her strange ways, from the hour when +she first tried to crawl across the carpet, and her father's look as +she worked her way towards him. With the memory of Juliet's nurse +she told the story of her teething, and how, the woman to whose +breast she had clung dying suddenly about that time, they had to +struggle hard with the child before she would learn the +accomplishment of feeding with a spoon. And so of her fierce plays +and fiercer disputes with that boy who had been her companion, and +the whole scene of the quarrel when she struck him with those sharp +white teeth, frightening her, old Sophy, almost to death; for, as she +said, the boy would have died, if it hadn't been for the old Doctor's +galloping over as fast as he could gallop and burning the places +right out of his arm. Then came the story of that other incident, +sufficiently alluded to already, which had produced such an ecstasy +of fright and left such a nightmare of apprehension in the household. +And so the old woman came down to this present time. That boy she +never loved nor trusted was grown to a dark, dangerous-looking man, +and he was under their roof. He wanted to marry our poor Elsie, and +Elsie hated him, and sometimes she would look at him over her +shoulder just as she used to look at that woman she hated; and she, +old Sophy, couldn't sleep for thinking she should hear a scream from +the white chamber some night and find him in spasms such as that +woman came so near dying with. And then there was something about +Elsie she did not know what to make of: she would sit and hang her +head sometimes, and look as if she were dreaming; and she brought +home books they said a young gentleman up at the great school lent +her; and once she heard her whisper in her sleep, and she talked as +young girls do to themselves when they're thinking about somebody +they have a liking for and think nobody knows it. + +She finished her long story at last. The minister had listened to it +in perfect silence. He sat still even when she had done speaking,-- +still, and lost in thought. It was a very awkward matter for him to +have a hand in. Old Sophy was his parishioner, but the Veneers had a +pew in the Reverend Mr. Fairweather's meeting-house. It would seem +that he, Mr. Fairweather, was the natural adviser of the parties most +interested. Had he sense and spirit enough to deal with such people? +Was there enough capital of humanity in his somewhat limited nature +to furnish sympathy and unshrinking service for his friends in an +emergency? or was he too busy with his own attacks of spiritual +neuralgia, and too much occupied with taking account of stock of his +own thin-blooded offences, to forget himself and his personal +interests on the small scale and the large, and run a risk of his +life, if need were, at any rate give himself up without reserve to +the dangerous task of guiding and counselling these distressed and +imperilled fellow-creatures? + +The good minister thought the best thing to do would be to call and +talk over some of these matters with Brother Fairweather,--for so he +would call him at times, especially if his senior deacon were not +within earshot. Having settled this point, he comforted Sophy with a +few words of counsel and a promise of coming to see her very soon. +He then called his man to put the old white horse into the chaise and +drive Sophy back to the mansion-house. + +When the Doctor sat down to his sermon again, it looked very +differently from the way it had looked at the moment he left it. +When he came to think of it, he did not feel quite so sure +practically about that matter of the utter natural selfishness of +everybody. There was Letty, now, seemed to take a very unselfish +interest in that old black woman, and indeed in poor people +generally; perhaps it would not be too much to say that she was +always thinking of other people. He thought he had seen other young +persons naturally unselfish, thoughtful for others; it seemed to be a +family trait in some he had known. + +But most of all he was exercised about this poor girl whose story +Sophy had been telling. If what the old woman believed was true,-- +and it had too much semblance of probability,--what became of his +theory of ingrained moral obliquity applied to such a case? If by +the visitation of God a person receives any injury which impairs the +intellect or the moral perceptions, is it not monstrous to judge such +a person by our common working standards of right and wrong? +Certainly, everybody will answer, in cases where there is a palpable +organic change brought about, as when a blow on the head produces +insanity. Fools! How long will it be before we shall learn that for +every wound which betrays itself to the sight by a scar, there are a +thousand unseen mutilations that cripple, each of them, some one or +more of our highest faculties? If what Sophy told and believed was +the real truth, what prayers could be agonizing enough, what +tenderness could be deep enough, for this poor, lost, blighted, +hapless, blameless child of misfortune, struck by such a doom as +perhaps no living creature in all the sisterhood of humanity shared +with her? + +The minister thought these matters over until his mind was bewildered +with doubts and tossed to and fro on that stormy deep of thought +heaving forever beneath the conflict of windy dogmas. He laid by his +old sermon. He put back a pile of old commentators with their eyes +and mouths and hearts full of the dust of the schools. Then he +opened the book of Genesis at the eighteenth chapter and read that +remarkable argument of Abraham's with his Maker in which he boldly +appeals to first principles. He took as his text, "Shall not the +Judge of all the earth do right?" and began to write his sermon, +afterwards so famous, "On the Obligations of an Infinite Creator to a +Finite Creature." + +It astonished the good people, who had been accustomed so long to +repeat mechanically their Oriental hyperboles of self-abasement, to +hear their worthy minister maintaining that the dignified attitude of +the old Patriarch, insisting on what was reasonable and fair with +reference to his fellow-creatures, was really much more respectful to +his Maker, and a great deal manlier and more to his credit, than if +he had yielded the whole matter, and pretended that men had not +rights as well as duties. The same logic which had carried him to +certain conclusions with reference to human nature, this same +irresistible logic carried him straight on from his text until he +arrived at those other results, which not only astonished his people, +as was said, but surprised himself. He went so far in defence of the +rights of man, that he put his foot into several heresies, for which +men had been burned so often, it was time, if ever it could be, to +acknowledge the demonstration of the argumentum ad ignem. He did not +believe in the responsibility of idiots. He did not believe a new- +born infant was morally answerable for other people's acts. He +thought a man with a crooked spine would never be called to account +for not walking erect. He thought if the crook was in his brain, +instead of his back, he could not fairly be blamed for any +consequence of this natural defect, whatever lawyers or divines might +call it. He argued, that, if a person inherited a perfect mind, +body, and disposition, and had perfect teaching from infancy, that +person could do nothing more than keep the moral law perfectly. But +supposing that the Creator allows a person to be born with an +hereditary or ingrafted organic tendency, and then puts this person +into the hands of teachers incompetent or positively bad, is not what +is called sin or transgression of the law necessarily involved in the +premises? Is not a Creator bound to guard his children against the +ruin which inherited ignorance might entail on them? Would it be +fair for a parent to put into a child's hands the title-deeds to all +its future possessions, and a bunch of matches? And are not men +children, nay, babes, in the eye of Omniscience? --The minister grew +bold in his questions. Had not he as good right to ask questions as +Abraham? + +This was the dangerous vein of speculation in which the Reverend +Doctor Honeywood found himself involved, as a consequence of the +suggestions forced upon him by old Sophy's communication. The truth +was, the good man had got so humanized by mixing up with other people +in various benevolent schemes, that, the very moment he could escape +from his old scholastic abstractions, he took the side of humanity +instinctively, just as the Father of the Faithful did,--all honor be +to the noble old Patriarch for insisting on the worth of an honest +man, and making the best terms he could for a very ill-conditioned +metropolis, which might possibly, however, have contained ten +righteous people, for whose sake it should be spared! + +The consequence of all this was, that he was in a singular and +seemingly self-contradictory state of mind when he took his hat and +cane and went forth to call on his heretical brother. The old +minister took it for granted that the Reverend Mr. Fairweather knew +the private history of his parishioner's family. He did not reflect +that there are griefs men never put into words,--that there are fears +which must not be spoken,--intimate matters of consciousness which +must be carried, as bullets which have been driven deep into the +living tissues are sometimes carried, for a whole lifetime,--encysted +griefs, if we may borrow the chirurgeon's term, never to be reached, +never to be seen, never to be thrown out, but to go into the dust +with the frame that bore them about with it, during long years of +anguish, known only to the sufferer and his Maker. Dudley Venner had +talked with his minister about this child of his. But he had talked +cautiously, feeling his way for sympathy, looking out for those +indications of tact and judgment which would warrant him in some +partial communication, at least, of the origin of his doubts and +fears, and never finding them. + +There was something about the Reverend Mr. Fairweather which +repressed all attempts at confidential intercourse. What this +something was, Dudley Venner could hardly say; but he felt it +distinctly, and it sealed his lips. He never got beyond certain +generalities connected with education and religious instruction. The +minister could not help discovering, however, that there were +difficulties connected with this girl's management, and he heard +enough outside of the family to convince him that she had manifested +tendencies, from an early age, at variance with the theoretical +opinions he was in the habit of preaching, and in a dim way of +holding for truth, as to the natural dispositions of the human being. + +About this terrible fact of congenital obliquity his new beliefs +began to cluster as a centre, and to take form as a crystal around +its nucleus. Still, he might perhaps have struggled against them, +had it not been for the little Roman Catholic chapel he passed every +Sunday, on his way to the meeting-house. Such a crowd of +worshippers, swarming into the pews like bees, filling all the +aisles, running over at the door like berries heaped too full in the +measure,--some kneeling on the steps, some standing on the sidewalk, +hats off, heads down, lips moving, some looking on devoutly from the +other side of the street! Oh, could he have followed his own +Bridget, maid of all work, into the heart of that steaming throng, +and bowed his head while the priests intoned their Latin prayers! +could he have snuffed up the cloud of frankincense, and felt that he +was in the great ark which holds the better half of the Christian +world, while all around it are wretched creatures, some struggling +against the waves in leaky boats, and some on ill-connected rafts, +and some with their heads just above water, thinking to ride out the +flood which is to sweep the earth clean of sinners, upon their own +private, individual life-preservers! + +Such was the present state of mind of the Reverend Chauncy +Fairweather, when his clerical brother called upon him to talk over +the questions to which old Sophy had called his attention. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE REVEREND DOCTOR CALLS ON BROTHER FAIRWEATHER. + +For the last few months, while all these various matters were going +on in Rockland, the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather had been busy with +the records of ancient councils and the writings of the early +fathers. The more he read, the more discontented he became with the +platform upon which he and his people were standing. They and he +were clearly in a minority, and his deep inward longing to be with +the majority was growing into an engrossing passion. He yearned +especially towards the good old unquestioning, authoritative Mother +Church, with her articles of faith which took away the necessity for +private judgment, with her traditional forms and ceremonies, and her +whole apparatus of stimulants and anodynes. + +About this time he procured a breviary and kept it in his desk under +the loose papers. He sent to a Catholic bookstore and obtained a +small crucifix suspended from a string of beads. He ordered his new +coat to be cut very narrow in the collar and to be made single- +breasted. He began an informal series of religious conversations +with Miss O'Brien, the young person of Irish extraction already +referred to as Bridget, maid of all work. These not proving very +satisfactory, he managed to fall in with Father McShane, the Catholic +priest of the Rockland church. + +Father McShane encouraged his nibble very scientifically. It would +be such a fine thing to bring over one of those Protestant heretics, +and a "liberal" one too!---not that there was any real difference +between them, but it sounded better, to say that one of these +rationalizing free-and-equal religionists had been made a convert +than any of those half-way Protestants who were the slaves of +catechisms instead of councils, and of commentators instead of popes. +The subtle priest played his disciple with his finest tackle. It was +hardly necessary: when anything or anybody wishes to be caught, a +bare hook and a coarse line are all that is needed. + +If a man has a genuine, sincere, hearty wish to get rid of his +liberty, if he is really bent upon becoming a slave, nothing can stop +him. And the temptation is to some natures a very great one. +Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves that necessity +for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor men have always +dreaded. In common life we shirk it by forming habits, which take +the place of self-determination. In politics party-organization +saves us the pains of much thinking before deciding how to cast our +vote. In religious matters there are great multitudes watching us +perpetually, each propagandist ready with his bundle of finalities, +which having accepted we may be at peace. The more absolute the +submission demanded, the stronger the temptation becomes to those who +have been long tossed among doubts and conflicts. + +So it is that in all the quiet bays which indent the shores of the +great ocean of thought, at every sinking wharf, we see moored the +hulks and the razees of enslaved or half-enslaved intelligences. +They rock peacefully as children in their cradles on the subdued +swell which comes feebly in over the bar at the harbor's mouth, +slowly crusting with barnacles, pulling at their iron cables as if +they really wanted to be free; but better contented to remain bound +as they are. For these no more the round unwalled horizon of the +open sea, the joyous breeze aloft, the furrow, the foam, the sparkle, +that track the rushing keel! They have escaped the dangers of the +wave, and lie still henceforth, evermore. Happiest of souls, if +lethargy is bliss, and palsy the chief beatitude! + +America owes its political freedom to religious Protestantism. But +political freedom is reacting on religious prescription with still +mightier force. We wonder, therefore, when we find a soul which was +born to a full sense of individual liberty, an unchallenged right of +self-determination on every new alleged truth offered to its +intelligence, voluntarily surrendering any portion of its liberty to +a spiritual dictatorship which always proves to rest, in the last +analysis, on a majority vote, nothing more nor less, commonly an old +one, passed in those barbarous times when men cursed and murdered +each other for differences of opinion, and of course were not in a +condition to settle the beliefs of a comparatively civilized +community. + +In our disgust, we are liable to be intolerant. We forget that +weakness is not in itself a sin. We forget that even cowardice may +call for our most lenient judgment, if it spring from innate +infirmity, Who of us does not look with great tenderness on the young +chieftain in the "Fair Maid of Perth," when he confesses his want of +courage? All of us love companionship and sympathy; some of us may +love them too much. All of us are more or less imaginative in our +theology. + +Some of us may find the aid of material symbols a comfort, if not a +necessity. The boldest thinker may have his moments of languor and +discouragement, when he feels as if he could willingly exchange +faiths with the old beldame crossing herself at the cathedral-door,-- +nay, that, if he could drop all coherent thought, and lie in the +flowery meadow with the brown-eyed solemnly unthinking cattle, +looking up to the sky, and all their simple consciousness staining +itself blue, then down to the grass, and life turning to a mere +greenness, blended with confused scents of herbs,--no individual +mind-movement such as men are teased with, but the great calm cattle- +sense of all time and all places that know the milky smell of herds, +--if he could be like these, he would be content to be driven home by +the cow-boy, and share the grassy banquet of the king of ancient +Babylon. Let us be very generous, then, in our judgment of those who +leave the front ranks of thought for the company of the meek non- +combatants who follow with the baggage and provisions. Age, illness, +too much wear and tear, a half-formed paralysis, may bring any of us +to this pass. But while we can think and maintain the rights of our +own individuality against every human combination, let us not forget +to caution all who are disposed to waver that there is a cowardice +which is criminal, and a longing for rest which it is baseness to +indulge. God help him, over whose dead soul in his living body must +be uttered the sad supplication, Requiescat in pace! + +A knock at the Reverend Mr. Fairweather's study door called his eyes +from the book on which they were intent. He looked up, as if +expecting a welcome guest. + +The Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D. D., entered the study of the +Reverend Chauncy Fairweather. He was not the expected guest. Mr. +Fairweather slipped the book he was reading into a half-open drawer, +and pushed in the drawer. He slid something which rattled under a +paper lying on the table. He rose with a slight change of color, and +welcomed, a little awkwardly, his unusual visitor. + +"Good-evening, Brother Fairweather!" said the Reverend Doctor, in a +very cordial, good-humored way. "I hope I am not spoiling one of +those eloquent sermons I never have a chance to hear." + +"Not at all, not at all," the younger clergyman answered, in a +languid tone, with a kind of habitual half-querulousness which +belonged to it,--the vocal expression which we meet with now and +then, and which says as plainly as so many words could say it, "I am +a suffering individual. I am persistently undervalued, wronged, and +imposed upon by mankind and the powers of the universe generally. +But I endure all. I endure you. Speak. I listen. It is a burden +to me, but I even approve. I sacrifice myself. Behold this movement +of my lips! It is a smile." + +The Reverend Doctor knew this forlorn way of Mr. Fairweather's, and +was not troubled by it. He proceeded to relate the circumstances of +his visit from the old black woman, and the fear she was in about the +young girl, who being a parishioner of Mr. Fairweather's, he had +thought it best to come over and speak to him about old Sophy's fears +and fancies. + +In telling the old woman's story, he alluded only vaguely to those +peculiar circumstances to which she had attributed so much +importance, taking it for granted that the other minister must be +familiar with the whole series of incidents she had related. The old +minister was mistaken, as we have before seen. Mr. Fairweather had +been settled in the place only about ten years, and, if he had heard +a strange hint now and then about Elsie, had never considered it as +anything more than idle and ignorant, if not malicious, village- +gossip. All that he fully understood was that this had been a +perverse and unmanageable child, and that the extraordinary care +which had been bestowed on her had been so far thrown away that she +was a dangerous, self-willed girl, whom all feared and almost all +shunned, as if she carried with her some malignant influence. + +He replied, therefore, after hearing the story, that Elsie had always +given trouble. There seemed to be a kind of natural obliquity about +her. Perfectly unaccountable. A very dark case. Never amenable to +good influences. Had sent her good books from the Sunday-school +library. Remembered that she tore out the frontispiece of one of +them, and kept it, and flung the book out of the window. It was a +picture of Eve's temptation; and he recollected her saying that Eve +was a good woman,--and she'd have done just so, if she'd been there. +A very sad child, very sad; bad from infancy. He had talked himself +bold, and said all at once, "Doctor, do you know I am almost ready +to accept your doctrine of the congenital sinfulness of human nature? +I am afraid that is the only thing which goes to the bottom of the +difficulty." + +The old minister's face did not open so approvingly as Mr. +Fairweather had expected. + +"Why, yes,--well,--many find comfort in it,--I believe;--there is +much to be said,--there are many bad people,--and bad children, +--I can't be so sure about bad babies,--though they cry very +malignantly at times,--especially if they have the stomach-ache. +But I really don't know how to condemn this poor Elsie; she may have +impulses that act in her like instincts in the lower animals, and so +not come under the bearing of our ordinary rules of judgment." + +"But this depraved tendency, Doctor,--this unaccountable +perverseness. My dear Sir, I am afraid your school is in the right +about human nature. Oh, those words of the Psalmist, 'shapen in +iniquity,' and the rest! What are we to do with them,--we who teach +that the soul of a child is an unstained white tablet?" + +"King David was very subject to fits of humility, and much given to +self-reproaches," said the Doctor, in a rather dry way. "We owe you +and your friends a good deal for calling attention to the natural +graces, which, after all, may, perhaps, be considered as another form +of manifestation of the divine influence. Some of our writers have +pressed rather too hard on the tendencies of the human soul toward +evil as such. It maybe questioned whether these views have not +interfered with the sound training of certain young persons, sons of +clergymen and others. I am nearer of your mind about the possibility +of educating children so that they shall become good Christians +without any violent transition. That is what I should hope for from +bringing them up 'in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.'" + +The younger minister looked puzzled, but presently answered, +"Possibly we may have called attention to some neglected truths; but, +after all, I fear we must go to the old school, if we want to get at +the root of the matter. I know there is an outward amiability about +many young persons, some young girls especially, that seems like +genuine goodness; but I have been disposed of late to lean toward +your view, that these human affections, as we see them in our +children,--ours, I say, though I have not the fearful responsibility +of training any of my own,--are only a kind of disguised and sinful +selfishness." + +The old minister groaned in spirit. His heart had been softened by +the sweet influences of children and grandchildren. He thought of a +half-sized grave in the burial-ground, and the fine, brave, noble- +hearted boy he laid in it thirty years before,--the sweet, cheerful +child who had made his home all sunshine until the day when he was +brought into it, his long curls dripping, his fresh lips purpled in +death,--foolish dear little blessed creature to throw himself into +the deep water to save the drowning boy, who clung about him and +carried him under! Disguised selfishness! And his granddaughter +too, whose disguised selfishness was the light of his household! + +"Don't call it my view!" he said. "Abstractly, perhaps, all natures +may be considered vitiated; but practically, as I see it in life, the +divine grace keeps pace with the perverted instincts from infancy in +many natures. Besides, this perversion itself may often be disease, +bad habits transmitted, like drunkenness, or some hereditary +misfortune, as with this Elsie we were talking about." + +The younger minister was completely mystified. At every step he made +towards the Doctor's recognized theological position, the Doctor took +just one step towards his. They would cross each other soon at this +rate, and might as well exchange pulpits,--as Colonel Sprowle once +wished they would, it may be remembered. + +The Doctor, though a much clearer-headed man, was almost equally +puzzled. He turned the conversation again upon Elsie, and endeavored +to make her minister feel the importance of bringing every friendly +influence to bear upon her at this critical period of her life. His +sympathies did not seem so lively as the Doctor could have wished. +Perhaps he had vastly more important objects of solicitude in his own +spiritual interests. + +A knock at the door interrupted them. The Reverend Mr. Fairweather +rose and went towards it. As he passed the table, his coat caught +something, which came rattling to the floor. It was a crucifix with +a string of beads attached. As he opened the door, the Milesian +features of Father McShane presented themselves, and from their +centre proceeded the clerical benediction in Irish-sounding Latin, +Pax vobiscum! + +The Reverend Doctor Honeywood rose and left the priest and his +disciple together. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE SPIDER ON HIS THREAD. + +There was nobody, then, to counsel poor Elsie, except her father, who +had learned to let her have her own way so as not to disturb such +relations as they had together, and the old black woman, who had a +real, though limited influence over the girl. Perhaps she did not +need counsel. To look upon her, one might well suppose that she was +competent to defend herself against any enemy she was like to have. +That glittering, piercing eye was not to be softened by a few smooth +words spoken in low tones, charged with the common sentiments which +win their way to maidens' hearts. That round, lithe, sinuous figure +was as full of dangerous life as ever lay under the slender flanks +and clean-shaped limbs of a panther. + +There were particular times when Elsie was in such a mood that it +must have been a bold person who would have intruded upon her with +reproof or counsel. "This is one of her days," old Sophy would say +quietly to her father, and he would, as far as possible, leave her to +herself. These days were more frequent, as old Sophy's keen, +concentrated watchfulness had taught her, at certain periods of the +year. It was in the heats of summer that they were most common and +most strongly characterized. In winter, on the other hand, she was +less excitable, and even at times heavy and as if chilled and dulled +in her sensibilities. It was a strange, paroxysmal kind of life that +belonged to her. It seemed to come and go with the sunlight. All +winter long she would be comparatively quiet, easy to manage, +listless, slow in her motions; her eye would lose something of its +strange lustre; and the old nurse would feel so little anxiety, that +her whole expression and aspect would show the change, and people +would say to her, "Why, Sophy, how young you're looking!" + +As the spring came on, Elsie would leave the fireside, have her +tiger-skin spread in the empty southern chamber next the wall, and +lie there basking for whole hours in the sunshine. As the season +warmed, the light would kindle afresh in her eyes, and the old +woman's sleep would grow restless again,--for she knew, that, so long +as the glitter was fierce in the girl's eyes, there was no trusting +her impulses or movements. + +At last, when the veins of the summer were hot and swollen, and the +juices of all the poison-plants and the blood of all the creatures +that feed upon them had grown thick and strong,--about the time when +the second mowing was in hand, and the brown, wet-faced men were +following up the scythes as they chased the falling waves of grass, +(falling as the waves fall on sickle-curved beaches; the foam-flowers +dropping as the grass-flowers drop,--with sharp semivowel consonantal +sounds,--frsh,--for that is the way the sea talks, and leaves all +pure vowel-sounds for the winds to breathe over it, and all mutes to +the unyielding earth,)--about this time of over-ripe midsummer, the +life of Elsie seemed fullest of its malign and restless instincts. +This was the period of the year when the Rockland people were most +cautious of wandering in the leafier coverts which skirted the base +of The Mountain, and the farmers liked to wear thick, long boots, +whenever they went into the bushes. But Elsie was never so much +given to roaming over The Mountain as at this season; and as she had +grown more absolute and uncontrollable, she was as like to take the +night as the day for her rambles. + +At this season, too, all her peculiar tastes in dress and ornament +came out in a more striking way than at other times. She was never +so superb as then, and never so threatening in her scowling beauty. +The barred skirts she always fancied showed sharply beneath her +diaphanous muslins; the diamonds often glittered on her breast as if +for her own pleasure rather than to dazzle others; the asp-like +bracelet hardly left her arm. She was never seen without some +necklace,--either the golden cord she wore at the great party, or a +chain of mosaics, or simply a ring of golden scales. Some said that +Elsie always slept in a necklace, and that when she died she was to +be buried in one. It was a fancy of hers,--but many thought there +was a reason for it. + +Nobody watched Elsie with a more searching eye than her cousin, Dick +Venner. He had kept more out of her way of late, it is true, but +there was not a movement she made which he did not carefully observe +just so far as he could without exciting her suspicion. It was plain +enough to him that the road to fortune was before him, and that the +first thing was to marry Elsie. What course he should take with her, +or with others interested, after marrying her, need not be decided in +a hurry. + +He had now done all he could expect to do at present in the way of +conciliating the other members of the household. The girl's father +tolerated him, if he did not even like him. Whether he suspected his +project or not Dick did not feel sure; but it was something to have +got a foothold in the house, and to have overcome any prepossession +against him which his uncle might have entertained. To be a good +listener and a bad billiard-player was not a very great sacrifice to +effect this object. Then old Sophy could hardly help feeling +well-disposed towards him, after the gifts he had bestowed on her and +the court he had paid her. These were the only persons on the place +of much importance to gain over. The people employed about the house +and farm-lands had little to do with Elsie, except to obey her +without questioning her commands. + +Mr. Richard began to think of reopening his second parallel. But he +had lost something of the coolness with which he had begun his system +of operations. The more he had reflected upon the matter, the more +he had convinced himself that this was his one great chance in life. +If he suffered this girl to escape him, such an opportunity could +hardly, in the nature of things, present itself a second time. Only +one life between Elsie and her fortune,--and lives are so uncertain! +The girl might not suit him as a wife. Possibly. Time enough to +find out after he had got her. In short, he must have the property, +and Elsie Venner, as she was to go with it,--and then, if he found it +convenient and agreeable to, lead a virtuous life, he would settle +down and raise children and vegetables; but if he found it +inconvenient and disagreeable, so much the worse for those who made +it so. Like many other persons, he was not principled against +virtue, provided virtue were a better investment than its opposite; +but he knew that there might be contingencies in which the property +would be better without its incumbrances, and he contemplated this +conceivable problem in the light of all its possible solutions. + +One thing Mr. Richard could not conceal from himself: Elsie had some +new cause of indifference, at least, if not of aversion to him. With +the acuteness which persons who make a sole business of their own +interest gain by practice, so that fortune-hunters are often shrewd +where real lovers are terribly simple, he fixed at once on the young +man up at the school where the girl had been going of late, as +probably at the bottom of it. + +"Cousin Elsie in love!" so he communed with himself upon his lonely +pillow. "In love with a Yankee schoolmaster! What else can it be? +Let him look out for himself! He'll stand but a bad chance between +us. What makes you think she's in love with him? Met her walking +with him. Don't like her looks and ways;--she's thinking about +something, anyhow. Where does she get those books she is reading so +often? Not out of our library, that 's certain. If I could have ten +minutes' peep into her chamber now, I would find out where she got +them, and what mischief she was up to." + +At that instant, as if some tributary demon had heard his wish, a +shape which could be none but Elsie's flitted through a gleam of +moonlight into the shadow of the trees. She was setting out on one +of her midnight rambles. + +Dick felt his heart stir in its place, and presently his cheeks +flushed with the old longing for an adventure. It was not much to +invade a young girl's deserted chamber, but it would amuse a wakeful +hour, and tell him some little matters he wanted to know. The +chamber he slept in was over the room which Elsie chiefly occupied at +this season. There was no great risk of his being seen or heard, if +he ventured down-stairs to her apartment. + +Mr. Richard Venner, in the pursuit of his interesting project, arose +and lighted a lamp. He wrapped himself in a dressing-gown and thrust +his feet into a pair of cloth slippers. He stole carefully down the +stair, and arrived safely at the door of Elsie's room. + +The young lady had taken the natural precaution to leave it fastened, +carrying the key with her, no doubt,--unless; indeed, she had got out +by the window, which was not far from the ground. Dick could get in +at this window easily enough, but he did not like the idea of leaving +his footprints in the flower-bed just under it. He returned to his +own chamber, and held a council of war with himself. + +He put his head out of his own window and looked at that beneath. It +was open. He then went to one of his trunks, which he unlocked, and +began carefully removing its contents. What these were we need not +stop to mention,--only remarking that there were dresses of various +patterns, which might afford an agreeable series of changes, and in +certain contingencies prove eminently useful. After removing a few +of these, he thrust his hand to the very bottom of the remaining pile +and drew out a coiled strip of leather many yards in length, ending +in a noose,--a tough, well-seasoned lasso, looking as if it had seen +service and was none the worse for it. He uncoiled a few yards of +this and fastened it to the knob of a door. Then he threw the loose +end out of the window so that it should hang by the open casement of +Elsie's room. By this he let himself down opposite her window, and +with a slight effort swung himself inside the room. He lighted a +match, found a candle, and, having lighted that, looked curiously +about him, as Clodius might have done when he smuggled himself in +among the Vestals. + +Elsie's room was almost as peculiar as her dress and ornaments. It +was a kind of museum of objects, such as the woods are full of to +those who have eyes to see them, but many of them such as only few +could hope to reach, even if they knew where to look for them. +Crows' nests, which are never found but in the tall trees, commonly +enough in the forks of ancient hemlocks, eggs of rare birds, which +must have taken a quick eye and a hard climb to find and get hold of, +mosses and ferns of unusual aspect, and quaint monstrosities of +vegetable growth, such as Nature delights in, showed that Elsie had +her tastes and fancies like any naturalist or poet. + +Nature, when left to her own freaks in the forest, is grotesque and +fanciful to the verge of license, and beyond it. The foliage of +trees does not always require clipping to make it look like an image +of life. From those windows at Canoe Meadow, among the mountains, we +could see all summer long a lion rampant, a Shanghai chicken, and +General Jackson on horseback, done by Nature in green leaves, each +with a single tree. But to Nature's tricks with boughs and roots and +smaller vegetable growths there is no end. Her fancy is infinite, +and her humor not always refined. There is a perpetual reminiscence +of animal life in her rude caricatures, which sometimes actually +reach the point of imitating the complete human figure, as in that +extraordinary specimen which nobody will believe to be genuine, +except the men of science, and of which the discreet reader may have +a glimpse by application in the proper quarter. + +Elsie had gathered so many of these sculpture-like monstrosities, +that one might have thought she had robbed old Sophy's grandfather of +his fetishes. They helped to give her room a kind of enchanted look, +as if a witch had her home in it. Over the fireplace was a long, +staff-like branch, strangled in the spiral coils of one of those +vines which strain the smaller trees in their clinging embraces, +sinking into the bark until the parasite becomes almost identified +with its support. With these sylvan curiosities were blended objects +of art, some of them not less singular, but others showing a love for +the beautiful in form and color, such as a girl of fine organization +and nice culture might naturally be expected to feel and to indulge, +in adorning her apartment. + +All these objects, pictures, bronzes, vases, and the rest, did not +detain Mr. Richard Veneer very long, whatever may have been his +sensibilities to art. He was more curious about books and papers. A +copy of Keats lay on the table. He opened it and read the name of +Bernard C. Langdon on the blank leaf. An envelope was on the table +with Elsie's name written in a similar hand; but the envelope was +empty, and he could not find the note it contained. Her desk was +locked, and it would not be safe to tamper with it. He had seen +enough; the girl received books and notes from this fellow up at the +school, this usher, this Yankee quill-driver;--he was aspiring to +become the lord of the Dudley domain, then, was he? + +Elsie had been reasonably careful. She had locked up her papers, +whatever they might be. There was little else that promised to +reward his curiosity, but he cast his eye on everything. There was a +clasp-Bible among her books. Dick wondered if she ever unclasped it. +There was a book of hymns; it had her name in it, and looked as if it +might have been often read;--what the diablo had Elsie to do with +hymns? + +Mr. Richard Venner was in an observing and analytical state of mind, +it will be noticed, or he might perhaps have been touched with the +innocent betrayals of the poor girl's chamber. Had she, after all, +some human tenderness in her heart? That was not the way he put the +question,--but whether she would take seriously to this schoolmaster, +and if she did, what would be the neatest and surest and quickest way +of putting a stop to all that nonsense. All this, however, he could +think over more safely in his own quarters. So he stole softly to +the window, and, catching the end of the leathern thong, regained his +own chamber and drew in the lasso. + +It needs only a little jealousy to set a man on who is doubtful in +love or wooing, or to make him take hold of his courting in earnest. +As soon as Dick had satisfied himself that the young schoolmaster was +his rival in Elsie's good graces, his whole thoughts concentrated +themselves more than ever on accomplishing his great design of +securing her for himself. There was no time to be lost. He must +come into closer relations with her, so as to withdraw her thoughts +from this fellow, and to find out more exactly what was the state of +her affections, if she had any. So he began to court her company +again, to propose riding with her, to sing to her, to join her +whenever she was strolling about the grounds, to make himself +agreeable, according to the ordinary understanding of that phrase, in +every way which seemed to promise a chance for succeeding in that +amiable effort. + +The girl treated him more capriciously than ever. She would be +sullen and silent, or she would draw back fiercely at some harmless +word or gesture, or she would look at him with her eyes narrowed in +such a strange way and with such a wicked light in them that Dick +swore to himself they were too much for him, and would leave her for +the moment. Yet she tolerated him, almost as a matter of necessity, +and sometimes seemed to take a kind of pleasure in trying her power +upon him. This he soon found out, and humored her in the fancy that +she could exercise a kind of fascination over him, though there were +times in which he actually felt an influence he could not understand, +an effect of some peculiar expression about her, perhaps, but still +centring in those diamond eyes of hers which it made one feel so +curiously to look into. + +Whether Elsie saw into his object or not was more than he could tell. +His idea was, after having conciliated the good-will of all about her +as far as possible, to make himself first a habit and then a +necessity with the girl,--not to spring any trap of a declaration +upon her until tolerance had grown into such a degree of inclination +as her nature was like to admit. He had succeeded in the first part +of his plan. He was at liberty to prolong his visit at his own +pleasure. This was not strange; these three persons, Dudley Venner, +his daughter, and his nephew, represented all that remained of an old +and honorable family. Had Elsie been like other girls, her father +might have been less willing to entertain a young fellow like Dick as +an inmate; but he had long outgrown all the slighter apprehensions +which he might have had in common with all parents, and followed +rather than led the imperious instincts of his daughter. It was not +a question of sentiment, but of life and death, or more than that,-- +some dark ending, perhaps, which would close the history of his race +with disaster and evil report upon the lips of all coming +generations. + +As to the thought of his nephew's making love to his daughter, it had +almost passed from his mind. He had been so long in the habit of +looking at Elsie as outside of all common influences and exceptional +in the law of her nature, that it was difficult for him to think of +her as a girl to be fallen in love with. Many persons are surprised, +when others court their female relatives; they know them as good +young or old women enough,--aunts, sisters, nieces, daughters, +whatever they may be,--but never think of anybody's falling in love +with them, any more than of their being struck by lightning. But in +this case there were special reasons, in addition to the common +family delusion,--reasons which seemed to make it impossible that she +should attract a suitor. Who would dare to marry Elsie? No, let her +have the pleasure, if it was one, at any rate the wholesome +excitement, of companionship; it might save her from lapsing into +melancholy or a worse form of madness. Dudley Venner had a kind of +superstition, too, that, if Elsie could only outlive three +septenaries, twenty-one years, so that, according to the prevalent +idea, her whole frame would have been thrice made over, counting from +her birth, she would revert to the natural standard of health of mind +and feelings from which she had been so long perverted. The thought +of any other motive than love being sufficient to induce Richard to +become her suitor had not occurred to him. He had married early, at +that happy period when interested motives are least apt to influence +the choice; and his single idea of marriage was, that it was the +union of persons naturally drawn towards each other by some mutual +attraction. Very simple, perhaps; but he had lived lonely for many +years since his wife's death, and judged the hearts of others, most +of all of his brother's son, by his own. He had often thought +whether, in case of Elsie's dying or being necessarily doomed to +seclusion, he might not adopt this nephew and make him his heir; but +it had not occurred to him that Richard might wish to become his son- +in-law for the sake of his property. + +It is very easy to criticise other people's modes of dealing with +their children. Outside observers see results; parents see +processes. They notice the trivial movements and accents which +betray the blood of this or that ancestor; they can detect the +irrepressible movement of hereditary impulse in looks and acts which +mean nothing to the common observer. To be a parent is almost to be +a fatalist. This boy sits with legs crossed, just as his uncle used +to whom he never saw; his grandfathers both died before he was born, +but he has the movement of the eyebrows which we remember in one of +them, and the gusty temper of three different generations, can tell +pretty nearly the range of possibilities and the limitations of a +child, actual or potential, of a given stock,--errors excepted +always, because children of the same stock are not bred just alike, +because the traits of some less known ancestor are liable to break +out at any time, and because each human being has, after all, a small +fraction of individuality about him which gives him a flavor, so that +he is distinguishable from others by his friends or in a court of +justice, and which occasionally makes a genius or a saint or a +criminal of him. It is well that young persons cannot read these +fatal oracles of Nature. Blind impulse is her highest wisdom, after +all. We make our great jump, and then she takes the bandage off our +eyes. That is the way the broad sea-level of average is maintained, +and the physiological democracy is enabled to fight against the +principle of selection which would disinherit all the weaker +children. The magnificent constituency of mediocrities of which the +world is made up,--the people without biographies, whose lives have +made a clear solution in the fluid menstruum of time, instead of +being precipitated in the opaque sediment of history + +But this is a narrative, and not a disquisition. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +FROM WITHOUT AND FROM WITHIN. + +There were not wanting people who accused Dudley VENNER of weakness +and bad judgment in his treatment of his daughter. Some were of +opinion that the great mistake was in not "breaking her will" when +she was a little child. There was nothing the matter with her, they +said, but that she had been spoiled by indulgence. If they had had +the charge of her, they'd have brought her down. She'd got the +upperhand of her father now; but if he'd only taken hold of her in +season! There are people who think that everything may be done, if +the doer, be he educator or physician, be only called "in season." +No doubt,--but in season would often be a hundred or two years before +the child was born; and people never send so early as that. + +The father of Elsie Veneer knew his duties and his difficulties too +well to trouble himself about anything others might think or say. So +soon as he found that he could not govern his child, he gave his life +up to following her and protecting her as far as he could. It was a +stern and terrible trial for a man of acute sensibility, and not +without force of intellect and will, and the manly ambition for +himself and his family-name which belonged to his endowments and his +position. Passive endurance is the hardest trial to persons of such +a nature. + +What made it still more a long martyrdom was the necessity for +bearing his cross in utter loneliness. He could not tell his griefs. +He could not talk of them even with those who knew their secret +spring. His minister had the unsympathetic nature which is common in +the meaner sort of devotees,--persons who mistake spiritual +selfishness for sanctity, and grab at the infinite prize of the great +Future and Elsewhere with the egotism they excommunicate in its +hardly more odious forms of avarice and self-indulgence. How could +he speak with the old physician and the old black woman about a +sorrow and a terror which but to name was to strike dumb the lips of +Consolation? + +In the dawn of his manhood he had found that second consciousness for +which young men and young women go about looking into each other's +faces, with their sweet, artless aim playing in every feature, and +making them beautiful to each other, as to all of us. He had found +his other self early, before he had grown weary in the search and +wasted his freshness in vain longings: the lot of many, perhaps we +may say of most, who infringe the patent of our social order by +intruding themselves into a life already upon half allowance of the +necessary luxuries of existence. The life he had led for a brief +space was not only beautiful in outward circumstance, as old Sophy +had described it to the Reverend Doctor. It was that delicious +process of the tuning of two souls to each other, string by string, +not without little half-pleasing discords now and then when some +chord in one or the other proves to be overstrained or over-lax, but +always approaching nearer and nearer to harmony, until they become at +last as two instruments with a single voice. Something more than a +year of this blissful doubled consciousness had passed over him when +he found himself once more alone,--alone, save for the little +diamond-eyed child lying in the old black woman's arms, with the +coral necklace round--her throat and the rattle in her hand. + +He would not die by his own act. It was not the way in his family. +There may have been other, perhaps better reasons, but this was +enough; he did not come of suicidal stock. He must live for this +child's sake, at any rate; and yet,--oh, yet, who could tell with +what thoughts he looked upon her? Sometimes her little features +would look placid, and something like a smile would steal over them; +then all his tender feelings would rush up, into his eyes, and he +would put his arms out to take her from the old woman,--but all at +once her eyes would narrow and she would throw her head back, and a +shudder would seize him as he stooped over his child,--he could not +look upon her,--he could not touch his lips to her cheek; nay, there +would sometimes come into his soul such frightful suggestions that he +would hurry from the room lest the hinted thought should become a +momentary madness and he should lift his hand against the hapless +infant which owed him life. + +In those miserable days he used to wander all over The Mountain in +his restless endeavor to seek some relief for inward suffering in +outward action. He had no thought of throwing himself from the +summit of any of the broken cliffs, but he clambered over them +recklessly, as having no particular care for his life. Sometimes he +would go into the accursed district where the venomous reptiles were +always to be dreaded, and court their worst haunts, and kill all he +could come near with a kind of blind fury which was strange in a +person of his gentle nature. + +One overhanging cliff was a favorite haunt of his. It frowned upon +his home beneath in a very menacing way; he noticed slight seams and +fissures that looked ominous;--what would happen, if it broke off +some time or other and came crashing down on the fields and roofs +below? He thought of such a possible catastrophe with a singular +indifference, in fact with a feeling almost like pleasure. It would +be such a swift and thorough solution of this great problem of life +he was working out in ever-recurring daily anguish! The remote +possibility of such a catastrophe had frightened some timid dwellers +beneath The Mountain to other places of residence; here the danger +was most imminent, and yet he loved to dwell upon the chances of its +occurrence. Danger is often the best counterirritant in cases of +mental suffering; he found a solace in careless exposure of his life, +and learned to endure the trials of each day better by dwelling in +imagination on the possibility that it might be the last for him and +the home that was his. + +Time, the great consoler, helped these influences, and he gradually +fell into more easy and less dangerous habits of life. He ceased +from his more perilous rambles. He thought less of the danger from +the great overhanging rocks and forests; they had hung there for +centuries; it was not very likely they would crash or slide in his +time. He became accustomed to all Elsie's strange looks and ways. +Old Sophy dressed her with ruffles round her neck, and hunted up the +red coral branch with silver bells which the little toothless Dudleys +had bitten upon for a hundred years. By an infinite effort, her +father forced himself to become the companion of this child, for whom +he had such a mingled feeling, but whose presence was always a trial +to him, and often a terror. + +At a cost which no human being could estimate, he had done his duty, +and in some degree reaped his reward. Elsie grew up with a kind of +filial feeling for him, such as her nature was capable of. She never +would obey him; that was not to be looked for. Commands, threats, +punishments, were out of the question with her; the mere physical +effects of crossing her will betrayed themselves in such changes of +expression and manner that it would have been senseless to attempt to +govern her in any such way. Leaving her mainly to herself, she could +be to some extent indirectly influenced,--not otherwise. She called +her father "Dudley," as if he had been her brother. She ordered +everybody and would be ordered by none. + +Who could know all these things, except the few people of the +household? What wonder, therefore, that ignorant and shallow persons +laid the blame on her father of those peculiarities which were freely +talked about,--of those darker tendencies which were hinted of in +whispers? To all this talk, so far as it reached him, he was +supremely indifferent, not only with the indifference which all +gentlemen feel to the gossip of their inferiors, but with a +charitable calmness which did not wonder or blame. He knew that his +position was not simply a difficult, but an impossible one, and +schooled himself to bear his destiny as well as he might, and report +himself only at Headquarters. + +He had grown gentle under this discipline. His hair was just +beginning to be touched with silver, and his expression was that of +habitual sadness and anxiety. He had no counsellor, as we have seen, +to turn to, who did not know either too much or too little. He had +no heart to rest upon and into which he might unburden himself of the +secrets and the sorrows that were aching in his own breast. Yet he +had not allowed himself to run to waste in the long time since he was +left alone to his trials and fears. He had resisted the seductions +which always beset solitary men with restless brains overwrought by +depressing agencies. He disguised no misery to himself with the +lying delusion of wine. He sought no sleep from narcotics, though he +lay with throbbing, wide-open eyes through all the weary hours of the +night. + +It was understood between Dudley Veneer and old Doctor Kittredge that +Elsie was a subject of occasional medical observation, on account of +certain mental peculiarities which might end in a permanent affection +of her reason. Beyond this nothing was said, whatever may have been +in the mind of either. But Dudley Veneer had studied Elsie's case in +the light of all the books he could find which might do anything +towards explaining it. As in all cases where men meddle with medical +science for a special purpose, having no previous acquaintance with +it, his imagination found what it wanted in the books he read, and +adjusted it to the facts before him. So it was he came to cherish +those two fancies before alluded to that the ominous birthmark she +had carried from infancy might fade and become obliterated, and that +the age of complete maturity might be signalized by an entire change +in her physical and mental state. He held these vague hopes as all +of us nurse our only half-believed illusions. Not for the world +would he have questioned his sagacious old medical friend as to the +probability or possibility of their being true. We are very shy of +asking questions of those who know enough to destroy with one word +the hopes we live on. + +In this life of comparative seclusion to which the father had doomed +himself for the sake of his child, he had found time for large and +varied reading. The learned Judge Thornton confessed himself +surprised at the extent of Dudley Veneer's information. Doctor +Kittredge found that he was in advance of him in the knowledge of +recent physiological discoveries. He had taken pains to become +acquainted with agricultural chemistry; and the neighboring farmers +owed him some useful hints about the management of their land. He +renewed his old acquaintance with the classic authors. He loved to +warm his pulses with Homer and calm them down with Horace. He +received all manner of new books and periodicals, and gradually +gained an interest in the events of the passing time. Yet he +remained almost a hermit, not absolutely refusing to see his +neighbors, nor even churlish towards them, but on the other hand not +cultivating any intimate relations with them. + +He had retired from the world a young man, little more than a youth, +indeed, with sentiments and aspirations all of them suddenly +extinguished. The first had bequeathed him a single huge sorrow, the +second a single trying duty. In due time the anguish had lost +something of its poignancy, the light of earlier and happier memories +had begun to struggle with and to soften its thick darkness, and even +that duty which he had confronted with such an effort had become an +endurable habit. + +At a period of life when many have been living on the capital of +their acquired knowledge and their youthful stock of sensibilities +until their intellects are really shallower and their hearts emptier +than they were at twenty, Dudley Veneer was stronger in thought and +tenderer in soul than in the first freshness of his youth, when he +counted but half his present years. He had entered that period which +marks the decline of men who have ceased growing in knowledge and +strength: from forty to fifty a man must move upward, or the natural +falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly downward. At +this time his inward: nature was richer and deeper than in any +earlier period of his life. If he could only be summoned to action, +he was capable of noble service. If his sympathies could only find +an outlet, he was never so capable of love as now; for his natural +affections had been gathering in the course of all these years, and +the traces of that ineffaceable calamity of his life were softened +and partially hidden by new growths of thought and feeling, as the +wreck left by a mountainslide is covered over by the gentle intrusion +of the soft-stemmed herbs which will prepare it for the stronger +vegetation that will bring it once more into harmony with the +peaceful slopes around it. + +Perhaps Dudley Veneer had not gained so much in worldly wisdom as if +he had been more in society and less in his study. The indulgence +with which he treated his nephew was, no doubt, imprudent. A man +more in the habit of dealing with men would have been more guarded +with a person with Dick's questionable story and unquestionable +physiognomy. But he was singularly unsuspicious, and his natural +kindness was an additional motive to the wish for introducing some +variety into the routine of Elsie's life. + +If Dudley Veneer did not know just what he wanted at this period of +his life, there were a great many people in the town of Rockland who +thought they did know. He had been a widower long enough,--nigh +twenty year, wa'n't it? He'd been aout to Spraowles's party,--there +wa'n't anything to hender him why he shouldn't stir raound l'k other +folks. What was the reason he did n't go abaout to taown-meetin's +'n' Sahbath-meetin's, 'n' lyceums, 'n' school 'xaminations, 'n' +s'prise-parties, 'n' funerals,--and other entertainments where the +still-faced two-story folks were in the habit of looking round to see +if any of the mansion-house gentry were present?---Fac' was, he was +livin' too lonesome daown there at the mansion-haouse. Why shouldn't +he make up to the Jedge's daughter? She was genteel enough for him, +and-let's see, haow old was she? Seven-'n'itwenty,--no, six-'n'- +twenty,--born the same year we buried our little Anny Marl". + +There was no possible objection to this arrangement, if the parties +interested had seen fit to make it or even to think of it. But +"Portia," as some of the mansion-house people called her, did not +happen to awaken the elective affinities of the lonely widower. He +met her once in a while, and said to himself that she was a good +specimen of the grand style of woman; and then the image came back to +him of a woman not quite so large, not quite so imperial in her port, +not quite so incisive in her speech, not quite so judicial in her +opinions, but with two or three more joints in her frame, and two or +three soft inflections in her voice, which for some absurd reason or +other drew him to her side and so bewitched him that he told her half +his secrets and looked into her eyes all that he could not tell, in +less time than it would have takes him to discuss the champion paper +of the last Quarterly with the admirable "Portia." Heu, quanto +minus! How much more was that lost image to him than all it left on +earth! + +The study of love is very much like that of meteorology. We know +that just about so much rain will fall in a season; but on what +particular day it will shower is more than we can tell. We know that +just about so much love will be made every year in a given +population; but who will rain his young affections upon the heart of +whom is not known except to the astrologers and fortune-tellers. And +why rain falls as it does and why love is made just as it is are +equally puzzling questions. + +The woman a man loves is always his own daughter, far more his +daughter than the female children born to him by the common law of +life. It is not the outside woman, who takes his name, that he +loves: before her image has reached the centre of his consciousness, +it has passed through fifty many-layered nerve-strainers, been +churned over by ten thousand pulse-beats, and reacted upon by +millions of lateral impulses which bandy it about through the mental +spaces as a reflection is sent back and forward in a saloon lined +with mirrors. With this altered image of the woman before him, his +preexisting ideal becomes blended. The object of his love is in part +the offspring of her legal parents, but more of her lover's brain. +The difference between the real and the ideal objects of love must +not exceed a fixed maximum. The heart's vision cannot unite them +stereoscopically into a single image, if the divergence passes +certain limits. A formidable analogy, much in the nature of a proof, +with very serious consequences, which moralists and match-makers +would do well to remember! Double vision with the eyes of the heart +is a dangerous physiological state, and may lead to missteps and +serious falls. + +Whether Dudley Veneer would ever find a breathing image near enough +to his ideal one, to fill the desolate chamber of his heart, or not, +was very doubtful. Some gracious and gentle woman, whose influence +would steal upon him as the first low words of prayer after that +interval of silent mental supplication known to one of our simpler +forms of public worship, gliding into his consciousness without +hurting its old griefs, herself knowing the chastening of sorrow, and +subdued into sweet acquiescence with the Divine will,--some such +woman as this, if Heaven should send him such, might call him back to +the world of happiness, from which he seemed forever exiled. He +could never again be the young lover who walked through the garden- +alleys all red with roses in the old dead and buried June of long +ago. He could never forget the bride of his youth, whose image, +growing phantomlike with the lapse of years, hovered over him like a +dream while waking and like a reality in dreams. But if it might be +in God's good providence that this desolate life should come under +the influence of human affections once more, what an ecstasy of +renewed existence was in store for him! His life had not all been +buried under that narrow ridge of turf with the white stone at its +head. It seemed so for a while; but it was not and could not and +ought not to be so. His first passion had been a true and pure one; +there was no spot or stain upon it. With all his grief there blended +no cruel recollection of any word or look he would have wished to +forget. All those little differences, such as young married people +with any individual flavor in their characters must have, if they are +tolerably mated, had only added to the music of existence, as the +lesser discords admitted into some perfect symphony, fitly resolved, +add richness and strength to the whole harmonious movement. It was a +deep wound that Fate had inflicted on him; nay, it seemed like a +mortal one; but the weapon was clean, and its edge was smooth. Such +wounds must heal with time in healthy natures, whatever a false +sentiment may say, by the wise and beneficent law of our being. The +recollection of a deep and true affection is rather a divine +nourishment for a life to grow strong upon than a poison to destroy +it. + +Dudley Venner's habitual sadness could not be laid wholly to his +early bereavement. It was partly the result of the long struggle +between natural affection and duty, on one side, and the involuntary +tendencies these had to overcome, on the other,--between hope and +fear, so long in conflict that despair itself would have been like an +anodyne, and he would have slept upon some final catastrophe with the +heavy sleep of a bankrupt after his failure is proclaimed. Alas! +some new affection might perhaps rekindle the fires of youth in his +heart; but what power could calm that haggard terror of the parent +which rose with every morning's sun and watched with every evening +star,--what power save alone that of him who comes bearing the +inverted torch, and leaving after him only the ashes printed with his +footsteps? + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE WIDOW ROWENS GIVES A TEA-PARTY. + +There was a good deal of interest felt, as has been said, in the +lonely condition of Dudley Venner in that fine mansion-house of his, +and with that strange daughter, who would never be married, as many +people thought, in spite of all the stories. The feelings expressed +by the good folks who dated from the time when they "buried aour +little Anny Mari'," and others of that homespun stripe, were founded +in reason, after all. And so it was natural enough that they should +be shared by various ladies, who, having conjugated the verb to live +as far as the preterpluperfect tense, were ready to change one of its +vowels and begin with it in the present indicative. Unfortunately, +there was very little chance of showing sympathy in its active form +for a gentleman who kept himself so much out of the way as the master +of the Dudley Mansion. + +Various attempts had been made, from time to time, of late years, to +get him out of his study, which had, for the most part, proved +failures. It was a surprise, therefore, when he was seen at the +Great Party at the Colonel's. But it was an encouragement to try him +again, and the consequence had been that he had received a number of +notes inviting him to various smaller entertainments, which, as +neither he nor Elsie had any fancy for them, he had politely +declined. + +Such was the state of things when he received an invitation to take +tea sociably, with a few friends, at Hyacinth Cottage, the residence +of the Widow Rowens, relict of the late Beeri Rowens, Esquire, better +known as Major Rowens. Major Rowens was at the time of his decease a +promising officer in the militia, in the direct line of promotion, as +his waistband was getting tighter every year; and, as all the world +knows, the militia-officer who splits off most buttons and fills the +largest sword-belt stands the best chance of rising, or, perhaps we +might say, spreading, to be General. + +Major Rowens united in his person certain other traits which help a +man to eminence in the branch of public service referred to. He ran +to high colors, to wide whiskers, to open pores; he had the saddle- +leather skin common in Englishmen, rarer in Americans,--never found +in the Brahmin caste, oftener in the military and the commodores: +observing people know what is meant; blow the seed-arrows from the +white-kid-looking button which holds them on a dandelion-stalk, and +the pricked-pincushion surface shows you what to look for. He had +the loud gruff voice which implies the right to command. He had the +thick hand, stubbed fingers, with bristled pads between their joints, +square, broad thumb-nails, and sturdy limbs, which mark a +constitution made to use in rough out-door work. He had the never- +failing predilection for showy switch-tailed horses that step high, +and sidle about, and act as if they were going to do something +fearful the next minute, in the face of awed and admiring multitudes +gathered at mighty musters or imposing cattle-shows. He had no +objection, either, to holding the reins in a wagon behind another +kind of horse,--a slouching, listless beast, with a strong slant to +his shoulder; and a notable depth to his quarter and an emphatic +angle at the hock, who commonly walked or lounged along in a lazy +trot of five or six miles an hour; but, if a lively colt happened to +come rattling up alongside, or a brandy-faced old horse-jockey took +the road to show off a fast nag, and threw his dust into the Major's +face, would pick his legs up all at once, and straighten his body +out, and swing off into a three-minute gait, in a way that "Old Blue" +himself need not have been ashamed of. + +For some reason which must be left to the next generation of +professors to find out, the men who are knowing in horse-flesh have +an eye also for, let a long dash separate the brute creation from the +angelic being now to be named,--for lovely woman. Of this fact there +can be no possible doubt; and therefore you shall notice, that, if a +fast horse trots before two, one of the twain is apt to be a pretty +bit of muliebrity, with shapes to her, and eyes flying about in all +directions. + +Major Rowens, at that time Lieutenant of the Rockland Fusileers, had +driven and "traded" horses not a few before he turned his acquired +skill as a judge of physical advantages in another direction. He +knew a neat, snug hoof, a delicate pastern, a broad haunch, a deep +chest, a close ribbed-up barrel, as well as any other man in the +town. He was not to be taken in by your thick-jointed, heavy-headed +cattle, without any go to them, that suit a country-parson, nor yet +by the "gaanted-up," long-legged animals, with all their +constitutions bred out of them, such as rich greenhorns buy and cover +up with their plated trappings. + +Whether his equine experience was of any use to him in the selection +of the mate with whom he was to go in double harness so long as they +both should live, we need not stop to question. At any rate, nobody +could find fault with the points of Miss Marilla Van Deusen, to whom +he offered the privilege of becoming Mrs. Rowens. The Van must have +been crossed out of her blood, for she was an out-and-out brunette, +with hair and eyes black enough for a Mohawk's daughter. A fine +style of woman, with very striking tints and outlines,--an excellent +match for the Lieutenant, except for one thing. She was marked by +Nature for a widow. She was evidently got up for mourning, and never +looked so well as in deep black, with jet ornaments. + +The man who should dare to marry her would doom himself; for how +could she become the widow she was bound to be, unless he could +retire and give her a chance? The Lieutenant lived, however, as we +have seen, to become Captain and then Major, with prospects of +further advancement. But Mrs. Rowens often said she should never +look well in colors. At last her destiny fulfilled itself, and the +justice of Nature was vindicated. Major Rowens got overheated +galloping about the field on the day of the Great Muster, and had a +rush of blood to the head, according to the common report,--at any +rate, something which stopped him short in his career of expansion +and promotion, and established Mrs. Rowens in her normal condition of +widowhood. + +The Widow Rowens was now in the full bloom of ornamental sorrow. A +very shallow crape bonnet, frilled and froth-like, allowed the parted +raven hair to show its glossy smoothness. A jet pin heaved upon her +bosom with every sigh of memory, or emotion of unknown origin. Jet +bracelets shone with every movement of her slender hands, cased in +close-fitting black gloves. Her sable dress was ridged with manifold +flounces, from beneath which a small foot showed itself from time to +time, clad in the same hue of mourning. Everything about her was +dark, except the whites of her eyes and the enamel of her teeth. The +effect was complete. Gray's Elegy was not a more perfect +composition. + +Much as the Widow was pleased with the costume belonging to her +condition, she did not disguise from herself that under certain +circumstances she might be willing to change her name again. Thus, +for instance, if a gentleman not too far gone in maturity, of +dignified exterior, with an ample fortune, and of unexceptionable +character, should happen to set his heart upon her, and the only way +to make him happy was to give up her weeds and go into those +unbecoming colors again for his sake,--why, she felt that it was in +her nature to make the sacrifice. By a singular coincidence it +happened that a gentleman was now living in Rockland who united in +himself all these advantages. Who he was, the sagacious reader may +very probably have divined. Just to see how it looked, one day, +having bolted her door, and drawn the curtains close, and glanced +under the sofa, and listened at the keyhole to be sure there was +nobody in the entry,--just to see how it looked, she had taken out an +envelope and written on the back of it Mrs. Manilla Veneer. It made +her head swim and her knees tremble. What if she should faint, or +die, or have a stroke of palsy, and they should break into the room +and find that name written! How she caught it up and tore it into +little shreds, and then could not be easy until she had burned the +small heap of pieces + +But these are things which every honorable reader will consider +imparted in strict confidence. + +The Widow Rowens, though not of the mansion house set, was among the +most genteel of the two-story circle, and was in the habit of +visiting some of the great people. In one of these visits she met a +dashing young fellow with an olive complexion at the house of a +professional gentleman who had married one of the white necks and +pairs of fat arms from a distinguished family before referred to. +The professional gentleman himself was out, but the lady introduced +the olive-complexioned young man as Mr. Richard Venner. + +The Widow was particularly pleased with this accidental meeting. Had +heard Mr. Venner's name frequently mentioned. Hoped his uncle was +well, and his charming cousin,--was she as original as ever? Had +often admired that charming creature he rode: we had had some fine +horses. Had never got over her taste for riding, but could find +nobody that liked a good long gallop since--well--she could n't help +wishing she was alongside of him, the other day, when she saw him +dashing by, just at twilight. + +The Widow paused; lifted a flimsy handkerchief with a very deep black +border so as to play the jet bracelet; pushed the tip of her slender +foot beyond the lowest of her black flounces; looked up; looked down; +looked at Mr. Richard, the very picture of artless simplicity,--as +represented in well-played genteel comedy. + +"A good bit of stuff," Dick said to himself, "and something of it +left yet; caramba! "The Major had not studied points for nothing, +and the Widow was one of the right sort. The young man had been a +little restless of late, and was willing to vary his routine by +picking up an acquaintance here and there. So he took the Widow's +hint. He should like to have a scamper of half a dozen miles with +her some fine morning. + +The Widow was infinitely obliged; was not sure that she could find +any horse in the village to suit her; but it was so kind in him! +Would he not call at Hyacinth Cottage, and let her thank him again +there? + +Thus began an acquaintance which the Widow made the most of, and on +the strength of which she determined to give a tea-party and invite a +number of persons of whom we know something already. She took a +half-sheet of note-paper and made out her list as carefully as a +country "merchant's clerk" adds up two and threepence (New-England +nomenclature) and twelve and a half cents, figure by figure, and +fraction by fraction, before he can be sure they will make half a +dollar, without cheating somebody. After much consideration the list +reduced itself to the following names: Mr. Richard Venner and Mrs. +Blanche Creamer, the lady at whose house she had met him,--mansion- +house breed,--but will come,--soft on Dick; Dudley Venner,--take care +of him herself; Elsie,--Dick will see to her,--won't it fidget the +Creamer woman to see him round her? the old Doctor,--he 's always +handy; and there's that young master there, up at the school,--know +him well enough to ask him,--oh, yes, he'll come. One, two, three, +four, five, six,--seven; not room enough, without the leaf in the +table; one place empty, if the leaf's in. Let's see,--Helen Darley, +--she 'll do well enough to fill it up,--why, yes, just the thing,-- +light brown hair, blue eyes,--won't my pattern show off well against +her? Put her down,--she 's worth her tea and toast ten times over,-- +nobody knows what a "thunder-and-lightning woman," as poor Major used +to have it, is, till she gets alongside of one of those old-maidish +girls, with hair the color of brown sugar, and eyes like the blue of +a teacup. + +The Widow smiled with a feeling of triumph at having overcome her +difficulties and arranged her party,--arose and stood before her +glass, three-quarters front, one-quarter profile, so as to show the +whites of the eyes and the down of the upper lip. "Splendid!" said +the Widow--and to tell the truth, she was not far out of the way, and +with Helen Darley as a foil anybody would know she must be foudroyant +and pyramidal,--if these French adjectives may be naturalized for +this one particular exigency. + +So the Widow sent out her notes. The black grief which had filled +her heart and had overflowed in surges of crape around her person had +left a deposit half an inch wide at the margin of her note-paper. +Her seal was a small youth with an inverted torch, the same on which +Mrs. Blanche Creamer made her spiteful remark, that she expected to +see that boy of the Widow's standing on his head yet; meaning, as +Dick supposed, that she would get the torch right-side up as soon as +she had a chance. That was after Dick had made the Widow's +acquaintance, and Mrs. Creamer had got it into her foolish head that +she would marry that young fellow, if she could catch him. How could +he ever come to fancy such a quadroon-looking thing as that, she +should like to know? + +It is easy enough to ask seven people to a party; but whether they +will come or not is an open question, as it was in the case of the +spirits of the vasty deep. If the note issues from a three-story +mansion-house, and goes to two-story acquaintances, they will all be +in an excellent state of health, and have much pleasure in accepting +this very polite invitation. If the note is from the lady of a two- +story family to three-story ones, the former highly respectable +person will very probably find that an endemic complaint is +prevalent, not represented in the weekly bills of mortality, which +occasions numerous regrets in the bosoms of eminently desirable +parties that they cannot have the pleasure of and-so-forthing. + +In this case there was room for doubt,--mainly as to whether Elsie +would take a fancy to come or not. If she should come, her father +would certainly be with her. Dick had promised, and thought he could +bring Elsie. Of course the young schoolmaster will come, and that +poor tired-out looking Helen, if only to get out of sight of those +horrid Peckham wretches. They don't get such invitations every day. +The others she felt sure of,--all but the old Doctor,--he might have +some horrid patient or other to visit; tell him Elsie Venner's going +to be there,--he always likes to have an eye on her, they say,--oh, +he'd come fast enough, without any more coaxing. + +She wanted the Doctor, particularly. It was odd, but she was afraid +of Elsie. She felt as if she should be safe enough, if the old +Doctor were there to see to the girl; and then she should have +leisure to devote herself more freely to the young lady's father, for +whom all her sympathies were in a state of lively excitement. + +It was a long time since the Widow had seen so many persons round her +table as she had now invited. Better have the plates set and see how +they will fill it up with the leaf in. --A little too scattering with +only eight plates set: if she could find two more people, now, that +would bring the chairs a little closer,--snug, you know,--which makes +the company sociable. The Widow thought over her acquaintances. Why +how stupid! there was her good minister, the same who had married +her, and might--might--bury her for aught she anew, and his +granddaughter staying with him,--nice little girl, pretty, and not +old enough to be dangerous;--for the Widow had no notion of making a +tea-party and asking people to it that would be like to stand between +her and any little project she might happen to have on anybody's +heart,--not she! It was all right now; Blanche was married and so +forth; Letty was a child; Elsie was his daughter; Helen Darley was a +nice, worthy drudge,--poor thing!--faded, faded,--colors wouldn't +wash, just what she wanted to show off against. Now, if the Dudley +mansion-house people would only come,--that was the great point. + +"Here's a note for us, Elsie," said her father, as they sat round the +breakfast-table. "Mrs. Rowens wants us all to come to tea." + +It was one of "Elsie's days," as old Sophy called them. The light in +her eyes was still, but very bright. She looked up so full of +perverse and wilful impulses, that Dick knew he could make her go +with him and her father. He had his own motives for bringing her to +this determination,--and his own way of setting about it. + +"I don't want to go," he said. "What do you say, uncle?" + +"To tell the truth, Richard, I don't mach fancy the Major's widow. I +don't like to see her weeds flowering out quite so strong. I suppose +you don't care about going, Elsie?" + +Elsie looked up in her father's face with an expression which he knew +but too well. She was just in the state which the plain sort of +people call "contrary," when they have to deal with it in animals. +She would insist on going to that tea-party; he knew it just as well +before she spoke as after she had spoken. If Dick had said he wanted +to go and her father had seconded his wishes, she would have insisted +on staying at home. It was no great matter, her father said to +himself, after all; very likely it would amuse her; the Widow was a +lively woman enough,--perhaps a little comme il ne faut pas socially, +compared with the Thorntons and some other families; but what did he +care for these petty village distinctions? + +Elsie spoke. + +"I mean to go. You must go with me, Dudley. You may do as you like, +Dick." + +That settled the Dudley-mansion business, of course. They all three +accepted, as fortunately did all the others who had been invited. + +Hyacinth Cottage was a pretty place enough, a little too much choked +round with bushes, and too much overrun with climbing-roses, which, +in the season of slugs and rose-bugs, were apt to show so brown about +the leaves and so coleopterous about the flowers, that it might be +questioned whether their buds and blossoms made up for these +unpleasant animal combinations,--especially as the smell of whale-oil +soap was very commonly in the ascendant over that of the roses. It +had its patch of grass called "the lawn," and its glazed closet known +as "the conservatory," according to that system of harmless fictions +characteristic of the rural imagination and shown in the names +applied to many familiar objects. The interior of the cottage was +more tasteful and ambitious than that of the ordinary two-story +dwellings. In place of the prevailing hair-cloth covered furniture, +the visitor had the satisfaction of seating himself upon a chair +covered with some of the Widow's embroidery, or a sofa luxurious with +soft caressing plush. The sporting tastes of the late Major showed +in various prints on the wall: Herring's "Plenipotentiary," the "red +bullock" of the '34 Derby; "Cadland" and "The Colonel;" "Crucifix;" +"West-Australian," fastest of modern racers; and among native +celebrities, ugly, game old "Boston," with his straight neck and +ragged hips; and gray "Lady Suffolk," queen, in her day, not of the +turf but of the track, "extending" herself till she measured a rod, +more or less, skimming along within a yard of the ground, her legs +opening and shutting under her with a snap, like the four blades of a +compound jack-knife. + +These pictures were much more refreshing than those dreary fancy +death-bed scenes, common in two-story country-houses, in which +Washington and other distinguished personages are represented as +obligingly devoting their last moments to taking a prominent part in +a tableau, in which weeping relatives, attached servants, +professional assistants, and celebrated personages who might by a +stretch of imagination be supposed present, are grouped in the most +approved style of arrangement about the chief actor's pillow. + +A single glazed bookcase held the family library, which was hidden +from vulgar eyes by green silk curtains behind the glass. It would +have been instructive to get a look at it, as it always is to peep +into one's neighbor's book-shelves. From other sources and +opportunities a partial idea of it has been obtained. The Widow had +inherited some books from her mother, who was something of a reader: +Young's "Night-Thoughts;" "The Preceptor;" "The Task, a Poem," by +William Cowper; Hervey's "Meditations;" "Alonzo and Melissa;" +"Buccaneers of America;" "The Triumphs of Temper;" "La Belle +Assemblee;" Thomson's "Seasons;" and a few others. The Major had +brought in "Tom Jones" and "Peregrine Pickle;" various works by Mr. +Pierce Egan; "Boxiana," "The Racing Calendar;" and a "Book of Lively +Songs and Jests." The Widow had added the Poems of Lord Byron and +T. Moore; "Eugene Aram;" "The Tower of London," by Harrison +Ainsworth; some of Scott's Novels; "The Pickwick Papers;" a volume of +Plays, by W. Shakespeare; "Proverbial Philosophy;" "Pilgrim's +Progress;" "The Whole Duty of Man" (a present when she was married); +with two celebrated religious works, one by William Law and the other +by Philip Doddridge, which were sent her after her husband's death, +and which she had tried to read, but found that they did not agree +with her. Of course the bookcase held a few school manuals and +compendiums, and one of Mr. Webster's Dictionaries. But the gilt- +edged Bible always lay on the centre-table, next to the magazine with +the fashion-plates and the scrap-book with pictures from old annuals +and illustrated papers. + +The reader need not apprehend the recital, at full length, of such +formidable preparations for the Widow's tea-party as were required in +the case of Colonel Sprowle's Social Entertainment. A tea-party, +even in the country, is a comparatively simple and economical piece +of business. As soon as the Widow found that all her company were +coming, she set to work, with the aid of her "smart" maid-servant and +a daughter of her own, who was beginning to stretch and spread at a +fearful rate, but whom she treated as a small child, to make the +necessary preparations. The silver had to be rubbed; also the grand +plated urn,--her mother's before hers,--style of the Empire,--looking +as if it might have been made to hold the Major's ashes. Then came +the making and baking of cake and gingerbread, the smell whereof +reached even as far as the sidewalk in front of the cottage, so that +small boys returning from school snuffed it in the breeze, and +discoursed with each other on its suggestions; so that the Widow +Leech, who happened to pass, remembered she had n't called on Marilly +Raowens for a consid'ble spell, and turned in at the gate and rang +three times with long intervals,--but all in vain, the inside Widow +having "spotted" the outside one through the blinds, and whispered to +her aides-de-camp to let the old thing ring away till she pulled the +bell out by the roots, but not to stir to open the door. + +Widow Rowens was what they called a real smart, capable woman, not +very great on books, perhaps, but knew what was what and who was who +as well as another,--knew how to make the little cottage look pretty, +how to set out a tea-table, and, what a good many women never can +find out, knew her own style and "got herself up tip-top," as our +young friend Master Geordie, Colonel Sprowle's heir-apparent, +remarked to his friend from one of the fresh-water colleges. Flowers +were abundant now, and she had dressed her rooms tastefully with +them. The centre-table had two or three gilt-edged books lying +carelessly about on it, and some prints and a stereoscope with +stereographs to match, chiefly groups of picnics, weddings, etc., in +which the same somewhat fatigued looking ladies of fashion and brides +received the attentions of the same unpleasant-looking young men, +easily identified under their different disguises, consisting of +fashionable raiment such as gentlemen are supposed to wear +habitually. With these, however, were some pretty English scenes,-- +pretty except for the old fellow with the hanging under-lip who +infests every one of that interesting series; and a statue or two, +especially that famous one commonly called the Lahcoon, so as to +rhyme with moon and spoon, and representing an old man with his two +sons in the embraces of two monstrous serpents. + +There is no denying that it was a very dashing achievement of the +Widow's to bring together so considerable a number of desirable +guests. She felt proud of her feat; but as to the triumph of getting +Dudley Venner to come out for a visit to Hyacinth Cottage, she was +surprised and almost frightened at her own success. So much might +depend on the impressions of that evening! + +The next thing was to be sure that everybody should be in the right +place at the tea-table, and this the Widow thought she could manage +by a few words to the older guests and a little shuffling about and +shifting when they got to the table. To settle everything the Widow +made out a diagram, which the reader should have a chance of +inspecting in an authentic copy, if these pages were allowed under +any circumstances to be the vehicle of illustrations. If, however, +he or she really wishes to see the way the pieces stood as they were +placed at the beginning of the game, (the Widow's gambit,) he or she +had better at once take a sheet of paper, draw an oval, and arrange +the characters according to the following schedule. + +At the head of the table, the Hostess, Widow Marilla Rowens. +Opposite her, at the other end, Rev. Dr. Honeywood. At the right of +the Hostess, Dudley Veneer, next him Helen Darley, next her Dr. +Kittredge, next him Mrs. Blanche Creamer, then the Reverend Doctor. +At the left of the Hostess, Bernard Langdon, next him Letty +Forrester, next Letty Mr. Richard Veneer, next him Elsie, and so to +the Reverend Doctor again. + +The company came together a little before the early hour at which it +was customary to take tea in Rockland. The Widow knew everybody, of +course: who was there in Rockland she did not know? But some of them +had to be introduced: Mr. Richard Veneer to Mr. Bernard, Mr. Bernard +to Miss Letty, Dudley Veneer to Miss Helen Darley, and so on. The +two young men looked each other straight in the eyes, both full of +youthful life, but one of frank and fearless aspect, the other with a +dangerous feline beauty alien to the New England half of his blood. + +The guests talked, turned over the prints, looked at the flowers, +opened the "Proverbial Philosophy" with gilt edges, and the volume of +Plays by W. Shakespeare, examined the horse-pictures on the walls, +and so passed away the time until tea was announced, when they paired +off for the room where it was in readiness. The Widow had managed it +well; everything was just as she wanted it. Dudley Veneer was +between herself and the poor tired-looking schoolmistress with her +faded colors. Blanche Creamer, a lax, tumble-to-pieces, Greuze-ish +looking blonde, whom the Widow hated because the men took to her, was +purgatoried between the two old Doctors, and could see all the looks +that passed between Dick Venner and his cousin. The young +schoolmaster could talk to Miss Letty: it was his business to know +how to talk to schoolgirls. Dick would amuse himself with his cousin +Elsie. The old Doctors only wanted to be well fed and they would do +well enough. + +It would be very pleasant to describe the tea-table; but in reality, +it did not pretend to offer a plethoric banquet to the guests. The +Widow had not visited the mansion-houses for nothing, and she had +learned there that an overloaded tea-table may do well enough for +farm-hands when they come in at evening from their work and sit down +unwashed in their shirtsleeves, but that for decently bred people +such an insult to the memory of a dinner not yet half-assimilated is +wholly inadmissible. Everything was delicate, and almost everything +of fair complexion: white bread and biscuits, frosted and sponge +cake, cream, honey, straw-colored butter; only a shadow here and +there, where the fire had crisped and browned the surfaces of a stack +of dry toast, or where a preserve had brought away some of the red +sunshine of the last year's summer. The Widow shall have the credit +of her well-ordered tea-table, also of her bountiful cream-pitchers; +for it is well known that city-people find cream a very scarce luxury +in a good many country-houses of more pretensions than Hyacinth +Cottage. There are no better maims for ladies who give tea-parties +than these: + +Cream is thicker than water. +Large heart never loved little cream pot. + +There is a common feeling in genteel families that the third meal of +the day is not so essential a part of the daily bread as to require +any especial acknowledgment to the Providence which bestows it. Very +devout people, who would never sit down to a breakfast or a dinner +without the grace before meat which honors the Giver of it, feel as +if they thanked Heaven enough for their tea and toast by partaking of +them cheerfully without audible petition or ascription. But the +Widow was not exactly mansion-house-bred, and so thought it necessary +to give the Reverend Doctor a peculiar look which he understood at +once as inviting his professional services. He, therefore, uttered a +few simple words of gratitude, very quietly,--much to the +satisfaction of some of the guests, who had expected one of those +elaborate effusions, with rolling up of the eyes and rhetorical +accents, so frequent with eloquent divines when they address their +Maker in genteel company. + +Everybody began talking with the person sitting next at hand. Mr. +Bernard naturally enough turned his attention first to the Widow; but +somehow or other the right side of the Widow seemed to be more wide +awake than the left side, next him, and he resigned her to the +courtesies of Mr. Dudley Venner, directing himself, not very +unwillingly, to the young girl next him on the other side. Miss +Letty Forrester, the granddaughter of the Reverend Doctor, was city- +bred, as anybody might see, and city-dressed, as any woman would know +at sight; a man might only feel the general effect of clear, well- +matched colors, of harmonious proportions, of the cut which makes +everything cling like a bather's sleeve where a natural outline is to +be kept, and ruffle itself up like the hackle of a pitted fighting- +cock where art has a right to luxuriate in silken exuberance. How +this citybred and city-dressed girl came to be in Rockland Mr. +Bernard did not know, but he knew at any rate that she was his next +neighbor and entitled to his courtesies. She was handsome, too, when +he came to look, very handsome when he came to look again,--endowed +with that city beauty which is like the beauty of wall-fruit, +something finer in certain respects than can be reared off the +pavement. + +The miserable routinists who keep repeating invidiously Cowper's + +"God made the country and man made the town," + +as if the town were a place to kill out the race in, do not know what +they are talking about. Where could they raise such Saint-Michael +pears, such Saint-Germains, such Brown-Beurres, as we had until +within a few years growing within the walls of our old city-gardens? +Is the dark and damp cavern where a ragged beggar hides himself +better than a town-mansion which fronts the sunshine and backs on its +own cool shadow, with gas and water and all appliances to suit all +needs? God made the cavern and man made the house! What then? + +There is no doubt that the pavement keeps a deal of mischief from +coming up out of the earth, and, with a dash off of it in summer, +just to cool the soles of the feet when it gets too hot, is the best +place for many constitutions, as some few practical people have +already discovered. And just so these beauties that grow and ripen +against the city-walls, these young fellows with cheeks like peaches +and young girls with cheeks like nectarines, show that the most +perfect forms of artificial life can do as much for the human product +as garden-culture for strawberries and blackberries. + +If Mr. Bernard had philosophized or prosed in this way, with so +pretty, nay, so lovely a neighbor as Miss Letty Forrester waiting for +him to speak to her, he would have to be dropped from this narrative +as a person unworthy of his good-fortune, and not deserving the kind +reader's further notice. On the contrary, he no sooner set his eyes +fairly on her than he said to himself that she was charming, and that +he wished she were one of his scholars at the Institute. So he began +talking with her in an easy way; for he knew something of young girls +by this time, and, of course, could adapt himself to a young lady who +looked as if she might be not more than fifteen or sixteen years old, +and therefore could hardly be a match in intellectual resources for +the seventeen and eighteen year-old first-class scholars of the +Apollinean Institute. But city-wall-fruit ripens early, and he soon +found that this girl's training had so sharpened her wits and stored +her memory, that he need not be at the trouble to stoop painfully in +order to come down to her level. + +The beauty of good-breeding is that it adjusts itself to all +relations without effort, true to itself always however the manners +of those around it may change. Self-respect and respect for others, +--the sensitive consciousness poises itself in these as the compass +in the ship's binnacle balances itself and maintains its true level +within the two concentric rings which suspend it on their pivots. +This thorough-bred school-girl quite enchanted Mr. Bernard. He could +not understand where she got her style, her way of dress, her +enunciation, her easy manners. The minister was a most worthy +gentleman, but this was not the Rockland native-born manner; some new +element had come in between the good, plain, worthy man and this +young girl, fit to be a Crown Prince's partner where there were a +thousand to choose from. + +He looked across to Helen Darley, for he knew she would understand +the glance of admiration with which he called her attention to the +young beauty at his side; and Helen knew what a young girl could be, +as compared with what too many a one is, as well as anybody. + +This poor, dear Helen of ours! How admirable the contrast between +her and the Widow on the other side of Dudley Venner! But, what was +very odd, that gentleman apparently thought the contrast was to the +advantage of this poor, dear Helen. At any rate, instead of devoting +himself solely to the Widow, he happened to be just at that moment +talking in a very interested and, apparently, not uninteresting way +to his right-hand neighbor, who, on her part, never looked more +charmingly,--as Mr. Bernard could not help saying to himself,--but, +to be sure, he had just been looking at the young girl next him, so +that his eyes were brimful of beauty, and may have spilled some of it +on the first comer: for you know M. Becquerel has been showing us +lately how everything is phosphorescent; that it soaks itself with +light in an instant's exposure, so that it is wet with liquid +sunbeams, or, if you will, tremulous with luminous vibrations, when +first plunged into the negative bath of darkness, and betrays itself +by the light which escapes from its surface. + +Whatever were the reason, this poor, dear Helen never looked so +sweetly. Her plainly parted brown hair, her meek, blue eyes, her +cheek just a little tinged with color, the almost sad simplicity of +her dress, and that look he knew so well,--so full of cheerful +patience, so sincere, that he had trusted her from the first moment +as the believers of the larger half of Christendom trust the Blessed +Virgin,--Mr. Bernard took this all in at a glance, and felt as +pleased as if it had been his own sister Dorothea Elizabeth that he +was looking at. As for Dudley Veneer, Mr. Bernard could not help +being struck by the animated expression of his countenance. It +certainly showed great kindness, on his part, to pay so much +attention to this quiet girl, when he had the thunder-and-lightning +Widow on the other side of him. + +Mrs. Marilla Rowens did not know what to make of it. She had made +her tea-party expressly for Mr. Dudley Veneer. She had placed him +just as she wanted, between herself and a meek, delicate woman who +dressed in gray, wore a plain breastpin with hair in it, who taught a +pack of girls up there at the school, and looked as if she were born +for a teacher,--the very best foil that she could have chosen; and +here was this man, polite enough to herself, to be sure, but turning +round to that very undistinguished young person as if he rather +preferred her conversation of the two! + +The truth was that Dudley Veneer and Helen Darley met as two +travellers might meet in the desert, wearied, both of them, with +their long journey, one having food, but no water, the other water, +but no food. Each saw that the other had been in long conflict with +some trial; for their voices were low and tender, as patiently borne +sorrow and humbly uttered prayers make every human voice. Through +these tones, more than by what they said, they came into natural +sympathetic relations with each other. Nothing could be more +unstudied. As for Dudley Venner, no beauty in all the world could +have so soothed and magnetized him as the very repose and subdued +gentleness which the Widow had thought would make the best possible +background for her own more salient and effective attractions. No +doubt, Helen, on her side, was almost too readily pleased with the +confidence this new acquaintance she was making seemed to show her +from the very first. She knew so few men of any condition! Mr. +Silas Peckham: he was her employer, and she ought to think of him as +well as she could; but every time she thought of him it was with a +shiver of disgust. Mr. Bernard Langdon: a noble young man, a true +friend, like a brother to her,--God bless him, and send him some +young heart as fresh as his own! But this gentleman produced a new +impression upon her, quite different from any to which she was +accustomed. His rich, low tones had the strangest significance to +her; she felt sure he must have lived through long experiences, +sorrowful like her own. Elsie's father! She looked into his dark +eyes, as she listened to him, to see if they had any glimmer of that +peculiar light, diamond-bright, but cold and still, which she knew so +well in Elsie's. Anything but that! Never was there more +tenderness, it seemed to her, than in the whole look and expression +of Elsie's father. She must have been a great trial to him; yet his +face was that of one who had been saddened, not soured, by his +discipline. Knowing what Elsie must be to him, how hard she must +make any parent's life, Helen could not but be struck with the +interest Mr. Dudley Venner showed in her as his daughter's +instructress. He was too kind to her; again and again she meekly +turned from him, so as to leave him free to talk to the showy lady at +his other side, who was looking all the while + + "like the night + Of cloudless realms and starry skies;" + +but still Mr. Dudley Venner, after a few courteous words, came back +to the blue eyes and brown hair; still he kept his look fixed upon +her, and his tones grew sweeter and lower as he became more +interested in talk, until this poor, dear Helen, what with surprise, +and the bashfulness natural to one who had seen little of the gay +world, and the stirring of deep, confused sympathies with this +suffering father, whose heart seemed so full of kindness, felt her +cheeks glowing with unwonted flame, and betrayed the pleasing trouble +of her situation by looking so sweetly as to arrest Mr. Bernard's eye +for a moment, when he looked away from the young beauty sitting next +him. + +Elsie meantime had been silent, with that singular, still, watchful +look which those who knew her well had learned to fear. Her head +just a little inclined on one side, perfectly motionless for whole +minutes, her eyes seeming to, grow small and bright, as always when +she was under her evil influence, she was looking obliquely at the +young girl on the other side of her cousin Dick and next to Bernard +Langdon. As for Dick himself, she seemed to be paying very little +attention to him. Sometimes her eyes would wander off to Mr. +Bernard, and their expression, as old Dr. Kittredge, who watched her +for a while pretty keenly, noticed, would change perceptibly. One +would have said that she looked with a kind of dull hatred at the +girl, but with a half-relenting reproachful anger at Mr. Bernard. + +Miss Letty Forrester, at whom Elsie had been looking from time to +time in this fixed way, was conscious meanwhile of some unusual +influence. First it was a feeling of constraint,--then, as it were, +a diminished power over the muscles, as if an invisible elastic +cobweb were spinning round her,--then a tendency to turn away from +Mr. Bernard, who was making himself very agreeable, and look straight +into those eyes which would not leave her, and which seemed to be +drawing her towards them, while at the same time they chilled the +blood in all her veins. + +Mr. Bernard saw this influence coming over her. All at once he +noticed that she sighed, and that some little points of moisture +began to glisten on her forehead. But she did not grow pale +perceptibly; she had no involuntary or hysteric movements; she still +listened to him and smiled naturally enough. Perhaps she was only +nervous at being stared at. At any rate, she was coming under some +unpleasant influence or other, and Mr. Bernard had seen enough of the +strange impression Elsie sometimes produced to wish this young girl +to be relieved from it, whatever it was. He turned toward Elsie and +looked at her in such a way as to draw her eyes upon him. Then he +looked steadily and calmly into them. It was a great effort, for +some perfectly inexplicable reason. At one instant he thought he +could not sit where he was; he must go and speak to Elsie. Then he +wanted to take his eyes away from hers; there was something +intolerable in the light that came from them. But he was determined +to look her down, and he believed he could do it, for he had seen her +countenance change more than once when he had caught her gaze +steadily fixed on him. All this took not minutes, but seconds. +Presently she changed color slightly,--lifted her head, which was +inclined a little to one side,--shut and opened her eyes two or three +times, as if they had been pained or wearied,--and turned away +baffled, and shamed, as it would seem, and shorn for the time of her +singular and formidable or at least evil-natured power of swaying the +impulses of those around her. + +It takes too long to describe these scenes where a good deal of life +is concentrated into a few silent seconds. Mr. Richard Veneer had +sat quietly through it all, although this short pantomime had taken +place literally before his face. He saw what was going on well +enough, and understood it all perfectly well. Of course the +schoolmaster had been trying to make Elsie jealous, and had +succeeded. The little schoolgirl was a decoy-duck,--that was all. +Estates like the Dudley property were not to be had every day, and no +doubt the Yankee usher was willing to take some pains to make sure of +Elsie. Does n't Elsie look savage? Dick involuntarily moved his +chair a little away from her, and thought he felt a pricking in the +small white scars on his wrist. A dare-devil fellow, but somehow or +other this girl had taken strange hold of his imagination, and he +often swore to himself, that, when he married her, he would carry a +loaded revolver with him to his bridal chamber. + +Mrs. Blanche Creamer raged inwardly at first to find herself between +the two old gentlemen of the party. It very soon gave her great +comfort, however, to see that Marilla, Rowens had just missed it in +her calculations, and she chuckled immensely to find Dudley Veneer +devoting himself chiefly to Helen Darley. If the Rowens woman should +hook Dudley, she felt as if she should gnaw all her nails off for +spite. To think of seeing her barouching about Rockland behind a +pair of long-tailed bays and a coachman with a band on his hat, while +she, Blanche Creamer, was driving herself about in a one-horse +"carriage"! Recovering her spirits by degrees, she began playing her +surfaces off at the two old Doctors, just by way of practice. First +she heaved up a glaring white shoulder, the right one, so that the +Reverend Doctor should be stunned by it, if such a thing might be. +The Reverend Doctor was human, as the Apostle was not ashamed to +confess himself. Half-devoutly and half-mischievously he repeated +inwardly, "Resist the Devil and he will flee from you." As the +Reverend Doctor did not show any lively susceptibility, she thought +she would try the left shoulder on old Dr. Kittredge. That worthy +and experienced student of science was not at all displeased with the +manoeuvre, and lifted his head so as to command the exhibition +through his glasses. "Blanche is good for half a dozen years or so, +if she is careful," the Doctor said to himself, "and then she must +take to her prayer-book." After this spasmodic failure of Mrs. +Blanche Creamer's to stir up the old Doctors, she returned again to +the pleasing task of watching the Widow in her evident discomfiture. +But dark as the Widow looked in her half-concealed pet, she was but +as a pale shadow, compared to Elsie in her silent concentration of +shame and anger. + +"Well, there is one good thing," said Mrs. Blanche Creamer; "Dick +doesn't get much out of that cousin of his this evening! Does n't he +look handsome, though?" + +So Mrs. Blanche, being now a good deal taken up with her observations +of those friends of hers and ours, began to be rather careless of her +two old Doctors, who naturally enough fell into conversation with +each other across the white surfaces of that lady, perhaps not very +politely, but, under the, circumstances, almost as a matter of +necessity. + +When a minister and a doctor get talking together, they always have a +great deal to say; and so it happened that the company left the table +just as the two Doctors were beginning to get at each other's ideas +about various interesting matters. If we follow them into the other +parlor, we can, perhaps, pick up something of their conversation. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +WHY DOCTORS DIFFER. + +The company rearranged itself with some changes after leaving the +tea-table. Dudley Veneer was very polite to the Widow; but that lady +having been called off for a few moments for some domestic +arrangement, he slid back to the side of Helen Darley, his daughter's +faithful teacher. Elsie had got away by herself, and was taken up in +studying the stereoscopic Laocoon. Dick, being thus set free, had +been seized upon by Mrs. Blanche Creamer, who had diffused herself +over three-quarters of a sofa and beckoned him to the remaining +fourth. Mr. Bernard and Miss Letty were having a snug fete-'a-fete +in the recess of a bay-window. The two Doctors had taken two arm- +chairs and sat squared off against each other. Their conversation is +perhaps as well worth reporting as that of the rest of the company, +and, as it was carried on in a louder tone, was of course more easy +to gather and put on record. + +It was a curious sight enough to see those two representatives of two +great professions brought face to face to talk over the subjects they +had been looking at all their lives from such different points of +view. Both were old; old enough to have been moulded by their habits +of thought and life; old enough to have all their beliefs "fretted +in," as vintners say,--thoroughly worked up with their characters. +Each of them looked his calling. The Reverend Doctor had lived a +good deal among books in his study; the Doctor, as we will call the +medical gentleman, had been riding about the country for between +thirty and forty years. His face looked tough and weather-worn; +while the Reverend Doctor's, hearty as it appeared, was of finer +texture. The Doctor's was the graver of the two; there was something +of grimness about it, partly owing to the northeasters he had faced +for so many years, partly to long companionship with that stern +personage who never deals in sentiment or pleasantry. His speech was +apt to be brief and peremptory; it was a way he had got by ordering +patients; but he could discourse somewhat, on occasion, as the reader +may find out. The Reverend Doctor had an open, smiling expression, a +cheery voice, a hearty laugh, and a cordial way with him which some +thought too lively for his cloth, but which children, who are good +judges of such matters, delighted in, so that he was the favorite of +all the little rogues about town. But he had the clerical art of +sobering down in a moment, when asked to say grace while somebody was +in the middle of some particularly funny story; and though his voice +was so cheery in common talk, in the pulpit, like almost all +preachers, he had a wholly different and peculiar way of speaking, +supposed to be more acceptable to the Creator than the natural +manner. In point of fact, most of our anti-papal and anti-prelatical +clergymen do really intone their prayers, without suspecting in the +least that they have fallen into such a Romish practice. + +This is the way the conversation between the Doctor of Divinity and +the Doctor of Medicine was going on at the point where these notes +take it up. + +"Obi tres medici, duo athei, you know, Doctor. Your profession has +always had the credit of being lax in doctrine,--though pretty +stringent in practice, ha! ha!" + +"Some priest said that," the Doctor answered, dryly. "They always +talked Latin when they had a bigger lie than common to get rid of." + +"Good!" said the Reverend Doctor; "I'm afraid they would lie a +little sometimes. But isn't there some truth in it, Doctor? Don't +you think your profession is apt to see 'Nature' in the place of the +God of Nature,--to lose sight of the great First Cause in their daily +study of secondary causes?" + +"I've thought about that," the Doctor answered, "and I've talked +about it and read about it, and I've come to the conclusion that +nobody believes in God and trusts in God quite so much as the +doctors; only it is n't just the sort of Deity that some of your +profession have wanted them to take up with. There was a student of +mine wrote a dissertation on the Natural Theology of Health and +Disease, and took that old lying proverb for his motto. He knew a +good deal more about books than ever I did, and had studied in other +countries. I'll tell you what he said about it. He said the old +Heathen Doctor, Galen, praised God for his handiwork in the human +body, just as if he had been a Christian, or the Psalmist himself. +He said they had this sentence set up in large letters in the great +lecture-room in Paris where he attended: I dressed his wound and God +healed him. That was an old surgeon's saying. And he gave a long +list of doctors who were not only Christians, but famous ones. I +grant you, though, ministers and doctors are very apt to see +differently in spiritual matters." + +"That's it," said the Reverend Doctor; "you are apt to see 'Nature' +where we see God, and appeal to 'Science' where we are contented with +Revelation." + +"We don't separate God and Nature, perhaps, as you do," the Doctor +answered. "When we say that God is omnipresent and omnipotent and +omniscient, we are a little more apt to mean it than your folks are. +We think, when a wound heals, that God's presence and power and +knowledge are there, healing it, just as that old surgeon did. We +think a good many theologians, working among their books, don't see +the facts of the world they live in. When we tell 'em of these +facts, they are apt to call us materialists and atheists and +infidels, and all that. We can't help seeing the facts, and we don't +think it's wicked to mention 'em." + +"Do tell me," the Reverend Doctor said, "some of these facts we are +in the habit of overlooking, and which your profession thinks it can +see and understand." + +"That's very easy," the Doctor replied. "For instance: you don't +understand or don't allow for idiosyncrasies as we learn to. We know +that food and physic act differently with different people; but you +think the same kind of truth is going to suit, or ought to suit, all +minds. We don't fight with a patient because he can't take magnesia +or opium; but you are all the time quarrelling over your beliefs, as +if belief did not depend very much on race and constitution, to say +nothing of early training." + +"Do you mean to say that every man is not absolutely free to choose +his beliefs?" + +"The men you write about in your studies are, but not the men we see +in the real world. There is some apparently congenital defect in the +Indians, for instance, that keeps them from choosing civilization and +Christianity. So with the Gypsies, very likely. Everybody knows +that Catholicism or Protestantism is a good deal a matter of race. +Constitution has more to do with belief than people think for. I +went to a Universalist church, when I was in the city one day, to +hear a famous man whom all the world knows, and I never saw such +pews-full of broad shoulders and florid faces, and substantial, +wholesome-looking persons, male and female, in all my life. Why, it +was astonishing. Either their creed made them healthy, or they chose +it because they were healthy. Your folks have never got the hang of +human nature." + +"I am afraid this would be considered a degrading and dangerous view +of human beliefs and responsibility for them," the Reverend Doctor +replied. "Prove to a man that his will is governed by something +outside of himself, and you have lost all hold on his moral and +religious nature. There is nothing bad men want to believe so much +as that they are governed by necessity. Now that which is at once +degrading and dangerous cannot be true." + +"No doubt," the Doctor replied, "all large views of mankind limit our +estimate of the absolute freedom of the will. But I don't think it +degrades or endangers us, for this reason, that, while it makes us +charitable to the rest of mankind, our own sense of freedom, whatever +it is, is never affected by argument. Conscience won't be reasoned +with. We feel that we can practically do this of that, and if we +choose the wrong, we know we are responsible; but observation teaches +us that this or that other race or individual has not the same +practical freedom of choice. I don't see how we can avoid this +conclusion in the instance of the American Indians. The science of +Ethnology has upset a good many theoretical notions about human +nature." + +"Science!" said the Reverend Doctor, "science! that was a word the +Apostle Paul did not seem to think much of, if we may judge by the +Epistle to Timothy: 'Oppositions of science falsely so called.' +I own that I am jealous of that word and the pretensions that go with +it. Science has seemed to me to be very often only the handmaid of +skepticism." + +"Doctor!" the physician said, emphatically, "science is knowledge. +Nothing that is not known properly belongs to science. Whenever +knowledge obliges us to doubt, we are always safe in doubting. +Astronomers foretell eclipses, say how long comets are to stay with +us, point out where a new planet is to be found. We see they know +what they assert, and the poor old Roman Catholic Church has at last +to knock under. So Geology proves a certain succession of events, +and the best Christian in the world must make the earth's history +square with it. Besides, I don't think you remember what great +revelations of himself the Creator has made in the minds of the men +who have built up science. You seem to me to hold his human +masterpieces very cheap. Don't you think the 'inspiration of the +Almighty' gave Newton and Cuvier 'understanding'?" + +The Reverend Doctor was not arguing for victory. In fact, what he +wanted was to call out the opinions of the old physician by a show of +opposition, being already predisposed to agree with many of them. He +was rather trying the common arguments, as one tries tricks of fence +merely to learn the way of parrying. But just here he saw a tempting +opening, and could not resist giving a home-thrust. + +"Yes; but you surely would not consider it inspiration of the same +kind as that of the writers of the Old Testament?" + +That cornered the Doctor, and he paused a moment before he replied. +Then he raised his head, so as to command the Reverend Doctor's face +through his spectacles, and said, + +"I did not say that. You are clear, I suppose, that the Omniscient +spoke through Solomon, but that Shakespeare wrote without his help?" + +The Reverend Doctor looked very grave. It was a bold, blunt way of +putting the question. He turned it aside with the remark, that +Shakespeare seemed to him at times to come as near inspiration as any +human being not included among the sacred writers. + +"Doctor," the physician began, as from a sudden suggestion, "you +won't quarrel with me, if I tell you some of my real thoughts, will +you?" + +"Say on, my dear Sir, say on," the minister answered, with his most +genial smile; "your real thoughts are just what I want to get at. A +man's real thoughts are a great rarity. If I don't agree with you, I +shall like to hear you." + +The Doctor began; and in order to give his thoughts more connectedly, +we will omit the conversational breaks, the questions and comments of +the clergyman, and all accidental interruptions. + +"When the old ecclesiastics said that where there were three doctors +there were two atheists, they lied, of course. They called everybody +who differed from them atheists, until they found out that not +believing in God was n't nearly so ugly a crime as not believing in +some particular dogma; then they called them heretics, until so many +good people had been burned under that name that it began to smell +too strong of roasting flesh,--and after that infidels, which +properly means people without faith, of whom there are not a great +many in any place or time. But then, of course, there was some +reason why doctors shouldn't think about religion exactly as +ministers did, or they never would have made that proverb. It 's +very likely that something of the same kind is true now; whether it +is so or not, I am going to tell you the reasons why it would not be +strange, if doctors should take rather different views from clergymen +about some matters of belief. I don't, of course, mean all doctors +nor all clergymen. Some doctors go as far as any old New England +divine, and some clergymen agree very well with the doctors that +think least according to rule. + +"To begin with their ideas of the Creator himself. They always see +him trying to help his creatures out of their troubles. A man no +sooner gets a cut, than the Great Physician, whose agency we often +call Nature, goes to work, first to stop the blood, and then to heal +the wound, and then to make the scar as small as possible. If a +man's pain exceeds a certain amount, he faints, and so gets relief. +If it lasts too long, habit comes in to make it tolerable. If it is +altogether too bad, he dies. That is the best thing to be done under +the circumstances. So you see, the doctor is constantly in presence +of a benevolent agency working against a settled order of things, of +which pain and disease are the accidents, so to speak. Well, no +doubt they find it harder than clergymen to believe that there can be +any world or state from which this benevolent agency is wholly +excluded. This may be very wrong; but it is not unnatural. + +They can hardly conceive of a permanent state of being in which cuts +would never try to heal, nor habit render suffering endurable. This +is one effect of their training. + +"Then, again, their attention is very much called to human +limitations. Ministers work out the machinery of responsibility in +an abstract kind of way; they have a sort of algebra of human nature, +in which friction and strength (or weakness) of material are left +out. You see, a doctor is in the way of studying children from the +moment of birth upwards. For the first year or so he sees that they +are just as much pupils of their Maker as the young of any other +animals. Well, their Maker trains them to pure selfishness. Why? +In order that they may be sure to take care of themselves. So you +see, when a child comes to be, we will say a year and a day old, and +makes his first choice between right and wrong, he is at a +disadvantage; for he, has that vis a tergo, as we doctors call it, +that force from behind, of a whole year's life of selfishness, for +which he is no more to blame than a calf is to blame for having lived +in the same way, purely to gratify his natural appetites. Then we +see that baby grow up to a child, and, if he is fat and stout and red +and lively, we expect to find him troublesome and noisy, and, +perhaps, sometimes disobedient more or less; that's the way each new +generation breaks its egg-shell; but if he is very weak and thin, and +is one of the kind that may be expected to die early, he will very +likely sit in the house all day and read good books about other +little sharp-faced children just like himself, who died early, having +always been perfectly indifferent to all the out-door amusements of +the wicked little red-cheeked children. + +Some of the little folks we watch grow up to be young women, and +occasionally one of them gets nervous, what we call hysterical, and +then that girl will begin to play all sorts of pranks,--to lie and +cheat, perhaps, in the most unaccountable way, so that she might seem +to a minister a good example of total depravity. We don't see her in +that light. We give her iron and valerian, and get her on horseback, +if we can, and so expect to make her will come all right again. By +and by we are called in to see an old baby, threescore years and ten +or more old. We find this old baby has never got rid of that first +year's teaching which led him to fill his stomach with all he could. +pump into it, and his hands with everything he could grab. People +call him a miser. We are sorry for him; but we can't help +remembering his first year's training, and the natural effect of +money on the great majority of those that have it. So while the +ministers say he 'shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven,' we +like to remind them that 'with God all things are possible.' + +"Once more, we see all kinds of monomania and insanity. We learn +from them to recognize all sorts of queer tendencies in minds +supposed to be sane, so that we have nothing but compassion for a +large class of persons condemned as sinners by theologians, but +considered by us as invalids. We have constant reasons for noticing +the transmission of qualities from parents to offspring, and we find +it hard to hold a child accountable in any moral point of view for +inherited bad temper or tendency to drunkenness,--as hard as we +should to blame him for inheriting gout or asthma. I suppose we are +more lenient with human nature than theologians generally are. We +know that the spirits of men and their views of the present and the +future go up and down with the barometer, and that a permanent +depression of one inch in the mercurial column would affect the whole +theology of Christendom. + +"Ministers talk about the human will as if it stood on a high look- +out, with plenty of light, and elbowroom reaching to the horizon. +Doctors are constantly noticing how it is tied up and darkened by +inferior organization, by disease, and all sorts of crowding +interferences, until they get to look upon Hottentots and Indians-- +and a good many of their own race as a kind of self-conscious blood- +clocks with very limited power of self-determination. That's the +tendency, I say, of a doctor's experience. But the people to whom +they address their statements of the results of their observation +belong to the thinking class of the highest races, and they are +conscious of a great deal of liberty of will. So in the face of the +fact that civilization with all it offers has proved a dead failure +with the aboriginal races of this country,--on the whole, I say, a +dead failure,--they talk as if they knew from their own will all +about that of a Digger Indian! We are more apt to go by observation +of the facts in the case. We are constantly seeing weakness where +you see depravity. I don't say we're right; I only tell what you +must often find to be the fact, right or wrong, in talking with +doctors. You see, too, our notions of bodily and moral disease, or +sin, are apt to go together. We used to be as hard on sickness as +you were on sin. We know better now. We don't look at sickness as +we used to, and try to poison it with everything that is offensive, +burnt toads and earth-worms and viper-broth, and worse things than +these. We know that disease has something back of it which the body +isn't to blame for, at least in most cases, and which very often it +is trying to get rid of. Just so with sin. I will agree to take a +hundred new-born babes of a certain stock and return seventy-five of +them in a dozen years true and honest, if not 'pious' children. And +I will take another hundred, of a different stock, and put them in +the hands of certain Ann-Street or Five-Points teachers, and seventy- +five of them will be thieves and liars at the end of the same dozen +years. I have heard of an old character, Colonel Jaques, I believe +it was, a famous cattle-breeder, who used to say he could breed to +pretty much any pattern he wanted to. Well, we doctors see so much +of families, how the tricks of the blood keep breaking out, just as +much in character as they do in looks, that we can't help feeling as +if a great many people hadn't a fair chance to be what is called +'good,' and that there isn't a text in the Bible better worth keeping +always in mind than that one, 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' + +"As for our getting any quarter at the hands of theologians, we don't +expect it, and have no right to. You don't give each other any +quarter. I have had two religious books sent me by friends within a +week or two. One is Mr. Brownson's; he is as fair and square as +Euclid; a real honest, strong thinker, and one that knows what he is +talking about,--for he has tried all sorts of religions, pretty much. +He tells us that the Roman Catholic Church is the one 'through which +alone we can hope for heaven.' The other is by a worthy Episcopal +rector, who appears to write as if he were in earnest, and he calls +the Papacy the 'Devil's Masterpiece,' and talks about the 'Satanic +scheme' of that very Church 'through which alone,' as Mr. Brownson +tells us, 'we can hope for heaven' + +What's the use in our caring about hard words after this,-- +'atheists,' heretics, infidels, and the like? They're, after all, +only the cinders picked up out of those heaps of ashes round the +stumps of the old stakes where they used to burn men, women, and +children for not thinking just like other folks. They 'll 'crock' +your fingers, but they can't burn us. + +"Doctors are the best-natured people in the world, except when they +get fighting with each other. And they have some advantages over +you. You inherit your notions from a set of priests that had no +wives and no children, or none to speak of, and so let their humanity +die out of them. It did n't seem much to them to condemn a few +thousand millions of people to purgatory or worse for a mistake of +judgment. They didn't know what it was to have a child look up in +their faces and say 'Father!' It will take you a hundred or two more +years to get decently humanized, after so many centuries of de- +humanizing celibacy. + +"Besides, though our libraries are, perhaps, not commonly quite so +big as yours, God opens one book to physicians that a good many of +you don't know much about,--the Book of Life. That is none of your +dusty folios with black letters between pasteboard and leather, but +it is printed in bright red type, and the binding of it is warm and +tender to every touch. They reverence that book as one of the +Almighty's infallible revelations. They will insist on reading you +lessons out of it, whether you call them names or not. These will +always be lessons of charity. No doubt, nothing can be more +provoking to listen to. But do beg your folks to remember that the +Smithfield fires are all out, and that the cinders are very dirty and +not in the least dangerous. They'd a great deal better be civil, and +not be throwing old proverbs in the doctors' faces, when they say +that the man of the old monkish notions is one thing and the man they +watch from his cradle to his coffin is something very different." + +It has cost a good deal of trouble to work the Doctor's talk up into +this formal shape. Some of his sentences have been rounded off for +him, and the whole brought into a more rhetorical form than it could +have pretended to, if taken as it fell from his lips. But the exact +course of his remarks has been followed, and as far as possible his +expressions have been retained. Though given in the form of a +discourse, it must be remembered that this was a conversation, much +more fragmentary and colloquial than it seems as just read. + +The Reverend Doctor was very far from taking offence at the old +physician's freedom of speech. He knew him to be honest, kind, +charitable, self-denying, wherever any sorrow was to be alleviated, +always reverential, with a cheerful trust in the great Father of all +mankind. To be sure, his senior deacon, old Deacon Shearer,--who +seemed to have got his Scripture-teachings out of the "Vinegar +Bible," (the one where Vineyard is misprinted Vinegar; which a good +many people seem to have adopted as the true reading,)--his senior +deacon had called Dr. Kittredge an "infidel." But the Reverend +Doctor could not help feeling, that, unless the text, "By their +fruits ye shall know them," were an interpolation, the Doctor was the +better Christian of the two. Whatever his senior deacon might think +about it, he said to himself that he shouldn't be surprised if he met +the Doctor in heaven yet, inquiring anxiously after old Deacon +Shearer. + +He was on the point of expressing himself very frankly to the Doctor, +with that benevolent smile on his face which had sometimes come near +giving offence to the readers of the "Vinegar" edition, but he saw +that the physician's attention had been arrested by Elsie. He looked +in the same direction himself, and could not help being struck by her +attitude and expression. There was something singularly graceful in +the curves of her neck and the rest of her figure, but she was so +perfectly still that it seemed as if she were hardly breathing. Her +eyes were fixed on the young girl with whom Mr. Bernard was talking. +He had often noticed their brilliancy, but now it seemed to him that +they appeared dull, and the look on her features was as of some +passion which had missed its stroke. Mr. Bernard's companion seemed +unconscious that she was the object of this attention, and was +listening to the young master as if he had succeeded in making +himself very agreeable. + +Of course Dick Veneer had not mistaken the game that was going on. +The schoolmaster meant to make Elsie jealous,--and he had done it. +That 's it: get her savage first, and then come wheedling round her, +--a sure trick, if he isn't headed off somehow. But Dick saw well +enough that he had better let Elsie alone just now, and thought the +best way of killing the evening would be to amuse himself in a little +lively talk with Mrs. Blanche Creamer, and incidentally to show Elsie +that he could make himself acceptable to other women, if not to +herself. + +The Doctor presently went up to Elsie, determined to engage her in +conversation and get her out of her thoughts, which he saw, by her +look, were dangerous. Her father had been on the point of leaving +Helen Darley to go to her, but felt easy enough when he saw the old +Doctor at her side, and so went on talking. The Reverend Doctor, +being now left alone, engaged the Widow Rowens, who put the best face +on her vexation she could, but was devoting herself to all the +underground deities for having been such a fool as to ask that pale- +faced thing from the Institute to fill up her party. + +There is no space left to report the rest of the conversation. If +there was anything of any significance in it, it will turn up by and +by, no doubt. At ten o'clock the Reverend Doctor called Miss Letty, +who had no idea it was so late; Mr. Bernard gave his arm to Helen; +Mr. Richard saw to Mrs. Blanche Creamer; the Doctor gave Elsie a +cautioning look, and went off alone, thoughtful; Dudley Venner and +his daughter got into their carriage and were whirled away. The +Widow's gambit was played, and she had not won the game. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE WILD HUNTSMAN. + +The young master had not forgotten the old Doctor's cautions. +Without attributing any great importance to the warning he had given +him, Mr. Bernard had so far complied with his advice that he was +becoming a pretty good shot with the pistol. It was an amusement as +good as many others to practise, and he had taken a fancy to it after +the first few days. + +The popping of a pistol at odd hours in the backyard of the Institute +was a phenomenon more than sufficiently remarkable to be talked about +in Rockland. The viscous intelligence of a country-village is not +easily stirred by the winds which ripple the fluent thought of great +cities, but it holds every straw and entangles every insect that +lights upon it. It soon became rumored in the town that the young +master was a wonderful shot with the pistol. Some said he could hit +a fo'pence-ha'penny at three rod; some, that he had shot a swallow, +flying, with a single ball; some, that he snuffed a candle five times +out of six at ten paces, and that he could hit any button in a man's +coat he wanted to. In other words, as in all such cases, all the +common feats were ascribed to him, as the current jokes of the day +are laid at the door of any noted wit, however innocent he may be of +them. + +In the natural course of things, Mr. Richard Venner, who had by this +time made some acquaintances, as we have seen, among that class of +the population least likely to allow a live cinder of gossip to go +out for want of air, had heard incidentally that the master up there +at the Institute was all the time practising with a pistol, that they +say he can snuff a candle at ten rods, (that was Mrs. Blanche +Creamer's version,) and that he could hit anybody he wanted to right +in the eye, as far as he could see the white of it. + +Dick did not like the sound of all this any too well. Without +believing more than half of it, there was enough to make the Yankee +schoolmaster too unsafe to be trifled with. However, shooting at a +mark was pleasant work enough; he had no particular objection to it +himself. Only he did not care so much for those little popgun +affairs that a man carries in his pocket, and with which you could +n't shoot a fellow,--a robber, say,--without getting the muzzle under +his nose. Pistols for boys; long-range rifles for men. There was +such a gun lying in a closet with the fowling-pieces. He would go +out into the fields and see what he could do as a marksman. + +The nature of the mark which Dick chose for experimenting upon was +singular. He had found some panes of glass which had been removed +from an old sash, and he placed these successively before his target, +arranging them at different angles. He found that a bullet would go +through the glass without glancing or having its force materially +abated. It was an interesting fact in physics, and might prove of +some practical significance hereafter. Nobody knows what may turn up +to render these out-of-the-way facts useful. All this was done in a +quiet way in one of the bare spots high up the side of The Mountain. +He was very thoughtful in taking the precaution to get so far away; +rifle-bullets are apt to glance and come whizzing about people's +ears, if they are fired in the neighborhood of houses. Dick +satisfied himself that he could be tolerably sure of hitting a pane +of glass at a distance of thirty rods, more or less, and that, if +there happened to be anything behind it, the glass would not +materially alter the force or direction of the bullet. + +About this time it occurred to him also that there was an old +accomplishment of his which he would be in danger of losing for want +of practice, if he did not take some opportunity to try his hand and +regain its cunning, if it had begun to be diminished by disuse. For +his first trial, he chose an evening when the moon was shining, and +after the hour when the Rockland people were like to be stirring +abroad. He was so far established now that he could do much as he +pleased without exciting remark. + +The prairie horse he rode, the mustang of the Pampas, wild as he was, +had been trained to take part in at least one exercise. This was the +accomplishment in which Mr. Richard now proposed to try himself. For +this purpose he sought the implement of which, as it may be +remembered, he had once made an incidental use,--the lasso, or long +strip of hide with a slip-noose at the end of it. He had been +accustomed to playing with such a thong from his boyhood, and had +become expert in its use in capturing wild cattle in the course of +his adventures. Unfortunately, there were no wild bulls likely to be +met with in the neighborhood, to become the subjects of his skill. A +stray cow in the road, an ox or a horse in a pasture, must serve his +turn,--dull beasts, but moving marks to aim at, at any rate. + +Never, since he had galloped in the chase over the Pampas, had Dick +Venner felt such a sense of life and power as when he struck the long +spurs into his wild horse's flanks, and dashed along the road with +the lasso lying like a coiled snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful +hands, the silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but not +like that leaving a wound behind it,--sudden as a pistol-shot, but +without the telltale explosion,--is one of the most fearful and +mysterious weapons that arm the hand of man. The old Romans knew how +formidable, even in contest with a gladiator equipped with sword, +helmet, and shield, was the almost naked retiarius, with his net in +one hand and his three-pronged javelin in the other. Once get a net +over a man's head, or a cord round his neck, or, what is more +frequently done nowadays, bonnet him by knocking his hat down over +his eyes, and he is at the mercy of his opponent. Our soldiers who +served against the Mexicans found this out too well. Many a poor +fellow has been lassoed by the fierce riders from the plains, and +fallen an easy victim to the captor who had snared him in the fatal +noose. + +But, imposing as the sight of the wild huntsmen of the Pampas might +have been, Dick could not help laughing at the mock sublimity of his +situation, as he tried his first experiment on an unhappy milky +mother who had strayed from her herd and was wandering disconsolately +along the road, laying the dust, as slue went, with thready streams +from her swollen, swinging udders. "Here goes the Don at the +windmill!" said Dick, and tilted full speed at her, whirling the +lasso round his head as he rode. The creature swerved to one side of +the way, as the wild horse and his rider came rushing down upon her, +and presently turned and ran, as only cows and it would n't be safe +to say it--can run. Just before he passed,--at twenty or thirty feet +from her,--the lasso shot from his hand, uncoiling as it flew, and in +an instant its loop was round her horns. "Well cast!" said Dick, as +he galloped up to her side and dexterously disengaged the lasso. +"Now for a horse on the run!" + +He had the good luck to find one, presently, grazing in a pasture at +the road-side. Taking down the rails of the fence at one point, he +drove the horse into the road and gave chase. It was a lively young +animal enough, and was easily roused to a pretty fast pace. As his +gallop grew more and more rapid, Dick gave the reins to the mustang, +until the two horses stretched themselves out in their longest +strides. If the first feat looked like play, the one he was now to +attempt had a good deal the appearance of real work. He touched the +mustang with the spur, and in a few fierce leaps found himself nearly +abreast of the frightened animal he was chasing. Once more he +whirled the lasso round and round over his head, and then shot it +forth, as the rattlesnake shoots his head from the loops against +which it rests. The noose was round the horse's neck, and in another +instant was tightened so as almost to stop his breath. The prairie +horse knew the trick of the cord, and leaned away from the captive, +so as to keep the thong tensely stretched between his neck and the +peak of the saddle to which it was fastened. Struggling was of no +use with a halter round his windpipe, and he very soon began to +tremble and stagger,--blind, no doubt, and with a roaring in his ears +as of a thousand battle-trumpets,--at any rate, subdued and helpless. +That was enough. Dick loosened his lasso, wound it up again, laid it +like a pet snake in a coil at his saddle-bow, turned his horse, and +rode slowly along towards the mansion-house. + +The place had never looked more stately and beautiful to him than as +he now saw it in the moonlight. The undulations of the land,--the +grand mountain screen which sheltered the mansion from the northern +blasts, rising with all its hanging forests and parapets of naked +rock high towards the heavens,--the ancient mansion, with its square +chimneys, and bodyguard of old trees, and cincture of low walls with +marble-pillared gateways,--the fields, with their various coverings, +--the beds of flowers,--the plots of turf, one with a gray column in +its centre bearing a sundial on which the rays of the moon were idly +shining, another with a white stone and a narrow ridge of turf,--over +all these objects, harmonized with all their infinite details into +one fair whole by the moonlight, the prospective heir, as he deemed +himself, looked with admiring eyes. + +But while he looked, the thought rose up in his mind like waters from +a poisoned fountain, that there was a deep plot laid to cheat him of +the inheritance which by a double claim he meant to call his own. +Every day this ice-cold beauty, this dangerous, handsome cousin of +his, went up to that place,--that usher's girl-trap. Everyday,-- +regularly now,--it used to be different. Did she go only to get out +of his, her cousin's, reach? Was she not rather becoming more and +more involved in the toils of this plotting Yankee? + +If Mr. Bernard had shown himself at that moment a few rods in +advance, the chances are that in less than one minute he would have +found himself with a noose round his neck, at the heels of a mounted +horseman. Providence spared him for the present. Mr. Richard rode +his horse quietly round to the stable, put him up, and proceeded +towards the house. He got to his bed without disturbing the family, +but could not sleep. The idea had fully taken possession of his mind +that a deep intrigue was going on which would end by bringing Elsie +and the schoolmaster into relations fatal to all his own hopes. With +that ingenuity which always accompanies jealousy, he tortured every +circumstance of the last few weeks so as to make it square with this +belief. From this vein of thought he naturally passed to a +consideration of every possible method by which the issue he feared +might be avoided. + +Mr. Richard talked very plain language with himself in all these +inward colloquies. Supposing it came to the worst, what could be +done then? First, an accident might happen to the schoolmaster which +should put a complete and final check upon his projects and +contrivances. The particular accident which might interrupt his +career must, evidently, be determined by circumstances; but it must +be of a nature to explain itself without the necessity of any +particular person's becoming involved in the matter. It would be +unpleasant to go into particulars; but everybody knows well enough +that men sometimes get in the way of a stray bullet, and that young +persons occasionally do violence to themselves in various modes,--by +firearms, suspension, and other means,--in consequence of +disappointment in love, perhaps, oftener than from other motives. +There was still another kind of accident which might serve his +purpose. If anything should happen to Elsie, it would be the most +natural thing in the world that his uncle should adopt him, his +nephew and only near relation, as his heir. Unless, indeed, uncle +Dudley should take it into his head to marry again. In that case, +where would he, Dick, be? This was the most detestable complication +which he could conceive of. And yet he had noticed--he could not +help noticing--that his uncle had been very attentive to, and, as it +seemed, very much pleased with, that young woman from the school. +What did that mean? Was it possible that he was going to take a +fancy to her? + +It made him wild to think of all the several contingencies which +might defraud him of that good-fortune which seemed but just now +within his grasp. He glared in the darkness at imaginary faces: +sometimes at that of the handsome, treacherous schoolmaster; +sometimes at that of the meek-looking, but no doubt, scheming, lady- +teacher; sometimes at that of the dark girl whom he was ready to make +his wife; sometimes at that of his much respected uncle, who, of +course, could not be allowed to peril the fortunes of his relatives +by forming a new connection. It was a frightful perplexity in which +he found himself, because there was no one single life an accident to +which would be sufficient to insure the fitting and natural course of +descent to the great Dudley property. If it had been a simple +question of helping forward a casualty to any one person, there was +nothing in Dick's habits of thought and living to make that a serious +difficulty. He had been so much with lawless people, that a life +between his wish and his object seemed only as an obstacle to be +removed, provided the object were worth the risk and trouble. But if +there were two or three lives in the way, manifestly that altered the +case. + +His Southern blood was getting impatient. There was enough of the +New-Englander about him to make him calculate his chances before he +struck; but his plans were liable to be defeated at any moment by a +passionate impulse such as the dark-hued races of Southern Europe and +their descendants are liable to. He lay in his bed, sometimes +arranging plans to meet the various difficulties already mentioned, +sometimes getting into a paroxysm of blind rage in the perplexity of +considering what object he should select as the one most clearly in +his way. On the whole, there could be no doubt where the most +threatening of all his embarrassments lay. It was in the probable +growing relation between Elsie and the schoolmaster. If it should +prove, as it seemed likely, that there was springing up a serious +attachment tending to a union between them, he knew what he should +do, if he was not quite so sure how he should do it. + +There was one thing at least which might favor his projects, and +which, at any rate, would serve to amuse him. He could, by a little +quiet observation, find out what were the schoolmaster's habits of +life: whether he had any routine which could be calculated upon; and +under what circumstances a strictly private interview of a few +minutes with him might be reckoned on, in case it should be +desirable. He could also very probably learn some facts about Elsie. +whether the young man was in the habit of attending her on her way +home from school; whether she stayed about the schoolroom after the +other girls had gone; and any incidental matters of interest which +might present themselves. + +He was getting more and more restless for want of some excitement. A +mad gallop, a visit to Mrs. Blanche Creamer, who had taken such a +fancy to him, or a chat with the Widow Rowens, who was very lively in +her talk, for all her sombre colors, and , reminded him a good deal +of same of his earlier friends, the senoritas,--all these were +distractions, to be sure, but not enough to keep his fiery spirit +from fretting itself in longings for more dangerous excitements. The +thought of getting a knowledge of all Mr. Bernard's ways, so that he +would be in his power at any moment, was a happy one. + +For some days after this he followed Elsie at a long distance behind, +to watch her until she got to the schoolhouse. One day he saw Mr. +Bernard join her: a mere accident, very probably, for it was only +once this happened. She came on her homeward way alone,--quite apart +from the groups of girls who strolled out of the schoolhouse yard in +company. Sometimes she was behind them all,--which was suggestive. +Could she have stayed to meet the schoolmaster? + +If he could have smuggled himself into the school, he would have +liked to watch her there, and see if there was not some understanding +between her and the master which betrayed itself by look or word. +But this was beyond the limits of his audacity, and he had to content +himself with such cautious observations as could be made at a +distance. With the aid of a pocket-glass he could make out persons +without the risk of being observed himself. + +Mr. Silos Peckham's corps of instructors was not expected to be off +duty or to stand at ease for any considerable length of time. +Sometimes Mr. Bernard, who had more freedom than the rest, would go +out for a ramble in the daytime, but more frequently it would be in +the evening, after the hour of "retiring," as bedtime was elegantly +termed by the young ladies of the Apollinean Institute. He would +then not unfrequently walk out alone in the common roads, or climb up +the sides of The Mountain, which seemed to be one of his favorite +resorts. Here, of course, it was impossible to follow him with the +eye at a distance. Dick had a hideous, gnawing suspicion that +somewhere in these deep shades the schoolmaster might meet Elsie, +whose evening wanderings he knew so well. But of this he was not +able to assure himself. Secrecy was necessary to his present plans, +and he could not compromise himself by over-eager curiosity. One +thing he learned with certainty. The master returned, after his walk +one evening, and entered the building where his room was situated. +Presently a light betrayed the window of his apartment. From a +wooded bank, some thirty or forty rods from this building, Dick +Venner could see the interior of the chamber, and watch the master as +he sat at his desk, the light falling strongly upon his face, intent +upon the book or manuscript before him. Dick contemplated him very +long in this attitude. The sense of watching his every motion, +himself meanwhile utterly unseen, was delicious. How little the +master was thinking what eyes were on him! + +Well,--there were two things quite certain. One was, that, if he +chose, he could meet the schoolmaster alone, either in the road or in +a more solitary place, if he preferred to watch his chance for an +evening or two. The other was, that he commanded his position, as he +sat at his desk in the evening, in such a way that there would be +very little difficulty,--so far as that went; of course, however, +silence is always preferable to noise, and there is a great +difference in the marks left by different casualties. Very likely +nothing would come of all this espionage; but, at any rate, the first +thing to be done with a man you want to have in your power is to +learn his habits. + +Since the tea-party at the Widow Rowens's, Elsie had been more fitful +and moody than ever. Dick understood all this well enough, you know. +It was the working of her jealousy against that young schoolgirl to +whom the master had devoted himself for the sake of piquing the +heiress of the Dudley mansion. Was it possible, in any way, to +exasperate her irritable nature against him, and in this way to +render her more accessible to his own advances? It was difficult to +influence her at all. She endured his company without seeming to +enjoy it. She watched him with that strange look of hers, sometimes +as if she were on her guard against him, sometimes as if she would +like to strike at him as in that fit of childish passion. She +ordered him about with a haughty indifference which reminded him of +his own way with the dark-eyed women whom he had known so well of +old. All this added a secret pleasure to the other motives he had +for worrying her with jealous suspicions. He knew she brooded +silently on any grief that poisoned her comfort,--that she fed on it, +as it were, until it ran with every drop of blood in her veins,--and +that, except in some paroxysm of rage, of which he himself was not +likely the second time to be the object, or in some deadly vengeance +wrought secretly, against which he would keep a sharp lookout, so far +as he was concerned, she had no outlet for her dangerous, smouldering +passions. + +Beware of the woman who cannot find free utterance for all her stormy +inner life either in words or song! So long as a woman can talk, +there is nothing she cannot bear. If she cannot have a companion to +listen to her woes, and has no musical utterance, vocal or +instrumental,--then, if she is of the real woman sort, and has a few +heartfuls of wild blood in her, and you have done her a wrong,-- +double-bolt the door which she may enter on noiseless slipper at +midnight,--look twice before you taste of any cup whose draught the +shadow of her hand may have darkened! + +But let her talk, and, above all, cry, or, if she is one of the +coarser-grained tribe, give her the run of all the red-hot expletives +in the language, and let her blister her lips with them until she is +tired, she will sleep like a lamb after it, and you may take a cup of +coffee from her without stirring it up to look for its sediment. + +So, if she can sing, or play on any musical instrument, all her +wickedness will run off through her throat or the tips of her +fingers. How many tragedies find their peaceful catastrophe in +fierce roulades and strenuous bravuras! How many murders are +executed in double-quick time upon the keys which stab the air with +their dagger-strokes of sound! What would our civilization be +without the piano? Are not Erard and Broadwood and Chickering the +true humanizers of our time? Therefore do I love to hear the all- +pervading tum tum jarring the walls of little parlors in houses with +double door-plates on their portals, looking out on streets and +courts which to know is to be unknown, and where to exist is not to +live, according to any true definition of living. Therefore complain +I not of modern degeneracy, when, even from the open window of the +small unlovely farmhouse, tenanted by the hard-handed man of bovine +flavors and the flat-patterned woman of broken-down countenance, +issue the same familiar sounds. For who knows that Almira, but for +these keys, which throb away her wild impulses in harmless discords +would not have been floating, dead, in the brown stream which slides +through the meadows by her father's door,--or living, with that other +current which runs beneath the gas-lights over the slimy pavement, +choking with wretched weeds that were once in spotless flower? + +Poor Elsie! She never sang nor played. She never shaped her inner +life in words: such utterance was as much denied to her nature as +common articulate speech to the deaf mute. Her only language must be +in action. Watch her well by day and by night, old Sophy! watch her +well! or the long line of her honored name may close in shame, and +the stately mansion of the Dudleys remain a hissing and a reproach +till its roof is buried in its cellar! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +ON HIS TRACKS. + +"Able!" said the old Doctor, one morning, "after you've harnessed +Caustic, come into the study a few minutes, will you?" + +Abel nodded. He was a man of few words, and he knew that the "will +you" did not require an answer, being the true New-England way of +rounding the corners of an employer's order,--a tribute to the +personal independence of an American citizen. + +The hired man came into the study in the course of a few minutes. +His face was perfectly still, and he waited to be spoken to; but the +Doctor's eye detected a certain meaning in his expression, which +looked as if he had something to communicate. + +"Well?" said the Doctor. + +"He's up to mischief o' some kind, I guess," said Abel. "I jest +happened daown by the mansion-haouse last night, 'n' he come aout o' +the gate on that queer-lookin' creator' o' his. I watched him, 'n' +he rid, very slow, all raoun' by the Institoot, 'n' acted as ef he +was spyin' abaout. He looks to me like a man that's calc'latin' to +do some kind of ill-turn to somebody. I should n't like to have him +raoun' me, 'f there wa'n't a pitchfork or an eel-spear or some sech +weep'n within reach. He may be all right; but I don't like his +looks, 'n' I don't see what he's lurkin' raoun' the Institoot for, +after folks is abed." + +"Have you watched him pretty close for the last few days?" said the +Doctor. + +"W'll, yes,--I've had my eye on him consid'ble o' the time. I haf to +be pooty shy abaout it, or he'll find aout th't I'm on his tracks. I +don' want him to get a spite ag'inst me, 'f I c'n help it; he looks +to me like one o' them kind that kerries what they call slung-shot, +'n' hits ye on the side o' th' head with 'em so suddin y' never know +what hurts ye." + +"Why," said the Doctor, sharply,--"have you ever seen him with any +such weapon about him?" + +"W'll, no,--I caan't say that I hev," Abel answered. "On'y he looks +kin' o' dangerous. Maybe he's all jest 'z he ought to be,--I caan't +say that he a'n't,--but he's aout late nights, 'n' lurkin' raonn' +jest 'z ef he was spyin' somebody, 'n' somehaow I caan't help +mistrustin' them Portagee-lookin' fellahs. I caan't keep the run o' +this chap all the time; but I've a notion that old black woman daown +'t the mansion-haouse knows 'z much abaout him 'z anybody." + +The Doctor paused a moment, after hearing this report from his +private detective, and then got into his chaise, and turned Caustic's +head in the direction of the Dudley mansion. He had been suspicious +of Dick from the first. He did not like his mixed blood, nor his +looks, nor his ways. He had formed a conjecture about his projects +early. He had made a shrewd guess as to the probable jealousy Dick +would feel of the schoolmaster, had found out something of his +movements, and had cautioned Mr. Bernard,--as we have seen. He felt +an interest in the young man,--a student of his own profession, an +intelligent and ingenuously unsuspecting young fellow, who had been +thrown by accident into the companionship or the neighborhood of two +persons, one of whom he knew to be dangerous, and the other he +believed instinctively might be capable of crime. + +The Doctor rode down to the Dudley mansion solely for the sake of +seeing old Sophy. He was lucky enough to find her alone in her +kitchen. He began taking with her as a physician; he wanted to know +how her rheumatism had been. The shrewd old woman saw through all +that with her little beady black eyes. It was something quite +different he had come for, and old Sophy answered very briefly for +her aches and ails. + +"Old folks' bones a'n't like young folks'," she said. "It's the +Lord's doin's, 'n' 't a'n't much matter. I sha'n' be long roan' this +kitchen. It's the young Missis, Doctor,--it 's our Elsie,--it 's the +baby, as we use' t' call her,--don' you remember, Doctor? Seventeen +year ago, 'n' her poor mother cryin' for her,--'Where is she? where +is she? Let me see her! '--'n' how I run up-stairs,--I could run +then,--'n' got the coral necklace 'n' put it round her little neck, +'n' then showed her to her mother,--'n' how her mother looked at her, +'n' looked, 'n' then put out her poor thin fingers 'n' lifted the +necklace,--'n' fell right back on her piller, as white as though she +was laid out to bury?" + +The Doctor answered her by silence and a look of grave assent. He +had never chosen to let old Sophy dwell upon these matters, for +obvious reasons. The girl must not grow up haunted by perpetual +fears and prophecies, if it were possible to prevent it. + +"Well, how has Elsie seemed of late?" he said, after this brief +pause. + +The old woman shook her head. Then she looked up at the Doctor so +steadily and searchingly that the diamond eyes of Elsie herself could +hardly have pierced more deeply. + +The Doctor raised his head, by his habitual movement, and met the old +woman's look with his own calm and scrutinizing gaze, sharpened by +the glasses through which he now saw her. + +Sophy spoke presently in an awed tone, as if telling a vision. + +"We shall be havin' trouble before long. The' 's somethin' comin' +from the Lord. I've had dreams, Doctor. It's many a year I've been +a-dreamin', but now they're comin' over 'n' over the same thing. +Three times I've dreamed one thing, Doctor,--one thing! " + +"And what was that?" the Doctor said, with that shade of curiosity in +his tone which a metaphysician would probably say is an index of a +certain tendency to belief in the superstition to which the question +refers. + +"I ca'n' jestly tell y' what it was, Doctor," the old woman answered, +as if bewildered and trying to clear up her recollections; "but it +was somethin' fearful, with a great noise 'n' a great cryin' o' +people,--like the Las' Day, Doctor! The Lord have mercy on my poor +chil', 'n' take care of her, if anything happens! But I's feared +she'll never live to see the Las' Day, 'f 't don' come pooty quick." + +Poor Sophy, only the third generation from cannibalism, was, not +unnaturally, somewhat confused in her theological notions. Some of +the Second-Advent preachers had been about, and circulated their +predictions among the kitchen--population of Rockland. This was the +way in which it happened that she mingled her fears in such a strange +manner with their doctrines. + +The Doctor answered solemnly, that of the day and hour we knew not, +but it became us to be always ready. --"Is there anything going on in +the household different from common?" + +Old Sophy's wrinkled face looked as full of life and intelligence, +when she turned it full upon the Doctor, as if she had slipped off +her infirmities and years like an outer garment. All those fine +instincts of observation which came straight to her from her savage +grandfather looked out of her little eyes. She had a kind of faith +that the Doctor was a mighty conjurer, who, if he would, could +bewitch any of them. She had relieved her feelings by her long talk +with the minister, but the Doctor was the immediate adviser of the +family, and had watched them through all their troubles. Perhaps he +could tell them what to do. She had but one real object of affection +in the world,--this child that she had tended from infancy to +womanhood. Troubles were gathering thick round her; how soon they +would break upon her, and blight or destroy her, no one could tell; +but there was nothing in all the catalogue of terrors which might not +come upon the household at any moment. Her own wits had sharpened +themselves in keeping watch by day and night, and her face had +forgotten its age in the excitement which gave life to its features. + +"Doctor," old Sophy said, "there's strange things goin' on here by +night and by day. I don' like that man,--that Dick,--I never liked +him. He giv' me some o' these things I ' got on; I take 'em 'cos I +know it make him mad, if I no take 'em; I wear 'em, so that he need +n' feel as if I did n' like him; but, Doctor, I hate him,--jes' as +much as a member of the church has the Lord's leave to hate anybody." + +Her eyes sparkled with the old savage light, as if her ill-will to +Mr. Richard Veneer might perhaps go a little farther than the +Christian limit she had assigned. But remember that her grandfather +was in the habit of inviting his friends to dine with him upon the +last enemy he had bagged, and that her grandmother's teeth were filed +down to points, so that they were as sharp as a shark's. + +"What is that you have seen about Mr. Richard Veneer that gives you +such a spite against him, Sophy?" asked the Doctor. + +"What I' seen 'bout Dick Veneer?" she replied, fiercely. "I'll tell +y' what I' seen. Dick wan's to marry our Elsie,--that 's what he +wan's; 'n' he don' love her, Doctor,--he hates her, Doctor, as bad as +I hate him! He wan's to marry our Elsie, In' live here in the big +house, 'n' have nothin' to do but jes' lay still 'n' watch. Massa +Venner 'n' see how long 't Ill take him to die, 'n' 'f he don' die +fas' 'puff, help him some way t' die fasser !---Come close up t' me, +Doctor! I wan' t' tell you somethin' I tol' th' minister t' other +day. Th' minister, he come down 'n' prayed 'n' talked good,--he's a +good man, that Doctor Honeywood, 'n' I tol' him all 'bout our Elsie, +but he did n' tell nobody what to do to stop all what I ' been +dreamin' about happenin'. Come close up to me, Doctor!" + +The Doctor drew his chair close up to that of the old woman. + +"Doctor, nobody mus'n' never marry our Elsie 's longs she lives! +Nobody mus' n' never live with Elsie but ol Sophy; 'n' ol Sophy won't +never die 's long 's Elsie 's alive to be took care of. But I's +feared, Doctor, I's greatly feared Elsie wan' to marry somebody. +The' 's a young gen'l'm'n up at that school where she go,--so some of +'em tells me, 'n' she loves t' see him 'n' talk wi' him, 'n' she +talks about him when she 's asleep sometimes. She mus 'n' never +marry nobody, Doctor! If she do, he die, certain!" + +"If she has a fancy for the young man up at the school there," the +Doctor said, "I shouldn't think there would be much danger from +Dick." + +"Doctor, nobody know nothin' 'bout Elsie but of Sophy. She no like +any other creator' th't ever drawed the bref o' life. If she ca'n' +marry one man 'cos she love him, she marry another man 'cos she hate +him." + +"Marry a man because she hates him, Sophy? No woman ever did such a +thing as that, or ever will do it." + +"Who tol' you Elsie was a woman, Doctor?" said old Sophy, with a +flash of strange intelligence in her eyes. + +The Doctor's face showed that he was startled. The old woman could +not know much about Elsie that he did not know; but what strange +superstition had got into her head, he was puzzled to guess. He had +better follow Sophy's lead and find out what she meant. + +"I should call Elsie a woman, and a very handsome one," he said. +"You don't mean that she has any mark about her, except--you know-- +under the necklace?" + +The old woman resented the thought of any deformity about her +darling. + +"I did n' say she had nothin'--but j es' that--you know. My beauty +have anything ugly? She's the beautifullest-shaped lady that ever +had a shinin' silk gown drawed over her shoulders. On'y she a'n't +like no other woman in none of her ways. She don't cry 'n' laugh +like other women. An' she ha'n' got the same kind o' feelin's as +other women.---Do you know that young gen'1'm'n up at the school, +Doctor?" + +"Yes, Sophy, I've met him sometimes. He's a very nice sort of young +man, handsome, too, and I don't much wonder Elsie takes to him. Tell +me, Sophy, what do you think would happen, if he should chance to +fall in love with Elsie, and she with him, and he should marry her?" + +"Put your ear close to my lips, Doctor, dear!" She whispered a +little to the Doctor, then added aloud, "He die,--that's all." + +"But surely, Sophy, you a'n't afraid to have Dick marry her, if she +would have him for any reason, are you? He can take care of himself, +if anybody can." + +"Doctor!" Sophy answered, "nobody can take care of hisself that live +wi' Elsie! Nobody never in all this worl' mus' live wi' Elsie but of +Sophy, I tell you. You don' think I care for Dick? What do I care, +if Dick Venner die? He wam's to marry our Elsie so 's to live in the +big house 'n' get all the money 'n' all the silver things 'n' all the +chists full o' linen 'n' beautiful clothes. That's what Dick wan's. +An' he hates Elsie 'cos she don' like him. But if he marry Elsie, +she 'll make him die some wrong way or other, 'n' they'll take her +'n' hang her, or he'll get mad with her 'n' choke her. --Oh, I know +his chokin' tricks!--he don' leave his keys roun' for nothin'" + +"What's that you say, Sophy? Tell me what you mean by all that." + +So poor Sophy had to explain certain facts not in all respects to her +credit. She had taken the opportunity of his absence to look about +his chamber, and, having found a key in one of his drawers, had +applied it to a trunk, and, finding that it opened the trunk, had +made a kind of inspection for contraband articles, and, seeing the +end of a leather thong, had followed it up until she saw that it +finished with a noose, which, from certain appearances, she inferred +to have seen service of at least doubtful nature. An unauthorized +search; but old Sophy considered that a game of life and death was +going on in the household, and that she was bound to look out for her +darling. + +The Doctor paused a moment to think over this odd piece of +information. Without sharing Sophy's belief as to the kind of use +this mischievous-looking piece of property had been put to, it was +certainly very odd that Dick should have such a thing at the bottom +of his trunk. The Doctor remembered reading or hearing something +about the lasso and the lariat and the bolas, and had an indistinct +idea that they had been sometimes used as weapons of warfare or +private revenge; but they were essentially a huntsman's implements, +after all, and it was not very strange that this young man had +brought one of them with him. Not strange, perhaps, but worth +noting. + +"Do you really think Dick means mischief to anybody, that he has such +dangerous-looking things?" the Doctor said, presently. + +"I tell you, Doctor. Dick means to have Elsie. If he ca'n' get her, +he never let nobody else have her! Oh, Dick 's a dark man, Doctor! +I know him! I 'member him when he was little boy,--he always cunin'. +I think he mean mischief to somebody. He come home late nights,-- +come in softly,--oh, I hear him! I lay awake, 'n' got sharp ears,--I +hear the cats walkin' over the roofs,--'n' I hear Dick Veneer, when +he comes up in his stockin'-feet as still as a cat. I think he mean' +mischief to somebody. I no like his looks these las' days. --Is that +a very pooty gen'l'm'n up at the schoolhouse, Doctor? " + +"I told you he was good-looking. What if he is?" + +"I should like to see him, Doctor,--I should like to see the pooty +gen'l'm'n that my poor Elsie loves. She mus 'n' never marry nobody, +--but, oh, Doctor, I should like to see him, 'n' jes' think a little +how it would ha' been, if the Lord had n' been so hard on Elsie." + +She wept and wrung her hands. The kind Doctor was touched, and left +her a moment to her thoughts. + +"And how does Mr. Dudley Veneer take all this?" he said, by way of +changing the subject a little. + +"Oh, Massa Veneer, he good man, but he don' know nothin' 'bout Elsie, +as of Sophy do. I keep close by her; I help her when she go to bed, +'n' set by her sometime when she--'sleep; I come to her in th' +mornin' 'n' help her put on her things." --Then, in a whisper;-- +"Doctor, Elsie lets of Sophy take off that necklace for her. What +you think she do, 'f anybody else tech it?" + +"I don't know, I'm sure, Sophy,--strike the person, perhaps." + +"Oh, yes, strike 'em! but not with her han's, Doctor!" --The old +woman's significant pantomime must be guessed at. + +"But you haven't told me, Sophy, what Mr. Dudley Veneer thinks of his +nephew, nor whether he has any notion that Dick wants to marry +Elsie." + +"I tell you. Massa Venner, he good man, but he no see nothin' 'bout +what goes on here in the house. He sort o' broken-hearted, you +know,--sort o' giv up,--don' know what to do wi' Elsie, 'xcep' say +'Yes, yes.' Dick always look smilin' 'n' behave well before him. +One time I thought Massa Veneer b'lieve Dick was goin' to take to +Elsie; but now he don' seem to take much notice,--he kin' o' stupid-' +like 'bout sech things. It's trouble, Doctor; 'cos Massa Veneer +bright man naterally,--'n' he's got a great heap o' books. I don' +think Massa Veneer never been jes' heself sence Elsie 's born. He +done all he know how,--but, Doctor, that wa'n' a great deal. You +men-folks don' know nothin' 'bout these young gals; 'n' 'f you knowed +all the young gals that ever lived, y' would n' know nothin' 'bout +our Elsie." + +"No,--but, Sophy, what I want to know is, whether you think Mr. +Veneer has any kind of suspicion about his nephew,--whether he has +any notion that he's a dangerous sort of fellow,--or whether he feels +safe to have him about, or has even taken a sort of fancy to him." + +"Lar' bless you, Doctor, Massa Veneer no more idee 'f any mischief +'bout Dick than he has 'bout you or me. Y' see, he very fond o' the +Cap'n,--that Dick's father,--'n' he live so long alone here, 'long +wi' us, that he kin' o' like to see mos' anybody 't 's got any o' th' +of family-blood in 'em. He ha'n't got no more suspicions 'n a baby, +--y' never see sech a man 'n y'r life. I kin' o' think he don' care +for nothin' in this world 'xcep' jes' t' do what Elsie wan's him to. +The fus' year after young Madam die he do nothin' but jes' set at the +window 'n' look out at her grave, 'n' then come up 'n' look at the +baby's neck 'n' say, 'It's fadin', Sophy, a'n't it? 'n' then go down +in the study 'n' walk 'n' walk, 'n' them kneel down 'n' pray. +Doctor, there was two places in the old carpet that was all +threadbare, where his knees had worn 'em. An' sometimes, you +remember 'bout all that,--he'd go off up into The Mountain, 'n' be +gone all day, 'n' kill all the Ugly Things he could find up there.--- +Oh, Doctor, I don' like to think o' them days! --An' by 'n' by he +grew kin' o' still, 'n' begun to read a little, 'n' 't las' he got 's +quiet's a lamb, 'n' that's the way he is now. I think he's got +religion, Doctor; but he a'n't so bright about what's goin' on, 'n' I +don' believe he never suspec' nothin' till somethin' happens; for +the' 's somethin' goin' to happen, Doctor, if the Las' Day does n' +come to stop it; 'n' you mus' tell us what to do, 'n' save my poor +Elsie, my baby that the Lord has n' took care of like all his other +childer." + +The Doctor assured the old woman that he was thinking a great deal +about them all, and that there were other eyes on Dick besides her +own. Let her watch him closely about the house, and he would keep a +look-out elsewhere. If there was anything new, she must let him know +at once. Send up one of the menservants, and he would come down at a +moment's warning. + +There was really nothing definite against this young man; but the +Doctor was sure that he was meditating some evil design or other. He +rode straight up to the Institute. There he saw Mr. Bernard, and had +a brief conversation with him, principally on matters relating to his +personal interests. + +That evening, for some unknown reason, Mr. Bernard changed the place +of his desk and drew down the shades of his windows. Late that night +Mr. Richard Venner drew the charge of a rifle, and put the gun back +among the fowling-pieces, swearing that a leather halter was worth a +dozen of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE PERILOUS HOUR. + +Up to this time Dick Venner had not decided on the particular mode +and the precise period of relieving himself from the unwarrantable +interference which threatened to defeat his plans. The luxury of +feeling that he had his man in his power was its own reward. One who +watches in the dark, outside, while his enemy, in utter +unconsciousness, is illuminating his apartment and himself so that +every movement of his head and every button on his coat can be seen +and counted, experiences a peculiar kind of pleasure, if he holds a +loaded rifle in his hand, which he naturally hates to bring to its +climax by testing his skill as a marksman upon the object of his +attention. + +Besides, Dick had two sides in his nature, almost as distinct as we +sometimes observe in those persons who are the subjects of the +condition known as double consciousness. On his New England side he +was cunning and calculating, always cautious, measuring his distance +before he risked his stroke, as nicely as if he were throwing his +lasso. But he was liable to intercurrent fits of jealousy and rage, +such as the light-hued races are hardly capable of conceiving, +blinding paroxysms of passion, which for the time overmastered him, +and which, if they found no ready outlet, transformed themselves into +the more dangerous forces that worked through the instrumentality of +his cool craftiness. + +He had failed as yet in getting any positive evidence that there was +any relation between Elsie and the schoolmaster other than such as +might exist unsuspected and unblamed between a teacher and his pupil. +A book, or a note, even, did not prove the existence of any +sentiment. At one time he would be devoured by suspicions, at +another he would try to laugh himself out of them. And in the mean +while he followed Elsie's tastes as closely as he could, determined +to make some impression upon her,--to become a habit, a convenience, +a necessity,--whatever might aid him in the attainment of the one end +which was now the aim of his life. + +It was to humor one of her tastes already known to the reader, that +he said to her one morning,--"Come, Elsie, take your castanets, and +let us have a dance." + +He had struck the right vein in the girl's fancy, for she was in the +mood for this exercise, and very willingly led the way into one of +the more empty apartments. What there was in this particular kind of +dance which excited her it might not be easy to guess; but those who +looked in with the old Doctor, on a former occasion, and saw her, +will remember that she was strangely carried away by it, and became +almost fearful in the vehemence of her passion. The sound of the +castanets seemed to make her alive all over. Dick knew well enough +what the exhibition would be, and was almost afraid of her at these +moments; for it was like the dancing mania of Eastern devotees, more +than the ordinary light amusement of joyous youth,--a convulsion of +the body and the mind, rather than a series of voluntary modulated +motions. + +Elsie rattled out the triple measure of a saraband. Her eyes began +to glitter more brilliantly, and her shape to undulate in freer +curves. Presently she noticed that Dick's look was fixed upon her +necklace. His face betrayed his curiosity; he was intent on solving +the question, why she always wore something about her neck. The +chain of mosaics she had on at that moment displaced itself at every +step, and he was peering with malignant, searching eagerness to see +if an unsunned ring of fairer hue than the rest of the surface, or +any less easily explained peculiarity, were hidden by her ornaments. + +She stopped suddenly, caught the chain of mosaics and settled it +hastily in its place, flung down her castanets, drew herself back, +and stood looking at him, with her head a little on one side, and her +eyes narrowing in the way he had known so long and well. + +"What is the matter, Cousin Elsie? What do you stop for?" he said. + +Elsie did not answer, but kept her eyes on him, full of malicious +light. The jealousy which lay covered up under his surface-thoughts +took this opportunity to break out. + +"You would n't act so, if you were dancing with Mr. Langdon,--would +you, Elsie?" he asked. + +It was with some effort that he looked steadily at her to see the +effect of his question. + +Elsie colored,--not much, but still perceptibly. Dick could not +remember that he had ever seen her show this mark of emotion before, +in all his experience of her fitful changes of mood. It had a +singular depth of significance, therefore, for him; he knew how +hardly her color came. Blushing means nothing, in some persons; in +others, it betrays a profound inward agitation,--a perturbation of +the feelings far more trying than the passions which with many easily +moved persons break forth in tears. All who have observed much are +aware that some men, who have seen a good deal of life in its less +chastened aspects and are anything but modest, will blush often and +easily, while there are delicate and sensitive women who can faint, +or go into fits, if necessary, but are very rarely seen to betray +their feelings in their cheeks, even when their expression shows that +their inmost soul is blushing scarlet. Presently she answered, +abruptly and scornfully, "Mr. Langdon is a gentleman, and would not +vex me as you do." + +"A gentleman!" Dick answered, with the most insulting accent,-- +"a gentleman! Come, Elsie, you 've got the Dudley blood in your +veins, and it does n't do for you to call this poor, sneaking +schoolmaster a gentleman!" + +He stopped short. Elsie's bosom was heaving, the faint flush on her +cheek was becoming a vivid glow. Whether it were shame or wrath, he +saw that he had reached some deep-lying centre of emotion. There was +no longer any doubt in his mind. With another girl these signs of +confusion might mean little or nothing; with her they were decisive +and final. Elsie Venner loved Bernard Langdon. + +The sudden conviction, absolute, overwhelming, which rushed upon him, +had well-nigh led to an explosion of wrath, and perhaps some terrible +scene which might have fulfilled some of old Sophy's predictions. +This, however, would never do. Dick's face whitened with his +thoughts, but he kept still until he could speak calmly. + +"I've nothing against the young fellow," he said; "only I don't think +there's anything quite good enough to keep the company of people that +have the Dudley blood in them. You a'n't as proud as I am. I can't +quite make up my mind to call a schoolmaster a gentleman, though this +one may be well enough. I 've nothing against him, at any rate." + +Elsie made no answer, but glided out of the room and slid away to her +own apartment. She bolted the door and drew her curtains close. +Then she threw herself on the floor, and fell into a dull, slow ache +of passion, without tears, without words, almost without thoughts. +So she remained, perhaps, for a half-hour, at the end of which time +it seemed that her passion had become a sullen purpose. She arose, +and, looking cautiously round, went to the hearth, which was +ornamented with curious old Dutch tiles, with pictures of Scripture +subjects. One of these represented the lifting of the brazen +serpent. She took a hair-pin from one of her braids, and, +insinuating its points under the edge of the tile, raised it from its +place. A small leaden box lay under the tile, which she opened, and, +taking from it a little white powder, which she folded in a scrap of +paper, replaced the box and the tile over it. + +Whether Dick had by any means got a knowledge of this proceeding, or +whether he only suspected some unmentionable design on her part, +there is no sufficient means of determining. At any rate, when they +met, an hour or two after these occurrences, he could not help +noticing how easily she seemed to have got over her excitement. She +was very pleasant with him,--too pleasant, Dick thought. It was not +Elsie's way to come out of a fit of anger so easily as that. She had +contrived some way of letting off her spite; that was certain. Dick +was pretty cunning, as old Sophy had said, and, whether or not he had +any means of knowing Elsie's private intentions, watched her closely, +and was on his guard against accidents. + +For the first time, he took certain precautions with reference to his +diet, such as were quite alien to his common habits. On coming to +the dinner-table, that day, he complained of headache, took but +little food, and refused the cup of coffee which Elsie offered him, +saying that it did not agree with him when he had these attacks. + +Here was a new complication. Obviously enough, he could not live in +this way, suspecting everything but plain bread and water, and hardly +feeling safe in meddling with them. Not only had this school-keeping +wretch come between him and the scheme by which he was to secure his +future fortune, but his image had so infected his cousin's mind that +she was ready to try on him some of those tricks which, as he had +heard hinted in the village, she had once before put in practice upon +a person who had become odious to her. + +Something must be done, and at once, to meet the double necessities +of this case. Every day, while the young girl was in these relations +with the young man, was only making matters worse. They could +exchange words and looks, they could arrange private interviews, they +would be stooping together over the same book, her hair touching his +cheek, her breath mingling with his, all the magnetic attractions +drawing them together with strange, invisible effluences. As her +passion for the schoolmaster increased, her dislike to him, her +cousin, would grow with it, and all his dangers would be multiplied. +It was a fearful point he had, reached. He was tempted at one moment +to give up all his plans and to disappear suddenly from the place, +leaving with the schoolmaster, who had come between him and his +object, an anonymous token of his personal sentiments which would be +remembered a good while in the history of the town of Rockland. This +was but a momentary thought; the great Dudley property could not be +given up in that way. + +Something must happen at once to break up all this order of things. +He could think of but one Providential event adequate to the +emergency,--an event foreshadowed by various recent circumstances, +but hitherto floating in his mind only as a possibility. Its +occurrence would at once change the course of Elsie's feelings, +providing her with something to think of besides mischief, and remove +the accursed obstacle which was thwarting all his own projects. +Every possible motive, then,--his interest, his jealousy, his longing +for revenge, and now his fears for his own safety,--urged him to +regard the happening of a certain casualty as a matter of simple +necessity. This was the self-destruction of Mr. Bernard Langdon. + +Such an event, though it might be surprising to many people, would +not be incredible, nor without many parallel cases. He was poor, a +miserable fag, under the control of that mean wretch up there at the +school, who looked as if he had sour buttermilk in his veins instead +of blood. He was in love with a girl above his station, rich, and of +old family, but strange in all her ways, and it was conceivable that +he should become suddenly jealous of her. Or she might have +frightened him with some display of her peculiarities which had +filled him with a sudden repugnance in the place of love. Any of +these things were credible, and would make a probable story enough,-- +so thought Dick over to himself with the New-England half of his +mind. + +Unfortunately, men will not always take themselves out of the way +when, so far as their neighbors are concerned, it would be altogether +the most appropriate and graceful and acceptable service they could +render. There was at this particular moment no special reason for +believing that the schoolmaster meditated any violence to his own +person. On the contrary, there was good evidence that he was taking +some care of himself. He was looking well and in good spirits, and +in the habit of amusing himself and exercising, as if to keep up his +standard of health, especially of taking certain evening-walks, +before referred to, at an hour when most of the Rockland people had +"retired," or, in vulgar language, "gone to bed." + +Dick Veneer settled it, however, in his own mind, that Mr. Bernard +Langdon must lay violent hands upon himself. He even went so far as +to determine the precise hour, and the method in which the "rash +act," as it would undoubtedly be called in the next issue of "The +Rockland Weekly Universe," should be committed. Time,--this evening. +Method, asphyxia, by suspension. It was, unquestionably, taking a +great liberty with a man to decide that he should become felo de se +without his own consent. Such, however, was the decision of Mr. +Richard Veneer with regard to Mr. Bernard Langdon. + +If everything went right, then, there would be a coroner's inquest +to-morrow upon what remained of that gentleman, found suspended to +the branch of a tree somewhere within a mile of the Apollinean +Institute. The "Weekly Universe " would have a startling paragraph +announcing a "SAD EVENT!!!" which had "thrown the town into an +intense state of excitement. Mr. Barnard Langden, a well-known +teacher at the Appolinian Institute, was found, etc., etc. The vital +spark was extinct. The motive to the rash act can only be +conjectured, but is supposed to be disappointed affection. The name +of an accomplished young lady of the highest respectability and great +beauty is mentioned in connection with this melancholy occurrence." + +Dick Venner was at the tea-table that evening, as usual.---No, he +would take green tea, if she pleased,--the same that her father +drank. It would suit his headache better. --Nothing,--he was much +obliged to her. He would help himself,--which he did in a little +different way from common, naturally enough, on account of his +headache. He noticed that Elsie seemed a little nervous while she +was rinsing some of the teacups before their removal. + +"There's something going on in that witch's head," he said to +himself. "I know her,--she 'd be savage now, if she had n't got some +trick in hand. Let 's see how she looks to-morrow!" + +Dick announced that he should go to bed early that evening, on +account of this confounded headache which had been troubling him so +much. In fact, he went up early, and locked his door after him, with +as much noise as he could make. He then changed some part of his +dress, so that it should be dark throughout, slipped off his boots, +drew the lasso out from the bottom of the contents of his trunk, and, +carrying that and his boots in his hand, opened his door softly, +locked it after him, and stole down the back-stairs, so as to get out +of the house unnoticed. He went straight to the stable and saddled +the mustang. He took a rope from the stable with him, mounted his +horse, and set forth in the direction of the Institute. + +Mr. Bernard, as we have seen, had not been very profoundly impressed +by the old Doctor's cautions,--enough, however, to follow out some of +his hints which were not troublesome to attend to. He laughed at the +idea of carrying a loaded pistol about with him; but still it seemed +only fair, as the old Doctor thought so much of the matter, to humor +him about it. As for not going about when and where he liked, for +fear he might have some lurking enemy, that was a thing not to be +listened to nor thought of. There was nothing to be ashamed of or +troubled about in any of his relations with the school-girls. Elsie, +no doubt, showed a kind of attraction towards him, as did perhaps +some others; but he had been perfectly discreet, and no father or +brother or lover had any just cause of quarrel with him. To be sure, +that dark young man at the Dudley mansion-house looked as if he were +his enemy, when he had met him; but certainly there was nothing in +their relations to each other, or in his own to Elsie, that would be +like to stir such malice in his mind as would lead him to play any of +his wild Southern tricks at his, Mr. Bernard's, expense. Yet he had +a vague feeling that this young man was dangerous, and he had been +given to understand that one of the risks he ran was from that +quarter. + +On this particular evening, he had a strange, unusual sense of some +impending peril. His recent interview with the Doctor, certain +remarks which had been dropped in his hearing, but above all an +unaccountable impression upon his spirits, all combined to fill his +mind with a foreboding conviction that he was very near some +overshadowing danger. It was as the chill of the ice-mountain toward +which the ship is steering under full sail. He felt a strong impulse +to see Helen Darley and talk with her. She was in the common parlor, +and, fortunately, alone. + +"Helen," he said,--for they were almost like brother and sister now, +--"I have been thinking what you would do, if I should have to leave +the school at short notice, or be taken away suddenly by any +accident." + +"Do?" she said, her cheek growing paler than its natural delicate +hue,--"why, I do not know how I could possibly consent to live here, +if you left us. Since you came, my life has been almost easy; +before, it was getting intolerable. You must not talk about going, +my dear friend; you have spoiled me for my place. Who is there here +that I can have any true society with, but you? You would not leave +us for another school, would you?" + +"No, no, my dear Helen," Mr. Bernard said, "if it depends on myself, +I shall stay out my full time, and enjoy your company and friendship. +But everything is uncertain in this world. I have been thinking that +I might be wanted elsewhere, and called when I did not think of it;-- +it was a fancy, perhaps,--but I can't keep it out of my mind this +evening. If any of my fancies should come true, Helen, there are two +or three messages I want to leave with you. I have marked a book or +two with a cross in pencil on the :Ly-leaf ;--these are for you. +There is a little hymn-book I should like to have you give to Elsie +from me;--it may be a kind of comfort to the poor girl." + +Helen's eyes glistened as she interrupted him,-- + +"What do you mean? You must not talk so, Mr. Langdon. Why, you +never looked better in your life. Tell me now, you are not in +earnest, are you, but only trying a little sentiment on me?" + +Mr. Bernard smiled, but rather sadly. + +"About half in earnest," he said. "I have had some fancies in my +head,--superstitions, I suppose,--at any rate, it does no harm to +tell you what I should like to have done, if anything should happen, +--very likely nothing ever will. Send the rest of the books home, if +you please, and write a letter to my mother. And, Helen, you will +find one small volume in my desk enveloped and directed, you will see +to whom;--give this with your own hands; it is a keepsake." + +The tears gathered in her eyes; she could not speak at first. +Presently, "Why, Bernard, my dear friend, my brother, it cannot be +that you are in danger? Tell me what it is, and, if I can share it +with you, or counsel you in any way, it will only be paying back the +great debt I owe you. No, no,--it can't be true,--you are tired and +worried, and your spirits have got depressed. I know what that is;-- +I was sure, one winter, that I should die before spring; but I lived +to see the dandelions and buttercups go to seed. Come, tell me it +was nothing but your imagination." + +She felt a tear upon her cheek, but would not turn her face away from +him; it was the tear of a sister. + +"I am really in earnest, Helen," he said. "I don't know that there +is the least reason in the world for these fancies. If they all go +off and nothing comes of them, you may laugh at me, if you like. But +if there should be any occasion, remember my requests. You don't +believe in presentiments, do you?" + +"Oh, don't ask-me, I beg you," Helen answered. "I have had a good +many frights for every one real misfortune I have suffered. +Sometimes I have thought I was warned beforehand of coming trouble, +just as many people are of changes in the weather, by some +unaccountable feeling,--but not often, and I don't like to talk about +such things. I wouldn't think about these fancies of yours. I don't +believe you have exercised enough;--don't you think it's confinement +in the school has made you nervous?" + +"Perhaps it has; but it happens that I have thought more of exercise +lately, and have taken regular evening walks, besides playing my old +gymnastic tricks every day." + +They talked on many subjects, but through all he said Helen perceived +a pervading tone of sadness, and an expression as of a dreamy +foreboding of unknown evil. They parted at the usual hour, and went +to their several rooms. The sadness of Mr. Bernard had sunk into the +heart of Helen, and she mingled many tears with her prayers that +evening, earnestly entreating that he might be comforted in his days +of trial and protected in his hour of danger. + +Mr. Bernard stayed in his room a short time before setting out for +his evening walk. His eye fell upon the Bible his mother had given +him when he left home, and he opened it in the New Testament at a +venture. It happened that the first words he read were these,-- +"Lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping." In the state of mind +in which he was at the moment, the text startled him. It was like a +supernatural warning. He was not going to expose himself to any +particular danger this evening; a walk in a quiet village was as free +from risk as Helen Darley or his own mother could ask; yet he had an +unaccountable feeling of apprehension, without any definite object. +At this moment he remembered the old Doctor's counsel, which he had +sometimes neglected, and, blushing at the feeling which led him to do +it, he took the pistol his suspicious old friend had forced upon him, +which he had put away loaded, and, thrusting it into his pocket, set +out upon his walk. + +The moon was shining at intervals, for the night was partially +clouded. There seemed to be nobody stirring, though his attention +was unusually awake, and he could hear the whirr of the bats +overhead, and the pulsating croak of the frogs in the distant pools +and marshes. Presently he detected the sound of hoofs at some +distance, and, looking forward, saw a horseman coming in his +direction. The moon was under a cloud at the moment, and he could +only observe that the horse and his rider looked like a single dark +object, and that they were moving along at an easy pace. Mr. Bernard +was really ashamed of himself, when he found his hand on the butt of +his pistol. When the horseman was within a hundred and fifty yards +of him, the moon shone out suddenly and revealed each of them to the +other. The rider paused for a moment, as if carefully surveying the +pedestrian, then suddenly put his horse to the full gallop, and +dashed towards him, rising at the same instant in his stirrups and +swinging something round his head, what, Mr. Bernard could not make +out. It was a strange manoeuvre,--so strange and threatening in +aspect that the young man forgot his nervousness in an instant, +cocked his pistol, and waited to see what mischief all this meant. +He did not wait long. As the rider came rushing towards him, he made +a rapid motion and something leaped five-and-twenty feet through the +air, in Mr. Bernard's direction. In an instant he felt a ring, as of +a rope or thong, settle upon his shoulders. There was no time to +think, he would be lost in another second. He raised his pistol and +fired,--not at the rider, but at the horse. His aim was true; the +mustang gave one bound and fell lifeless, shot through the head. The +lasso was fastened to his saddle, and his last bound threw Mr. +Bernard violently to the earth, where he lay motionless, as if +stunned. + +In the mean time, Dick Venner, who had been dashed down with his +horse, was trying to extricate himself,--one of his legs being held +fast under the animal, the long spur on his boot having caught in the +saddle-cloth. He found, however, that he could do nothing with his +right arm, his shoulder having been in some way injured in his fall. +But his Southern blood was up, and, as he saw Mr. Bernard move as if +he were coming to his senses, he struggled violently to free himself. + +"I 'll have the dog, yet," he said,--"only let me get at him with the +knife! " + +He had just succeeded in extricating his imprisoned leg, and was +ready to spring to his feet, when he was caught firmly by the throat, +and looking up, saw a clumsy barbed weapon, commonly known as a hay +fork, within an inch of his breast. + +"Hold on there! What 'n thunder 'r' y' abaout, y' darned Portagee?" +said a voice, with a decided nasal tone in it, but sharp and +resolute. + +Dick looked from the weapon to the person who held it, and saw a +sturdy, plain man standing over him, with his teeth clinched, and his +aspect that of one all ready for mischief. + +"Lay still, naow!" said Abel Stebbins, the Doctor's man; "'f y' +don't, I'll stick ye, 'z sure 'z y' 'r' alive! I been aafter ye f'r +a week, 'n' I got y' naow ! I knowed I'd ketch ye at some darned +trick or 'nother 'fore I'd done 'ith ye!" + +Dick lay perfectly still, feeling that he was crippled and helpless, +thinking all the time with the Yankee half of his mind what to do +about it. He saw Mr. Bernard lift his head and look around him. He +would get his senses again in a few minutes, very probably, and then +he, Mr. Richard Venner, would be done for. + +"Let me up! let me up!" he cried, in a low, hurried voice,--"I 'll +give you a hundred dollars in gold to let me go. The man a'n't +hurt,--don't you see him stirring? He'll come to himself in two +minutes. Let me up! I'll give you a hundred and fifty dollars in +gold, now, here on the spot,--and the watch out of my pocket; take it +yourself, with your own hands!" + +"I'll see y' darned fust! Ketch me lett'n' go!" was Abel's emphatic +answer. "Yeou lay still, 'n' wait t'll that man comes tew." + +He kept the hay-fork ready for action at the slightest sign of +resistance. + +Mr. Bernard, in the mean time, had been getting, first his senses, +and then some few of his scattered wits, a little together. + +"What is it?"--he said. "Who'shurt? What's happened?" + +"Come along here 'z quick 'z y' ken," Abel answered, "'n' haalp me +fix this fellah. Y' been hurt, y'rself, 'n' the' 's murder come +pooty nigh happenin'." + +Mr. Bernard heard the answer, but presenth stared about and asked +again, "Who's hurt? What's hay)pened?" + +"Y' 'r' hurt, y'rself, I tell ye," said Abel; "'n' the' 's been a +murder, pooty nigh." + +Mr. Bernard felt something about his neck, and, putting his hands up, +found the loop of the lasso, which he loosened, but did not think to +slip over his head, in the confusion of his perceptions and thoughts. +It was a wonder that it had not choked him, but he had fallen forward +so as to slacken it. + +By this time he was getting some notion of what he was about, and +presently began looking round for his pistol, which had fallen. He +found it lying near him, cocked it mechanically, and walked, somewhat +unsteadily, towards the two men, who were keeping their position as +still as if they were performing in a tableau. + +"Quick, naow! " said Abel, who had heard the click of cocking the +pistol, and saw that he held it in his hand, as he came towards him. +"Gi' me that pistil, and yeou fetch that 'ere rope layin' there. I +'ll have this here fella,h fixed 'n less 'n two minutes." + +Mr. Bernard did as Abel said,--stupidly and mechanically, for he was +but half right as yet. Abel pointed the pistol at Dick's head. + +"Naow hold up y'r hands, yeou fellah," he said, "'n' keep 'em up, +while this man puts the rope mound y'r wrists." + +Dick felt himself helpless, and, rather than have his disabled arm +roughly dealt with, held up his hands. Mr. Bernard did as Abel said; +he was in a purely passive state, and obeyed orders like a child. +Abel then secured the rope in a most thorough and satisfactory +complication of twists and knots. + +"Naow get up, will ye? " he said; and the unfortunate Dick rose to +his feet. + +"Who's hurt? What's happened?" asked poor Mr. Bernard again, his +memory having been completely jarred out of him for the time. + +"Come, look here naow, yeou, don' Stan' askin' questions over 'n' +over;--'t beats all! ha'n't I tol' y' a dozen times?" + +As Abel spoke, he turned and looked at Mr. Bernard. + +"Hullo! What 'n thunder's that 'ere raoun' y'r neck? Ketched ye +'ith a slippernoose, hey? Wal, if that a'n't the craowner I Hol' on +a minute, Cap'n, 'n' I'll show ye what that 'ere halter's good for." + +Abel slipped the noose over Mr. Bernard's head, and put it round the +neck of the miserable Dick Veneer, who made no sign of resistance,-- +whether on account of the pain he was in, or from mere helplessness, +or because he was waiting for some unguarded moment to escape,--since +resistance seemed of no use. + +"I 'm go'n' to kerry y' home," said Abel; 'T' th' ol Doctor, he's got +a gre't cur'osity t' see ye. Jes' step along naow,--off that way, +will ye?--'n' I Ill hol' on t' th' bridle, f' fear y' sh'd run +away." + +He took hold of the leather thong, but found that it was fastened at +the other end to the saddle. This was too much for Abel. + +"Wal, naow, yeou be a pooty chap to hev raound! A fellah's neck in a +slippernoose at one eend of a halter, 'n' a hors on th' full spring +at t' other eend!" + +He looked at him from' head to foot as a naturalist inspects a new +specimen. His clothes had suffered in his fall, especially on the +leg which had been caught under the horse. + +"Hullo! look o' there, naow! What's that 'ere stickin' aout o' y'r +boot?" + +It was nothing but the handle of an ugly knife, which Abel instantly +relieved him of. + +The party now took up the line of march for old Doctor Kittredge's +house, Abel carrying the pistol and knife, and Mr. Bernard walking in +silence, still half-stunned, holding the hay-fork, which Abel had +thrust into his hand. It was all a dream to him as yet. He +remembered the horseman riding at him, and his firing the pistol; but +whether he was alive, and these walls around him belonged to the +village of Rockland, or whether he had passed the dark river, and was +in a suburb of the New Jerusalem, he could not as yet have told. + +They were in the street where the Doctor's house was situated. + +"I guess I'll fire off one o' these here berrils," said Abel. + +He fired. + +Presently there was a noise of opening windows, and the nocturnal +head-dresses of Rockland flowered out of them like so many +developments of the Nightblooming Cereus. White cotton caps and red +bandanna handkerchiefs were the prevailing forms of efflorescence. +The main point was that the village was waked up. The old Doctor +always waked easily, from long habit, and was the first among those +who looked out to see what had happened. + +"Why, Abel!" he called out, "what have you got there? and what 's +all this noise about? " + +"We've ketched the Portagee! "Abel answered, as laconically as the +hero of Lake Erie, in his famous dispatch. "Go in there, you +fellah!" + +The prisoner was marched into the house, and the Doctor, who had +bewitched his clothes upon him in a way that would have been +miraculous in anybody but a physician, was down in presentable form +as soon as if it had been a child in a fit that he was sent for. + +"Richard Veneer!" the Doctor exclaimed. "What is the meaning of all +this? Mr. Langdon, has anything happened to you?" + +Mr. Bernard put his hand to his head. + +"My mind is confused," he said. "I've had a fall.---Oh, yes!---wait +a minute and it will all come back to me." + +"Sit down, sit down,"the Doctor said. "Abel will tell me about it. +Slight concussion of the brain. Can't remember very well for an hour +or two,--will come right by to-morrow." + +"Been stunded," Abel said. "He can't tell nothin'." + +Abel then proceeded to give a Napoleonic bulletin of the recent +combat of cavalry and infantry and its results,--none slain, one +captured. + +The Doctor looked at the prisoner through his spectacles. + +"What 's the matter with your shoulder, Venner?" + +Dick answered sullenly, that he didn't know, fell on it when his +horse came down. The Doctor examined it as carefully as he could +through his clothes. + +"Out of joint. Untie his hands, Abel" + +By this time a small alarm had spread among the neighbors, and there +was a circle around Dick, who glared about on the assembled honest +people like a hawk with a broken wing. + +When the Doctor said, "Untie his hands," the circle widened +perceptibly. + +"Isn't it a leetle rash to give him the use of his hands? I see +there's females and children standin' near." + +This was the remark of our old friend, Deacon Soper, who retired from +the front row, as he spoke, behind a respectable-looking, but +somewhat hastily dressed person of the defenceless sex, the female +help of a neighboring household, accompanied by a boy, whose +unsmoothed shock of hair looked like a last year's crow's-nest. + +But Abel untied his hands, in spite of the Deacon's considerate +remonstrance. + +"Now," said the Doctor, "the first thing is to put the joint back." + +"Stop," said Deacon Soper,--"stop a minute. Don't you think it will +be safer--for the women-folks--jest to wait till mornin', afore you +put that j'int into the socket?" + +Colonel Sprowle, who had been called by a special messenger, spoke up +at this moment. + +"Let the women-folks and the deacons go home, if they're scared, and +put the fellah's j'int in as quick as you like. I 'll resk him, +j'int in or out." + +"I want one of you to go straight down to Dudley Venner's with a +message," the Doctor said. "I will have the young man's shoulder in +quick enough." + +"Don't send that message!" said Dick, in a hoarse voice;--"do what +you like with my arm, but don't send that message! Let me go,--I can +walk, and I'll be off from this place. There's nobody hurt but +myself. Damn the shoulder! --let me go! You shall never hear of me +again!" + +Mr. Bernard came forward. + +"My friends," he said, "I am not injured,--seriously, at least. +Nobody need complain against this man, if I don't. The Doctor will +treat him like a human being, at any rate; and then, if he will go, +let him. There are too many witnesses against him here for him to +want to stay." + +The Doctor, in the mean time, without saying a word to all this, had +got a towel round the shoulder and chest and another round the arm, +and had the bone replaced in a very few minutes. + +"Abel, put Cassia into the new chaise," he said, quietly. "My +friends and neighbors, leave this young man to me." + +"Colonel Sprowle, you're a justice of the peace," said Deacon Soper, +"and you know what the law says in cases like this. It a'n't so +clear that it won't have to come afore the Grand Jury, whether we +will or no." + +"I guess we'll set that j'int to-morrow mornin'," said Colonel +Sprowle,--which made a laugh at the Deacon's expense, and virtually +settled the question. + +"Now trust this young man in my care," said the old Doctor, "and go +home and finish your naps. I knew him when he was a boy and I'll +answer for it, he won't trouble you any more. The Dudley blood makes +folks proud, I can tell you, whatever else they are." + +The good people so respected and believed in the Doctor that they +left the prisoner with him. + +Presently, Cassia, the fast Morgan mare, came up to the front-door, +with the wheels of the new, light chaise flashing behind her in the +moonlight. The Doctor drove Dick forty miles at a stretch that +night, out of the limits of the State. + +"Do you want money?" he said, before he left him. + +Dick told him the secret of his golden belt. + +"Where shall I send your trunk after you from your uncle's?" + +Dick gave him a direction to a seaport town to which he himself was +going, to take passage for a port in South America. + +"Good-bye, Richard," said the Doctor. "Try to learn something from +to-night's lesson." + +The Southern impulses in Dick's wild blood overcame him, and he +kissed the old Doctor on both cheeks, crying as only the children of +the sun can cry, after the first hours in the dewy morning of life. +So Dick Venner disappears from this story. An hour after dawn, +Cassia pointed her fine ears homeward, and struck into her square, +honest trot, as if she had not been doing anything more than her duty +during her four hours' stretch of the last night. + +Abel was not in the habit of questioning the Doctor's decisions. + +"It's all right," he said to Mr. Bernard. "The fellah 's Squire +Venner's relation, anyhaow. Don't you want to wait here, jest a +little while, till I come back? The's a consid'able nice saddle 'n' +bridle on a dead boss that's layin' daown there in the road 'n' I +guess the' a'n't no use in lettin' on 'em spite,--so I'll jest step +aout 'n' fetch 'em along. I kind o' calc'late 't won't pay to take +the cretur's shoes 'n' hide off to-night,--'n' the' won't be much +iron on that hose's huffs an haour after daylight, I'll bate ye a +quarter." + +"I'll walk along with you," said Mr. Bernard; "I feel as if I could +get along well enough now." + +So they set off together. There was a little crowd round the dead +mustang already, principally consisting of neighbors who had +adjourned from the Doctor's house to see the scene of the late +adventure. In addition to these, however, the assembly was honored +by the presence of Mr. Principal Silas Peckham, who had been called +from his slumbers by a message that Master Langdon was shot through +the head by a highway-robber, but had learned a true version of the +story by this time. His voice was at that moment heard above the +rest,--sharp, but thin, like bad cider-vinegar. + +"I take charge of that property, I say. Master Langdon 's actin' +under my orders, and I claim that hoss and all that's on him. Hiram! +jest slip off that saddle and bridle, and carry 'em up to the +Institoot, and bring down a pair of pinchers and a file,--and--stop-- +fetch a pair of shears, too; there's hosshair enough in that mane and +tail to stuff a bolster with." + +"You let that hoss alone!" spoke up Colonel Sprowle. "When a fellah +goes out huntin' and shoots a squirrel, do you think he's go'n' to +let another fellah pick him up and kerry him off? Not if he's got a +double-berril gun, and t'other berril ha'n't been fired off yet! I +should like to see the mahn that'll take off that seddle 'n' bridle, +excep' the one th't hez a fair right to the whole concern!" + +Hiram was from one of the lean streaks in New Hampshire, and, not +being overfed in Mr. Silas Peckham's kitchen, was somewhat wanting in +stamina, as well as in stomach, for so doubtful an enterprise, as +undertaking to carry out his employer's orders in the face of the +Colonel's defiance. + +Just then Mr. Bernard and Abel came up together. "Here they be," +said the Colonel. "Stan' beck, gentlemen! " + +Mr. Bernard, who was pale and still a little confused, but gradually +becoming more like himself, stood and looked in silence for a moment. + +All his thoughts seemed to be clearing themselves in this interval. +He took in the whole series of incidents: his own frightful risk; the +strange, instinctive, nay, Providential impulse, which had led him so +suddenly to do the one only thing which could possibly have saved +him; the sudden appearance of the Doctor's man, but for which he +might yet have been lost; and the discomfiture and capture of his +dangerous enemy. + +It was all past now, and a feeling of pity rose in Mr. Bernard's +heart. + +"He loved that horse, no doubt," he said,--"and no wonder. A +beautiful, wild--looking creature! Take off those things that are on +him, Abel, and have them carried to Mr. Dudley Veneer's. If he does +not want them, you may keep them yourself, for all that I have to +say. One thing more. I hope nobody will lift his hand against this +noble creature to mutilate him in any way. After you have taken off +the saddle and bridle, Abel, bury him just as he is. Under that old +beech-tree will be a good place. You'll see to it,--won't yon, +Abel?" + +Abel nodded assent, and Mr. Bernard returned to the Institute, threw +himself in his clothes on the bed, and slept like one who is heavy +with wine. + +Following Mr. Bernard's wishes, Abel at once took off the high-peaked +saddle and the richly ornamented bridle from the mustang. Then, with +the aid of two or three others, he removed him to the place +indicated. Spades and shovels were soon procured, and before the +moon had set, the wild horse of the Pampas was at rest under the turf +at the wayside, in the far village among the hills of New England. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE NEWS REACHES THE DUDLEY MANSION. + +Early the next morning Abel Stebbins made his appearance at Dudley +Veneer's, and requested to see the maan o' the haouse abaout +somethin' o' consequence. Mr. Veneer sent word that the messenger +should wait below, and presently appeared in the study, where Abel +was making himself at home, as is the wont of the republican citizen, +when he hides the purple of empire beneath the apron of domestic +service. + +"Good mornin', Squire!" said Abel, as Mr. Venner entered. "My name's +Stebbins, 'n' I'm stoppin' f'r a spell 'ith of Doctor Kittredge." + +"Well, Stebbins," said Mr. Dudley Veneer, "have you brought any +special message from the Doctor?" + +"Y' ha'n't heerd nothin' abaout it, Squire, d' ye mean t' say?" said +Abel,--beginning to suspect that he was the first to bring the news +of last evening's events. + +"About what?" asked Mr. Veneer, with some interest. + +"Dew tell, naow! Waal, that beats all! Why, that 'ere Portagee +relation o' yourn 'z been tryin' t' ketch a fellah 'n a slippernoose, +'n' got ketched himself,---that's all. Y' ha'n't heerd noth'n' +abaout it?" + +"Sit down," said Mr. Dudley Veneer, calmly, "and tell me all you have +to say." + +So Abel sat down and gave him an account of the events of the last +evening. It was a strange and terrible surprise to Dudley Veneer to +find that his nephew, who had been an inmate of his house and the +companion of his daughter, was to all intents and purposes guilty of +the gravest of crimes. But the first shock was no sooner over than +he began to think what effect the news would have on Elsie. He +imagined that there was a kind of friendly feeling between them, and +he feared some crisis would be provoked in his daughter's mental +condition by the discovery. He would wait, however, until she came +from her chamber, before disturbing her with the evil tidings. + +Abel did not forget his message with reference to the equipments of +the dead mustang. + +"The' was some things on the hoss, Squire, that the man he ketched +said he did n' care no gre't abaout; but perhaps you'd like to have +'em fetched to the mansion-haouse. Ef y' did n' care abaout 'em, +though, I should n' min' keepin' on 'em; they might come handy some +time or 'nother : they say, holt on t' anything for ten year 'n' +there 'll be some kin' o' use for 't." + +"Keep everything," said Dudley Veneer. "I don't want to see anything +belonging to that young man." + +So Abel nodded to Mr. Veneer, and left the study to find some of the +men about the stable to tell and talk over with them the events of +the last evening. He presently came upon Elbridge, chief of the +equine department, and driver of the family-coach. + +"Good mornin', Abe," said Elbridge. "What's fetched y' daown here so +all-fired airly? " + +"You're a darned pooty lot daown here, you be!" + +Abel answered. "Better keep your Portagees t' home nex' time, +ketchin' folks 'ith slippernooses raoun' their necks, 'n' kerryin' +knives 'n their boots! " + +"What 'r' you jawin' abaout?" Elbridge said, looking up to see if he +was in earnest, and what he meant. + +"Jawin' abaout? You'll find aout'z soon 'z y' go into that 'ere +stable o' yourn! Y' won't curry that 'ere long-tailed black hoss no +more; 'n' y' won't set y'r eyes on the fellah that rid him, ag'in, in +a hurry!" + +Elbridge walked straight to the stable, without saying a word, found +the door unlocked, and went in. + +"Th' critter's gone, sure enough!" he said. "Glad on 't! The +darndest, kickin'est, bitin'est beast th't ever I see, 'r ever wan' +t' see ag'in! Good reddance! Don' wan' no snappin'-turkles in my +stable! Whar's the man gone th't brought the critter?" + +"Whar he's gone? Guess y' better go 'n ask my ol man; he kerried him +off lass' night; 'n' when he comes back, mebbe he 'll tell ye whar +he's gone tew!" + +By this time Elbridge had found out that Abel was in earnest, and had +something to tell. He looked at the litter in the mustang's stall, +then at the crib. + +"Ha'n't eat b't haalf his feed. Ha'n't been daown on his straw. +Must ha' been took aout somewhere abaout ten 'r 'levee o'clock. I +know that 'ere critter's ways. The fellah's had him aout nights +afore; b't I never thought nothin' o' no mischief. He 's a kin' o' +haalf Injin. What is 't the chap's been a-doin' on? Tell 's all +abaout it." + +Abel sat down on a meal-chest, picked up a straw and put it into his +mouth. Elbridge sat down at the other end, pulled out his jack- +knife, opened the penknife-blade, and began sticking it into the lid +of the meal-chest. The Doctor's man had a story to tell, and he +meant to get all the enjoyment out of it. So he told it with every +luxury of circumstance. Mr. Veneer's man heard it all with open +mouth. No listener in the gardens of Stamboul could have found more +rapture in a tale heard amidst the perfume of roses and the voices of +birds and tinkling of fountains than Elbridge in following Abel's +narrative, as they sat there in the aromatic ammoniacal atmosphere of +the stable, the grinding of the horses' jaws keeping evenly on +through it all, with now and then the interruption of a stamping +hoof, and at intervals a ringing crow from the barn-yard. + +Elbridge stopped a minute to think, after Abel had finished. + +"Who's took care o' them things that was on the hoss? "he said, +gravely. + +"Waal, Langden, he seemed to kin 'o' think I'd ought to have 'em,-- +'n' the Squire; he did n' seem to have no 'bjection; 'n' so,--waal, I +calc'late I sh'll jes' holt on to 'em myself; they a'n't good f 'r +much, but they're cur'ous t' keep t' look at." + +Mr. Veneer's man did not appear much gratified by this arrangement, +especially as he had a shrewd suspicion that some of the ornaments of +the bridle were of precious metal, having made occasional +examinations of them with the edge of a file. But he did not see +exactly what to do about it, except to get them from Abel in the way +of bargain. + +"Waal, no,--they a'n't good for much 'xcep' to look at. 'F y' ever +rid on that seddle once, y' would n' try it ag'in, very spry,--not 'f +y' c'd haalp y'rsaalf. + +I tried it,--darned 'f I sot daown f'r th' nex' week,--eat all my +victuals stan'in'. I sh'd like t' hev them things wal enough to heng +up 'n the stable; 'f y' want t' trade some day, fetch 'em along +daown." + +Abel rather expected that Elbridge would have laid claim to the +saddle and bridle on the strength of some promise or other +presumptive title, and thought himself lucky to get off with only +offering to think abaout tradin'. + +When Elbridge returned to the house, he found the family in a state +of great excitement. Mr. Venner had told Old Sophy, and she had +informed the other servants. Everybody knew what had happened, +excepting Elsie. Her father had charged them all to say nothing +about it to her; he would tell her, when she came down. + +He heard her step at last,--alight, gliding step,--so light that her +coming was often unheard, except by those who perceived the faint +rustle that went with it. She was paler than common this morning, as +she came into her father's study. + +After a few words of salutation, he said quietly, "Elsie, my dear, +your cousin Richard has left us." + +She grew still paler, as she asked, + +"Is he dead?" + +Dudley Venner started to see the expression with which Elsie put this +question. + +"He is living,--but dead to us from this day forward," said her +father. + +He proceeded to tell her, in a general way, the story he had just +heard from Abel. There could be no doubting it;--he remembered him +as the Doctor's man; and as Abel had seen all with his own eyes, as +Dick's chamber, when unlocked with a spare key, was found empty, and +his bed had not been slept in, he accepted the whole account as true. + +When he told of Dick's attempt on the young schoolmaster, ("You know +Mr. Langdon very well, Elsie,--a perfectly inoffensive young man, as +I understand,") Elsie turned her face away and slid along by the wall +to the window which looked out oh the little grass-plot with the +white stone standing in it. Her father could not see her face, but +he knew by her movements that her dangerous mood was on her. When +she heard the sequel of the story, the discomfiture and capture of +Dick, she turned round for an instant, with a look of contempt and of +something like triumph upon her face. Her father saw that her cousin +had become odious to her: He knew well, by every change of her +countenance, by her movements, by every varying curve of her graceful +figure, the transitions front passion to repose, from fierce +excitement to the dull languor which often succeeded her threatening +paroxysms. + +She remained looking out at the window. A group of white fan-tailed +pigeons had lighted on the green plot before it and clustered about +one of their companions who lay on his back, fluttering in a strange +way, with outspread wings and twitching feet. Elsie uttered a faint +cry; these were her special favorites and often fed from her hand. +She threw open the long window, sprang out, caught up the white +fantail, and held it to her bosom. The bird stretched himself out, +and then lay still, with open eyes, lifeless. She looked at him a +moment, and, sliding in through the open window and through the +study, sought her own apartment, where she locked herself in, and +began to sob and moan like those that weep. But the gracious solace +of tears seemed to be denied her, and her grief, like her anger, was +a dull ache, longing, like that, to finish itself with a fierce +paroxysm, but wanting its natural outlet. + +This seemingly trifling incident of the death of her favorite +appeared to change all the current of her thought. Whether it were +the sight of the dying bird, or the thought that her own agency might +have beep concerned in it, or some deeper grief, which took this +occasion to declare itself,--some dark remorse or hopeless longing,-- +whatever it might be, there was an unwonted tumult in her soul. To +whom should she go in her vague misery? Only to Him who knows all +His creatures' sorrows, and listens to the faintest human cry. She +knelt, as she had been taught to kneel from her childhood, and tried +to pray. But her thoughts refused to flow in the language of +supplication. She could not plead for herself as other women plead +in their hours of anguish. She rose like one who should stoop to +drink, and find dust in the place of water. Partly from +restlessness, partly from an attraction she hardly avowed to herself, +she followed her usual habit and strolled listlessly along to the +school. + +Of course everybody at the Institute was full of the terrible +adventure of the preceding evening. Mr. Bernard felt poorly enough; +but he had made it a point to show himself the next morning, as if +nothing had happened. Helen Darley knew nothing of it all until she +hard risen, when the gossipy matron of the establishment made her +acquainted with all its details, embellished with such additional +ornamental appendages as it had caught up in transmission from lip to +lip. She did not love to betray her sensibilities, but she was pale +and tremulous and very nearly tearful when Mr. Bernard entered the +sitting-room, showing on his features traces of the violent shock he +had received and the heavy slumber from which he had risen with +throbbing brows. What the poor girl's impulse was, on seeing him, we +need not inquire too curiously. If he had been her own brother, she +would have kissed him and cried on his neck; but something held her +back. There is no galvanism in kiss-your-brother; it is copper +against copper: but alien bloods develop strange currents, when they +flow close to each other, with only the films that cover lip and +cheek between them. Mr. Bernard, as some of us may remember, +violated the proprieties and laid himself open to reproach by his +enterprise with a bouncing village-girl, to whose rosy cheek an +honest smack was not probably an absolute novelty. He made it all up +by his discretion and good behavior now. He saw by Helen's moist eye +and trembling lip that her woman's heart was off its guard, and he +knew, by the infallible instinct of sex, that he should be forgiven, +if he thanked her for her sisterly sympathies in the most natural +way,--expressive, and at the same time economical of breath and +utterance. He would not give a false look to their friendship by any +such demonstration. Helen was a little older than himself, but the +aureole of young womanhood had not yet begun to fade from around her. +She was surrounded by that enchanted atmosphere into which the girl +walks with dreamy eyes, and out of which the woman passes with a +story written on her forehead. Some people think very little of +these refinements; they have not studied magnetism and the law of the +square of the distance. + +So Mr. Bernard thanked Helen for her interest without the aid of the +twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet,--the love labial,--the limping +consonant which it takes two to speak plain. Indeed, he scarcely let +her say a word, at first; for he saw that it was hard for her to +conceal her emotion. No wonder; he had come within a hair's-breadth +of losing his life, and he had been a very kind friend and a very +dear companion to her. + +There were some curious spiritual experiences connected with his last +evening's adventure which were working very strongly in his mind. It +was borne in upon him irresistibly that he had been dead since he had +seen Helen,--as dead as the son of the Widow of Nain before the bier +was touched and he sat up and began to speak. There was an interval +between two conscious moments which appeared to him like a temporary +annihilation, and the thoughts it suggested were worrying him with +strange perplexities. + +He remembered seeing the dark figure on horseback rise in the saddle +and something leap from its hand. He remembered the thrill he felt +as the coil settled on his shoulders, and the sudden impulse which +led him to fire as he did. With the report of the pistol all became +blank, until he found himself in a strange, bewildered state, groping +about for the weapon, which he had a vague consciousness of having +dropped. But, according to Abel's account, there must have been an +interval of some minutes between these recollections, and he could +not help asking, Where was the mind, the soul, the thinking +principle, all this time? + +A man is stunned by a blow with a stick on the head. He becomes +unconscious. Another man gets a harder blow on the head from a +bigger stick, and it kills him. Does he become unconscious, too? If +so, when does he come to his consciousness? The man who has had a +slight or moderate blow comes to himself when the immediate shock +passes off and the organs begin to work again, or when a bit of the +skull is pried up, if that happens to be broken. Suppose the blow is +hard enough to spoil the brain and stop the play of the organs, what +happens them? + +A British captain was struck by a cannon-ball on the head, just as he +was giving an order, at the Battle of the Nile. Fifteen months +afterwards he was trephined at Greenwich Hospital, having been +insensible all that time. Immediately after the operation his +consciousness returned, and he at once began carrying out the order +he was giving when the shot struck him. Suppose he had never been +trephined, when would his consciousness have returned? When his +breath ceased and his heart stopped beating? + +When Mr. Bernard said to Helen, "I have been dead since I saw you," +it startled her not a little; for his expression was that of perfect +good faith, and she feared that his mind was disordered. When he +explained, not as has been done just now, at length, but in a +hurried, imperfect way, the meaning of his strange assertion, and the +fearful Sadduceeisms which it had suggested to his mind, she looked +troubled at first, and then thoughtful. She did not feel able to +answer all the difficulties he raised, but she met them with that +faith which is the strength as well as the weakness of women,--which +makes them weak in the hands of man, but strong in the presence of +the Unseen. + +"It is a strange experience," she said; "but I once had something +like it. I fainted, and lost some five or ten minutes out of my +life, as much as if I had been dead. But when I came to myself, I +was the same person every way, in my recollections and character. So +I suppose that loss of consciousness is not death. And if I was born +out of unconsciousness into infancy with many family-traits of mind +and body, I can believe, from my own reason, even without help from +Revelation, that I shall be born again out of the unconsciousness of +death with my individual traits of mind and body. If death is, as it +should seem to be, a loss of consciousness, that does not shake my +faith; for I have been put into a body once already to fit me for +living here, and I hope to be in some way fitted after this life to +enjoy a better one. But it is all trust in God and in his Word. +These are enough for me; I hope they are for you." + +Helen was a minister's daughter, and familiar from her childhood with +this class of questions, especially with all the doubts and +perplexities which are sure to assail every thinking child bred in +any inorganic or not thoroughly vitalized faith,--as is too often the +case with the children of professional theologians. The kind of +discipline they are subjected to is like that of the Flat-Head Indian +pappooses. At five or ten or fifteen years old they put their hands +up to their foreheads and ask, What are they strapping down my brains +in this way for? So they tear off the sacred bandages of the great +Flat-Head tribe, and there follows a mighty rush of blood to the +long-compressed region. This accounts, in the most lucid manner, for +those sudden freaks with which certain children of this class +astonish their worthy parents at the period ,of life when they are +growing fast, and, the frontal pressure beginning to be felt as +something intolerable, they tear off the holy compresses. + +The hour for school came, and they went to the great hall for study. +It would not have occurred to Mr. Silas Peckham to ask his assistant +whether he felt well enough to attend to his duties; and Mr. Bernard +chose to be at his post. A little headache and confusion were all +that remained of his symptoms. + +Later, in the course of the forenoon, Elsie Venner came and took her +place. The girls all stared at her--naturally enough; for it was +hardly to have been expected that she would show herself, after such +an event in the household to which she belonged. Her expression was +somewhat peculiar, and, of course, was attributed to the shock her +feelings had undergone on hearing of the crime attempted by her +cousin and daily companion. When she was looking on her book, or on +any indifferent object, her countenance betrayed some inward +disturbance, which knitted her dark brows, and seemed to throw a +deeper shadow over her features. But, from time to time, she would +lift her eyes toward Mr. Bernard, and let them rest upon him, without +a thought, seemingly, that she herself was the subject of observation +or remark. Then they seemed to lose their cold glitter, and soften +into a strange, dreamy tenderness. The deep instincts of womanhood +were striving to grope their way to the surface of her being through +all the alien influences which overlaid them. She could be secret +and cunning in working out any of her dangerous impulses, but she did +not know how to mask the unwonted feeling which fixed her eyes and +her thoughts upon the only person who had ever reached the spring of +her hidden sympathies. + +The girls all looked at Elsie, whenever they could steal a glance +unperceived, and many of them were struck with this singular +expression her features wore. They had long whispered it around +among each other that she had a liking for the master; but there were +too many of them of whom something like this could be said, to make +it very remarkable. Now, however, when so many little hearts were +fluttering at the thought of the peril through which the handsome +young master had so recently passed, they were more alive than ever +to the supposed relation between him and the dark school-girl. Some +had supposed there was a mutual attachment between them; there was a +story that they were secretly betrothed, in accordance with the rumor +which had been current in the village. At any rate, some conflict +was going on in that still, remote, clouded soul, and all the girls +who looked upon her face were impressed and awed as they had never +been before by the shadows that passed over it. + +One of these girls was more strongly arrested by Elsie's look than +the others. This was a delicate, pallid creature, with a high +forehead, and wide-open pupils, which looked as if they could take in +all the shapes that flit in what, to common eyes, is darkness,--a +girl said to be clairvoyant under certain influences. In the recess, +as it was called, or interval of suspended studies in the middle of +the forenoon, this girl carried her autograph-book,--for she had one +of those indispensable appendages of the boarding-school miss of +every degree,--and asked Elsie to write her name in it. She had an +irresistible feeling, that, sooner or later, and perhaps very soon, +there would attach an unusual interest to this autograph. Elsie took +the pen and wrote, in her sharp Italian hand, + +Elsie Venner, Infelix. + +It was a remembrance, doubtless, of the forlorn queen of the +"AEneid"; but its coming to her thought in this way confirmed the +sensitive school-girl in her fears for Elsie, and she let fall a tear +upon the page before she closed it. + +Of course, the keen and practised observation of Helen Darley could +not fail to notice the change of Elsie's manner and expression. She +had long seen that she was attracted to the young master, and had +thought, as the old Doctor did, that any impression which acted upon +her affections might be the means of awakening a new life in her +singularly isolated nature. Now, however, the concentration of the +poor girl's thoughts upon the one object which had had power to reach +her deeper sensibilities was so painfully revealed in her features, +that Helen began to fear once more, lest Mr. Bernard, in escaping the +treacherous violence of an assassin, had been left to the equally +dangerous consequences of a violent, engrossing passion in the breast +of a young creature whose love it would be ruin to admit and might be +deadly to reject. She knew her own heart too well to fear that any +jealousy might mingle with her new apprehensions. It was understood +between Bernard and Helen that they were too good friends to tamper +with the silences and edging proximities of lovemaking. She knew, +too, the simply human, not masculine, interest which Mr. Bernard took +in Elsie; he had been frank with Helen, and more than satisfied her +that with all the pity and sympathy which overflowed his soul, when +he thought of the stricken girl, there mingled not one drop of such +love as a youth may feel for a maiden. + +It may help the reader to gain some understanding of the anomalous +nature of Elsie Veneer, if we look with Helen into Mr. Bernard's +opinions and feelings with reference to her, as they had shaped +themselves in his consciousness at the period of which we are +speaking. + +At first he had been impressed by her wild beauty, and the contrast +of all her looks and ways with those of the girls around her. +Presently a sense of some ill-defined personal element, which half- +attracted and half-repelled those who looked upon her, and especially +those on whom she looked, began to make itself obvious to him, as he +soon found it was painfully sensible to his more susceptible +companion, the lady-teacher. It was not merely in the cold light of +her diamond eyes, but in all her movements, in her graceful postures +as she sat, in her costume, and, he sometimes thought, even in her +speech, that this obscure and exceptional character betrayed itself. +When Helen had said, that, if they were living in times when human +beings were subject to possession, she should have thought there was +something not human about Elsie, it struck an unsuspected vein of +thought in his own mind, which he hated to put in words, but which +was continually trying to articulate itself among the dumb thoughts +which lie under the perpetual stream of mental whispers. + +Mr. Bernard's professional training had made him slow to accept +marvellous stories and many forms of superstition. Yet, as a man of +science, he well knew that just on the verge of the demonstrable +facts of physics and physiology there is a nebulous border-land which +what is called "common sense" perhaps does wisely not to enter, but +which uncommon sense, or the fine apprehension of privileged +intelligences, may cautiously explore, and in so doing find itself +behind the scenes which make up for the gazing world the show which +is called Nature. + +It was with something of this finer perception, perhaps with some +degree of imaginative exaltation, that he set himself to solving the +problem of Elsie's influence to attract and repel those around her. +His letter already submitted to the reader hints in what direction +his thoughts were disposed to turn. Here was a magnificent +organization, superb in vigorous womanhood, with a beauty such as +never comes but after generations of culture; yet through all this +rich nature there ran some alien current of influence, sinuous and +dark, as when a clouded streak seams the white marble of a perfect +statue. + +It would be needless to repeat the particular suggestions which had +come into his mind, as they must probably have come into that of the +reader who has noted the singularities of Elsie's tastes and personal +traits. The images which certain poets had dreamed of seemed to have +become a reality before his own eyes. Then came that unexplained +adventure of The Mountain,--almost like a dream in recollection, yet +assuredly real in some of its main incidents,--with all that it +revealed or hinted. This girl did not fear to visit the dreaded +region, where danger lurked in every nook and beneath every tuft of +leaves. Did the tenants of the fatal ledge recognize some mysterious +affinity which made them tributary to the cold glitter of her diamond +eyes,? Was she from her birth one of those frightful children, such +as he had read about, and the Professor had told him of, who form +unnatural friendships with cold, writhing ophidians? There was no +need of so unwelcome a thought as this; she had drawn him away from +the dark opening in the rock at the moment when he seemed to be +threatened by one of its malignant denizens; that was all he could be +sure of; the counter-fascination might have been a dream, a fancy, a +coincidence. All wonderful things soon grow doubtful in our own +minds, as do even common events, if great interests prove suddenly to +attach to their truth or falsehood. + +--I, who am telling of these occurrences, saw a friend in the great +city, on the morning of a most memorable disaster, hours after the +time when the train which carried its victims to their doom had left. +I talked with him, and was for some minutes, at least, in his +company. When I reached home, I found that the story had gone before +that he was among the lost, and I alone could contradict it to his +weeping friends and relatives. I did contradict it; but, alas! I +began soon to doubt myself, penetrated by the contagion of their +solicitude; my recollection began to question itself; the order of +events became dislocated; and when I heard that he had reached home +in safety, the relief was almost as great to me as to those who had +expected to see their own brother's face no more. + +Mr. Bernard was disposed, then, not to accept the thought of any +odious personal relationship of the kind which had suggested itself +to him when he wrote the letter referred to. That the girl had +something of the feral nature, her wild, lawless rambles in forbidden +and blasted regions of The Mountain at all hours, her familiarity +with the lonely haunts where any other human foot was so rarely seen, +proved clearly enough. But the more he thought of all her strange +instincts and modes of being, the more he became convinced that +whatever alien impulse swayed her will and modulated or diverted or +displaced her affections came from some impression that reached far +back into the past, before the days when the faithful Old Sophy had +rocked her in the cradle. He believed that she had brought her +ruling tendency, whatever it was, into the world with her. + +When the school was over and the girls had all gone, Helen lingered +in the schoolroom to speak with Mr. Bernard. + +"Did you remark Elsie's ways this forenoon?" she said. + +"No, not particularly; I have not noticed anything as sharply as I +commonly do; my head has been a little queer, and I have been +thinking over what we were talking about, and how near I came to +solving the great problem which every day makes clear to such +multitudes of people. What about Elsie?" + +"Bernard, her liking for you is growing into a passion. I have +studied girls for a long while, and I know the difference between +their passing fancies and their real emotions. I told you, you +remember, that Rosa would have to leave us; we barely missed a scene, +I think, if not a whole tragedy, by her going at the right moment. +But Elsie is infinitely more dangerous to herself and others. +Women's love is fierce enough, if it once gets the mastery of them, +always; but this poor girl does not know what to do with a passion." + +Mr. Bernard had never told Helen the story of the flower in his +Virgil, or that other adventure--which he would have felt awkwardly +to refer to; but it had been perfectly understood between them that +Elsie showed in her own singular way a well-marked partiality for the +young master. + +"Why don't they take her away from the school, if she is in such a +strange, excitable state?" said Mr. Bernard. + +"I believe they are afraid of her," Helen answered. "It is just one +of those cases that are ten thousand thousand times worse than +insanity. I don't think from what I hear, that her father has ever +given up hoping that she will outgrow her peculiarities. Oh, these +peculiar children for whom parents go on hoping every morning and +despairing every night! If I could tell you half that mothers have +told me, you would feel that the worst of all diseases of the moral +sense and the will are those which all the Bedlams turn away from +their doors as not being cases of insanity!" + +"Do you think her father has treated her judiciously?" said Mr. +Bernard. + +"I think," said Helen, with a little hesitation, which Mr. Bernard +did not happen to notice,--"I think he has been very kind and +indulgent, and I do not know that he could have treated her otherwise +with a better chance of success." + +"He must of course be fond of her," Mr. Bernard said; "there is +nothing else in the world for him to love." + +Helen dropped a book she held in her hand, and, stooping to pick it +up, the blood rushed into her cheeks. + +"It is getting late," she said; "you must not stay any longer in this +close schoolroom. Pray, go and get a little fresh air before dinner- +time." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +A SOUL IN DISTRESS. + +The events told in the last two chapters had taken place toward the +close of the week. On Saturday evening the Reverend Chauncy +Fairweather received a note which was left at his door by an unknown +person who departed without saying a word. Its words were these: +"One who is in distress of mind requests the prayers of this +congregation that God would be pleased to look in mercy upon the soul +that he has afflicted." + +There was nothing to show from whom the note came, or the sex or age +or special source of spiritual discomfort or anxiety of the writer. +The handwriting was delicate and might well be a woman's. The +clergyman was not aware of any particular affliction among his +parishioners which was likely to be made the subject of a request of +this kind. Surely neither of the Venners would advertise the +attempted crime of their relative in this way. But who else was +there? The more he thought about it, the more it puzzled him, and as +he did not like to pray in the dark, without knowing for whom he was +praying, he could think of nothing better than to step into old +Doctor Kittredge's and see what he had to say about it. + +The old Doctor was sitting alone in his study when the Reverend Mr. +Fairweather was ushered in. He received his visitor very pleasantly, +expecting, as a matter of course, that he would begin with some new +grievance, dyspeptic, neuralgic, bronchitic, or other. The minister, +however, began with questioning the old Doctor about the sequel of +the other night's adventure; for he was already getting a little +Jesuitical, and kept back the object of his visit until it should +come up as if accidentally in the course of conversation. + +"It was a pretty bold thing to go off alone with that reprobate, as +you did," said the minister. + +"I don't know what there was bold about it," the Doctor answered. +"All he wanted was to get away. He was not quite a reprobate, you +see; he didn't like the thought of disgracing his family or facing +his uncle. I think he was ashamed to see his cousin, too, after what +he had done." + +"Did he talk with you on the way?" + +"Not much. For half an hour or so he did n't speak a word. Then he +asked where I was driving him. I told him, and he seemed to be +surprised into a sort of grateful feeling. Bad enough, no doubt, but +might be worse. Has some humanity left in him yet. Let him go. God +can judge him,--I can't." + +"You are too charitable, Doctor," the minister said. "I condemn him +just as if he had carried out his project, which, they say, was to +make it appear as if the schoolmaster had committed suicide. That's +what people think the rope found by him was for. He has saved his +neck,--but his soul is a lost one, I am afraid, beyond question." + +"I can't judge men's souls," the Doctor said. "I can judge their +acts, and hold them responsible for those,--but I don't know much +about their souls. If you or I had found our soul in a half-breed +body; and been turned loose to run among the Indians, we might have +been playing just such tricks as this fellow has been trying. What +if you or I had inherited all the tendencies that were born with his +cousin Elsie?" + +"Oh, that reminds me,"--the minister said, in a sudden way,--"I have +received a note, which I am requested to read from the pulpit +tomorrow. I wish you would just have the kindness to look at it and +see where you think it came from." + +The Doctor examined it carefully. It was a woman's or girl's note, +he thought. Might come from one of the school-girls who was anxious +about her spiritual condition. Handwriting was disguised; looked a +little like Elsie Veneer's, but not characteristic enough to make it +certain. It would be a new thing, if she had asked public prayers +for herself, and a very favorable indication of a change in her +singular moral nature. It was just possible Elsie might have sent +that note. Nobody could foretell her actions. It would be well to +see the girl and find out whether any unusual impression had been +produced on her mind by the recent occurrence or by any other cause. + +The Reverend Mr. Fairweather folded the note and put it into his +pocket. + +"I have been a good deal exercised in mind lately, myself," he said. + +The old Doctor looked at him through his spectacles, and said, in his +usual professional tone, + +"Put out your tongue." + +The minister obeyed him in that feeble way common with persons of +weak character,--for people differ as much in their mode of +performing this trifling act as Gideon's soldiers in their way of +drinking at the brook. The Doctor took his hand and placed a finger +mechanically on his wrist. + +"It is more spiritual, I think, than bodily," said the Reverend Mr. +Fairweather. + +"Is your appetite as good as usual?" the Doctor asked. + +"Pretty good," the minister answered; "but my sleep, my sleep, +Doctor,--I am greatly troubled at night with lying awake and thinking +of my future, I am not at ease in mind." + +He looked round at all the doors, to be sure they were shut, and +moved his chair up close to the Doctor's. + +"You do not know the mental trials I have been going through for the +last few months." + +"I think I do," the old Doctor said. "You want to get out of the new +church into the old one, don't you?" + +The minister blushed deeply; he thought he had been going on in a +very quiet way, and that nobody suspected his secret. As the old +Doctor was his counsellor in sickness, and almost everybody's +confidant in trouble, he had intended to impart cautiously to him +some hints of the change of sentiments through which he had been +passing. He was too late with his information, it appeared, and +there was nothing to be done but to throw himself on the Doctor's +good sense and kindness, which everybody knew, and get what hints he +could from him as to the practical course he should pursue. He +began, after an awkward pause, + +"You would not have me stay in a communion which I feel to be alien +to the true church, would you?" + +"Have you stay, my friend?" said the Doctor, with a pleasant, +friendly look,--"have you stay? Not a month, nor a week, nor a day, +if I could help it. You have got into the wrong pulpit, and I have +known it from the first. The sooner you go where you belong, the +better. And I'm very glad you don't mean to stop half-way. Don't +you know you've always come to me when you've been dyspeptic or sick +anyhow, and wanted to put yourself wholly into my hands, so that I +might order you like a child just what to do and what to take? That +'s exactly what you want in religion. I don't blame you for it. You +never liked to take the responsibility of your own body; I don't see +why you should want to have the charge of your own soul. But I'm +glad you're going to the Old Mother of all. You wouldn't have been +contented short of that." + +The Reverend Mr. Fairweather breathed with more freedom. The Doctor +saw into his soul through those awful spectacles of his,--into it and +beyond it, as one sees through a thin fog. But it was with a real +human kindness, after all. He felt like a child before a strong man; +but the strong man looked on him with a father's indulgence. Many +and many a time, when he had come desponding and bemoaning himself on +account of some contemptible bodily infirmity, the old Doctor had +looked at him through his spectacles, listened patiently while he +told his ailments, and then, in his large parental way, given him a +few words of wholesome advice, and cheered him up so that he went off +with a light heart, thinking that the heaven he was so much afraid of +was not so very near, after all. It was the same thing now. He +felt, as feeble natures always do in the presence of strong ones, +overmastered, circumscribed, shut in, humbled; but yet it seemed as +if the old Doctor did not despise him any more for what he considered +weakness of mind than he used to despise him when he complained of +his nerves or his digestion. + +Men who see into their neighbors are very apt to be contemptuous; but +men who see through them find something lying behind every human soul +which it is not for them to sit in judgment on, or to attempt to +sneer out of the order of God's manifold universe. + +Little as the Doctor had said out of which comfort could be +extracted, his genial manner had something grateful in it. A film of +gratitude came over the poor man's cloudy, uncertain eye, and a look +of tremulous relief and satisfaction played about his weak mouth. He +was gravitating to the majority, where he hoped to find "rest"; but +he was dreadfully sensitive to the opinions of the minority he was on +the point of leaving. + +The old Doctor saw plainly enough what was going on in his mind. + +"I sha'n't quarrel with you," he said,--"you know that very well; but +you mustn't quarrel with me, if I talk honestly with you; it isn't +everybody that will take the trouble. You flatter yourself that you +will make a good many enemies by leaving your old communion. Not so +many as you think. This is the way the common sort of people will +talk:--'You have got your ticket to the feast of life, as much as any +other man that ever lived. Protestantism says,--"Help yourself; +here's a clean plate, and a knife and fork of your own, and plenty of +fresh dishes to choose from." The Old Mother says,--"Give me your +ticket, my dear, and I'll feed you with my gold spoon off these +beautiful old wooden trenchers. Such nice bits as those good old +gentlemen have left for you!" There is no quarrelling with a man who +prefers broken victuals.' That's what the rougher sort will say; and +then, where one scolds, ten will laugh. But, mind you, I don't +either scold or laugh. I don't feel sure that you could very well +have helped doing what you will soon do. You know you were never +easy without some medicine to take when you felt ill in body. I'm +afraid I've given you trashy stuff sometimes, just to keep you quiet. +Now, let me tell you, there is just the same difference in spiritual +patients that there is in bodily ones. One set believes in wholesome +ways of living, and another must have a great list of specifics for +all the soul's complaints. You belong with the last, and got +accidentally shuffled in with the others." + +The minister smiled faintly, but did not reply. Of course, he +considered that way of talking as the result of the Doctor's +professional training. It would not have been worth while to take +offence at his plain speech, if he had been so disposed; for he might +wish to consult him the next day as to "what he should take" for his +dyspepsia or his neuralgia. + +He left the Doctor with a hollow feeling at the bottom of his soul, +as if a good piece of his manhood had been scooped out of him. His +hollow aching did not explain itself in words, but it grumbled and +worried down among the unshaped thoughts which lie beneath them. He +knew that he had been trying to reason himself out of his birthright +of reason. He knew that the inspiration which gave him understanding +was losing its throne in his intelligence, and the almighty Majority- +Vote was proclaiming itself in its stead. He knew that the great +primal truths, which each successive revelation only confirmed, were +fast becoming hidden beneath the mechanical forms of thought, which, +as with all new converts, engrossed so large a share of his +attention. The "peace," the "rest," which he had purchased were +dearly bought to one who had been trained to the arms of thought, and +whose noble privilege it might have been to live in perpetual warfare +for the advancing truth which the next generation will claim as the +legacy of the present. + +The Reverend Mr. Fairweather was getting careless about his sermons. +He must wait the fitting moment to declare himself; and in the mean +time he was preaching to heretics. It did not matter much what he +preached, under such circumstances. He pulled out two old yellow +sermons from a heap of such, and began looking over that for the +forenoon. Naturally enough, he fell asleep over it, and, sleeping, +he began to dream. + +He dreamed that he was under the high arches of an old cathedral, +amidst a throng of worshippers. The light streamed in through vast +windows, dark with the purple robes of royal saints, or blazing with +yellow glories around the heads of earthly martyrs and heavenly +messengers. The billows of the great organ roared among the +clustered columns, as the sea breaks amidst the basaltic pillars +which crowd the stormy cavern of the Hebrides. The voice of the +alternate choirs of singing boys swung back and forward, as the +silver censer swung in the hands of the whiterobed children. The +sweet cloud of incense rose in soft, fleecy mists, full of +penetrating suggestions of the East and its perfumed altars. The +knees of twenty generations had worn the pavement; their feet had +hollowed the steps; their shoulders had smoothed the columns. Dead +bishops and abbots lay under the marble of the floor in their +crumbled vestments; dead warriors, in rusted armor, were stretched +beneath their sculptured effigies. And all at once all the buried +multitudes who had ever worshipped there came thronging in through +the aisles. They choked every space, they swarmed into all the +chapels, they hung in clusters over the parapets of the galleries, +they clung to the images in every niche, and still the vast throng +kept flowing and flowing in, until the living were lost in the rush +of the returning dead who had reclaimed their own. Then, as his +dream became more fantastic, the huge cathedral itself seemed to +change into the wreck of some mighty antediluvian vertebrate; its +flying-buttresses arched round like ribs, its piers shaped themselves +into limbs, and the sound of the organ-blast changed to the wind +whistling through its thousand-jointed skeleton. + +And presently the sound lulled, and softened and softened, until it +was as the murmur of a distant swarm of bees. A procession of monks +wound along through an old street, chanting, as they walked. In his +dream he glided in among them and bore his part in the burden of +their song. He entered with the long train under a low arch, and +presently he was kneeling in a narrow cell before an image of the +Blessed Maiden holding the Divine Child in her arms, and his lips +seemed to whisper, + + Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis! + +He turned to the crucifix, and, prostrating himself before the spare, +agonizing shape of the Holy Sufferer, fell into a long passion of +tears and broken prayers. He rose and flung himself, worn-out, upon +his hard pallet, and, seeming to slumber, dreamed again within his +dream. Once more in the vast cathedral, with throngs of the living +choking its aisles, amidst jubilant peals from the cavernous depths +of the great organ, and choral melodies ringing from the fluty +throats of the singing boys. A day of great rejoicings,--for a +prelate was to be consecrated, and the bones of the mighty skeleton- +minster were shaking with anthems, as if there were life of its own +within its buttressed ribs. He looked down at his feet; the folds of +the sacred robe were flowing about them: he put his hand to his head; +it was crowned with the holy mitre. A long sigh, as of perfect +content in the consummation of all his earthly hopes, breathed +through the dreamer's lips, and shaped itself, as it escaped, into +the blissful murmur, + + Ego sum Episcopus! + +One grinning gargoyle looked in from beneath the roof through an +opening in a stained window. It was the face of a mocking fiend, +such as the old builders loved to place under the eaves to spout the +rain through their open mouths. It looked at him, as he sat in his +mitred chair, with its hideous grin growing broader and broader, +until it laughed out aloud, such a hard, stony, mocking laugh, that +he awoke out of his second dream through his first into his common +consciousness, and shivered, as he turned to the two yellow sermons +which he was to pick over and weed of the little thought they might +contain, for the next day's service. + +The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather was too much taken up with his own +bodily and spiritual condition to be deeply mindful of others. He +carried the note requesting the prayers of the congregation in his +pocket all day; and the soul in distress, which a single tender +petition might have soothed, and perhaps have saved from despair or +fatal error, found no voice in the temple to plead for it before the +Throne of Mercy! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +THE SECRET IS WHISPERED. + +The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather's congregation was not large, but +select. The lines of social cleavage run through religious creeds as +if they were of a piece with position and fortune. It is expected of +persons of a certain breeding, in some parts of New England, that +they shall be either Episcopalians or Unitarians. The mansion-house +gentry of Rockland were pretty fairly divided between the little +chapel, with the stained window and the trained rector, and the +meeting-house where the Reverend Mr. Fairweather officiated. + +It was in the latter that Dudley Venner worshipped, when he attended +service anywhere,--which depended very much on the caprice of Elsie. +He saw plainly enough that a generous and liberally cultivated nature +might find a refuge and congenial souls in either of these two +persuasions, but he objected to some points of the formal creed of +the older church, and especially to the mechanism which renders it +hard to get free from its outworn and offensive formulae,-- +remembering how Archbishop Tillotson wished in vain that it could be +"well rid of" the Athanasian Creed. This, and the fact that the +meeting-house was nearer than the chapel, determined him, when the +new rector, who was not quite up to his mark in education, was +appointed, to take a pew in the "liberal" worshippers' edifice. + +Elsie was very uncertain in her feeling about going to church. In +summer, she loved rather to stroll over The Mountain, on Sundays. +There was even a story, that she had one of the caves before +mentioned fitted up as an oratory, and that she had her own wild way +of worshipping the God whom she sought in the dark chasms of the +dreaded cliffs. Mere fables, doubtless; but they showed the common +belief, that Elsie, with all her strange and dangerous elements of +character, had yet strong religious feeling mingled with them. The +hymn-book which Dick had found, in his midnight invasion of her +chamber, opened to favorite hymns, especially some of the Methodist +and Quietist character. Many had noticed, that certain tunes, as +sung by the choir, seemed to impress her deeply; and some said, that +at such times her whole expression would change, and her stormy look +would soften so as to remind them of her poor, sweet mother. + +On the Sunday morning after the talk recorded in the last chapter, +Elsie made herself ready to go to meeting. She was dressed much as +usual, excepting that she wore a thick veil, turned aside, but ready +to conceal her features. It was natural enough that she should not +wish to be looked in the face by curious persons who would be staring +to see what effect the occurrence of the past week had had on her +spirits. Her father attended her willingly; and they took their +seats in the pew, somewhat to the surprise of many, who had hardly +expected to see them, after so humiliating a family development as +the attempted crime of their kinsman had just been furnishing for the +astonishment of the public. + +The Reverend Mr. Fairweather was now in his coldest mood. He had +passed through the period of feverish excitement which marks a change +of religious opinion. At first, when he had began to doubt his own +theological positions, he had defended them against himself with more +ingenuity and interest, perhaps, than he could have done against +another; because men rarely take the trouble to understand anybody's +difficulties in a question but their own. After this, as he began to +draw off from different points of his old belief, the cautious +disentangling of himself from one mesh after another gave sharpness +to his intellect, and the tremulous eagerness with which he seized +upon the doctrine which, piece by piece, under various pretexts and +with various disguises, he was appropriating, gave interest and +something like passion to his words. But when he had gradually +accustomed his people to his new phraseology, and was really +adjusting his sermons and his service to disguise his thoughts, he +lost at once all his intellectual acuteness and all his spiritual +fervor. + +Elsie sat quietly through the first part of the service, which was +conducted in the cold, mechanical way to be expected. Her face was +hidden by her veil; but her father knew her state of feeling, as well +by her movements and attitudes as by the expression of her features. +The hymn had been sung, the short prayer offered, the Bible read, and +the long prayer was about to begin. This was the time at which the +"notes" of any who were in affliction from loss of friends, the sick +who were doubtful of recovery, those who had cause to be grateful for +preservation of life or other signal blessing, were wont to be read. + +Just then it was that Dudley Veneer noticed that his daughter was +trembling,--a thing so rare, so unaccountable, indeed, under the +circumstances, that he watched her closely, and began to fear that +some nervous paroxysm, or other malady, might have just begun to show +itself in this way upon her. + +The minister had in his pocket two notes. One, in the handwriting of +Deacon Soper, was from a member of this congregation, returning +thanks for his preservation through a season of great peril, supposed +to be the exposure which he had shared with others, when standing in +the circle around Dick Veneer. The other was the anonymous one, in a +female hand, which he had received the evening before. He forgot +them both. His thoughts were altogether too much taken up with more +important matters. He prayed through all the frozen petitions of his +expurgated form of supplication, and not a single heart was soothed +or lifted, or reminded that its sorrows were struggling their way up +to heaven, borne on the breath from a human soul that was warm with +love. + +The people sat down as if relieved when the dreary prayer was +finished. Elsie alone remained standing until her father touched +her. Then she sat down, lifted her veil, and looked at him with a +blank, sad look, as if she had suffered some pain or wrong, but could +not give any name or expression to her vague trouble. She did not +tremble any longer, but remained ominously still, as if she had been +frozen where she sat. + +--Can a man love his own soul too well? Who, on the whole, +constitute the nobler class of human beings? those who have lived +mainly to make sure of their own personal welfare in another and +future condition of existence, or they who have worked with all their +might for their race, for their country, for the advancement of the +kingdom of God, and left all personal arrangements concerning +themselves to the sole charge of Him who made them and is responsible +to himself for their safe-keeping? Is an anchorite who has worn the +stone floor of his cell into basins with his knees bent in prayer, +more acceptable than the soldier who gives his life for the +maintenance of any sacred right or truth, without thinking what will +specially become of him in a world where there are two or three +million colonists a month, from this one planet, to be cared for? +These are grave questions, which must suggest themselves to those who +know that there are many profoundly selfish persons who are sincerely +devout and perpetually occupied with their own future, while there +are others who are perfectly ready to sacrifice themselves for any +worthy object in this world, but are really too little occupied with +their exclusive personality to think so much as many do about what is +to become of them in another. + +The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather did not, most certainly, belong to +this latter class. There are several kinds of believers, whose +history we find among the early converts to Christianity. + +There was the magistrate, whose social position was such that he +preferred a private interview in the evening with the Teacher to +following him--with the street-crowd. He had seen extraordinary +facts which had satisfied him that the young Galilean had a divine +commission. But still he cross-questioned the Teacher himself. He +was not ready to accept statements without explanation. That was the +right kind of man. See how he stood up for the legal rights of his +Master, when the people were for laying hands on him! + +And again, there was the government official, intrusted with public +money, which, in those days, implied that he was supposed to be +honest. A single look of that heavenly countenance, and two words of +gentle command, were enough for him. Neither of these men, the early +disciple, nor the evangelist, seems to have been thinking primarily +about his own personal safety. + +But now look at the poor, miserable turnkey, whose occupation shows +what he was like to be, and who had just been thrusting two +respectable strangers, taken from the hands of a mob, covered with +stripes and stripped of clothing, into the inner prison, and making +their feet fast in the stocks. His thought, in the moment of terror, +is for himself: first, suicide; then, what he shall do,--not to save +his household,--not to fulfil his duty to his office,--not to repair +the outrage he has been committing,--but to secure his own personal +safety. Truly, character shows itself as much in a man's way of +becoming a Christian as in any other! + +--Elsie sat, statue-like, through the sermon. It would not be fair +to the reader to give an abstract of that. When a man who has been +bred to free thought and free speech suddenly finds himself stepping +about, like a dancer amidst his eggs, among the old addled majority- +votes which he must not tread upon, he is a spectacle for men and +angels. Submission to intellectual precedent and authority does very +well for those who have been bred to it; we know that the underground +courses of their minds are laid in the Roman cement of tradition, and +that stately and splendid structures may be reared on such a +foundation. But to see one laying a platform over heretical +quicksands, thirty or forty or fifty years deep, and then beginning +to build upon it, is a sorry sight. A new convert from the reformed +to the ancient faith may be very strong in the arms, but he will +always have weak legs and shaky knees. He may use his hands well, +and hit hard with his fists, but he will never stand on his legs in +the way the man does who inherits his belief. + +The services were over at last, and Dudley Venner and his daughter +walked home together in silence. He always respected her moods, and +saw clearly enough that some inward trouble was weighing upon her. +There was nothing to be said in such cases, for Elsie could never +talk of her griefs. An hour, or a day, or a week of brooding, with +perhaps a sudden flash of violence: this was the way in which the +impressions which make other women weep, and tell their griefs by +word or letter, showed their effects in her mind and acts. + +She wandered off up into the remoter parts of The Mountain, that day, +after their return. No one saw just where she went,--indeed, no one +knew its forest-recesses and rocky fastnesses as she did. She was +gone until late at night; and when Old Sophy, who had watched for +her, bound up her long hair for her sleep, it was damp with the cold +dews. + +The old black woman looked at her without speaking, but questioning +her with every feature as to the sorrow that was weighing on her. + +Suddenly she turned to Old Sophy. + +"You want to know what there is troubling me;" she said. "Nobody +loves me. I cannot love anybody. What is love, Sophy?" + +"It's what poor Ol' Sophy's got for her Elsie," the old woman +answered. "Tell me, darlin',--don' you love somebody?---don' you +love? you know,--oh, tell me, darlin', don' you love to see the +gen'l'man that keeps up at the school where you go? They say he's +the pootiest gen'l'man that was ever in the town here. Don' be +'fraid of poor Ol' Sophy, darlin',--she loved a man once,--see here! +Oh, I've showed you this often enough!" + +She took from her pocket a half of one of the old Spanish silver +coins, such as were current in the earlier part of this century. The +other half of it had been lying in the deep sea-sand for more than +fifty years. + +Elsie looked her in the face, but did not answer in words. What +strange intelligence was that which passed between them through the +diamond eyes and the little beady black ones?---what subtile +intercommunication, penetrating so much deeper than articulate +speech? This was the nearest approach to sympathetic relations that +Elsie ever had: a kind of dumb intercourse of feeling, such as one +sees in the eyes of brute mothers looking on their young. But, +subtile as it was, it was narrow and individual; whereas an emotion +which can shape itself in language opens the gate for itself into the +great community of human affections; for every word we speak is the +medal of a dead thought or feeling, struck in the die of some human +experience, worn smooth by innumerable contacts, and always +transferred warm from one to another. By words we share the common +consciousness of the race, which has shaped itself in these symbols. +By music we reach those special states of consciousness which, being +without form, cannot be shaped with the mosaics of the vocabulary. +The language of the eyes runs deeper into the personal nature, but it +is purely individual, and perishes in the expression. + +If we consider them all as growing out of the consciousness as their +root, language is the leaf, music is the flower; but when the eyes +meet and search each other, it is the uncovering of the blanched stem +through which the whole life runs, but which has never taken color or +form from the sunlight. + +For three days Elsie did not return to the school. Much of the time +she was among the woods and rocks. The season was now beginning to +wane, and the forest to put on its autumnal glory. The dreamy haze +was beginning to soften the landscape, and the mast delicious days of +the year were lending their attraction to the scenery of The +Mountain. It was not very singular that Elsie should be lingering in +her old haunts, from which the change of season must soon drive her. +But Old Sophy saw clearly enough that some internal conflict was +going on, and knew very well that it must have its own way and work +itself out as it best could. As much as looks could tell Elsie had +told her. She had said in words, to be sure, that she could not +love. Something warped and thwarted the emotion which would have +been love in another, no doubt; but that such an emotion was striving +with her against all malign influences which interfered with it the +old woman had a perfect certainty in her own mind. + +Everybody who has observed the working of emotions in persons of +various temperaments knows well enough that they have periods of +incubation, which differ with the individual, and with the particular +cause and degree of excitement, yet evidently go through a strictly +self-limited series of evolutions, at the end of which, their result +--an act of violence, a paroxysm of tears, a gradual subsidence into +repose, or whatever it may be--declares itself, like the last stage +of an attack of fever and ague. No one can observe children without +noticing that there is a personal equation, to use the astronomer's +language, in their tempers, so that one sulks an hour over an offence +which makes another a fury for five minutes, and leaves him or her an +angel when it is over. + +At the end of three days, Elsie braided her long, glossy, black hair, +and shot a golden arrow through it. She dressed herself with more +than usual care, and came down in the morning superb in her stormy +beauty. The brooding paroxysm was over, or at least her passion had +changed its phase. Her father saw it with great relief; he had +always many fears for her in her hours and days of gloom, but, for +reasons before assigned, had felt that she must be trusted to +herself, without appealing to actual restraint, or any other +supervision than such as Old Sophy could exercise without offence. + +She went off at the accustomed hour to the school. All the girls had +their eyes on her. None so keen as these young misses to know an +inward movement by an outward sign of adornment: if they have not as +many signals as the ships that sail the great seas, there is not an +end of ribbon or a turn of a ringlet which is not a hieroglyphic with +a hidden meaning to these little cruisers over the ocean of +sentiment. + +The girls all looked at Elsie with a new thought; for she was more +sumptuously arrayed than perhaps ever before at the school; and they +said to themselves that she had come meaning to draw the young +master's eyes upon her. That was it; what else could it be? The +beautiful cold girl with the diamond eyes meant to dazzle the +handsome young gentleman. He would be afraid to love her; it +couldn't be true, that which some people had said in the village; she +was n't the kind of young lady to make Mr. Langdon happy. Those dark +people are never safe: so one of the young blondes said to herself. +Elsie was not literary enough for such a scholar: so thought Miss +Charlotte Ann Wood, the young poetess. She couldn't have ,a good +temper, with those scowling eyebrows: this was the opinion of several +broad-faced, smiling girls, who thought, each in her own snug little +mental sanctum, that, if, etc., etc., she could make him so happy! + +Elsie had none of the still, wicked light in her eyes, that morning. +She looked gentle, but dreamy; played with her books; did not trouble +herself with any of the exercises,--which in itself was not very +remarkable, as she was always allowed, under some pretext or other, +to have her own way. + +The school-hours were over at length. The girls went out, but she +lingered to the last. She then came up to Mr. Bernard, with a book +in her hand, as if to ask a question. + +"Will you walk towards my home with me today? "she said, in a very +low voice, little more than a whisper. + +Mr. Bernard was startled by the request, put in such a way. He had a +presentiment of some painful scene or other. But there was nothing +to be done but to assure her that it would give him great pleasure. + +So they walked along together on their way toward the Dudley mansion. + +"I have no friend," Elsie said, all at once. "Nothing loves me but +one old woman. I cannot love anybody. They tell me there is +something in my eyes that draws people to me and makes them faint: +Look into them, will you?" + +She turned her face toward him. It was very pale, and the diamond +eyes were glittering with a film, such as beneath other lids would +have rounded into a tear. + +"Beautiful eyes, Elsie," he said,--"sometimes very piercing,--but +soft now, and looking as if there were something beneath them that +friendship might draw out. I am your friend, Elsie. Tell me what I +can do to render your life happier." + +"Love me!" said Elsie Venner. + +What shall a man do, when a woman makes such a demand, involving such +an avowal? It was the tenderest, cruellest, humblest moment of Mr. +Bernard's life. He turned pale, he trembled almost, as if he had +been a woman listening to her lover's declaration. + +"Elsie," he said, presently, "I so long to be of some use to you, to +have your confidence and sympathy, that I must not let you say or do +anything to put us in false relations. I do love you, Elsie, as a +suffering sister with sorrows of her own,--as one whom I would save +at the risk of my happiness and life,--as one who needs a true friend +more than--any of all the young girls I have known. More than this +you would not ask me to say. You have been through excitement and +trouble lately, and it has made you feel such a need more than ever. +Give me your hand, dear Elsie, and trust me that I will be as true a +friend to you as if we were children of the same mother." + +Elsie gave him her hand mechanically. It seemed to him that a cold +aura shot from it along his arm and chilled the blood running through +his heart. He pressed it gently, looked at her with a face full of +grave kindness and sad interest, then softly relinquished it. + +It was all over with poor Elsie. They walked almost in silence the +rest of the way. Mr. Bernard left her at the gate of the mansion- +house, and returned with sad forebodings. Elsie went at once to her +own room, and did not come from it at the usual hours. At last Old +Sophy began to be alarmed about her, went to her apartment, and, +finding the door unlocked, entered cautiously. She found Elsie lying +on her bed, her brows strongly contracted, her eyes dull, her whole +look that of great suffering. Her first thought was that she had +been doing herself a harm by some deadly means or other. But Elsie, +saw her fear, and reassured her. + +"No," she said, "there is nothing wrong, such as you are thinking of; +I am not dying. You may send for the Doctor; perhaps he can take the +pain from my head. That is all I want him to do. There is no use in +the pain, that I know of; if he can stop it, let him." + +So they sent for the old Doctor. It was not long before the solid +trot of Caustic, the old bay horse, and the crashing of the gravel +under the wheels, gave notice that the physician was driving up the +avenue. + +The old Doctor was a model for visiting practitioners. He always +came into the sick-room with a quiet, cheerful look, as if he had a +consciousness that he was bringing some sure relief with him. The +way a patient snatches his first look at his doctor's face, to see +whether he is doomed, whether he is reprieved, whether he is +unconditionally pardoned, has really something terrible about it. It +is only to be met by an imperturbable mask of serenity, proof against +anything and everything in a patient's aspect. The physician whose +face reflects his patient's condition like a mirror may do well +enough to examine people for a life-insurance office, but does not +belong to the sickroom. The old Doctor did not keep people waiting +in dread suspense, while he stayed talking about the case,--the +patient all the time thinking that he and the friends are discussing +some alarming symptom or formidable operation which he himself is by- +and-by--to hear of. + +He was in Elsie's room almost before she knew he was in the house. +He came to her bedside in such a natural, quiet way, that it seemed +as if he were only a friend who had dropped in for a moment to say a +pleasant word. Yet he was very uneasy about Elsie until he had seen +her; he never knew what might happen to her or those about her, and +came prepared for the worst. + +"Sick, my child?" he said, in a very soft, low voice. + +Elsie nodded, without speaking. + +The Doctor took her hand,--whether with professional views, or only +in a friendly way, it would have been hard to tell. So he sat a few +minutes, looking at her all the time with a kind of fatherly +interest, but with it all noting how she lay, how she breathed, her +color, her expression, all that teaches the practised eye so much +without a single question being asked. He saw she was in suffering, +and said presently, + +"You have pain somewhere; where is it?" + +She put her hand to her head. + +As she was not disposed to talk, he watched her for a while, +questioned Old Sophy shrewdly a few minutes, and so made up his mind +as to the probable cause of disturbance and the proper remedies to be +used. + +Some very silly people thought the old Doctor did not believe in +medicine, because he gave less than certain poor half-taught +creatures in the smaller neighboring towns, who took advantage of +people's sickness to disgust and disturb them with all manner of ill- +smelling and ill-behaving drugs. In truth, he hated to give anything +noxious or loathsome to those who were uncomfortable enough already, +unless he was very sure it would do good,--in which case, he never +played with drugs, but gave good, honest, efficient doses. Sometimes +he lost a family of the more boorish sort, because they did not think +they got their money's worth out of him, unless they had something +more than a taste of everything he carried in his saddlebags. + +He ordered some remedies which he thought would relieve Elsie, and +left her, saying he would call the next day, hoping to find her +better. But the next day came, and the next, and still Elsie was on +her bed, feverish, restless, wakeful, silent. At night she tossed +about and wandered, and it became at length apparent that there was a +settled attack, something like what they called, formerly, a "nervous +fever." + +On the fourth day she was more restless than common. One of the +women of the house came in to help to take care of her; but she +showed an aversion to her presence. + +"Send me Helen Darley," she said, at last. + +The old Doctor told them, that, if possible, they must indulge this +fancy of hers. The caprices of sick people were never to be +despised, least of all of such persons as Elsie, when rendered +irritable and exacting by pain and weakness. + +So a message was sent to Mr. Silas Peckham at the Apollinean +Institute, to know if he could not spare Miss Helen Darley for a few +days, if required, to give her attention to a young lady who attended +his school and who was now lying ill,--no other person than the +daughter of Dudley Venner. + +A mean man never agrees to anything without deliberately turning it +over, so that he may see its dirty side, and, if he can, sweating the +coin he pays for it. If an archangel should offer to save his soul +for sixpence, he would try to find a sixpence with a hole in it. A +gentleman says yes to a great many things without stopping to think: +a shabby fellow is known by his caution in answering questions, for +fear of, compromising his pocket or himself. + +Mr. Silas Peckham looked very grave at the request. The dooties of +Miss Darley at the Institoot were important, very important. He paid +her large sums of money for her time,--more than she could expect to +get in any other institootion for the edoocation of female youth. A +deduction from her selary would be necessary, in case she should +retire from the sphere of her dooties for a season. He should be put +to extry expense, and have to perform additional labors himself. He +would consider of the matter. If any arrangement could be made, he +would send word to Squire Venner's folks. + +"Miss Darley," said Silas Peckham, "the' 's a message from Squire +Venner's that his daughter wants you down at the mansion-house to see +her. She's got a fever, so they inform me. If it's any kind of +ketchin' fever, of course you won't think of goin' near the mansion- +house. If Doctor Kittredge says it's safe, perfec'ly safe, I can't +object to your goin', on sech conditions as seem to be fair to all' +concerned. You will give up your pay for the whole time you are. +absent,--portions of days to be caounted as whole days. You will be +charged with board the same as if you eat your victuals with the +household. The victuals are of no use after they're cooked but to be +eat, and your bein' away is no savin' to our folks. I shall charge +you a reasonable compensation for the demage to the school by the +absence of a teacher. If Miss Crabs undertakes any dooties belongin' +to your department of instruction, she will look to you for sech +pecooniary considerations as you may agree upon between you. On +these conditions I am willin' to give my consent to your temporary +absence from the post of dooty. I will step down to Doctor +Kittredge's myself, and make inquiries as to the natur' of the +complaint." + +Mr. Peckham took up a rusty and very narrow-brimmed hat, which he +cocked upon one side of his head, with an air peculiar to the rural +gentry. It was the hour when the Doctor expected to be in his +office, unless he had some special call which kept him from home. + +He found the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather just taking leave of the +Doctor. His hand was on the pit of his stomach, and his countenance +was expressive of inward uneasiness. + +"Shake it before using," said the Doctor; "and the sooner you make up +your mind to speak right out, the better it will be for your +digestion." + +"Oh, Mr. Peckham! Walk in, Mr. Peckham! Nobody sick up at the +school, I hope?" + +"The haalth of the school is fust-rate," replied Mr. Peckham. "The +sitooation is uncommonly favorable to saloobrity." (These last words +were from the Annual Report of the past year.) "Providence has spared +our female youth in a remarkable measure. I've come with reference +to another consideration. Dr. Kittredge, is there any ketchin' +complaint goin' about in the village?" + +"Well, yes," said the Doctor, "I should say there was something of +that sort. Measles. Mumps. And Sin,--that's always catching." + +The old Doctor's eye twinkled; once in a while he had his little +touch of humor. + +Silas Peckham slanted his eye up suspiciously at the Doctor, as if he +was getting some kind of advantage over him. That is the way people +of his constitution are apt to take a bit of pleasantry. + +"I don't mean sech things, Doctor; I mean fevers. Is there any +ketchin' fevers--bilious, or nervous, or typus, or whatever you call +'em--now goin' round this village? That's what I want to ascertain, +if there's no impropriety." + +The old Doctor looked at Silas through his spectacles. + +"Hard and sour as a green cider-apple," he thought to himself. +"No,"; he said,--"I don't know any such cases." + +"What's the matter with Elsie Venner?" asked Silas, sharply, as if +he expected to have him this time. + +"A mild feverish attack, I should call it in anybody else; but she +has a peculiar constitution, and I never feel so safe about her as I +should about most people." + +"Anything ketchin' about it? " Silas asked, cunningly. + +"No, indeed! " said the Doctor,--"catching? no,--what put that into +your head, Mr. Peckham?" + +"Well, Doctor," the conscientious Principal answered, "I naterally +feel a graat responsibility, a very gmaaat responsibility, for the +noomerous and lovely young ladies committed to my charge. It has +been a question, whether one of my assistants should go, accordin' to +request, to stop with Miss Venner for a season. Nothin' restrains my +givin' my full and free consent to her goin' but the fear lest +contagious maladies should be introdooced among those lovely female +youth. I shall abide by your opinion,--I understan' you to say +distinc'ly, her complaint is not ketchin'?---and urge upon Miss +Darley to fulfil her dooties to a sufferin' fellow-creature at any +cost to myself and my establishment. We shall miss her very much; +but it is a good cause, and she shall go,--and I shall trust that +Providence will enable us to spare her without permanent demage to +the interests of the Institootion." + +Saying this, the excellent Principal departed, with his rusty narrow- +brimmed hat leaning over, as if it had a six-knot breeze abeam, and +its gunwale (so to speak) was dipping into his coat-collar. He +announced the result of his inquiries to Helen, who had received a +brief note in the mean time from a poor relation of Elsie's mother, +then at the mansion-house, informing her of the critical situation of +Elsie and of her urgent desire that Helen should be with her. She +could not hesitate. She blushed as she thought of the comments that +might be made; but what were such considerations in a matter of life +and death? She could not stop to make terms with Silas Peckham. She +must go. He might fleece her, if he would; she would not complain,-- +not even to Bernard, who, she knew, would bring the Principal to +terms, if she gave the least hint of his intended extortions. + +So Helen made up her bundle of clothes to be sent after her, took a +book or two with her to help her pass the time, and departed for the +Dudley mansion. It was with a great inward effort that she undertook +the sisterly task which was thus forced upon her. She had a kind of +terror of Elsie; and the thought of having charge of her, of being +alone with her, of coming under the full influence of those diamond +eyes,--if, indeed, their light were not dimmed by suffering and +weariness,--was one she shrank from. But what could she do? It +might be a turning-point in the life of the poor girl; and she must +overcome all her fears, all her repugnance, and go to her rescue. + +"Is Helen come?" said Elsie, when she heard, with her fine sense +quickened by the irritability of sickness, a light footfall on the +stair, with a cadence unlike that of any inmate of the house. + +"It's a strange woman's step," said Old Sophy, who, with her +exclusive love for Elsie, was naturally disposed to jealousy of a +new-comer. "Let Ol' Sophy set at 'th' foot o' th' bed, if th' young +missis sets by th' piller,--won' y', darlin'? The' 's nobody that's +white can love y' as th' of black woman does;--don' sen' her away, +now, there 's a dear soul!" + +Elsie motioned her to sit in the place she had pointed to, and Helen +at that moment entered the room. Dudley Venner followed her. + +"She is your patient," he said, "except while the Doctor is here. +She has been longing to have you with her, and we shall expect you to +make her well in a few days." + +So Helen Darley found herself established in the most unexpected +manner as an inmate of the Dudley mansion. She sat with Elsie most +of the time, by day and by night, soothing her, and trying to enter +into her confidence and affections, if it should prove that this +strange creature was really capable of truly sympathetic emotions. + +What was this unexplained something which came between her soul and +that of every other human being with whom she was in relations? +Helen perceived, or rather felt, that she had, folded up in the +depths of her being, a true womanly nature. Through the cloud that +darkened her aspect, now and then a ray would steal forth, which, +like the smile of stern and solemn people, was all the more +impressive from its contrast with the expression she wore habitually. +It might well be that pain and fatigue had changed her aspect; but, +at any rate, Helen looked into her eyes without that nervous +agitation which their cold glitter had produced on her when they were +full of their natural light. She felt sure that her mother must have +been a lovely, gentle woman. There were gleams of a beautiful nature +shining through some ill-defined medium which disturbed and made them +flicker and waver, as distant images do when seen through the +rippling upward currents of heated air. She loved, in her own way, +the old black woman, and seemed to keep up a kind of silent +communication with her, as if they did not require the use of speech. +She appeared to be tranquillized by the presence of Helen, and loved +to have her seated at the bedside. Yet something, whatever it was, +prevented her from opening her heart to her kind companion; and even +now there were times when she would lie looking at her, with such a +still, watchful, almost dangerous expression, that Helen would sigh, +and change her place, as persons do whose breath some cunning orator +had been sucking out of them with his spongy eloquence, so that, when +he stops, they must get some air and stir about, or they feel as if +they should be half smothered and palsied. + +It was too much to keep guessing what was the meaning of all this. +Helen determined to ask Old Sophy some questions which might probably +throw light upon her doubts. She took the opportunity one evening +when Elsie was lying asleep and they were both sitting at some +distance from her bed. + +"Tell me, Sophy," she said, "was Elsie always as shy as she seems to +be now, in talking with those to whom she is friendly?" + +"Alway jes' so, Miss Darlin', ever sense she was little chil'. When +she was five, six year old, she lisp some,--call me Thophy; that make +her kin' o' 'shamed, perhaps: after she grow up, she never lisp, but +she kin' o' got the way o' not talkin' much. Fac' is, she don' like +talkin' as common gals do, 'xcep' jes' once in a while wi' some +partic'lar folks,--'n' then not much." + +"How old is Elsie?" + +"Eighteen year this las' September." + +"How long ago did her mother die?" Helen asked, with a little +trembling in her voice. + +"Eighteen year ago this October," said Old Sophy. + +Helen was silent for a moment. Then she whispered, almost +inaudibly,--for her voice appeared to fail her, + +"What did her mother die of, Sophy?" + +The old woman's small eyes dilated until a ring of white showed round +their beady centres. She caught Helen by the hand and clung to it, +as if in fear. She looked round at Elsie, who lay sleeping, as of +she might be listening. Then she drew Helen towards her and led her +softly out of the room. + +"'Sh !---'sh! " she said, as soon as they were outside the door. +"Don' never speak in this house 'bout what Elsie's mother died of!" +she said. "Nobody never says nothin' 'bout it. Oh, God has made +Ugly Things wi' death in their mouths, Miss Darlin', an' He knows +what they're for; but my poor Elsie!---to have her blood changed in +her before--It was in July Mistress got her death, but she liv' till +three week after my poor Elsie was born." + +She could speak no more. She had said enough. Helen remembered the +stories she had heard on coming to the village, and among them one +referred to in an early chapter of this narrative. All the +unaccountable looks and tastes and ways of Elsie came back to her in +the light of an ante-natal impression which had mingled an alien +element in her nature. She knew the secret of the fascination which +looked out of her cold, glittering eyes. She knew the significance +of the strange repulsion which she felt in her own intimate +consciousness underlying the inexplicable attraction which drew her +towards the young girl in spite of this repugnance. She began to +look with new feelings on the contradictions in her moral nature,-- +the longing for sympathy, as shown by her wishing for Helen's +company, and the impossibility of passing beyond the cold circle of +isolation within which she had her being. The fearful truth of that +instinctive feeling of hers, that there was something not human +looking out of Elsie's eyes, came upon her with a sudden flash of +penetrating conviction. There were two warring principles in that +superb organization and proud soul. One made her a woman, with all a +woman's powers and longings. The other chilled all the currents of +outlet for her emotions. It made her tearless and mute, when another +woman would have wept and pleaded. And it infused into her soul +something--it was cruel now to call it malice--which was still and +watchful and dangerous, which waited its opportunity, and then shot +like an arrow from its bow out of the coil of brooding premeditation. +Even those who had never seen the white scars on Dick Venner's wrist, +or heard the half-told story of her supposed attempt to do a graver +mischief, knew well enough by looking at her that she was one of the +creatures not to be tampered with,--silent in anger and swift in +vengeance. + +Helen could not return to the bedside at once after this +communication. It was with altered eyes that she must look on the +poor girl, the victim of such an unheard-of fatality. All was +explained to her now. But it opened such depths of solemn thought in +her awakened consciousness, that it seemed as if the whole mystery of +human life were coming up again before her for trial and judgment. +"Oh," she thought, "if, while the will lies sealed in its fountain, +it may be poisoned at its very source, so that it shall flow dark and +deadly through its whole course, who are we that we should judge our +fellow-creatures by ourselves?" Then came the terrible question, how +far the elements themselves are capable of perverting the moral +nature: if valor, and justice, and truth, the strength of man and the +virtue of woman, may not be poisoned out of a race by the food of the +Australian in his forest, by the foul air and darkness of the +Christians cooped up in the "tenement-houses" close by those who live +in the palaces of the great cities? + +She walked out into the garden, lost in thought upon these dark and +deep matters. Presently she heard a step behind her, and Elsie's +father came up and joined her. Since his introduction to Helen at +the distinguished tea-party given by the Widow Rowens, and before her +coming to sit with Elsie, Mr. Dudley Venner had in the most +accidental way in the world met her on several occasions: once after +church, when she happened to be caught in a slight shower and he +insisted on holding his umbrella over her on her way home;--once at a +small party at one of the mansion-houses, where the quick-eyed lady +of the house had a wonderful knack of bringing people together who +liked to see each other;--perhaps at other times and places; but of +this there is no certain evidence. + +They naturally spoke of Elsie, her illness, and the aspect it had +taken. But Helen noticed in all that Dudley Venner said about his +daughter a morbid sensitiveness, as it seemed to her, an aversion to +saying much about her physical condition or her peculiarities, +--a wish to feel and speak as a parent should, and yet a shrinking, +as if there were something about Elsie which he could not bear to +dwell upon. She thought she saw through all this, and she could +interpret it all charitably. There were circumstances about his +daughter which recalled the great sorrow of his life; it was not +strange that this perpetual reminder should in some degree have +modified his feelings as a father. But what a life he must have been +leading for so many years, with this perpetual source of distress +which he could not name! Helen knew well enough, now, the meaning of +the sadness which had left such traces in his features and tones, and +it made her feel very kindly and compassionate towards him. + +So they walked over the crackling leaves in the garden, between the +lines of box breathing its fragrance of eternity;--for this is one of +the odors which carry us out of time into the abysses of the +unbeginning past; if we ever lived on another ball of stone than +this, it must be that there was box growing on it. So they walked, +finding their way softly to each other's sorrows and sympathies, each +matching some counterpart to the other's experience of life, and +startled to see how the different, yet parallel, lessons they had +been taught by suffering had led them step by step to the same serene +acquiescence in the orderings of that Supreme Wisdom which they both +devoutly recognized. + +Old Sophy was at the window and saw them walking up and down the +garden-alleys. She watched them as her grandfather the savage +watched the figures that moved among the trees when a hostile tribe +was lurking about his mountain. + +"There'll be a weddin' in the ol house," she said, "before there's +roses on them bushes ag'in. But it won' be my poor Elsie's weddin', +'n' ol' Sophy won' be there." + +When Helen prayed in the silence of her soul that evening, it was not +that Elsie's life might be spared. She dared not ask that as a favor +of Heaven. What could life be to her but a perpetual anguish, and to +those about her but an ever-present terror? Might she but be so +influenced by divine grace, that what in her was most truly human, +most purely woman-like, should overcome the dark, cold, unmentionable +instinct which had pervaded her being like a subtile poison that was +all she could ask, and the rest she left to a higher wisdom and +tenderer love than her own. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE WHITE ASH. + +When Helen returned to Elsie's bedside, it was with a new and still +deeper feeling of sympathy, such as the story told by Old Sophy might +well awaken. She understood, as never before, the singular +fascination and as singular repulsion which she had long felt in +Elsie's presence. It had not been without a great effort that she +had forced herself to become the almost constant attendant of the +sick girl; and now she was learning, but not for the first time, the +blessed truth which so many good women have found out for themselves, +that the hardest duty bravely performed soon becomes a habit, and +tends in due time to transform itself into a pleasure. + +The old Doctor was beginning to look graver, in spite of himself. +The fever, if such it was, went gently forward, wasting the young +girl's powers of resistance from day to day; yet she showed no +disposition to take nourishment, and seemed literally to be living on +air. It was remarkable that with all this her look was almost +natural, and her features were hardly sharpened so as to suggest that +her life was burning away. He did not like this, nor various other +unobtrusive signs of danger which his practised eye detected. A very +small matter might turn the balance which held life and death poised +against each other. He surrounded her with precautions, that Nature +might have every opportunity of cunningly shifting the weights from +the scale of death to the scale of life, as she will often do if not +rudely disturbed or interfered with. + +Little tokens of good-will and kind remembrance were constantly +coming to her from the girls in the school and the good people in the +village. Some of the mansion-house people obtained rare flowers which +they sent her, and her table was covered with fruits which tempted +her in vain. Several of the school-girls wished to make her a basket +of their own handiwork, and, filling it with autumnal flowers, to +send it as a joint offering. Mr. Bernard found out their project +accidentally, and, wishing to have his share in it, brought home from +one of his long walks some boughs full of variously tinted leaves, +such as were still clinging to the stricken trees. With these he +brought also some of the already fallen leaflets of the white ash, +remarkable for their rich olive-purple color, forming a beautiful +contrast with some of the lighter-hued leaves. It so happened that +this particular tree, the white ash, did not grow upon The Mountain, +and the leaflets were more welcome for their comparative rarity. So +the girls made their basket, and the floor of it they covered with +the rich olive-purple leaflets. Such late flowers as they could lay +their hands upon served to fill it, and with many kindly messages +they sent it to Miss Elsie Venner at the Dudley mansion-house. + +Elsie was sitting up in her bed when it came, languid, but tranquil, +and Helen was by her, as usual, holding her hand, which was strangely +cold, Helen thought, for one who was said to have some kind of fever. +The school-girls' basket was brought in with its messages of love and +hopes for speedy recovery. Old Sophy was delighted to see that it +pleased Elsie, and laid it on the bed before her. Elsie began +looking at the flowers, and taking them from the basket, that she +might see the leaves. All at once she appeared to be agitated; she +looked at the basket, then around, as if there were some fearful +presence about her which she was searching for with her eager +glances. She took out the flowers, one by one, her breathing growing +hurried, her eyes staring, her hands trembling,--till, as she came +near the bottom of the basket, she flung out all the rest with a +hasty movement, looked upon the olive-purple leaflets as if paralyzed +for a moment, shrunk up, as it were, into herself in a curdling +terror, dashed the basket from her, and fell back senseless, with a +faint cry which chilled the blood of the startled listeners at her +bedside. + +"Take it away!---take it away!---quick!" said Old Sophy, as she +hastened to her mistress's pillow. "It 's the leaves of the tree +that was always death to her,--take it away! She can't live wi' it +in the room!" + +The poor old woman began chafing Elsie's hands, and Helen to try to +rouse her with hartshorn, while a third frightened attendant gathered +up the flowers and the basket and carried them out of the apartment, +She came to herself after a time, but exhausted and then wandering. +In her delirium she talked constantly as if she were in a cave, with +such exactness of circumstance that Helen could not doubt at all that +she had some such retreat among the rocks of The Mountain, probably +fitted up in her own fantastic way, where she sometimes hid herself +from all human eyes, and of the entrance to which she alone possessed +the secret. + +All this passed away, and left her, of course, weaker than before. +But this was not the only influence the unexplained paroxysm had left +behind it. From this time forward there was a change in her whole +expression and her manner. The shadows ceased flitting over her +features, and the old woman, who watched her from day to day and from +hour to hour as a mother watches her child, saw the likeness she bore +to her mother coming forth more and more, as the cold glitter died +out of the diamond eyes, and the stormy scowl disappeared from the +dark brows and low forehead. + +With all the kindness and indulgence her father had bestowed upon +her, Elsie had never felt that he loved her. The reader knows well +enough what fatal recollections and associations had frozen up the +springs of natural affection in his breast. There was nothing in the +world he would not do for Elsie. He had sacrificed his whole life to +her. His very seeming carelessness about restraining her was all +calculated; he knew that restraint would produce nothing but utter +alienation. Just so far as she allowed him, he shared her studies, +her few pleasures, her thoughts; but she was essentially solitary and +uncommunicative. No person, as was said long ago, could judge him, +because his task was not merely difficult, but simply impracticable +to human powers. A nature like Elsie's had necessarily to be studied +by itself, and to be followed in its laws where it could not be led. + +Every day, at different hours, during the whole of his daughter's +illness, Dudley Venner had sat by her, doing all he could to soothe +and please her. Always the same thin film of some emotional non- +conductor between them; always that kind of habitual regard and +family-interest, mingled with the deepest pity on one side and a sort +of respect on the other, which never warmed into outward evidences of +affection. + +It was after this occasion, when she had been so profoundly agitated +by a seemingly insignificant cause, that her father and Old Sophy +were sitting, one at one side of her bed and one at the other. She +had fallen into a light slumber. As they were looking at her, the +same thought came into both their minds at the same moment. Old +Sophy spoke for both, as she said, in a low voice, + +"It 's her mother's look,--it 's her mother's own face right over +again,--she never look' so before, the Lord's hand is on her! His +will be done!" + +When Elsie woke and lifted her languid eyes upon her father's face, +she saw in it a tenderness, a depth of affection, such as she +remembered at rare moments of her childhood, when she had won him to +her by some unusual gleam of sunshine in her fitful temper. + +"Elsie, dear," he said, "we were thinking how much your expression +was sometimes like that of your sweet mother. If you could but have +seen her, so as to remember her!" + +The tender look and tone, the yearning of the daughter's heart for +the mother she had never seen, save only with the unfixed, +undistinguishing eyes of earliest infancy, perhaps the under-thought +that she might soon rejoin her in another state of being,--all came +upon her with a sudden overflow of feeling which broke through all +the barriers between her heart and her eyes, and Elsie wept. It +seemed to her father as if the malign influence--evil spirit it might +almost be called--which had pervaded her being, had at last been +driven forth or exorcised, and that these tears were at once the sign +and the pledge of her redeemed nature. But now she was to be +soothed, and not excited. After her tears she slept again, and the +look her face wore was peaceful as never before. + +Old Sophy met the Doctor at the door and told him all the +circumstances connected with the extraordinary attack from which +Elsie had suffered. It was the purple leaves, she said. She +remembered that Dick once brought home a branch of a tree with some +of the same leaves on it, and Elsie screamed and almost fainted then. +She, Sophy, had asked her, after she had got quiet, what it was in +the leaves that made her feel so bad. Elsie could n't tell her,--did +n't like to speak about it,--shuddered whenever Sophy mentioned it. + +This did not sound so strangely to the old Doctor as it does to some +who listen to his narrative. He had known some curious examples of +antipathies, and remembered reading of others still more singular. +He had known those who could not bear the presence of a cat, and +recollected the story, often told, of a person's hiding one in a +chest when one of these sensitive individuals came into the room, so +as not to disturb him; but he presently began to sweat and turn pale, +and cried out that there must be a cat hid somewhere. He knew people +who were poisoned by strawberries, by honey, by different meats, many +who could not endure cheese,--some who could not bear the smell of +roses. If he had known all the stories in the old books, he would +have found that some have swooned and become as dead men at the smell +of a rose,--that a stout soldier has been known to turn and run at +the sight or smell of rue,--that cassia and even olive-oil have +produced deadly faintings in certain. individuals,--in short, that +almost everything has seemed to be a poison to somebody. + +"Bring me that basket, Sophy," said the old Doctor, "if you can find +it." + +Sophy brought it to him,--for he had not yet entered Elsie's +apartment. + +"These purple leaves are from the white ash," he said. "You don't +know the notion that people commonly have about that tree, Sophy?" + +"I know they say the Ugly Things never go where the white ash grows," +Sophy answered. "Oh, Doctor dear, what I'm thinkin' of a'n't true, +is it? " + +The Doctor smiled sadly, but did not answer. He went directly to +Elsie's room. Nobody would have known by his manner that he saw any +special change in his patient. He spoke with her as usual, made some +slight alteration in his prescriptions, and left the room with a +kind, cheerful look. He met her father on the stairs. + +"Is it as I thought? " said Dudley Veneer. + +"There is everything to fear," the Doctor said, "and not much, I am +afraid, to hope. Does not her face recall to you one that you +remember, as never before?" + +"Yes," her father answered,--"oh, yes! What is the meaning of this +change which has come over her features, and her voice, her temper, +her whole being? Tell me, oh, tell me, what is it? Can it be that +the curse is passing away, and my daughter is to be restored to me,-- +such as her mother would have had her,--such as her mother was?" + +"Walk out with me into the garden," the Doctor said, "and I will tell +you all I know and all I think about this great mystery of Elsie's +life." + +They walked out together, and the Doctor began: "She has lived a +double being, as it were,--the consequence of the blight which fell +upon her in the dim period before consciousness. You can see what +she might have been but for this. You know that for these eighteen +years her whole existence has taken its character from that influence +which we need not name. But you will remember that few of the lower +forms of life last as human beings do; and thus it might have been +hoped and trusted with some show of reason, as I have always +suspected you hoped and trusted, perhaps more confidently than +myself, that the lower nature which had become engrafted on the +higher would die out and leave the real woman's life she inherited to +outlive this accidental principle which had so poisoned her childhood +and youth. I believe it is so dying out; but I am afraid,--yes, I +must say it, I fear it has involved the centres of life in its own +decay. There is hardly any pulse at Elsie's wrist; no stimulants +seem to rouse her; and it looks as if life were slowly retreating +inwards, so that by-and-by she will sleep as those who lie down in +the cold and never wake." + +Strange as it may seem, her father heard all this not without deep +sorrow, and such marks of it as his thoughtful and tranquil nature, +long schooled by suffering, claimed or permitted, but with a +resignation itself the measure of his past trials. Dear as his +daughter might become to him, all he dared to ask of Heaven was that +she might be restored to that truer self which lay beneath her false +and adventitious being. If he could once see that the icy lustre in +her eyes had become a soft, calm light,--that her soul was at peace +with all about her and with Him; above,--this crumb from the +children's table was enough for him, as it was for the Syro- +Phoenician woman who asked that the dark spirit might go out from her +daughter. + +There was little change the next day, until all at once she said in a +clear voice that she should like to see her master at the school, Mr. +Langdon. He came accordingly, and took the place of Helen at her +bedside. It seemed as if Elsie had forgotten the last scene with +him. Might it be that pride had come in, and she had sent for him +only to show how superior she had grown to the weakness which had +betrayed her into that extraordinary request, so contrary to the +instincts and usages of her sex? Or was it that the singular change +which had come over her had involved her passionate fancy for him and +swept it away with her other habits of thought and feeling? Or could +it be that she felt that all earthly interests were becoming of +little account to her, and wished to place herself right with one to +whom she had displayed a wayward movement of her unbalanced +imagination? She welcomed Mr. Bernard as quietly as she had received +Helen Darley. He colored at the recollection of that last scene, +when he came into her presence; but she smiled with perfect +tranquillity. She did not speak to him of any apprehension; but he +saw that she looked upon herself as doomed. So friendly, yet so calm +did she seem through all their interview, that Mr. Bernard could only +look back upon her manifestation of feeling towards him on their walk +from the school as a vagary of a mind laboring under some unnatural +excitement, and wholly at variance with the true character of Elsie +Venner as he saw her before him in her subdued, yet singular beauty. +He looked with almost scientific closeness of observation into the +diamond eyes; but that peculiar light which he knew so well was not +there. She was the same in one sense as on that first day when he +had seen her coiling and uncoiling her golden chain; yet how +different in every aspect which revealed her state of mind and +emotion! Something of tenderness there was, perhaps, in her tone +towards him; she would not have sent for him, had she not felt more +than an ordinary interest in him. But through the whole of his visit +she never lost her gracious self-possession. The Dudley race might +well be proud of the last of its daughters, as she lay dying, but +unconquered by the feeling of the present or the fear of the future. + +As for Mr. Bernard, he found it very hard to look upon her, and +listen to her unmoved. There was nothing that reminded him of the +stormy--browed, almost savage girl he remembered in her fierce +loveliness,--nothing of all her singularities of air and of costume. +Nothing? Yes, one thing. Weak and suffering as she was, she had +never parted with one particular ornament, such as a sick person +would naturally, as it might be supposed, get rid of at once. The +golden cord which she wore round her neck at the great party was +still there. A bracelet was lying by her pillow; she had unclasped +it from her wrist. + +Before Mr. Bernard left her, she said, + +"I shall never see you again. Some time or other, perhaps, you will +mention my name to one whom you love. Give her this from your +scholar and friend Elsie." + +He took the bracelet, raised her hand to his lips, then turned his +face away; in that moment he was the weaker of the two. + +"Good-bye," she said; "thank you for coming." + +His voice died away in his throat, as he tried to answer her. She +followed him with her eyes as he passed from her sight through the +door, and when it closed after him sobbed tremulously once or twice, +but stilled herself, and met Helen, as she entered, with a composed +countenance. + +"I have had a very pleasant visit from Mr. Langdon," Elsie said. +"Sit by me, Helen, awhile without speaking; I should like to sleep, +if I can,--and to dream." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +THE GOLDEN CORD IS LOOSED. + +The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather, hearing that his parishioner's +daughter, Elsie, was very ill, could do nothing less than come to the +mansion-house and tender such consolations as he was master of. It +was rather remarkable that the old Doctor did not exactly approve of +his visit. He thought that company of every sort might be injurious +in her weak state. He was of opinion that Mr. Fairweather, though +greatly interested in religious matters, was not the most sympathetic +person that could be found; in fact, the old Doctor thought he was +too much taken up with his own interests for eternity to give himself +quite 'so heartily to the need of other people as some persons got up +on a rather more generous scale (our good neighbor Dr. Honeywood, for +instance) could do. However, all these things had better be arranged +to suit her wants; if she would like to talk with a clergyman, she +had a great deal better see one as often as she liked, and run the +risk of the excitement, than have a hidden wish for such a visit and +perhaps find herself too weak to see him by-and-by. + +The old Doctor knew by sad experience that dreadful mistake against +which all medical practitioners should be warned. His experience may +well be a guide for others. Do not overlook the desire for spiritual +advice and consolation which patients sometimes feel, and, with the +frightful mauvaise honte peculiar to Protestantism, alone among all +human beliefs, are ashamed to tell. As a part of medical treatment, +it is the physician's business to detect the hidden longing for the +food of the soul, as much as for any form of bodily nourishment. +Especially in the higher walks of society, where this unutterably +miserable false shame of Protestantism acts in proportion to the +general acuteness of the cultivated sensibilities, let no +unwillingness to suggest the sick person's real need suffer him to +languish between his want and his morbid sensitiveness. What an +infinite advantage the Mussulmans and the Catholics have over many of +our more exclusively spiritual sects in the way they keep their +religion always by them and never blush for it! And besides this +spiritual longing, we should never forget that + + "On some fond breast the parting soul relies," + +and the minister of religion, in addition to the sympathetic nature +which we have a right to demand in him, has trained himself to the +art of entering into the feelings of others. + +The reader must pardon this digression, which introduces the visit of +the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather to Elsie Veneer. It was mentioned +to her that he would like to call and see how she was, and she +consented,--not with much apparent interest, for she had reasons of +her own for not feeling any very deep conviction of his sympathy for +persons in sorrow. But he came, and worked the conversation round to +religion, and confused her with his hybrid notions, half made up of +what he had been believing and teaching all his life, and half of the +new doctrines which he had veneered upon the surface of his old +belief. He got so far as to make a prayer with her,--a cool, well- +guarded prayer, which compromised his faith as little as possible, +and which, if devotion were a game played against Providence, might +have been considered a cautious and sagacious move. + +When he had gone, Elsie called Old Sophy to her. + +"Sophy," she said, "don't let them send that cold hearted man to me +any more. If your old minister comes--to see you, I should like to +hear him talk. He looks as if he cared for everybody, and would care +for me. And, Sophy, if I should die one of these days, I should like +to have that old minister come and say whatever is to be said over +me. It would comfort Dudley more, I know, than to have that hard man +here, when you're in trouble, for some of you will be sorry when I'm +gone,--won't you, Sophy?" + +The poor old black. woman could not stand this question. The cold +minister had frozen Elsie until she felt as if nobody cared for her +or would regret her,--and her question had betrayed this momentary +feeling. + +"Don' talk so! don' talk so, darlin'!" she cried, passionately. +"When you go, Ol' Sophy'll go; 'n' where you go, Ol' Sophy'll go: 'n' +we'll both go t' th' place where th' Lord takes care of all his +children, whether their faces are white or black. Oh, darlin', +darlin'! if th' Lord should let me die firs', you shall fin' all +ready for you when you come after me. On'y don' go 'n' leave poor +Ol' Sophy all 'lone in th' world!" + +Helen came in at this moment and quieted the old woman with a look. +Such scenes were just what were most dangerous, in the state in which +Elsie was lying: but that is one of the ways in which an affectionate +friend sometimes unconsciously wears out the life which a hired +nurse, thinking of nothing but her regular duties and her wages, +would have spared from all emotional fatigue. + +The change which had come over Elsie's disposition was itself the +cause of new excitements. How was it possible that her father could +keep away from her, now that she was coming back to the nature and +the very look of her mother, the bride of his youth? How was it +possible to refuse her, when she said to Old Sophy, that she should +like to have her minister come in and sit by her, even though his +presence might perhaps prove a new source of excitement? + +But the Reverend Doctor did come and sit by her, and spoke such +soothing words to her, words of such peace and consolation, that from +that hour she was tranquil as never before. All true hearts are +alike in the hour of need; the Catholic has a reserved fund of faith +for his fellow-creature's trying moment, and the Calvinist reveals +those springs of human brotherhood and charity in his soul which are +only covered over by the iron tables inscribed with the harder dogmas +of his creed. It was enough that the Reverend Doctor knew all +Elsie's history. He could not judge her by any formula, like those +which have been moulded by past ages out of their ignorance. He did +not talk with her as if she were an outside sinner worse than +himself. He found a bruised and languishing soul, and bound up its +wounds. A blessed office,--one which is confined to no sect or +creed, but which good men in all times, under various names and with +varying ministries, to suit the need of each age, of each race, of +each individual soul, have come forward to discharge for their +suffering fellow-creatures. + +After this there was little change in Elsie, except that her heart +beat more feebly every day,--so that the old Doctor himself, with all +his experience, could see nothing to account for the gradual failing +of the powers of life, and yet could find no remedy which seemed to +arrest its progress in the smallest degree. + +"Be very careful," he said, "that she is not allowed to make any +muscular exertion. Any such effort, when a person is so enfeebled, +may stop the heart in a moment; and if it stops, it will never move +again." + +Helen enforced this rule with the greatest care. Elsie was hardly +allowed to move her hand or to speak above a whisper. It seemed to +be mainly the question now, whether this trembling flame of life +would be blown out by some light breath of air, or whether it could +be so nursed and sheltered by the hollow of these watchful hands that +it would have a chance to kindle to its natural brightness. + +--Her father came in to sit with her in the evening. He had never +talked so freely with her as during the hour he had passed at her +bedside, telling her little circumstances of her mother's life, +living over with her all that was pleasant in the past, and trying to +encourage her with some cheerful gleams of hope for the future. A +faint smile played over her face, but she did not answer his +encouraging suggestions. The hour came for him to leave her with +those who watched by her. + +"Good-night, my dear child," he said, and stooping down, kissed her +cheek. + +Elsie rose by a sudden effort, threw her arms round his neck, kissed +him, and said, "Good-night, my dear father!" + +The suddenness of her movement had taken him by surprise, or he would +have checked so dangerous an effort. It was too late now. Her arms +slid away from him like lifeless weights,--her head fell back upon +her pillow,--along sigh breathed through her lips. + +"She is faint," said Helen, doubtfully; "bring me the hartshorn, +Sophy." + +The old woman had started from her place, and was now leaning over +her, looking in her face, and listening for the sound of her +breathing. + +"She 's dead! Elsie 's dead! My darlin 's dead!" she cried aloud, +filling the room with her utterance of anguish. + +Dudley Venner drew her away and silenced her with a voice of +authority, while Helen and an assistant plied their restoratives. It +was all in vain. + +The solemn tidings passed from the chamber of death through the +family. The daughter, the hope of that old and honored house, was +dead in the freshness of her youth, and the home of its solitary +representative was hereafter doubly desolate. + +A messenger rode hastily out of the avenue. A little after this the +people of the village and the outlying farm-houses were startled by +the sound of a bell. + +One,--two,--three,--four, + +They stopped in every house, as far as the wavering vibrations +reached, and listened + +five,--six,--seven,-- + +It was not the little child which had been lying so long at the point +of death; that could not be more than three or four years old + +eight,--nine,--ten,--and so on to fifteen, sixteen,--seventeen,-- +eighteen + +The pulsations seemed to keep on,--but it was the brain, and not the +bell, that was throbbing now. + +"Elsie 's dead!" was the exclamation at a hundred firesides. + +"Eighteen year old," said old Widow Peake, rising from her chair. +"Eighteen year ago I laid two gold eagles on her mother's eyes,--he +wouldn't have anything but gold touch her eyelids,--and now Elsie's +to be straightened,--the Lord have mercy on her poor sinful soul!" + +Dudley Venner prayed that night that he might be forgiven, if he had +failed in any act of duty or kindness to this unfortunate child of +his, now freed from all the woes born with her and so long poisoning +her soul. He thanked God for the brief interval of peace which had +been granted her, for the sweet communion they had enjoyed in these +last days, and for the hope of meeting her with that other lost +friend in a better world. + +Helen mingled a few broken thanks and petitions with her tears: +thanks that she had been permitted to share the last days and hours +of this poor sister in sorrow; petitions that the grief of +bereavement might be lightened to the lonely parent and the faithful +old servant. + +Old Sophy said almost nothing, but sat day and night by her dead +darling. But sometimes her anguish would find an outlet in strange +sounds, something between a cry and a musical note,--such as noise +had ever heard her utter before. These were old remembrances surging +up from her childish days, coming through her mother from the +cannibal chief, her grandfather,--death-wails, such as they sing in +the mountains of Western Africa, when they see the fires on distant +hill-sides and know that their own wives and children are undergoing +the fate of captives. + +The time came when Elsie was to be laid by her mother in the small +square marked by the white stone. + +It was not unwillingly that the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather had +relinquished the duty of conducting the service to the Reverend +Doctor Honeywood, in accordance with Elsie's request. He could not, +by any reasoning, reconcile his present way of thinking with a hope +for the future of his unfortunate parishioner. Any good old Roman +Catholic priest, born and bred to his faith and his business, would +have found a loophole into some kind of heaven for her, by virtue of +his doctrine of "invincible ignorance," or other special proviso; but +a recent convert cannot enter into the working conditions of his new +creed. Beliefs must be lived in for a good while, before they +accommodate themselves to the soul's wants, and wear loose enough to +be comfortable. + +The Reverend Doctor had no such scruples. Like thousands of those +who are classed nominally with the despairing believers, he had never +prayed over a departed brother or sister without feeling and +expressing a guarded hope that there was mercy in store for the poor +sinner, whom parents, wives, children, brothers and sisters could not +bear to give up to utter ruin without a word,--and would not, as he +knew full well, in virtue of that human love and sympathy which +nothing can ever extinguish. And in this poor Elsie's history he +could read nothing which the tears of the recording angel might not +wash away. As the good physician of the place knew the diseases that +assailed the bodies of men and women, so he had learned the mysteries +of the sickness of the soul. + +So many wished to look upon Elsie's face once more, that her father +would not deny them; nay, he was pleased that those who remembered +her living should see her in the still beauty of death. Helen and +those with her arrayed her for this farewell-view. All was ready for +the sad or curious eyes which were to look upon her. There 'was no +painful change to be concealed by any artifice. Even her round neck +was left uncovered, that she might be more like one who slept. Only +the golden cord was left in its place: some searching eye might +detect a trace of that birthmark which it was whispered she had +always worn a necklace to conceal. + +At the last moment, when all the preparations were completed, Old +Sophy stooped over her, and, with trembling hand, loosed the golden +cord. She looked intently; for some little space: there was no shade +nor blemish where the ring of gold had encircled her throat. She +took it gently away and laid it in the casket which held her +ornaments. + +"The Lord be praised!" the old woman cried, aloud. "He has taken +away the mark that was on her; she's fit to meet his holy angels +now!" + +So Elsie lay for hours in the great room, in a kind of state, with +flowers all about her,--her black hair braided as in life,--her brows +smooth, as if they had never known the scowl of passion,--and on her +lips the faint smile with which she had uttered her last "Good-- +night." The young girls from the school looked at her, one after +another, and passed on, sobbing, carrying in their hearts the picture +that would be with them all their days. The great people of the +place were all there with their silent sympathy. The lesser kind of +gentry, and many of the plainer folk of the village, half-pleased to +find themselves passing beneath the stately portico of the ancient +mansion-house, crowded in, until the ample rooms were overflowing. +All the friends whose acquaintance we have made were there, and many +from remoter villages and towns. + +There was a deep silence at last. The hour had come for the parting +words to be spoken over the dead. The good old minister's voice rose +out of the stillness, subdued and tremulous at first, but growing +firmer and clearer as he went on, until it reached the ears of the +visitors who were in the far, desolate chambers, looking at the +pictured hangings and the old dusty portraits. He did not tell her +story in his prayer. He only spoke of our dear departed sister as +one of many whom Providence in its wisdom has seen fit to bring under +bondage from their cradles. It was not for us to judge them by any +standard of our own. He who made the heart alone knew the +infirmities it inherited or acquired. For all that our dear sister +had presented that was interesting and attractive in her character we +were to be grateful; for whatever was dark or inexplicable we must +trust that the deep shadow which rested on the twilight dawn of her +being might render a reason before the bar of Omniscience; for the +grace which had lightened her last days we should pour out our hearts +in thankful acknowledgment. From the life and the death of this our +dear sister we should learn a lesson of patience with our fellow- +creatures in their inborn peculiarities, of charity in judging what +seem to us wilful faults of character, of hope and trust, that, by +sickness or affliction, or such inevitable discipline as life must +always bring with it, if by no gentler means, the soul which had been +left by Nature to wander into the path of error and of suffering +might be reclaimed and restored to its true aim, and so led on by +divine grace to its eternal welfare. He closed his prayer by +commending each member of the afflicted family to the divine +blessing. + +Then all at once rose the clear sound of the girls' voices, in the +sweet, sad melody of a funeral hymn,--one of those which Elsie had +marked, as if prophetically, among her own favorites. + +And so they laid her in the earth, and showered down flowers upon +her, and filled her grave, and covered it with green sods. By the +side of it was another oblong ridge, with a white stone standing at +its head. Mr. Bernard looked upon it, as he came close to the place +where Elsie was laid, and read the inscription, + + CATALINA + + WIFE TO DUDLEY VENNER + + DIED + OCTOBER 13TH 1840 + + AGED XX YEARS + +A gentle rain fell on the turf after it was laid. This was the +beginning of a long and dreary autumnal storm, a deferred +"equinoctial," as many considered it. The mountain streams were all +swollen and turbulent, and the steep declivities were furrowed in +every direction by new channels. It made the house seem doubly +desolate to hear the wind howling and the rain beating upon the +roofs. The poor relation who was staying at the house would insist +on Helen's remaining a few days: Old Sophy was in such a condition, +that it kept her in continual anxiety, and there were many cares +which Helen could take off from her. + +The old black woman's life was buried in her darling's grave. She +did nothing but moan and lament for her. At night she was restless, +and would get up and wander to Elsie's apartment and look for her and +call her by name. At other times she would lie awake and listen to +the wind and the rain,--sometimes with such a wild look upon her +face, and with such sudden starts and exclamations, that it seemed as +if she heard spirit-voices and were answering the whispers of unseen +visitants. With all this were mingled hints of her old +superstition,--forebodings of something fearful about to happen,-- +perhaps the great final catastrophe of all things, according to the +prediction current in the kitchens of Rockland. + +"Hark!" Old Sophy would say,--"don' you hear th' crackin' 'n' th' +snappin' up in Th' Mountain, 'n' th' rollin' o' th' big stones? The' +'s somethin' stirrin' among th' rocks; I hear th' soun' of it in th' +night, when th' wind has stopped blowin'. Oh, stay by me a little +while, Miss Darlin'! stay by me! for it's th' Las' Day, maybe, +that's close on us, 'n' I feel as if I could n' meet th' Lord all +alone!" + +It was curious,--but Helen did certainly recognize sounds, during the +lull of the storm, which were not of falling rain or running +streams,--short snapping sounds, as of tense cords breaking,--long +uneven sounds, as of masses rolling down steep declivities. But the +morning came as usual; and as the others said nothing of these +singular noises, Helen did not think it necessary to speak of them. +All day long she and the humble relative of Elsie's mother, who had +appeared as poor relations are wont to in the great prises of life, +were busy in arranging the disordered house, and looking over the +various objects which Elsie's singular tastes had brought together, +to dispose of them as her father might direct. They all met together +at the usual hour for tea. One of the servants came in, looking very +blank, and said to the poor relation, + +"The well is gone dry; we have nothing but rainwater." + +Dudley Venner's countenance changed; he sprang to, his feet and went +to--assure himself of the fact, and, if he could, of the reason of +it. For a well to dry up during such a rain-storm was +extraordinary,--it was ominous. + +He came back, looking very anxious. + +"Did any of you notice any remarkable sounds last night," he said,-- +"or this morning? Hark! do you hear anything now?" + +They listened in perfect silence for a few moments. Then there came +a short cracking sound, and two or three snaps, as of parting cords. + +Dudley Venner called all his household together. + +"We are in danger here, as I think, to-night," he said,--"not very +great danger, perhaps, but it is a risk I do not wish you to run. +These heavy rains have loosed some of the rocks above, and they may +come down and endanger the house. Harness the horses, Elbridge, and +take all the family away. Miss Darley will go to the Institute; the +others will pass the night at the Mountain House. I shall stay here, +myself: it is not at all likely that anything will come of these +warnings; but if there should, I choose to be there and take my +chance." + +It needs little, generally, to frighten servants, and they were all +ready enough to go. The poor relation was one of the timid sort, and +was terribly uneasy to be got out of the house. This left no +alternative, of course, for Helen, but to go also. They all urged +upon Dudley Veneer to go with them: if there was danger, why should +he remain to risk it, when he sent away the others? + +Old Sophy said nothing until the time came for her to go with the +second of Elbridge's carriage-loads. + +"Come, Sophy," said Dudley Veneer, "get your things and go. They +will take good care of you at the Mountain House; and when we have +made sure that there is no real danger, you shall come back at once." + +"No, Masse!" Sophy answered. "I've seen Elsie into th' ground, 'n' +I a'n't goin' away to come back 'n' fin' Masse Veneer buried under +th' rocks. My darlin' 's gone; 'n' now, if Masse goes, 'n' th' of +place goes, it's time for Ol' Sophy to go, too. No, Masse Veneer, +we'll both stay in th' of mansion 'n' wait for th' Lord!" + +Nothing could change the old woman's determination; and her master, +who only feared, but did not really expect the long-deferred +catastrophe, was obliged to consent to her staying. The sudden +drying of the well at such a time was the most alarming sign; for he +remembered that the same thing had been observed just before great +mountain-slides. This long rain, too, was just the kind of cause +which was likely to loosen the strata of rock piled up in the ledges; +if the dreaded event should ever come to pass, it would be at such a +time. + +He paced his chamber uneasily until long past midnight. If the +morning came without accident, he meant to have a careful examination +made of all the rents and fissures above, of their direction and +extent, and especially whether, in case of a mountain-slide, the huge +masses would be like to reach so far to the east and so low down the +declivity as the mansion. + +At two o'clock in the morning he was dozing in his chair. Old Sophy +had lain down on her bed, and was muttering in troubled dreams. + +All at once a loud crash seemed to rend the very heavens above them: +a crack as of the thunder that follows close upon the bolt,--a +rending and crashing as of a forest snapped through all its stems, +torn, twisted, splintered, dragged with all its ragged boughs into +one chaotic ruin. The ground trembled under them as in an +earthquake; the old mansion shuddered so that all its windows +chattered in their casements; the great chimney shook off its heavy +cap-stones, which came down on the roof with resounding concussions; +and the echoes of The Mountain roared and bellowed in long +reduplication, as if its whole foundations were rent, and this were +the terrible voice of its dissolution. + +Dudley Venner rose from his chair, folded his arms, and awaited his +fate. There was no knowing where to look for safety; and he +remembered too well the story of the family that was lost by rushing +out of the house, and so hurrying into the very jaws of death. + +He had stood thus but for a moment, when he heard the voice of Old +Sophy in a wild cry of terror: + +"It's th' Las' Day! It's th' Las' Day! The Lord is comin' to take +us all!" + +"Sophy!" he called; but she did not hear him or heed him, and rushed +out of the house. + +The worst danger was over. If they were to be destroyed, it would +necessarily be in a few seconds from the first thrill of the terrible +convulsion. He waited in awful suspense, but calm. Not more than +one or two minutes could have passed before the frightful tumult and +all its sounding echoes had ceased. He called Old Sophy; but she did +not answer. He went to the western window and looked forth into the +darkness. He could not distinguish the outlines of the landscape, +but the white stone was clearly visible, and by its side the new-made +mound. Nay, what was that which obscured its outline, in shape like +a human figure? He flung open the window and sprang through. It was +all that there was left of poor Old Sophy, stretched out lifeless, +upon her darling's grave. + +He had scarcely composed her limbs and drawn the sheet over her, when +the neighbors began to arrive from all directions. Each was +expecting to hear of houses overwhelmed and families destroyed; but +each came with the story that his own household was safe. It was not +until the morning dawned that the true nature and extent of the +sudden movement was ascertained. A great seam had opened above the +long cliff, and the terrible Rattlesnake Ledge, with all its +envenomed reptiles, its dark fissures and black caverns, was buried +forever beneath a mighty incumbent mass of ruin. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +MR. SILAS PECKHAM RENDERS HIS ACCOUNT. + +The morning rose clear and bright. The long storm was over, and the +calm autumnal sunshine was now to return, with all its infinite +repose and sweetness. With the earliest dawn exploring parties were +out in every direction along the southern slope of The Mountain, +tracing the ravages of the great slide and the track it had followed. +It proved to be not so much a slide as the breaking off and falling +of a vast line of cliff, including the dreaded Ledge. It had folded +over like the leaves of a half-opened book when they close, crushing +the trees below, piling its ruins in a glacis at the foot of what had +been the overhanging wall of the cliff, and filling up that deep +cavity above the mansion-house which bore the ill-omened name of Dead +Man's Hollow. This it was which had saved the Dudley mansion. The +falling masses, or huge fragments breaking off from them, would have +swept the house and all around it to destruction but for this deep +shelving dell, into which the stream of ruin was happily directed. +It was, indeed, one of Nature's conservative revolutions; for the +fallen masses made a kind oz shelf, which interposed a level break +between the inclined planes above and below it, so that the +nightmare-fancies of the dwellers in the Dudley mansion, and in many +other residences under the shadow of The Mountain, need not keep them +lying awake hereafter to listen for the snapping of roots and the +splitting of the rocks above them. + +Twenty-four hours after the falling of the cliff, it seemed as if it +had happened ages ago. The new fact had fitted itself in with all +the old predictions, forebodings, fears, and acquired the solidarity +belonging to all events which have slipped out of the fingers of Time +and dissolved in the antecedent eternity. + +Old Sophy was lying dead in the Dudley mansion. If there were tears +shed for her, they could not be bitter ones; for she had lived out +her full measure of days, and gone--who could help fondly believing +it?--to rejoin her beloved mistress. They made a place for her at +the foot of the two mounds. It was thus she would have chosen to +sleep, and not to have wronged her humble devotion in life by asking +to lie at the side of those whom she had served so long and +faithfully. There were very few present at the simple ceremony. +Helen Darley was one of these few. The old black woman had been her +companion in all the kind offices of which she had been the +ministering angel to Elsie. + +After it was all over, Helen was leaving with the rest, when Dudley +Veneer begged her to stay a little, and he would send her back: it +was a long walk; besides, he wished to say some things to her, which +he had not had the opportunity of speaking. Of course Helen could +not refuse him; there must be many thoughts coming into his mind +which he would wish to share with her who had known his daughter so +long and been with filer in her last days. + +She returned into the great parlor with the wrought cornices and the +medallion-portraits on the ceiling. + +"I am now alone in the world," Dudley Veneer said. + +Helen must have known that before he spoke. But the tone in which he +said it had so much meaning, that she could not find a word to answer +him with. They sat in silence, which the old tall clock counted out +in long seconds; but it was silence which meant more than any words +they had ever spoken. + +"Alone in the world. Helen, the freshness of my life is gone, and +there is little left of the few graces which in my younger days might +have fitted me to win the love of women. Listen to me,--kindly, if +you can; forgive me, at least. Half my life has been passed in +constant fear and anguish, without any near friend to share my +trials. My task is done now; my fears have ceased to prey upon me; +the sharpness of early sorrows has yielded something of its edge to +time. You have bound me to you by gratitude in the tender care you +have taken of my poor child. More than this. I must tell you all +now, out of the depth of this trouble through which I am passing. I +have loved you from the moment we first met; and if my life has +anything left worth accepting, it is yours. Will you take the +offered gift?" + +Helen looked in his face, surprised, bewildered. + +"This is not for me,--not for me," she said. "I am but a poor faded +flower, not worth the gathering, of such a one as you. No, no,--I +have been bred to humble toil all my days, and I could not be to you +what you ought to ask. I am accustomed to a kind of loneliness and +self-dependence. I have seen nothing, almost, of the world, such as +you were born to move in. Leave me to my obscure place and duties; I +shall at least have peace;--and you--you will surely find in due time +some one better fitted by Nature and training to make you happy." + +"No, Miss Darley! "Dudley Venner said, almost sternly. "You must +not speak to a man, who has lived through my experiences, of looking +about for a new choice after his heart has once chosen. Say that you +can never love me; say that I have lived too long to share your young +life; say that sorrow has left nothing in me for Love to find his +pleasure in; but do not mock me with the hope of a new affection for +some unknown object. The first look of yours brought me to your +side. The first tone of your voice sunk into my heart. From this +moment my life must wither out or bloom anew. My home is desolate. +Come under my roof and make it bright once more,--share my life with +me,--or I shall give the halls of the old mansion to the bats and the +owls, and wander forth alone without a hope or a friend!" + +To find herself with a man's future at the disposal of a single word +of hers!---a man like this, too, with a fascination for her against +which she had tried to shut her heart, feeling that he lived in +another sphere than hers, working as she was for her bread a poor +operative in the factory of a hard master and jealous overseer, the +salaried drudge of Mr. Silas Peckham! Why, she had thought he was +grateful to her as a friend of his daughter; she had even pleased +herself with the feeling that he liked her, in her humble place, as a +woman of some cultivation and many sympathetic points of relation +with himself; but that he loved her,--that this deep, fine nature, in +a man so far removed from her in outward circumstance, should have +found its counterpart in one whom life had treated so coldly as +herself,--that Dudley Venner should stake his happiness on a breath +of hers,--poor Helen Darley's,---it was all a surprise, a confusion, +a kind of fear not wholly fearful. Ah, me! women know what it is, +that mist over the eyes, that trembling in the limbs, that faltering +of the voice, that sweet, shame-faced, unspoken confession of +weakness which does not wish to be strong, that sudden overflow in +the soul where thoughts loose their hold on each other and swim +single and helpless in the flood of emotion,--women know what it is! + +No doubt she was a little frightened and a good deal bewildered, and +that her sympathies were warmly excited for a friend to whom she had +been brought so near, and whose loneliness she saw and pitied. She +lost that calm self-possession she had hoped to maintain. + +"If I thought that I could make you happy,--if I should speak from my +heart, and not my reason,--I am but a weak woman,--yet if I can be to +you--What can I say?" + +What more could this poor, dear Helen say? + + +"Elbridge, harness the horses and take Miss Darley back to the +school." + +What conversation had taken place since Helen's rhetorical failure is +not recorded in the minutes from which this narrative is constructed. +But when the man who had been summoned had gone to get the carriage +ready, Helen resumed something she had been speaking of. + +"Not for the world. Everything must go on just as it has gone on, +for the present. There are proprieties to be consulted. I cannot be +hard with you, that out of your very affliction has sprung this--this +well--you must name it for me,--but the world will never listen to +explanations. I am to be Helen Darley, lady assistant in Mr. Silas +Peckham's school, as long as I see fit to hold my office. And I mean +to attend to my scholars just as before; so that I shall have very +little time for visiting or seeing company. I believe, though, you +are one of the Trustees and a Member of the Examining Committee; so +that, if you should happen to visit the school, I shall try to be +civil to you." + +Every lady sees, of course, that Helen was quite right; but perhaps +here and there one will think that Dudley Venner was all wrong,--that +he was too hasty,--that he should have been too full of his recent +grief for such a confession as he has just made, and the passion from +which it sprung. Perhaps they do not understand the sudden recoil of +a strong nature long compressed. Perhaps they have not studied the +mystery of allotropism in the emotions of the human heart. Go to the +nearest chemist and ask him to show you some of the dark-red +phosphorus which will not burn without fierce heating, but at +500 deg. Fahrenheit, changes back again to the inflammable substance +we know so well. Grief seems more like ashes than like fire; but as +grief has been love once, so it may become love again. This is +emotional allotropism. + +Helen rode back to the Institute and inquired for Mr. Peckham. She +had not seen him during the brief interval between her departure from +the mansion-house and her return to Old Sophy's funeral. There were +various questions about the school she wished to ask. + +"Oh, how's your haalth, Miss Darley?" Silas began. "We've missed you +consid'able. Glad to see you back at the post of dooty. Hope the +Squire treated you hahnsomely,--liberal pecooniary compensation, +--hey? A'n't much of a loser, I guess, by acceptin' his +propositions?" + +Helen blushed at this last question, as if Silas had meant something +by it beyond asking what money she had received; but his own +double-meaning expression and her blush were too nice points for him +to have taken cognizance of. He was engaged in a mental calculation +as to the amount of the deduction he should make under the head of +"demage to the institootion,"--this depending somewhat on that of the +"pecooniary compensation" she might have received for her services as +the friend of Elsie Venner. + +So Helen slid back at once into her routine, the same faithful, +patient creature she had always been. But what was this new light +which seemed to have kindled in her eyes? What was this look of +peace, which nothing could disturb, which smiled serenely through all +the little meannesses with which the daily life of the educational +factory surrounded her, which not only made her seem resigned, but +overflowed all her features with a thoughtful, subdued happiness? Mr. +Bernard did not know,--perhaps he did not guess. The inmates of the +Dudley mansion were not scandalized by any mysterious visits of a +veiled or unveiled lady. The vibrating tongues of the "female youth" +of the Institute were not set in motion by the standing of an +equipage at the gate, waiting for their lady-teacher. The servants +at the mansion did not convey numerous letters with superscriptions +in a bold, manly hand, sealed with the arms of a well-known house, +and directed to Miss Helen Darley; nor, on the other hand, did Hiram, +the man from the lean streak in New Hampshire, carry sweet-smelling, +rose-hued, many-layered, criss-crossed, fine-stitch-lettered packages +of note-paper directed to Dudley Venner, Esq., and all too scanty to +hold that incredible expansion of the famous three words which a +woman was born to say,--that perpetual miracle which astonishes all +the go-betweens who wear their shoes out in carrying a woman's +infinite variations on the theme + +"I love you." + +But the reader must remember that there are walks in country-towns +where people are liable to meet by accident, and that the hollow of +an old tree has served the purpose of a post-office sometimes; so +that he has her choice (to divide the pronouns impartially) of +various hypotheses to account for the new glory of happiness which +seemed to have irradiated our poor Helen's features, as if her dreary +life were awakening in the dawn of a blessed future. + +With all the alleviations which have been hinted at, Mr. Dudley +Venner thought that the days and the weeks had never moved so slowly +as through the last period of the autumn that was passing. Elsie had +been a perpetual source of anxiety to him, but still she had been a +companion. He could not mourn for her; for he felt that she was +safer with her mother, in that world where there are no more sorrows +and dangers, than she could have been with him. But as he sat at his +window and looked at the three mounds, the loneliness of the great +house made it seem more like the sepulchre than these narrow +dwellings where his beloved and her daughter lay close to each other, +side by side,--Catalina, the bride of his youth, and Elsie, the child +whom he had nurtured, with poor Old Sophy, who had followed them like +a black shadow, at their feet, under the same soft turf, sprinkled +with the brown autumnal leaves. It was not good for him to be thus +alone. How should he ever live through the long months of November +and December? + +The months of November and December did, in some way or other, get +rid of themselves at last, bringing with them the usual events of +village-life and a few unusual ones. Some of the geologists had been +up to look at the great slide, of which they gave those prolix +accounts which everybody remembers who read the scientific journals +of the time. The engineers reported that there was little +probability of any further convulsion along the line of rocks which +overhung the more thickly settled part of the town. The naturalists +drew up a paper on the "Probable Extinction of the Crotalus Durissus +in the Township of Rockland." The engagement of the Widow Rowens to +a Little Millionville merchant was announced,--"Sudding 'n' +onexpected," Widow Leech said,--"waalthy, or she wouldn't ha' looked +at him,--fifty year old, if he is a day, 'n' hu'n't got a white hair +in his head." The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather had publicly +announced that he was going to join the Roman Catholic communion,-- +not so much to the surprise or consternation of the religious world +as he had supposed. Several old ladies forthwith proclaimed their +intention of following him; but, as one or two of them were deaf, and +another had been threatened with an attack of that mild, but +obstinate complaint, dementia senilis, many thought it was not so +much the force of his arguments as a kind of tendency to jump as the +bellwether jumps, well known in flocks not included in the Christian +fold. His bereaved congregation immediately began pulling candidates +on and off, like new boots, on trial. Some pinched in tender places; +some were too loose; some were too square-toed; some were too coarse, +and did n't please; some were too thin, and would n't last;--in +short, they could n't possibly find a fit. At last, people began to +drop in to hear old Doctor Honeywood. They were quite surprised to +find what a human old gentleman he was, and went back and told the +others, that, instead of being a case of confluent sectarianism, as +they supposed, the good old minister had been so well vaccinated with +charitable virus that he was now a true, open-souled Christian of the +mildest type. The end of all which was, that the liberal people went +over to the old minister almost in a body, just at the time that +Deacon Shearer and the "Vinegar-Bible" party split off, and that not +long afterwards they sold their own meeting-house to the +malecontents, so that Deacon Soper used often to remind Colonel +Sprowle of his wish that "our little man and him [the Reverend Doctor +would swop pulpits," and tell him it had "pooty nigh come trew."--- +But this is anticipating the course of events, which were much longer +in coming about; for we have but just got through that terrible long +month, as Mr. Dudley Venner found it, of December. + +On the first of January, Mr. Silas Peckham was in the habit of +settling his quarterly accounts, and making such new arrangements as +his convenience or interest dictated. New Year was a holiday at the +Institute. No doubt this accounted for Helen's being dressed so +charmingly,--always, to be sure in, her own simple way, but yet with +such a true lady's air, that she looked fit to be the mistress of any +mansion in the land. + +She was in the parlor alone, a little before noon, when Mr. Peckham +came in. + +"I'm ready to settle my accaount with you now, Miss Darley," said +Silas. + +"As you please, Mr. Peckham," Helen answered, very graciously. + +"Before payin' you your selary," the Principal continued, "I wish to +come to an understandin' as to the futur'. I consider that I've been +payin' high, very high, for the work you do. Women's wages can't be +expected to do more than feed and clothe 'em, as a gineral thing, +with a little savin', in case of sickness, and to bury 'em, if they +break daown, as all of 'em are liable to do at any time. If I a'n't +misinformed, you not only support yourself out of my establishment, +but likewise relatives of yours, who I don't know that I'm called +upon to feed and clothe. There is a young woman, not burdened with +destitute relatives, has signified that she would be glad to take +your dooties for less pecooniary compensation, by a consid'able +amaount, than you now receive. I shall be willin', however, to +retain your services at sech redooced rate as we shall fix upon,-- +provided sech redooced rate be as low or lower than the same services +can be obtained elsewhere." + +"As you please, Mr. Peckham," Helen answered, with a smile so sweet +that the Principal (who of course had trumped up this opposition- +teacher for the occasion) said to himself she would stand being cut +down a quarter, perhaps a half, of her salary. + +"Here is your accaount, Miss Darley, and the balance doo you," said +Silas Peckham, handing her a paper and a small roll of infectious- +flavored bills wrapping six poisonous coppers of the old coinage. + +She took the paper and began looking at it. She could not quite make +up her mind to touch the feverish bills with the cankering coppers in +them, and left them airing themselves on the table. + +The document she held ran as follows: + +Silas Peckham, Esq., Principal of the Apollinean Institute, +In Account with Helen Darley, Assist. Teacher. + + Dr. Cr. + +To salary for quarter By Deduction for absence +ending Jan 1st @ $75 per 1 week 3 days ...........$10.00 +quarter ................ $75.00 + " Board, lodging, etc for + 10 days @ 75 cts per day.. 7.50 + + " Damage to Institution by + absence of teacher from + duties, say ............. 25.00 + + " Stationary furnished .... 43 + + " Postage-stamp ........... 01 + + " Balance due Helen Darley. 32.06 + ------ ------ + $75.00 $75.00 + +ROCKLAND, Jan. 1st, 1859. + + +Now Helen had her own private reasons for wishing to receive the +small sum which was due her at this time without any unfair +deduction,--reasons which we need not inquire into too particularly, +as we may be very sure that they were right and womanly. So, when +she looked over this account of Mr. Silas Peckham's, and saw that he +had contrived to pare down her salary to something less than half its +stipulated amount, the look which her countenance wore was as near to +that of righteous indignation as her gentle features and soft blue +eyes would admit of its being. + +"Why, Mr. Peckham," she said, "do you mean this? If I am of so much +value to you that you must take off twenty-five dollars for ten days' +absence, how is it that my salary is to be cut down to less than +seventy-five dollars a quarter, if I remain here?" + +"I gave you fair notice," said Silas. "I have a minute of it I took +down immed'ately after the intervoo." + +He lugged out his large pocket-book with the strap going all round +it, and took from it a slip of paper which confirmed his statement. + +"Besides," he added, slyly, "I presoom you have received a liberal +pecooniary compensation from Squire Venner for nussin' his daughter." + +Helen was looking over the bill while he was speaking. + +"Board and lodging for ten days, Mr. Peckham,--whose board and +lodging, pray?" + +The door opened before Silas Peckham could answer, and Mr. Bernard +walked into the parlor. Helen was holding the bill in her hand, +looking as any woman ought to look who has been at once wronged and +insulted. + +"The last turn of the thumbscrew!" said Mr. Bernard to himself. + +"What is it, Helen? You look troubled." + +She handed him the account. + +He looked at the footing of it. Then he looked at the items. Then +he looked at Silas Peckham. + +At this moment Silas was sublime. He was so transcendently +unconscious of the emotions going on in Mr. Bernard's mind at the +moment, that he had only a single thought. + +"The accaount's correc'ly cast, I presoom;--if the' 's any mistake of +figgers or addin' 'em up, it'll be made all right. Everything's +accordin' to agreement. The minute written immed'ately after the +intervoo is here in my possession." + +Mr. Bernard looked at Helen. Just what would have happened to Silas +Peckham, as he stood then and there, but for the interposition of a +merciful Providence, nobody knows or ever will know; for at that +moment steps were heard upon the stairs, and Hiram threw open the +parlor-door for Mr. Dudley Venner to enter. + +He saluted them all gracefully with the good-wishes of the season, +and each of them returned his compliment,--Helen blushing fearfully, +of course, but not particularly noticed in her embarrassment by more +than one. + +Silas Peckham reckoned with perfect confidence on his Trustees, who +had always said what he told them to, and done what he wanted. It +was a good chance now to show off his power, and, by letting his +instructors know the unstable tenure of their offices, make it easier +to settle his accounts and arrange his salaries. There was nothing +very strange in Mr. Venner's calling; he was one of the Trustees, and +this was New Year's Day. But he had called just at the lucky moment +for Mr. Peckham's object. + +"I have thought some of makin' changes in the department of +instruction," he began. "Several accomplished teachers have applied +to me, who would be glad of sitooations. I understand that there +never have been so many fust-rate teachers, male and female, out of +employment as doorin' the present season. If I can make +sahtisfahctory arrangements with my present corpse of teachers, I +shall be glad to do so; otherwise I shell, with the permission of the +Trustees, make sech noo arrangements as circumstahnces compel." + +"You may make arrangements for a new assistant in my department, Mr. +Peckham," said Mr. Bernard, "at once,--this day,--this hour. I am +not safe to be trusted with your person five minutes out of this +lady's presence,--of whom I beg pardon for this strong language. Mr. +Venner, I must beg you, as one of the Trustees of this Institution, +to look at the manner in which its Principal has attempted to swindle +this faithful teacher whose toils and sacrifices and self-devotion to +the school have made it all that it is, in spite of this miserable +trader's incompetence. Will you look at the paper I hold?" + +Dudley Venner took the account and read it through, without changing +a feature. Then he turned to Silas Peckham. + +"You may make arrangements for anew assistant in the branches this +lady has taught. Miss Helen Darley is to be my wife. I had hoped to +have announced this news in a less abrupt and ungraceful manner. But +I came to tell you with my own lips what you would have learned +before evening from my friends in the village." + +Mr. Bernard went to Helen, who stood silent, with downcast eyes, and +took her hand warmly, hoping she might find all the happiness she +deserved. Then he turned to Dudley Venner, and said, +"She is a queen, but has never found it out. The world has nothing +nobler than this dear woman, whom you have discovered in the disguise +of a teacher. God bless her and you!" + +Dudley Venner returned his friendly grasp, without answering a word +in articulate speech. + +Silas remained dumb and aghast for a brief space. Coming to himself +a little, he thought there might have been some mistake about the +items,--would like to have Miss barley's bill returned,--would make +it all right,--had no idee that Squire Venner had a special int'rest +in Miss barley,--was sorry he had given offence,--if he might take +that bill and look it over-- + +"No. Mr. Peckham, " said Mr. Dudley Venner, "there will be a full +meeting of the Board next week, and the bill, and such evidence with +reference to the management of the Institution and the treatment of +its instructors as Mr. Langdon sees fit to bring forward will be laid +before them." + +Miss Helen Darley became that very day the guest of Miss Arabella +Thornton, the Judge's daughter. Mr. Bernard made his appearance a +week or two later at the Lectures, where the Professor first +introduced him to the reader. + +He stayed after the class had left the room. + +"Ah, Mr. Langdon! how do you do? Very glad to see you back again. +How have you been since our correspondence on Fascination and other +curious scientific questions?" + +It was the Professor who spoke,--whom the reader will recognize as +myself, the teller of this story. + +"I have been well," Mr. Bernard answered, with a serious look which +invited a further question. + +"I hope you have had none of those painful or dangerous experiences +you seemed to be thinking of when you wrote; at any rate, you have +escaped having your obituary written." + +"I have seen some things worth remembering. Shall I call on you this +evening and tell you about them?" + +"I shall be most happy to see you." + +This was the way in which I, the Professor, became acquainted with +some of the leading events of this story. They interested me +sufficiently to lead me to avail myself of all those other +extraordinary methods of obtaining information well known to writers +of narrative. + +Mr. Langdon seemed to me to have gained in seriousness and strength +of character by his late experiences. He threw his whole energies +into his studies with an effect which distanced all his previous +efforts. Remembering my former hint, he employed his spare hours in +writing for the annual prizes, both of which he took by a unanimous +vote of the judges. Those who heard him read his Thesis at the +Medical Commencement will not soon forget the impression made by his +fine personal appearance and manners, nor the universal interest +excited in the audience, as he read, with his beautiful enunciation, +that striking paper entitled "Unresolved Nebulae in Vital Science." +It was a general remark of the Faculty,--and old Doctor Kittredge, +who had come down on purpose to hear Mr. Langdon, heartily agreed to +it,--that there had never been a diploma filled up, since the +institution which conferred upon him the degree of Doctor Medicdnce +was founded, which carried with it more of promise to the profession +than that which bore the name of + + BERNARDUS CARYL LANGDON + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +CONCLUSION. + +Mr. Bernard Langdon had no sooner taken his degree, than, in +accordance with the advice of one of his teachers whom he frequently +consulted, he took an office in the heart of the city where he had +studied. He had thought of beginning in a suburb or some remoter +district of the city proper. + +"No," said his teacher,--to wit, myself,--"don't do any such thing. +You are made for the best kind of practice; don't hamper yourself +with an outside constituency, such as belongs to a practitioner of +the second class. When a fellow like you chooses his beat, he must +look ahead a little. Take care of all the poor that apply to you, +but leave the half-pay classes to a different style of doctor,--the +people who spend one half their time in taking care of their +patients, and the other half in squeezing out their money. Go for +the swell-fronts and south-exposure houses; the folks inside are just +as good as other people, and the pleasantest, on the whole, to take +care of. They must have somebody, and they like a gentleman best. +Don't throw yourself away. You have a good presence and pleasing +manners. You wear white linen by inherited instinct. You can +pronounce the word view. You have all the elements of success; go +and take it. Be polite and generous, but don't undervalue yourself. +You will be useful, at any rate; you may just as well be happy, while +you are about it. The highest social class furnishes incomparably +the best patients, taking them by and large. Besides, when they +won't get well and bore you to death, you can send 'em off to travel. +Mind me now, and take the tops of your sparrowgrass. Somebody must +have ' em,--why shouldn't you? If you don't take your chance, you'll +get the butt-ends as a matter of course." + +Mr. Bernard talked like a young man full of noble sentiments. He +wanted to be useful to his fellow-beings. Their social differences +were nothing to him. He would never court the rich,--he would go +where he was called. He would rather save the life of a poor mother +of a family than that of half a dozen old gouty millionnaires whose +heirs had been yawning and stretching these ten years to get rid of +them. + +"Generous emotions! "I exclaimed. "Cherish 'em; cling to 'em till +you are fifty, till you are seventy, till you are ninety! But do as +I tell you,--strike for the best circle of practice, and you 'll be +sure to get it!" + +Mr. Langdon did as I told him,--took a genteel office, furnished it +neatly, dressed with a certain elegance, soon made a pleasant circle +of acquaintances, and began to work his way into the right kind of +business. I missed him, however, for some days, not long after he +had opened his office. On his return, he told me he had been up at +Rockland, by special invitation, to attend the wedding of Mr. Dudley +Venner and Miss Helen Darley. He gave me a full account of the +ceremony, which I regret that I cannot relate in full. "Helen looked +like an angel,"--that, I am sure, was one of his expressions. As for +her dress, I should like to give the details, but am afraid of +committing blunders, as men always do, when they undertake to +describe such matters. White dress, anyhow,--that I am sure of,-- +with orange-flowers, and the most wonderful lace veil that was ever +seen or heard of. The Reverend Doctor Honeywood performed the +ceremony, of course. The good people seemed to have forgotten they +ever had had any other minister, except Deacon Shearer and his set of +malcontents, who were doing a dull business in the meeting-house +lately occupied by the Reverend Mr. Fairweather. + +"Who was at the wedding?" + +"Everybody, pretty much. They wanted to keep it quiet, but it was of +no use. Married at church. Front pews, old Dr. Kittredge and all +the mansionhouse people and distinguished strangers,--Colonel Sprowle +and family, including Matilda's young gentleman, a graduate of one of +the fresh-water colleges,--Mrs. Pickins (late Widow Rowens) and +husband,--Deacon Soper and numerous parishioners. A little nearer +the door, Abel, the Doctor's man, and Elbridge, who drove them to +church in the family-coach. Father Fairweather, as they all call him +now, came in late with Father McShane." + +"And Silas Peckham?" + +"Oh, Silas had left The School and Rockland. Cut up altogether too +badly in the examination instituted by the Trustees. Had removed +over to Tamarack, and thought of renting a large house and "'farming' +the town-poor." + + +Some time after this, as I was walking with a young friend along by +the swell-fronts and south-exposures, whom should I see but Mr. +Bernard Langdon, looking remarkably happy, and keeping step by the +side of a very handsome and singularly well-dressed young lady? He +bowed and lifted his hat as we passed. + +"Who is that pretty girl my young doctor has got there?" I said to my +companion. + +"Who is that?" he answered. "You don't know? Why, that is neither +more nor less than Miss Letitia Forrester, daughter of--of--why, the +great banking firm, you know, Bilyuns Brothers & Forrester. Got +acquainted with her in the country, they say. There 's a story that +they're engaged, or like to be, if the firm consents." + +"Oh" I said. + +I did not like the look of it in the least. Too young,--too young. +Has not taken any position yet. No right to ask for the hand of +Bilyuns Brothers & Co.'s daughter. Besides, it will spoil him for +practice, if he marries a rich girl before he has formed habits of +work. + +I looked in at his office the other day. A box of white kids was +lying open on the table. A three-cornered note, directed in a very +delicate lady's-hand, was distinguishable among a heap of papers. I +was just going to call him to account for his proceedings, when he +pushed the three-cornered note aside and took up a letter with a +great corporation-seal upon it. He had received the offer of a +professor's chair in an ancient and distinguished institution. + +"Pretty well for three-and-twenty, my boy," I said. "I suppose +you'll think you must be married one of these days, if you accept +this office." + +Mr. Langdon blushed. --There had been stories about him, he knew. +His name had been mentioned in connection with that of a very +charming young lady. The current reports were not true. He had met +this young lady, and been much pleased with her, in the country, at +the house of her grandfather, the Reverend Doctor Honeywood,--you +remember Miss Letitia Forrester, whom I have mentioned repeatedly? +On coming to town, he found his country-acquaintance in a social +position which seemed to discourage his continued intimacy. He had +discovered, however; that he was a not unwelcome visitor, and had +kept up friendly relations with her. But there was no truth in the +current reports,--none at all.' + +Some months had passed, after this visit, when I happened one evening +to stroll into a box in one of the principal theatres of the city. A +small party sat on the seats before me: a middle-aged gentleman and +his lady, in front, and directly behind them my young doctor and the +same very handsome young lady I had seen him walking with on the +sidewalk before the swell-fronts and south-exposures. As Professor +Langdon seemed to be very much taken up with his companion, and both +of them looked as if they were enjoying themselves, I determined not +to make my presence known to my young friend, and to withdraw quietly +after feasting my eyes with the sight of them for a few minutes. + +"It looks as if something might come of it," I said to myself. At +that moment the young lady lifted her arm accidentally in such a way +that the light fell upon the clasp of a chain which encircled her +wrist. My eyes filled with tears as I read upon the clasp, in sharp- +cut Italic letters, E. Y. They were tears at once of sad remembrance +and of joyous anticipation; for the ornament on which I looked was +the double pledge of a dead sorrow and a living affection. It was +the golden bracelet,--the parting-gift of Elsie Venner. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext Elsie Venner, by Oliver Wendell Holmes + diff --git a/old/elsie10.zip b/old/elsie10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5f4fc1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/elsie10.zip diff --git a/old/elsie11.txt b/old/elsie11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cbc7bb5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/elsie11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14712 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Elsie Venner, by O. W. Holmes, Sr. +#5 in our series by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before distributing this or any other +Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your +own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future +readers. Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. 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Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +ELSIE VENNER + +By Oliver Wendell Holmes + + + + +PREFACE. + +This tale was published in successive parts in the "Atlantic +Monthly," under the name of "The Professor's Story," the first number +having appeared in the third week of December, 1859. The critic who +is curious in coincidences must refer to the Magazine for the date of +publication of the chapter he is examining. + +In calling this narrative a "romance," the Author wishes to make sure +of being indulged in the common privileges of the poetic license. +Through all the disguise of fiction a grave scientific doctrine may +be detected lying beneath some of the delineations of character. He +has used this doctrine as a part of the machinery of his story +without pledging his absolute belief in it to the extent to which it +is asserted or implied. It was adopted as a convenient medium of +truth rather than as an accepted scientific conclusion. The reader +must judge for himself what is the value of various stories cited +from old authors. He must decide how much of what has been told he +can accept either as having actually happened, or as possible and +more or less probable. The Author must be permitted, however, to say +here, in his personal character, and as responsible to the students +of the human mind and body, that since this story has been in +progress he has received the most startling confirmation of the +possibility of the existence of a character like that which he had +drawn as a purely imaginary conception in Elsie Venner. + +BOSTON, January, 1861. + + + + +A SECOND PREFACE. + +This is the story which a dear old lady, my very good friend, spoke +of as "a medicated novel," and quite properly refused to read. I was +always pleased with her discriminating criticism. It is a medicated +novel, and if she wished to read for mere amusement and helpful +recreation there was no need of troubling herself with a story +written with a different end in view. + +This story has called forth so many curious inquiries that it seems +worth while to answer the more important questions which have +occurred to its readers. + +In the first place, it is not based on any well-ascertained +physiological fact. There are old fables about patients who have +barked like dogs or crowed like cocks, after being bitten or wounded +by those animals. There is nothing impossible in the idea that +Romulus and Remus may have imbibed wolfish traits of character from +the wet nurse the legend assigned them, but the legend is not sound +history, and the supposition is nothing more than a speculative +fancy. Still, there is a limbo of curious evidence bearing on the +subject of pre-natal influences sufficient to form the starting-point +of an imaginative composition. + +The real aim, of the story was to test the doctrine of "original sin" +and human responsibility for the disordered volition coming under +that technical denomination. Was Elsie Venner, poisoned by the venom +of a crotalus before she was born, morally responsible for the +"volitional" aberrations, which translated into acts become what is +known as sin, and, it may be, what is punished as crime? If, on +presentation of the evidence, she becomes by the verdict of the human +conscience a proper object of divine pity and not of divine wrath, as +a subject of moral poisoning, wherein lies the difference between her +position at the bar of judgment, human or divine, and that of the +unfortunate victim who received a moral poison from a remote ancestor +before he drew his first breath? + +It might be supposed that the character of Elsie Veneer was suggested +by some of the fabulous personages of classical or mediaeval story. +I remember that a French critic spoke of her as cette pauvre +Melusine. I ought to have been ashamed, perhaps, but I had, not the +slightest idea who Melusina was until I hunted up the story, and +found that she was a fairy, who for some offence was changed every +Saturday to a serpent from her waist downward. I was of course +familiar with Keats's Lamia, another imaginary being, the subject of +magical transformation into a serpent. My story was well advanced +before Hawthorne's wonderful "Marble Faun," which might be thought to +have furnished me with the hint of a mixed nature,--human, with an +alien element,--was published or known to me. So that my poor +heroine found her origin, not in fable or romance, but in a +physiological conception fertilized by a theological dogma. + +I had the dissatisfaction of enjoying from a quiet corner a well- +meant effort to dramatize "Elsie Veneer." Unfortunately, a +physiological romance, as I knew beforehand, is hardly adapted for +the melodramatic efforts of stage representation. I can therefore +say, with perfect truth, that I was not disappointed. It is to the +mind, and not to the senses, that such a story must appeal, and all +attempts to render the character and events objective on the stage, +or to make them real by artistic illustrations, are almost of +necessity failures. The story has won the attention and enjoyed the +favor of a limited class of readers, and if it still continues to +interest others of the same tastes and habits of thought I can ask +nothing more of it. + +January 23, 1883. + + + + + + +PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. + +I have nothing of importance to add to the two preceding Prefaces. +The continued call for this story, which was not written for +popularity, but with a very serious purpose, has somewhat surprised +and, I need not add, gratified me. I can only restate the motive +idea of the tale in a little different language. Believing, as I do, +that our prevailing theologies are founded upon an utterly false view +of the relation of man to his Creator, I attempted to illustrate the +doctrine of inherited moral responsibility for other people's +misbehavior. I tried to make out a case for my poor Elsie, whom the +most hardened theologian would find it hard to blame for her +inherited ophidian tastes and tendencies. How, then, is he to blame +mankind for inheriting "sinfulness" from their first parents? May +not the serpent have bitten Eve before the birth of Cain, her first- +born? That would have made an excuse for Cain's children, as Elsie's +ante-natal misfortune made an excuse for her. But what difference +does it make in the child's responsibility whether his inherited +tendencies come from a snake-bite or some other source which he knew +nothing about and could not have prevented from acting? All this is +plain enough, and the only use of the story is to bring the dogma of +inherited guilt and its consequences into a clearer point of view. + +But, after all, the tale must have proved readable as a story to +account for the large number of editions which it has reached. + +Some readers have been curious about the locality the writer was +thought to have in view. No particular place was intended. Some of +the characters may have been thought to have been drawn from life; +but the personages mentioned are mostly composites, like Mr. Galton's +compound photographic likenesses, and are not calculated to provoke +scandal or suits for libel. + +O. W. H. + +BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., August 3, 1891. + + + + + + + +ELSIE VENNER. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE BRAHMIN CASTE OF NEW ENGLAND. + +There is nothing in New England corresponding at all to the feudal +aristocracies of the Old World. Whether it be owing to the stock +from which we were derived, or to the practical working of our +institutions, or to the abrogation of the technical "law of honor," +which draws a sharp line between the personally responsible class of +"gentlemen" and the unnamed multitude of those who are not expected +to risk their lives for an abstraction,--whatever be the cause, we +have no such aristocracy here as that which grew up out of the +military systems of the Middle Ages. + +What we mean by "aristocracy" is merely the richer part of the +community, that live in the tallest houses, drive real carriages, +(not "kerridges,") kidglove their hands, and French-bonnet their +ladies' heads, give parties where the persons who call them by the +above title are not invited, and have a provokingly easy way of +dressing, walking, talking, and nodding to people, as if they felt +entirely at home, and would not be embarrassed in the least, if they +met the Governor, or even the President of the United States, face to +face. Some of these great folks are really well-bred, some of them +are only purse-proud and assuming,--but they form a class, and are +named as above in the common speech. + +It is in the nature of large fortunes to diminish rapidly, when +subdivided and distributed. A million is the unit of wealth, now and +here in America. It splits into four handsome properties; each of +these into four good inheritances; these, again, into scanty +competences for four ancient maidens,--with whom it is best the +family should die out, unless it can begin again as its great- +grandfather did. Now a million is a kind of golden cheese, which +represents in a compendious form the summer's growth of a fat meadow +of craft or commerce; and as this kind of meadow rarely bears more +than one crop, it is pretty certain that sons and grandsons will not +get another golden cheese out of it, whether they milk the same cows +or turn in new ones. In other words, the millionocracy, considered +in a large way, is not at all an affair of persons and families, but +a perpetual fact of money with a variable human element, which a +philosopher might leave out of consideration without falling into +serious error. Of course, this trivial and, fugitive fact of +personal wealth does not create a permanent class, unless some +special means are taken to arrest the process of disintegration in +the third generation. This is so rarely done, at least successfully, +that one need not live a very long life to see most of the rich +families he knew in childhood more or less reduced, and the millions +shifted into the hands of the country-boys who were sweeping stores +and carrying parcels when the now decayed gentry were driving their +chariots, eating their venison over silver chafing-dishes, drinking +Madeira chilled in embossed coolers, wearing their hair in powder, +and casing their legs in long boots with silken tassels. + +There is, however, in New England, an aristocracy, if you choose to +call it so, which has a far greater character of permanence. It has +grown to be a caste,--not in any odious sense;--but, by the +repetition of the same influences, generation after generation, it +has acquired a distinct organization and physiognomy, which not to +recognize is mere stupidity, and not to be willing to describe would +show a distrust of the good-nature and intelligence of our readers, +who like to have us see all we can and tell all we see. + +If you will look carefully at any class of students in one of our +colleges, you will have no difficulty in selecting specimens of two +different aspects of youthful manhood. Of course I shall choose +extreme cases to illustrate the contrast between them. In the first, +the figure is perhaps robust, but often otherwise,--inelegant, partly +from careless attitudes, partly from ill-dressing,--the face is +uncouth in feature, or at least common,--the mouth coarse and +unformed,--the eye unsympathetic, even if bright,--the movements of +the face are clumsy, like those of the limbs,--the voice is +unmusical,--and the enunciation as if the words were coarse castings, +instead of fine carvings. The youth of the other aspect is commonly +slender, his face is smooth, and apt to be pallid,--his features are +regular and of a certain delicacy,--his eye is bright and quick,--his +lips play over the thought he utters as a pianist's fingers dance +over their music, and his whole air, though it may be timid, and even +awkward, has nothing clownish. If you are a teacher, you know what +to expect from each of these young men. With equal willingness, the +first will be slow at learning; the second will take to his books as +a pointer or a setter to his field-work. + +The first youth is the common country-boy, whose race has been bred +to bodily labor. Nature has adapted the family organization to the +kind of life it has lived. The hands and feet by constant use have +got more than their share of development,--the organs of thought and +expression less than their share. The finer instincts are latent and +must be developed. A youth of this kind is raw material in its first +stage of elaboration. You must not expect too much of any such. +Many of them have force of will and character, and become +distinguished in practical life; but very few of them ever become +great scholars. A scholar is, in a large proportion of cases, the +son of scholars or scholarly persons. + +That is exactly what the other young man is. He comes of the Brahmin +caste of New England. This is the harmless, inoffensive, untitled +aristocracy referred to, and which many readers will at once +acknowledge. There are races of scholars among us, in which aptitude +for learning, and all these marks of it I have spoken of, are +congenital and hereditary. Their names are always on some college +catalogue or other. They break out every generation or two in some +learned labor which calls them up after they seem to have died out. +At last some newer name takes their place, it maybe,--but you inquire +a little and you find it is the blood of the Edwardses or the +Chauncys or the Ellerys or some of the old historic scholars, +disguised under the altered name of a female descendant. + +There probably is not an experienced instructor anywhere in our +Northern States who will not recognize at once the truth of this +general distinction. But the reader who has never been a teacher +will very probably object, that some of our most illustrious public +men have come direct from the homespun-clad class of the people,--and +he may, perhaps, even find a noted scholar or two whose parents were +masters of the English alphabet, but of no other. + +It is not fair to pit a few chosen families against the great +multitude of those who are continually working their way up into the +intellectual classes. The results which are habitually reached by +hereditary training are occasionally brought about without it. There +are natural filters as well as artificial ones; and though the great +rivers are commonly more or less turbid, if you will look long +enough, you may find a spring that sparkles as no water does which +drips through your apparatus of sands and sponges. So there are +families which refine themselves into intellectual aptitude without +having had much opportunity for intellectual acquirements. A series +of felicitous crosses develops an improved strain of blood, and +reaches its maximum perfection at last in the large uncombed youth +who goes to college and startles the hereditary class-leaders by +striding past them all. That is Nature's republicanism; thank God +for it, but do not let it make you illogical. The race of the +hereditary scholar has exchanged a certain portion of its animal +vigor for its new instincts, and it is hard to lead men without a +good deal of animal vigor. The scholar who comes by Nature's special +grace from an unworn stock of broad-chested sires and deep-bosomed +mothers must always overmatch an equal intelligence with a +compromised and lowered vitality. A man's breathing and digestive +apparatus (one is tempted to add muscular) are just as important to +him on the floor of the Senate as his thinking organs. You broke +down in your great speech, did you? Yes, your grandfather had an +attack of dyspepsia in '82, after working too hard on his famous +Election Sermon. All this does not touch the main fact: our scholars +come chiefly from a privileged order, just as our best fruits come +from well-known grafts, though now and then a seedling apple, like +the Northern Spy, or a seedling pear, like the Seckel, springs from a +nameless ancestry and grows to be the pride of all the gardens in the +land. + +Let me introduce you to a young man who belongs to the Brahmin caste +of New England. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE STUDENT AND HIS CERTIFICATE. + +Bernard C. Langdon, a young man attending Medical Lectures at the +school connected with one of our principal colleges, remained after +the Lecture one day and wished to speak with the Professor. He was a +student of mark,--first favorite of his year, as they say of the +Derby colts. There are in every class half a dozen bright faces to +which the teacher naturally, directs his discourse, and by the +intermediation of whose attention he seems to hold that of the mass +of listeners. Among these some one is pretty sure to take the lead, +by virtue of a personal magnetism, or some peculiarity of expression, +which places the face in quick sympathetic relations with the +lecturer. This was a young man with such a face; and I found,--for +you have guessed that I was the "Professor" above-mentioned,--that, +when there was anything difficult to be explained, or when I was +bringing out some favorite illustration of a nice point, (as, for +instance; when I compared the cell-growth, by which Nature builds up +a plant or an animal, to the glassblower's similar mode of +beginning,--always with a hollow sphere, or vesicle, whatever he is +going to make,) I naturally looked in his face and gauged my success +by its expression. + +It was a handsome face,--a little too pale, perhaps, and would have +borne something more of fulness without becoming heavy. I put the +organization to which it belongs in Section B of Class 1 of my Anglo- +American Anthropology (unpublished). The jaw in this section is but +slightly narrowed,--just enough to make the width of the forehead +tell more decidedly. The moustache often grows vigorously, but the +whiskers are thin. The skin is like that of Jacob, rather than like +Esau's. One string of the animal nature has been taken away, but +this gives only a greater predominance to the intellectual chords. +To see just how the vital energy has been toned down, you must +contrast one of this section with a specimen of Section A of the same +class,--say, for instance, one of the old-fashioned, full-whiskered, +red-faced, roaring, big Commodores of the last generation, whom you +remember, at least by their portraits, in ruffled shirts, looking as +hearty as butchers and as plucky as bull-terriers, with their hair +combed straight up from their foreheads, which were not commonly very +high or broad. The special form of physical life I have been +describing gives you a right to expect more delicate perceptions and +a more reflective, nature than you commonly find in shaggy-throated +men, clad in heavy suits of muscles. + +The student lingered in the lecture-room, looking all the time as if +he wanted to say something in private, and waiting for two or three +others, who were still hanging about, to be gone. + +Something is wrong!---I said to myself, when I noticed his +expression.--Well, Mr. Langdon,--I said to him, when we were +alone,--can I do anything for you to-day? + +You can, Sir,--he said.---I am going to leave the class, for the +present, and keep school. + +Why, that 's a pity, and you so near graduating! You'd better stay +and finish this course and take your degree in the spring, rather +than break up your whole plan of study. + +I can't help myself, Sir,--the young man answered.---There 's trouble +at home, and they cannot keep me here as they have done. So I must +look out for myself for a while. It's what I've done before, and am +ready to do again. I came to ask you for a certificate of my fitness +to teach a common school, or a high school, if you think I am up to +that. Are you willing to give it to me? + +Willing? Yes, to be sure,--but I don't want you to go. Stay; we'll +make it easy for you. There's a fund will do something for you, +perhaps. Then you can take both the annual prizes, if you like,--and +claim them in money, if you want that more than medals. + +I have thought it all over,--he answered,--and have pretty much made +up my mind to go. + +A perfectly gentlemanly young man, of courteous address and mild +utterance, but means at least as much as he says. There are some +people whose rhetoric consists of a slight habitual under-statement. +I often tell Mrs. Professor that one of her "I think it's sos" is +worth the Bible-oath of all the rest of the household that they "know +it's so." When you find a person a little better than his word, a +little more liberal than his promise, a little more than borne out in +his statement by his facts, a little larger in deed than in speech, +you recognize a kind of eloquence in that person's utterance not laid +down in Blair or Campbell. + +This was a proud fellow, self-trusting, sensitive, with family- +recollections that made him unwilling to accept the kind of aid which +many students would have thankfully welcomed. I knew him too well to +urge him, after the few words which implied that he was determined to +go. Besides, I have great confidence in young men who believe in +themselves, and are accustomed to rely on their own resources from an +early period. When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great +bully, the World, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often +surprised to find it come off in his hand, and that it was only tied +on to scare away timid adventurers. I have seen young men more than +once, who came to a great city without a single friend, support +themselves and pay for their education, lay up money in a few years, +grow rich enough to travel, and establish themselves in life, without +ever asking a dollar of any person which they had not earned. But +these are exceptional cases. There are horse-tamers, born so,--as we +all know; there are woman-tamers, who bewitch the sex as the pied +piper bedeviled the children of Hamelin; and there are world-tamers, +who can make any community, even a Yankee one, get down and let them +jump on its back as easily as Mr. Rarey saddled Cruiser. + +Whether Langdon was of this sort or not I could not say positively; +but he had spirit, and, as I have said, a family-pride which would +not let him be dependent. The New England Brahmin caste often gets +blended with connections of political influence or commercial +distinction. It is a charming thing for the scholar, when his +fortune carries him in this way into some of the "old families" who +have fine old houses, and city-lots that have risen in the market, +and names written in all the stock-books of all the dividend-paying +companies. His narrow study expands into a stately library, his +books are counted by thousands instead of hundreds, and his favorites +are dressed in gilded calf in place of plebeian sheepskin or its +pauper substitutes of cloth and paper. + +The Reverend Jedediah Langdon, grandfather of our young gentleman, +had made an advantageous alliance of this kind. Miss Dorothea +Wentworth had read one of his sermons which had been printed "by +request," and became deeply interested in the young author, whom she +had never seen. Out of this circumstance grew a correspondence, an +interview, a declaration, a matrimonial alliance, and a family of +half a dozen children. Wentworth Langdon, Esquire, was the oldest of +these, and lived in the old family-mansion. Unfortunately, that +principle of the diminution of estates by division, to which I have +referred, rendered it somewhat difficult to maintain the +establishment upon the fractional income which the proprietor +received from his share of the property. Wentworth Langdon, Esq., +represented a certain intermediate condition of life not at all +infrequent in our old families. He was the connecting link between +the generation which lived in ease, and even a kind of state, upon +its own resources, and the new brood, which must live mainly by its +wits or industry, and make itself rich, or shabbily subside into that +lower stratum known to social geologists by a deposit of +Kidderminster carpets and the peculiar aspect of the fossils +constituting the family furniture and wardrobe. This slack-water +period of a race, which comes before the rapid ebb of its prosperity, +is familiar to all who live in cities. There are no more quiet, +inoffensive people than these children of rich families, just above +the necessity of active employment, yet not in a condition to place +their own children advantageously, if they happen to have families. +Many of them are content to live unmarried. Some mend their broken +fortunes by prudent alliances, and some leave a numerous progeny to +pass into the obscurity from which their ancestors emerged; so that +you may see on handcarts and cobblers' stalls names which, a few +generations back, were upon parchments with broad seals, and +tombstones with armorial bearings. + +In a large city, this class of citizens is familiar to us in the +streets. They are very courteous in their salutations; they have +time enough to bow and take their hats off,--which, of course, no +businessman can afford to do. Their beavers are smoothly brushed, +and their boots well polished; all their appointments are tidy; they +look the respectable walking gentleman to perfection. They are prone +to habits,--they frequent reading-rooms,--insurance-offices,--they +walk the same streets at the same hours,--so that one becomes +familiar with their faces and persons, as a part of the street- +furniture. + +There is one curious circumstance, that all city-people must have +noticed, which is often illustrated in our experience of the slack- +water gentry. We shall know a certain person by his looks, +familiarly, for years, but never have learned his name. About this +person we shall have accumulated no little circumstantial knowledge; +--thus, his face, figure, gait, his mode of dressing, of saluting, +perhaps even of speaking, may be familiar to us; yet who he is we +know not. In another department of our consciousness, there is a +very familiar name, which we have never found the person to match. +We have heard it so often, that it has idealized itself, and become +one of that multitude of permanent shapes which walk the chambers of +the brain in velvet slippers in the company of Falstaff and Hamlet +and General Washington and Mr. Pickwick. Sometimes the person dies, +but the name lives on indefinitely. But now and then it happens, +perhaps after years of this independent existence of the name and its +shadowy image in the brain, on the one part, and the person and all +its real attributes, as we see them daily, on the other, that some +accident reveals their relation, and we find the name we have carried +so long in our memory belongs to the person we have known so long as +a fellow-citizen. Now the slack--water gentry are among the persons +most likely to be the subjects of this curious divorce of title and +reality,--for the reason, that, playing no important part in the +community, there is nothing to tie the floating name to the actual +individual, as is the case with the men who belong in any way to the +public, while yet their names have a certain historical currency, and +we cannot help meeting them, either in their haunts, or going to and +from them. + +To this class belonged Wentworth Langdon, Esq. He had been "dead- +headed" into the world some fifty years ago, and had sat with his +hands in his pockets staring at the show ever since. I shall not +tell you, for reasons before hinted, the whole name of the place in +which he lived. I will only point you in the right direction, by +saying that there are three towns lying in a line with each other, as +you go "down East," each of them with a Port in its name, and each of +them having a peculiar interest which gives it individuality, in +addition to the Oriental character they have in common. I need not +tell you that these towns are Newburyport, Portsmouth, and Portland. +The Oriental character they have in common consists in their large, +square, palatial mansions, with sunny gardens round them. The two +first have seen better days. They are in perfect harmony with the +condition of weakened, but not impoverished, gentility. Each of them +is a "paradise of demi-fortunes." Each of them is of that +intermediate size between a village and a city which any place has +outgrown when the presence of a well-dressed stranger walking up and +down the main street ceases to be a matter of public curiosity and +private speculation, as frequently happens, during the busier months +of the year, in considerable commercial centres like Salem. They +both have grand old recollections to fall back upon,--times when they +looked forward to commercial greatness, and when the portly gentlemen +in cocked hats, who built their now decaying wharves and sent out +their ships all over the world, dreamed that their fast-growing port +was to be the Tyre or the Carthage of the rich British Colony. Great +houses, like that once lived in by Lord Timothy Dexter, in +Newburyport, remain as evidence of the fortunes amassed in these +places of old. Other mansions--like the Rockingham House in +Portsmouth (look at the white horse's tail before you mount the broad +staircase)--show that there was not only wealth, but style and state, +in these quiet old towns during the last century. It is not with any +thought of pity or depreciation that we speak of them as in a certain +sense decayed towns; they did not fulfil their early promise of +expansion, but they remain incomparably the most interesting places +of their size in any of the three northernmost New England States. +They have even now prosperity enough to keep them in good condition, +and offer the most attractive residences for quiet families, which, +if they had been English, would have lived in a palazzo at Genoa or +Pisa, or some other Continental Newburyport or Portsmouth. + +As for the last of the three Ports, or Portland, it is getting too +prosperous to be as attractive as its less northerly neighbors. +Meant for a fine old town, to ripen like a Cheshire cheese within its +walls of ancient rind, burrowed by crooked alleys and mottled with +venerable mould, it seems likely to sacrifice its mellow future to a +vulgar material prosperity. Still it remains invested with many of +its old charms, as yet, and will forfeit its place among this +admirable trio only when it gets a hotel with unequivocal marks of +having been built and organized in the present century. + +--It was one of the old square palaces of the North, in which Bernard +Langdon, the son of Wentworth, was born. If he had had the luck to +be an only child, he might have lived as his father had done, letting +his meagre competence smoulder on almost without consuming, like the +fuel in an air-tight stove. But after Master Bernard came Miss +Dorothea Elizabeth Wentworth Langdon, and then Master William +Pepperell Langdon, and others, equally well named,--a string of them, +looking, when they stood in a row in prayer-time, as if they would +fit a set of Pandean pipes, of from three feet upward in dimensions. +The door of the air-tight stove has to be opened, under such +circumstances, you may well suppose! So it happened that our young +man had been obliged, from an early period, to do something to +support himself, and found himself stopped short in his studies by +the inability of the good people at home to furnish him the present +means of support as a student. + +You will understand now why the young man wanted me to give him a +certificate of his fitness to teach, and why I did not choose to urge +him to accept the aid which a meek country-boy from a family without +ante-Revolutionary recollections would have thankfully received. Go +he must,--that was plain enough. He would not be content otherwise. +He was not, however, to give up his studies; and as it is customary +to allow half-time to students engaged in school-keeping,--that is, +to count a year, so employed, if the student also keep on with his +professional studies, as equal to six months of the three years he is +expected to be under an instructor before applying for his degree,-- +he would not necessarily lose more than a few months of time. He had +a small library of professional books, which he could take with him. + +So he left my teaching and that of my estimable colleagues, carrying +with him my certificate, that Mr. Bernard C. Langdon was a young +gentleman of excellent moral character, of high intelligence and good +education, and that his services would be of great value in any +school, academy, or other institution, where young persons of-either +sex were to be instructed. + +I confess, that expression, "either sex," ran a little thick, as I +may say, from my pen. For, although the young man bore a very fair +character, and there was no special cause for doubting his +discretion, I considered him altogether too good-looking, in the +first place, to be let loose in a roomful of young girls. I didn't +want him to fall in love just then--and if half a dozen girls fell in +love with him, as they most assuredly would, if brought into too near +relations with him, why, there was no telling what gratitude and +natural sensibility might bring about. + +Certificates are, for the most part, like ostrich-eggs; the giver +never knows what is hatched out of them. But once in a thousand +times they act as curses are said to,--come home to roost. Give them +often enough, until it gets to be a mechanical business, and, some +day or other, you will get caught warranting somebody's ice not to +melt in any climate, or somebody's razors to be safe in the hands of +the youngest children. + +I had an uneasy feeling, after giving this certificate. It might be +all right enough; but if it happened to end badly, I should always +reproach myself. There was a chance, certainly, that it would lead +him or others into danger or wretchedness. Any one who looked at +this young man could not fail to see that he was capable of +fascinating and being fascinated. Those large, dark eyes of his +would sink into the white soul of a young girl as the black cloth +sunk into the snow in Franklin's famous experiment. Or, on the other +hand, if the rays of a passionate nature should ever be concentrated +on them, they would be absorbed into the very depths of his nature, +and then his blood would turn to flame and burn his life out of him, +until his cheeks grew as white as the ashes that cover a burning +coal. + +I wish I had not said either sex in my certificate. An academy for +young gentlemen, now; that sounds cool and unimaginative. A boys' +school, that would be a very good place for him;--some of them are +pretty rough, but there is nerve enough in that old Wentworth strain +of blood; he can give any country fellow, of the common stock, twenty +pounds, and hit him out of time in ten minutes. But to send such a +young fellow as that out a girl's-nesting! to give this falcon a free +pass into all the dove-cotes! I was a fool,--that's all. + +I brooded over the mischief which might come out of these two words +until it seemed to me that they were charged with destiny. I could +hardly sleep for thinking what a train I might have been laying, +which might take a spark any day, and blow up nobody knows whose +peace or prospects. What I dreaded most was one of those miserable +matrimonial misalliances where a young fellow who does not know +himself as yet flings his magnificent future into the checked apron- +lap of some fresh-faced, half-bred country-girl, no more fit to be +mated with him than her father's horse to go in double harness with +Flora Temple. To think of the eagle's wings, being clipped so that +he shall never lift himself over the farm-yard fence! Such things +happen, and always must,--because, as one of us said awhile ago, a +man always loves, a woman, and a woman a man, unless some good reason +exists to the contrary. You think yourself a very fastidious young +man, my friend; but there are probably at least five-thousand young +women in these United States, any one of whom you would certainly +marry, if you were thrown much into her company, and nobody more +attractive were near, and she had no objection. And you, my dear +young lady, justly pride yourself on your discerning delicacy; but if +I should say that there are twenty thousand young men, any one of +whom, if he offered his hand and heart under favorable circumstances, +you would + + "First endure, then pity, then embrace," + +I should be much more imprudent than I mean to be, and you would, no +doubt, throw down a story in which I hope to interest you. + +I had settled it in my mind that this young fellow had a career +marked out for him. He should begin in the natural way, by taking +care of poor patients in one of the public charities, and work his +way up to a better kind of practice,--better, that is, in the vulgar, +worldly sense. The great and good Boerhaave used to say, as I +remember very well, that the poor were his best patients; for God was +their paymaster. But everybody is not as patient as Boerhaave, nor +as deserving; so that the rich, though not, perhaps, the best +patients, are good enough for common practitioners. I suppose +Boerhaave put up with them when he could not get poor ones, as he +left his daughter two millions of florins when he died. + +Now if this young man once got into the wide streets, he would sweep +them clear of his rivals of the same standing; and as I was getting +indifferent to business, and old Dr. Kilham was growing careless, and +had once or twice prescribed morphine when he meant quinine, there +would soon be an opening into the Doctor's Paradise,--the streets +with only one side to them. Then I would have him strike a bold +stroke,--set up a nice little coach, and be driven round like a +first-class London doctor, instead of coasting about in a shabby one- +horse concern and casting anchor opposite his patients' doors like a +Cape Ann fishing-smack. By the time he was thirty, he would have +knocked the social pawns out of his way, and be ready to challenge a +wife from the row of great pieces in the background. I would not +have a man marry above his level, so as to become the appendage of a +powerful family-connection; but I would not have him marry until he +knew his level,--that is, again, looking at the matter in a purely +worldly point of view, and not taking the sentiments at all into +consideration. But remember, that a young man, using large +endowments wisely and fortunately, may put himself on a level with +the highest in the land in ten brilliant years of spirited, +unflagging labor. And to stand at the very top of your calling in a +great city is something in itself,--that is, if you like money, and +influence, and a seat on the platform at public lectures, and +gratuitous tickets to all sorts of places where you don't want to go, +and, what is a good deal better than any of these things, a sense of +power, limited, it may be, but absolute in its range, so that all the +Caesars and Napoleons would have to stand aside, if they came between +you and the exercise of your special vocation. + +That is what I thought this young fellow might have come to; and now +I have let him go off into the country with my certificate, that he +is fit to teach in a school for either sex! Ten to one he will run +like a moth into a candle, right into one of those girls'-nests, and +get tangled up in some sentimental folly or other, and there will be +the end of him. Oh, yes! country doctor,--half a dollar a visit,-- +drive, drive, drive all day,--get up at night and harness your own +horse,--drive again ten miles in a snow-storm, shake powders out of +two phials, (pulv. glycyrrhiz., pulv. gum. acac. as partes +equates,)--drive back again, if you don't happen to get stuck in a +drift, no home, no peace, no continuous meals, no unbroken sleep, no +Sunday, no holiday, no social intercourse, but one eternal jog, jog, +jog, in a sulky, until you feel like the mummy of an Indian who had +been buried in the sitting posture, and was dug up a hundred years +afterwards! Why did n't I warn him about love and all that nonsense? +Why didn't I tell him he had nothing to do with it, yet awhile? Why +did n't I hold up to him those awful examples I could have cited, +where poor young fellows who could just keep themselves afloat have +hung a matrimonial millstone round their necks, taking it for a life- +preserver? All this of two words in a certificate! + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +MR. BERNARD TRIES HIS HAND. + +Whether the Student advertised for a school, or whether he fell in +with the advertisement of a school-committee, is not certain. At any +rate, it was not long before he found himself the head of a large +district, or, as it was called by the inhabitants, "deestric" +school, in the flourishing inland village of Pequawkett, or, as it is +commonly spelt, Pigwacket Centre. The natives of this place would be +surprised, if they should hear that any of the readers of a work +published in Boston were unacquainted with so remarkable a locality. +As, however, some copies of it may be read at a distance from this +distinguished metropolis, it may be well to give a few particulars +respecting the place, taken from the Universal Gazetteer. + +"PIGWACKET, sometimes spelt Pequawkett. A post-village and township +in _________ Co., State of _________,situated in a fine agricultural +region, 2 thriving villages, Pigwacket Centre and Smithville, 3 +churches, several school houses, and many handsome private +residences. Mink River runs through the town, navigable for small +boats after heavy rains. Muddy Pond at N. E. section, well stocked +with horn pouts, eels, and shiners. Products, beef, pork, butter, +cheese. Manufactures, shoe-pegs, clothes-pins, and tin-ware. Pop. +1373." + +The reader may think there is nothing very remarkable implied in this +description. If, however he had read the town-history, by the Rev. +Jabez Grubb, he would have learned, that, like the celebrated Little +Pedlington, it was distinguished by many very remarkable advantages. +Thus: + +"The situation of Pigwacket is eminently beautiful, looking down the +lovely valley of Mink River, a tributary of the Musquash. The air is +salubrious, and many of the inhabitants have attained great age, +several having passed the allotted period of 'three-score years and +ten' before succumbing to any of the various 'ills that flesh is heir +to.' Widow Comfort Leevins died in 1836 AEt. LXXXVII. years. +Venus, an African, died in 1841, supposed to be C. years old. The +people are distinguished for intelligence, as has been frequently +remarked by eminent lyceum-lecturers, who have invariably spoken in +the highest terms of a Pigwacket audience. There is a public +library, containing nearly a hundred volumes, free to all +subscribers. The preached word is well attended, there is a +flourishing temperance society, and the schools are excellent. It is +a residence admirably adapted to refined families who relish the +beauties of Nature and the charms of society. The Honorable John +Smith, formerly a member of the State Senate, was a native of this +town." + +That is the way they all talk. After all, it is probably pretty much +like other inland New England towns in point of "salubrity,"--that +is, gives people their choice of dysentery or fever every autumn, +with a season-ticket for consumption, good all the year round. And +so of the other pretences. "Pigwacket audience," forsooth! Was +there ever an audience anywhere, though there wasn't a pair of eyes +in it brighter than pickled oysters, that did n't think it was +"distinguished for intelligence"?--"The preached word"! That means +the Rev. Jabez Grubb's sermons. "Temperance society"! "Excellent +schools"! Ah, that is just what we were talking about. + +The truth was, that District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, had had a good +deal of trouble of late with its schoolmasters. The committee had +done their best, but there were a number of well-grown and pretty +rough young fellows who had got the upper-hand of the masters, and +meant to keep it. Two dynasties had fallen before the uprising of +this fierce democracy. This was a thing that used to be not very +uncommon; but in so "intelligent" a community as that of Pigwacket +Centre, in an era of public libraries and lyceum-lectures, it was +portentous and alarming. + +The rebellion began under the ferule of Master Weeks, a slender youth +from a country college, underfed, thin-blooded, sloping-shouldered, +knock-kneed, straight-haired, weak-bearded, pale-eyed, wide-pupilled, +half-colored; a common type enough in in-door races, not rich enough +to pick and choose in their alliances. Nature kills off a good many +of this sort in the first teething-time, a few in later childhood, a +good many again in early adolescence; but every now and then one runs +the gauntlet of her various diseases, or rather forms of one disease, +and grows up, as Master Weeks had done. + +It was a very foolish thing for him to try to inflict personal +punishment on such a lusty young fellow as Abner Briggs, Junior, one +of the "hardest customers" in the way of a rough-and-tumble fight +that there were anywhere round. No doubt he had been insolent, but +it would have been better to overlook it. It pains me to report the +events which took place when the master made his rash attempt to +maintain his authority. Abner Briggs, Junior, was a great, hulking +fellow, who had been bred to butchering, but urged by his parents to +attend school, in order to learn the elegant accomplishments of +reading and writing, in which he was sadly deficient. He was in the +habit of talking and laughing pretty loud in school-hours, of +throwing wads of paper reduced to a pulp by a natural and easy +process, of occasional insolence and general negligence. One of the +soft, but unpleasant missiles just alluded to flew by the master's +head one morning, and flattened itself against the wall, where it +adhered in the form of a convex mass in alto rilievo. The master +looked round and saw the young butcher's arm in an attitude which +pointed to it unequivocally as the source from which the projectile +had taken its flight. + +Master Weeks turned pale. He must "lick" Abner Briggs, Junior, or +abdicate. So he determined to lick Abner Briggs, Junior. + +"Come here, Sir!" he said; "you have insulted me and outraged the +decency of the schoolroom often enough! Hold out your hand!" + +The young fellow grinned and held it out. The master struck at it +with his black ruler, with a will in the blow and a snapping of the +eyes, as much as to say that he meant to make him smart this time. +The young fellow pulled his hand back as the ruler came down, and the +master hit himself a vicious blow with it on the right knee. There +are things no man can stand. The master caught the refractory youth +by the collar and began shaking him, or rather shaking himself +against him. + +"Le' go o' that are coat, naow," said the fellow, "or I 'll make ye! +'T 'll take tew on yet' handle me, I tell ye, 'n' then ye caant dew +it!"--and the young pupil returned the master's attention by catching +hold of his collar. + +When it comes to that, the best man, not exactly in the moral sense, +but rather in the material, and more especially the muscular point of +view, is very apt to have the best of it, irrespectively of the +merits of the case. So it happened now. The unfortunate +schoolmaster found himself taking the measure of the sanded floor, +amidst the general uproar of the school. From that moment his ferule +was broken, and the school-committee very soon had a vacancy to fill. + +Master Pigeon, the successor of Master Weeks, was of better stature, +but loosely put together, and slender-limbed. A dreadfully nervous +kind of man he was, walked on tiptoe, started at sudden noises, was +distressed when he heard a whisper, had a quick, suspicious look, and +was always saying, "Hush?" and putting his hands to his ears. The +boys were not long in finding out this nervous weakness, of course. +In less than a week a regular system of torments was inaugurated, +full of the most diabolical malice and ingenuity. The exercises of +the conspirators varied from day to day, but consisted mainly of +foot-scraping, solos on the slate-pencil, (making it screech on the +slate,) falling of heavy books, attacks of coughing, banging of desk- +lids, boot-creaking, with sounds as of drawing a cork from time to +time, followed by suppressed chuckles. + +Master Pigeon grew worse and worse under these inflictions. The +rascally boys always had an excuse for any one trick they were caught +at. "Could n' help coughin', Sir." "Slipped out o' m' han', Sir." +"Did n' go to, Sir." "Did n' dew't o' purpose, Sir." And so on,-- +always the best of reasons for the most outrageous of behavior. The +master weighed himself at the grocer's on a platform balance, some +ten days after he began keeping the school. At the end of a week he +weighed himself again. He had lost two pounds. At the end of +another week he had lost five. He made a little calculation, based +on these data, from which he learned that in a certain number of +months, going on at this rate, he should come to weigh precisely +nothing at all; and as this was a sum in subtraction he did not care +to work out in practice, Master Pigeon took to himself wings and left +the school-committee in possession of a letter of resignation and a +vacant place to fill once more. + +This was the school to which Mr. Bernard Langdon found himself +appointed as master. He accepted the place conditionally, with the +understanding that he should leave it at the end of a month, if he +were tired of it. + +The advent of Master Langdon to Pigwacket Centre created a much more +lively sensation than had attended that of either of his +predecessors. Looks go a good way all the world over, and though +there were several good-looking people in the place, and Major Bush +was what the natives of the town called a "hahnsome mahn," that is, +big, fat, and red, yet the sight of a really elegant young fellow, +with the natural air which grows up with carefully-bred young +persons, was a novelty. The Brahmin blood which came from his +grandfather as well as from his mother, a direct descendant of the +old Flynt family, well known by the famous tutor, Henry Flynt, (see +Cat. Harv. Anno 1693,) had been enlivened and enriched by that of +the Wentworths, which had had a good deal of ripe old Madeira and +other generous elements mingled with it, so that it ran to gout +sometimes in the old folks and to high spirit, warm complexion, and +curly hair in some of the younger ones. The soft curling hair Mr. +Bernard had inherited,--something, perhaps, of the high spirit; but +that we shall have a chance of finding out by and by. But the long +sermons and the frugal board of his Brahmin ancestry, with his own +habits of study, had told upon his color, which was subdued to +something more of delicacy than one would care to see in a young +fellow with rough work before him. This, however, made him look more +interesting, or, as the young ladies at Major Bush's said, +"interestin'." + +When Mr. Bernard showed himself at meeting, on the first Sunday after +his arrival, it may be supposed that a good many eyes were turned +upon the young schoolmaster. There was something heroic in his +coming forward so readily to take a place which called for a strong +hand, and a prompt, steady will to guide it. In fact, his position +was that of a military chieftain on the eve of a battle. Everybody +knew everything in Pigwacket Centre; and it was an understood thing +that the young rebels meant to put down the new master, if they +could. It was natural that the two prettiest girls in the village, +called in the local dialect, as nearly as our limited alphabet will +represent it, Alminy Cutterr, and Arvilly Braowne, should feel and +express an interest in the good-looking stranger, and that, when +their flattering comments were repeated in the hearing of their +indigenous admirers, among whom were some of the older "boys" of the +school, it should not add to the amiable dispositions of the +turbulent youth. + +Monday came, and the new schoolmaster was in his chair at the upper +end of the schoolhouse, on the raised platform. The rustics looked +at his handsome face, thoughtful, peaceful, pleasant, cheerful, but +sharply cut round the lips and proudly lighted about the eyes. The +ringleader of the mischief-makers, the young butcher who has before +figured in this narrative, looked at him stealthily, whenever he got +a chance to study him unobserved; for the truth was, he felt +uncomfortable, whenever he found the large, dark eyes fixed on his +own little, sharp, deep-set, gray ones. But he managed to study him +pretty well,--first his face, then his neck and shoulders, the set of +his arms, the narrowing at the loins, the make of his legs, and the +way he moved. In short, he examined him as he would have examined a +steer, to see what he could do and how he would cut up. If he could +only have gone to him and felt of his muscles, he would have been +entirely satisfied. He was not a very wise youth, but he did know +well enough, that, though big arms and legs are very good things, +there is something besides size that goes to make a man; and he had +heard stories of a fighting-man, called "The Spider," from his +attenuated proportions, who was yet a terrible hitter in the ring, +and had whipped many a big-limbed fellow, in and out of the roped +arena. + +Nothing could be smoother than the way in which everything went on +for the first day or two. The new master was so kind and courteous, +he seemed to take everything in such a natural, easy way, that there +was no chance to pick a quarrel with him. He in the mean time +thought it best to watch the boys and young men for a day or two with +as little show of authority as possible. It was easy enough to see +that he would have occasion for it before long. + +The schoolhouse was a grim, old, red, one-story building, perched on +a bare rock at the top of a hill,--partly because this was a +conspicuous site for the temple of learning, and partly because land +is cheap where there is no chance even for rye or buckwheat, and the +very sheep find nothing to nibble. About the little porch were +carved initials and dates, at various heights, from the stature of +nine to that of eighteen. Inside were old unpainted desks,-- +unpainted, but browned with the umber of human contact,--and hacked +by innumerable jack-knives. It was long since the walls had been +whitewashed, as might be conjectured by the various traces left upon +them, wherever idle hands or sleepy heads could reach them. A +curious appearance was noticeable on various higher parts of the +wall: namely, a wart-like eruption, as one would be tempted to call +it, being in reality a crop of the soft missiles before mentioned, +which, adhering in considerable numbers, and hardening after the +usual fashion of papier-mache, formed at last permanent ornaments of +the edifice. + +The young master's quick eye soon noticed that a particular part of +the wall was most favored with these ornamental appendages. Their +position pointed sufficiently clearly to the part of the room they +came from. In fact, there was a nest of young mutineers just there, +which must be broken up by a coup d'etat. This was easily effected +by redistributing the seats and arranging the scholars according to +classes, so that a mischievous fellow, charged full of the rebellious +imponderable, should find himself between two non-conductors, in the +shape of small boys of studious habits. It was managed quietly +enough, in such a plausible sort of way that its motive was not +thought of. But its effects were soon felt; and then began a system +of correspondence by signs, and the throwing of little scrawls done +up in pellets, and announced by preliminary a'h'ms! to call the +attention of the distant youth addressed. Some of these were +incendiary documents, devoting the schoolmaster to the lower +divinities, as "a stuck-up dandy," as "a purse-proud aristocrat," as +"a sight too big for his, etc.," and holding him up in a variety of +equally forcible phrases to the indignation of the youthful community +of School District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre. + +Presently the draughtsman of the school set a caricature in +circulation, labelled, to prevent mistakes, with the schoolmaster's +name. An immense bell-crowned hat, and a long, pointed, swallow- +tailed coat showed that the artist had in his mind the conventional +dandy, as shown in prints of thirty or forty years ago, rather than +any actual human aspect of the time. But it was passed round among +the boys and made its laugh, helping of course to undermine the +master's authority, as "Punch" or the "Charivari" takes the dignity +out of an obnoxious minister. One morning, on going to the +schoolroom, Master Langdon found an enlarged copy of this sketch, +with its label, pinned on the door. He took it down, smiled a +little, put it into his pocket, and entered the schoolroom. An +insidious silence prevailed, which looked as if some plot were +brewing. The boys were ripe for mischief, but afraid. They had +really no fault to find with the master, except that he was dressed +like a gentleman, which a certain class of fellows always consider a +personal insult to themselves. But the older ones were evidently +plotting, and more than once the warning a'h'm! was heard, and a +dirty little scrap of paper rolled into a wad shot from one seat to +another. One of these happened to strike the stove-funnel, and +lodged on the master's desk. He was cool enough not to seem to +notice it. He secured it, however, and found an opportunity to look +at it, without being observed by the boys. It required no immediate +notice. + +He who should have enjoyed the privilege of looking upon Mr. Bernard +Langdon the next morning, when his toilet was about half finished, +would have had a very pleasant gratuitous exhibition. First he +buckled the strap of his trousers pretty tightly. Then he took up a +pair of heavy dumb-bells, and swung them for a few minutes; then two +great "Indian clubs," with which he enacted all sorts of impossible- +looking feats. His limbs were not very large, nor his shoulders +remarkably broad; but if you knew as much of the muscles as all +persons who look at statues and pictures with a critical eye ought to +have learned,--if you knew the trapezius, lying diamond-shaped over +the back and shoulders like a monk's cowl,--or the deltoid, which +caps the shoulder like an epaulette,--or the triceps, which furnishes +the calf of the upper arm,--or the hard-knotted biceps,--any of the +great sculptural landmarks, in fact,--you would have said there was a +pretty show of them, beneath the white satiny skin of Mr. Bernard +Langdon. And if you had seen him, when he had laid down the Indian +clubs, catch hold of a leather strap that hung from the beam of the +old-fashioned ceiling,--and lift and lower himself over and over +again by his left hand alone, you might have thought it a very simple +and easy thing to do, until you tried to do it yourself. Mr. Bernard +looked at himself with the eye of an expert. "Pretty well!" he +said;--"not so much fallen off as I expected." Then he set up his +bolster in a very knowing sort of way, and delivered two or three +blows straight as rulers and swift as winks. "That will do," he +said. Then, as if determined to make a certainty of his condition, +he took a dynamometer from one of the drawers in his old veneered +bureau. First he squeezed it with his two hands. Then he placed it +on the floor and lifted, steadily, strongly. The springs creaked and +cracked; the index swept with a great stride far up into the high +figures of the scale; it was a good lift. He was satisfied. He sat +down on the edge of his bed and looked at his cleanly-shaped arms. +"If I strike one of those boobies, I am afraid I shall spoil him," he +said. Yet this young man, when weighed with his class at the +college, could barely turn one hundred and forty-two pounds in the +scale,--not a heavy weight, surely; but some of the middle weights, +as the present English champion, for instance, seem to be of a far +finer quality of muscle than the bulkier fellows. + +The master took his breakfast with a good appetite that morning, but +was perhaps rather more quiet than usual. After breakfast he went +up-stairs and put, on a light loose frock, instead of that which he +commonly wore, which was a close-fitting and rather stylish one. On +his way to school he met Alminy Cutterr, who happened to be walking +in the other direction. "Good-morning, Miss Cutter," he said; for +she and another young lady had been introduced to him, on a former +occasion, in the usual phrase of polite society in presenting ladies +to gentlemen,--"Mr. Langdon, let me make y' acquainted with Miss +Cutterr;--let me make y' acquainted with Miss Braowne." So he said, +"Good-morning"; to which she replied, "Good-mornin', Mr. Langdon. +Haow's your haalth?" The answer to this question ought naturally to +have been the end of the talk; but Alminy Cutterr lingered and looked +as if she had something more on her mind. + +A young fellow does not require a great experience to read a simple +country-girl's face as if it were a sign-board. Alminy was a good +soul, with red cheeks and bright eyes, kind-hearted as she could be, +and it was out of the question for her to hide her thoughts or +feelings like a fine lady. Her bright eyes were moist and her red +cheeks paler than their wont, as she said, with her lips quivering, +"Oh, Mr. Langdon, them boys 'll be the death of ye, if ye don't take +caar!" + +"Why, what's the matter, my dear?" said Mr. Bernard.---Don't think +there was anything very odd in that "my dear," at the second +interview with a village belle;--some of these woman-tamers call a +girl "My dear," after five minutes' acquaintance, and it sounds all +right as they say it. But you had better not try it at a venture. + +It sounded all right to Alminy, as Mr. Bernard said it.---"I 'll tell +ye what's the mahtterr," she said, in a frightened voice. "Ahbner 's +go'n' to car' his dog, 'n' he'll set him on ye'z sure 'z y' 'r' +alive. 'T's the same cretur that haaf eat up Eben Squires's little +Jo, a year come nex' Faast day." + +Now this last statement was undoubtedly overcolored; as little Jo +Squires was running about the village,--with an ugly scar on his arm, +it is true, where the beast had caught him with his teeth, on the +occasion of the child's taking liberties with him, as he had been +accustomed to do with a good-tempered Newfoundland dog, who seemed to +like being pulled and hauled round by children. After this the +creature was commonly muzzled, and, as he was fed on raw meat +chiefly, was always ready for a fight, which he was occasionally +indulged in, when anything stout enough to match him could be found +in any of the neighboring villages. + +Tiger, or, more briefly, Tige, the property of Abner Briggs, Junior, +belonged to a species not distinctly named in scientific books, but +well known to our country-folks under the name "Yallah dog." They do +not use this expression as they would say black dog or white dog, but +with almost as definite a meaning as when they speak of a terrier or +a spaniel. A "yallah dog" is a large canine brute, of a dingy old- +flannel color, of no particular breed except his own, who hangs round +a tavern or a butcher's shop, or trots alongside of a team, looking +as if he were disgusted with the world, and the world with him. Our +inland population, while they tolerate him, speak of him with +contempt. Old ______ , of Meredith Bridge, used to twit the sun for +not shining on cloudy days, swearing, that, if he hung up his "yallah +dog," he would make a better show of daylight. A country fellow, +abusing a horse of his neighbor's, vowed, that, "if he had such a +hoss, he'd swap him for a `yallah dog,'--and then shoot the dog." + +Tige was an ill-conditioned brute by nature, and art had not improved +him by cropping his ears and tail and investing him with a spiked +collar. He bore on his person, also, various not ornamental scars, +marks of old battles; for Tige had fight in him, as was said before, +and as might be guessed by a certain bluntness about the muzzle, with +a projection of the lower jaw, which looked as if there might be a +bull-dog stripe among the numerous bar-sinisters of his lineage. + +It was hardly fair, however, to leave Alminy Cutterr waiting while +this piece of natural history was telling.--As she spoke of little +Jo, who had been "haaf eat up" by Tige, she could not contain her +sympathies, and began to cry. + +"Why, my dear little soul," said Mr. Bernard, "what are you worried +about? I used to play with a bear when I was a boy; and the bear +used to hug me, and I used to kiss him,--so!" + +It was too bad of Mr. Bernard, only the second time he had seen +Alminy; but her kind feelings had touched him, and that seemed the +most natural way of expressing his gratitude. Ahniny looked round to +see if anybody was near; she saw nobody, so of course it would do no +good to "holler." She saw nobody; but a stout young fellow, leading +a yellow dog, muzzled, saw her through a crack in a picket fence, not +a great way off the road. Many a year he had been "hangin' 'raoun'" +Alminy, and never did he see any encouraging look, or hear any +"Behave, naow!" or "Come, naow, a'n't ye 'shamed?" or other +forbidding phrase of acquiescence, such as village belles under stand +as well as ever did the nymph who fled to the willows in the eclogue +we all remember. + +No wonder he was furious, when he saw the school master, who had +never seen the girl until within a week, touching with his lips those +rosy cheeks which he had never dared to approach. But that was all; +it was a sudden impulse; and the master turned away from the young +girl, laughing, and telling her not to fret herself about him,--he +would take care of himself. + +So Master Langdon walked on toward his school-house, not displeased, +perhaps, with his little adventure, nor immensely elated by it; for +he was one of the natural class of the sex-subduers, and had had many +a smile without asking, which had been denied to the feeble youth who +try to win favor by pleading their passion in rhyme, and even to the +more formidable approaches of young officers in volunteer companies, +considered by many to be quite irresistible to the fair who have once +beheld them from their windows in the epaulettes and plumes and +sashes of the "Pigwacket Invincibles," or the "Hackmatack Rangers." + +Master Langdon took his seat and began the exercises of his school. +The smaller boys recited their lessons well enough, but some of the +larger ones were negligent and surly. He noticed one or two of them +looking toward the door, as if expecting somebody or something in +that direction. At half past nine o'clock, Abner Briggs, Junior, who +had not yet shown himself, made his appearance. He was followed by +his "yallah dog," without his muzzle, who squatted down very grimly +near the door, and gave a wolfish look round the room, as if he were +considering which was the plumpest boy to begin with. The young +butcher, meanwhile, went to his seat, looking somewhat flushed, +except round the lips, which were hardly as red as common, and set +pretty sharply. + +"Put out that dog, Abner Briggs!"--The master spoke as the captain +speaks to the helmsman, when there are rocks foaming at the lips, +right under his lee. + +Abner Briggs answered as the helmsman answers, when he knows he has a +mutinous crew round him that mean to run the ship on the reef, and is +one of the mutineers himself. "Put him aout y'rself, 'f ye a'n't +afeard on him!" + +The master stepped into the aisle: The great cur showed his teeth,-- +and the devilish instincts of his old wolf-ancestry looked out of his +eyes, and flashed from his sharp tusks, and yawned in his wide mouth +and deep red gullet. + +The movements of animals are so much quicker than those of human +beings commonly are, that they avoid blows as easily as one of us +steps out of the way of an ox-cart. It must be a very stupid dog +that lets himself be run over by a fast driver in his gig; he can +jump out of the wheel's way after the tire has already touched him. +So, while one is lifting a stick to strike or drawing back his foot +to kick, the beast makes his spring, and the blow or the kick comes +too late. + +It was not so this time. The master was a fencer, and something of a +boxer; he had played at singlestick, and was used to watching an +adversary's eye and coming down on him without any of those +premonitory symptoms by which unpractised persons show long +beforehand what mischief they meditate. + +"Out with you!" he said, fiercely,--and explained what he meant by a +sudden flash of his foot that clashed the yellow dog's white teeth +together like the springing of a bear-trap. The cur knew he had +found his master at the first word and glance, as low animals on four +legs, or a smaller number, always do; and the blow took him so by +surprise, that it curled him up in an instant, and he went bundling +out of the open schoolhouse-door with a most pitiable yelp, and his +stump of a tail shut down as close as his owner ever shut the short, +stubbed blade of his jack-knife. + +It was time for the other cur to find who his master. + +"Follow your dog, Abner Briggs!" said Master Langdon. + +The stout butcher-youth looked round, but the rebels were all cowed +and sat still. + +"I'll go when I'm ready," he said,--"'n' I guess I won't go afore I'm +ready." + +"You're ready now," said Master Langdon, turning up his cuffs so that +the little boys noticed the yellow gleam of a pair of gold sleeve- +buttons, once worn by Colonel Percy Wentworth, famous in the Old +French War. + +Abner Briggs, Junior, did not apparently think he was ready, at any +rate; for he rose up in his place, and stood with clenched fists, +defiant, as the master strode towards him. The master knew the +fellow was really frightened, for all his looks, and that he must +have no time to rally. So he caught him suddenly by the collar, and, +with one great pull, had him out over his desk and on the open floor. +He gave him a sharp fling backwards and stood looking at him. + +The rough-and-tumble fighters all clinch, as everybody knows; and +Abner Briggs, Junior, was one of that kind. He remembered how he had +floored Master Weeks, and he had just "spunk" enough left in him to +try to repeat his former successful experiment an the new master. He +sprang at him, open-handed, to clutch him. So the master had to +strike,--once, but very hard, and just in the place to tell. No +doubt, the authority that doth hedge a schoolmaster added to the +effect of the blow; but the blow was itself a neat one, and did not +require to be repeated. + +"Now go home," said the master, "and don't let me see you or your dog +here again." And he turned his cuffs down over the gold sleeve- +buttons. + +This finished the great Pigwacket Centre School rebellion. What +could be done with a master who was so pleasant as long as the boys +behaved decently, and such a terrible fellow when he got "riled," as +they called it? In a week's time everything was reduced to order, +and the school-committee were delighted. The master, however, had +received a proposition so much more agreeable and advantageous, that +he informed the committee he should leave at the end of his month, +having in his eye a sensible and energetic young college-graduate who +would be willing and fully competent to take his place. + +So, at the expiration of the appointed time, Bernard Langdon, late +master of the School District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, took his +departure from that place for another locality, whither we shall +follow him, carrying with him the regrets of the committee, of most +of the scholars, and of several young ladies; also two locks of hair, +sent unbeknown to payrents, one dark and one warmish auburn, +inscribed with the respective initials of Alminy Cutterr and Arvilly +Braowne. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MOTH FLIES INTO THE CANDLE. + +The invitation which Mr. Bernard Langdon had accepted came from the +Board of Trustees of the "Apollinean Female Institute," a school for +the education of young ladies, situated in the flourishing town of +Rockland. This was an establishment on a considerable scale, in +which a hundred scholars or thereabouts were taught the ordinary +English branches, several of the modern languages, something of +Latin, if desired, with a little natural philosophy, metaphysics, and +rhetoric, to finish off with in the last year, and music at any time +when they would pay for it. At the close of their career in the +Institute, they were submitted to a grand public examination, and +received diplomas tied in blue ribbons, which proclaimed them with a +great flourish of capitals to be graduates of the Apollinean Female +Institute. + +Rockland was a town of no inconsiderable pretensions. It was +ennobled by lying at the foot of a mountain,--called by the working- +folks of the place "the Maounting,"--which sufficiently showed that +it was the principal high land of the district in which it was +situated. It lay to the south of this, and basked in the sunshine as +Italy stretches herself before the Alps. To pass from the town of +Tamarack on the north of the mountain to Rockland on the south was +like crossing from Coire to Chiavenna. + +There is nothing gives glory and grandeur and romance and mystery to +a place like the impending presence of a high mountain. Our +beautiful Northampton with its fair meadows and noble stream is +lovely enough, but owes its surpassing attraction to those twin +summits which brood over it like living presences, looking down into +its streets as if they were its tutelary divinities, dressing and +undressing their green shrines, robing themselves in jubilant +sunshine or in sorrowing clouds, and doing penance in the snowy +shroud of winter, as if they had living hearts under their rocky ribs +and changed their mood like the children of the soil at their feet, +who grow up under their almost parental smiles and frowns. Happy is +the child whose first dreams of heaven are blended with the evening +glories of Mount Holyoke, when the sun is firing its treetops, and +gilding the white walls that mark its one human dwelling! If the +other and the wilder of the two summits has a scowl of terror in its +overhanging brows, yet is it a pleasing fear to look upon its savage +solitudes through the barred nursery-windows in the heart of the +sweet, companionable village.---And how the mountains love their +children! The sea is of a facile virtue, and will run to kiss the +first comer in any port he visits; but the chaste mountains sit +apart, and show their faces only in the midst of their own families. + +The Mountain which kept watch to the north of Rockland lay waste and +almost inviolate through much of its domain. The catamount still +glared from the branches of its old hemlocks on the lesser beasts +that strayed beneath him. It was not long since a wolf had wandered +down, famished in the winter's dearth, and left a few bones and some +tufts of wool of what had been a lamb in the morning. Nay, there +were broad-footed tracks in the snow only two years previously, which +could not be mistaken;--the black bear alone could have set that +plantigrade seal, and little children must come home early from +school and play, for he is an indiscriminate feeder when he is +hungry, and a little child would not come amiss when other game was +wanting. + +But these occasional visitors may have been mere wanderers, which, +straying along in the woods by day, and perhaps stalking through the +streets of still villages by night, had worked their way along down +from the ragged mountain-spurs of higher latitudes. The one feature +of The Mountain that shed the brownest horror on its woods was the +existence of the terrible region known as Rattlesnake Ledge, and +still tenanted by those damnable reptiles, which distil a fiercer +venom under our cold northern sky than the cobra himself in the land +of tropical spices and poisons. + +From the earliest settlement of the place, this fact had been, next +to the Indians, the reigning nightmare of the inhabitants. It was +easy enough, after a time, to drive away the savages; for +"a screeching Indian Divell," as our fathers called him, could not +crawl into the crack of a rock to escape from his pursuers. But the +venomous population of Rattlesnake Ledge had a Gibraltar for their +fortress that might have defied the siege-train dragged to the walls +of Sebastopol. In its deep embrasures and its impregnable easemates +they reared their families, they met in love or wrath, they twined +together in family knots, they hissed defiance in hostile clans, they +fed, slept, hibernated, and in due time died in peace. Many a foray +had the towns-people made, and many a stuffed skin was shown as a +trophy,--nay, there were families where the children's first toy was +made from the warning appendage that once vibrated to the wrath of +one of these "cruel serpents." Sometimes one of them, coaxed out by +a warm sun, would writhe himself down the hillside into the roads, up +the walks that led to houses,--worse than this, into the long grass, +where the barefooted mowers would soon pass with their swinging +scythes,--more rarely into houses, and on one memorable occasion, +early in the last century, into the meeting-house, where he took a +position on the pulpit-stairs,--as is narrated in the "Account of +Some Remarkable Providences," etc., where it is suggested that a +strong tendency of the Rev. Didymus Bean, the Minister at that time, +towards the Arminian Heresy may have had something to do with it, and +that the Serpent supposed to have been killed on the Pulpit-Stairs +was a false show of the Daemon's Contrivance, he having come in to +listen to a Discourse which was a sweet Savour in his Nostrils, and, +of course, not being capable of being killed Himself. Others said, +however, that, though there was good Reason to think it was a Damon, +yet he did come with Intent to bite the Heel of that faithful +Servant,--etc. + +One Gilson is said to have died of the bite of a rattlesnake in this +town early in the present century. After this there was a great +snake-hunt, in which very many of these venomous beasts were killed, +--one in particular, said to have been as big round as a stout man's +arm, and to have had no less than forty joints to his rattle,-- +indicating, according to some, that he had lived forty years, but, if +we might put any faith in the Indian tradition, that he had killed +forty human beings,--an idle fancy, clearly. This hunt, however, had +no permanent effect in keeping down the serpent population. +Viviparous, creatures are a kind of specie-paying lot, but oviparous +ones only give their notes, as it were, for a future brood,--an egg +being, so to speak, a promise to pay a young one by and by, if +nothing happen. Now the domestic habits of the rattlesnake are not +studied very closely, for obvious reasons; but it is, no doubt, to +all intents and purposes oviparous. Consequently it has large +families, and is not easy to kill out. + +In the year 184-, a melancholy proof was afforded to the inhabitants +of Rockland, that the brood which infested The Mountain was not +extirpated. A very interesting young married woman, detained at home +at the time by the state of her health, was bitten in the entry of +her own house by a rattlesnake which had found its way down from The +Mountain. Owing to the almost instant employment of powerful +remedies, the bite did not prove immediately fatal; but she died +within a few months of the time when she was bitten. + +All this seemed to throw a lurid kind of shadow over The Mountain. +Yet, as many years passed without any accident, people grew +comparatively careless, and it might rather be said to add a fearful +kind of interest to the romantic hillside, that the banded reptiles, +which had been the terror of the red men for nobody knows how many +thousand years, were there still, with the same poison-bags and +spring-teeth at the white men's service, if they meddled with them. + +The other natural features of Rockland were such as many of our +pleasant country-towns can boast of. A brook came tumbling down the +mountain-side and skirted the most thickly settled portion of the +village. In the parts of its course where it ran through the woods, +the water looked almost as brown as coffee flowing from its urn,--to +say like smoky quartz would perhaps give a better idea,--but in the +open plain it sparkled over the pebbles white as a queen's diamonds. +There were huckleberry-pastures on the lower flanks of The Mountain, +with plenty of the sweet-scented bayberry mingled with the other +bushes. In other fields grew great store of high-bush blackberries. +Along the roadside were bayberry-bushes, hung all over with bright +red coral pendants in autumn and far into the winter. Then there +were swamps set thick with dingy alders, where the three-leaved arum +and the skunk's-cabbage grew broad and succulent, shelving down into +black boggy pools here and there at the edge of which the green frog, +stupidest of his tribe, sat waiting to be victimized by boy or +snapping-turtle long after the shy and agile leopard-frog had taken +the six-foot spring that plumped him into the middle of the pool. +And on the neighboring banks the maiden-hair spread its flat disk of +embroidered fronds on the wire-like stem that glistened polished and +brown as the darkest tortoise-shell, and pale violets, cheated by the +cold skies of their hues and perfume, sunned themselves like white- +cheeked invalids. Over these rose the old forest-trees,--the maple, +scarred with the wounds which had drained away its sweet life-blood, +--the beech, its smooth gray bark mottled so as to look like the body +of one of those great snakes of old that used to frighten armies, +always the mark of lovers' knives, as in the days of Musidora and her +swain,--the yellow birch, rough as the breast of Silenus in old +marbles,--the wild cherry, its little bitter fruit lying unheeded at +its foot,--and, soaring over all, the huge, coarse-barked, splintery- +limbed, dark-mantled hemlock, in the depth of whose aerial solitudes +the crow brooded on her nest unscared, and the gray squirrel lived +unharmed till his incisors grew to look like ram's-horns. + +Rockland would have been but half a town without its pond; Guinnepeg +Pond was the name of it, but the young ladies of the Apollinean +Institute were very anxious that it should be called Crystalline +Lake. It was here that the young folks used to sail in summer and +skate in winter; here, too, those queer, old, rum-scented good-for- +nothing, lazy, story-telling, half-vagabonds, who sawed a little wood +or dug a few potatoes now and then under the pretence of working for +their living, used to go and fish through the ice for pickerel every +winter. And here those three young people were drowned, a few +summers ago, by the upsetting of a sail-boat in a sudden flaw of +wind. There is not one of these smiling ponds which has not devoured +more youths and maidens than any of those monsters the ancients used +to tell such lies about. But it was a pretty pond, and never looked +more innocent--so the native "bard" of Rockland said in his elegy-- +than on the morning when they found Sarah Jane and Ellen Maria +floating among the lily-pads. + +The Apollinean Institute, or Institoot, as it was more commonly +called, was, in the language of its Prospectus, a "first-class +Educational Establishment." It employed a considerable corps of +instructors to rough out and finish the hundred young lady scholars +it sheltered beneath its roof. First, Mr. and Mrs. Peckham, the +Principal and the Matron of the school. Silas Peckham was a thorough +Yankee, born on a windy part of the coast, and reared chiefly on +salt-fish. Everybody knows the type of Yankee produced by this +climate and diet: thin, as if he had been split and dried; with an +ashen kind of complexion, like the tint of the food he is made of; +and about as sharp, tough, juiceless, and biting to deal with as the +other is to the taste. Silas Peckham kept a young ladies' school +exactly as he would have kept a hundred head of cattle,--for the +simple, unadorned purpose of making just as much money in just as few +years as could be safely done. Mr. Peckham gave very little personal +attention to the department of instruction, but was always busy with +contracts for flour and potatoes, beef and pork, and other nutritive +staples, the amount of which required for such an establishment was +enough to frighten a quartermaster. Mrs. Peckham was from the West, +raised on Indian corn and pork, which give a fuller outline and a +more humid temperament, but may perhaps be thought to render people a +little coarse-fibred. Her specialty was to look after the +feathering, cackling, roosting, rising, and general behavior of these +hundred chicks. An honest, ignorant woman, she could not have passed +an examination in the youngest class. So this distinguished +institution was under the charge of a commissary and a housekeeper, +and its real business was making money by taking young girls in as +boarders. + +Connected with this, however, was the incidental fact, which the +public took for the principal one, namely, the business of +instruction. Mr. Peckham knew well enough that it was just as well +to have good instructors as bad ones, so far as cost was concerned, +and a great deal better for the reputation of his feeding- +establishment. He tried to get the best he could without paying too +much, and, having got them, to screw all the work out of them that +could possibly be extracted. + +There was a master for the English branches, with a young lady +assistant. There was another young lady who taught French, of the +ahvaung and baundahng style, which does not exactly smack of the +asphalt of the Boulevards. There was also a German teacher of music, +who sometimes helped in French of the ahfaung and bauntaung style,-- +so that, between the two, the young ladies could hardly have been +mistaken for Parisians, by a Committee of the French Academy. The +German teacher also taught a Latin class after his fashion,--benna, a +ben, gahboot, ahead, and so forth. + +The master for the English branches had lately left the school for +private reasons, which need not be here mentioned,--but he had gone, +at any rate, and it was his place which had been offered to Mr. +Bernard Langdon. The offer came just in season,--as, for various +causes, he was willing to leave the place where he had begun his new +experience. + +It was on a fine morning that Mr. Bernard, ushered in by Mr. Peckham, +made his appearance in the great schoolroom of the Apollinean +Institute. A general rustle ran all round the seats when the +handsome young man was introduced. The principal carried him to the +desk of the young lady English assistant, Miss Darley by name, and +introduced him to her. + +There was not a great deal of study done that day. The young lady +assistant had to point out to the new master the whole routine in +which the classes were engaged when their late teacher left, and +which had gone on as well as it could since. Then Master Langdon had +a great many questions to ask, some relating to his new duties, and +some, perhaps, implying a degree of curiosity not very unnatural +under the circumstances. The truth is, the general effect of the +schoolroom, with its scores of young girls, all their eyes naturally +centring on him with fixed or furtive glances, was enough to bewilder +and confuse a young man like Master Langdon, though he was not +destitute of self-possession, as we have already seen. + +You cannot get together a hundred girls, taking them as they come, +from the comfortable and affluent classes, probably anywhere, +certainly not in New England, without seeing a good deal of beauty. +In fact, we very commonly mean by beauty the way young girls look +when there is nothing to hinder their looking as Nature meant them +to. And the great schoolroom of the Apollinean Institute did really +make so pretty a show on the morning when Master Langdon entered it, +that he might be pardoned for asking Miss Darley more questions about +his scholars than about their lessons. + +There were girls of all ages: little creatures, some pallid and +delicate-looking, the offspring of invalid parents,--much given to +books, not much to mischief, commonly spoken of as particularly good +children, and contrasted with another sort, girls of more vigorous +organization, who were disposed to laughing and play, and required a +strong hand to manage them; then young growing misses of every shade +of Saxon complexion, and here and there one of more Southern hue: +blondes, some of them so translucent-looking that it seemed as if you +could see the souls in their bodies, like bubbles in glass, if souls +were objects of sight; brunettes, some with rose-red colors, and some +with that swarthy hue which often carries with it a heavily-shaded +lip, and which, with pure outlines and outspoken reliefs, gives us +some of our handsomest women,--the women whom ornaments of plain gold +adorn more than any other parures; and again, but only here and +there, one with dark hair and gray or blue eyes, a Celtic type, +perhaps, but found in our native stock occasionally; rarest of all, a +light-haired girl with dark eyes, hazel, brown, or of the color of +that mountain-brook spoken of in this chapter, where it ran through +shadowy woodlands. With these were to be seen at intervals some of +maturer years, full-blown flowers among the opening buds, with that +conscious look upon their faces which so many women wear during the +period when they never meet a single man without having his +monosyllable ready for him,--tied as they are, poor things! on the +rock of expectation, each of them an Andromeda waiting for her +Perseus. + +"Who is that girl in ringlets,--the fourth in the third row on the +right?" said Master Langdon. + +"Charlotte Ann Wood," said Miss Darley; "writes very pretty poems." + +"Oh!--And the pink one, three seats from her? Looks bright; anything +in her?" + +"Emma Dean,--day-scholar,--Squire Dean's daughter,--nice girl,-- +second medal last year." + +The master asked these two questions in a careless kind of way, and +did not seem to pay any too much attention to the answers. + +"And who and what is that," he said,--"sitting a little apart +there,--that strange, wild-looking girl?" + +This time he put the real question he wanted answered;--the other two +were asked at random, as masks for the third. + +The lady-teacher's face changed;--one would have said she was +frightened or troubled. She looked at the girl doubtfully, as if she +might hear the master's question and its answer. But the girl did +not look up;--she was winding a gold chain about her wrist, and then +uncoiling it, as if in a kind of reverie. + +Miss Darley drew close to the master and placed her hand so as to +hide her lips. "Don't look at her as if we were talking about her," +she whispered softly; "that is Elsie Venner." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +AN OLD-FASHIONED DESCRIPTIVE CHAPTER. + +It was a comfort to get to a place with something like society, with +residences which had pretensions to elegance, with people of some +breeding, with a newspaper, and "stores" to advertise in it, and with +two or three churches to keep each other alive by wholesome +agitation. Rockland was such a place. + +Some of the natural features of the town have been described already. +The Mountain, of course, was what gave it its character, and redeemed +it from wearing the commonplace expression which belongs to ordinary +country-villages. Beautiful, wild, invested with the mystery which +belongs to untrodden spaces, and with enough of terror to give it +dignity, it had yet closer relations with the town over which it +brooded than the passing stranger knew of. Thus, it made a local +climate by cutting off the northern winds and holding the sun's heat +like a garden-wall. Peachtrees, which, on the northern side of the +mountain, hardly ever came to fruit, ripened abundant crops in +Rockland. + +But there was still another relation between the mountain and the +town at its foot, which strangers were not likely to hear alluded to, +and which was oftener thought of than spoken of by its inhabitants. +Those high-impending forests,--"hangers," as White of Selborne would +have called them,--sloping far upward and backward into the distance, +had always an air of menace blended with their wild beauty. It +seemed as if some heaven-scaling Titan had thrown his shaggy robe +over the bare, precipitous flanks of the rocky summit, and it might +at any moment slide like a garment flung carelessly on the nearest +chance-support, and, so sliding, crush the village out of being, as +the Rossberg when it tumbled over on the valley of Goldau. + +Persons have been known to remove from the place, after a short +residence in it, because they were haunted day and night by the +thought of this awful green wall, piled up into the air over their +heads. They would lie awake of nights, thinking they heard the +muffed snapping of roots, as if a thousand acres of the mountain-side +were tugging to break away, like the snow from a house-roof, and a +hundred thousand trees were clinging with all their fibres to hold +back the soil just ready to peel away and crash down with all its +rocks and forest-growths. And yet, by one of those strange +contradictions we are constantly finding in human nature, there were +natives of the town who would come back thirty or forty years after +leaving it, just to nestle under this same threatening mountainside, +as old men sun themselves against southward-facing walls. The old +dreams and legends of danger added to the attraction. If the +mountain should ever slide, they had a kind of feeling as if they +ought to be there. It was a fascination like that which the +rattlesnake is said to exert. + +This comparison naturally suggests the recollection of that other +source of danger which was an element in the every-day life of the +Rockland people. The folks in some of the neighboring towns had a +joke against them, that a Rocklander could n't hear a beanpod rattle +without saying, "The Lord have mercy on us! "It is very true, that +many a nervous old lady has had a terrible start, caused by some +mischievous young rogue's giving a sudden shake to one of these noisy +vegetable products in her immediate vicinity. Yet, strangely enough, +many persons missed the excitement of the possibility of a fatal bite +in other regions, where there were nothing but black and green and +striped snakes, mean ophidians, having the spite of the nobler +serpent without his venom,--poor crawling creatures, whom Nature +would not trust with a poison-bag. Many natives of Rockland did +unquestionably experience a certain gratification in this +infinitesimal sense of danger. It was noted that the old people +retained their hearing longer than in other places. Some said it was +the softened climate, but others believed it was owing to the habit +of keeping their ears open whenever they were walking through the +grass or in the woods. At any rate, a slight sense of danger is +often an agreeable stimulus. People sip their creme de noyau with a +peculiar tremulous pleasure, because there is a bare possibility that +it may contain prussic acid enough to knock them over; in which case +they will lie as dead as if a thunder-cloud had emptied itself into +the earth through their brain and marrow. + +But Rockland had other features which helped to give it a special +character. First of all, there was one grand street which was its +chief glory. Elm Street it was called, naturally enough, for its +elms made a long, pointed-arched gallery of it through most of its +extent. No natural Gothic arch compares, for a moment, with that +formed by two American elms, where their lofty jets of foliage shoot +across each other's ascending curves, to intermingle their showery +flakes of green. When one looks through a long double row of these, +as in that lovely avenue which the poets of Yale remember so well, + +"Oh, could the vista of my life but now as bright appear +As when I first through Temple Street looked down thine espalier!" + +he beholds a temple not built with hands, fairer than any minster, +with all its clustered stems and flowering capitals, that ever grew +in stone. + +Nobody knows New England who is not on terms of intimacy with one of +its elms. The elm comes nearer to having a soul than any other +vegetable creature among us. It loves man as man loves it. It is +modest and patient. It has a small flake of a seed which blows in +everywhere and makes arrangements for coming up by and by. So, in +spring, one finds a crop of baby-elms among his carrots and parsnips, +very weak and small compared to those succulent vegetables. The +baby-elms die, most of them, slain, unrecognized or unheeded, by hand +or hoe, as meekly as Herod's innocents. One of them gets overlooked, +perhaps, until it has established a kind of right to stay. Three +generations of carrot and parsnip consumers have passed away, +yourself among them, and now let your great-grandson look for the +baby-elm. Twenty-two feet of clean girth, three hundred and sixty +feet in the line that bounds its leafy circle, it covers the boy with +such a canopy as neither glossy-leafed oak nor insect-haunted linden +ever lifted into the summer skies. + +Elm Street was the pride of Rockland, but not only on account of its +Gothic-arched vista. In this street were most of the great houses, +or "mansion-houses," as it was usual to call them. Along this +street, also, the more nicely kept and neatly painted dwellings were +chiefly congregated. It was the correct thing for a Rockland +dignitary to have a house in Elm Street. A New England "mansion- +house" is naturally square, with dormer windows projecting from the +roof, which has a balustrade with turned posts round it. It shows a +good breadth of front-yard before its door, as its owner shows a +respectable expanse of a clean shirt-front. It has a lateral margin +beyond its stables and offices, as its master wears his white wrist +bands showing beyond his coat-cuffs. It may not have what can +properly be called grounds, but it must have elbow-room, at any rate. +Without it, it is like a man who is always tight-buttoned for want of +any linen to show. The mansion-house which has had to "button itself +up tight in fences, for want of green or gravel margin," will be +advertising for boarders presently. The old English pattern of the +New England mansion-house, only on a somewhat grander scale, is Sir +Thomas Abney's place, where dear, good Dr. Watts said prayers for the +family, and wrote those blessed hymns of his that sing us into +consciousness in our cradles, and come back to us in sweet, single +verses, between the moments of wandering and of stupor, when we lie +dying, and sound over us when we can no longer hear them, bringing +grateful tears to the hot, aching eyes beneath the thick, black +veils, and carrying the holy calm with them which filled the good +man's heart, as he prayed and sung under the shelter of the old +English mansion-house. Next to the mansion-houses, came the two- +story trim, white-painted, "genteel" houses, which, being more +gossipy and less nicely bred, crowded close up to the street, instead +of standing back from it with arms akimbo, like the mansion-houses. +Their little front-yards were very commonly full of lilac and syringa +and other bushes, which were allowed to smother the lower story +almost to the exclusion of light and airy so that, what with small +windows and small windowpanes, and the darkness made by these choking +growths of shrubbery, the front parlors of some of these houses were +the most tomb-like, melancholy places that could be found anywhere +among the abodes of the living. Their garnishing was apt to assist +this impression. Large-patterned carpets, which always look +discontented in little rooms, haircloth furniture, black and shiny as +beetles' wing cases, and centre-tables, with a sullen oil-lamp of the +kind called astral by our imaginative ancestors, in the centre,-- +these things were inevitable. In set piles round the lamp was ranged +the current literature of the day, in the form of Temperance +Documents, unbound numbers of one of the Unknown Public's Magazines +with worn-out steel engravings and high-colored fashion-plates, the +Poems of a distinguished British author whom it is unnecessary to +mention, a volume of sermons, or a novel or two, or both, according +to the tastes of the family, and the Good Book, which is always +Itself in the cheapest and commonest company. The father of the +family with his hand in the breast of his coat, the mother of the +same in a wide-bordered cap, sometimes a print of the Last Supper, by +no means Morghen's, or the Father of his Country, or the old General, +or the Defender of the Constitution, or an unknown clergyman with an +open book before him,--these were the usual ornaments of the walls, +the first two a matter of rigor, the others according to politics and +other tendencies. + +This intermediate class of houses, wherever one finds them in New +England towns, are very apt to be cheerless and unsatisfactory. They +have neither the luxury of the mansion-house nor the comfort of the +farm-house. They are rarely kept at an agreeable temperature. The +mansion-house has large fireplaces and generous chimneys, and is open +to the sunshine. The farm-house makes no pretensions, but it has a +good warm kitchen, at any rate, and one can be comfortable there with +the rest of the family, without fear and without reproach. These +lesser country-houses of genteel aspirations are much given to patent +subterfuges of one kind and another to get heat without combustion. +The chilly parlor and the slippery hair-cloth seat take the life out +of the warmest welcome. If one would make these places wholesome, +happy, and cheerful, the first precept would be,--The dearest fuel, +plenty of it, and let half the heat go up the chimney. If you can't +afford this, don't try to live in a "genteel" fashion, but stick to +the ways of the honest farm-house. + +There were a good many comfortable farm-houses scattered about +Rockland. The best of them were something of the following pattern, +which is too often superseded of late by a more pretentious, but +infinitely less pleasing kind of rustic architecture. A little back +from the road, seated directly on the green sod, rose a plain wooden +building, two stories in front, with a long roof sloping backwards to +within a few feet of the ground. This, like the "mansion-house," is +copied from an old English pattern. Cottages of this model may be +seen in Lancashire, for instance, always with the same honest, homely +look, as if their roofs acknowledged their relationship to the soil +out of which they sprung. The walls were unpainted, but turned by +the slow action of sun and air and rain to a quiet dove or slate +color. An old broken millstone at the door,--a well-sweep pointing +like a finger to the heavens, which the shining round of water +beneath looked up at like a dark unsleeping eye,--a single large elm +a little at one side,--a barn twice as big as the house,--a cattle- +yard, with + + "The white horns tossing above the wall,"-- + +some fields, in pasture or in crops, with low stone walls round +them,--a row of beehives,--a gardenpatch, with roots, and currant- +bushes, and many-hued hollyhocks, and swollen-stemmed, globe-headed, +seedling onions, and marigolds and flower-de-luces, and lady's- +delights, and peonies, crowding in together, with southernwood in the +borders, and woodbine and hops and morning-glories climbing as they +got a chance,--these were the features by which the Rockland-born +children remembered the farm-house, when they had grown to be men. +Such are the recollections that come over poor sailor-boys crawling +out on reeling yards to reef topsails as their vessels stagger round +the stormy Cape; and such are the flitting images that make the eyes +of old country-born merchants look dim and dreamy, as they sit in +their city palaces, warm with the after-dinner flush of the red wave +out of which Memory arises, as Aphrodite arose from the green waves +of the ocean. + +Two meeting-houses stood on two eminences, facing each other, and +looking like a couple of fighting-cocks with their necks straight up +in the air,--as if they would flap their roofs, the next thing, and +crow out of their upstretched steeples, and peck at each other's +glass eyes with their sharp-pointed weathercocks. + +The first was a good pattern of the real old-fashioned New England +meeting-house. It was a large barn with windows, fronted by a square +tower crowned with a kind of wooden bell inverted and raised on legs, +out of which rose a slender spire with the sharp-billed weathercock +at its summit. Inside, tall, square pews with flapping seats, and a +gallery running round three sides of the building. On the fourth +side the pulpit, with a huge, dusty sounding-board hanging over it. +Here preached the Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D. D., successor, +after a number of generations, to the office and the parsonage of the +Reverend Didymus Bean, before mentioned, but not suspected of any of +his alleged heresies. He held to the old faith of the Puritans, and +occasionally delivered a discourse which was considered by the hard- +headed theologians of his parish to have settled the whole matter +fully and finally, so that now there was a good logical basis laid +down for the Millennium, which might begin at once upon the platform +of his demonstrations. Yet the Reverend Dr. Honeywood was fonder of +preaching plain, practical sermons about the duties of life, and +showing his Christianity in abundant good works among his people. It +was noticed by some few of his flock, not without comment, that the +great majority of his texts came from the Gospels, and this more and +more as he became interested in various benevolent enterprises which +brought him into relations with-ministers and kindhearted laymen of +other denominations. He was in fact a man of a very warm, open, and +exceedingly human disposition, and, although bred by a clerical +father, whose motto was "Sit anima mea cum Puritanis," he exercised +his human faculties in the harness of his ancient faith with such +freedom that the straps of it got so loose they did not interfere +greatly with the circulation of the warm blood through his system. +Once in a while he seemed to think it necessary to come out with a +grand doctrinal sermon, and them he would lapse away for a while into +preaching on men's duties to each other and to society, and hit hard, +perhaps, at some of the actual vices of the time and place, and +insist with such tenderness and eloquence on the great depth and +breadth of true Christian love and charity, that his oldest deacon +shook his head, and wished he had shown as much interest when he was +preaching, three Sabbaths back, on Predestinaticn, or in his +discourse against the Sabellians. But he was sound in the faith; no +doubt of that. Did he not preside at the council held in the town of +Tamarack, on the other side of the mountain, which expelled its +clergyman for maintaining heretical doctrines? As presiding officer, +he did not vote, of course, but there was no doubt that he was all +right; he had some of the Edwards blood in him, and that couldn't +very well let him go wrong. + +The meeting-house on the other and opposite summit was of a more +modern style, considered by many a great improvement on the old New +England model, so that it is not uncommon for a country parish to +pull down its old meeting-house, which has been preached in for a +hundred years or so, and put up one of these more elegant edifices. +The new building was in what may be called the florid shingle-Gothic +manner. Its pinnacles and crockets and other ornaments were, like +the body of the building, all of pine wood,--an admirable material, +as it is very soft and easily worked, and can be painted of any color +desired. Inside, the walls were stuccoed in imitation of stone,-- +first a dark brown square, then two light brown squares, then another +dark brown square, and so on, to represent the accidental differences +of shade always noticeable in the real stones of which walls are +built. To be sure, the architect could not help getting his party- +colored squares in almost as regular rhythmical order as those of a +chess-board; but nobody can avoid doing things in a systematic and +serial way; indeed, people who wish to plant trees in natural chimps +know very well that they cannot keep from making regular lines and +symmetrical figures, unless by some trick or other, as that one of +throwing a peck of potatoes up into the air and sticking in a tree +wherever a potato happens to fall. The pews of this meeting-house +were the usual oblong ones, where people sit close together, with a +ledge before them to support their hymn-books, liable only to +occasional contact with the back of the next pew's heads or bonnets, +and a place running under the seat of that pew where hats could be +deposited,--always at the risk of the owner, in case of injury by +boots or crickets. + +In this meeting-house preached the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather, a +divine of the "Liberal" school, as it is commonly called, bred at +that famous college which used to be thought, twenty or thirty years +ago, to have the monopoly of training young men in the milder forms +of heresy. His ministrations were attended with decency, but not +followed with enthusiasm. "The beauty of virtue" got to be an old +story at last. "The moral dignity of human nature" ceased to excite +a thrill of satisfaction, after some hundred repetitions. It grew to +be a dull business, this preaching against stealing and intemperance, +while he knew very well that the thieves were prowling round orchards +and empty houses, instead of being there to hear the sermon, and that +the drunkards, being rarely church-goers, get little good by the +statistics and eloquent appeals of the preacher. Every now and then, +however, the Reverend Mr. Fairweather let off a polemic discourse +against his neighbor opposite, which waked his people up a little; +but it was a languid congregation, at best,--very apt to stay away +from meeting in the afternoon, and not at all given to extra evening +services. The minister, unlike his rival of the other side of the +way, was a down-hearted and timid kind of man. He went on preaching +as he had been taught to preach, but he had misgivings at times. +There was a little Roman Catholic church at the foot of the hill +where his own was placed, which he always had to pass on Sundays. He +could never look on the thronging multitudes that crowded its pews +and aisles or knelt bare-headed on its steps, without a longing to +get in among them and go down on his knees and enjoy that luxury of +devotional contact which makes a worshipping throng as different from +the same numbers praying apart as a bed of coals is from a trail of +scattered cinders. + +"Oh, if I could but huddle in with those poor laborers and working- +women! "he would say to himself. "If I could but breathe that +atmosphere, stifling though it be, yet made holy by ancient litanies, +and cloudy with the smoke of hallowed incense, for one hour, instead +of droning over these moral precepts to my half-sleeping +congregation!" The intellectual isolation of his sect preyed upon +him; for, of all terrible things to natures like his, the most +terrible is to belong to a minority. No person that looked at his +thin and sallow cheek, his sunken and sad eye, his tremulous lip, his +contracted forehead, or who heard his querulous, though not unmusical +voice, could fail to see that his life was an uneasy one, that he was +engaged in some inward conflict. His dark, melancholic aspect +contrasted with his seemingly cheerful creed, and was all the more +striking, as the worthy Dr. Honeywood, professing a belief which made +him a passenger on board a shipwrecked planet, was yet a most good- +humored and companionable gentleman, whose laugh on week-days did one +as much good to listen to as the best sermon he ever delivered on a +Sunday. + +A mile or two from the centre of Rockland was a pretty little +Episcopal church, with a roof like a wedge of cheese, a square tower, +a stained window, and a trained rector, who read the service with +such ventral depth of utterance and rrreduplication of the rrresonant +letter, that his own mother would not have known him for her son, if +the good woman had not ironed his surplice and put it on with her own +hands. + +There were two public-houses in the place: one dignified with the +name of the Mountain House, somewhat frequented by city people in the +summer months, large-fronted, three-storied, balconied, boasting a +distinct ladies'-drawing-room, and spreading a table d'hote of some +pretensions; the other, "Pollard's Tahvern," in the common speech,--a +two-story building, with a bar-room, once famous, where there was a +great smell of hay and boots and pipes and all other bucolic-flavored +elements,--where games of checkers were played on the back of the +bellows with red and white kernels of corn, or with beans and coffee, +where a man slept in a box-settle at night, to wake up early +passengers,--where teamsters came in, with wooden-handled whips and +coarse frocks, reinforcing the bucolic flavor of the atmosphere, and +middle-aged male gossips, sometimes including the squire of the +neighboring law-office, gathered to exchange a question or two about +the news, and then fall into that solemn state of suspended animation +which the temperance bar-rooms of modern days produce in human +beings, as the Grotta del Cane does in dogs in the well-known +experiments related by travellers. This bar-room used to be famous +for drinking and storytelling, and sometimes fighting, in old times. +That was when there were rows of decanters on the shelf behind the +bar, and a hissing vessel of hot water ready, to make punch, and +three or four loggerheads (long irons clubbed at the end) were always +lying in the fire in the cold season, waiting to be plunged into +sputtering and foaming mugs of flip,--a goodly compound; speaking +according to the flesh, made with beer and sugar, and a certain +suspicion of strong waters, over which a little nutmeg being grated, +and in it the hot iron being then allowed to sizzle, there results a +peculiar singed aroma, which the wise regard as a warning to remove +themselves at once out of the reach of temptation. + +But the bar of Pollard's Tahvern no longer presented its old +attractions, and the loggerheads had long disappeared from the fire. +In place of the decanters, were boxes containing "lozengers," as they +were commonly called, sticks of candy in jars, cigars in tumblers, a +few lemons, grown hard-skinned and marvellously shrunken by long +exposure, but still feebly suggestive of possible lemonade,--the +whole ornamented by festoons of yellow and blue cut flypaper. On the +front shelf of the bar stood a large German-silver pitcher of water, +and scattered about were ill-conditioned lamps, with wicks that +always wanted picking, which burned red and smoked a good deal, and +were apt to go out without any obvious cause, leaving strong +reminiscences of the whale-fishery in the circumambient air. + +The common schoolhouses of Rockland were dwarfed by the grandeur of +the Apollinean Institute. The master passed one of them, in a walk +he was taking, soon after his arrival at Rockland. He looked in at + +the rows of desks, and recalled his late experiences. He could not +help laughing, as he thought how neatly he had knocked the young +butcher off his pins. + +"A little science is a dangerous thing,' as well as a little +'learning,'" he said to himself; "only it's dangerous to the fellow +you' try it on." And he cut him a good stick, and began climbing the +side of The Mountain to get a look at that famous Rattlesnake Ledge. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE SUNBEAM AND THE SHADOW. + +The virtue of the world is not mainly in its leaders. In the midst +of the multitude which follows there is often something better than +in the one that goes before. Old generals wanted to take Toulon, but +one of their young colonels showed them how. The junior counsel has +been known not unfrequently to make a better argument than his senior +fellow,--if, indeed, he did not make both their arguments. Good +ministers will tell you they have parishioners who beat them in the +practice of the virtues. A great establishment, got up on commercial +principles, like the Apollinean Institute, might yet be well carried +on, if it happened to get good teachers. And when Master Langdon +came to see its management, he recognized that there must be fidelity +and intelligence somewhere among the instructors. It was only +necessary to look for a moment at the fair, open forehead, the still, +tranquil eye of gentle, habitual authority, the sweet gravity that +lay upon the lips, to hear the clear answers to the pupils' +questions, to notice how every request had the force without the form +of a command, and the young man could not doubt that the good genius +of the school stood before him in the person of Helen barley. + +It was the old story. A poor country-clergyman dies, and leaves a +widow and a daughter. In Old England the daughter would have eaten +the bitter bread of a governess in some rich family. In New England +she must keep a school. So, rising from one sphere to another, she +at length finds herself the prima donna in the department of +instruction in Mr. Silas Peckham's educational establishment. + +What a miserable thing it is to be poor. She was dependent, frail, +sensitive, conscientious. She was in the power of a hard, grasping, +thin-blooded, tough-fibred, trading educator, who neither knew nor +cared for a tender woman's sensibilities, but who paid her and meant +to have his money's worth out of her brains, and as much more than +his money's worth as he could get. She was consequently, in plain +English, overworked, and an overworked woman is always a sad sight,-- +sadder a great deal than an overworked man, because she is so much +more fertile in capacities of suffering than a man. She has so many +varieties of headache,--sometimes as if Jael were driving the nail +that killed Sisera into her temples,--sometimes letting her work with +half her brain while the other half throbs as if it would go to +pieces,--sometimes tightening round the brows as if her cap-band were +a ring of iron,--and then her neuralgias, and her backaches, and her +fits of depression, in which she thinks she is nothing and less than +nothing, and those paroxysms which men speak slightingly of as +hysterical,--convulsions, that is all, only not commonly fatal ones, +--so many trials which belong to her fine and mobile structure,--that +she is always entitled to pity, when she is placed in conditions +which develop her nervous tendencies. + +The poor young lady's work had, of course, been doubled since the +departure of Master Langdon's predecessor. Nobody knows what the +weariness of instruction is, as soon as the teacher's faculties begin +to be overtasked, but those who have tried it. The relays of fresh +pupils, each new set with its exhausting powers in full action, +coming one after another, take out all the reserved forces and +faculties of resistance from the subject of their draining process. + +The day's work was over, and it was late in the evening, when she sat +down, tired and faint, with a great bundle of girls' themes or +compositions to read over before she could rest her weary head on the +pillow of her narrow trundle-bed, and forget for a while the +treadmill stair of labor she was daily climbing. + +How she dreaded this most forlorn of all a teacher's tasks! She was +conscientious in her duties, and would insist on reading every +sentence,--there was no saying where she might find faults of grammar +or bad spelling. There might have been twenty or thirty of these +themes in the bundle before her. Of course she knew pretty well the +leading sentiments they could contain: that beauty was subject to the +accidents of time; that wealth was inconstant, and existence +uncertain; that virtue was its own reward; that youth exhaled, like +the dewdrop from the flower, ere the sun had reached its meridian; +that life was o'ershadowed with trials; that the lessons of virtue +instilled by our beloved teachers were to be our guides through all +our future career. The imagery employed consisted principally of +roses, lilies, birds, clouds, and brooks, with the celebrated +comparison of wayward genius to meteor. Who does not know the small, +slanted, Italian hand of these girls'-compositions, their stringing +together of the good old traditional copy-book phrases; their +occasional gushes of sentiment, their profound estimates of the +world, sounding to the old folks that read them as the experience of +a bantam pullet's last-hatched young one with the chips of its shell +on its head would sound to a Mother Cary's chicken, who knew the +great ocean with all its typhoons and tornadoes? Yet every now and +then one is liable to be surprised with strange clairvoyant flashes, +that can hardly be explained, except by the mysterious inspiration +which every now and then seizes a young girl and exalts her +intelligence, just as hysteria in other instances exalts the +sensibility,--a little something of that which made Joan of Arc, and +the Burney girl who prophesied "Evelina," and the Davidson sisters. +In the midst of these commonplace exercises which Miss Darley read +over so carefully were two or three that had something of individual +flavor about them, and here and there there was an image or an +epithet which showed the footprint of a passionate nature, as a +fallen scarlet feather marks the path the wild flamingo has trodden. + +The young lady-teacher read them with a certain indifference of +manner, as one reads proofs--noting defects of detail, but not +commonly arrested by the matters treated of. Even Miss Charlotte Ann +Wood's poem, beginning + + "How sweet at evening's balmy hour," + +did not excite her. She marked the inevitable false rhyme of Cockney +and Yankee beginners, morn and dawn, and tossed the verses on the +pile of papers she had finished. She was looking over some of the +last of them in a rather listless way,--for the poor thing was +getting sleepy in spite of herself,--when she came to one which +seemed to rouse her attention, and lifted her drooping lids. She +looked at it a moment before she would touch it. Then she took hold +of it by one corner and slid it off from the rest. One would have +said she was afraid of it, or had some undefined antipathy which made +it hateful to her. Such odd fancies are common enough in young +persons in her nervous state. Many of these young people will jump +up twenty times a day and run to dabble the tips of their fingers in +water, after touching the most inoffensive objects. + +This composition was written in a singular, sharp-pointed, long, +slender hand, on a kind of wavy, ribbed paper. There was something +strangely suggestive about the look of it, but exactly of what, Miss +barley either could not or did not try to think. The subject of the +paper was The Mountain,--the composition being a sort of descriptive +rhapsody. It showed a startling familiarity with some of the savage +scenery of the region. One would have said that the writer must have +threaded its wildest solitudes by the light of the moon and stars as +well as by day. As the teacher read on, her color changed, and a +kind of tremulous agitation came over her. There were hints in this +strange paper she did not know what to make of. There was something +in its descriptions and imagery that recalled,--Miss Darley could not +say what,--but it made her frightfully nervous. Still she could not +help reading, till she came to one passage which so agitated her, +that the tired and over-wearied girl's self-control left her +entirely. She sobbed once or twice, then laughed convulsively; and +flung herself on the bed, where she worked out a set hysteric spasm +as she best might, without anybody to rub her hands and see that she +did not hurt herself. + +By and by she got quiet, rose and went to her bookcase, took down a +volume of Coleridge, and read a short time, and so to bed, to sleep +and wake from time to time with a sudden start out of uneasy dreams. + +Perhaps it is of no great consequence what it was in the composition +which set her off into this nervous paroxysm. She was in such a +state that almost any slight agitation would have brought on the +attack, and it was the accident of her transient excitability, very +probably, which made a trifling cause the seeming occasion of so much +disturbance. The theme was signed, in the same peculiar, sharp, +slender hand, E. Venner, and was, of course, written by that wild- +looking girl who had excited the master's curiosity and prompted his +question, as before mentioned. The next morning the lady-teacher +looked pale and wearied, naturally enough, but she was in her place +at the usual hour, and Master Langdon in his own. + +The girls had not yet entered the school room. + +"You have been ill, I am afraid," said Mr. Bernard. + +"I was not well yesterday," she, answered. "I had a worry and a kind +of fright. It is so dreadful to have the charge of all these young +souls and bodies. Every young girl ought to walk locked close, arm +in arm, between two guardian angels. Sometimes I faint almost with +the thought of all that I ought to do, and of my own weakness and +wants.--Tell me, are there not natures born so out of parallel with +the lines of natural law that nothing short of a miracle can bring +them right?" + +Mr. Bernard had speculated somewhat, as all thoughtful persons of his +profession are forced to do, on the innate organic tendencies with +which individuals, families, and races are born. He replied, +therefore, with a smile, as one to whom the question suggested a very +familiar class of facts. + +"Why, of course. Each of us is only the footing-up of a double +column of figures that goes back to the first pair. Every unit +tells,--and some of them are plus, and some minus. If the columns +don't add up right, it is commonly because we can't make out all the +figures. I don't mean to say that something may not be added by +Nature to make up for losses and keep the race to its average, but we +are mainly nothing but the answer to a long sum in addition and +subtraction. No doubt there are people born with impulses at every +possible angle to the parallels of Nature, as you call them. If they +happen to cut these at right angles, of course they are beyond the +reach of common influences. Slight obliquities are what we have most +to do with in education. Penitentiaries and insane asylums take care +of most of the right-angle cases.--I am afraid I have put it too +much like a professor, and I am only a student, you know. Pray, what +set you to asking me this? Any strange cases among the scholars?" + +The meek teacher's blue eyes met the luminous glance that came with +the question. She, too, was of gentle blood,--not meaning by that +that she was of any noted lineage, but that she came of a cultivated +stock, never rich, but long trained to intellectual callings. A +thousand decencies, amenities, reticences, graces, which no one +thinks of until he misses them, are the traditional right of those +who spring from such families. And when two persons of this +exceptional breeding meet in the midst of the common multitude, they +seek each other's company at once by the natural law of elective +affinity. It is wonderful how men and women know their peers. If +two stranger queens, sole survivors of two shipwrecked vessels, were +cast, half-naked, on a rock together, each would at once address the +other as "Our Royal Sister." + +Helen Darley looked into the dark eyes of Bernard Langdon glittering +with the light which flashed from them with his question. Not as +those foolish, innocent country-girls of the small village did she +look into them, to be fascinated and bewildered, but to sound them +with a calm, steadfast purpose. "A gentleman," she said to herself, +as she read his expression and his features with a woman's rapid, but +exhausting glance. "A lady," he said to himself, as he met her +questioning look,--so brief, so quiet, yet so assured, as of one whom +necessity had taught to read faces quickly without offence, as +children read the faces of parents, as wives read the faces of hard- +souled husbands. All this was but a few seconds' work, and yet the +main point was settled. If there had been any vulgar curiosity or +coarseness of any kind lurking in his expression, she would have +detected it. If she had not lifted her eyes to his face so softly +and kept them there so calmly and withdrawn them so quietly, he would +not have said to himself, "She is a LADY," for that word meant a good +deal to the descendant of the courtly Wentworths and the scholarly +Langdons. + +"There are strange people everywhere, Mr. Langdon," she said, "and I +don't think our schoolroom is an exception. I am glad you believe in +the force of transmitted tendencies. It would break my heart, if I +did not think that there are faults beyond the reach of everything +but God's special grace. I should die, if I thought that my +negligence or incapacity was alone responsible for the errors and +sins of those I have charge of. Yet there are mysteries I do not +know how to account for." She looked all round the schoolroom, and +then said, in a whisper, "Mr. Langdon, we had a girl that stole, in +the school, not long ago. Worse than that, we had a girl who tried +to set us on fire. Children of good people, both of them. And we +have a girl now that frightens me so"-- + +The door opened, and three misses came in to take their seats: three +types, as it happened, of certain classes, into which it would not +have been difficult to distribute the greater number of the girls in +the school.---Hannah Martin. Fourteen years and three months old. +Short-necked, thick-waisted, round-cheeked, smooth, vacant forehead, +large, dull eyes. Looks good-natured, with little other expression. +Three buns in her bag, and a large apple. Has a habit of attacking +her provisions in school-hours.--Rosa Milburn. Sixteen. Brunette, +with a rare-ripe flush in her cheeks. Color comes and goes easily. +Eyes wandering, apt to be downcast. Moody at times. Said to be +passionate, if irritated. Finished in high relief. Carries +shoulders well back and walks well, as if proud of her woman's life, +with a slight rocking movement, being one of the wide-flanged +pattern, but seems restless,--a hard girl to look after. Has a +romance in her pocket, which she means to read in school-time. +--Charlotte Ann Wood. Fifteen. The poetess before mentioned. Long, +light ringlets, pallid complexion, blue eyes. Delicate child, half +unfolded. Gentle, but languid and despondent. Does not go much with +the other girls, but reads a good deal, especially poetry, +underscoring favorite passages. Writes a great many verses, very +fast, not very correctly; full of the usual human sentiments, +expressed in the accustomed phrases. Under-vitalized. Sensibilities +not covered with their normal integuments. A negative condition, +often confounded with genius, and sometimes running into it. Young +people who fall out of line through weakness of the active faculties +are often confounded with those who step out of it through strength +of the intellectual ones. + +The girls kept coming in, one after another, or in pairs or groups, +until the schoolroom was nearly full. Then there was a little pause, +and a light step was heard in the passage. The lady-teacher's eyes +turned to the door, and the master's followed them in the same +direction. + +A girl of about seventeen entered. She was tall and slender, but +rounded, with a peculiar undulation of movement, such as one +sometimes sees in perfectly untutored country-girls, whom Nature, the +queen of graces, has taken in hand, but more commonly in connection +with the very highest breeding of the most thoroughly trained +society. She was a splendid scowling beauty, black-browed, with a +flash of white teeth which was always like a surprise when her lips +parted. She wore a checkered dress, of a curious pattern, and a +camel's-hair scarf twisted a little fantastically about her. She +went to her seat, which she had moved a short distance apart from the +rest, and, sitting down, began playing listlessly with her gold +chain, as was a common habit with her, coiling it and uncoiling it +about her slender wrist, and braiding it in with her long, delicate +fingers. Presently she looked up. Black, piercing eyes, not large, +--a low forehead, as low as that of Clytie in the Townley bust,-- +black hair, twisted in heavy braids,--a face that one could not help +looking at for its beauty, yet that one wanted to look away from for +something in its expression, and could not for those diamond eyes. +They were fixed on the lady-teacher now. The latter turned her own +away, and let them wander over the other scholars. But they could +not help coming back again for a single glance at the wild beauty. +The diamond eyes were on her still. She turned the leaves of several +of her books, as if in search of some passage, and, when she thought +she had waited long enough to be safe, once more stole a quick look +at the dark girl. The diamond eyes were still upon her. She put her +kerchief to her forehead, which had grown slightly moist; she sighed +once, almost shivered, for she felt cold; then, following some ill- +defined impulse, which she could not resist, she left her place and +went to the young girl's desk. + +"What do you want of me, Elsie Venner?" It was a strange question to +put, for the girl had not signified that she wished the teacher to +come to her. + +"Nothing," she said. "I thought I could make you come." The girl +spoke in a low tone, a kind of half-whisper. She did not lisp, yet +her articulation of one or two consonants was not absolutely perfect. + +"Where did you get that flower, Elsie?" said Miss Darley. It was a +rare alpine flower, which was found only in one spot among the rocks +of The Mountain. + +"Where it grew," said Elsie Veneer. "Take it." The teacher could not +refuse her. The girl's finger tips touched hers as she took it. How +cold they were for a girl of such an organization! + +The teacher went back to her seat. She made an excuse for quitting +the schoolroom soon afterwards. The first thing she did was to fling +the flower into her fireplace and rake the ashes over it. The second +was to wash the tips of her fingers, as if she had been another Lady +Macbeth. A poor, over-tasked, nervous creature,--we must not think +too much of her fancies. + +After school was done, she finished the talk with the master which +had been so suddenly interrupted. There were things spoken of which +may prove interesting by and by, but there are other matters we must +first attend to. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE EVENT OF THE SEASON. + +"Mr. and Mrs. Colonel Sprowle's compliments to Mr. Langdon and +requests the pleasure of his company at a social entertainment on +Wednesday evening next. + +" Elm St. Monday." + + +On paper of a pinkish color and musky smell, with a large "S" at the +top, and an embossed border. Envelop adherent, not sealed. +Addressed + + LANGDON ESQ. + Present. + +Brought by H. Frederic Sprowle, youngest son of the Colonel,--the H. +of course standing for the paternal Hezekiah, put in to please the +father, and reduced to its initial to please the mother, she having a +marked preference for Frederic. Boy directed to wait for an answer. + +"Mr. Langdon has the pleasure of accepting Mr. and Mrs. Colonel +Sprowle's polite invitation for Wednesday evening." + +On plain paper, sealed with an initial. + +In walking along the main street, Mr. Bernard had noticed a large +house of some pretensions to architectural display, namely, +unnecessarily projecting eaves, giving it a mushroomy aspect, wooden +mouldings at various available points, and a grandiose arched +portico. It looked a little swaggering by the side of one or two of +the mansion-houses that were not far from it, was painted too bright +for Mr. Bernard's taste, had rather too fanciful a fence before it, +and had some fruit-trees planted in the front-yard, which to this +fastidious young gentleman implied a defective sense of the fitness +of things, not promising in people who lived in so large a house, +with a mushroom roof and a triumphal arch for its entrance. + +This place was known as "Colonel Sprowle's villa," (genteel +friends,)--as "the elegant residence of our distinguished fellow- +citizen, Colonel Sprowle," (Rockland Weekly Universe,)--as "the neew +haouse," (old settlers,)--as "Spraowle's Folly, "(disaffected and +possibly envious neighbors,)--and in common discourse, as "the +Colonel's." + +Hezekiah Sprowle, Esquire, Colonel Sprowle of the Commonwealth's +Militia, was a retired "merchant." An India merchant he might, +perhaps, have been properly called; for he used to deal in West India +goods, such as coffee, sugar, and molasses, not to speak of rum,-- +also in tea, salt fish, butter and cheese, oil and candles, dried +fruit, agricultural "p'doose" generally, industrial products, such +as boots and shoes, and various kinds of iron and wooden ware, and at +one end of the establishment in calicoes and other stuffs,--to say +nothing of miscellaneous objects of the most varied nature, from +sticks of candy, which tempted in the smaller youth with coppers in +their fists, up to ornamental articles of apparel, pocket-books, +breast-pins, gilt-edged Bibles, stationery, in short, everything +which was like to prove seductive to the rural population. The +Colonel had made money in trade, and also by matrimony. He had +married Sarah, daughter and heiress of the late Tekel Jordan, Esq., +an old miser, who gave the town-clock, which carries his name to +posterity in large gilt letters as a generous benefactor of his +native place. In due time the Colonel reaped the reward of well- +placed affections. When his wife's inheritance fell in, he thought +he had money enough to give up trade, and therefore sold out his +"store," called in some dialects of the English language shop, and +his business. + +Life became pretty hard work to him, of course, as soon as he had +nothing particular to do. Country people with money enough not to +have to work are in much more danger than city people in the same +condition. They get a specific look and character, which are the +same in all the villages where one studies them. They very commonly +fall into a routine, the basis of which is going to some lounging- +place or other, a bar-room, a reading-room, or something of the kind. +They grow slovenly in dress, and wear the same hat forever. They +have a feeble curiosity for news perhaps, which they take daily as a +man takes his bitters, and then fall silent and think they are +thinking. But the mind goes out under this regimen, like a fire +without a draught; and it is not very strange, if the instinct of +mental self-preservation drives them to brandy-and-water, which makes +the hoarse whisper of memory musical for a few brief moments, and +puts a weak leer of promise on the features of the hollow-eyed +future. The Colonel was kept pretty well in hand as yet by his wife, +and though it had happened to him once or twice to come home rather +late at night with a curious tendency to say the same thing twice and +even three times over, it had always been in very cold weather,--and +everybody knows that no one is safe to drink a couple of glasses of +wine in a warm room and go suddenly out into the cold air. + +Miss Matilda Sprowle, sole daughter of the house, had reached the age +at which young ladies are supposed in technical language to have come +out, and thereafter are considered to be in company. + +"There's one piece o' goods," said the Colonel to his wife, "that we +ha'n't disposed of, nor got a customer for yet. That 's Matildy. I +don't mean to set HER up at vaandoo. I guess she can have her pick +of a dozen." + +"She 's never seen anybody yet," said Mrs. Sprowle, who had had a +certain project for some time, but had kept quiet about it. "Let's +have a party, and give her a chance to show herself and see some of +the young folks." + +The Colonel was not very clear-headed, and he thought, naturally +enough, that the party was his own suggestion, because his remark led +to the first starting of the idea. He entered into the plan, +therefore, with a feeling of pride as well as pleasure, and the great +project was resolved upon in a family council without a dissentient +voice. This was the party, then, to which Mr. Bernard was going. +The town had been full of it for a week. "Everybody was asked." So +everybody said that was invited. But how in respect of those who +were not asked? If it had been one of the old mansion-houses that +was giving a party, the boundary between the favored and the slighted +families would have been known pretty well beforehand, and there +would have been no great amount of grumbling. But the Colonel, for +all his title, had a forest of poor relations and a brushwood swamp +of shabby friends, for he had scrambled up to fortune, and now the +time was come when he must define his new social position. + +This is always an awkward business in town or country. An exclusive +alliance between two powers is often the same thing as a declaration +of war against a third. Rockland was soon split into a triumphant +minority, invited to Mrs. Sprowle's party, and a great majority, +uninvited, of which the fraction just on the border line between +recognized "gentility" and the level of the ungloved masses was in an +active state of excitement and indignation. + +"Who is she, I should like to know?" said Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's +wife. "There was plenty of folks in Rockland as good as ever Sally +Jordan was, if she had managed to pick up a merchant. Other folks +could have married merchants, if their families was n't as wealthy as +them old skinflints that willed her their money," etc., etc. Mrs. +Saymore expressed the feeling of many beside herself. She had, +however, a special right to be proud of the name she bore. Her +husband was own cousin to the Saymores of Freestone Avenue (who write +the name Seymour, and claim to be of the Duke of Somerset's family, +showing a clear descent from the Protector to Edward Seymour, +(1630,)--then a jump that would break a herald's neck to one Seth +Saymore,(1783,)--from whom to the head of the present family the line +is clear again). Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's wife, was not invited, +because her husband mended clothes. If he had confined himself +strictly to making them, it would have put a different face upon the +matter. + +The landlord of the Mountain House and his lady were invited to Mrs. +Sprowle's party. Not so the landlord of Pollard's Tahvern and his +lady. Whereupon the latter vowed that they would have a party at +their house too, and made arrangements for a dance of twenty or +thirty couples, to be followed by an entertainment. Tickets to this +"Social Ball" were soon circulated, and, being accessible to all at a +moderate price, admission to the "Elegant Supper" included, this +second festival promised to be as merry, if not as select, as the +great party. + +Wednesday came. Such doings had never been heard of in Rockland as +went on that day at the "villa." The carpet had been taken up in the +long room, so that the young folks might have a dance. Miss +Matilda's piano had been moved in, and two fiddlers and a clarionet- +player engaged to make music. All kinds of lamps had been put in +requisition, and even colored wax-candles figured on the mantel- +pieces. The costumes of the family had been tried on the day before: +the Colonel's black suit fitted exceedingly well; his lady's velvet +dress displayed her contours to advantage; Miss Matilda's flowered +silk was considered superb; the eldest son of the family, Mr. T. +Jordan Sprowle, called affectionately and elegantly "Geordie," voted +himself "stunnin'"; and even the small youth who had borne Mr. +Bernard's invitation was effective in a new jacket and trousers, +buttony in front, and baggy in the reverse aspect, as is wont to be +the case with the home-made garments of inland youngsters. + +Great preparations had been made for the refection which was to be +part of the entertainment. There was much clinking of borrowed +spoons, which were to be carefully counted, and much clicking of +borrowed china, which was to be tenderly handled, for nobody in the +country keeps those vast closets full of such things which one may +see in rich city-houses. Not a great deal could be done in the way +of flowers, for there were no greenhouses, and few plants were out as +yet; but there were paper ornaments for the candlesticks, and colored +mats for the lamps, and all the tassels of the curtains and bells +were taken out of those brown linen bags, in which, for reasons +hitherto undiscovered, they are habitually concealed in some +households. In the remoter apartments every imaginable operation was +going on at once,--roasting, boiling, baking, beating, rolling, +pounding in mortars, frying, freezing; for there was to be ice-cream +to-night of domestic manufacture;--and in the midst of all these +labors, Mrs. Sprowle and Miss Matilda were moving about, directing +and helping as they best might, all day long. When the evening came, +it might be feared they would not be in just the state of mind and +body to entertain company. + +--One would like to give a party now and then, if one could be a +billionnaire.--"Antoine, I am going to have twenty people to dine to- +day." "Biens, Madame." Not a word or thought more about it, but get +home in season to dress, and come down to your own table, one of your +own guests.--"Giuseppe, we are to have a party a week from to-night, +--five hundred invitations--there is the list." The day comes. +"Madam, do you remember you have your party tonight?" "Why, so I +have! Everything right? supper and all?" "All as it should be, +Madam." + +"Send up Victorine." "Victorine, full toilet for this evening,-- +pink, diamonds, and emeralds. Coiffeur at seven. Allez."-- +Billionism, or even millionism, must be a blessed kind of state, with +health and clear conscience and youth and good looks,--but most +blessed is this, that it takes off all the mean cares which give +people the three wrinkles between the eyebrows, and leaves them free +to have a good time and make others have a good time, all the way +along from the charity that tips up unexpected loads of wood before +widows' houses, and leaves foundling turkeys upon poor men's door- +steps, and sets lean clergymen crying at the sight of anonymous +fifty-dollar bills, to the taste which orders a perfect banquet in +such sweet accord with every sense that everybody's nature flowers +out full--blown in its golden--glowing, fragrant atmosphere. + +--A great party given by the smaller gentry of the interior is a kind +of solemnity, so to speak. It involves so much labor and anxiety,-- +its spasmodic splendors are so violently contrasted with the +homeliness of every-day family-life,--it is such a formidable matter +to break in the raw subordinates to the manege of the cloak-room and +the table,--there is such a terrible uncertainty in the results of +unfamiliar culinary operations,--so many feuds are involved in +drawing that fatal line which divides the invited from the uninvited +fraction of the local universe,--that, if the notes requested the +pleasure of the guests' company on "this solemn occasion," they would +pretty nearly express the true state of things. + +The Colonel himself had been pressed into the service. He had +pounded something in the great mortar. He had agitated a quantity of +sweetened and thickened milk in what was called a cream-freezer. At +eleven o'clock, A. M., he retired for a space. On returning, his +color was noted to be somewhat heightened, and he showed a +disposition to be jocular with the female help,--which tendency, +displaying itself in livelier demonstrations than were approved at +head-quarters, led to his being detailed to out-of-door duties, such +as raking gravel, arranging places for horses to be hitched to, and +assisting in the construction of an arch of wintergreen at the porch +of the mansion. + +A whiff from Mr. Geordie's cigar refreshed the toiling females from +time to time; for the windows had to be opened occasionally, while +all these operations were going on, and the youth amused himself with +inspecting the interior, encouraging the operatives now and then in +the phrases commonly employed by genteel young men,--for he had +perused an odd volume of "Verdant Green," and was acquainted with a +Sophomore from one of the fresh-water colleges. "Go it on the feed!" +exclaimed this spirited young man. "Nothin' like a good spread. +Grub enough and good liquor, that's the ticket. Guv'nor'll do the +heavy polite, and let me alone for polishin' off the young charmers." +And Mr. Geordie looked expressively at a handmaid who was rolling +gingerbread, as if he were rehearsing for "Don Giovanni." + +Evening came at last, and the ladies were forced to leave the scene +of their labors to array themselves for the coming festivities. The +tables had been set in a back room, the meats were ready, the pickles +were displayed, the cake was baked, the blanc-mange had stiffened, +and the ice-cream had frozen. + +At half past seven o'clock, the Colonel, in costume, came into the +front parlor, and proceeded to light the lamps. Some were good- +humored enough and took the hint of a lighted match at once. Others +were as vicious as they could be,--would not light on any terms, any +more than if they were filled with water, or lighted and smoked one +side of the chimney, or spattered a few sparks and sulked themselves +out, or kept up a faint show of burning, so that their ground glasses +looked as feebly phosphorescent as so many invalid fireflies. With +much coaxing and screwing and pricking, a tolerable illumination was +at last achieved. At eight there was a grand rustling of silks, and +Mrs. and Miss Sprowle descended from their respective bowers or +boudoirs. Of course they were pretty well tired by this time, and +very glad to sit down,--having the prospect before them of being +obliged to stand for hours. The Colonel walked about the parlor, +inspecting his regiment of lamps. By and by Mr. Geordie entered. + +"Mph! mph!" he sniffed, as he came in. "You smell of lamp-smoke +here." + +That always galls people,--to have a new-comer accuse them of smoke +or close air, which they have got used to and do not perceive. The +Colonel raged at the thought of his lamps' smoking, and tongued a few +anathemas inside of his shut teeth, but turned down two or three +wicks that burned higher than the rest. + +Master H. Frederic next made his appearance, with questionable marks +upon his fingers and countenance. Had been tampering with something +brown and sticky. His elder brother grew playful, and caught him by +the baggy reverse of his more essential garment. + +"Hush!" said Mrs. Sprowle,--"there 's the bell!" + +Everybody took position at once, and began to look very smiling and +altogether at ease.--False alarm. Only a parcel of spoons,-- +"loaned," as the inland folks say when they mean lent, by a neighbor. + +"Better late than never!" said the Colonel, "let me heft them +spoons." + +Mrs. Sprowle came down into her chair again as if all her bones had +been bewitched out of her. + +"I'm pretty nigh beat out a'ready," said she, "before any of the +folks has come." + +They sat silent awhile, waiting for the first arrival. How nervous +they got! and how their senses were sharpened! + +"Hark!" said Miss Matilda,--"what 's that rumblin'?" + +It was a cart going over a bridge more than a mile off, which at any +other time they would not have heard. After this there was a lull, +and poor Mrs. Sprowle's head nodded once or twice. Presently a +crackling and grinding of gravel;--how much that means, when we are +waiting for those whom we long or dread to see! Then a change in the +tone of the gravel-crackling. + +"Yes, they have turned in at our gate. They're comin'! Mother! +mother!" + +Everybody in position, smiling and at ease. Bell rings. Enter the +first set of visitors. The Event of the Season has begun. + +"Law! it's nothin' but the Cranes' folks! I do believe Mahala 's +come in that old green de-laine she wore at the Surprise Party!" + +Miss Matilda had peeped through a crack of the door and made this +observation and the remark founded thereon. Continuing her attitude +of attention, she overheard Mrs. Crane and her two daughters +conversing in the attiring-room, up one flight. + +"How fine everything is in the great house!" said Mrs. Crane,--"jest +look at the picters!" + +"Matildy Sprowle's drawin's," said Ada Azuba, the eldest daughter. + +"I should think so," said Mahala Crane, her younger sister,--a wide- +awake girl, who had n't been to school for nothing, and performed a +little on the lead pencil herself. "I should like to know whether +that's a hay-cock or a mountain!" + +Miss Matilda winced; for this must refer to her favorite monochrome, +executed by laying on heavy shadows and stumping them down into +mellow harmony,--the style of drawing which is taught in six lessons, +and the kind of specimen which is executed in something less than one +hour. Parents and other very near relatives are sometimes gratified +with these productions, and cause them to be framed and hung up, as +in the present instance. + +"I guess we won't go down jest yet," said Mrs. Crane, "as folks don't +seem to have come." + +So she began a systematic inspection of the dressing-room and its +conveniences. + +"Mahogany four-poster;--come from the Jordans', I cal'la,te. +Marseilles quilt. Ruffles all round the piller. Chintz curtings,-- +jest put up,--o' purpose for the party, I'll lay ye a dollar.---What +a nice washbowl!" (Taps it with a white knuckle belonging to a red +finger.) "Stone chaney.--Here's a bran'-new brush and comb,--and +here's a scent-bottle. Come here, girls, and fix yourselves in the +glass, and scent your pocket-handkerchers." + +And Mrs. Crane bedewed her own kerchief with some of the eau de +Cologne of native manufacture,--said on its label to be much superior +to the German article. + +It was a relief to Mrs. and the Miss Cranes when the bell rang and +the next guests were admitted. Deacon and Mrs. Soper,--Deacon Soper +of the Rev. Mr. Fairweather's church, and his lady. Mrs. Deacon +Soper was directed, of course, to the ladies' dressing-room, and her +husband to the other apartment, where gentlemen were to leave their +outside coats and hats. Then came Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, and then the +three Miss Spinneys, then Silas Peckham, Head of the Apollinean +Institute, and Mrs. Peckham, and more after them, until at last the +ladies' dressing-room got so full that one might have thought it was +a trap none of them could get out of. In truth, they all felt a +little awkwardly. Nobody wanted to be first to venture down-stairs. +At last Mr. Silas Peckham thought it was time to make a move for the +parlor, and for this purpose presented himself at the door of the +ladies' dressing-room. + +"Lorindy, my dear!" he exclaimed to Mrs. Peckham,--"I think there +can be no impropriety in our joining the family down-stairs." + +Mrs. Peckham laid her large, flaccid arm in the sharp angle made by +the black sleeve which held the bony limb her husband offered, and +the two took the stair and struck out for the parlor. The ice was +broken, and the dressing-room began to empty itself into the +spacious, lighted apartments below. + +Mr. Silas Peckham slid into the room with Mrs. Peckham alongside, +like a shad convoying a jelly-fish. + +"Good-evenin', Mrs. Sprowle! I hope I see you well this evenin'. +How 's your haalth, Colonel Sprowle?" + +"Very well, much obleeged to you. Hope you and your good lady are +well. Much pleased to see you. Hope you'll enjoy yourselves. We've +laid out to have everything in good shape,--spared no trouble nor +ex"--- + +"pence,"--said Silas Peckham. + +Mrs. Colonel Sprowle, who, you remember, was a Jordan, had nipped the +Colonel's statement in the middle of the word Mr. Peckham finished, +with a look that jerked him like one of those sharp twitches women +keep giving a horse when they get a chance to drive one. + +Mr. and Mrs. Crane, Miss Ada Azuba, and Miss Mahala Crane made their +entrance. There had been a discussion about the necessity and +propriety of inviting this family, the head of which kept a small +shop for hats and boots and shoes. The Colonel's casting vote had +carried it in the affirmative.--How terribly the poor old green +de-laine did cut up in the blaze of so many lamps and candles. + +--Deluded little wretch, male or female, in town or country, going to +your first great party, how little you know the nature of the +ceremony in which you are to bear the part of victim! What! are not +these garlands and gauzy mists and many-colored streamers which adorn +you, is not this music which welcomes you, this radiance that glows +about you, meant solely for your enjoyment, young miss of seventeen +or eighteen summers, now for the first time swimming unto the frothy, +chatoyant, sparkling, undulating sea of laces and silks and satins, +and white-armed, flower-crowned maidens struggling in their waves +beneath the lustres that make the false summer of the drawing-room? + +Stop at the threshold! This is a hall of judgment you are entering; +the court is in session; and if you move five steps forward, you will +be at its bar. + +There was a tribunal once in France, as you may remember, called the +Chambre Ardente, the Burning Chamber. It was hung all round with +lamps, and hence its name. The burning chamber for the trial of +young maidens is the blazing ball-room. What have they full-dressed +you, or rather half-dressed you for, do you think? To make you look +pretty, of course! Why have they hung a chandelier above you, +flickering all over with flames, so that it searches you like the +noonday sun, and your deepest dimple cannot hold a shadow? To give +brilliancy to the gay scene, no doubt!--No, my clear! Society is +inspecting you, and it finds undisguised surfaces and strong lights a +convenience in the process. The dance answers the purpose of the +revolving pedestal upon which the "White Captive" turns, to show us +the soft, kneaded marble, which looks as if it had never been hard, +in all its manifold aspects of living loveliness. No mercy for you, +my love! Justice, strict justice, you shall certainly have,--neither +more nor less. For, look you, there are dozens, scores, hundreds, +with whom you must be weighed in the balance; and you have got to +learn that the "struggle for life" Mr. Charles Darwin talks about +reaches to vertebrates clad in crinoline, as well as to mollusks in +shells, or articulates in jointed scales, or anything that fights for +breathing-room and food and love in any coat of fur or feather! +Happy they who can flash defiance from bright eyes and snowy +shoulders back into the pendants of the insolent lustres! + +--Miss Mahala Crane did not have these reflections; and no young girl +ever did, or ever will, thank Heaven! Her keen eyes sparkled under +her plainly parted hair and the green de-laine moulded itself in +those unmistakable lines of natural symmetry in which Nature indulges +a small shopkeeper's daughter occasionally as well as a wholesale +dealer's young ladies. She would have liked a new dress as much as +any other girl, but she meant to go and have a good time at any rate. + +The guests were now arriving in the drawing-room pretty fast, and the +Colonel's hand began to burn a good deal with the sharp squeezes +which many of the visitors gave it. Conversation, which had begun +like a summer-shower, in scattering drops, was fast becoming +continuous, and occasionally rising into gusty swells, with now and +then a broad-chested laugh from some Captain or Major or other +military personage,--for it may be noted that all large and loud men +in the unpaved districts bear military titles. + +Deacon Soper came up presently, and entered into conversation with +Colonel Sprowle. + +"I hope to see our pastor present this evenin'," said the Deacon. + +"I don't feel quite sure," the Colonel answered. "His dyspepsy has +been bad on him lately. He wrote to say, that, Providence +permittin', it would be agreeable to him to take a part in the +exercises of the evenin'; but I mistrusted he did n't mean to come. +To tell the truth, Deacon Soper, I rather guess he don't like the +idee of dancin', and some of the other little arrangements." + +"Well," said the Deacon, "I know there's some condemns dancin'. I've +heerd a good deal of talk about it among the folks round. Some have +it that it never brings a blessin' on a house to have dancin' in it. +Judge Tileston died, you remember, within a month after he had his +great ball, twelve year ago, and some thought it was in the natur' of +a judgment. I don't believe in any of them notions. If a man +happened to be struck dead the night after he'd been givin' a ball," +(the Colonel loosened his black stock a little, and winked and +swallowed two or three times,) "I should n't call it a judgment,--I +should call it a coincidence. But I 'm a little afraid our pastor +won't come. Somethin' or other's the matter with Mr. Fairweather. I +should sooner expect to see the old Doctor come over out of the +Orthodox parsonage-house." + +"I've asked him," said the Colonel. + +"Well?" said Deacon Soper. + +"He said he should like to come, but he did n't know what his people +would say. For his part, he loved to see young folks havin' their +sports together, and very often felt as if he should like to be one +of 'em himself. 'But,' says I, 'Doctor, I don't say there won't be a +little dancin'.' 'Don't!' says he, 'for I want Letty to go,' (she's +his granddaughter that's been stayin' with him,) 'and Letty 's mighty +fond of dancin'. You know,' says the Doctor, 'it is n't my business +to settle whether other people's children should dance or not.' And +the Doctor looked as if he should like to rigadoon and sashy across +as well as the young one he was talkin' about. He 's got blood in +him, the old Doctor has. I wish our little man and him would swop +pulpits." + +Deacon Soper started and looked up into the Colonel's face, as if to +see whether he was in earnest. + +Mr. Silas Peckham and his lady joined the group. + +"Is this to be a Temperance Celebration, Mrs. Sprowle?" asked Mr. +Silas Peckham. + +Mrs. Sprowle replied, "that there would be lemonade and srub for +those that preferred such drinks, but that the Colonel had given +folks to understand that he did n't mean to set in judgment on the +marriage in Canaan, and that those that didn't like srub and such +things would find somethin' that would suit them better." + +Deacon Soper's countenance assumed a certain air of restrained +cheerfulness. The conversation rose into one of its gusty paroxysms +just then. Master H. Frederic got behind a door and began performing +the experiment of stopping and unstopping his ears in rapid +alternation, greatly rejoicing in the singular effect of mixed +conversation chopped very small, like the contents of a mince-pie, or +meat-pie, as it is more forcibly called in the deep-rutted villages +lying along the unsalted streams. All at once it grew silent just +round the door, where it had been loudest,--and the silence spread +itself like a stain, till it hushed everything but a few corner- +duets. A dark, sad-looking, middle-aged gentleman entered the +parlor, with a young lady on his arm,--his daughter, as it seemed, +for she was not wholly unlike him in feature, and of the same dark +complexion. + +"Dudley Venner," exclaimed a dozen people, in startled, but half- +suppressed tones. + +"What can have brought Dudley out to-night?" said Jefferson Buck, a +young fellow, who had been interrupted in one of the corner-duets +which he was executing in concert with Miss Susy Pettingill. + +"How do I know, Jeff?" was Miss Susy's answer. Then, after a +pause,--"Elsie made him come, I guess. Go ask Dr. Kittredge; he +knows all about 'em both, they say." + +Dr. Kittredge, the leading physician of Rockland, was a shrewd old +man, who looked pretty keenly into his patients through his +spectacles, and pretty widely at men, women, and things in general +over them. Sixty-three years old,--just the year of the grand +climacteric. A bald crown, as every doctor should have. A +consulting practitioner's mouth; that is, movable round the corners +while the case is under examination, but both corners well drawn down +and kept so when the final opinion is made up. In fact, the Doctor +was often sent for to act as "caounsel," all over the county, and +beyond it. He kept three or four horses, sometimes riding in the +saddle, commonly driving in a sulky, pretty fast, and looking +straight before him, so that people got out of the way of bowing to +him as he passed on the road. There was some talk about his not +being so long-sighted as other folks, but his old patients laughed +and looked knowing when this was spoken of. + +The Doctor knew a good many things besides how to drop tinctures and +shake out powders. Thus, he knew a horse, and, what is harder to +understand, a horse-dealer, and was a match for him. He knew what a +nervous woman is, and how to manage her. He could tell at a glance +when she is in that condition of unstable equilibrium in which a +rough word is like a blow to her, and the touch of unmagnetized +fingers reverses all her nervous currents. It is not everybody that +enters into the soul of Mozart's or Beethoven's harmonies; and there +are vital symphonies in B flat, and other low, sad keys, which a +doctor may know as little of as a hurdy-gurdy player of the essence +of those divine musical mysteries. The Doctor knew the difference +between what men say and what they mean as well as most people. When +he was listening to common talk, he was in the habit of looking over +his spectacles; if he lifted his head so as to look through them at +the person talking, he was busier with that person's thoughts than +with his words. + +Jefferson Buck was not bold enough to confront the Doctor with Miss +Susy's question, for he did not look as if he were in the mood to +answer queries put by curious young people. His eyes were fixed +steadily on the dark girl, every movement of whom he seemed to +follow. + +She was, indeed, an apparition of wild beauty, so unlike the girls +about her that it seemed nothing more than natural, that, when she +moved, the groups should part to let her pass through them, and that +she should carry the centre of all looks and thoughts with her. She +was dressed to please her own fancy, evidently, with small regard to +the modes declared correct by the Rockland milliners and mantua- +makers. Her heavy black hair lay in a braided coil, with a long gold +pin shat through it like a javelin. Round her neck was a golden +torque, a round, cord-like chain, such as the Gaols used to wear; the +"Dying Gladiator" has it. Her dress was a grayish watered silk; her +collar was pinned with a flashing diamond brooch, the stones looking +as fresh as morning dew-drops, but the silver setting of the past +generation; her arms were bare, round, but slender rather than large, +in keeping with her lithe round figure. On her wrists she wore +bracelets: one was a circlet of enamelled scales; the other looked as +if it might have been Cleopatra's asp, with its body turned to gold +and its, eyes to emeralds. + +Her father--for Dudley Venner was her father--looked like a man of +culture and breeding, but melancholy and with a distracted air, as +one whose life had met some fatal cross or blight. He saluted hardly +anybody except his entertainers and the Doctor. One would have said, +to look at him, that he was not at the party by choice; and it was +natural enough to think, with Susy Pettingill, that it must have been +a freak of the dark girl's which brought him there, for he had the +air of a shy and sad-hearted recluse. + +It was hard to say what could have brought Elsie Venner to the party. +Hardly anybody seemed to know her, and she seemed not at all disposed +to make acquaintances. Here and there was one of the older girls +from the Institute, but she appeared to have nothing in common with +them. Even in the schoolroom, it may be remembered, she sat apart by +her own choice, and now in the midst of the crowd she made a circle +of isolation round herself. Drawing her arm out of her father's, she +stood against the wall, and looked, with a strange, cold glitter in +her eyes, at the crowd which moved and babbled before her. + +The old Doctor came up to her by and by. + +"Well, Elsie, I am quite surprised to find you here. Do tell me how +you happened to do such a good-natured thing as to let us see you at +such a great party." + +"It's been dull at the mansion-house," she said, "and I wanted to get +out of it. It's too lonely there,--there's nobody to hate since +Dick's gone." + +The Doctor laughed good-naturedly, as if this were an amusing bit of +pleasantry,--but he lifted his head and dropped his eyes a little, so +as to see her through his spectacles. She narrowed her lids +slightly, as one often sees a sleepy cat narrow hers,--somewhat as +you may remember our famous Margaret used to, if you remember her at +all,--so that her eyes looked very small, but bright as the diamonds +on her breast. The old Doctor felt very oddly as she looked at him; +be did not like the feeling, so he dropped his head and lifted his +eyes and looked at her over his spectacles again. + +"And how have you all been at the mansion house?" said the Doctor. + +"Oh, well enough. But Dick's gone, and there's nobody left but +Dudley and I and the people. I'm tired of it. What kills anybody +quickest, Doctor?" Then, in a whisper, "I ran away again the other +day, you know." + +"Where did you go?" The Doctor spoke in a low, serious tone. + +"Oh, to the old place. Here, I brought this for you." + +The Doctor started as she handed him a flower of the Atragene +Americana, for he knew that there was only one spot where it grew, +and that not one where any rash foot, least of all a thin-shod +woman's foot, should venture. + +"How long were you gone?" said the Doctor. + +"Only one night. You should have heard the horns blowing and the +guns firing. Dudley was frightened out of his wits. Old Sophy told +him she'd had a dream, and that I should be found in Dead-Man's +Hollow, with a great rock lying on me. They hunted all over it, but +they did n't find me,--I was farther up." + +Doctor Kittredge looked cloudy and worried while she was speaking, +but forced a pleasant professional smile, as he said cheerily, and as +if wishing to change the subject, + +"Have a good dance this evening, Elsie. The fiddlers are tuning up. +Where 's the young master? has he come yet? or is he going to be +late, with the other great folks?" + +The girl turned away without answering, and looked toward the door. + +The "great folks," meaning the mansion-house gentry, were just +beginning to come; Dudley Venner and his daughter had been the first +of them. Judge Thornton, white-headed, fresh-faced, as good at sixty +as he was at forty, with a youngish second wife, and one noble +daughter, Arabella, who, they said, knew as much law as her father, a +stately, Portia like girl, fit for a premier's wife, not like to find +her match even in the great cities she sometimes visited; the +Trecothicks, the family of a merchant, (in the larger sense,) who, +having made himself rich enough by the time he had reached middle +life, threw down his ledger as Sylla did his dagger, and retired to +make a little paradise around him in one of the stateliest residences +of the town, a family inheritance; the Vaughans, an old Rockland +race, descended from its first settlers, Toryish in tendency in +Revolutionary times, and barely escaping confiscation or worse; the +Dunhams, a new family, dating its gentility only as far back as the +Honorable Washington Dunham, M. C., but turning out a clever boy or +two that went to college; and some showy girls with white necks and +fat arms who had picked up professional husbands: these were the +principal mansion-house people. All of them had made it a point to +come; and as each of them entered, it seemed to Colonel and Mrs. +Sprowle that the lamps burned up with a more cheerful light, and that +the fiddles which sounded from the uncarpeted room were all half a +tone higher and half a beat quicker. + +Mr. Bernard came in later than any of them; he had been busy with his +new duties. He looked well and that is saying a good deal; for +nothing but a gentleman is endurable in full dress. Hair that masses +well, a head set on with an air, a neckerchief tied cleverly by an +easy, practised hand, close-fitting gloves, feet well shaped and well +covered,---these advantages can make us forgive the odious sable +broadcloth suit, which appears to have been adopted by society on the +same principle that condemned all the Venetian gondolas to perpetual +and uniform blackness. Mr. Bernard, introduced by Mr. Geordie, made +his bow to the Colonel and his lady and to Miss Matilda, from whom he +got a particularly gracious curtsy, and then began looking about him +for acquaintances. He found two or three faces he knew,--many more +strangers. There was Silas Peckham,--there was no mistaking him; +there was the inelastic amplitude of Mrs. Peckham; few of the +Apollinean girls, of course, they not being recognized members of +society,--but there is one with the flame in her cheeks and the fire +in her eyes, the girl of vigorous tints and emphatic outlines, whom +we saw entering the schoolroom the other day. Old Judge Thornton has +his eyes on her, and the Colonel steals a look every now and then at +the red brooch which lifts itself so superbly into the light, as if +he thought it a wonderfully becoming ornament. Mr. Bernard himself +was not displeased with the general effect of the rich-blooded +schoolgirl, as she stood under the bright lamps, fanning herself in +the warm, languid air, fixed in a kind of passionate surprise at the +new life which seemed to be flowering out in her consciousness. +Perhaps he looked at her somewhat steadily, as some others had done; +at any rate, she seemed to feel that she was looked at, as people +often do, and, turning her eyes suddenly on him, caught his own on +her face, gave him a half-bashful smile, and threw in a blush +involuntarily which made it more charming. + +"What can I do better," he said to himself, "than have a dance with +Rosa Milburn? "So he carried his handsome pupil into the next room +and took his place with her in a cotillon. Whether the breath of the +Goddess of Love could intoxicate like the cup of Circe,--whether a +woman is ever phosphorescent with the luminous vapor of life that she +exhales,--these and other questions which relate to occult influences +exercised by certain women we will not now discuss. It is enough +that Mr. Bernard was sensible of a strange fascination, not wholly +new to him, nor unprecedented in the history of human experience, but +always a revelation when it comes over us for the first or the +hundredth time, so pale is the most recent memory by the side of the +passing moment with the flush of any new-born passion on its cheek. +Remember that Nature makes every man love all women, and trusts the +trivial matter of special choice to the commonest accident. + +If Mr. Bernard had had nothing to distract his attention, he might +have thought too much about his handsome partner, and then gone home +and dreamed about her, which is always dangerous, and waked up +thinking of her still, and then begun to be deeply interested in her +studies, and so on, through the whole syllogism which ends in +Nature's supreme quod erat demonstrandum. What was there to distract +him or disturb him? He did not know,--but there was something. This +sumptuous creature, this Eve just within the gate of an untried +Paradise, untutored in the ways of the world, but on tiptoe to reach +the fruit of the tree of knowledge,--alive to the moist vitality of +that warm atmosphere palpitating with voices and music, as the flower +of some dioecious plant which has grown in a lone corner and suddenly +unfolding its corolla on some hot-breathing June evening, feels that +the air is perfumed with strange odors and loaded with golden dust +wafted from those other blossoms with which its double life is +shared,--this almost over-womanized woman might well have bewitched +him, but that he had a vague sense of a counter-charm. It was, +perhaps, only the same consciousness that some one was looking at him +which he himself had just given occasion to in his partner. +Presently, in one of the turns of the dance, he felt his eyes drawn +to a figure he had not distinctly recognized, though he had dimly +felt its presence, and saw that Elsie Venner was looking at him as if +she saw nothing else but him. He was not a nervous person, like the +poor lady-teacher, yet the glitter of the diamond eyes affected him +strangely. It seemed to disenchant the air, so full a moment before +of strange attractions. He became silent, and dreamy, as it were. +The round-limbed beauty at his side crushed her gauzy draperies +against him, as they trod the figure of the dance together, but it +was no more to him than if an old nurse had laid her hand on his +sleeve. The young girl chafed at his seeming neglect, and her +imperious blood mounted into her cheeks; but he appeared unconscious +of it. + +"There is one of our young ladies I must speak to," he said,--and was +just leaving his partner's side. + +"Four hands all round?" shouted the first violin,--and Mr. Bernard +found himself seized and whirled in a circle out of which he could +not escape, and then forced to "cross over," and then to "dozy do," +as the maestro had it,--and when, on getting back to his place, he +looked for Elsie Venner, she was gone. + +The dancing went on briskly. Some of the old folks looked on, others +conversed in groups and pairs, and so the evening wore along, until a +little after ten o'clock. About this time there was noticed an +increased bustle in the passages, with a considerable opening and +shutting of doors. Presently it began to be whispered about that +they were going to have supper. Many, who had never been to any +large party before, held their breath for a moment at this +announcement. It was rather with a tremulous interest than with open +hilarity that the rumor was generally received. + +One point the Colonel had entirely forgotten to settle. It was a +point involving not merely propriety, but perhaps principle also, or +at least the good report of the house,--and he had never thought to +arrange it. He took Judge Thornton aside and whispered the important +question to him,--in his distress of mind, mistaking pockets and +taking out his bandanna instead of his white handkerchief to wipe his +forehead. + +"Judge," he said, "do you think, that, before we commence refreshing +ourselves at the tables, it would be the proper thing to--crave a--to +request Deacon Soper or some other elderly person--to ask a +blessing?" + +The Judge looked as grave as if he were about giving the opinion of +the Court in the great India-rubber case. + +"On the whole," he answered, after a pause, "I should think it might, +perhaps, be dispensed with on this occasion. Young folks are noisy, +and it is awkward to have talking and laughing going on while +blessing is being asked. Unless a clergyman is present and makes a +point of it, I think it will hardly be expected." + +The Colonel was infinitely relieved. "Judge, will you take Mrs. +Sprowle in to supper? "And the Colonel returned the compliment by +offering his arm to Mrs. Judge Thornton. + +The door of the supper-room was now open, and the company, following +the lead of the host and hostess, began to stream into it, until it +was pretty well filled. + +There was an awful kind of pause. Many were beginning to drop their +heads and shut their eyes, in anticipation of the usual petition +before a meal; some expected the music to strike up,--others, that an +oration would now be delivered by the Colonel. + +"Make yourselves at home, ladies and gentlemen," said the Colonel; +"good things were made to eat, and you're welcome to all you see +before you." + +So saying he attacked a huge turkey which stood at the head of the +table; and his example being followed first by the bold, then by the +doubtful, and lastly by the timid, the clatter soon made the circuit +of the tables. Some were shocked, however, as the Colonel had feared +they would be, at the want of the customary invocation. Widow Leech, +a kind of relation, who had to be invited, and who came with her old, +back-country-looking string of gold beads round her neck, seemed to +feel very serious about it. + +"If she'd ha' known that folks would begrutch cravin' a blessin' over +sech a heap o' provisions, she'd rather ha' staid t' home. It was a +bad sign, when folks was n't grateful for the baounties of +Providence." + +The elder Miss Spinney, to whom she made this remark, assented to it, +at the same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently +appropriated with great refinement of manner,--taking it between her +thumb and forefinger, keeping the others well spread and the little +finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful undulation of the neck, +and a queer little sound in her throat, as of an M that wanted to get +out and perished in the attempt. + +The tables now presented an animated spectacle. Young fellows of the +more dashing sort, with high stand-up collars and voluminous bows to +their neckerchiefs, distinguished themselves by cutting up fowls and +offering portions thereof to the buxom girls these knowing ones had +commonly selected. + +"A bit of the wing, Roxy, or of the--under limb?" + +The first laugh broke out at this, but it was premature, a sporadic +laugh, as Dr. Kittredge would have said, which did not become +epidemic. People were very solemn as yet, many of them being new to +such splendid scenes, and crushed, as it were, in the presence of so +much crockery and so many silver spoons, and such a variety of +unusual viands and beverages. When the laugh rose around Roxy and +her saucy beau, several looked in that direction with an anxious +expression, as if something had happened, a lady fainted, for +instance, or a couple of lively fellows come to high words. + +"Young folks will be young folks," said Deacon Soper. "No harm done. +Least said soonest mended." + +"Have some of these shell-oysters?" said the Colonel to Mrs. +Trecothick. + +A delicate emphasis on the word shell implied that the Colonel knew +what was what. To the New England inland native, beyond the reach of +the east winds, the oyster unconditioned, the oyster absolute, +without a qualifying adjective, is the pickled oyster. Mrs. +Trecothick, who knew very well that an oyster long out of his shell +(as is apt to be the case with the rural bivalve) gets homesick and +loses his sprightliness, replied, with the pleasantest smile in the +world, that the chicken she had been helped to was too delicate to be +given up even for the greater rarity. But the word "shell-oysters" +had been overheard; and there was a perceptible crowding movement +towards their newly discovered habitat, a large soup-tureen. + +Silas Peckham had meantime fallen upon another locality of these +recent mollusks. He said nothing, but helped himself freely, and +made a sign to Mrs. Peckham. + +"Lorindy," he whispered, "shell-oysters" + +And ladled them out to her largely, without betraying any emotion, +just as if they had been the natural inland or pickled article. + +After the more solid portion of the banquet had been duly honored, +the cakes and sweet preparations of various kinds began to get their +share of attention. There were great cakes and little cakes, cakes +with raisins in them, cakes with currants, and cakes without either; +there were brown cakes and yellow cakes, frosted cakes, glazed cakes, +hearts and rounds, and jumbles, which playful youth slip over the +forefinger before spoiling their annular outline. There were mounds +of blo'monje, of the arrowroot variety,--that being undistinguishable +from such as is made with Russia isinglass. There were jellies, +which had been shaking, all the time the young folks were dancing in +the next room, as if they were balancing to partners. There were +built-up fabrics, called Charlottes, caky externally, pulpy within; +there were also marangs, and likewise custards,--some of the +indolent-fluid sort, others firm, in which every stroke of the +teaspoon left a smooth, conchoidal surface like the fracture of +chalcedony, with here and there a little eye like what one sees in +cheeses. Nor was that most wonderful object of domestic art called +trifle wanting, with its charming confusion of cream and cake and +almonds and jam and jelly and wine and cinnamon and froth; nor yet +the marvellous floating-island,---name suggestive of all that is +romantic in the imaginations of youthful palates. + +"It must have cost you a sight of work, to say nothin' of money, to +get all this beautiful confectionery made for the party," said Mrs. +Crane to Mrs. Sprowle. + +"Well, it cost some consid'able labor, no doubt," said Mrs. Sprowle. +"Matilda and our girls and I made 'most all the cake with our own +hands, and we all feel some tired; but if folks get what suits 'em, +we don't begrudge the time nor the work. But I do feel thirsty," +said the poor lady, "and I think a glass of srub would do my throat +good; it's dreadful dry. Mr. Peckham, would you be so polite as to +pass me a glass of srub?" + +Silas Peckham bowed with great alacrity, and took from the table a +small glass cup, containing a fluid reddish in hue and subacid in +taste. This was srub, a beverage in local repute, of questionable +nature, but suspected of owing its tint and sharpness to some kind of +syrup derived from the maroon-colored fruit of the sumac. There were +similar small cups on the table filled with lemonade, and here and +there a decanter of Madeira wine, of the Marsala kind, which some +prefer to, and many more cannot distinguish from, that which comes +from the Atlantic island. + +"Take a glass of wine, Judge," said, the Colonel; "here is an article +that I rather think 'll suit you." + +The Judge knew something of wines, and could tell all the famous old +Madeiras from each other, "Eclipse," "Juno," the almost fabulously +scarce and precious "White-top," and the rest. He struck the +nativity of the Mediterranean Madeira before it had fairly moistened +his lip. + +"A sound wine, Colonel, and I should think of a genuine vintage. +Your very good health." + +"Deacon Soper," said the Colonel, "here is some Madary Judge Thornton +recommends. Let me fill you a glass of it." + +The Deacon's eyes glistened. He was one of those consistent +Christians who stick firmly by the first miracle and Paul's advice to +Timothy. + +"A little good wine won't hurt anybody," said the Deacon. "Plenty,-- +plenty,--plenty. There!" He had not withdrawn his glass, while the +Colonel was pouring, for fear it should spill, and now it was running +over. + +--It is very odd how all a man's philosophy and theology are at the +mercy of a few drops of a fluid which the chemists say consists of +nothing but C4, O2, H6. The Deacon's theology fell off several points +towards latitudinarianism in the course of the next ten minutes. He +had a deep inward sense that everything was as it should be, human +nature included. The little accidents of humanity, known +collectively to moralists as sin, looked very venial to his growing +sense of universal brotherhood and benevolence. + +"It will all come right," the Deacon said to himself,--"I feel a +joyful conviction that everything is for the best. I am favored with +a blessed peace of mind, and a very precious season of good feelin' +toward my fellow-creturs." + +A lusty young fellow happened to make a quick step backward just at +that instant, and put his heel, with his weight on top of it, upon +the Deacon's toes. + +"Aigh! What the d' d' didos are y' abaout with them great huffs o' +yourn?" said the Deacon, with an expression upon his features not +exactly that of peace and good-will to men. The lusty young fellow +apologized; but the Deacon's face did not come right, and his +theology backed round several points in the direction of total +depravity. + +Some of the dashing young men in stand-up collars and extensive +neckties, encouraged by Mr. Geordie, made quite free with the +"Ma,dary," and even induced some of the more stylish girls--not of +the mansion-house set, but of the tip-top two-story families--to +taste a little. Most of these young ladies made faces at it, and +declared it was "perfectly horrid," with that aspect of veracity +peculiar to their age and sex. + +About this time a movement was made on the part of some of the +mansion-house people to leave the supper-table. Miss Jane Trecothick +had quietly hinted to her mother that she had had enough of it. Miss +Arabella Thornton had whispered to her father that he had better +adjourn this court to the next room. There were signs of migration, +--a loosening of people in their places,--a looking about for arms to +hitch on to. + +"Stop!" said the Colonel. "There's something coming yet. +--Ice-cream!" + +The great folks saw that the play was not over yet, and that it was +only polite to stay and see it out. The word "ice-cream" was no +sooner whispered than it passed from one to another all down the +tables. The effect was what might have been anticipated. Many of +the guests had never seen this celebrated product of human skill, and +to all the two-story population of Rockland it was the last +expression of the art of pleasing and astonishing the human palate. +Its appearance had been deferred for several reasons: first, because +everybody would have attacked it, if it had come in with the other +luxuries; secondly, because undue apprehensions were entertained +(owing to want of experience) of its tendency to deliquesce and +resolve itself with alarming rapidity into puddles of creamy fluid; +and, thirdly, because the surprise would make a grand climax to +finish off the banquet. + +There is something so audacious in the conception of ice-cream, that +it is not strange that a population undebauched by the luxury of +great cities looks upon it with a kind of awe and speaks of it with a +certain emotion. This defiance of the seasons, forcing Nature to do +her work of congelation in the face of her sultriest noon, might well +inspire a timid mind with fear lest human art were revolting against +the Higher Powers, and raise the same scruples which resisted the use +of ether and chloroform in certain contingencies. Whatever may be +the cause, it is well known that the announcement at any private +rural entertainment that there is to be ice-cream produces an +immediate and profound impression. It may be remarked, as aiding +this impression, that exaggerated ideas are entertained as to the +dangerous effects this congealed food may produce on persons not in +the most robust health. + +There was silence as the pyramids of ice were placed on the table, +everybody looking on in admiration. The Colonel took a knife and +assailed the one at the head of the table. When he tried to cut off +a slice, it didn't seem to understand it, however, and only tipped, +as if it wanted to upset. The Colonel attacked it on the other side, +and it tipped just as badly the other way. It was awkward for the +Colonel. "Permit me," said the Judge,--and he took the knife and +struck a sharp slanting stroke which sliced off a piece just of the +right size, and offered it to Mrs. Sprowle. This act of dexterity +was much admired by the company. + +The tables were all alive again. + +"Lorindy, here's a plate of ice-cream," said Silas Peckham. + +"Come, Mahaly," said a fresh-looking young-fellow with a saucerful in +each hand, "here's your ice-cream;--let's go in the corner and have a +celebration, us two." And the old green de-lame, with the young +curves under it to make it sit well, moved off as pleased apparently +as if it had been silk velvet with thousand-dollar laces over it. + +"Oh, now, Miss Green! do you think it's safe to put that cold stuff +into your stomick?" said the Widow Leech to a young married lady, +who, finding the air rather warm, thought a little ice would cool her +down very nicely. "It's jest like eatin' snowballs. You don't look +very rugged; and I should be dreadful afeard, if I was you." + +"Carrie," said old Dr. Kittredge, who had overheard this,--"how well +you're looking this evening! But you must be tired and heated;--sit +down here, and let me give you a good slice of ice-cream. How you +young folks do grow up, to be sure! I don't feel quite certain +whether it's you or your older sister, but I know it 's somebody I +call Carrie, and that I 've known ever since." + +A sound something between a howl and an oath startled the company and +broke off the Doctor's sentence. Everybody's eyes turned in the +direction from which it came. A group instantly gathered round the +person who had uttered it, who was no other than Deacon Soper. + +"He's chokin'! he's chokin'!" was the first exclamation,--"slap him +on the back!" + +Several heavy fists beat such a tattoo on his spine that the Deacon +felt as if at least one of his vertebrae would come up. + +"He's black in the face," said Widow Leech, "he 's swallered +somethin' the wrong way. Where's the Doctor?--let the Doctor get to +him, can't ye?" + +"If you will move, my good lady, perhaps I can," said Doctor +Kittredge, in a calm tone of voice. "He's not choking, my friends," +the Doctor added immediately, when he got sight of him. + +"It 's apoplexy,--I told you so,--don't you see how red he is in the +face?" said old Mrs. Peake, a famous woman for "nussin" sick folks, +--determined to be a little ahead of the Doctor. + +"It's not apoplexy," said Dr. Kittredge. + +"What is it, Doctor? what is it? Will he die? Is he dead?--Here's +his poor wife, the Widow Soper that is to be, if she a'n't a'ready" + +"Do be quiet, my good woman," said Dr. Kittredge.--"Nothing serious, +I think, Mrs. Soper. Deacon!" + +The sudden attack of Deacon Soper had begun with the extraordinary +sound mentioned above. His features had immediately assumed an +expression of intense pain, his eyes staring wildly, and, clapping +his hands to his face, he had rocked his head backward and forward in +speechless agony. + +At the Doctor's sharp appeal the Deacon lifted his head. + +"It's all right," said the Doctor, as soon as he saw his face. "The +Deacon had a smart attack of neuralgic pain. That 's all. Very +severe, but not at all dangerous." + +The Doctor kept his countenance, but his diaphragm was shaking the +change in iris waistcoat-pockets with subterranean laughter. He had +looked through his spectacles and seen at once what had happened. +The Deacon, not being in the habit of taking his nourishment in the +congealed state, had treated the ice-cream as a pudding of a rare +species, and, to make sure of doing himself justice in its +distribution, had taken a large mouthful of it without the least +precaution. The consequence was a sensation as if a dentist were +killing the nerves of twenty-five teeth at once with hot irons, or +cold ones, which would hurt rather worse. + +The Deacon swallowed something with a spasmodic effort, and recovered +pretty soon and received the congratulations of his friends. There +were different versions of the expressions he had used at the onset +of his complaint,--some of the reported exclamations involving a +breach of propriety, to say the least,--but it was agreed that a man +in an attack of neuralgy wasn't to be judged of by the rules that +applied to other folks. + +The company soon after this retired from the supper-room. The +mansion-house gentry took their leave, and the two-story people soon +followed. Mr. Bernard had stayed an hour or two, and left soon after +he found that Elsie Venner and her father had disappeared. As he +passed by the dormitory of the Institute, he saw a light glimmering +from one of its upper rooms, where the lady-teacher was still waking. +His heart ached, when he remembered, that, through all these hours of +gayety, or what was meant for it, the patient girl had been at work +in her little chamber; and he looked up at the silent stars, as if to +see that they were watching over her. The planet Mars was burning +like a red coal; the northern constellation was slanting downward +about its central point of flame; and while he looked, a falling star +slid from the zenith and was lost. + +He reached his chamber and was soon dreaming over the Event of the +Season. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE MORNING AFTER. + +Colonel Sprowle's family arose late the next morning. The fatigues +and excitements of the evening and the preparation for it were +followed by a natural collapse, of which somnolence was a leading +symptom. The sun shone into the window at a pretty well opened angle +when the Colonel first found himself sufficiently awake to address +his yet slumbering spouse. + +"Sally!" said the Colonel, in a voice that was a little husky,--for +he had finished off the evening with an extra glass or two of +"Madary," and had a somewhat rusty and headachy sense of renewed +existence, on greeting the rather advanced dawn,--"Sally!" + +"Take care o' them custard-cups! There they go!" + +Poor Mrs. Sprowle was fighting the party over in her dream; and as +the visionary custard-cups crashed down through one lobe of her brain +into another, she gave a start as if an inch of lightning from a +quart Leyden jar had jumped into one of her knuckles with its sudden +and lively poonk! + +"Sally!" said the Colonel,--"wake up, wake up. What 'r' y' dreamin' +abaout?" + +Mrs. Sprowle raised herself, by a sort of spasm, sur son seant, as +they say in France,--up on end, as we have it in New England. She +looked first to the left, then to the right, then straight before +her, apparently without seeing anything, and at last slowly settled +down, with her two eyes, blank of any particular meaning, directed +upon the Colonel. + +"What time is 't?" she said. + +"Ten o'clock. What y' been dreamin' abaout? Y' giv a jump like a +hopper-grass. Wake up, wake UP! Th' party 's over, and y' been +asleep all the mornin'. The party's over, I tell ye! Wake up!" + +"Over!" said Mrs. Sprowle, who began to define her position at +last,--"over! I should think 't was time 't was over! It's lasted a +hundud year. I've been workin' for that party longer 'n Methuselah's +lifetime, sence I been asleep. The pies would n' bake, and the +blo'monje would n' set, and the ice-cream would n' freeze, and all +the folks kep' comin' 'n' comin' 'n' comin',--everybody I ever knew +in all my life,--some of 'em 's been dead this twenty year 'n' more, +--'n' nothin' for 'em to eat nor drink. The fire would n' burn to +cook anything, all we could do. We blowed with the belluses, 'n' we +stuffed in paper 'n' pitch-pine kindlin's, but nothin' could make +that fire burn; 'n' all the time the folks kep' comin', as if they'd +never stop,--'n' nothin' for 'em but empty dishes, 'n' all the +borrowed chaney slippin' round on the waiters 'n' chippin' 'n' +crackin',--I would n' go through what I been through t'-night for all +th' money in th' Bank,--I do believe it's harder t' have a party than +t'"--- + +Mrs. Sprowle stated the case strongly. + +The Colonel said he did n't know how that might be. She was a better +judge than he was. It was bother enough, anyhow, and he was glad +that it was over. After this, the worthy pair commenced preparations +for rejoining the waking world, and in due time proceeded downstairs. + +Everybody was late that morning, and nothing had got put to rights. +The house looked as if a small army had been quartered in it over +night. The tables were of course in huge disorder, after the +protracted assault they had undergone. There had been a great battle +evidently, and it had gone against the provisions. Some points had +been stormed, and all their defences annihilated, but here and there +were centres of resistance which had held out against all attacks,-- +large rounds of beef, and solid loaves of cake, against which the +inexperienced had wasted their energies in the enthusiasm of youth or +uninformed maturity, while the longer-headed guests were making +discoveries of "shell-oysters" and "patridges" and similar +delicacies. + +The breakfast was naturally of a somewhat fragmentary character. A +chicken that had lost his legs in the service of the preceding +campaign was once more put on duty. A great ham stuck with cloves, +as Saint Sebastian was with arrows, was again offered for martyrdom. +It would have been a pleasant sight for a medical man of a +speculative turn to have seen the prospect before the Colonel's +family of the next week's breakfasts, dinners, and suppers. The +trail that one of these great rural parties leaves after it is one of +its most formidable considerations. Every door-handle in the house +is suggestive of sweetmeats for the next week, at least. The most +unnatural articles of diet displace the frugal but nutritious food of +unconvulsed periods of existence. If there is a walking infant about +the house, it will certainly have a more or less fatal fit from +overmuch of some indigestible delicacy. Before the week is out, +everybody will be tired to death of sugary forms of nourishment and +long to see the last of the remnants of the festival. + +The family had not yet arrived at this condition. On the contrary, +the first inspection of the tables suggested the prospect of days of +unstinted luxury; and the younger portion of the household, +especially, were in a state of great excitement as the account of +stock was taken with reference to future internal investments. Some +curious facts came to light during these researches. + +"Where's all the oranges gone to?" said Mrs. Sprowle. "I expected +there'd be ever so many of 'em left. I did n't see many of the folks +eatin' oranges. Where's the skins of 'em? There ought to be six +dozen orange-skins round on the plates, and there a'n't one dozen. +And all the small cakes, too, and all the sugar things that was stuck +on the big cakes. Has anybody counted the spoons? Some of 'em got +swallered, perhaps. I hope they was plated ones, if they did!" + +The failure of the morning's orange-crop and the deficit in other +expected residual delicacies were not very difficult to account for. +In many of the two-story Rockland families, and in those favored +households of the neighboring villages whose members had been invited +to the great party, there was a very general excitement among the +younger people on the morning after the great event. "Did y' bring +home somethin' from the party? What is it? What is it? Is it frut- +cake? Is it nuts and oranges and apples? Give me some! Give me +some!" Such a concert of treble voices uttering accents like these +had not been heard since the great Temperance Festival with the +celebrated "colation" in the open air under the trees of the +Parnassian Grove,--as the place was christened by the young ladies of +the Institute. The cry of the children was not in vain. From the +pockets of demure fathers, from the bags of sharp-eyed spinsters, +from the folded handkerchiefs of light-fingered sisters, from the +tall hats of sly-winking brothers, there was a resurrection of the +missing oranges and cakes and sugar-things in many a rejoicing +family-circle, enough to astonish the most hardened "caterer" that +ever contracted to feed a thousand people under canvas. + +The tender recollections of those dear little ones whom extreme youth +or other pressing considerations detain from scenes of festivity--a +trait of affection by no means uncommon among our thoughtful people-- +dignifies those social meetings where it is manifested, and sheds a +ray of sunshine on our common nature. It is "an oasis in the +desert,"--to use the striking expression of the last year's +"Valedictorian" of the Apollinean Institute. In the midst of so much +that is purely selfish, it is delightful to meet such disinterested +care for others. When a large family of children are expecting a +parent's return from an entertainment, it will often require great +exertions on his part to freight himself so as to meet their +reasonable expectations. A few rules are worth remembering by all +who attend anniversary dinners in Faneuil Hall or elsewhere. Thus: +Lobsters' claws are always acceptable to children of all ages. +Oranges and apples are to be taken one at a time, until the coat- +pockets begin to become inconveniently heavy. Cakes are injured by +sitting upon them; it is, therefore, well to carry a stout tin box of +a size to hold as many pieces as there are children in the domestic +circle. A very pleasant amusement, at the close of one of these +banquets, is grabbing for the flowers with which the table is +embellished. These will please the ladies at home very greatly, and, +if the children are at the same time abundantly supplied with fruits, +nuts, cakes, and any little ornamental articles of confectionery +which are of a nature to be unostentatiously removed, the kind- +hearted parent will make a whole household happy, without any +additional expense beyond the outlay for his ticket. + +There were fragmentary delicacies enough left, of one kind and +another, at any rate, to make all the Colonel's family uncomfortable +for the next week. It bid fair to take as long to get rid of the +remains of the great party as it had taken to make ready for it. + +In the mean time Mr. Bernard had been dreaming, as young men dream, +of gliding shapes with bright eyes and burning cheeks, strangely +blended with red planets and hissing meteors, and, shining over all, +the white, un-wandering star of the North, girt with its tethered +constellations. + +After breakfast he walked into the parlor, where he found Miss +Darley. She was alone, and, holding a school-book in her hand, was +at work with one of the morning's lessons. She hardly noticed him as +he entered, being very busy with her book,--and he paused a moment +before speaking, and looked at her with a kind of reverence. It +would not have been strictly true to call her beautiful. For years, +--since her earliest womanhood,--those slender hands had taken the +bread which repaid the toil of heart and brain from the coarse palms +which offered it in the world's rude market. It was not for herself +alone that she had bartered away the life of her youth, that she had +breathed the hot air of schoolrooms, that she had forced her +intelligence to posture before her will, as the exigencies of her +place required,--waking to mental labor,--sleeping to dream of +problems,--rolling up the stone of education for an endless +twelvemonth's term, to find it at the bottom of the hill again when +another year called her to its renewed duties, schooling her temper +in unending inward and outward conflicts, until neither dulness nor +obstinacy nor ingratitude nor insolence could reach her serene self- +possession. Not for herself alone. Poorly as her prodigal labors +were repaid in proportion to the waste of life they cost, her value +was too well established to leave her without what, under other +circumstances, would have been a more than sufficient compensation. +But there were others who looked to her in their need, and so the +modest fountain which might have been filled to its brim was +continually drained through silent-flowing, hidden sluices. + +Out of such a life, inherited from a race which had lived in +conditions not unlike her own, beauty, in the common sense of the +term, could hardly find leisure to develop and shape itself. For it +must be remembered, that symmetry and elegance of features and +figure, like perfectly formed crystals in the mineral world, are +reached only by insuring a certain necessary repose to individuals +and to generations. Human beauty is an agricultural product in the +country, growing up in men and women as in corn and cattle, where the +soil is good. It is a luxury almost monopolized by the rich in +cities, bred under glass like their forced pine-apples and peaches. +Both in city and country, the evolution of the physical harmonies +which make music to our eyes requires a combination of favorable +circumstances, of which alternations of unburdened tranquillity with +intervals of varied excitement of mind and body are among the most +important. Where sufficient excitement is wanting, as often happens +in the country, the features, however rich in red and white, get +heavy, and the movements sluggish; where excitement is furnished in +excess, as is frequently the case in cities, the contours and colors +are impoverished, and the nerves begin to make their existence known +to the consciousness, as the face very soon informs us. + +Helen Darley could not, in the nature of things, have possessed the +kind of beauty which pleases the common taste. Her eye was calm, +sad-looking, her features very still, except when her pleasant smile +changed them for a moment, all her outlines were delicate, her voice +was very gentle, but somewhat subdued by years of thoughtful labor, +and on her smooth forehead one little hinted line whispered already +that Care was beginning to mark the trace which Time sooner or later +would make a furrow. She could not be a beauty; if she had been, it +would have been much harder for many persons to be interested in her. +For, although in the abstract we all love beauty, and although, if we +were sent naked souls into some ultramundane warehouse of soulless +bodies and told to select one to our liking, we should each choose a +handsome one, and never think of the consequences,--it is quite +certain that beauty carries an atmosphere of repulsion as well as of +attraction with it, alike in both sexes. We may be well assured that +there are many persons who no more think of specializing their love +of the other sex upon one endowed with signal beauty, than they think +of wanting great diamonds or thousand-dollar horses. No man or woman +can appropriate beauty without paying for it,--in endowments, in +fortune, in position, in self-surrender, or other valuable stock; and +there are a great many who are too poor, too ordinary, too humble, +too busy, too proud, to pay any of these prices for it. So the +unbeautiful get many more lovers than the beauties; only, as there +are more of them, their lovers are spread thinner and do not make so +much show. + +The young master stood looking at Helen Darley with a kind of tender +admiration. She was such a picture of the martyr by the slow social +combustive process, that it almost seemed to him he could see a pale +lambent nimbus round her head. + +"I did not see you at the great party last evening," he said, +presently. + +She looked up and answered, "No. I have not much taste for such +large companies. Besides, I do not feel as if my time belonged to me +after it has been paid for. There is always something to do, some +lesson or exercise,--and it so happened, I was very busy last night +with the new problems in geometry. I hope you had a good time." + +"Very. Two or three of our girls were there. Rosa Milburn. What a +beauty she is! I wonder what she feeds on! Wine and musk and +chloroform and coals of fire, I believe; I didn't think there was +such color and flavor in a woman outside the tropics." + +Miss Darley smiled rather faintly; the imagery was not just to her +taste: femineity often finds it very hard to accept the fact of +muliebrity. + +"Was"--? + +She stopped short; but her question had asked itself. + + +"Elsie there? She was, for an hour or so. She looked frightfully +handsome. I meant to have spoken to her, but she slipped away before +I knew it." + +"I thought she meant to go to the party," said Miss Darley. "Did she +look at you?" + +"She did. Why?" + +"And you did not speak to her?" + +"No. I should have spoken to her, but she was gone when I looked for +her. A strange creature! Is n't there an odd sort of fascination +about her? You have not explained all the mystery about the girl. +What does she come to this school for? She seems to do pretty much +as she likes about studying." + +Miss Darley answered in very low tones. "It was a fancy of hers to +come, and they let her have her way. I don't know what there is +about her, except that she seems to take my life out of me when she +looks at me. I don't like to ask other people about our girls. She +says very little to anybody, and studies, or makes believe to study, +almost what she likes. I don't know what she is," (Miss Darley laid +her hand, trembling, on the young master's sleeve,) "but I can tell +when she is in the room without seeing or hearing her. Oh, Mr. +Langdon, I am weak and nervous, and no doubt foolish,--but--if there +were women now, as in the days of our Saviour, possessed of devils, I +should think there was something not human looking out of Elsie +Venner's eyes!" + +The poor girl's breast rose and fell tumultuously as she spoke, and +her voice labored, as if some obstruction were rising in her throat. + +A scene might possibly have come of it, but the door opened. Mr. +Silas Peckham. Miss Darley got away as soon as she well could. + +"Why did not Miss Darley go to the party last evening?" said Mr. +Bernard. + +"Well, the fact is," answered Mr. Silas Peckham, "Miss Darley, she's +pooty much took up with the school. She's an industris young. +woman,--yis, she is industris,--but perhaps she a'n't quite so spry +a worker as some. Maybe, considerin' she's paid for her time, she is +n't fur out o' the way in occoopyin' herself evenin's,--that--is, if +so be she a'n't smart enough to finish up all her work in the +daytime. Edoocation is the great business of the Institoot. +Amoosements are objec's of a secondary natur', accordin' to my v'oo." +[The unspellable pronunciation of this word is the touchstone of New +England Brahminism.] + +Mr. Bernard drew a deep breath, his thin nostrils dilating, as if the +air did not rush in fast enough to cool his blood, while Silas +Peckham was speaking. The Head of the Apollinean Institute delivered +himself of these judicious sentiments in that peculiar acid, +penetrating tone, thickened with a nasal twang, which not rarely +becomes hereditary after three or four generations raised upon east +winds, salt fish, and large, white-bellied, pickled cucumbers. He +spoke deliberately, as if weighing his words well, so that, during +his few remarks, Mr. Bernard had time for a mental accompaniment with +variations, accented by certain bodily changes, which escaped Mr. +Peckham's observation. First there was a feeling of disgust and +shame at hearing Helen Darley spoken of like a dumb working animal. +That sent the blood up into his cheeks. Then the slur upon her +probable want of force--her incapacity, who made the character of the +school and left this man to pocket its profits--sent a thrill of the +old Wentworth fire through him, so that his muscles hardened, his +hands closed, and he took the measure of Mr. Silas Peckham, to see if +his head would strike the wall in case he went over backwards all of +a sudden. This would not do, of course, and so the thrill passed off +and the muscles softened again. Then came that state of tenderness +in the heart, overlying wrath in the stomach, in which the eyes grow +moist like a woman's, and there is also a great boiling-up of +objectionable terms out of the deep-water vocabulary, so that +Prudence and Propriety and all the other pious P's have to jump upon +the lid of speech to keep them from boiling over into fierce +articulation. All this was internal, chiefly, and of course not +recognized by Mr. Silas Peckham. The idea, that any full-grown, +sensible man should have any other notion than that of getting the +most work for the least money out of his assistants, had never +suggested itself to him. + +Mr. Bernard had gone through this paroxysm, and cooled down, in the +period while Mr. Peckham was uttering these words in his thin, +shallow whine, twanging up into the frontal sinuses. What was the +use of losing his temper and throwing away his place, and so, among +the consequences which would necessarily follow, leaving the poor +lady-teacher without a friend to stand by her ready to lay his hand +on the grand-inquisitor before the windlass of his rack had taken one +turn too many? + +"No doubt, Mr. Peckham," he said, in a grave, calm voice, "there is a +great deal of work to be done in the school; but perhaps we can +distribute the duties a little more evenly after a time. I shall +look over the girls' themes myself, after this week. Perhaps there +will be some other parts of her labor that I can take on myself. We +can arrange a new programme of studies and recitations." + +"We can do that," said Mr. Silas Peckham. "But I don't propose +mater'lly alterin' Miss Darley's dooties. I don't think she works to +hurt herself. Some of the Trustees have proposed interdoosin' new +branches of study, and I expect you will be pooty much occoopied with +the dooties that belong to your place. On the Sahbath you will be +able to attend divine service three times, which is expected of our +teachers. I shall continoo myself to give Sahbath Scriptur' readin's +to the young ladies. That is a solemn dooty I can't make up my mind +to commit to other people. My teachers enjoy the Lord's day as a day +of rest. In it they do no manner of work, except in cases of +necessity or mercy, such as fillin' out diplomas, or when we git +crowded jest at the end of a term, or when there is an extry number +of p'oopils, or other Providential call to dispense with the +ordinance." + +Mr. Bernard had a fine glow in his cheeks by this time,--doubtless +kindled by the thought of the kind consideration Mr. Peckham showed +for his subordinates in allowing them the between meeting-time on +Sundays except for some special reason. But the morning was wearing +away; so he went to the schoolroom, taking leave very properly of his +respected principal, who soon took his hat and departed. + +Mr. Peckham visited certain "stores" or shops, where he made +inquiries after various articles in the provision-line, and effected +a purchase or two. Two or three barrels of potatoes, which had +sprouted in a promising way, he secured at a bargain. A side of +feminine beef was also obtained at a low figure. He was entirely +satisfied with a couple of barrels of flour, which, being invoiced +"slightly damaged," were to be had at a reasonable price. + +After this, Silas Peckham felt in good spirits. He had done a pretty +stroke of business. It came into his head whether he might not +follow it up with a still more brilliant speculation. So he turned +his steps in the direction of Colonel Sprowle's. + +It was now eleven o'clock, and the battle-field of last evening was +as we left it. Mr. Peckham's visit was unexpected, perhaps not very +well timed, but the Colonel received him civilly. + +"Beautifully lighted,--these rooms last night!" said Mr. Peckham. +"Winter-strained?" + +The Colonel nodded. + +"How much do you pay for your winter-strained?" + +The Colonel told him the price. + +"Very hahnsome supper,--very hahnsome. Nothin' ever seen like it in +Rockland. Must have been a great heap of things leftover." + +The compliment was not ungrateful, and the Colonel acknowledged it by +smiling and saying, "I should think the' was a trifle? Come and +look." + +When Silas Peckham saw how many delicacies had survived the evening's +conflict, his commercial spirit rose at once to the point of a +proposal. + +"Colonel Sprowle," said he, "there's 'meat and cakes and pies and +pickles enough on that table to spread a hahnsome colation. If you'd +like to trade reasonable, I think perhaps I should be willin' to take +'em off your hands. There's been a talk about our havin' a +celebration in the Parnassian Grove, and I think I could work in what +your folks don't want and make myself whole by chargin' a small sum +for tickets. Broken meats, of course, a'n't of the same valoo as +fresh provisions; so I think you might be willin' to trade +reasonable." + +Mr. Peckham paused and rested on his proposal. It would not, +perhaps, have been very extraordinary, if Colonel Sprowle had +entertained the proposition. There is no telling beforehand how such +things will strike people. It didn't happen to strike the Colonel +favorably. He had a little red-blooded manhood in him. + +"Sell you them things to make a colation out of?" the Colonel +replied. "Walk up to that table, Mr. Peckham, and help yourself! +Fill your pockets; Mr. Peckham! Fetch a basket, and our hired folks +shall fill it full for ye! Send a cart, if y' like, 'n' carry off +them leavin's to make a celebration for your pupils with! Only let +me tell ye this:--as sure 's my name's Hezekiah Spraowle, you 'll be +known through the taown 'n' through the caounty, from that day +forrard, as the Principal of the Broken-Victuals Institoot!" + +Even provincial human-nature sometimes has a touch of sublimity about +it. Mr. Silas Peckham had gone a little deeper than he meant, and +come upon the "hard pan," as the well-diggers call it, of the +Colonel's character, before he thought of it. A militia-colonel +standing on his sentiments is not to be despised. That was shown +pretty well in New England two or three generations ago. There were +a good many plain officers that talked about their "rigiment" and +their "caounty" who knew very well how to say "Make ready!" "Take +aim!" "Fire!"--in the face of a line of grenadiers with bullets in +their guns and bayonets on them. And though a rustic uniform is not +always unexceptionable in its cut and trimmings, yet there was many +an ill-made coat in those old times that was good enough to be shown +to the enemy's front rank too often to be left on the field with a +round hole in its left lapel that matched another going right through +the brave heart of the plain country captain or major or colonel who +was buried in it under the crimson turf. + +Mr. Silas Peckham said little or nothing. His sensibilities were not +acute, but he perceived that he had made a miscalculation. He hoped +that there was no offence,--thought it might have been mutooally +agreeable, conclooded he would give up the idee of a colation, and +backed himself out as if unwilling to expose the less guarded aspect +of his person to the risk of accelerating impulses. + +The Colonel shut the door,--cast his eye on the toe of his right +boot, as if it had had a strong temptation,--looked at his watch, +then round the room, and, going to a cupboard, swallowed a glass of +deep-red brandy and water to compose his feelings. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE DOCTOR ORDERS THE BEST SULKY. +(With a Digression on "Hired Help.") + +"ABEL! Slip Cassia into the new sulky, and fetch her round." + +Abel was Dr. Kittredge's hired man. He was born in New Hampshire, a +queer sort of State, with fat streaks of soil and population where +they breed giants in mind and body, and lean streaks which export +imperfectly nourished young men with promising but neglected +appetites, who may be found in great numbers in all the large towns, +or could be until of late years, when they have been half driven out +of their favorite basement-stories by foreigners, and half coaxed +away from them by California. New Hampshire is in more than one +sense the Switzerland of New England. The "Granite State" being +naturally enough deficient in pudding-stone, its children are apt to +wander southward in search of that deposit,--in the unpetrified +condition. + +Abel Stebbins was a good specimen of that extraordinary hybrid or +mule between democracy and chrysocracy, a native-born New-England +serving-man. The Old World has nothing at all like him. He is at +once an emperor and a subordinate. In one hand he holds one five- +millionth part (be the same more or less) of the power that sways the +destinies of the Great Republic. His other hand is in your boot, +which he is about to polish. It is impossible to turn a fellow +citizen whose vote may make his master--say, rather, employer-- +Governor or President, or who may be one or both himself, into a +flunky. That article must be imported ready-made from other centres +of civilization. When a New Englander has lost his self-respect as a +citizen and as a man, he is demoralized, and cannot be trusted with +the money to pay for a dinner. + +It may be supposed, therefore, that this fractional emperor, this +continent-shaper, finds his position awkward when he goes into +service, and that his employer is apt to find it still more +embarrassing. It is always under protest that the hired man does his +duty. Every act of service is subject to the drawback, "I am as good +as you are." This is so common, at least, as almost to be the rule, +and partly accounts for the rapid disappearance of the indigenous +"domestic" from the basements above mentioned. Paleontologists will +by and by be examining the floors of our kitchens for tracks of the +extinct native species of serving-man. The female of the same race +is fast dying out; indeed, the time is not far distant when all the +varieties of young woman will have vanished from New England, as the +dodo has perished in the Mauritius. The young lady is all that we +shall have left, and the mop and duster of the last Ahnira or Loizy +will be stared at by generations of Bridgets and Noras as that famous +head and foot of the lost bird are stared at in the Ashmolean Museum. + +Abel Stebbins, the Doctor's man, took the true American view of his +difficult position. He sold his time to the Doctor, and, having sold +it, he took care to fulfil his half of the bargain. The Doctor, on +his part, treated him, not like a gentleman, because one does not +order a gentleman to bring up his horse or run his errands, but he +treated him like a man. Every order was given in courteous terms. +His reasonable privileges were respected as much as if they had been +guaranteed under hand and seal. The Doctor lent him books from his +own library, and gave him all friendly counsel, as if he were a son +or a younger brother. + +Abel had Revolutionary blood in his veins, and though he saw fit to +"hire out," he could never stand the word "servant," or consider +himself the inferior one of the two high contracting parties. When +he came to live with the Doctor, he made up his mind he would dismiss +the old gentleman, if he did not behave according to his notions of +propriety. But he soon found that the Doctor was one of the right +sort, and so determined to keep him. The Doctor soon found, on his +side, that he had a trustworthy, intelligent fellow, who would be +invaluable to him, if he only let him have his own way of doing what +was to be done. + +The Doctor's hired man had not the manners of a French valet. He was +grave and taciturn for the most part, he never bowed and rarely +smiled, but was always at work in the daytime, and always reading in +the evening. He was hostler, and did all the housework that a man +could properly do, would go to the door or "tend table," bought the +provisions for the family,--in short, did almost everything for them +but get their clothing. There was no office in a perfectly appointed +household, from that of steward down to that of stable-boy, which he +did not cheerfully assume. His round of work not consuming all his +energies, he must needs cultivate the Doctor's garden, which he kept +in one perpetual bloom, from the blowing of the first crocus to the +fading of the last dahlia. + +This garden was Abel's poem. Its half-dozen beds were so many +cantos. Nature crowded them for him with imagery such as no Laureate +could copy in the cold mosaic of language. The rhythm of alternating +dawn and sunset, the strophe and antistrophe still perceptible +through all the sudden shifts of our dithyrambic seasons and echoed +in corresponding floral harmonies, made melody in the soul of Abel, +the plain serving-man. It softened his whole otherwise rigid aspect. +He worshipped God according to the strict way of his fathers; but a +florist's Puritanism is always colored by the petals of his flowers, +--and Nature never shows him a black corolla. + +He may or may not figure again in this narrative; but as there must +be some who confound the New England hired man, native-born, with the +servant of foreign birth, and as there is the difference of two +continents and two civilizations between them, it did not seem fair +to let Abel bring round the Doctor's mare and sulky without touching +his features in half-shadow into our background. + +The Doctor's mare, Cassia, was so called by her master from her +cinnamon color, cassia being one of the professional names for that +spice or drug. She was of the shade we call sorrel, or, as an +Englishman would perhaps say, chestnut,--a genuine "Morgan" mare, +with a low forehand, as is common in this breed, but with strong +quarters and flat hocks, well ribbed up, with a good eye and a pair +of lively ears,--a first-rate doctor's beast, would stand until her +harness dropped off her back at the door of a tedious case, and trot +over hill and dale thirty miles in three hours, if there was a child +in the next county with a bean in its windpipe and the Doctor gave +her a hint of the fact. Cassia was not large, but she had a good +deal of action, and was the Doctor's show-horse. There were two. +other animals in his stable: Quassia or Quashy, the black horse, and +Caustic, the old bay, with whom he jogged round the village. + +"A long ride to-day?" said Abel, as he brought up the equipage. + +"Just out of the village,--that 's all.---There 's a kink in her +mane,--pull it out, will you?" + +"Goin' to visit some of the great folks," Abel said to himself." +Wonder who it is."--Then to the Doctor,--"Anybody get sick at +Sprowles's? They say Deacon Soper had a fit, after eatin' some o' +their frozen victuals." + +The Doctor smiled. He guessed the Deacon would do well enough. He +was only going to ride over to the Dudley mansion-house. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE DOCTOR CALLS ON ELSIE VENNER. + +If that primitive physician, Chiron, M. D., appears as a Centaur, as +we look at him through the lapse of thirty centuries, the modern +country-doctor, if he could be seen about thirty miles off, could not +be distinguished from a wheel-animalcule. He inhabits a wheel- +carriage. He thinks of stationary dwellings as Long Tom Coffin did +of land in general; a house may be well enough for incidental +purposes, but for a "stiddy" residence give him a "kerridge." If he +is classified in the Linnaean scale, he must be set down thus: Genus +Homo; Species Rotifer infusorius, the wheel-animal of infusions. + +The Dudley mansion was not a mile from the Doctor's; but it never +occurred to him to think of walking to see any of his patients' +families, if he had any professional object in his visit. Whenever +the narrow sulky turned in at a gate, the rustic who was digging +potatoes, or hoeing corn, or swishing through the grass with his +scythe, in wave-like crescents, or stepping short behind a loaded +wheelbarrow, or trudging lazily by the side of the swinging, loose- +throated, short-legged oxen, rocking along the road as if they had +just been landed after a three-months' voyage, the toiling native, +whatever he was doing, stopped and looked up at the house the Doctor +was visiting. + +"Somebody sick over there t' Haynes's. Guess th' old man's ailin' +ag'in. Winder's half-way open in the chamber,--should n' wonder 'f +he was dead and laid aout. Docterin' a'n't no use, when y' see th' +winders open like that. Wahl, money a'n't much to speak of to th' +old man naow! He don' want but tew cents,--'n' old Widah Peake, she +knows what he wants them for!" + +Or again,-- + +"Measles raound pooty thick. Briggs's folks buried two children with +'em lass' week. Th' of Doctor, he'd h' ker'd 'em threugh. Struck in +'n' p'dooced mo't'f'cation,--so they say." + +This is only meant as a sample of the kind of way they used to think +or talk, when the narrow sulky turned in at the gate of some house +where there was a visit to be made. + +Oh, that narrow sulky! What hopes, what fears, what comfort, what +anguish, what despair, in the roll of its coming or its parting +wheels! In the spring, when the old people get the coughs which give +them a few shakes and their lives drop in pieces like the ashes of a +burned thread which have kept the threadlike shape until they were +stirred,--in the hot summer noons, when the strong man comes in from +the fields, like the son of the Shunamite, crying, "My head, my +head,"--in the dying autumn days, when youth and maiden lie fever- +stricken in many a household, still-faced, dull-eyed, dark-flushed, +dry-lipped, low-muttering in their daylight dreams, their fingers +moving singly like those of slumbering harpers,--in the dead winter, +when the white plague of the North has caged its wasted victims, +shuddering as they think of the frozen soil which must be quarried +like rock to receive them, if their perpetual convalescence should +happen to be interfered with by any untoward accident,--at every +season, the narrow sulky rolled round freighted with unmeasured +burdens of joy and woe. + +The Doctor drove along the southern foot of The Mountain. The +"Dudley Mansion" was near the eastern edge of this declivity, where +it rose steepest, with baldest cliffs and densest patches of +overhanging wood. It seemed almost too steep to climb, but a +practised eye could see from a distance the zigzag lines of the +sheep-paths which scaled it like miniature Alpine roads. A few +hundred feet up The Mountain's side was a dark deep dell, unwooded, +save for a few spindling, crazy-looking hackmatacks or native +larches, with pallid green tufts sticking out fantastically all over +them. It shelved so deeply, that, while the hemlock-tassels were +swinging on the trees around its border, all would be still at its +springy bottom, save that perhaps a single fern would wave slowly +backward and forward like a sabre with a twist as of a feathered +oar,--and this when not a breath could be felt, and every other stem +and blade were motionless. There was an old story of one having +perished here in the winter of '86, and his body having been found in +the spring,--whence its common name of "Dead-Man's Hollow." Higher +up there were huge cliffs with chasms, and, it was thought, concealed +caves, where in old times they said that Tories lay hid,--some hinted +not without occasional aid and comfort from the Dudleys then living +in the mansion-house. Still higher and farther west lay the accursed +ledge,--shunned by all, unless it were now and then a daring youth, +or a wandering naturalist who ventured to its edge in the hope of +securing some infantile Crotalus durissus, who had not yet cut his +poison teeth. + +Long, long ago, in old Colonial times, the Honorable Thomas Dudley, +Esquire, a man of note and name and great resources, allied by +descent to the family of "Tom Dudley," as the early Governor is +sometimes irreverently called by our most venerable, but still +youthful antiquary,--and to the other public Dudleys, of course,--of +all of whom he made small account, as being himself an English +gentleman, with little taste for the splendors of provincial office, +early in the last century, Thomas Dudley had built this mansion. For +several generations it had been dwelt in by descendants of the same +name, but soon after the Revolution it passed by marriage into the +hands of the Venners, by whom it had ever since been held and +tenanted. + +As the doctor turned an angle in the road, all at once the stately +old house rose before him. It was a skilfully managed effect, as it +well might be, for it was no vulgar English architect who had planned +the mansion and arranged its position and approach. The old house +rose before the Doctor, crowning a terraced garden, flanked at the +left by an avenue of tall elms. The flower-beds were edged with box, +which diffused around it that dreamy balsamic odor, full of ante- +natal reminiscences of a lost Paradise, dimly fragrant as might be +the bdellium of ancient Havilah, the land compassed by the river +Pison that went out of Eden. The garden was somewhat neglected, but +not in disgrace,--and in the time of tulips and hyacinths, of roses, +of "snowballs," of honeysuckles, of lilacs, of syringas, it was rich +with blossoms. + +From the front-windows of the mansion the eye reached a far blue +mountain-summit,--no rounded heap, such as often shuts in a village- +landscape, but a sharp peak, clean-angled as Ascutney from the +Dartmouth green. A wide gap through miles of woods had opened this +distant view, and showed more, perhaps, than all the labors of the +architect and the landscape-gardener the large style of the early +Dudleys. + +The great stone-chimney of the mansion-house was the centre from +which all the artificial features of the scene appeared to flow. The +roofs, the gables, the dormer-windows, the porches, the clustered +offices in the rear, all seemed to crowd about the great chimney. To +this central pillar the paths all converged. The single poplar +behind the house,--Nature is jealous of proud chimneys, and always +loves to put a poplar near one, so that it may fling a leaf or two +down its black throat every autumn,--the one tall poplar behind the +house seemed to nod and whisper to the grave square column, the elms +to sway their branches towards it. And when the blue smoke rose from +its summit, it seemed to be wafted away to join the azure haze which +hung around the peak in the far distance, so that both should bathe +in a common atmosphere. + +Behind the house were clumps of lilacs with a century's growth upon +them, and looking more like trees than like shrubs. Shaded by a +group of these was the ancient well, of huge circuit, and with a low +arch opening out of its wall about ten feet below the surface,-- +whether the door of a crypt for the concealment of treasure, or of a +subterranean passage, or merely of a vault for keeping provisions +cool in hot weather, opinions differed. + +On looking at the house, it was plain that it was built with Old- +World notions of strength and durability, and, so far as might be, +with Old-World materials. The hinges of the doors stretched out like +arms, instead of like hands, as we make them. The bolts were massive +enough for a donjon-keep. The small window-panes were actually +inclosed in the wood of the sashes instead of being stuck to them +with putty, as in our modern windows. The broad staircase was of +easy ascent, and was guarded by quaintly turned and twisted +balusters. The ceilings of the two rooms of state were moulded with +medallion-portraits and rustic figures, such as may have been seen by +many readers in the famous old Philipse house,--Washington's head- +quarters,--in the town of Yorkers. The fire-places, worthy of the +wide-throated central chimney, were bordered by pictured tiles, some +of them with Scripture stories, some with Watteau-like figures,--tall +damsels in slim waists and with spread enough of skirt for a modern +ballroom, with bowing, reclining, or musical swains of what everybody +calls the "conventional" sort,--that is, the swain adapted to genteel +society rather than to a literal sheep-compelling existence. + +The house was furnished, soon after it was completed, with many heavy +articles made in London from a rare wood just then come into fashion, +not so rare now, and commonly known as mahogany. Time had turned it +very dark, and the stately bedsteads and tall cabinets and claw- +footed chairs and tables were in keeping with the sober dignity of +the ancient mansion. The old "hangings" were yet preserved in the +chambers, faded, but still showing their rich patterns,--properly +entitled to their name, for they were literally hung upon flat wooden +frames like trellis-work, which again were secured to the naked +partitions. + +There were portraits of different date on the walls of the various +apartments, old painted coats-of-arms, bevel-edged mirrors, and in +one sleeping-room a glass case of wax-work flowers and spangly +symbols, with a legend signifying that E. M. (supposed to be +Elizabeth Mascarene) wished not to be "forgot" + + "When I am dead and lay'd in dust + And all my bones are"--- + +Poor E. M.! Poor everybody that sighs for earthly remembrance in a +planet with a core of fire and a crust of fossils! + +Such was the Dudley mansion-house,--for it kept its ancient name in +spite of the change in the line of descent. Its spacious apartments +looked dreary and desolate; for here Dudley Venner and his daughter +dwelt by themselves, with such servants only as their quiet mode of +life required. He almost lived in his library, the western room on +the ground-floor. Its window looked upon a small plat of green, in +the midst of which was a single grave marked by a plain marble slab. +Except this room, and the chamber where he slept, and the servants' +wing, the rest of the house was all Elsie's. She was always a +restless, wandering child from her early years, and would have her +little bed moved from one chamber to another,--flitting round as the +fancy took her. Sometimes she would drag a mat and a pillow into one +of the great empty rooms, and, wrapping herself in a shawl, coil up +and go to sleep in a corner. Nothing frightened her; the "haunted" +chamber, with the torn hangings that flapped like wings when there +was air stirring, was one of her favorite retreats. She had been a +very hard creature to manage. Her father could influence, but not +govern her. Old Sophy, born of a slave mother in the house, could do +more with her than anybody, knowing her by long instinctive study. +The other servants were afraid of her. Her father had sent for +governesses, but none of them ever stayed long. She made them +nervous; one of them had a strange fit of sickness; not one of them +ever came back to the house to see her. A young Spanish woman who +taught her dancing succeeded best with her, for she had a passion for +that exercise, and had mastered some of the most difficult dances. +Long before this period, she had manifested some most extraordinary +singularities of taste or instinct. The extreme sensitiveness of her +father on this point prevented any allusion to them; but there were +stories floating round, some of them even getting into the papers,-- +without her name, of course,--which were of a kind to excite intense +curiosity, if not more anxious feelings. This thing was certain, +that at the age of twelve she was missed one night, and was found +sleeping in the open air under a tree, like a wild creature. Very +often she would wander off by day, always without a companion, +bringing home with her a nest, a flower, or even a more questionable +trophy of her ramble, such as showed that there was no place where +she was afraid to venture. Once in a while she had stayed out over +night, in which case the alarm was spread, and men went in search of +her, but never successfully,--so--that some said she hid herself in +trees, and others that she had found one of the old Tory caves. + +Some, of course, said she was a crazy girl, and ought to be sent to +an Asylum. But old Dr. Kittredge had shaken his head, and told them +to bear with her, and let her have her way as much as they could, but +watch her, as far as possible, without making her suspicious of them. +He visited her now and then, under the pretext of seeing her father +on business, or of only making a friendly call. + +The Doctor fastened his horse outside the gate, and walked up the +garden-alley. He stopped suddenly with a start. A strange sound +had jarred upon his ear. It was a sharp prolonged rattle, +continuous, but rising and falling as if in rhythmical cadence. He +moved softly towards the open window from which the sound seemed to +proceed. + +Elsie was alone in the room, dancing one of those wild Moorish +fandangos, such as a matador hot from the Plaza de Toros of Seville +or Madrid might love to lie and gaze at. She was a figure to look +upon in silence. The dancing frenzy must have seized upon her while +she was dressing; for she was in her bodice, bare-armed, her hair +floating unbound far below the waist of her barred or banded skirt. +She had caught up her castanets, and rattled them as she danced with +a kind of passionate fierceness, her lithe body undulating with +flexuous grace, her diamond eyes glittering, her round arms wreathing +and unwinding, alive and vibrant to the tips of the slender fingers. +Some passion seemed to exhaust itself in this dancing paroxysm; for +all at once she reeled from the middle of the floor, and flung +herself, as it were in a careless coil, upon a great tiger's-skin +which was spread out in one corner of the apartment. + +The old Doctor stood motionless, looking at her as she lay panting on +the tawny, black-lined robe of the dead monster which stretched out +beneath her, its rude flattened outline recalling the Terror of the +Jungle as he crouched for his fatal spring. In a few moments her +head drooped upon her arm, and her glittering eyes closed,--she was +sleeping. He stood looking at her still, steadily, thoughtfully, +tenderly. Presently he lifted his hand to his forehead, as if +recalling some fading remembrance of other years. + +"Poor Catalina!" + +This was all he said. He shook his head,--implying that his visit +would be in vain to-day,--returned to his sulky, and rode away, as if +in a dream. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +COUSIN RICHARD'S VISIT. + +The Doctor was roused from his revery by the clatter of approaching +hoofs. He looked forward and saw a young fellow galloping rapidly +towards him. + +A common New-England rider with his toes turned out, his elbows +jerking and the daylight showing under him at every step, bestriding +a cantering beast of the plebeian breed, thick at every point where +he should be thin, and thin at every point where he should be thick, +is not one of those noble objects that bewitch the world. The best +horsemen outside of the cities are the unshod countryboys, who ride +"bareback," with only a halter round the horse's neck, digging their +brown heels into his ribs, and slanting over backwards, but sticking +on like leeches, and taking the hardest trot as if they loved it.--- +This was a different sight on which the Doctor was looking. The +streaming mane and tail of the unshorn, savage-looking, black horse, +the dashing grace with which the young fellow in the shadowy +sombrero, and armed with the huge spurs, sat in his high-peaked +saddle, could belong only to the mustang of the Pampas and his +master. This bold rider was a young man whose sudden apparition in +the quiet inland town had reminded some of the good people of a +bright, curly-haired boy they had known some eight or ten years +before as little Dick Venner. + +This boy had passed several of his early years at the Dudley mansion, +the playmate of Elsie, being her cousin, two or three years older +than herself, the son of Captain Richard Venner, a South American +trader, who, as he changed his residence often, was glad to leave the +boy in his brother's charge. The Captain's wife, this boy's mother, +was a lady of Buenos Ayres, of Spanish descent, and had died while +the child was in his cradle. These two motherless children were as +strange a pair as one roof could well cover. Both handsome, wild, +impetuous, unmanageable, they played and fought together like two +young leopards, beautiful, but dangerous, their lawless instincts +showing through all their graceful movements. + +The boy was little else than a young Gaucho when he first came to +Rockland; for he had learned to ride almost as soon as to walk, and +could jump on his pony and trip up a runaway pig with the bolas or +noose him with his miniature lasso at an age when some city-children +would hardly be trusted out of sight of a nursery-maid. It makes men +imperious to sit a horse; no man governs his fellows so well as from +this living throne. And so, from Marcus Aurelius in Roman bronze, +down to the "man on horseback" in General Cushing's prophetic speech, +the saddle has always been the true seat of empire. The absolute +tyranny of the human will over a noble and powerful beast develops +the instinct of personal prevalence and dominion; so that horse- +subduer and hero were almost synonymous in simpler times, and are +closely related still. An ancestry of wild riders naturally enough +bequeaths also those other tendencies which we see in the Tartars, +the Cossacks, and our own Indian Centaurs, and as well, perhaps, in +the old-fashioned fox-hunting squire as in any of these. Sharp +alternations of violent action and self-indulgent repose; a hard run, +and a long revel after it; this is what over-much horse tends to +animalize a man into. Such antecedents may have helped to make +little Dick Venner a self-willed, capricious boy, and a rough +playmate for Elsie. + +Elsie was the wilder of the two. Old Sophy, who used to watch them +with those quick, animal-looking eyes of hers,--she was said to be +the granddaughter of a cannibal chief, and inherited the keen senses +belonging to all creatures which are hunted as game, Old Sophy, who +watched them in their play and their quarrels, always seemed to be +more afraid for the boy than the girl. "Masse Dick! Masse Dick! +don' you be too rough wi' dat gal! She scratch you las' week, 'n' +some day she bite you; 'n' if she bite you, Masse Dick! "Old Sophy +nodded her head ominously, as if she could say a great deal more; +while, in grateful acknowledgment of her caution, Master Dick put his +two little fingers in the angles of his mouth, and his forefingers on +his lower eyelids, drawing upon these features until his expression +reminded her of something she vaguely recollected in her infancy,-- +the face of a favorite deity executed in wood by an African artist +for her grandfather, brought over by her mother, and burned when she +became a Christian. + +These two wild children had much in common. They loved to ramble +together, to build huts, to climb trees for nests, to ride the colts, +to dance, to race, and to play at boys' rude games as if both were +boys. But wherever two natures have a great deal in common, the +conditions of a first-rate quarrel are furnished ready-made. +Relations are very apt to hate each other just because they are too +much alike. It is so frightful to be in an atmosphere of family +idiosyncrasies; to see all the hereditary uncomeliness or infirmity +of body, all the defects of speech, all the failings of temper, +intensified by concentration, so that every fault of our own finds +itself multiplied by reflections, like our images in a saloon lined. +with mirrors! Nature knows what she is about. The centrifugal +principle which grows out of the antipathy of like to like is only +the repetition in character of the arrangement we see expressed +materially in certain seed-capsules, which burst and throw the seed +to all points of the compass. A house is a large pod with a human +germ or two in each of its cells or chambers; it opens by dehiscence +of the front-door by and by, and projects one of its germs to Kansas, +another to San Francisco, another to Chicago, and so on; and this +that Smith may not be Smithed to death and Brown may not be Browned +into a mad-house, but mix in with the world again and struggle back +to average humanity. + +Elsie's father, whose fault was to indulge her in everything, found +that it would never do to let these children grow up together. They +would either love each other as they got older, and pair like wild +creatures, or take some fierce antipathy, which might end nobody +could tell where. It was not safe to try. The boy must be sent +away. A sharper quarrel than common decided this point. Master Dick +forgot Old Sophy's caution, and vexed the girl into a paroxysm of +wrath, in which she sprang at him and bit his arm. Perhaps they made +too much of it; for they sent for the old Doctor, who came at once +when he heard what had happened. He had a good deal to say about the +danger there was from the teeth of animals or human beings when +enraged; and as he emphasized his remarks by the application of a +pencil of lunar caustic to each of the marks left by the sharp white +teeth, they were like to be remembered by at least one of his +hearers. + +So Master Dick went off on his travels, which led him into strange +places and stranger company. Elsie was half pleased and half sorry +to have him go; the children had a kind of mingled liking and hate +for each other, just such as is very common among relations. Whether +the girl had most satisfaction in the plays they shared, or in +teasing him, or taking her small revenge upon him for teasing her, it +would have been hard to say. At any rate, she was lonely without +him. She had more fondness for the old black woman than anybody; but +Sophy could not follow her far beyond her own old rocking-chair. As +for her father, she had made him afraid of her, not for his sake, but +for her own. Sometimes she would seem to be fond of him, and the +parent's heart would yearn within him as she twined her supple arms +about him; and then some look she gave him, some half-articulated +expression, would turn his cheek pale and almost make him shiver, and +he would say kindly, "Now go, Elsie, dear," and smile upon her as +she went, and close and lock the door softly after her. Then his +forehead would knot and furrow itself, and the drops of anguish stand +thick upon it. He would go to the western window of his study and +look at the solitary mound with the marble slab for its head-stone. +After his grief had had its way, he would kneel down and pray for his +child as one who has no hope save in that special grace which can +bring the most rebellious spirit into sweet subjection. All this +might seem like weakness in a parent having the charge of one sole +daughter of his house and heart; but he had tried authority and +tenderness by turns so long without any good effect, that he had +become sore perplexed, and, surrounding her with cautious +watchfulness as he best might, left her in the main to her own +guidance and the merciful influences which Heaven might send down to +direct her footsteps. + +Meantime the boy grew up to youth and early manhood through a strange +succession of adventures. He had been at school at Buenos Ayres,-- +had quarrelled with his mother's relatives,--had run off to the +Pampas, and lived with the Gauchos;--had made friends with the +Indians, and ridden with them, it was rumored, in some of their +savage forays,--had returned and made up his quarrel,--had got money +by inheritance or otherwise,--had troubled the peace of certain +magistrates,--had found it convenient to leave the City of Wholesome +Breezes for a time, and had galloped off on a fast horse of his, (so +it was said,) with some officers riding after him, who took good care +(but this was only the popular story) not to catch him. A few days +after this he was taking his ice on the Alameda of Mendoza, and a +week or two later sailed from Valparaiso for New York, carrying with +him the horse with which he had scampered over the Plains, a trunk or +two with his newly purchased outfit of, clothing and other +conveniences, and a belt heavy with gold and with a few Brazilian +diamonds sewed in it, enough in value to serve him for a long +journey. + +Dick Venner had seen life enough to wear out the earlier +sensibilities of adolescence. He was tired of worshipping or +tyrannizing over the bistred or umbered beauties of mingled blood +among whom he had been living. Even that piquant exhibition which +the Rio de Mendoza presents to the amateur of breathing sculpture +failed to interest him. He was thinking of a far-off village on the +other side of the equator, and of the wild girl with whom he used to +play and quarrel, a creature of a different race from these +degenerate mongrels. + +"A game little devil she was, sure enough!"--And as Dick spoke, he +bared his wrist to look for the marks she had left on it: two small +white scars, where the two small sharp upper teeth had struck when +she flashed at him with her eyes sparkling as bright as those +glittering stones sewed up in the belt he wore. "That's a filly +worth noosing!" said Dick to himself, as he looked in admiration at +the sign of her spirit and passion. "I wonder if she will bite at +eighteen as she did at eight! She shall have a chance to try, at any +rate!" + +Such was the self-sacrificing disposition with which Richard Venner, +Esq., a passenger by the Condor from Valparaiso, set foot upon his +native shore, and turned his face in the direction of Rockland, The +Mountain, and the mansion-house. He had heard something, from time +to time, of his New-England relatives, and knew that they were living +together as he left them. And so he heralded himself to "My dear +Uncle" by a letter signed "Your loving nephew, Richard Venner," in +which letter he told a very frank story of travel and mercantile +adventure, expressed much gratitude for the excellent counsel and +example which had helped to form his character and preserve him in +the midst of temptation, inquired affectionately after his uncle's +health, was much interested to know whether his lively cousin who +used to be his playmate had grown up as handsome as she promised to +be, and announced his intention of paying his respects to them both +at Rockland. Not long after this came the trunks marked R. V. which +he had sent before him, forerunners of his advent: he was not going +to wait for a reply or an invitation. + +What a sound that is,--the banging down of the preliminary trunk, +without its claimant to give it the life which is borrowed by all +personal appendages, so long as the owner's hand or eye is on them! +If it announce the coming of one loved and longed for, how we delight +to look at it, to sit down on it, to caress it in our fancies, as a +lone exile walking out on a windy pier yearns towards the merchantman +lying alongside, with the colors of his own native land at her peak, +and the name of the port he sailed from long ago upon her stern! But +if it tell the near approach of the undesired, inevitable guest, what +sound short of the muffled noises made by the undertakers as they +turn the corners in the dim-lighted house, with low shuffle of feet +and whispered cautions, carries such a sense of knocking-kneed +collapse with it as the thumping down in the front entry of the heavy +portmanteau, rammed with the changes of uncounted coming weeks? + +Whether the R. V. portmanteaus brought one or the other of these +emotions to the tenants of the Dudley mansion, it might not be easy +to settle. Elsie professed to be pleased with the thought of having +an adventurous young stranger, with stories to tell, an inmate of +their quiet, not to say dull, family. Under almost any other +circumstances, her father would have been unwilling to take a young +fellow of whom he knew so little under his roof; but this was his +nephew, and anything that seemed like to amuse or please Elsie was +agreeable to him. He had grown almost desperate, and felt as if any +change in the current of her life and feelings might save her from +some strange paroxysm of dangerous mental exaltation or sullen +perversion of disposition, from which some fearful calamity might +come to herself or others. + +Dick had been several weeks at the Dudley mansion. A few days +before, he had made a sudden dash for the nearest large city,--and +when the Doctor met him, he was just returning from his visit. + +It had been a curious meeting between the two young persons, who had +parted so young and after such strange relations with each other. +When Dick first presented himself at the mansion, not one in the +house would have known him for the boy who had left them all so +suddenly years ago. He was so dark, partly from his descent, partly +from long habits of exposure, that Elsie looked almost fair beside +him. He had something of the family beauty which belonged to his +cousin, but his eye had a fierce passion in it, very unlike the cold +glitter of Elsie's. Like many people of strong and imperious temper, +he was soft-voiced and very gentle in his address, when he had no +special reason for being otherwise. He soon found reasons enough to +be as amiable as he could force himself to be with his uncle and his +cousin. Elsie was to his fancy. She had a strange attraction for +him, quite unlike anything he had ever known in other women. There +was something, too, in early associations: when those who parted as +children meet as man and woman, there is always a renewal of that +early experience which followed the taste of the forbidden fruit,--a +natural blush of consciousness, not without its charm. + +Nothing could be more becoming than the behavior of "Richard Venner, +Esquire, the guest of Dudley Venner, Esquire, at his noble mansion," +as he was announced in the Court column of the "Rockland Weekly +Universe." He was pleased to find himself treated with kindness and +attention as a relative. He made himself very agreeable by abundant +details concerning the religious, political, social, commercial, and +educational progress of the South American cities and states. He was +himself much interested in everything that was going on about the +Dudley mansion, walked all over it, noticed its valuable wood-lots +with special approbation, was delighted with the grand old house and +its furniture, and would not be easy until he had seen all the family +silver and heard its history. In return, he had much to tell of his +father, now dead,--the only one of the Venners, beside themselves, in +whose fate his uncle was interested. With Elsie, he was subdued and +almost tender in his manner; with the few visitors whom they saw, shy +and silent,--perhaps a little watchful, if any young man happened to +be among them. + +Young fellows placed on their good behavior are apt to get restless +and nervous, all ready to fly off into some mischief or other. Dick +Venner had his half-tamed horse with him to work off his suppressed +life with. When the savage passion of his young blood came over him, +he would fetch out the mustang, screaming and kicking as these +amiable beasts are wont to do, strap the Spanish saddle tight to his +back, vault into it, and, after getting away from the village, strike +the long spurs into his sides and whirl away in a wild gallop, until +the black horse was flecked with white foam, and the cruel steel +points were red with his blood. When horse and rider were alike +fired, he would fling the bridle on his neck and saunter homeward, +always contriving to get to the stable in a quiet way, and coming +into the house as calm as a bishop after a sober trot on his steady- +going cob. + +After a few weeks of this kind of life, he began to want some more +fierce excitement. He had tried making downright love to Elsie, with +no great success as yet, in his own opinion. The girl was capricious +in her treatment of him, sometimes scowling and repellent, sometimes +familiar, very often, as she used to be of old, teasing and +malicious. All this, perhaps, made her more interesting to a young +man who was tired of easy conquests. There was a strange fascination +in her eyes, too, which at times was quite irresistible, so that he +would feel himself drawn to her by a power which seemed to take away +his will for the moment. It may have been nothing but the common +charm of bright eyes; but he had never before experienced the same +kind of attraction. + +Perhaps she was not so very different from what she had been as a +child, after all. At any rate, so it seemed to Dick Venner, who, as +was said before, had tried making love to her. They were sitting +alone in the study one day; Elsie had round her neck that somewhat +peculiar ornament, the golden torque, which she had worn to the great +party. Youth is adventurous and very curious about necklaces, +brooches, chains, and other such adornments, so long as they are worn +by young persons of the female sex. Dick was seized with a great +passion for examining this curious chain, and, after some preliminary +questions, was rash enough to lean towards her and put out his hand +toward the neck that lay in the golden coil. + +She threw her head back, her eyes narrowing and her forehead drawing +down so that Dick thought her head actually flattened itself. He +started involuntarily; for she looked so like the little girl who had +struck him with those sharp flashing teeth, that the whole scene came +back, and he felt the stroke again as if it had just been given, and +the two white scars began to sting as they did after the old Doctor +had burned them with that stick of gray caustic, which looked so like +a slate pencil, and felt so much like the end of a red-hot poker. + +It took something more than a gallop to set him right after this. +The next day he mentioned having received a letter from a mercantile +agent with whom he had dealings. What his business was is, perhaps, +none of our business. At any rate, it required him to go at once to +the city where his correspondent resided. + +Independently of this "business" which called him, there may have +been other motives, such as have been hinted at. People who have +been living for a long time in dreary country-places, without any +emotion beyond such as are occasioned by a trivial pleasure or +annoyance, often get crazy at last for a vital paroxysm of some kind +or other. In this state they rush to the great cities for a plunge +into their turbid life-baths, with a frantic thirst for every +exciting pleasure, which makes them the willing and easy victims of +all those who sell the Devil's wares on commission. The less +intelligent and instructed class of unfortunates, who venture with +their ignorance and their instincts into what is sometimes called the +"life" of great cities, are put through a rapid course of instruction +which entitles them very commonly to a diploma from the police court. +But they only illustrate the working of the same tendency in mankind +at large which has been occasionally noticed in the sons of ministers +and other eminently worthy people, by many ascribed to that intense +congenital hatred for goodness which distinguishes human nature from +that of the brute, but perhaps as readily accounted for by +considering it as the yawning and stretching of a young soul cramped +too long in one moral posture. + +Richard Veneer was a young man of remarkable experience for his +years. He ran less risk, therefore, in exposing himself to the +temptations and dangers of a great city than many older men, who, +seeking the livelier scenes of excitement to be found in large towns +as a relaxation after the monotonous routine of family life, are too +often taken advantage of and made the victims of their sentiments or +their generous confidence in their fellow-creatures. Such was not +his destiny. There was something about him which looked as if he +would not take bullying kindly. He had also the advantage of being +acquainted with most of those ingenious devices by which the +proverbial inconstancy of fortune is steadied to something more +nearly approaching fixed laws, and the dangerous risks which have so +often led young men to ruin and suicide are practically reduced to +somewhat less than nothing. So that Mr. Richard Veneer worked off +his nervous energies without any troublesome adventure, and was ready +to return to Rockland in less than a week, without having lightened +the money-belt he wore round his body, or tarnished the long +glittering knife he carried in his boot. + +Dick had sent his trunk to the nearest town through which the +railroad leading to the city passed. He rode off on his black horse +and left him at the place where he took the cars. On arriving at the +city station, he took a coach and drove to one of the great hotels. +Thither drove also a sagacious-looking, middle-aged man, who entered +his name as "W. Thompson" in the book at the office immediately +after that of "R. Venner." Mr. "Thompson" kept a carelessly +observant eye upon Mr. Venner during his stay at the hotel, and +followed him to the cars when he left, looking over his shoulder when +he bought his ticket at the station, and seeing him fairly off +without obtruding himself in any offensive way upon his attention. +Mr. Thompson, known in other quarters as Detective Policeman Terry, +got very little by his trouble. Richard Venner did not turn out to +be the wife-poisoner, the defaulting cashier, the river-pirate, or +the great counterfeiter. He paid his hotel-bill as a gentleman +should always do, if he has the money and can spare it. The +detective had probably overrated his own sagacity when he ventured to +suspect Mr. Venner. He reported to his chief that there was a +knowing-looking fellow he had been round after, but he rather guessed +he was nothing more than "one o' them Southern sportsmen." + +The poor fellows at the stable where Dick had left his horse had had +trouble enough with him. One of the ostlers was limping about with a +lame leg, and another had lost a mouthful of his coat, which came +very near carrying a piece of his shoulder with it. When Mr. Venner +came back for his beast, he was as wild as if he had just been +lassoed, screaming, kicking, rolling over to get rid of his saddle, +and when his rider was at last mounted, jumping about in a way to +dislodge any common horseman. To all this Dick replied by sticking +his long spurs deeper and deeper into his flanks, until the creature +found he was mastered, and dashed off as if all the thistles of the +Pampas were pricking him. + +"One more gallop, Juan?" This was in the last mile of the road +before he came to the town which brought him in sight of the mansion- +house. It was in this last gallop that the fiery mustang and his +rider flashed by the old Doctor. Cassia pointed her sharp ears and +shied to let them pass. The Doctor turned and looked through the +little round glass in the back of his sulky. + +"Dick Turpin, there, will find more than his match!" said the Doctor. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE APOLLINEAN INSTITUTE. +(With Extracts from the "Report of the committee.") + +The readers of this narrative will hardly expect any elaborate +details of the educational management of the Apollinean Institute. +They cannot be supposed to take the same interest in its affairs as +was shown by the Annual Committees who reported upon its condition +and prospects. As these Committees were, however, an important part +of the mechanism of the establishment, some general account of their +organization and a few extracts from the Report of the one last +appointed may not be out of place. + +Whether Mr. Silas Peckham had some contrivance for packing his +Committees, whether they happened always to be made up of optimists +by nature, whether they were cajoled into good-humor by polite +attentions, or whether they were always really delighted with the +wonderful acquirements of the pupils and the admirable order of the +school, it is certain that their Annual Reports were couched in +language which might warm the heart of the most cold-blooded and +calculating father that ever had a family of daughters to educate. +In fact, these Annual Reports were considered by Mr. Peckham as his +most effective advertisements. + +The first thing, therefore, was to see that the Committee was made up +of persons known to the public. + +Some worn-out politician, in that leisurely and amiable transition- +state which comes between official extinction and the paralysis which +will finish him as soon as his brain gets a little softer, made an +admirable Chairman for Mr. Peckham, when he had the luck to pick up +such an article. Old reputations, like old fashions, are more prized +in the grassy than in the stony districts. An effete celebrity, who +would never be heard of again in the great places until the funeral +sermon waked up his memory for one parting spasm, finds himself in +full flavor of renown a little farther back from the changing winds +of the sea-coast. If such a public character was not to be had, so +that there was no chance of heading the Report with the name of the +Honorable Mr. Somebody, the next best thing was to get the Reverend +Dr. Somebody to take that conspicuous position. Then would follow +two or three local worthies with Esquire after their names. If any +stray literary personage from one of the great cities happened to be +within reach, he was pounced upon by Mr. Silas Peckham. It was a +hard case for the poor man, who had travelled a hundred miles or two +to the outside suburbs after peace and unwatered milk, to be pumped +for a speech in this unexpected way. It was harder still, if he had +been induced to venture a few tremulous remarks, to be obliged to +write them out for the "Rockland Weekly Universe," with the chance of +seeing them used as an advertising certificate as long as he lived, +if he lived as long as the late Dr. Waterhouse did after giving his +certificate in favor of Whitwell's celebrated Cephalic Snuff. + +The Report of the last Committee had been signed by the Honorable, +___________late __________ of ____________, as Chairman. (It is with +reluctance that the name and titles are left in blank; but our public +characters are so familiarly known to the whole community that this +reserve becomes necessary.) The other members of the Committee were +the Reverend Mr. Butters, of a neighboring town, who was to make the +prayer before the Exercises of the Exhibition, and two or three +notabilities of Rockland, with geoponic eyes, and glabrous, bumpless +foreheads. A few extracts from the Report are subjoined: + + +"The Committee have great pleasure in recording their unanimous +opinion, that the Institution was never in so flourishing a +condition.... + +"The health of the pupils is excellent; the admirable quality of food +supplied shows itself in their appearance; their blooming aspect +excited the admiration of the Committee, and bears testimony to the +assiduity of the excellent Matron. + +"......moral and religious condition most encouraging, which they +cannot but attribute to the personal efforts and instruction of the +faithful Principal, who considers religious instruction a solemn duty +which he cannot commit to other people. + +"......great progress in their studies, under the intelligent +superintendence of the accomplished Principal, assisted by Mr. +Badger, [Mr. Langdon's predecessor,] Miss Darley, the lady who +superintends the English branches, Miss Crabs, her assistant and +teacher of Modern Languages, and Mr. Schneider, teacher of French, +German, Latin, and Music.... + +"Education is the great business of the Institute. Amusements are +objects of a secondary nature; but these are by no means +neglected.... + +"......English compositions of great originality and beauty, +creditable alike to the head and heart of their accomplished +authors.... several poems of a very high order of merit, which would +do honor to the literature of any age or country.... life-like +drawings, showing great proficiency.... Many converse fluently in +various modern languages.... perform the most difficult airs with +the skill of professional musicians.... + +"......advantages unsurpassed, if equalled by those of any +Institution in the country, and reflecting the highest honor on the +distinguished Head of the Establishment, SILAS PECKHAM, Esquire, and +his admirable Lady, the MATRON, with their worthy assistants...." + + +The perusal of this Report did Mr. Bernard more good than a week's +vacation would have done: It gave him such a laugh as he had not had +for a month. The way in which Silas Peckham had made his Committee +say what he wanted them to--for he recognized a number of expressions +in the Report as coming directly from the lips of his principal, and +could not help thinking how cleverly he had forced his phrases, as +jugglers do the particular card they wish their dupe to take--struck +him as particularly neat and pleasing. + +He had passed through the sympathetic and emotional stages in his new +experience, and had arrived at the philosophical and practical state, +which takes things coolly, and goes to work to set them right. He +had breadth enough of view to see that there was nothing so very +exceptional in this educational trader's dealings with his +subordinates, but he had also manly feeling enough to attack the +particular individual instance of wrong before him. There are plenty +of dealer's in morals, as in ordinary traffic, who confine themselves +to wholesale business. They leave the small necessity of their next- +door neighbor to the retailers, who are poorer in statistics and +general facts, but richer in the every-day charities. Mr. Bernard +felt, at first, as one does who sees a gray rat steal out of a drain +and begin gnawing at the bark of some tree loaded with fruit or +blossoms, which he will soon girdle, if he is let alone. The first +impulse is to murder him with the nearest ragged stone. Then one +remembers that he is a rodent, acting after the law of his kind, and +cools down and is contented to drive him off and guard the tree +against his teeth for the future. As soon as this is done, one can +watch his attempts at mischief with a certain amusement. + +This was the kind of process Mr. Bernard had gone through. First, +the indignant surprise of a generous nature, when it comes +unexpectedly into relations with a mean one. Then the impulse of +extermination,--a divine instinct, intended to keep down vermin of +all classes to their working averages in the economy of Nature. Then +a return of cheerful tolerance,--a feeling, that, if the Deity could +bear with rats and sharpers, he could; with a confident trust, that, +in the long run, terriers and honest men would have the upperhand, +and a grateful consciousness that he had been sent just at the right +time to come between a patient victim and the master who held her in +peonage. + +Having once made up his mind what to do, Mr. Bernard was as good- +natured and hopeful as ever. He had the great advantage, from his +professional training, of knowing how to recognize and deal with +the nervous disturbances to which overtasked women are so liable. He +saw well enough that Helen Darley would certainly kill herself or +lose her wits, if he could not lighten her labors and lift off a +large part of her weight of cares. The worst of it was, that she was +one of those women who naturally overwork themselves, like those +horses who will go at the top of their pace until they drop. Such +women are dreadfully unmanageable. It is as hard reasoning with them +as it would have been reasoning with Io, when she was flying over +land and sea, driven by the sting of the never-sleeping gadfly. + +This was a delicate, interesting game that he played. Under one +innocent pretext or another, he invaded this or that special province +she had made her own. He would collect the themes and have them all +read and marked, answer all the puzzling questions in mathematics, +make the other teachers come to him for directions, and in this way +gradually took upon himself not only all the general superintendence +that belonged to his office, but stole away so many of the special +duties which might fairly have belonged to his assistant, that, +before she knew it, she was looking better and feeling more cheerful +than for many and many a month before. + +When the nervous energy is depressed by any bodily cause, or +exhausted by overworking, there follow effects which have often been +misinterpreted by moralists, and especially by theologians. The +conscience itself becomes neuralgic, sometimes actually inflamed, so +that the least touch is agony. Of all liars and false accusers, a +sick conscience is the most inventive and indefatigable. The devoted +daughter, wife, mother, whose life has been given to unselfish +labors, who has filled a place which it seems to others only an angel +would make good, reproaches herself with incompetence and neglect of +duty. The humble Christian, who has been a model to others, calls +himself a worm of the dust on one page of his diary, and arraigns +himself on the next for coming short of the perfection of an +archangel. + +Conscience itself requires a conscience, or nothing can be more +unscrupulous. It told Saul that he did well in persecuting the +Christians. It has goaded countless multitudes of various creeds to +endless forms of self-torture. The cities of India are full of +cripples it has made. The hill-sides of Syria are riddled with +holes, where miserable hermits, whose lives it had palsied, lived and +died like the vermin they harbored. Our libraries are crammed with +books written by spiritual hypochondriacs, who inspected all their +moral secretions a dozen times a day. They are full of interest, but +they should be transferred from the shelf of the theologian to that +of the medical man who makes a study of insanity. + +This was the state into which too much work and too much +responsibility were bringing Helen Darley, when the new master came +and lifted so much of the burden that was crushing her as must be +removed before she could have a chance to recover her natural +elasticity and buoyancy. Many of the noblest women, suffering like +her, but less fortunate in being relieved at the right moment, die +worried out of life by the perpetual teasing of this inflamed, +neuralgic conscience. So subtile is the line which separates the +true and almost angelic sensibility of a healthy, but exalted nature, +from the soreness of a soul which is sympathizing with a morbid state +of the body that it is no wonder they are often confounded. And thus +many good women are suffered to perish by that form of spontaneous +combustion in which the victim goes on toiling day and night with the +hidden fire consuming her, until all at once her cheek whitens, and, +as we look upon her, she drops away, a heap of ashes. The more they +overwork themselves, the more exacting becomes the sense of duty,--as +the draught of the locomotive's furnace blows stronger and makes the +fire burn more fiercely, the faster it spins along the track. + +It is not very likely, as was said at the beginning of this chapter, +that we shall trouble ourselves a great deal about the internal +affairs of the Apollinean Institute. These schools are, in the +nature of things, not so very unlike each other as to require a +minute description for each particular one among them. They have all +very much the same general features, pleasing and displeasing. All +feeding-establishments have something odious about them,--from the +wretched country-houses where paupers are farmed out to the lowest +bidder, up to the commons-tables at colleges and even the fashionable +boarding-house. A person's appetite should be at war with no other +purse than his own. Young people, especially, who have a bone- +factory at work in them, and have to feed the living looms of +innumerable growing tissues, should be provided for, if possible, by +those who love them like their own flesh and blood. Elsewhere their +appetites will be sure to make them enemies, or, what are almost as +bad, friends whose interests are at variance with the claims of their +exacting necessities and demands. + +Besides, all commercial transactions in regard to the most sacred +interests of life are hateful even to those who profit by them. The +clergyman, the physician, the teacher, must be paid; but each of +them, if his duty be performed in the true spirit, can hardly help a +shiver of disgust when money is counted out to him for administering +the consolations of religion, for saving some precious life, for +sowing the seeds of Christian civilization in young ingenuous souls. + +And yet all these schools, with their provincial French and their +mechanical accomplishments, with their cheap parade of diplomas and +commencements and other public honors, have an ever fresh interest to +all who see the task they are performing in our new social order. +These girls are not being educated for governesses, or to be +exported, with other manufactured articles, to colonies where there +happens to be a surplus of males. Most of them will be wives, and +every American-born husband is a possible President of these United +States. Any one of these girls may be a four-years' queen. There is +no sphere of human activity so exalted that she may not be called +upon to fill it. + +But there is another consideration of far higher interest. The +education of our community to all that is beautiful is flowing in +mainly through its women, and that to a considerable extent by the +aid of these large establishments, the least perfect of which do +something to stimulate the higher tastes and partially instruct them. +Sometimes there is, perhaps, reason to fear that girls will be too +highly educated for their own happiness, if they are lifted by their +culture out of the range of the practical and every-day working youth +by whom they are surrounded. But this is a risk we must take. Our +young men come into active life so early, that, if our girls were not +educated to something beyond mere practical duties, our material +prosperity would outstrip our culture; as it often does in large +places where money is made too rapidly. This is the meaning, +therefore, of that somewhat ambitious programme common to most of +these large institutions, at which we sometimes smile, perhaps +unwisely or uncharitably. + +We shall take it for granted that the routine of instruction went on +at the Apollinean Institute much as it does in other schools of the +same class. People, young or old, are wonderfully different, if we +contrast extremes in pairs. They approach much nearer, if we take +them in groups of twenty. Take two separate hundreds as they come, +without choosing, and you get the gamut of human character in both so +completely that you can strike many chords in each which shall be in +perfect unison with corresponding ones in the other. If we go a step +farther, and compare the population of two villages of the same race +and region, there is such a regularly graduated distribution and +parallelism of character, that it seems as if Nature must turn out +human beings in sets like chessmen. + +It must be confessed that the position in which Mr. Bernard now found +himself had a pleasing danger about it which might well justify all +the fears entertained on his account by more experienced friends, +when they learned that he was engaged in a Young Ladies' Seminary. +The school never went on more smoothly than during the first period +of his administration, after he had arranged its duties, and taken +his share, and even more than his share, upon himself. But human +nature does not wait for the diploma of the Apollinean Institute to +claim the exercise of it, instincts and faculties. These young girls +saw but little of the youth of the neighborhood. The mansion-house +young men were off at college or in the cities, or making love to +each other's sisters, or at any rate unavailable for some reason or +other. There were a few "clerks,"--that is, young men who attended +shops, commonly called "stores,"--who were fond of walking by the +Institute, when they were off duty, for the sake of exchanging a word +or a glance with any one of the young ladies they might happen to +know, if any such were stirring abroad: crude young men, mostly, with +a great many "Sirs" and "Ma'ams" in their speech, and with that style +of address sometimes acquired in the retail business, as if the +salesman were recommending himself to a customer, "First-rate family +article, Ma'am; warranted to wear a lifetime; just one yard and three +quarters in this pattern, Ma'am; sha'n't I have the pleasure?" and so +forth. If there had been ever so many of them, and if they had been +ever so fascinating, the quarantine of the Institute was too rigorous +to allow any romantic infection to be introduced from without. + +Anybody might see what would happen, with a good-looking, well- +dressed, well-bred young man, who had the authority of a master, it +is true, but the manners of a friend and equal, moving about among +these young girls day after day, his eyes meeting theirs, his breath +mingling with theirs, his voice growing familiar to them, never in +any harsh tones, often soothing, encouraging, always sympathetic, +with its male depth and breadth of sound among the chorus of trebles, +as if it were a river in which a hundred of these little piping +streamlets-might lose themselves; anybody might see what would +happen. Young girls wrote home to their parents that they enjoyed +themselves much, this term, at the Institute, and thought they were +making rapid progress in their studies. There was a great enthusiasm +for the young master's reading-classes in English poetry. Some of +the poor little things began to adorn themselves with an extra +ribbon, or a bit of such jewelry as they had before kept for great +occasions. Dear souls! they only half knew what they were doing it +for. Does the bird know why its feathers grow more brilliant and its +voice becomes musical in the pairing season? + +And so, in the midst of this quiet inland town, where a mere accident +had placed Mr. Bernard Langdon, there was a concentration of +explosive materials which might at any time change its Arcadian and +academic repose into a scene of dangerous commotion. What said Helen +Darley, when she saw with her woman's glance that more than one girl, +when she should be looking at her book, was looking over it toward +the master's desk? Was her own heart warmed by any livelier feeling +than gratitude, as its life began to flow with fuller pulses, and the +morning sky again looked bright and the flowers recovered their lost +fragrance? Was there any strange, mysterious affinity between the +master and the dark girl who sat by herself? Could she call him at +will by looking at him? Could it be that--? It made her shiver to +think of it.---And who was that strange horseman who passed Mr. +Bernard at dusk the other evening, looking so like Mephistopheles +galloping hard to be in season at the witches' Sabbath-gathering? +That must be the cousin of Elsie's who wants to marry her, they say. +A dangerous-looking fellow for a rival, if one took a fancy to the +dark girl! And who is she, and what?---by what demon is she haunted, +by what taint is she blighted, by what curse is she followed, by what +destiny is she marked, that her strange beauty has such a terror in +it, and that hardly one shall dare to love her, and her eye glitters +always, but warms for none? + +Some of these questions are ours. Some were Helen Darley's. Some of +them mingled with the dreams of Bernard Langdon, as he slept the +night after meeting the strange horseman. In the morning he happened +to be a little late in entering the schoolroom. There was something +between the leaves of the Virgil which lay upon his desk. He opened +it and saw a freshly gathered mountain-flower. He looked at Elsie, +instinctively, involuntarily. She had another such flower on her +breast. + +A young girl's graceful compliment,--that is all,--no doubt,--no +doubt. It was odd that the flower should have happened to be laid +between the leaves of the Fourth Book of the "AEneid," and at this +line, + + "Incipit effari, mediaque in voce resistit." + +A remembrance of an ancient superstition flashed through the master's +mind, and he determined to try the Sortes Virgilianae. He shut the +volume, and opened it again at a venture.---The story of Laocoon! + +He read with a strange feeling of unwilling fascination, from +"Horresco referees" to "Bis medium amplexi," and flung the book from +him, as if its leaves had been steeped in the subtle poisons that +princes die of. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +CURIOSITY. + +People will talk. 'Ciascun lo dice' is a tune that is played oftener +than the national air of this country or any other. + +"That 's what they say. Means to marry her, if she is his cousin. +Got money himself,--that 's the story,--but wants to come and live in +the old place, and get the Dudley property by and by." "Mother's +folks was wealthy."--"Twenty-three to twenty-five year old."--"He +a'n't more 'n twenty, or twenty-one at the outside."--"Looks as if +he knew too much to be only twenty year old."--"Guess he's been +through the mill,--don't look so green, anyhow, hey? Did y' ever +mind that cut over his left eyebrow?" + +So they gossiped in Rockland. The young fellows could make nothing +of Dick Venner. He was shy and proud with the few who made advances +to him. The young ladies called him handsome and romantic, but he +looked at them like a many-tailed pacha who was in the habit of, +ordering his wives by the dozen. + +"What do you think of the young man over there at the Veneers'?" said +Miss Arabella Thornton to her father. + +"Handsome," said the Judge, "but dangerous-looking. His face is +indictable at common law. Do you know, my dear, I think there is a +blank at the Sheriff's office, with a place for his name in it?" + +The Judge paused and looked grave, as if he had just listened to the +verdict of the jury and was going to pronounce sentence. + +"Have you heard anything against him?" said the Judge's daughter. + +"Nothing. But I don't like these mixed bloods and half-told stories. +Besides, I have seen a good many desperate fellows at the bar, and I +have a fancy they all have a look belonging to them. The worst one I +ever sentenced looked a good deal like this fellow. A wicked mouth. +All our other features are made for us; but a man makes his own +mouth." + +"Who was the person you sentenced?" + +"He was a young fellow that undertook to garrote a man who had won +his money at cards. The same slender shape, the same cunning, fierce +look, smoothed over with a plausible air. Depend upon it, there is +an expression in all the sort of people who live by their wits when +they can, and by worse weapons when their wits fail them, that we old +law-doctors know just as well as the medical counsellors know the +marks of disease in a man's face. Dr. Kittredge looks at a man and +says he is going to die; I look at another man and say he is going to +be hanged, if nothing happens. I don't say so of this one, but I +don't like his looks. I wonder Dudley Veneer takes to him so +kindly." + +"It's all for Elsie's sake," said Miss Thornton. "I feel quite sure +of that. He never does anything that is not meant for her in some +way. I suppose it amuses her to have her cousin about the house. +She rides a good deal since he has been here. Have you seen them +galloping about together? He looks like my idea of a Spanish bandit +on that wild horse of his." + +"Possibly he has been one,--or is one," said the Judge,--smiling as +men smile whose lips have often been freighted with the life and +death of their fellow-creatures. "I met them riding the other day. +Perhaps Dudley is right, if it pleases her to have a companion. What +will happen, though, if he makes love to her? Will Elsie be easily +taken with such a fellow? You young folks are supposed to know more +about these matters than we middle-aged people." + +"Nobody can tell. Elsie is not like anybody else. The girls who +have seen most of her think she hates men, all but 'Dudley,' as she +calls her father. Some of them doubt whether she loves him. They +doubt whether she can love anything human, except perhaps the old +black woman who has taken care of her since she was a baby. The +village people have the strangest stories about her; you know what +they call her?" + +She whispered three words in her father's ear. The Judge changed +color as she spoke, sighed deeply, and was silent as if lost in +thought for a moment. + +"I remember her mother," he said, "so well! A sweeter creature never +lived. Elsie has something of her in her look, but those are not her +mother's eyes. They were dark, but soft, as in all I ever saw of her +race. Her father's are dark too, but mild, and even tender, I should +say. I don't know what there is about Elsie's,--but do you know, my +dear, I find myself curiously influenced by them? I have had to face +a good many sharp eyes and hard ones,--murderers' eyes and pirates', +--men who had to be watched in the bar, where they stood on trial, +for fear they should spring on the prosecuting officers like tigers, +--but I never saw such eyes as Elsie's; and yet they have a kind of +drawing virtue or power about them,--I don't know what else to call +it: have you never observed this?" + +His daughter smiled in her turn. + +"Never observed it? Why, of course, nobody could be with Elsie +Venner and not observe it. There are a good many other strange +things about her: did you ever notice how she dresses?" + +"Why, handsomely enough, I should think," the Judge answered. "I +suppose she dresses as she likes, and sends to the city for what she +wants. What do you mean in particular? We men notice effects in +dress, but not much in detail." + +"You never noticed the colors and patterns of her dresses? You never +remarked anything curious about her ornaments? Well! I don't +believe you men know, half the time, whether a lady wears a nine- +penny collar or a thread-lace cape worth a thousand dollars. I don't +believe you know a silk dress from a bombazine one. I don't believe +you can tell whether a woman is in black or in colors, unless you +happen to know she is a widow. Elsie Venner has a strange taste in +dress, let me tell you. She sends for the oddest patterns of stuffs, +and picks out the most curious things at the jeweller's, whenever she +goes to town with her father. They say the old Doctor tells him to +let her have her way about such matters. Afraid of her mind, if she +is contradicted, I suppose. You've heard about her going to school +at that place,--the 'Institoot,' as those people call it? They say +she's bright enough in her way,--has studied at home, you know, with +her father a good deal, knows some modern languages and Latin, I +believe: at any rate, she would have it so,--she must go to the +'Institoot.' They have a very good female teacher there, I hear; and +the new master, that young Mr. Langdon, looks and talks like a well- +educated young man. I wonder what they 'll make of Elsie, between +them!" + +So they talked at the Judge's, in the calm, judicial-looking mansion- +house, in the grave, still library, with the troops of wan-hued law- +books staring blindly out of their titles at them as they talked, +like the ghosts of dead attorneys fixed motionless and speechless, +each with a thin, golden film over his unwinking eyes. + +In the mean time, everything went on quietly enough after Cousin +Richard's return. A man of sense,--that is, a man who knows +perfectly well that a cool head is worth a dozen warm hearts in +carrying the fortress of a woman's affections, (not yours, "Astarte," +nor yours, "Viola,")--who knows that men are rejected by women every +day because they, the men, love them, and are accepted every day +because they do not, and therefore can study the arts of pleasing,--a +man of sense, when he finds he has established his second parallel +too soon, retires quietly to his first, and begins working on his +covered ways again. The whole art of love may be read in any +Encyclopaedia under the title Fortification, where the terms just +used are explained. After the little adventure of the necklace, Dick +retreated at once to his first parallel. Elsie loved riding,--and +would go off with him on a gallop now and then. He was a master of +all those strange Indian horseback-feats which shame the tricks of +the circus-riders, and used to astonish and almost amuse her +sometimes by disappearing from his saddle, like a phantom horseman +lying flat against the side of the bounding creature that bore him, +as if he were a hunting leopard with his claws in the horse's flank +and flattening himself out against his heaving ribs. Elsie knew a +little Spanish too, which she had learned from the young person who +had taught her dancing, and Dick enlarged her vocabulary with a few +soft phrases, and would sing her a song sometimes, touching the air +upon an ancient-looking guitar they had found with the ghostly things +in the garret,--a quaint old instrument, marked E. M. on the back, +and supposed to have belonged to a certain Elizabeth Mascarene, +before mentioned in connection with a work of art,--a fair, dowerless +lady, who smiled and sung and faded away, unwedded, a hundred years +ago, as dowerless ladies, not a few, are smiling and singing and +fading now,--God grant each of them His love,--and one human heart as +its interpreter! + +As for school, Elsie went or stayed away as she liked. Sometimes, +when they thought she was at her desk in the great schoolroom, she +would be on The Mountain,--alone always. Dick wanted to go with her, +but she would never let him. Once, when she had followed the zigzag +path a little way up, she looked back and caught a glimpse of him +following her. She turned and passed him without a word, but giving +him a look which seemed to make the scars on his wrist tingle, went +to her room, where she locked herself up, and did not come out again +till evening, Old Sophy having brought her food, and set it down, not +speaking, but looking into her eyes inquiringly, like a dumb beast +trying to feel out his master's will in his face. The evening was +clear and the moon shining. As Dick sat at his chamber-window, +looking at the mountain-side, he saw a gray-dressed figure flit +between the trees and steal along the narrow path which led upward. +Elsie's pillow was unpressed that night, but she had not been missed +by the household,--for Dick knew enough to keep his own counsel. The +next morning she avoided him and went off early to school. It was +the same morning that the young master found the flower between the +leaves of his Virgil. + +The girl got over her angry fit, and was pleasant enough with her +cousin for a few days after this; but she shunned rather than sought +him. She had taken a new interest in her books, and especially in +certain poetical readings which the master conducted with the elder +scholars. This gave Master Langdon a good chance to study her ways +when her eye was on her book, to notice the inflections of her voice, +to watch for any expression of her sentiments; for, to tell the +truth, he had a kind of fear that the girl had taken a fancy to him, +and, though she interested him, he did not wish to study her heart +from the inside. + +The more he saw her, the more the sadness of her beauty wrought upon +him. She looked as if she might hate, but could not love. She +hardly smiled at anything, spoke rarely, but seemed to feel that her +natural power of expression lay all in her bright eyes, the force of +which so many had felt, but none perhaps had tried to explain to +themselves. A person accustomed to watch the faces of those who were +ailing in body or mind, and to search in every line and tint for some +underlying source of disorder, could hardly help analyzing the +impression such a face produced upon him. The light of those +beautiful eyes was like the lustre of ice; in all her features there +was nothing of that human warmth which shows that sympathy has +reached the soul beneath the mask of flesh it wears. The look was +that of remoteness, of utter isolation. There was in its stony +apathy, it seemed to him, the pathos which we find in the blind who +show no film or speck over the organs of sight; for Nature had meant +her to be lovely, and left out nothing but love. And yet the master +could not help feeling that some instinct was working in this girl +which was in some way leading her to seek his presence. She did not +lift her glittering eyes upon him as at first. It seemed strange +that she did not, for they were surely her natural weapons of +conquest. Her color did not come and go like that of young girls +under excitement. She had a clear brunette complexion, a little sun- +touched, it may be,--for the master noticed once, when her necklace +was slightly displaced, that a faint ring or band of a little lighter +shade than the rest of the surface encircled her neck. What was the +slight peculiarity of her enunciation, when she read? Not a lisp, +certainly, but the least possible imperfection in articulating some +of the lingual sounds,--just enough to be noticed at first, and quite +forgotten after being a few times heard. + +Not a word about the flower on either side. It was not uncommon for +the schoolgirls to leave a rose or pink or wild flower on the +teacher's desk. Finding it in the Virgil was nothing, after all; it +was a little delicate flower, which looked as if it were made to +press, and it was probably shut in by accident at the particular +place where he found it. He took it into his head to examine it in a +botanical point of view. He found it was not common,--that it grew +only in certain localities,--and that one of these was among the +rocks of the eastern spur of The Mountain. + +It happened to come into his head how the Swiss youth climb the sides +of the Alps to find the flower called the Edelweiss for the maidens +whom they wish to please. It is a pretty fancy, that of scaling some +dangerous height before the dawn, so as to gather the flower in its +freshness, that the favored maiden may wear it to church on Sunday +morning, a proof at once of her lover's devotion and his courage. +Mr. Bernard determined to explore the region where this flower was +said to grow, that he might see where the wild girl sought the +blossoms of which Nature was so jealous. + +It was on a warm, fair Saturday afternoon that he undertook his land- +voyage of discovery. He had more curiosity, it may be, than he would +have owned; for he had heard of the girl's wandering habits, and the +guesses about her sylvan haunts, and was thinking what the chances +were that he should meet her in some strange place, or come upon +traces of her which would tell secrets she would not care to have +known. + +The woods are all alive to one who walks through them with his mind +in an excited state, and his eyes and ears wide open. The trees are +always talking, not merely whispering with their leaves, (for every +tree talks to itself in that way, even when it stands alone in the +middle of a pasture,) but grating their boughs against each other, as +old horn-handed farmers press their dry, rustling palms together, +dropping a nut or a leaf or a twig, clicking to the tap of a +woodpecker, or rustling as a squirrel flashes along a branch. It was +now the season of singing-birds, and the woods were haunted with +mysterious, tender music. The voices of the birds which love the +deeper shades of the forest are sadder than those of the open fields: +these are the nuns who have taken the veil, the hermits that have +hidden themselves away from the world and tell their griefs to the +infinite listening Silences of the wilderness,--for the one deep +inner silence that Nature breaks with her fitful superficial sounds +becomes multiplied as the image of a star in ruffled waters. +Strange! The woods at first convey the impression of profound +repose, and yet, if you watch their ways with open ear, you find the +life which is in them is restless and nervous as that of a woman: the +little twigs are crossing and twining and separating like slender +fingers that cannot be still; the stray leaf is to be flattened into +its place like a truant curl; the limbs sway and twist, impatient of +their constrained attitude; and the rounded masses of foliage swell +upward and subside from time to time with long soft sighs, and, it +may be, the falling of a few rain-drops which had lain hidden among +the deeper shadows. I pray you, notice, in the sweet summer days +which will soon see you among the mountains, this inward tranquillity +that belongs to the heart of the woodland, with this nervousness, for +I do not know what else to call it, of outer movement. One would +say, that Nature, like untrained persons, could not sit still without +nestling about or doing something with her limbs or features, and +that high breeding was only to be looked for in trim gardens, where +the soul of the trees is ill at ease perhaps, but their manners are +unexceptionable, and a rustling branch or leaf falling out of season +is an indecorum. The real forest is hardly still except in the +Indian summer; then there is death in the house, and they are waiting +for the sharp shrunken months to come with white raiment for the +summer's burial. + +There were many hemlocks in this neighborhood, the grandest and most +solemn of all the forest-trees in the mountain regions. Up to a +certain period of growth they are eminently beautiful, their boughs +disposed in the most graceful pagoda-like series of close terraces, +thick and dark with green crystalline leaflets. In spring the tender +shoots come out of a paler green, finger-like, as if they were +pointing to the violets at their feet. But when the trees have grown +old, and their rough boles measure a yard and more through their +diameter, they are no longer beautiful, but they have a sad solemnity +all their own, too full of meaning to require the heart's comment to +be framed in words. Below, all their earthward-looking branches are +sapless and shattered, splintered by the weight of many winters' +snows; above, they are still green and full of life, but their +summits overtop all the deciduous trees around them, and in their +companionship with heaven they are alone. On these the lightning +loves to fall. One such Mr. Bernard saw,--or rather, what had been +one such; for the bolt had torn the tree like an explosion from +within, and the ground was strewed all around the broken stump with +flakes of rough bark and strips and chips of shivered wood, into +which the old tree had been rent by the bursting rocket from the +thunder-cloud. + +--The master had struck up The Mountain obliquely from the western +side of the Dudley mansion-house. In this way he ascended until he +reached a point many hundred feet above the level of the plain, and +commanding all the country beneath and around. Almost at his feet he +saw the mansion-house, the chimney standing out of the middle of the +roof, or rather, like a black square hole in it,--the trees almost +directly over their stems, the fences as lines, the whole nearly as +an architect would draw a ground-plan of the house and the inclosures +round it. It frightened him to see how the huge masses of rock and +old forest-growths hung over the home below. As he descended a +little and drew near the ledge of evil name, he was struck with the +appearance of a long narrow fissure that ran parallel with it and +above it for many rods, not seemingly of very old standing,--for +there were many fibres of roots which had evidently been snapped +asunder when the rent took place, and some of which were still +succulent in both separated portions. + +Mr. Bernard had made up his mind, when he set forth, not to come back +before he had examined the dreaded ledge. He had half persuaded +himself that it was scientific curiosity. He wished to examine the +rocks, to see what flowers grew there, and perhaps to pick up an +adventure in the zoological line; for he had on a pair of high, stout +boots, and he carried a stick in his hand, which was forked at one +extremity, so as to be very convenient to hold down a crotalus with, +if he should happen to encounter one. He knew the aspect of the +ledge from a distance; for its bald and leprous-looking declivities +stood out in their nakedness from the wooded sides of The Mountain, +when this was viewed from certain points of the village. But the +nearer aspect of the blasted region had something frightful in it. +The cliffs were water-worn, as if they had been gnawed for thousands +of years by hungry waves. In some places they overhung their base so +as to look like leaning towers which might topple over at any minute. +In other parts they were scooped into niches or caverns. Here and +there they were cracked in deep fissures, some of them of such width +that one might enter them, if he cared to run the risk of meeting the +regular tenants, who might treat him as an intruder. + +Parts of the ledge were cloven perpendicularly, with nothing but +cracks or slightly projecting edges in which or on which a foot could +find hold. High up on one of these precipitous walls of rock he saw +some tufts of flowers, and knew them at once for the same that he had +found between the leaves of his Virgil. Not there, surely! No woman +would have clung against that steep, rough parapet to gather an idle +blossom. And yet the master looked round everywhere, and even up the +side of that rock, to see if there were no signs of a woman's +footstep. He peered about curiously, as if his eye might fall on some +of those fragments of dress which women leave after them, whenever +they run against each other or against anything else,--in crowded +ballrooms, in the brushwood after picnics, on the fences after +rambles, scattered round over every place which has witnessed an act +of violence, where rude hands have been laid upon them. Nothing-- +Stop, though, one moment. That stone is smooth and polished, as if +it had been somewhat worn by the pressure of human feet. There is +one twig broken among the stems of that clump of shrubs. He put his +foot upon the stone and took hold of the close-clinging shrub. In +this way he turned a sharp angle of the rock and found himself on a +natural platform, which lay in front of one of the wider fissures,-- +whether the mouth of a cavern or not he could not yet tell. A flat +stone made an easy seat, upon which he sat down, as he was very glad +to do, and looked mechanically about him. A small fragment +splintered from the rock was at his feet. He took it and threw it +down the declivity a little below where he sat. He looked about for +a stem or a straw of some kind to bite upon,--a country-instinct,-- +relic, no doubt, of the old vegetable-feeding habits of Eden. Is +that a stem or a straw? He picked it up. It was a hair-pin. + +To say that Mr. Langdon had a strange sort of thrill shoot through +him at the sight of this harmless little implement would be a +statement not at variance with the fact of the case. That smooth +stone had been often trodden, and by what foot he could not doubt. +He rose up from his seat to look round for other signs of a woman's +visits. What if there is a cavern here, where she has a retreat, +fitted up, perhaps, as anchorites fitted their cells,--nay, it may +be, carpeted and mirrored, and with one of those tiger-skins for a +couch, such as they, say the girl loves to lie on? Let us look, at +any rate. + +Mr. Bernard walked to the mouth of the cavern or fissure and looked +into it. His look was met by the glitter of two diamond eyes, small, +sharp, cold, shining out of the darkness, but gliding with a smooth, +steady motion towards the light, and himself. He stood fixed, struck +dumb, staring back into them with dilating pupils and sudden numbness +of fear that cannot move, as in the terror of dreams. The two sparks +of light came forward until they grew to circles of flame, and all at +once lifted themselves up as if in angry surprise. Then for the +first time thrilled in Mr. Bernard's ears the dreadful sound that +nothing which breathes, be it man or brute, can hear unmoved,--the +long, loud, stinging whirr, as the huge, thick bodied reptile shook +his many-jointed rattle and adjusted his loops for the fatal stroke. +His eyes were drawn as with magnets toward the circles of flame. His +ears rung as in the overture to the swooning dream of chloroform. +Nature was before man with her anaesthetics: the cat's first shake +stupefies the mouse; the lion's first shake deadens the man's fear +and feeling; and the crotalus paralyzes before he strikes. He waited +as in a trance,--waited as one that longs to have the blow fall, and +all over, as the man who shall be in two pieces in a second waits for +the axe to drop. But while he looked straight into the flaming eyes, +it seemed to him that they were losing their light and terror, that +they were growing tame and dull; the charm was dissolving, the +numbness was passing away, he could move once more. He heard a light +breathing close to his ear, and, half turning, saw the face of Elsie +Venner, looking motionless into the reptile's eyes, which had shrunk +and faded under the stronger enchantment of her own. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +FAMILY SECRETS. + +It was commonly understood in the town of Rockland that Dudley Venner +had had a great deal of trouble with that daughter of his, so +handsome, yet so peculiar, about whom there were so many strange +stories. There was no end to the tales which were told of her +extraordinary doings. Yet her name was never coupled with that of +any youth or man, until this cousin had provoked remark by his visit; +and even then it was oftener in the shape of wondering conjectures +whether he would dare to make love to her, than in any pretended +knowledge of their relations to each other, that the public tongue +exercised its village-prerogative of tattle. + +The more common version of the trouble at the mansion-house was this: +Elsie was not exactly in her right mind. Her temper was singular, +her tastes were anomalous, her habits were lawless, her antipathies +were many and intense, and she was liable to explosions of +ungovernable anger. Some said that was not the worst of it. At +nearly fifteen years old, when she was growing fast, and in an +irritable state of mind and body, she had had a governess placed over +her for whom she had conceived an aversion. It was whispered among a +few who knew more of the family secrets than others, that, worried +and exasperated by the presence and jealous oversight of this person, +Elsie had attempted to get finally rid of her by unlawful means, such +as young girls have been known to employ in their straits, and to +which the sex at all ages has a certain instinctive tendency, in +preference to more palpable instruments for the righting of its +wrongs. At any rate, this governess had been taken suddenly ill, and +the Doctor had been sent for at midnight. Old Sophy had taken her +master into a room apart, and said a few words to him which turned +him as white as a sheet. As soon as he recovered himself, he sent +Sophy out, called in the old Doctor, and gave him some few hints, on +which he acted at once, and had the satisfaction of seeing his +patient out of danger before he left in the morning. It is proper to +say, that, during the following days, the most thorough search was +made in every nook and cranny of those parts of the house which Elsie +chiefly haunted, but nothing was found which might be accused of +having been the intentional cause of the probably accidental sudden +illness of the governess. From this time forward her father was +never easy. Should he keep her apart, or shut her up, for fear of +risk to others, and so lose every chance of restoring her mind to its +healthy tone by kindly influences and intercourse with wholesome +natures? There was no proof, only presumption, as to the agency of +Elsie in the matter referred to. But the doubt was worse, perhaps, +than certainty would have been,--for then he would have known what to +do. + +He took the old Doctor as his adviser. The shrewd old man listened +to the father's story, his explanations of possibilities, of +probabilities, of dangers, of hopes. When he had got through, the +Doctor looked him in the face steadily, as if he were saying, Is that +all? + +The father's eyes fell. This was not all. There was something at +the bottom of his soul which he could not bear to speak of,--nay, +which, as often as it reared itself through the dark waves of +unworded consciousness into the breathing air of thought, he trod +down as the ruined angels tread down a lost soul, trying to come up +out of the seething sea of torture. Only this one daughter! No! +God never would have ordained such a thing. There was nothing ever +heard of like it; it could not be; she was ill,--she would outgrow +all these singularities; he had had an aunt who was peculiar; he had +heard that hysteric girls showed the strangest forms of moral +obliquity for a time, but came right at last. She would change all +at once, when her health got more firmly settled in the course of her +growth. Are there not rough buds that open into sweet flowers? Are +there not fruits, which, while unripe, are not to be tasted or +endured, which mature into the richest taste and fragrance? In God's +good time she would come to her true nature; her eyes would lose that +frightful, cold glitter; her lips would not feel so cold when she +pressed them against his cheek; and that faint birth-mark, her mother +swooned when she first saw, would fade wholly out,--it was less +marked, surely, now than it used to be! + +So Dudley Venner felt, and would have thought, if he had let his +thoughts breathe the air of his soul. But the Doctor read through +words and thoughts and all into the father's consciousness. There +are states of mind which may be shared by two persons in presence of +each other, which remain not only unworded, but unthoughted, if such +a word may be coined for our special need. Such a mutually +interpenetrative consciousness there was between the father and the +old physician. By a common impulse, both of them rose in a +mechanical way and went to the western window, where each started, as +he saw the other's look directed towards the white stone which stood +in the midst of the small plot of green turf. + +The Doctor had, for a moment, forgotten himself but he looked up at +the clouds, which were angry, and said, as if speaking of the +weather, "It is dark now, but we hope it will clear up by and by. +There are a great many more clouds than rains, and more rains than +strokes of lightning, and more strokes of lightning than there are +people killed. We must let this girl of ours have her way, as far as +it is safe. Send away this woman she hates, quietly. Get her a +foreigner for a governess, if you can,--one that can dance and sing +and will teach her. In the house old Sophy will watch her best. Out +of it you must trust her, I am afraid,--for she will not be followed +round, and she is in less danger than you think. If she wanders at +night, find her, if you can; the woods are not absolutely safe. If +she will be friendly with any young people, have them to see her,-- +young men especially. She will not love any one easily, perhaps not +at all; yet love would be more like to bring her right than anything +else. If any young person seems in danger of falling in love with +her, send him to me for counsel." + +Dry, hard advice, but given from a kind hewn, with a moist eye, and +in tones which tried to be cheerful and were full of sympathy. This +advice was the key to the more than indulgent treatment which, as we +have seen, the girl had received from her father and all about her. +The old Doctor often came in, in the kindest, most natural sort of +way, got into pleasant relations with Elsie by always treating her in +the same easy manner as at the great party, encouraging all her +harmless fancies, and rarely reminding her that he was a professional +adviser, except when she came out of her own accord, as in the talk +they had at the party, telling him of some wild trick she had been +playing. + +"Let her go to the girls' school, by all means," said the Doctor, +when she had begun to talk about it. "Possibly she may take to some +of the girls or of the teachers. Anything to interest her. +Friendship, love, religion, whatever will set her nature at work. We +must have headway on, or there will be no piloting her. Action first +of all, and then we will see what to do with it." + +So, when Cousin Richard came along, the Doctor, though he did not +like his looks any too well, told her father to encourage his staying +for a time. If she liked him, it was good; if she only tolerated +him, it was better than nothing. + +"You know something about that nephew of yours, during these last +years, I suppose?" the Doctor said. "Looks as if he had seen life. +Has a scar that was made by a sword-cut, and a white spot on the side +of his neck that looks like a bullet-mark. I think he has been what +folks call a 'hard customer.'" + +Dudley Venner owned that he had heard little or nothing of him of +late years. He had invited himself, and of course it would not be +decent not to receive him as a relative. He thought Elsie rather +liked having him about the house for a while. She was very +capricious,--acted as if she fancied him one day and disliked him the +next. He did not know,--but sometimes thought that this nephew of +his might take a serious liking to Elsie. What should he do about +it, if it turned out so? + +The Doctor lifted his eyebrows a little. He thought there was no +fear. Elsie was naturally what they call a man-hater, and there was +very little danger of any sudden passion springing up between two +such young persons. Let him stay awhile; it gives her something to +think about. So he stayed awhile, as we have seen. + +The more Mr. Richard became acquainted with the family,--that is, +with the two persons of whom it consisted,--the more favorably the +idea of a permanent residence in the mansion-house seemed to impress +him. The estate was large,--hundreds of acres, with woodlands and +meadows of great value. The father and daughter had been living +quietly, and there could not be a doubt that the property which came +through the Dudleys must have largely increased of late years. It +was evident enough that they had an abundant income, from the way in +which Elsie's caprices were indulged. She had horses and carriages +to suit herself; she sent to the great city for everything she wanted +in the way of dress. Even her diamonds--and the young man knew +something about these gems--must be of considerable value; and yet +she wore them carelessly, as it pleased her fancy. She had precious +old laces, too, almost worth their weight in diamonds; laces which +had been snatched from altars in ancient Spanish cathedrals during +the wars, and which it would not be safe to leave a duchess alone +with for ten minutes. The old house was fat with the deposits of +rich generations which had gone before. The famous "golden" fire-set +was a purchase of one of the family who had been in France during the +Revolution, and must have come from a princely palace, if not from +one of the royal residences. As for silver, the iron closet which +had been made in the dining-room wall was running over with it: tea- +kettles, coffee-pots, heavy-lidded tankards, chafing-dishes, punch- +bowls, all that all the Dudleys had ever used, from the caudle-cup +which used to be handed round the young mother's chamber, and the +porringer from which children scooped their bread-and-milk with +spoons as solid as ingots, to that ominous vessel, on the upper +shelf, far back in the dark, with a spout like a slender italic S, +out of which the sick and dying, all along the last century, and +since, had taken the last drops that passed their lips. Without +being much of a scholar, Dick could see well enough, too, that the +books in the library had been ordered from the great London houses, +whose imprint they bore, by persons who knew what was best and meant +to have it. A man does not require much learning to feel pretty +sure, when he takes one of those solid, smooth, velvet-leaved +quartos, say a Baskerville Addison, for instance, bound in red +morocco, with a margin of gold as rich as the embroidery of a +prince's collar, as Vandyck drew it,--he need not know much to feel +pretty sure that a score or two of shelves full of such books mean +that it took a long purse, as well as a literary taste, to bring them +together. + +To all these attractions the mind of this thoughtful young gentleman +may be said to have been fully open. He did not disguise from +himself, however, that there were a number of drawbacks in the way of +his becoming established as the heir of the Dudley mansion-house and +fortune. In the first place, Cousin Elsie was, unquestionably, very +piquant, very handsome, game as a hawk, and hard to please, which +made her worth trying for. But then there was something about Cousin +Elsie,--(the small, white scars began stinging, as he said this to +himself, and he pushed his sleeve up to look at them)--there was +something about Cousin Elsie he couldn't make out. What was the +matter with her eyes, that they sucked your life out of you in that +strange way? What did she always wear a necklace for? Had she some +such love-token on her neck as the old Don's revolver had left on +his? How safe would anybody feel to live with her? Besides, her +father would last forever, if he was left to himself. And he may +take it into his head to marry again. That would be pleasant! + +So talked Cousin Richard to himself, in the calm of the night and in +the tranquillity of his own soul. There was much to be said on both +sides. It was a balance to be struck after the two columns were +added up. He struck the balance, and came to the conclusion that he +would fall in love with Elsie Venner. + +The intelligent reader will not confound this matured and serious +intention of falling in love with the young lady with that mere +impulse of the moment before mentioned as an instance of making love. +On the contrary, the moment Mr. Richard had made up his mind that he +should fall in love with Elsie, he began to be more reserved with +her, and to try to make friends in other quarters. Sensible men, you +know, care very little what a girl's present fancy is. The question +is: Who manages her, and how can you get at that person or those +persons? Her foolish little sentiments are all very well in their +way; but business is business, and we can't stop for such trifles. +The old political wire-pullers never go near the man they want to +gain, if they can help it; they find out who his intimates and +managers are, and work through them. Always handle any positively +electrical body, whether it is charged with passion or power, with +some non-conductor between you and it, not with your naked hands.--- +The above were some of the young gentleman's working axioms; and he +proceeded to act in accordance with them. + +He began by paying his court more assiduously to his uncle. It was +not very hard to ingratiate himself in that quarter; for his manners +were insinuating, and his precocious experience of life made him +entertaining. The old neglected billiard--room was soon put in +order, and Dick, who was a magnificent player, had a series of games +with his uncle, in which, singularly enough, he was beaten, though +his antagonist had been out of play for years. He evinced a profound +interest in the family history, insisted on having the details of its +early alliances, and professed a great pride in it, which he had +inherited from his father, who, though he had allied himself with the +daughter of an alien race, had yet chosen one with the real azure +blood in her veins, as proud as if she had Castile and Aragon for her +dower and the Cid for her grand-papa. He also asked a great deal of +advice, such as inexperienced young persons are in need of, and +listened to it with due reverence. + +It is not very strange that uncle Dudley took a kinder view of his +nephew than the Judge, who thought he could read a questionable +history in his face,--or the old Doctor, who knew men's temperaments +and organizations pretty well, and had his prejudices about races, +and could tell an old sword-cut and a ballet-mark in two seconds from +a scar got by falling against the fender, or a mark left by king's +evil. He could not be expected to share our own prejudices; for he +had heard nothing of the wild youth's adventures, or his scamper over +the Pampas at short notice. So, then, "Richard Venner, Esquire, +guest of Dudley Venner, Esquire, at his elegant mansion," prolonged +his visit until his presence became something like a matter of habit, +and the neighbors began to think that the fine old house would be +illuminated before long for a grand marriage. + +He had done pretty well with the father: the next thing was to gain +over the nurse. Old Sophy was as cunning as a red fox or a gray +woodchuck. She had nothing in the world to do but to watch Elsie; +she had nothing to care for but this girl and her father. She had +never liked Dick too well; for he used to make faces at her and tease +her when he was a boy, and now he was a man there was something about +him.---she could not tell what--that made her suspicious of him. It +was no small matter to get her over to his side. + +The jet-black Africans know that gold never looks so well as on the +foil of their dark skins. Dick found in his trunk a string of gold +beads, such as are manufactured in some of our cities, which he had +brought from the gold region of Chili,--so he said,--for the express +purpose of giving them to old Sophy. These Africans, too, have a +perfect passion for gay-colored clothing; being condemned by Nature, +as it were, to a perpetual mourning-suit, they love to enliven it +with all sorts of variegated stuffs of sprightly patterns, aflame +with red and yellow. The considerate young man had remembered this, +too, and brought home for Sophy some handkerchiefs of rainbow hues, +which had been strangely overlooked till now, at the bottom of one of +his trunks. Old Sophy took his gifts, but kept her black eyes open +and watched every movement of the young people all the more closely. +It was through her that the father had always known most of the +actions and tendencies of his daughter. + +In the mean time the strange adventure on The Mountain had brought +the young master into new relations with Elsie. She had led him out +of, danger; perhaps saved him from death by the strange power she +exerted. He was grateful, and yet shuddered at the recollection of +the whole scene. In his dreams he was pursued by the glare of cold +glittering eyes, whether they were in the head of a woman or of a +reptile he could not always tell, the images had so run together. +But he could not help seeing that the eyes of the young girl had been +often, very often, turned upon him when he had been looking away, and +fell as his own glance met them. Helen Darley told him very plainly +that this girl was thinking about him more than about her book. Dick +Venner found she was getting more constant in her attendance at +school. He learned, on inquiry, that there was a new master, a +handsome young man. The handsome young man would not have liked the +look that, came over Dick's face when he heard this fact mentioned. + +In short, everything was getting tangled up together, and there would +be no chance of disentangling the threads in this chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +PHYSIOLOGICAL. + +If Master Bernard felt a natural gratitude to his young pupil for +saving him from an imminent peril, he was in a state of infinite +perplexity to know why he should have needed such aid. He, an +active, muscular, courageous, adventurous young fellow, with--a stick +in his hand, ready to hold down the Old Serpent himself, if he had +come in his way, to stand still, staring into those two eyes, until +they came up close to him, and the strange, terrible sound seemed to +freeze him stiff where he stood,--what was the meaning of it? Again, +what was the influence this girl had seemingly exerted, under which +the venomous creature had collapsed in such a sudden way? Whether he +had been awake or dreaming he did not feel quite sure. He knew he +had gone up The Mountain, at any rate; he knew he had come down The +Mountain with the girl walking just before him;--there was no +forgetting her figure, as she walked on in silence, her braided locks +falling a little, for want of the lost hairpin, perhaps, and looking +like a wreathing coil of--Shame on such fancies!--to wrong that +supreme crowning gift of abounding Nature, a rush of shining black +hair, which, shaken loose, would cloud her all round, like Godiva, +from brow to instep! He was sure he had sat down before the fissure +or cave. He was sure that he was led softly away from the place, and +that it was Elsie who had led him. There was the hair-pin to show +that so far it was not a dream. But between these recollections came +a strange confusion; and the more the master thought, the more he was +perplexed to know whether she had waked him, sleeping, as he sat on +the stone, from some frightful dream, such as may come in a very +brief slumber, or whether she had bewitched him into a trance with +those strange eyes of hers, or whether it was all true, and he must +solve its problem as he best might. + +There was another recollection connected with this mountain +adventure. As they approached the mansion-house, they met a young +man, whom Mr. Bernard remembered having seen once at least before, +and whom he had heard of as a cousin of the young girl. As Cousin +Richard Venner, the person in question, passed them, he took the +measure, so to speak, of Mr. Bernard, with a look so piercing, so +exhausting, so practised, so profoundly suspicious, that the young +master felt in an instant that he had an enemy in this handsome +youth,--an enemy, too, who was like to be subtle and dangerous. + +Mr. Bernard had made up his mind, that, come what might, enemy or no +enemy, live or die, he would solve the mystery of Elsie Venner, +sooner or later. He was not a man to be frightened out of his +resolution by a scowl, or a stiletto, or any unknown means of +mischief, of which a whole armory was hinted at in that passing look +Dick Venner had given him. Indeed, like most adventurous young +persons, he found a kind of charm in feeling that there might be some +dangers in the way of his investigations. Some rumors which had +reached him about the supposed suitor of Elsie Venner, who was +thought to be a desperate kind of fellow, and whom some believed to +be an unscrupulous adventurer, added a curious, romantic kind of +interest to the course of physiological and psychological inquiries +he was about instituting. + +The afternoon on The Mountain was still upper-most in his mind. Of +course he knew the common stories--about fascination. He had once +been himself an eyewitness of the charming of a small bird by one of +our common harmless serpents. Whether a human being could be reached +by this subtile agency, he had been skeptical, notwithstanding the +mysterious relation generally felt to exist between man and this +creature, "cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the +field,"--a relation which some interpret as the fruit of the curse, +and others hold to be so instinctive that this animal has been for +that reason adopted as the natural symbol of evil. There was another +solution, however, supplied him by his professional reading. The +curious work of Mr. Braid of Manchester had made him familiar with +the phenomena of a state allied to that produced by animal magnetism, +and called by that writer by the name of hypnotism. He found, by +referring to his note-book, the statement was, that, by fixing the +eyes on a bright object so placed as to produce a strain upon the +eyes and eyelids, and to maintain a steady fixed stare, there comes +on in a few seconds a very singular condition, characterized by +muscular rigidity and inability to move, with a strange exaltation of +most of the senses, and generally a closure of the eyelids,--this +condition being followed by torpor. + +Now this statement of Mr. Braid's, well known to the scientific +world, and the truth of which had been confirmed by Mr. Bernard in +certain experiments he had instituted, as it has been by many other +experimenters, went far to explain the strange impressions, of which, +waking or dreaming, he had certainly been the subject. His nervous +system had been in a high state of exaltation at the time. He +remembered how the little noises that made rings of sound in the +silence of the woods, like pebbles dropped in still waters, had +reached his inner consciousness. He remembered that singular +sensation in the roots of the hair, when he came on the traces of the +girl's presence, reminding him of a line in a certain poem which he +had read lately with a new and peculiar interest. He even recalled a +curious evidence of exalted sensibility and irritability, in the +twitching of the minute muscles of the internal ear at every +unexpected sound, producing an odd little snap in the middle of the +head, which proved to him that he was getting very nervous. + +The next thing was to find out whether it were possible that the +venomous creature's eyes should have served the purpose of Mr. +Braid's "bright object" held very close to the person experimented +on, or whether they had any special power which could be made the +subject of exact observation. + +For this purpose Mr. Bernard considered it necessary to get a live +crotalus or two into his possession, if this were possible. On +inquiry, he found that there was a certain family living far up the +mountainside, not a mile from the ledge, the members of which were +said to have taken these creatures occasionally, and not to be in any +danger, or at least in any fear, of being injured by them. He +applied to these people, and offered a reward sufficient to set them +at work to capture some of these animals, if such a thing were +possible. + +A few days after this, a dark, gypsy-looking woman presented herself +at his door. She held up her apron as if it contained something +precious in the bag she made with it. + +"Y' wanted some rattlers," said the woman. "Here they be." + +She opened her apron and showed a coil of rattlesnakes lying very +peaceably in its fold. They lifted their heads up, as if they wanted +to see what was going on, but showed no sign of anger. + +"Are you crazy?" said Mr. Bernard. "You're dead in an hour, if one +of those creatures strikes you!" + +He drew back a little, as he spoke; it might be simple disgust; it +might be fear; it might be what we call antipathy, which is different +from either, and which will sometimes show itself in paleness, and +even faintness, produced by objects perfectly harmless and not in +themselves offensive to any sense. + +"Lord bless you," said the woman, "rattlers never touches our folks. +I'd jest 'z lieves handle them creaturs as so many striped snakes." + +So saying, she put their heads down with her hand, and packed them +together in her apron as if they had been bits of cart-rope. + +Mr. Bernard had never heard of the power, or, at least, the belief in +the possession of a power by certain persons, which enables them to +handle these frightful reptiles with perfect impunity. The fact, +however, is well known to others, and more especially to a very +distinguished Professor in one of the leading institutions of the +great city of the land, whose experiences in the neighborhood of +Graylock, as he will doubtless inform the curious, were very much +like those of the young master. + +Mr. Bernard had a wired cage ready for his formidable captives, and +studied their habits and expression with a strange sort of interest. +What did the Creator mean to signify, when he made such shapes of +horror, and, as if he had doubly cursed this envenomed wretch, had +set a mark upon him and sent him forth the Cain of the brotherhood of +serpents? It was a very curious fact that the first train of +thoughts Mr. Bernard's small menagerie suggested to him was the +grave, though somewhat worn, subject of the origin of evil. There is +now to be seen in a tall glass jar, in the Museum of Comparative +Anatomy at Cantabridge in the territory of the Massachusetts, a huge +crotalus, of a species which grows to more frightful dimensions than +our own, under the hotter skies of South America. Look at it, ye who +would know what is the tolerance, the freedom from prejudice, which +can suffer such an incarnation of all that is devilish to lie +unharmed in the cradle of Nature! Learn, too, that there are many +things in this world which we are warned to shun, and are even +suffered to slay, if need be, but which we must not hate, unless we +would hate what God loves and cares for. + +Whatever fascination the creature might exercise in his native +haunts, Mr. Bernard found himself not in the least nervous or +affected in any way while looking at his caged reptiles. When their +cage was shaken, they would lift their heads and spring their +rattles; but the sound was by no means so formidable to listen to as +when it reverberated among the chasms of the echoing rocks. The +expression of the creatures was watchful, still, grave, passionless, +fate-like, suggesting a cold malignity which seemed to be waiting for +its opportunity. Their awful, deep-cut mouths were sternly closed +over the long hollow fangs which rested their roots against the +swollen poison-gland, where the venom had been hoarding up ever since +the last stroke had emptied it. They never winked, for ophidians +have no movable eyelids, but kept up that awful fixed stare which +made the two unwinking gladiators the survivors of twenty pairs +matched by one of the Roman Emperors, as Pliny tells us, in his +"Natural History." Their eyes did not flash, but shone with a cold +still light. They were of a pale-golden or straw color, horrible to +look into, with their stony calmness, their pitiless indifference, +hardly enlivened by the almost imperceptible vertical slit of the +pupil, through which Death seemed to be looking out like the archer +behind the long narrow loop-hole in a blank turret-wall. On the +whole, the caged reptiles, horrid as they were, hardly matched his +recollections of what he had seen or dreamed he save at the cavern. +These looked dangerous enough, but yet quiet. A treacherous +stillness, however,--as the unfortunate New York physician found, +when he put his foot out to wake up the torpid creature, and +instantly the fang flashed through his boot, carrying the poison into +his blood, and death with it. + +Mr. Bernard kept these strange creatures, and watched all their +habits with a natural curiosity. In any collection of animals the +venomous beasts are looked at with the greatest interest, just as the +greatest villains are most run after by the unknown public. Nobody +troubles himself for a common striped snake or a petty thief, but a +cobra or a wife-killer is a centre of attraction to all eyes. These +captives did very little to earn their living, but, on the other +hand, their living was not expensive, their diet being nothing but +air, au naturel. Months and months these creatures will live and +seem to thrive well enough, as any showman who has then in his +menagerie will testify, though they never touch anything to eat or +drink. + +In the mean time Mr. Bernard had become very curious about a class of +subjects not treated of in any detail in those text-books accessible +in most country-towns, to the exclusion of the more special +treatises, and especially of the rare and ancient works found on the +shelves of the larger city-libraries. He was on a visit to old Dr. +Kittredge one day, having been asked by him to call in for a few +moments as soon as convenient. The Doctor smiled good-humoredly when +he asked him if he had an extensive collection of medical works. + +"Why, no," said the old Doctor, "I haven't got a great many printed +books; and what I have I don't read quite as often as I might, I'm +afraid. I read and studied in the time of it, when I was in the +midst of the young men who were all at work with their books; but +it's a mighty hard matter, when you go off alone into the country, to +keep up with all that's going on in the Societies and the Colleges. +I'll tell you, though, Mr. Langdon, when a man that's once started +right lives among sick folks for five-and-thirty years, as I've done, +if he has n't got a library of five-and-thirty volumes bound up in +his head at the end of that time, he'd better stop driving round and +sell his horse and sulky. I know the bigger part of the families +within a dozen miles' ride. I know the families that have a way of +living through everything, and I know the other set that have the +trick of dying without any kind of reason for it. I know the years +when the fevers and dysenteries are in earnest, and when they're only +making believe. I know the folks that think they're dying as soon as +they're sick, and the folks that never find out they 're sick till +they're dead. I don't want to undervalue your science, Mr. Langdon. +There are things I never learned, because they came in after my day, +and I am very glad to send my patients to those that do know them, +when I am at fault; but I know these people about here, fathers and +mothers, and children and grandchildren, so as all the science in the +world can't know them, without it takes time about it, and sees them +grow up and grow old, and how the wear and tear of life comes to +them. You can't tell a horse by driving him once, Mr. Langdon, nor a +patient by talking half an hour with him." + +"Do you know much about the Veneer family?" said Mr. Bernard, in a +natural way enough, the Doctor's talk having suggested the question. + +The Doctor lifted his head with his accustomed movement, so as to +command the young man through his spectacles. + +"I know all the families of this place and its neighborhood," he +answered. + +"We have the young lady studying with us at the Institute," said Mr. +Bernard. + +"I know it," the Doctor answered. "Is she a good scholar?" + +All this time the Doctor's eyes were fixed steadily on Mr. Bernard, +looking through the glasses. + +"She is a good scholar enough, but I don't know what to make of her. +Sometimes I think she is a little out of her head. Her father, +I believe, is sensible enough;--what sort of a woman was her mother, +Doctor?---I suppose, of course, you remember all about her?" + +"Yes, I knew her mother. She was a very lovely young woman."--The +Doctor put his hand to his forehead and drew a long breath.--"What +is there you notice out of the way about Elsie Venner?" + +"A good many things," the master answered. "She shuns all the other +girls. She is getting a strange influence over my fellow-teacher, a +young lady,--you know Miss Helen Darley, perhaps? I am afraid this +girl will kill her. I never saw or heard of anything like it, in +prose at least;--do you remember much of Coleridge's Poems, Doctor?" + +The good old Doctor had to plead a negative. + +"Well, no matter. Elsie would have been burned for a witch in old +times. I have seen the girl look at Miss Darley when she had not the +least idea of it, and all at once I would see her grow pale and +moist, and sigh, and move round uneasily, and turn towards Elsie, and +perhaps get up and go to her, or else have slight spasmodic movements +that looked like hysterics;--do you believe in the evil eye, Doctor?" + +"Mr. Langdon," the Doctor said, solemnly, "there are strange things +about Elsie Veneer,--very strange things. This was what I wanted to +speak to you about. Let me advise you all to be very patient with +the girl, but also very careful. Her love is not to be desired, and +"--he spoke in a lower tone--"her hate is to be dreaded. Do you +think she has any special fancy for anybody else in the school +besides Miss Darley?" + +Mr. Bernard could not stand the old Doctor's spectacled eyes without +betraying a little of the feeling natural to a young man to whom a +home question involving a possible sentiment is put suddenly. + +"I have suspected," he said,--"I have had a kind of feeling--that +she--Well, come, Doctor,--I don't know that there 's any use in +disguising the matter,--I have thought Elsie Veneer had rather a +fancy for somebody else,--I mean myself." + +There was something so becoming in the blush with which the young man +made this confession, and so manly, too, in the tone with which he +spoke, so remote from any shallow vanity, such as young men who are +incapable of love are apt to feel, when some loose tendril of a +woman's fancy which a chance wind has blown against them twines about +them for the want of anything better, that the old Doctor looked at +him admiringly, and could not help thinking that it was no wonder any +young girl should be pleased with him. + +"You are a man of nerve, Mr. Langdon?" said the Doctor. + +"I thought so till very lately," he replied. "I am not easily +frightened, but I don't know but I might be bewitched or magnetized, +or whatever it is when one is tied up and cannot move. I think I can +find nerve enough, however, if there is any special use you want to +put it to." + +"Let me ask you one more question, Mr. Langdon. Do you find yourself +disposed to take a special interest in Elsie,--to fall in love with +her, in a word? Pardon me, for I do not ask from curiosity, but a +much more serious motive." + +"Elsie interests me," said the young man, "interests me strangely. +She has a wild flavor in her character which is wholly different from +that of any human creature I ever saw. She has marks of genius, +poetic or dramatic,--I hardly know which. She read a passage from +Keats's 'Lamia' the other day, in the schoolroom, in such a way that +I declare to you I thought some of the girls would faint or go into +fits. Miss Darley got up and left the room, trembling all over. +Then, I pity her, she is so lonely. The girls are afraid of her, and +she seems to have either a dislike or a fear of them. They have all +sorts of painful stories about her. They give her a name which no +human creature ought to bear. They say she hides a mark on her neck +by always wearing a necklace. She is very graceful, you know, and +they will have it that she can twist herself into all sorts of +shapes, or tie herself in a knot, if she wants to. There is not one +of them that will look her in the eyes. I pity the poor girl; but, +Doctor, I do not love her. I would risk my life for her, if it would +do her any good, but it would be in cold blood. If her hand touches +mine, it is not a thrill of passion I feel running through me, but a +very different emotion. Oh, Doctor! there must be something in that +creature's blood which has killed the humanity in her. God only +knows the cause that has blighted such a soul in so beautiful a body! +No, Doctor, I do not love the girl." + +"Mr. Langdon," said the Doctor, "you are young, and I am old. Let me +talk to you with an old man's privilege, as an adviser. You have +come to this country-town without suspicion, and you are moving in +the midst of perils. There are things which I must not tell you now; +but I may warn you. Keep your eyes open and your heart shut. If, +through pitying that girl, you ever come to love her, you are lost. +If you deal carelessly with her, beware! This is not all. There are +other eyes on you beside Elsie Venner's. Do you go armed?" + +"I do!" said Mr. Bernard,--and he "put his hands up" in the shape of +fists, in such a way as to show that he was master of the natural +weapons at any rate. + +The Doctor could not help smiling. But his face fell in an instant. + +"You may want something more than those tools to work with. Come +with me into my sanctum." + +The Doctor led Mr. Bernard into a small room opening out of the +study. It was a place such as anybody but a medical man would shiver +to enter. There was the usual tall box with its bleached, rattling +tenant; there were jars in rows where "interesting cases" outlived +the grief of widows and heirs in alcoholic immortality,--for your +"preparation-jar" is the true "monumentum aere perennius;" there were +various semi-possibilities of minute dimensions and unpromising +developments; there were shining instruments of evil aspect, and grim +plates on the walls, and on one shelf by itself, accursed and apart, +coiled in a long cylinder of spirit, a huge crotalus, rough-scaled, +flatheaded, variegated with dull bands, one of which partially +encircled the neck like a collar,--an awful wretch to look upon, with +murder written all over him in horrid hieroglyphics. Mr. Bernard's +look was riveted on this creature,--not fascinated certainly, for its +eyes looked like white beads, being clouded by the action of the +spirits in which it had been long kept,--but fixed by some indefinite +sense of the renewal of a previous impression;--everybody knows the +feeling, with its suggestion of some past state of existence. There +was a scrap of paper on the jar, with something written on it. He +was reaching up to read it when the Doctor touched him lightly. + +"Look here, Mr. Langdon!" he said, with a certain vivacity of manner, +as if wishing to call away his attention,--"this is my armory." + +The Doctor threw open the door of a small cabinet, where were +disposed in artistic patterns various weapons of offence and +defence,--for he was a virtuoso in his way, and by the side of the +implements of the art of healing had pleased himself with displaying +a collection of those other instruments, the use of which renders the +first necessary. + +"See which of these weapons you would like best to carry about you," +said the Doctor. + +Mr. Bernard laughed, and looked at the Doctor as if he half doubted +whether he was in earnest. + +"This looks dangerous enough," he said,--"for the man who carries it, +at least." + +He took down one of the prohibited Spanish daggers or knives which a +traveller may, occasionally get hold of and smuggle out of the +country. The blade was broad, trowel-like, but the point drawn out +several inches, so as to look like a skewer. + +"This must be a jealous bull-fighter's weapon," he said, and put it +back in its place. + +Then he took down an ancient-looking broad-bladed dagger, with a +complex aspect about it, as if it had some kind of mechanism +connected with it. + +"Take care!" said the Doctor; "there is a trick to that dagger." + +He took it and touched a spring. The dagger split suddenly into +three blades, as when one separates the forefinger and the ring- +finger from the middle one. The outside blades were sharp on their +outer edge. The stab was to be made with the dagger shut, then the +spring touched and the split blades withdrawn. + +Mr. Bernard replaced it, saying, that it would have served for side- +arm to old Suwarrow, who told his men to work their bayonets back and +forward when they pinned a Turk, but to wriggle them about in the +wound when they stabbed a Frenchman. + +"Here," said the Doctor, "this is the thing you want." + +He took down a much more modern and familiar implement,--a small, +beautifully finished revolver. + +"I want you to carry this," he said; "and more than that, I want you +to practise with it often, as for amusement, but so that it maybe +seen and understood that you are apt to have a pistol about you. +Pistol-shooting is pleasant sport enough, and there is no reason why +you should not practise it like other young fellows. And now," the +Doctor said, "I have one other, weapon to give you." + +He took a small piece of parchment and shook a white powder into it +from one of his medicine-jars. The jar was marked with the name of a +mineral salt, of a nature to have been serviceable in case of sudden +illness in the time of the Borgias. The Doctor folded the parchment +carefully, and marked the Latin name of the powder upon it. + +"Here," he said, handing it to Mr. Bernard, "you see what it is, and +you know what service it can render. Keep these two protectors about +your person day and night; they will not harm you, and you may want +one or the other or both before you think of it." + +Mr. Bernard thought it was very odd, and not very old-gentlemanlike, +to be fitting him out for treason, stratagem, and spoils, in this +way. There was no harm, however, in carrying a doctor's powder in +his pocket, or in amusing himself with shooting at a mark, as he had +often done before. If the old gentleman had these fancies, it was as +well to humor him. + +So he thanked old Doctor Kittredge, and shook his hand warmly as he +left him. + +"The fellow's hand did not tremble, nor his color change," the Doctor +said, as he watched him walking away. "He is one of the right sort." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +EPISTOLARY. + +Mr. Langdon to the Professor. + +MY DEAR PROFESSOR, +You were kind enough to promise me that you would assist me in any +professional or scientific investigations in which I might become +engaged. I have of late become deeply interested in a class of +subjects which present peculiar difficulty, and I must exercise the +privilege of questioning you on some points upon which I desire +information I cannot otherwise obtain. I would not trouble you, if I +could find any person or books competent to enlighten me on some of +these singular matters which have so excited me. The leading doctor +here is a shrewd, sensible man, but not versed in the curiosities of +medical literature. + +I proceed, with your leave, to ask a considerable number of +questions,--hoping to get answers to some of them, at least. + +Is there any evidence that human beings can be infected or wrought +upon by poisons, or otherwise, so that they shall manifest any of the +peculiarities belonging to beings of a lower nature? Can such +peculiarities--be transmitted by inheritance? Is there anything to +countenance the stories, long and widely current, about the "evil +eye"? or is it a mere fancy that such a power belongs to any human +being? Have you any personal experience as to the power of +fascination said to be exercised by certain animals? What can you +make of those circumstantial statements we have seen in the papers, +of children forming mysterious friendships with ophidians of +different species, sharing their food with them, and seeming to be +under some subtile influence exercised by those creatures? Have you +read, critically, Coleridge's poem of "Christabel," and Keats's +"Lamia"?--If so, can you understand them, or find any physiological +foundation for the story of either? + +There is another set of questions of a different nature I should like +to ask, but it is hardly fair to put so many on a single sheet. +There is one, however, you must answer. Do you think there may be +predispositions, inherited or ingrafted, but at any rate +constitutional, which shall take out certain apparently voluntary +determinations from the control of the will, and leave them as free +from moral responsibility as the instincts of the lower animals? Do +you not think there may be a crime which is not a sin? + +Pardon me, my dear Sir, for troubling you with such a list of notes +of interrogation. There are some very strange things going on here +in this place, country-town as it is. Country-life is apt to be +dull; but when it once gets going, it beats the city hollow, because +it gives its whole mind to what it is about. These rural sinners +make terrible work with the middle of the Decalogue, when they get +started. However, I hope I shall live through my year's school- +keeping without catastrophes, though there are queer doings about me +which puzzle me and might scare some people. If anything should +happen, you will be one of the first to hear of it, no doubt. But I +trust not to help out the editors of the "Rockland Weekly Universe" +with an obituary of the late lamented, who signed himself in life + +Your friend and pupil, + +BERNARD C. LANGDON. + + + +The Professor to Mr. Langdon. + +MY DEAR MR. LANGDON, +I do not wonder that you find no answer from your country friends to +the curious questions you put. They belong to that middle region +between science and poetry which sensible men, as they are called, +are very shy of meddling with. Some people think that truth and gold +are always to be washed for; but the wiser sort are of opinion, that, +unless there are so many grains to the peck of sand or nonsense +respectively, it does not pay to wash for either, so long as one can +find anything else to do. I don't doubt there is some truth in the +phenomena of animal magnetism, for instance; but when you ask me to +cradle for it, I tell you that the hysteric girls cheat so, and the +professionals are such a set of pickpockets, that I can do something +better than hunt for the grains of truth among their tricks and lies. +Do you remember what I used to say in my lectures?---or were you +asleep just then, or cutting your initials on the rail? (You see I +can ask questions, my young friend.) Leverage is everything,--was +what I used to say;--don't begin to pry till you have got the long +arm on your side. + +To please you, and satisfy your doubts as far as possible, I have +looked into the old books,--into Schenckius and Turner and Kenelm. +Digby and the rest, where I have found plenty of curious stories +which you must take for what they are worth. + +Your first question I can answer in the affirmative upon pretty good +authority. Mizaldus tells, in his "Memorabilia," the well-known +story of the girl fed on poisons, who was sent by the king of the +Indies to Alexander the Great. "When Aristotle saw her eyes +sparkling and snapping like those of serpents, he said, 'Look out for +yourself, Alexander! this is a dangerous companion for you!'"--and +sure enough, the young lady proved to be a very unsafe person to her +friends. Cardanus gets a story from Avicenna, of a certain man bit +by a serpent, who recovered of his bite, the snake dying therefrom. +This man afterwards had a daughter whom venomous serpents could not +harm, though she had a fatal power over them. + +I suppose you may remember the statements of old authors about +Zycanthropy, the disease in which men took on the nature and aspect +of wolves. Actius and Paulus, both men of authority, describe it. +Altomaris gives a horrid case; and Fincelius mentions one occurring +as late as 1541, the subject of which was captured, still insisting +that he was a wolf, only that the hair of his hide was turned in! +Versipelles, it may be remembered, was the Latin name for these +"were-wolves." + +As for the cases where rabid persons have barked and bit like dogs, +there are plenty of such on record. + +More singular, or at least more rare, is the account given by Andreas +Baccius, of a man who was struck in the hand by a cock, with his +beak, and who died on the third day thereafter, looking for all the +world like a fighting-cock, to the great horror of the spectators. + +As to impressions transmitted at a very early period of existence, +every one knows the story of King James's fear of a naked sword, and +the way it is accounted for. Sir Kenelm Digby says,--"I remember +when he dubbed me Knight, in the ceremony of putting the point of a +naked sword upon my shoulder, he could not endure to look upon it, +but turned his face another way, insomuch, that, in lieu of touching +my shoulder, he had almost thrust the point into my eyes, had not the +Duke of Buckingham guided his hand aright." It is he, too, who tells +the story of the mulberry mark upon the neck of a certain lady of +high condition, which "every year, to mulberry season, did swell, +grow big, and itch." And Gaffarel mentions the case of a girl born +with the figure of a fish on one of her limbs, of which the wonder +was, that, when the girl did eat fish, this mark put her to sensible +pain. But there is no end to cases of this kind, and I could give +some of recent date, if necessary, lending a certain plausibility at +least to the doctrine of transmitted impressions. + +I never saw a distinct case of evil eye, though I have seen eyes so +bad that they might produce strange effects on very sensitive +natures. But the belief in it under various names, fascination, +jettcztura, etc., is so permanent and universal, from Egypt to Italy, +and from the days of Solomon to those of Ferdinand of Naples, that +there must be some peculiarity, to say the least, on which the +opinion is based. There is very strong evidence that some such power +is exercised by certain of the lower animals. Thus, it is stated on +good authority that "almost every animal becomes panic-struck at the +sight of the rattlesnake, and seems at once deprived of the power of +motion, or the exercise of its usual instinct of self-preservation." +Other serpents seem to share this power of fascination, as the Cobra +and the Buccephalus Capensis. + +Some think that it is nothing but fright; others attribute it to the + + "strange powers that lie + Within the magic circle of the eye,"-- + +as Churchill said, speaking of Garrick. + +You ask me about those mysterious and frightful intimacies between +children and serpents, of which so many instances have been recorded. +I am sure I cannot tell what to make of them. I have seen several +such accounts in recent papers, but here is one published in the +seventeenth century, which is as striking as any of the more modern +ones: + +"Mr. Herbert Tones of Monmouth, when he was a little Boy, was used to +eat his Milk in a Garden in the Morning, and was no sooner there, but +a large Snake always came, and eat out of the Dish with him, and did +so for a considerable time, till one Morning, he striking the Snake +on the Head, it hissed at him. Upon which he told his Mother that +the Baby (for so he call'd it) cry'd Hiss at him. His Mother had it +kill'd, which occasioned him a great Fit of Sickness, and 'twas +thought would have dy'd, but did recover." + +There was likewise one "William Writtle, condemned at Maidston +Assizes for a double murder, told a Minister that was with him after +he was condemned, that his mother told him, that when he was a Child, +there crept always to him a Snake, wherever she laid him. Sometimes +she would convey him up Stairs, and leave him never so little, she +should be sure to find a Snake in the Cradle with him, but never +perceived it did him any harm." + +One of the most striking alleged facts connected with the mysterious +relation existing between the serpent and-the human species is the +influence which the poison of the Crotulus, taken internally, seemed +to produce over the moral faculties, in the experiments instituted by +Dr. Hering at Surinam. There is something frightful in the +disposition of certain ophidians, as the whipsnake, which darts at +the eyes of cattle without any apparent provocation or other motive. +It is natural enough that the evil principle should have been +represented in the form of a serpent, but it is strange to think of +introducing it into a human being like cow-pox by vaccination. + +You know all about the Psylli, or ancient serpent tamers, I suppose. +Savary gives an account of the modern serpent-tamers in his "Letters +on Egypt." These modern jugglers are in the habit of making the +venomous Naja counterfeit death, lying out straight and stiff, +changing it into a rod, as the ancient magicians did with their +serpents, (probably the same animal,) in the time of Moses. + +I am afraid I cannot throw much light on "Christabel" or "Lamia " by +any criticism I can offer. Geraldine, in the former, seems to be +simply a malignant witch-woman with the evil eye, but with no +absolute ophidian relationship. Lamia is a serpent transformed by +magic into a woman. The idea of both is mythological, and not in any +sense physiological. Some women unquestionably suggest the image of +serpents; men rarely or never. I have been struck, like many +others, with the ophidian head and eye of the famous Rachel. + +Your question about inherited predispositions, as limiting the sphere +of the will, and, consequently, of moral accountability, opens a very +wide range of speculation. I can give you only a brief abstract of +my own opinions on this delicate and difficult subject. Crime and +sin, being the preserves of two great organized interests, have been +guarded against all reforming poachers with as great jealousy as the +Royal Forests. It is so easy to hang a troublesome fellow! It is so +much simpler to consign a soul to perdition, or say masses, for +money, to save it, than to take the blame on ourselves for letting it +grow up in neglect and run to ruin for want of humanizing influences! +They hung poor, crazy Bellingham for shooting Mr. Perceval. The +ordinary of Newgate preached to women who were to swing at Tyburn for +a petty theft as if they were worse than other people,--just as +though he would not have been a pickpocket or shoplifter, himself, if +he had been born in a den of thieves and bred up to steal or starve! +The English law never began to get hold of the idea that a crime was +not necessarily a sin, till Hadfield, who thought he was the Saviour +of mankind, was tried for shooting at George the Third;--lucky for +him that he did not hit his Majesty! + +It is very singular that we recognize all the bodily defects that +unfit a man for military service, and all the intellectual ones that +limit his range of thought, but always talk at him as if all his +moral powers were perfect. I suppose we must punish evil-doers as we +extirpate vermin; but I don't know that we have any more right to +judge them than we have to judge rats and mice, which are just as +good as cats and weasels, though we think it necessary to treat them +as criminals. + +The limitations of human responsibility have never been properly +studied, unless it be by the phrenologists. You know from my lectures +that I consider phrenology, as taught, a pseudo-science, and not a +branch of positive knowledge; but, for all that, we owe it an immense +debt. It has melted the world's conscience in its crucible, and cast +it in a new mould, with features less like those of Moloch and more +like those of humanity. If it has failed to demonstrate its system +of special correspondences, it has proved that there are fixed +relations between organization and mind and character. It has +brought out that great doctrine of moral insanity, which has done +more to make men charitable and soften legal and theological +barbarism than any one doctrine that I can think of since the message +of peace and good-will to men. + +Automatic action in the moral world; the reflex movement which seems +to be self-determination, and has been hanged and howled at as such +(metaphorically) for nobody knows how many centuries: until somebody +shall study this as Marshall Hall has studied reflex nervous action +in the bodily system, I would not give much for men's judgments of +each others' characters. Shut up the robber and the defaulter, we +must. But what if your oldest boy had been stolen from his cradle +and bred in a North-Street cellar? What if you are drinking a little +too much wine and smoking a little too much tobacco, and your son +takes after you, and so your poor grandson's brain being a little +injured in physical texture, he loses the fine moral sense on which +you pride yourself, and doesn't see the difference between signing +another man's name to a draft and his own? + +I suppose the study of automatic action in the moral world (you see +what I mean through the apparent contradiction of terms) may be a +dangerous one in the view of many people. It is liable to abuse, no +doubt. People are always glad to, get hold of anything which limits +their responsibility. But remember that our moral estimates come +down to us from ancestors who hanged children for stealing forty +shillings' worth, and sent their souls to perdition for the sin of +being born,--who punished the unfortunate families of suicides, and +in their eagerness for justice executed one innocent person every +three years, on the average, as Sir James Mackintosh tells us. + +I do not know in what shape the practical question may present itself +to you; but I will tell you my rule in life, and I think you will +find it a good one. Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane. +They are in-sane, out of health, morally. Reason, which is food to +sound minds, is not tolerated, still less assimilated, unless +administered with the greatest caution; perhaps, not at all. Avoid +collision with them, so far as you honorably can; keep your temper, +if you can,--for one angry man is as good as another; restrain them +from violence, promptly, completely, and with the least possible +injury, just as in the case of maniacs,--and when you have got rid of +them, or got them tied hand and foot so that they can do no mischief, +sit down and contemplate them charitably, remembering that nine +tenths of their' perversity comes from outside influences, drunken +ancestors, abuse in childhood, bad company, from which you have +happily been preserved, and for some of which you, as a member of +society, may be fractionally responsible. I think also that there +are special influences which work in the brood lake ferments, and I +have a suspicion that some of those curious old stories I cited may +have more recent parallels. Have you ever met with any cases which +admitted of a solution like that which I have mentioned? + +Yours very truly, + +_____________ _____________ + + + + Bernard Langdon to Philip Staples. + +MY DEAR PHILIP,-- + +I have been for some months established in this place, turning the +main crank of the machinery for the manufactory of accomplishments +superintended by, or rather worked to the profit of, a certain Mr. +Silas Peckham. He is a poor wretch, with a little thin fishy blood +in his body, lean and flat, long-armed and large-handed, thick- +jointed and thin-muscled,--you know those unwholesome, weak-eyed, +half-fed creatures, that look not fit to be round among live folks, +and yet not quite dead enough to bury. If you ever hear of my being +in court to answer to a charge of assault and battery, you may guess +that I have been giving him a thrashing to settle off old scores; for +he is a tyrant, and has come pretty near killing his principal lady- +assistant with overworking her and keeping her out of all decent +privileges. + +Helen Darley is this lady's name,--twenty two or three years old, I +should think,--a very sweet, pale woman,--daughter of the usual +country-clergyman,--thrown on her own resources from an early age, +and the rest: a common story, but an uncommon person,--very. All +conscience and sensibility, I should say,--a cruel worker,--no kind +of regard for herself, seems as fragile and supple as a young willow- +shoot, but try her and you find she has the spring in her of a steel +cross-bow. I am glad I happened to come to this place, if it were +only for her sake. I have saved that girl's life; I am as sure of it +as if I had pulled her out of the fire or water. + +Of course I'm in love with her, you say,--we always love those whom +we have benefited; "saved her life,--her love was the reward of his +devotion," etc., etc., as in a regular set novel. In love, Philip? +Well, about that,--I love Helen Darley--very much: there is hardly +anybody I love so well. What a noble creature she is! One of those +that just go right on, do their own work and everybody else's, +killing themselves inch by inch without ever thinking about it,-- +singing and dancing at their toil when they begin, worn and saddened +after a while, but pressing steadily on, tottering by and by, and +catching at the rail by the way-side to help them lift one foot +before the other, and at last falling, face down, arms stretched +forward + +Philip, my boy, do you know I am the sort of man that locks his door +sometimes and cries his heart out of his eyes,--that can sob like a +woman and not be ashamed of it? I come of fighting-blood on one +side, you know; I think I could be savage on occasion. But I am +tender,--more and more tender as I come into my fulness of manhood. +I don't like to strike a man, (laugh, if you like,--I know I hit hard +when I do strike,)--but what I can't stand is the sight of these +poor, patient, toiling women, who never find out in this life how +good they are, and never know what it is to be told they are angels +while they still wear the pleasing incumbrances of humanity. I don't +know what to make of these cases. To think that a woman is never to +be a woman again, whatever she may come to as an unsexed angel,--and +that she should die unloved! Why does not somebody come and carry +off this noble woman, waiting here all ready to make a man happy? +Philip, do you know the pathos there is in the eyes of unsought +women, oppressed with the burden of an inner life unshared? I can +see into them now as I could not in those 'earlier days. I sometimes +think their pupils dilate on purpose to let my consciousness glide +through them; indeed, I dread them, I come so close to the nerve of +the soul itself in these momentary intimacies. You used to tell me I +was a Turk,--that my heart was full of pigeon-holes, with +accommodations inside for a whole flock of doves. I don't know but I +am still as Youngish as ever in my ways,--Brigham-Youngish, I mean; +at any rate, T. always want to give a little love to all the poor +things that cannot have a whole man to themselves. If they would +only be contented with a little! + +Here now are two girls in this school where I am teaching. One of +them, Rosa M., is not more than sixteen years old, I think they say; +but Nature has forced her into a tropical luxuriance of beauty, as if +it were July with her, instead of May. I suppose it is all natural +enough that this girl should like a young man's attention, even if he +were a grave schoolmaster; but the eloquence of this young thing's +look is unmistakable,--and yet she does not know the language it is +talking,--they none of them do; and there is where a good many poor +creatures of our good-for-nothing sex are mistaken. There is no +danger of my being rash, but I think this girl will cost somebody his +life yet. She is one of those women men make a quarrel about and +fight to the death for,--the old feral instinct, you know. + +Pray, don't think I am lost in conceit, but there is another girl +here who I begin to think looks with a certain kindness on me. Her +name is Elsie V., and she is the only daughter and heiress of an old +family in this place. She is a portentous and almost fearful +creature. If I should tell you all I know and half of what I fancy +about her, you would tell me to get my life insured at once. Yet she +is the most painfully interesting being,--so handsome! so lonely!--- +for she has no friends among the girls, and sits apart from them,-- +with black hair like the flow of a mountain-brook after a thaw, with +a low-browed, scowling beauty of face, and such eyes as were never +seen before, I really believe, in any human creature. + +Philip, I don't know what to say about this Elsie. There is +something about her I have not fathomed. I have conjectures which I +could not utter to any living soul. I dare not even hint the +possibilities which have suggested themselves to me. This I will +say, that I do take the most intense interest in this young person, +an interest much more like pity than love in its common sense. If +what I guess at is true, of all the tragedies of existence I ever +knew this is the saddest, and yet so full of meaning! Do not ask me +any questions,--I have said more than I meant to already; but I am +involved in strange doubts and perplexities,--in dangers too, very +possibly,--and it is a relief just to speak ever so guardedly of them +to an early and faithful friend. + +Yours ever, BERNARD. + +P. S. I remember you had a copy of Fortunius Licetus' "De Monstris" +among your old books. Can't you lend it to me for a while? I am +curious, and it will amuse me. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +OLD SOPHY CALLS ON THE REVEREND DOCTOR. + +The two meeting-houses which faced each other like a pair of +fighting-cocks had not flapped their wings or crowed at each other +for a considerable time. The Reverend Mr. Fairweather had been +dyspeptic and low-spirited of late, and was too languid for +controversy. The Reverend Doctor Honeywood had been very busy with +his benevolent associations, and had discoursed chiefly on practical +matters, to the neglect of special doctrinal subjects. His senior +deacon ventured to say to him that some of his people required to be +reminded of the great fundamental doctrine of the worthlessness of +all human efforts and motives. Some of them were altogether too much +pleased with the success of the Temperance Society and the +Association for the Relief of the Poor. There was a pestilent heresy +about, concerning the satisfaction to be derived from a good +conscience, as if, anybody ever did anything which was not to be +hated, loathed, despised, and condemned. + +The old minister listened gravely, with an inward smile, and told his +deacon that he would attend to his suggestion. After the deacon had +gone, he tumbled over his manuscripts, until at length he came upon +his first-rate old sermon on "Human Nature." He had read a great +deal of hard theology, and had at last reached that curious state +which is so common in good ministers,--that, namely, in which they +contrive to switch off their logical faculties on the narrow +sidetrack of their technical dogmas, while the great freight-train of +their substantial human qualities keeps in the main highway of +common-sense, in which kindly souls are always found by all who +approach them by their human side. + +The Doctor read his sermon with a pleasant, paternal interest: it was +well argued from his premises. Here and there he dashed his pen +through a harsh expression. Now and then he added an explanation or +qualified abroad statement. But his mind was on the logical side- +track, and he followed the chain of reasoning without fairly +perceiving where it would lead him, if he carried it into real life. + +He was just touching up the final proposition, when his +granddaughter, Letty, once before referred to, came into the room +with her smiling face and lively movement. Miss Letty or Letitia +Forrester was a city-bred girl of some fifteen or sixteen years old, +who was passing the summer with her grandfather for the sake of +country air and quiet. It was a sensible arrangement; for, having +the promise of figuring as a belle by and by, and being a little +given to dancing, and having a voice which drew a pretty dense circle +around the piano when she sat down to play and sing, it was hard to +keep her from being carried into society before her time, by the mere +force of mutual attraction. Fortunately, she had some quiet as well +as some social tastes, and was willing enough to pass two or three of +the summer months in the country, where she was much better bestowed +than she would have been at one of those watering-places where so +many half-formed girls get prematurely hardened in the vice of self- +consciousness. + +Miss Letty was altogether too wholesome, hearty, and high-strung a +young girl to be a model, according to the flat-chested and cachectic +pattern which is the classical type of certain excellent young +females, often the subjects of biographical memoirs. But the old +minister was proud of his granddaughter for all that. She was so +full of life, so graceful, so generous, so vivacious, so ready always +to do all she could for him and for everybody, so perfectly frank in +her avowed delight in the pleasures which this miserable world +offered her in the shape of natural beauty, of poetry, of music, of +companionship, of books, of cheerful cooperation in the tasks of +those about her, that the Reverend Doctor could not find it in his +heart to condemn her because she was deficient in those particular +graces and that signal other-worldliness he had sometimes noticed in +feeble young persons suffering from various chronic diseases which +impaired their vivacity and removed them from the range of +temptation. + +When Letty, therefore, came bounding into the old minister's study, +he glanced up from his manuscript, and, as his eye fell upon her, it +flashed across him that there was nothing so very monstrous and +unnatural about the specimen of congenital perversion he was looking +at, with his features opening into their pleasantest sunshine. +Technically, according to the fifth proposition of the sermon on +Human Nature, very bad, no doubt. Practically, according to the fact +before him, a very pretty piece of the Creator's handiwork, body and +soul. Was it not a conceivable thing that the divine grace might +show itself in different forms in a fresh young girl like Letitia, +and in that poor thing he had visited yesterday, half-grown, half- +colored, in bed for the last year with hip-disease? + +Was it to be supposed that this healthy young girl, with life +throbbing all over her, could, without a miracle, be good according +to the invalid pattern and formula? + +And yet there were mysteries in human nature which pointed to some +tremendous perversion of its tendencies,--to some profound, radical +vice of moral constitution, native or transmitted, as you will have +it, but positive, at any rate, as the leprosy, breaking out in the +blood of races, guard them ever so carefully. Did he not know the +case of a young lady in Rockland, daughter of one of the first +families in the place, a very beautiful and noble creature to look +at, for whose bringing up nothing had been spared,--a girl who had +had governesses to teach her at the house, who had been indulged +almost too kindly,--a girl whose father had given himself, up to her, +he being himself a pure and high-souled man?--and yet this girl was +accused in whispers of having been on the very verge of committing a +fatal crime; she was an object of fear to all who knew the dark hints +which had been let fall about her, and there were some that believed +--Why, what was this but an instance of the total obliquity and +degeneration of the moral principle? and to what could it be owing, +but to an innate organic tendency? + +"Busy, grandpapa?" said Letty, and without waiting for an answer +kissed his cheek with a pair of lips made on purpose for that little +function,--fine, but richly turned out, the corners tucked in with a +finish of pretty dimples, the rose-bud lips of girlhood's June. + +The old gentleman looked at his granddaughter. Nature swelled up +from his heart in a wave that sent a glow to his cheek and a sparkle +to his eye. But it is very hard to be interrupted just as we are +winding up a string of propositions with the grand conclusion which +is the statement in brief of all that has gone before: our own +starting-point, into which we have been trying to back our reader or +listener as one backs a, horse into the shafts. + +"Video meliora, proboque,--I see the better, and approve it; +deteriora sequor, I follow after the worse; 't is that natural +dislike to what is good, pure, holy, and true, that inrooted +selfishness, totally insensible to the claims of"--- + +Here the worthy man was interrupted by Miss Letty. + +"Do come, if you can, grandpapa," said the young girl; "here is a +poor old black woman wants to see you so much!" + +The good minister was as kind-hearted as if he had never groped in +the dust and ashes of those cruel old abstractions which have killed +out so much of the world's life and happiness. "With the heart man +believeth unto righteousness;" a man's love is the measure of his +fitness for good or bad company here or elsewhere. Men are tattooed +with their special beliefs like so many South-Sea Islanders; but a +real human heart, with Divine love in it, beats with the same glow +under all, the patterns of all earth's thousand tribes! + +The Doctor sighed, and folded the sermon, and laid the Quarto Cruden +on it. He rose from his desk, and, looking once more at the young +girl's face, forgot his logical conclusions, and said to himself that +she was a little angel,--which was in violent contradiction to the +leading doctrine of his sermon on Human Nature. And so he followed +her out of the study into the wide entry of the old-fashioned +country-house. + +An old black woman sat on the plain oaken settle which humble +visitors waiting to see the minister were wont to occupy. She was +old, but how old it would be very hard to guess. She might be +seventy. She might be ninety. One could not swear she was not a +hundred. Black women remain at a stationary age (to the eyes of +white people, at least) for thirty years. They do not appear to +change during this period any more than so many Trenton trilobites. +Bent up, wrinkled, yellow-eyed, with long upper-lip, projecting jaws, +retreating chin, still meek features, long arms, large flat hands +with uncolored palms and slightly webbed fingers, it was impossible +not to see in this old creature a hint of the gradations by which +life climbs up through the lower natures to the highest human +developments. We cannot tell such old women's ages because we do not +understand the physiognomy of a race so unlike our own. No doubt +they see a great deal in each other's faces that we cannot,--changes +of color and expression as real as our own, blushes and sudden +betrayals of feeling,--just as these two canaries know what their +single notes and short sentences and full song with this or that +variation mean, though it is a mystery to us unplumed mortals. + +This particular old black woman was a striking specimen of her class. +Old as she looked, her eye was bright and knowing. She wore a red- +and-yellow turban, which set off her complexion well, and hoops of +gold in her ears, and beads of gold about her neck, and an old +funeral ring upon her finger. She had that touching stillness about +her which belongs to animals that wait to be spoken to and then look +up with a kind of sad humility. + +"Why, Sophy!" said the good minister, "is this you?" + +She looked up with the still expression on her face. "It's ol' +Sophy," she said. + +"Why," said the Doctor, "I did not believe you could walk so far as +this to save the Union. Bring Sophy a glass of wine, Letty. Wine's +good for old folks like Sophy and me, after walking a good way, or +preaching a good while." + +The young girl stepped into the back-parlor, where she found the +great pewter flagon in which the wine that was left after each +communion-service was brought to the minister's house. With much +toil she managed to tip it so as to get a couple of glasses filled. +The minister tasted his, and made old Sophy finish hers. + +"I wan' to see you 'n' talk wi' you all alone," she said presently. + +The minister got up and led the way towards his study. "To be sure," +he said; he had only waited for her to rest a moment before he asked +her into the library. The young girl took her gently by the arm, and +helped her feeble steps along the passage. When they reached the +study, she smoothed the cushion of a rocking-chair, and made the old +woman sit down in it. Then she tripped lightly away, and left her +alone with the minister. + +Old Sophy was a member of the Reverend Doctor Honeywood's church. +She had been put through the necessary confessions in a tolerably +satisfactory manner. To be sure, as her grandfather had been a +cannibal chief, according to the common story, and, at any rate, a +terrible wild savage, and as her mother retained to the last some of +the prejudices of her early education, there was a heathen flavor in +her Christianity which had often scandalized the elder of the +minister's two deacons. But, the good minister had smoothed matters +over: had explained that allowances were to be made for those who had +been long sitting without the gate of Zion,--that, no doubt, a part +of the curse which descended to the children of Ham consisted in +"having the understanding darkened," as well as the skin,--and so had +brought his suspicious senior deacon to tolerate old Sophy as one of +the communion of fellow-sinners. + +--Poor things! How little we know the simple notions with which +these rudiments of souls are nourished by the Divine Goodness! Did +not Mrs. Professor come home this very blessed morning with a story +of one of her old black women? + +"And how do you feel to-day, Mrs. Robinson?" + +"Oh, my dear, I have this singing in my head all the time." (What +doctors call tinnitus aurium.) + +"She 's got a cold in the head," said old Mrs. Rider. + +"Oh, no, my dear! Whatever I'm thinking about, it's all this +singing, this music. When I'm thinking of the dear Redeemer, it all +turns into this singing and music. When the clark came to see me, I +asked him if he couldn't cure me, and he said, No,--it was the Holy +Spirit in me, singing to me; and all the time I hear this beautiful +music, and it's the Holy Spirit a-singing to me." + + +The good man waited for Sophy to speak; but she did not open her lips +as yet. + +"I hope you are not troubled in mind or body," he said to her at +length, finding she did not speak. + +The poor old woman took out a white handkerchief, and lifted it--to +her black face. She could not say a word for her tears and sobs. + +The minister would have consoled her; he was used to tears, and could +in most cases withstand their contagion manfully; but something +choked his voice suddenly, and when he called upon it, he got no +answer, but a tremulous movement of the muscles, which was worse than +silence. + +At last she spoke. + +"Oh, no, no, no! It's my poor girl, my darling, my beauty, my baby, +that 's grown up to be a woman; she will come to a bad end; she will +do something that will make them kill her or shut her up all her +life. Or, Doctor, Doctor, save her, pray for her! It a'n't her +fault. It a'n't her fault. If they knew all that I know, they would +n' blame that poor child. I must tell you, Doctor: if I should die, +perhaps nobody else would tell you. Massa Veneer can't talk about +it. Doctor Kittredge won't talk about it. Nobody but old Sophy to +tell you, Doctor; and old Sophy can't die without telling you." + +The kind minister soothed the poor old soul with those gentle, +quieting tones which had carried peace and comfort to so many +chambers of sickness and sorrow, to so many hearts overburdened by +the trials laid upon them. + +Old Sophy became quiet in a few minutes, and proceeded to tell her +story. She told it in the low half-whisper which is the natural +voice of lips oppressed wish grief and fears; with quick glances +around the apartment from time to time, as if she dreaded lest the +dim portraits on the walls and the dark folios on the shelves might +overhear her words. + +It was not one of those conversations which a third person can report +minutely, unless by that miracle of clairvoyance known to the readers +of stories made out of authors' brains. Yet its main character can +be imparted in a much briefer space than the old black woman took to +give all its details. + +She went far back to the time when Dudley Venner was born,--she being +then a middle-aged woman. The heir and hope of a family which had +been narrowing down as if doomed to extinction, he had been +surrounded with every care and trained by the best education he could +have in New England. He had left college, and was studying the +profession which gentlemen of leisure most affect, when he fell in +love with a young girl left in the world almost alone, as he was. +The old woman told the story of his young love and his joyous bridal +with a tenderness which had something more, even, than her family +sympathies to account for it. Had she not hanging over her bed a +paper-cutting of a profile,--jet black, but not blacker than the face +it represented--of one who would have been her own husband in the +small years of this century, if the vessel in which he went to sea, +like Jamie in the ballad, had not sailed away and never come back to +land? Had she not her bits of furniture stowed away which had been +got ready for her own wedding,--two rocking-chairs, one worn with +long use, one kept for him so long that it had grown a superstition +with her never to sit in it,--and might he not come back yet, after +all? Had she not her chest of linen ready for her humble house- +keeping with store of serviceable huckaback and piles of neatly +folded kerchiefs, wherefrom this one that showed so white against her +black face was taken, for that she knew her eyes would betray her in +"the presence"? + +All the first part of the story the old woman told tenderly, and yet +dwelling upon every incident with a loving pleasure. How happy this +young couple had been, what plans and projects of improvement they +had formed, how they lived in each other, always together, so young +and fresh and beautiful as she remembered them in that one early +summer when they walked arm in arm through the wilderness of roses +that ran riot in the garden,--she told of this as loath to leave it +and come to the woe that lay beneath. + +She told the whole story;-shall I repeat it? Not now. If, in the +course of relating the incidents I have undertaken to report, it +tells itself, perhaps this will be better than to run the risk of +producing a painful impression on some of those susceptible readers +whom it would be ill-advised to disturb or excite, when they rather +require to be amused and soothed. In our pictures of life, we must +show the flowering-out of terrible growths which have their roots +deep, deep underground. Just how far we shall lay bare the unseemly +roots themselves is a matter of discretion and taste, and which none +of us are infallible. + +The old woman told the whole story of Elsie, of her birth, of her +peculiarities of person and disposition, of the passionate fears and +hopes with which her father had watched the course of her +development. She recounted all her strange ways, from the hour when +she first tried to crawl across the carpet, and her father's look as +she worked her way towards him. With the memory of Juliet's nurse +she told the story of her teething, and how, the woman to whose +breast she had clung dying suddenly about that time, they had to +struggle hard with the child before she would learn the +accomplishment of feeding with a spoon. And so of her fierce plays +and fiercer disputes with that boy who had been her companion, and +the whole scene of the quarrel when she struck him with those sharp +white teeth, frightening her, old Sophy, almost to death; for, as she +said, the boy would have died, if it hadn't been for the old Doctor's +galloping over as fast as he could gallop and burning the places +right out of his arm. Then came the story of that other incident, +sufficiently alluded to already, which had produced such an ecstasy +of fright and left such a nightmare of apprehension in the household. +And so the old woman came down to this present time. That boy she +never loved nor trusted was grown to a dark, dangerous-looking man, +and he was under their roof. He wanted to marry our poor Elsie, and +Elsie hated him, and sometimes she would look at him over her +shoulder just as she used to look at that woman she hated; and she, +old Sophy, couldn't sleep for thinking she should hear a scream from +the white chamber some night and find him in spasms such as that +woman came so near dying with. And then there was something about +Elsie she did not know what to make of: she would sit and hang her +head sometimes, and look as if she were dreaming; and she brought +home books they said a young gentleman up at the great school lent +her; and once she heard her whisper in her sleep, and she talked as +young girls do to themselves when they're thinking about somebody +they have a liking for and think nobody knows it. + +She finished her long story at last. The minister had listened to it +in perfect silence. He sat still even when she had done speaking,-- +still, and lost in thought. It was a very awkward matter for him to +have a hand in. Old Sophy was his parishioner, but the Veneers had a +pew in the Reverend Mr. Fairweather's meeting-house. It would seem +that he, Mr. Fairweather, was the natural adviser of the parties most +interested. Had he sense and spirit enough to deal with such people? +Was there enough capital of humanity in his somewhat limited nature +to furnish sympathy and unshrinking service for his friends in an +emergency? or was he too busy with his own attacks of spiritual +neuralgia, and too much occupied with taking account of stock of his +own thin-blooded offences, to forget himself and his personal +interests on the small scale and the large, and run a risk of his +life, if need were, at any rate give himself up without reserve to +the dangerous task of guiding and counselling these distressed and +imperilled fellow-creatures? + +The good minister thought the best thing to do would be to call and +talk over some of these matters with Brother Fairweather,--for so he +would call him at times, especially if his senior deacon were not +within earshot. Having settled this point, he comforted Sophy with a +few words of counsel and a promise of coming to see her very soon. +He then called his man to put the old white horse into the chaise and +drive Sophy back to the mansion-house. + +When the Doctor sat down to his sermon again, it looked very +differently from the way it had looked at the moment he left it. +When he came to think of it, he did not feel quite so sure +practically about that matter of the utter natural selfishness of +everybody. There was Letty, now, seemed to take a very unselfish +interest in that old black woman, and indeed in poor people +generally; perhaps it would not be too much to say that she was +always thinking of other people. He thought he had seen other young +persons naturally unselfish, thoughtful for others; it seemed to be a +family trait in some he had known. + +But most of all he was exercised about this poor girl whose story +Sophy had been telling. If what the old woman believed was true,-- +and it had too much semblance of probability,--what became of his +theory of ingrained moral obliquity applied to such a case? If by +the visitation of God a person receives any injury which impairs the +intellect or the moral perceptions, is it not monstrous to judge such +a person by our common working standards of right and wrong? +Certainly, everybody will answer, in cases where there is a palpable +organic change brought about, as when a blow on the head produces +insanity. Fools! How long will it be before we shall learn that for +every wound which betrays itself to the sight by a scar, there are a +thousand unseen mutilations that cripple, each of them, some one or +more of our highest faculties? If what Sophy told and believed was +the real truth, what prayers could be agonizing enough, what +tenderness could be deep enough, for this poor, lost, blighted, +hapless, blameless child of misfortune, struck by such a doom as +perhaps no living creature in all the sisterhood of humanity shared +with her? + +The minister thought these matters over until his mind was bewildered +with doubts and tossed to and fro on that stormy deep of thought +heaving forever beneath the conflict of windy dogmas. He laid by his +old sermon. He put back a pile of old commentators with their eyes +and mouths and hearts full of the dust of the schools. Then he +opened the book of Genesis at the eighteenth chapter and read that +remarkable argument of Abraham's with his Maker in which he boldly +appeals to first principles. He took as his text, "Shall not the +Judge of all the earth do right?" and began to write his sermon, +afterwards so famous, "On the Obligations of an Infinite Creator to a +Finite Creature." + +It astonished the good people, who had been accustomed so long to +repeat mechanically their Oriental hyperboles of self-abasement, to +hear their worthy minister maintaining that the dignified attitude of +the old Patriarch, insisting on what was reasonable and fair with +reference to his fellow-creatures, was really much more respectful to +his Maker, and a great deal manlier and more to his credit, than if +he had yielded the whole matter, and pretended that men had not +rights as well as duties. The same logic which had carried him to +certain conclusions with reference to human nature, this same +irresistible logic carried him straight on from his text until he +arrived at those other results, which not only astonished his people, +as was said, but surprised himself. He went so far in defence of the +rights of man, that he put his foot into several heresies, for which +men had been burned so often, it was time, if ever it could be, to +acknowledge the demonstration of the argumentum ad ignem. He did not +believe in the responsibility of idiots. He did not believe a new- +born infant was morally answerable for other people's acts. He +thought a man with a crooked spine would never be called to account +for not walking erect. He thought if the crook was in his brain, +instead of his back, he could not fairly be blamed for any +consequence of this natural defect, whatever lawyers or divines might +call it. He argued, that, if a person inherited a perfect mind, +body, and disposition, and had perfect teaching from infancy, that +person could do nothing more than keep the moral law perfectly. But +supposing that the Creator allows a person to be born with an +hereditary or ingrafted organic tendency, and then puts this person +into the hands of teachers incompetent or positively bad, is not what +is called sin or transgression of the law necessarily involved in the +premises? Is not a Creator bound to guard his children against the +ruin which inherited ignorance might entail on them? Would it be +fair for a parent to put into a child's hands the title-deeds to all +its future possessions, and a bunch of matches? And are not men +children, nay, babes, in the eye of Omniscience?--The minister grew +bold in his questions. Had not he as good right to ask questions as +Abraham? + +This was the dangerous vein of speculation in which the Reverend +Doctor Honeywood found himself involved, as a consequence of the +suggestions forced upon him by old Sophy's communication. The truth +was, the good man had got so humanized by mixing up with other people +in various benevolent schemes, that, the very moment he could escape +from his old scholastic abstractions, he took the side of humanity +instinctively, just as the Father of the Faithful did,--all honor be +to the noble old Patriarch for insisting on the worth of an honest +man, and making the best terms he could for a very ill-conditioned +metropolis, which might possibly, however, have contained ten +righteous people, for whose sake it should be spared! + +The consequence of all this was, that he was in a singular and +seemingly self-contradictory state of mind when he took his hat and +cane and went forth to call on his heretical brother. The old +minister took it for granted that the Reverend Mr. Fairweather knew +the private history of his parishioner's family. He did not reflect +that there are griefs men never put into words,--that there are fears +which must not be spoken,--intimate matters of consciousness which +must be carried, as bullets which have been driven deep into the +living tissues are sometimes carried, for a whole lifetime,--encysted +griefs, if we may borrow the chirurgeon's term, never to be reached, +never to be seen, never to be thrown out, but to go into the dust +with the frame that bore them about with it, during long years of +anguish, known only to the sufferer and his Maker. Dudley Venner had +talked with his minister about this child of his. But he had talked +cautiously, feeling his way for sympathy, looking out for those +indications of tact and judgment which would warrant him in some +partial communication, at least, of the origin of his doubts and +fears, and never finding them. + +There was something about the Reverend Mr. Fairweather which +repressed all attempts at confidential intercourse. What this +something was, Dudley Venner could hardly say; but he felt it +distinctly, and it sealed his lips. He never got beyond certain +generalities connected with education and religious instruction. The +minister could not help discovering, however, that there were +difficulties connected with this girl's management, and he heard +enough outside of the family to convince him that she had manifested +tendencies, from an early age, at variance with the theoretical +opinions he was in the habit of preaching, and in a dim way of +holding for truth, as to the natural dispositions of the human being. + +About this terrible fact of congenital obliquity his new beliefs +began to cluster as a centre, and to take form as a crystal around +its nucleus. Still, he might perhaps have struggled against them, +had it not been for the little Roman Catholic chapel he passed every +Sunday, on his way to the meeting-house. Such a crowd of +worshippers, swarming into the pews like bees, filling all the +aisles, running over at the door like berries heaped too full in the +measure,--some kneeling on the steps, some standing on the sidewalk, +hats off, heads down, lips moving, some looking on devoutly from the +other side of the street! Oh, could he have followed his own +Bridget, maid of all work, into the heart of that steaming throng, +and bowed his head while the priests intoned their Latin prayers! +could he have snuffed up the cloud of frankincense, and felt that he +was in the great ark which holds the better half of the Christian +world, while all around it are wretched creatures, some struggling +against the waves in leaky boats, and some on ill-connected rafts, +and some with their heads just above water, thinking to ride out the +flood which is to sweep the earth clean of sinners, upon their own +private, individual life-preservers! + +Such was the present state of mind of the Reverend Chauncy +Fairweather, when his clerical brother called upon him to talk over +the questions to which old Sophy had called his attention. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE REVEREND DOCTOR CALLS ON BROTHER FAIRWEATHER. + +For the last few months, while all these various matters were going +on in Rockland, the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather had been busy with +the records of ancient councils and the writings of the early +fathers. The more he read, the more discontented he became with the +platform upon which he and his people were standing. They and he +were clearly in a minority, and his deep inward longing to be with +the majority was growing into an engrossing passion. He yearned +especially towards the good old unquestioning, authoritative Mother +Church, with her articles of faith which took away the necessity for +private judgment, with her traditional forms and ceremonies, and her +whole apparatus of stimulants and anodynes. + +About this time he procured a breviary and kept it in his desk under +the loose papers. He sent to a Catholic bookstore and obtained a +small crucifix suspended from a string of beads. He ordered his new +coat to be cut very narrow in the collar and to be made single- +breasted. He began an informal series of religious conversations +with Miss O'Brien, the young person of Irish extraction already +referred to as Bridget, maid of all work. These not proving very +satisfactory, he managed to fall in with Father McShane, the Catholic +priest of the Rockland church. + +Father McShane encouraged his nibble very scientifically. It would +be such a fine thing to bring over one of those Protestant heretics, +and a "liberal" one too!---not that there was any real difference +between them, but it sounded better, to say that one of these +rationalizing free-and-equal religionists had been made a convert +than any of those half-way Protestants who were the slaves of +catechisms instead of councils, and of commentators instead of popes. +The subtle priest played his disciple with his finest tackle. It was +hardly necessary: when anything or anybody wishes to be caught, a +bare hook and a coarse line are all that is needed. + +If a man has a genuine, sincere, hearty wish to get rid of his +liberty, if he is really bent upon becoming a slave, nothing can stop +him. And the temptation is to some natures a very great one. +Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves that necessity +for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor men have always +dreaded. In common life we shirk it by forming habits, which take +the place of self-determination. In politics party-organization +saves us the pains of much thinking before deciding how to cast our +vote. In religious matters there are great multitudes watching us +perpetually, each propagandist ready with his bundle of finalities, +which having accepted we may be at peace. The more absolute the +submission demanded, the stronger the temptation becomes to those who +have been long tossed among doubts and conflicts. + +So it is that in all the quiet bays which indent the shores of the +great ocean of thought, at every sinking wharf, we see moored the +hulks and the razees of enslaved or half-enslaved intelligences. +They rock peacefully as children in their cradles on the subdued +swell which comes feebly in over the bar at the harbor's mouth, +slowly crusting with barnacles, pulling at their iron cables as if +they really wanted to be free; but better contented to remain bound +as they are. For these no more the round unwalled horizon of the +open sea, the joyous breeze aloft, the furrow, the foam, the sparkle, +that track the rushing keel! They have escaped the dangers of the +wave, and lie still henceforth, evermore. Happiest of souls, if +lethargy is bliss, and palsy the chief beatitude! + +America owes its political freedom to religious Protestantism. But +political freedom is reacting on religious prescription with still +mightier force. We wonder, therefore, when we find a soul which was +born to a full sense of individual liberty, an unchallenged right of +self-determination on every new alleged truth offered to its +intelligence, voluntarily surrendering any portion of its liberty to +a spiritual dictatorship which always proves to rest, in the last +analysis, on a majority vote, nothing more nor less, commonly an old +one, passed in those barbarous times when men cursed and murdered +each other for differences of opinion, and of course were not in a +condition to settle the beliefs of a comparatively civilized +community. + +In our disgust, we are liable to be intolerant. We forget that +weakness is not in itself a sin. We forget that even cowardice may +call for our most lenient judgment, if it spring from innate +infirmity, Who of us does not look with great tenderness on the young +chieftain in the "Fair Maid of Perth," when he confesses his want of +courage? All of us love companionship and sympathy; some of us may +love them too much. All of us are more or less imaginative in our +theology. + +Some of us may find the aid of material symbols a comfort, if not a +necessity. The boldest thinker may have his moments of languor and +discouragement, when he feels as if he could willingly exchange +faiths with the old beldame crossing herself at the cathedral-door,-- +nay, that, if he could drop all coherent thought, and lie in the +flowery meadow with the brown-eyed solemnly unthinking cattle, +looking up to the sky, and all their simple consciousness staining +itself blue, then down to the grass, and life turning to a mere +greenness, blended with confused scents of herbs,--no individual +mind-movement such as men are teased with, but the great calm cattle- +sense of all time and all places that know the milky smell of herds, +--if he could be like these, he would be content to be driven home by +the cow-boy, and share the grassy banquet of the king of ancient +Babylon. Let us be very generous, then, in our judgment of those who +leave the front ranks of thought for the company of the meek non- +combatants who follow with the baggage and provisions. Age, illness, +too much wear and tear, a half-formed paralysis, may bring any of us +to this pass. But while we can think and maintain the rights of our +own individuality against every human combination, let us not forget +to caution all who are disposed to waver that there is a cowardice +which is criminal, and a longing for rest which it is baseness to +indulge. God help him, over whose dead soul in his living body must +be uttered the sad supplication, Requiescat in pace! + +A knock at the Reverend Mr. Fairweather's study door called his eyes +from the book on which they were intent. He looked up, as if +expecting a welcome guest. + +The Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D. D., entered the study of the +Reverend Chauncy Fairweather. He was not the expected guest. Mr. +Fairweather slipped the book he was reading into a half-open drawer, +and pushed in the drawer. He slid something which rattled under a +paper lying on the table. He rose with a slight change of color, and +welcomed, a little awkwardly, his unusual visitor. + +"Good-evening, Brother Fairweather!" said the Reverend Doctor, in a +very cordial, good-humored way. "I hope I am not spoiling one of +those eloquent sermons I never have a chance to hear." + +"Not at all, not at all," the younger clergyman answered, in a +languid tone, with a kind of habitual half-querulousness which +belonged to it,--the vocal expression which we meet with now and +then, and which says as plainly as so many words could say it, "I am +a suffering individual. I am persistently undervalued, wronged, and +imposed upon by mankind and the powers of the universe generally. +But I endure all. I endure you. Speak. I listen. It is a burden +to me, but I even approve. I sacrifice myself. Behold this movement +of my lips! It is a smile." + +The Reverend Doctor knew this forlorn way of Mr. Fairweather's, and +was not troubled by it. He proceeded to relate the circumstances of +his visit from the old black woman, and the fear she was in about the +young girl, who being a parishioner of Mr. Fairweather's, he had +thought it best to come over and speak to him about old Sophy's fears +and fancies. + +In telling the old woman's story, he alluded only vaguely to those +peculiar circumstances to which she had attributed so much +importance, taking it for granted that the other minister must be +familiar with the whole series of incidents she had related. The old +minister was mistaken, as we have before seen. Mr. Fairweather had +been settled in the place only about ten years, and, if he had heard +a strange hint now and then about Elsie, had never considered it as +anything more than idle and ignorant, if not malicious, village- +gossip. All that he fully understood was that this had been a +perverse and unmanageable child, and that the extraordinary care +which had been bestowed on her had been so far thrown away that she +was a dangerous, self-willed girl, whom all feared and almost all +shunned, as if she carried with her some malignant influence. + +He replied, therefore, after hearing the story, that Elsie had always +given trouble. There seemed to be a kind of natural obliquity about +her. Perfectly unaccountable. A very dark case. Never amenable to +good influences. Had sent her good books from the Sunday-school +library. Remembered that she tore out the frontispiece of one of +them, and kept it, and flung the book out of the window. It was a +picture of Eve's temptation; and he recollected her saying that Eve +was a good woman,--and she'd have done just so, if she'd been there. +A very sad child, very sad; bad from infancy. He had talked himself +bold, and said all at once, "Doctor, do you know I am almost ready +to accept your doctrine of the congenital sinfulness of human nature? +I am afraid that is the only thing which goes to the bottom of the +difficulty." + +The old minister's face did not open so approvingly as Mr. +Fairweather had expected. + +"Why, yes,--well,--many find comfort in it,--I believe;--there is +much to be said,--there are many bad people,--and bad children, +--I can't be so sure about bad babies,--though they cry very +malignantly at times,--especially if they have the stomach-ache. +But I really don't know how to condemn this poor Elsie; she may have +impulses that act in her like instincts in the lower animals, and so +not come under the bearing of our ordinary rules of judgment." + +"But this depraved tendency, Doctor,--this unaccountable +perverseness. My dear Sir, I am afraid your school is in the right +about human nature. Oh, those words of the Psalmist, 'shapen in +iniquity,' and the rest! What are we to do with them,--we who teach +that the soul of a child is an unstained white tablet?" + +"King David was very subject to fits of humility, and much given to +self-reproaches," said the Doctor, in a rather dry way. "We owe you +and your friends a good deal for calling attention to the natural +graces, which, after all, may, perhaps, be considered as another form +of manifestation of the divine influence. Some of our writers have +pressed rather too hard on the tendencies of the human soul toward +evil as such. It maybe questioned whether these views have not +interfered with the sound training of certain young persons, sons of +clergymen and others. I am nearer of your mind about the possibility +of educating children so that they shall become good Christians +without any violent transition. That is what I should hope for from +bringing them up 'in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.'" + +The younger minister looked puzzled, but presently answered, +"Possibly we may have called attention to some neglected truths; but, +after all, I fear we must go to the old school, if we want to get at +the root of the matter. I know there is an outward amiability about +many young persons, some young girls especially, that seems like +genuine goodness; but I have been disposed of late to lean toward +your view, that these human affections, as we see them in our +children,--ours, I say, though I have not the fearful responsibility +of training any of my own,--are only a kind of disguised and sinful +selfishness." + +The old minister groaned in spirit. His heart had been softened by +the sweet influences of children and grandchildren. He thought of a +half-sized grave in the burial-ground, and the fine, brave, noble- +hearted boy he laid in it thirty years before,--the sweet, cheerful +child who had made his home all sunshine until the day when he was +brought into it, his long curls dripping, his fresh lips purpled in +death,--foolish dear little blessed creature to throw himself into +the deep water to save the drowning boy, who clung about him and +carried him under! Disguised selfishness! And his granddaughter +too, whose disguised selfishness was the light of his household! + +"Don't call it my view!" he said. "Abstractly, perhaps, all natures +may be considered vitiated; but practically, as I see it in life, the +divine grace keeps pace with the perverted instincts from infancy in +many natures. Besides, this perversion itself may often be disease, +bad habits transmitted, like drunkenness, or some hereditary +misfortune, as with this Elsie we were talking about." + +The younger minister was completely mystified. At every step he made +towards the Doctor's recognized theological position, the Doctor took +just one step towards his. They would cross each other soon at this +rate, and might as well exchange pulpits,--as Colonel Sprowle once +wished they would, it may be remembered. + +The Doctor, though a much clearer-headed man, was almost equally +puzzled. He turned the conversation again upon Elsie, and endeavored +to make her minister feel the importance of bringing every friendly +influence to bear upon her at this critical period of her life. His +sympathies did not seem so lively as the Doctor could have wished. +Perhaps he had vastly more important objects of solicitude in his own +spiritual interests. + +A knock at the door interrupted them. The Reverend Mr. Fairweather +rose and went towards it. As he passed the table, his coat caught +something, which came rattling to the floor. It was a crucifix with +a string of beads attached. As he opened the door, the Milesian +features of Father McShane presented themselves, and from their +centre proceeded the clerical benediction in Irish-sounding Latin, +Pax vobiscum! + +The Reverend Doctor Honeywood rose and left the priest and his +disciple together. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE SPIDER ON HIS THREAD. + +There was nobody, then, to counsel poor Elsie, except her father, who +had learned to let her have her own way so as not to disturb such +relations as they had together, and the old black woman, who had a +real, though limited influence over the girl. Perhaps she did not +need counsel. To look upon her, one might well suppose that she was +competent to defend herself against any enemy she was like to have. +That glittering, piercing eye was not to be softened by a few smooth +words spoken in low tones, charged with the common sentiments which +win their way to maidens' hearts. That round, lithe, sinuous figure +was as full of dangerous life as ever lay under the slender flanks +and clean-shaped limbs of a panther. + +There were particular times when Elsie was in such a mood that it +must have been a bold person who would have intruded upon her with +reproof or counsel. "This is one of her days," old Sophy would say +quietly to her father, and he would, as far as possible, leave her to +herself. These days were more frequent, as old Sophy's keen, +concentrated watchfulness had taught her, at certain periods of the +year. It was in the heats of summer that they were most common and +most strongly characterized. In winter, on the other hand, she was +less excitable, and even at times heavy and as if chilled and dulled +in her sensibilities. It was a strange, paroxysmal kind of life that +belonged to her. It seemed to come and go with the sunlight. All +winter long she would be comparatively quiet, easy to manage, +listless, slow in her motions; her eye would lose something of its +strange lustre; and the old nurse would feel so little anxiety, that +her whole expression and aspect would show the change, and people +would say to her, "Why, Sophy, how young you're looking!" + +As the spring came on, Elsie would leave the fireside, have her +tiger-skin spread in the empty southern chamber next the wall, and +lie there basking for whole hours in the sunshine. As the season +warmed, the light would kindle afresh in her eyes, and the old +woman's sleep would grow restless again,--for she knew, that, so long +as the glitter was fierce in the girl's eyes, there was no trusting +her impulses or movements. + +At last, when the veins of the summer were hot and swollen, and the +juices of all the poison-plants and the blood of all the creatures +that feed upon them had grown thick and strong,--about the time when +the second mowing was in hand, and the brown, wet-faced men were +following up the scythes as they chased the falling waves of grass, +(falling as the waves fall on sickle-curved beaches; the foam-flowers +dropping as the grass-flowers drop,--with sharp semivowel consonantal +sounds,--frsh,--for that is the way the sea talks, and leaves all +pure vowel-sounds for the winds to breathe over it, and all mutes to +the unyielding earth,)--about this time of over-ripe midsummer, the +life of Elsie seemed fullest of its malign and restless instincts. +This was the period of the year when the Rockland people were most +cautious of wandering in the leafier coverts which skirted the base +of The Mountain, and the farmers liked to wear thick, long boots, +whenever they went into the bushes. But Elsie was never so much +given to roaming over The Mountain as at this season; and as she had +grown more absolute and uncontrollable, she was as like to take the +night as the day for her rambles. + +At this season, too, all her peculiar tastes in dress and ornament +came out in a more striking way than at other times. She was never +so superb as then, and never so threatening in her scowling beauty. +The barred skirts she always fancied showed sharply beneath her +diaphanous muslins; the diamonds often glittered on her breast as if +for her own pleasure rather than to dazzle others; the asp-like +bracelet hardly left her arm. She was never seen without some +necklace,--either the golden cord she wore at the great party, or a +chain of mosaics, or simply a ring of golden scales. Some said that +Elsie always slept in a necklace, and that when she died she was to +be buried in one. It was a fancy of hers,--but many thought there +was a reason for it. + +Nobody watched Elsie with a more searching eye than her cousin, Dick +Venner. He had kept more out of her way of late, it is true, but +there was not a movement she made which he did not carefully observe +just so far as he could without exciting her suspicion. It was plain +enough to him that the road to fortune was before him, and that the +first thing was to marry Elsie. What course he should take with her, +or with others interested, after marrying her, need not be decided in +a hurry. + +He had now done all he could expect to do at present in the way of +conciliating the other members of the household. The girl's father +tolerated him, if he did not even like him. Whether he suspected his +project or not Dick did not feel sure; but it was something to have +got a foothold in the house, and to have overcome any prepossession +against him which his uncle might have entertained. To be a good +listener and a bad billiard-player was not a very great sacrifice to +effect this object. Then old Sophy could hardly help feeling +well-disposed towards him, after the gifts he had bestowed on her and +the court he had paid her. These were the only persons on the place +of much importance to gain over. The people employed about the house +and farm-lands had little to do with Elsie, except to obey her +without questioning her commands. + +Mr. Richard began to think of reopening his second parallel. But he +had lost something of the coolness with which he had begun his system +of operations. The more he had reflected upon the matter, the more +he had convinced himself that this was his one great chance in life. +If he suffered this girl to escape him, such an opportunity could +hardly, in the nature of things, present itself a second time. Only +one life between Elsie and her fortune,--and lives are so uncertain! +The girl might not suit him as a wife. Possibly. Time enough to +find out after he had got her. In short, he must have the property, +and Elsie Venner, as she was to go with it,--and then, if he found it +convenient and agreeable to, lead a virtuous life, he would settle +down and raise children and vegetables; but if he found it +inconvenient and disagreeable, so much the worse for those who made +it so. Like many other persons, he was not principled against +virtue, provided virtue were a better investment than its opposite; +but he knew that there might be contingencies in which the property +would be better without its incumbrances, and he contemplated this +conceivable problem in the light of all its possible solutions. + +One thing Mr. Richard could not conceal from himself: Elsie had some +new cause of indifference, at least, if not of aversion to him. With +the acuteness which persons who make a sole business of their own +interest gain by practice, so that fortune-hunters are often shrewd +where real lovers are terribly simple, he fixed at once on the young +man up at the school where the girl had been going of late, as +probably at the bottom of it. + +"Cousin Elsie in love!" so he communed with himself upon his lonely +pillow. "In love with a Yankee schoolmaster! What else can it be? +Let him look out for himself! He'll stand but a bad chance between +us. What makes you think she's in love with him? Met her walking +with him. Don't like her looks and ways;--she's thinking about +something, anyhow. Where does she get those books she is reading so +often? Not out of our library, that 's certain. If I could have ten +minutes' peep into her chamber now, I would find out where she got +them, and what mischief she was up to." + +At that instant, as if some tributary demon had heard his wish, a +shape which could be none but Elsie's flitted through a gleam of +moonlight into the shadow of the trees. She was setting out on one +of her midnight rambles. + +Dick felt his heart stir in its place, and presently his cheeks +flushed with the old longing for an adventure. It was not much to +invade a young girl's deserted chamber, but it would amuse a wakeful +hour, and tell him some little matters he wanted to know. The +chamber he slept in was over the room which Elsie chiefly occupied at +this season. There was no great risk of his being seen or heard, if +he ventured down-stairs to her apartment. + +Mr. Richard Venner, in the pursuit of his interesting project, arose +and lighted a lamp. He wrapped himself in a dressing-gown and thrust +his feet into a pair of cloth slippers. He stole carefully down the +stair, and arrived safely at the door of Elsie's room. + +The young lady had taken the natural precaution to leave it fastened, +carrying the key with her, no doubt,--unless; indeed, she had got out +by the window, which was not far from the ground. Dick could get in +at this window easily enough, but he did not like the idea of leaving +his footprints in the flower-bed just under it. He returned to his +own chamber, and held a council of war with himself. + +He put his head out of his own window and looked at that beneath. It +was open. He then went to one of his trunks, which he unlocked, and +began carefully removing its contents. What these were we need not +stop to mention,--only remarking that there were dresses of various +patterns, which might afford an agreeable series of changes, and in +certain contingencies prove eminently useful. After removing a few +of these, he thrust his hand to the very bottom of the remaining pile +and drew out a coiled strip of leather many yards in length, ending +in a noose,--a tough, well-seasoned lasso, looking as if it had seen +service and was none the worse for it. He uncoiled a few yards of +this and fastened it to the knob of a door. Then he threw the loose +end out of the window so that it should hang by the open casement of +Elsie's room. By this he let himself down opposite her window, and +with a slight effort swung himself inside the room. He lighted a +match, found a candle, and, having lighted that, looked curiously +about him, as Clodius might have done when he smuggled himself in +among the Vestals. + +Elsie's room was almost as peculiar as her dress and ornaments. It +was a kind of museum of objects, such as the woods are full of to +those who have eyes to see them, but many of them such as only few +could hope to reach, even if they knew where to look for them. +Crows' nests, which are never found but in the tall trees, commonly +enough in the forks of ancient hemlocks, eggs of rare birds, which +must have taken a quick eye and a hard climb to find and get hold of, +mosses and ferns of unusual aspect, and quaint monstrosities of +vegetable growth, such as Nature delights in, showed that Elsie had +her tastes and fancies like any naturalist or poet. + +Nature, when left to her own freaks in the forest, is grotesque and +fanciful to the verge of license, and beyond it. The foliage of +trees does not always require clipping to make it look like an image +of life. From those windows at Canoe Meadow, among the mountains, we +could see all summer long a lion rampant, a Shanghai chicken, and +General Jackson on horseback, done by Nature in green leaves, each +with a single tree. But to Nature's tricks with boughs and roots and +smaller vegetable growths there is no end. Her fancy is infinite, +and her humor not always refined. There is a perpetual reminiscence +of animal life in her rude caricatures, which sometimes actually +reach the point of imitating the complete human figure, as in that +extraordinary specimen which nobody will believe to be genuine, +except the men of science, and of which the discreet reader may have +a glimpse by application in the proper quarter. + +Elsie had gathered so many of these sculpture-like monstrosities, +that one might have thought she had robbed old Sophy's grandfather of +his fetishes. They helped to give her room a kind of enchanted look, +as if a witch had her home in it. Over the fireplace was a long, +staff-like branch, strangled in the spiral coils of one of those +vines which strain the smaller trees in their clinging embraces, +sinking into the bark until the parasite becomes almost identified +with its support. With these sylvan curiosities were blended objects +of art, some of them not less singular, but others showing a love for +the beautiful in form and color, such as a girl of fine organization +and nice culture might naturally be expected to feel and to indulge, +in adorning her apartment. + +All these objects, pictures, bronzes, vases, and the rest, did not +detain Mr. Richard Veneer very long, whatever may have been his +sensibilities to art. He was more curious about books and papers. A +copy of Keats lay on the table. He opened it and read the name of +Bernard C. Langdon on the blank leaf. An envelope was on the table +with Elsie's name written in a similar hand; but the envelope was +empty, and he could not find the note it contained. Her desk was +locked, and it would not be safe to tamper with it. He had seen +enough; the girl received books and notes from this fellow up at the +school, this usher, this Yankee quill-driver;--he was aspiring to +become the lord of the Dudley domain, then, was he? + +Elsie had been reasonably careful. She had locked up her papers, +whatever they might be. There was little else that promised to +reward his curiosity, but he cast his eye on everything. There was a +clasp-Bible among her books. Dick wondered if she ever unclasped it. +There was a book of hymns; it had her name in it, and looked as if it +might have been often read;--what the diablo had Elsie to do with +hymns? + +Mr. Richard Venner was in an observing and analytical state of mind, +it will be noticed, or he might perhaps have been touched with the +innocent betrayals of the poor girl's chamber. Had she, after all, +some human tenderness in her heart? That was not the way he put the +question,--but whether she would take seriously to this schoolmaster, +and if she did, what would be the neatest and surest and quickest way +of putting a stop to all that nonsense. All this, however, he could +think over more safely in his own quarters. So he stole softly to +the window, and, catching the end of the leathern thong, regained his +own chamber and drew in the lasso. + +It needs only a little jealousy to set a man on who is doubtful in +love or wooing, or to make him take hold of his courting in earnest. +As soon as Dick had satisfied himself that the young schoolmaster was +his rival in Elsie's good graces, his whole thoughts concentrated +themselves more than ever on accomplishing his great design of +securing her for himself. There was no time to be lost. He must +come into closer relations with her, so as to withdraw her thoughts +from this fellow, and to find out more exactly what was the state of +her affections, if she had any. So he began to court her company +again, to propose riding with her, to sing to her, to join her +whenever she was strolling about the grounds, to make himself +agreeable, according to the ordinary understanding of that phrase, in +every way which seemed to promise a chance for succeeding in that +amiable effort. + +The girl treated him more capriciously than ever. She would be +sullen and silent, or she would draw back fiercely at some harmless +word or gesture, or she would look at him with her eyes narrowed in +such a strange way and with such a wicked light in them that Dick +swore to himself they were too much for him, and would leave her for +the moment. Yet she tolerated him, almost as a matter of necessity, +and sometimes seemed to take a kind of pleasure in trying her power +upon him. This he soon found out, and humored her in the fancy that +she could exercise a kind of fascination over him, though there were +times in which he actually felt an influence he could not understand, +an effect of some peculiar expression about her, perhaps, but still +centring in those diamond eyes of hers which it made one feel so +curiously to look into. + +Whether Elsie saw into his object or not was more than he could tell. +His idea was, after having conciliated the good-will of all about her +as far as possible, to make himself first a habit and then a +necessity with the girl,--not to spring any trap of a declaration +upon her until tolerance had grown into such a degree of inclination +as her nature was like to admit. He had succeeded in the first part +of his plan. He was at liberty to prolong his visit at his own +pleasure. This was not strange; these three persons, Dudley Venner, +his daughter, and his nephew, represented all that remained of an old +and honorable family. Had Elsie been like other girls, her father +might have been less willing to entertain a young fellow like Dick as +an inmate; but he had long outgrown all the slighter apprehensions +which he might have had in common with all parents, and followed +rather than led the imperious instincts of his daughter. It was not +a question of sentiment, but of life and death, or more than that,-- +some dark ending, perhaps, which would close the history of his race +with disaster and evil report upon the lips of all coming +generations. + +As to the thought of his nephew's making love to his daughter, it had +almost passed from his mind. He had been so long in the habit of +looking at Elsie as outside of all common influences and exceptional +in the law of her nature, that it was difficult for him to think of +her as a girl to be fallen in love with. Many persons are surprised, +when others court their female relatives; they know them as good +young or old women enough,--aunts, sisters, nieces, daughters, +whatever they may be,--but never think of anybody's falling in love +with them, any more than of their being struck by lightning. But in +this case there were special reasons, in addition to the common +family delusion,--reasons which seemed to make it impossible that she +should attract a suitor. Who would dare to marry Elsie? No, let her +have the pleasure, if it was one, at any rate the wholesome +excitement, of companionship; it might save her from lapsing into +melancholy or a worse form of madness. Dudley Venner had a kind of +superstition, too, that, if Elsie could only outlive three +septenaries, twenty-one years, so that, according to the prevalent +idea, her whole frame would have been thrice made over, counting from +her birth, she would revert to the natural standard of health of mind +and feelings from which she had been so long perverted. The thought +of any other motive than love being sufficient to induce Richard to +become her suitor had not occurred to him. He had married early, at +that happy period when interested motives are least apt to influence +the choice; and his single idea of marriage was, that it was the +union of persons naturally drawn towards each other by some mutual +attraction. Very simple, perhaps; but he had lived lonely for many +years since his wife's death, and judged the hearts of others, most +of all of his brother's son, by his own. He had often thought +whether, in case of Elsie's dying or being necessarily doomed to +seclusion, he might not adopt this nephew and make him his heir; but +it had not occurred to him that Richard might wish to become his son- +in-law for the sake of his property. + +It is very easy to criticise other people's modes of dealing with +their children. Outside observers see results; parents see +processes. They notice the trivial movements and accents which +betray the blood of this or that ancestor; they can detect the +irrepressible movement of hereditary impulse in looks and acts which +mean nothing to the common observer. To be a parent is almost to be +a fatalist. This boy sits with legs crossed, just as his uncle used +to whom he never saw; his grandfathers both died before he was born, +but he has the movement of the eyebrows which we remember in one of +them, and the gusty temper of three different generations, can tell +pretty nearly the range of possibilities and the limitations of a +child, actual or potential, of a given stock,--errors excepted +always, because children of the same stock are not bred just alike, +because the traits of some less known ancestor are liable to break +out at any time, and because each human being has, after all, a small +fraction of individuality about him which gives him a flavor, so that +he is distinguishable from others by his friends or in a court of +justice, and which occasionally makes a genius or a saint or a +criminal of him. It is well that young persons cannot read these +fatal oracles of Nature. Blind impulse is her highest wisdom, after +all. We make our great jump, and then she takes the bandage off our +eyes. That is the way the broad sea-level of average is maintained, +and the physiological democracy is enabled to fight against the +principle of selection which would disinherit all the weaker +children. The magnificent constituency of mediocrities of which the +world is made up,--the people without biographies, whose lives have +made a clear solution in the fluid menstruum of time, instead of +being precipitated in the opaque sediment of history + +But this is a narrative, and not a disquisition. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +FROM WITHOUT AND FROM WITHIN. + +There were not wanting people who accused Dudley VENNER of weakness +and bad judgment in his treatment of his daughter. Some were of +opinion that the great mistake was in not "breaking her will" when +she was a little child. There was nothing the matter with her, they +said, but that she had been spoiled by indulgence. If they had had +the charge of her, they'd have brought her down. She'd got the +upperhand of her father now; but if he'd only taken hold of her in +season! There are people who think that everything may be done, if +the doer, be he educator or physician, be only called "in season." +No doubt,--but in season would often be a hundred or two years before +the child was born; and people never send so early as that. + +The father of Elsie Veneer knew his duties and his difficulties too +well to trouble himself about anything others might think or say. So +soon as he found that he could not govern his child, he gave his life +up to following her and protecting her as far as he could. It was a +stern and terrible trial for a man of acute sensibility, and not +without force of intellect and will, and the manly ambition for +himself and his family-name which belonged to his endowments and his +position. Passive endurance is the hardest trial to persons of such +a nature. + +What made it still more a long martyrdom was the necessity for +bearing his cross in utter loneliness. He could not tell his griefs. +He could not talk of them even with those who knew their secret +spring. His minister had the unsympathetic nature which is common in +the meaner sort of devotees,--persons who mistake spiritual +selfishness for sanctity, and grab at the infinite prize of the great +Future and Elsewhere with the egotism they excommunicate in its +hardly more odious forms of avarice and self-indulgence. How could +he speak with the old physician and the old black woman about a +sorrow and a terror which but to name was to strike dumb the lips of +Consolation? + +In the dawn of his manhood he had found that second consciousness for +which young men and young women go about looking into each other's +faces, with their sweet, artless aim playing in every feature, and +making them beautiful to each other, as to all of us. He had found +his other self early, before he had grown weary in the search and +wasted his freshness in vain longings: the lot of many, perhaps we +may say of most, who infringe the patent of our social order by +intruding themselves into a life already upon half allowance of the +necessary luxuries of existence. The life he had led for a brief +space was not only beautiful in outward circumstance, as old Sophy +had described it to the Reverend Doctor. It was that delicious +process of the tuning of two souls to each other, string by string, +not without little half-pleasing discords now and then when some +chord in one or the other proves to be overstrained or over-lax, but +always approaching nearer and nearer to harmony, until they become at +last as two instruments with a single voice. Something more than a +year of this blissful doubled consciousness had passed over him when +he found himself once more alone,--alone, save for the little +diamond-eyed child lying in the old black woman's arms, with the +coral necklace round--her throat and the rattle in her hand. + +He would not die by his own act. It was not the way in his family. +There may have been other, perhaps better reasons, but this was +enough; he did not come of suicidal stock. He must live for this +child's sake, at any rate; and yet,--oh, yet, who could tell with +what thoughts he looked upon her? Sometimes her little features +would look placid, and something like a smile would steal over them; +then all his tender feelings would rush up, into his eyes, and he +would put his arms out to take her from the old woman,--but all at +once her eyes would narrow and she would throw her head back, and a +shudder would seize him as he stooped over his child,--he could not +look upon her,--he could not touch his lips to her cheek; nay, there +would sometimes come into his soul such frightful suggestions that he +would hurry from the room lest the hinted thought should become a +momentary madness and he should lift his hand against the hapless +infant which owed him life. + +In those miserable days he used to wander all over The Mountain in +his restless endeavor to seek some relief for inward suffering in +outward action. He had no thought of throwing himself from the +summit of any of the broken cliffs, but he clambered over them +recklessly, as having no particular care for his life. Sometimes he +would go into the accursed district where the venomous reptiles were +always to be dreaded, and court their worst haunts, and kill all he +could come near with a kind of blind fury which was strange in a +person of his gentle nature. + +One overhanging cliff was a favorite haunt of his. It frowned upon +his home beneath in a very menacing way; he noticed slight seams and +fissures that looked ominous;--what would happen, if it broke off +some time or other and came crashing down on the fields and roofs +below? He thought of such a possible catastrophe with a singular +indifference, in fact with a feeling almost like pleasure. It would +be such a swift and thorough solution of this great problem of life +he was working out in ever-recurring daily anguish! The remote +possibility of such a catastrophe had frightened some timid dwellers +beneath The Mountain to other places of residence; here the danger +was most imminent, and yet he loved to dwell upon the chances of its +occurrence. Danger is often the best counterirritant in cases of +mental suffering; he found a solace in careless exposure of his life, +and learned to endure the trials of each day better by dwelling in +imagination on the possibility that it might be the last for him and +the home that was his. + +Time, the great consoler, helped these influences, and he gradually +fell into more easy and less dangerous habits of life. He ceased +from his more perilous rambles. He thought less of the danger from +the great overhanging rocks and forests; they had hung there for +centuries; it was not very likely they would crash or slide in his +time. He became accustomed to all Elsie's strange looks and ways. +Old Sophy dressed her with ruffles round her neck, and hunted up the +red coral branch with silver bells which the little toothless Dudleys +had bitten upon for a hundred years. By an infinite effort, her +father forced himself to become the companion of this child, for whom +he had such a mingled feeling, but whose presence was always a trial +to him, and often a terror. + +At a cost which no human being could estimate, he had done his duty, +and in some degree reaped his reward. Elsie grew up with a kind of +filial feeling for him, such as her nature was capable of. She never +would obey him; that was not to be looked for. Commands, threats, +punishments, were out of the question with her; the mere physical +effects of crossing her will betrayed themselves in such changes of +expression and manner that it would have been senseless to attempt to +govern her in any such way. Leaving her mainly to herself, she could +be to some extent indirectly influenced,--not otherwise. She called +her father "Dudley," as if he had been her brother. She ordered +everybody and would be ordered by none. + +Who could know all these things, except the few people of the +household? What wonder, therefore, that ignorant and shallow persons +laid the blame on her father of those peculiarities which were freely +talked about,--of those darker tendencies which were hinted of in +whispers? To all this talk, so far as it reached him, he was +supremely indifferent, not only with the indifference which all +gentlemen feel to the gossip of their inferiors, but with a +charitable calmness which did not wonder or blame. He knew that his +position was not simply a difficult, but an impossible one, and +schooled himself to bear his destiny as well as he might, and report +himself only at Headquarters. + +He had grown gentle under this discipline. His hair was just +beginning to be touched with silver, and his expression was that of +habitual sadness and anxiety. He had no counsellor, as we have seen, +to turn to, who did not know either too much or too little. He had +no heart to rest upon and into which he might unburden himself of the +secrets and the sorrows that were aching in his own breast. Yet he +had not allowed himself to run to waste in the long time since he was +left alone to his trials and fears. He had resisted the seductions +which always beset solitary men with restless brains overwrought by +depressing agencies. He disguised no misery to himself with the +lying delusion of wine. He sought no sleep from narcotics, though he +lay with throbbing, wide-open eyes through all the weary hours of the +night. + +It was understood between Dudley Veneer and old Doctor Kittredge that +Elsie was a subject of occasional medical observation, on account of +certain mental peculiarities which might end in a permanent affection +of her reason. Beyond this nothing was said, whatever may have been +in the mind of either. But Dudley Veneer had studied Elsie's case in +the light of all the books he could find which might do anything +towards explaining it. As in all cases where men meddle with medical +science for a special purpose, having no previous acquaintance with +it, his imagination found what it wanted in the books he read, and +adjusted it to the facts before him. So it was he came to cherish +those two fancies before alluded to that the ominous birthmark she +had carried from infancy might fade and become obliterated, and that +the age of complete maturity might be signalized by an entire change +in her physical and mental state. He held these vague hopes as all +of us nurse our only half-believed illusions. Not for the world +would he have questioned his sagacious old medical friend as to the +probability or possibility of their being true. We are very shy of +asking questions of those who know enough to destroy with one word +the hopes we live on. + +In this life of comparative seclusion to which the father had doomed +himself for the sake of his child, he had found time for large and +varied reading. The learned Judge Thornton confessed himself +surprised at the extent of Dudley Veneer's information. Doctor +Kittredge found that he was in advance of him in the knowledge of +recent physiological discoveries. He had taken pains to become +acquainted with agricultural chemistry; and the neighboring farmers +owed him some useful hints about the management of their land. He +renewed his old acquaintance with the classic authors. He loved to +warm his pulses with Homer and calm them down with Horace. He +received all manner of new books and periodicals, and gradually +gained an interest in the events of the passing time. Yet he +remained almost a hermit, not absolutely refusing to see his +neighbors, nor even churlish towards them, but on the other hand not +cultivating any intimate relations with them. + +He had retired from the world a young man, little more than a youth, +indeed, with sentiments and aspirations all of them suddenly +extinguished. The first had bequeathed him a single huge sorrow, the +second a single trying duty. In due time the anguish had lost +something of its poignancy, the light of earlier and happier memories +had begun to struggle with and to soften its thick darkness, and even +that duty which he had confronted with such an effort had become an +endurable habit. + +At a period of life when many have been living on the capital of +their acquired knowledge and their youthful stock of sensibilities +until their intellects are really shallower and their hearts emptier +than they were at twenty, Dudley Veneer was stronger in thought and +tenderer in soul than in the first freshness of his youth, when he +counted but half his present years. He had entered that period which +marks the decline of men who have ceased growing in knowledge and +strength: from forty to fifty a man must move upward, or the natural +falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly downward. At +this time his inward: nature was richer and deeper than in any +earlier period of his life. If he could only be summoned to action, +he was capable of noble service. If his sympathies could only find +an outlet, he was never so capable of love as now; for his natural +affections had been gathering in the course of all these years, and +the traces of that ineffaceable calamity of his life were softened +and partially hidden by new growths of thought and feeling, as the +wreck left by a mountainslide is covered over by the gentle intrusion +of the soft-stemmed herbs which will prepare it for the stronger +vegetation that will bring it once more into harmony with the +peaceful slopes around it. + +Perhaps Dudley Veneer had not gained so much in worldly wisdom as if +he had been more in society and less in his study. The indulgence +with which he treated his nephew was, no doubt, imprudent. A man +more in the habit of dealing with men would have been more guarded +with a person with Dick's questionable story and unquestionable +physiognomy. But he was singularly unsuspicious, and his natural +kindness was an additional motive to the wish for introducing some +variety into the routine of Elsie's life. + +If Dudley Veneer did not know just what he wanted at this period of +his life, there were a great many people in the town of Rockland who +thought they did know. He had been a widower long enough, "--nigh +twenty year, wa'n't it? He'd been aout to Spraowles's party,--there +wa'n't anything to hender him why he shouldn't stir raound l'k other +folks. What was the reason he did n't go abaout to taown-meetin's +'n' Sahbath-meetin's, 'n' lyceums, 'n' school 'xaminations, 'n' +s'prise-parties, 'n' funerals,--and other entertainments where the +still-faced two-story folks were in the habit of looking round to see +if any of the mansion-house gentry were present?---Fac' was, he was +livin' too lonesome daown there at the mansion-haouse. Why shouldn't +he make up to the Jedge's daughter? She was genteel enough for him, +and--let's see, haow old was she? Seven-'n'itwenty,--no, six-'n'- +twenty,--born the same year we buried our little Anny Marl". + +There was no possible objection to this arrangement, if the parties +interested had seen fit to make it or even to think of it. But +"Portia," as some of the mansion-house people called her, did not +happen to awaken the elective affinities of the lonely widower. He +met her once in a while, and said to himself that she was a good +specimen of the grand style of woman; and then the image came back to +him of a woman not quite so large, not quite so imperial in her port, +not quite so incisive in her speech, not quite so judicial in her +opinions, but with two or three more joints in her frame, and two or +three soft inflections in her voice, which for some absurd reason or +other drew him to her side and so bewitched him that he told her half +his secrets and looked into her eyes all that he could not tell, in +less time than it would have takes him to discuss the champion paper +of the last Quarterly with the admirable "Portia." Heu, quanto +minus! How much more was that lost image to him than all it left on +earth! + +The study of love is very much like that of meteorology. We know +that just about so much rain will fall in a season; but on what +particular day it will shower is more than we can tell. We know that +just about so much love will be made every year in a given +population; but who will rain his young affections upon the heart of +whom is not known except to the astrologers and fortune-tellers. And +why rain falls as it does and why love is made just as it is are +equally puzzling questions. + +The woman a man loves is always his own daughter, far more his +daughter than the female children born to him by the common law of +life. It is not the outside woman, who takes his name, that he +loves: before her image has reached the centre of his consciousness, +it has passed through fifty many-layered nerve-strainers, been +churned over by ten thousand pulse-beats, and reacted upon by +millions of lateral impulses which bandy it about through the mental +spaces as a reflection is sent back and forward in a saloon lined +with mirrors. With this altered image of the woman before him, his +preexisting ideal becomes blended. The object of his love is in part +the offspring of her legal parents, but more of her lover's brain. +The difference between the real and the ideal objects of love must +not exceed a fixed maximum. The heart's vision cannot unite them +stereoscopically into a single image, if the divergence passes +certain limits. A formidable analogy, much in the nature of a proof, +with very serious consequences, which moralists and match-makers +would do well to remember! Double vision with the eyes of the heart +is a dangerous physiological state, and may lead to missteps and +serious falls. + +Whether Dudley Veneer would ever find a breathing image near enough +to his ideal one, to fill the desolate chamber of his heart, or not, +was very doubtful. Some gracious and gentle woman, whose influence +would steal upon him as the first low words of prayer after that +interval of silent mental supplication known to one of our simpler +forms of public worship, gliding into his consciousness without +hurting its old griefs, herself knowing the chastening of sorrow, and +subdued into sweet acquiescence with the Divine will,--some such +woman as this, if Heaven should send him such, might call him back to +the world of happiness, from which he seemed forever exiled. He +could never again be the young lover who walked through the garden- +alleys all red with roses in the old dead and buried June of long +ago. He could never forget the bride of his youth, whose image, +growing phantomlike with the lapse of years, hovered over him like a +dream while waking and like a reality in dreams. But if it might be +in God's good providence that this desolate life should come under +the influence of human affections once more, what an ecstasy of +renewed existence was in store for him! His life had not all been +buried under that narrow ridge of turf with the white stone at its +head. It seemed so for a while; but it was not and could not and +ought not to be so. His first passion had been a true and pure one; +there was no spot or stain upon it. With all his grief there blended +no cruel recollection of any word or look he would have wished to +forget. All those little differences, such as young married people +with any individual flavor in their characters must have, if they are +tolerably mated, had only added to the music of existence, as the +lesser discords admitted into some perfect symphony, fitly resolved, +add richness and strength to the whole harmonious movement. It was a +deep wound that Fate had inflicted on him; nay, it seemed like a +mortal one; but the weapon was clean, and its edge was smooth. Such +wounds must heal with time in healthy natures, whatever a false +sentiment may say, by the wise and beneficent law of our being. The +recollection of a deep and true affection is rather a divine +nourishment for a life to grow strong upon than a poison to destroy +it. + +Dudley Venner's habitual sadness could not be laid wholly to his +early bereavement. It was partly the result of the long struggle +between natural affection and duty, on one side, and the involuntary +tendencies these had to overcome, on the other,--between hope and +fear, so long in conflict that despair itself would have been like an +anodyne, and he would have slept upon some final catastrophe with the +heavy sleep of a bankrupt after his failure is proclaimed. Alas! +some new affection might perhaps rekindle the fires of youth in his +heart; but what power could calm that haggard terror of the parent +which rose with every morning's sun and watched with every evening +star,--what power save alone that of him who comes bearing the +inverted torch, and leaving after him only the ashes printed with his +footsteps? + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE WIDOW ROWENS GIVES A TEA-PARTY. + +There was a good deal of interest felt, as has been said, in the +lonely condition of Dudley Venner in that fine mansion-house of his, +and with that strange daughter, who would never be married, as many +people thought, in spite of all the stories. The feelings expressed +by the good folks who dated from the time when they "buried aour +little Anny Mari'," and others of that homespun stripe, were founded +in reason, after all. And so it was natural enough that they should +be shared by various ladies, who, having conjugated the verb to live +as far as the preterpluperfect tense, were ready to change one of its +vowels and begin with it in the present indicative. Unfortunately, +there was very little chance of showing sympathy in its active form +for a gentleman who kept himself so much out of the way as the master +of the Dudley Mansion. + +Various attempts had been made, from time to time, of late years, to +get him out of his study, which had, for the most part, proved +failures. It was a surprise, therefore, when he was seen at the +Great Party at the Colonel's. But it was an encouragement to try him +again, and the consequence had been that he had received a number of +notes inviting him to various smaller entertainments, which, as +neither he nor Elsie had any fancy for them, he had politely +declined. + +Such was the state of things when he received an invitation to take +tea sociably, with a few friends, at Hyacinth Cottage, the residence +of the Widow Rowens, relict of the late Beeri Rowens, Esquire, better +known as Major Rowens. Major Rowens was at the time of his decease a +promising officer in the militia, in the direct line of promotion, as +his waistband was getting tighter every year; and, as all the world +knows, the militia-officer who splits off most buttons and fills the +largest sword-belt stands the best chance of rising, or, perhaps we +might say, spreading, to be General. + +Major Rowens united in his person certain other traits which help a +man to eminence in the branch of public service referred to. He ran +to high colors, to wide whiskers, to open pores; he had the saddle- +leather skin common in Englishmen, rarer in Americans,--never found +in the Brahmin caste, oftener in the military and the commodores: +observing people know what is meant; blow the seed-arrows from the +white-kid-looking button which holds them on a dandelion-stalk, and +the pricked-pincushion surface shows you what to look for. He had +the loud gruff voice which implies the right to command. He had the +thick hand, stubbed fingers, with bristled pads between their joints, +square, broad thumb-nails, and sturdy limbs, which mark a +constitution made to use in rough out-door work. He had the never- +failing predilection for showy switch-tailed horses that step high, +and sidle about, and act as if they were going to do something +fearful the next minute, in the face of awed and admiring multitudes +gathered at mighty musters or imposing cattle-shows. He had no +objection, either, to holding the reins in a wagon behind another +kind of horse,--a slouching, listless beast, with a strong slant to +his shoulder; and a notable depth to his quarter and an emphatic +angle at the hock, who commonly walked or lounged along in a lazy +trot of five or six miles an hour; but, if a lively colt happened to +come rattling up alongside, or a brandy-faced old horse-jockey took +the road to show off a fast nag, and threw his dust into the Major's +face, would pick his legs up all at once, and straighten his body +out, and swing off into a three-minute gait, in a way that "Old Blue" +himself need not have been ashamed of. + +For some reason which must be left to the next generation of +professors to find out, the men who are knowing in horse-flesh have +an eye also for, let a long dash separate the brute creation from the +angelic being now to be named,--for lovely woman. Of this fact there +can be no possible doubt; and therefore you shall notice, that, if a +fast horse trots before two, one of the twain is apt to be a pretty +bit of muliebrity, with shapes to her, and eyes flying about in all +directions. + +Major Rowens, at that time Lieutenant of the Rockland Fusileers, had +driven and "traded" horses not a few before he turned his acquired +skill as a judge of physical advantages in another direction. He +knew a neat, snug hoof, a delicate pastern, a broad haunch, a deep +chest, a close ribbed-up barrel, as well as any other man in the +town. He was not to be taken in by your thick-jointed, heavy-headed +cattle, without any go to them, that suit a country-parson, nor yet +by the "gaanted-up," long-legged animals, with all their +constitutions bred out of them, such as rich greenhorns buy and cover +up with their plated trappings. + +Whether his equine experience was of any use to him in the selection +of the mate with whom he was to go in double harness so long as they +both should live, we need not stop to question. At any rate, nobody +could find fault with the points of Miss Marilla Van Deusen, to whom +he offered the privilege of becoming Mrs. Rowens. The Van must have +been crossed out of her blood, for she was an out-and-out brunette, +with hair and eyes black enough for a Mohawk's daughter. A fine +style of woman, with very striking tints and outlines,--an excellent +match for the Lieutenant, except for one thing. She was marked by +Nature for a widow. She was evidently got up for mourning, and never +looked so well as in deep black, with jet ornaments. + +The man who should dare to marry her would doom himself; for how +could she become the widow she was bound to be, unless he could +retire and give her a chance? The Lieutenant lived, however, as we +have seen, to become Captain and then Major, with prospects of +further advancement. But Mrs. Rowens often said she should never +look well in colors. At last her destiny fulfilled itself, and the +justice of Nature was vindicated. Major Rowens got overheated +galloping about the field on the day of the Great Muster, and had a +rush of blood to the head, according to the common report,--at any +rate, something which stopped him short in his career of expansion +and promotion, and established Mrs. Rowens in her normal condition of +widowhood. + +The Widow Rowens was now in the full bloom of ornamental sorrow. A +very shallow crape bonnet, frilled and froth-like, allowed the parted +raven hair to show its glossy smoothness. A jet pin heaved upon her +bosom with every sigh of memory, or emotion of unknown origin. Jet +bracelets shone with every movement of her slender hands, cased in +close-fitting black gloves. Her sable dress was ridged with manifold +flounces, from beneath which a small foot showed itself from time to +time, clad in the same hue of mourning. Everything about her was +dark, except the whites of her eyes and the enamel of her teeth. The +effect was complete. Gray's Elegy was not a more perfect +composition. + +Much as the Widow was pleased with the costume belonging to her +condition, she did not disguise from herself that under certain +circumstances she might be willing to change her name again. Thus, +for instance, if a gentleman not too far gone in maturity, of +dignified exterior, with an ample fortune, and of unexceptionable +character, should happen to set his heart upon her, and the only way +to make him happy was to give up her weeds and go into those +unbecoming colors again for his sake,--why, she felt that it was in +her nature to make the sacrifice. By a singular coincidence it +happened that a gentleman was now living in Rockland who united in +himself all these advantages. Who he was, the sagacious reader may +very probably have divined. Just to see how it looked, one day, +having bolted her door, and drawn the curtains close, and glanced +under the sofa, and listened at the keyhole to be sure there was +nobody in the entry,--just to see how it looked, she had taken out an +envelope and written on the back of it Mrs. Manilla Veneer. It made +her head swim and her knees tremble. What if she should faint, or +die, or have a stroke of palsy, and they should break into the room +and find that name written! How she caught it up and tore it into +little shreds, and then could not be easy until she had burned the +small heap of pieces + +But these are things which every honorable reader will consider +imparted in strict confidence. + +The Widow Rowens, though not of the mansion house set, was among the +most genteel of the two-story circle, and was in the habit of +visiting some of the great people. In one of these visits she met a +dashing young fellow with an olive complexion at the house of a +professional gentleman who had married one of the white necks and +pairs of fat arms from a distinguished family before referred to. +The professional gentleman himself was out, but the lady introduced +the olive-complexioned young man as Mr. Richard Venner. + +The Widow was particularly pleased with this accidental meeting. Had +heard Mr. Venner's name frequently mentioned. Hoped his uncle was +well, and his charming cousin,--was she as original as ever? Had +often admired that charming creature he rode: we had had some fine +horses. Had never got over her taste for riding, but could find +nobody that liked a good long gallop since--well--she could n't help +wishing she was alongside of him, the other day, when she saw him +dashing by, just at twilight. + +The Widow paused; lifted a flimsy handkerchief with a very deep black +border so as to play the jet bracelet; pushed the tip of her slender +foot beyond the lowest of her black flounces; looked up; looked down; +looked at Mr. Richard, the very picture of artless simplicity,--as +represented in well-played genteel comedy. + +"A good bit of stuff," Dick said to himself, "and something of it +left yet; caramba! "The Major had not studied points for nothing, +and the Widow was one of the right sort. The young man had been a +little restless of late, and was willing to vary his routine by +picking up an acquaintance here and there. So he took the Widow's +hint. He should like to have a scamper of half a dozen miles with +her some fine morning. + +The Widow was infinitely obliged; was not sure that she could find +any horse in the village to suit her; but it was so kind in him! +Would he not call at Hyacinth Cottage, and let her thank him again +there? + +Thus began an acquaintance which the Widow made the most of, and on +the strength of which she determined to give a tea-party and invite a +number of persons of whom we know something already. She took a +half-sheet of note-paper and made out her list as carefully as a +country "merchant's clerk" adds up two and threepence (New-England +nomenclature) and twelve and a half cents, figure by figure, and +fraction by fraction, before he can be sure they will make half a +dollar, without cheating somebody. After much consideration the list +reduced itself to the following names: Mr. Richard Venner and Mrs. +Blanche Creamer, the lady at whose house she had met him,--mansion- +house breed,--but will come,--soft on Dick; Dudley Venner,--take care +of him herself; Elsie,--Dick will see to her,--won't it fidget the +Creamer woman to see him round her? the old Doctor,--he 's always +handy; and there's that young master there, up at the school,--know +him well enough to ask him,--oh, yes, he'll come. One, two, three, +four, five, six,--seven; not room enough, without the leaf in the +table; one place empty, if the leaf's in. Let's see,--Helen Darley, +--she 'll do well enough to fill it up,--why, yes, just the thing,-- +light brown hair, blue eyes,--won't my pattern show off well against +her? Put her down,--she 's worth her tea and toast ten times over,-- +nobody knows what a "thunder-and-lightning woman," as poor Major used +to have it, is, till she gets alongside of one of those old-maidish +girls, with hair the color of brown sugar, and eyes like the blue of +a teacup. + +The Widow smiled with a feeling of triumph at having overcome her +difficulties and arranged her party,--arose and stood before her +glass, three-quarters front, one-quarter profile, so as to show the +whites of the eyes and the down of the upper lip. "Splendid!" said +the Widow--and to tell the truth, she was not far out of the way, and +with Helen Darley as a foil anybody would know she must be foudroyant +and pyramidal,--if these French adjectives may be naturalized for +this one particular exigency. + +So the Widow sent out her notes. The black grief which had filled +her heart and had overflowed in surges of crape around her person had +left a deposit half an inch wide at the margin of her note-paper. +Her seal was a small youth with an inverted torch, the same on which +Mrs. Blanche Creamer made her spiteful remark, that she expected to +see that boy of the Widow's standing on his head yet; meaning, as +Dick supposed, that she would get the torch right-side up as soon as +she had a chance. That was after Dick had made the Widow's +acquaintance, and Mrs. Creamer had got it into her foolish head that +she would marry that young fellow, if she could catch him. How could +he ever come to fancy such a quadroon-looking thing as that, she +should like to know? + +It is easy enough to ask seven people to a party; but whether they +will come or not is an open question, as it was in the case of the +spirits of the vasty deep. If the note issues from a three-story +mansion-house, and goes to two-story acquaintances, they will all be +in an excellent state of health, and have much pleasure in accepting +this very polite invitation. If the note is from the lady of a two- +story family to three-story ones, the former highly respectable +person will very probably find that an endemic complaint is +prevalent, not represented in the weekly bills of mortality, which +occasions numerous regrets in the bosoms of eminently desirable +parties that they cannot have the pleasure of and-so-forthing. + +In this case there was room for doubt,--mainly as to whether Elsie +would take a fancy to come or not. If she should come, her father +would certainly be with her. Dick had promised, and thought he could +bring Elsie. Of course the young schoolmaster will come, and that +poor tired-out looking Helen, if only to get out of sight of those +horrid Peckham wretches. They don't get such invitations every day. +The others she felt sure of,--all but the old Doctor,--he might have +some horrid patient or other to visit; tell him Elsie Venner's going +to be there,--he always likes to have an eye on her, they say,--oh, +he'd come fast enough, without any more coaxing. + +She wanted the Doctor, particularly. It was odd, but she was afraid +of Elsie. She felt as if she should be safe enough, if the old +Doctor were there to see to the girl; and then she should have +leisure to devote herself more freely to the young lady's father, for +whom all her sympathies were in a state of lively excitement. + +It was a long time since the Widow had seen so many persons round her +table as she had now invited. Better have the plates set and see how +they will fill it up with the leaf in.--A little too scattering with +only eight plates set: if she could find two more people, now, that +would bring the chairs a little closer,--snug, you know,--which makes +the company sociable. The Widow thought over her acquaintances. Why +how stupid! there was her good minister, the same who had married +her, and might--might--bury her for aught she anew, and his +granddaughter staying with him,--nice little girl, pretty, and not +old enough to be dangerous;--for the Widow had no notion of making a +tea-party and asking people to it that would be like to stand between +her and any little project she might happen to have on anybody's +heart,--not she! It was all right now; Blanche was married and so +forth; Letty was a child; Elsie was his daughter; Helen Darley was a +nice, worthy drudge,--poor thing!--faded, faded,--colors wouldn't +wash, just what she wanted to show off against. Now, if the Dudley +mansion-house people would only come,--that was the great point. + +"Here's a note for us, Elsie," said her father, as they sat round the +breakfast-table. "Mrs. Rowens wants us all to come to tea." + +It was one of "Elsie's days," as old Sophy called them. The light in +her eyes was still, but very bright. She looked up so full of +perverse and wilful impulses, that Dick knew he could make her go +with him and her father. He had his own motives for bringing her to +this determination,--and his own way of setting about it. + +"I don't want to go," he said. "What do you say, uncle?" + +"To tell the truth, Richard, I don't mach fancy the Major's widow. I +don't like to see her weeds flowering out quite so strong. I suppose +you don't care about going, Elsie?" + +Elsie looked up in her father's face with an expression which he knew +but too well. She was just in the state which the plain sort of +people call "contrary," when they have to deal with it in animals. +She would insist on going to that tea-party; he knew it just as well +before she spoke as after she had spoken. If Dick had said he wanted +to go and her father had seconded his wishes, she would have insisted +on staying at home. It was no great matter, her father said to +himself, after all; very likely it would amuse her; the Widow was a +lively woman enough,--perhaps a little comme il ne faut pas socially, +compared with the Thorntons and some other families; but what did he +care for these petty village distinctions? + +Elsie spoke. + +"I mean to go. You must go with me, Dudley. You may do as you like, +Dick." + +That settled the Dudley-mansion business, of course. They all three +accepted, as fortunately did all the others who had been invited. + +Hyacinth Cottage was a pretty place enough, a little too much choked +round with bushes, and too much overrun with climbing-roses, which, +in the season of slugs and rose-bugs, were apt to show so brown about +the leaves and so coleopterous about the flowers, that it might be +questioned whether their buds and blossoms made up for these +unpleasant animal combinations,--especially as the smell of whale-oil +soap was very commonly in the ascendant over that of the roses. It +had its patch of grass called "the lawn," and its glazed closet known +as "the conservatory," according to that system of harmless fictions +characteristic of the rural imagination and shown in the names +applied to many familiar objects. The interior of the cottage was +more tasteful and ambitious than that of the ordinary two-story +dwellings. In place of the prevailing hair-cloth covered furniture, +the visitor had the satisfaction of seating himself upon a chair +covered with some of the Widow's embroidery, or a sofa luxurious with +soft caressing plush. The sporting tastes of the late Major showed +in various prints on the wall: Herring's "Plenipotentiary," the "red +bullock" of the '34 Derby; "Cadland" and "The Colonel;" "Crucifix;" +"West-Australian," fastest of modern racers; and among native +celebrities, ugly, game old "Boston," with his straight neck and +ragged hips; and gray "Lady Suffolk," queen, in her day, not of the +turf but of the track, "extending" herself till she measured a rod, +more or less, skimming along within a yard of the ground, her legs +opening and shutting under her with a snap, like the four blades of a +compound jack-knife. + +These pictures were much more refreshing than those dreary fancy +death-bed scenes, common in two-story country-houses, in which +Washington and other distinguished personages are represented as +obligingly devoting their last moments to taking a prominent part in +a tableau, in which weeping relatives, attached servants, +professional assistants, and celebrated personages who might by a +stretch of imagination be supposed present, are grouped in the most +approved style of arrangement about the chief actor's pillow. + +A single glazed bookcase held the family library, which was hidden +from vulgar eyes by green silk curtains behind the glass. It would +have been instructive to get a look at it, as it always is to peep +into one's neighbor's book-shelves. From other sources and +opportunities a partial idea of it has been obtained. The Widow had +inherited some books from her mother, who was something of a reader: +Young's "Night-Thoughts;" "The Preceptor;" "The Task, a Poem," by +William Cowper; Hervey's "Meditations;" "Alonzo and Melissa;" +"Buccaneers of America;" "The Triumphs of Temper;" "La Belle +Assemblee;" Thomson's "Seasons;" and a few others. The Major had +brought in "Tom Jones" and "Peregrine Pickle;" various works by Mr. +Pierce Egan; "Boxiana," "The Racing Calendar;" and a "Book of Lively +Songs and Jests." The Widow had added the Poems of Lord Byron and +T. Moore; "Eugene Aram;" "The Tower of London," by Harrison +Ainsworth; some of Scott's Novels; "The Pickwick Papers;" a volume of +Plays, by W. Shakespeare; "Proverbial Philosophy;" "Pilgrim's +Progress;" "The Whole Duty of Man" (a present when she was married); +with two celebrated religious works, one by William Law and the other +by Philip Doddridge, which were sent her after her husband's death, +and which she had tried to read, but found that they did not agree +with her. Of course the bookcase held a few school manuals and +compendiums, and one of Mr. Webster's Dictionaries. But the gilt- +edged Bible always lay on the centre-table, next to the magazine with +the fashion-plates and the scrap-book with pictures from old annuals +and illustrated papers. + +The reader need not apprehend the recital, at full length, of such +formidable preparations for the Widow's tea-party as were required in +the case of Colonel Sprowle's Social Entertainment. A tea-party, +even in the country, is a comparatively simple and economical piece +of business. As soon as the Widow found that all her company were +coming, she set to work, with the aid of her "smart" maid-servant and +a daughter of her own, who was beginning to stretch and spread at a +fearful rate, but whom she treated as a small child, to make the +necessary preparations. The silver had to be rubbed; also the grand +plated urn,--her mother's before hers,--style of the Empire,--looking +as if it might have been made to hold the Major's ashes. Then came +the making and baking of cake and gingerbread, the smell whereof +reached even as far as the sidewalk in front of the cottage, so that +small boys returning from school snuffed it in the breeze, and +discoursed with each other on its suggestions; so that the Widow +Leech, who happened to pass, remembered she had n't called on Marilly +Raowens for a consid'ble spell, and turned in at the gate and rang +three times with long intervals,--but all in vain, the inside Widow +having "spotted" the outside one through the blinds, and whispered to +her aides-de-camp to let the old thing ring away till she pulled the +bell out by the roots, but not to stir to open the door. + +Widow Rowens was what they called a real smart, capable woman, not +very great on books, perhaps, but knew what was what and who was who +as well as another,--knew how to make the little cottage look pretty, +how to set out a tea-table, and, what a good many women never can +find out, knew her own style and "got herself up tip-top," as our +young friend Master Geordie, Colonel Sprowle's heir-apparent, +remarked to his friend from one of the fresh-water colleges. Flowers +were abundant now, and she had dressed her rooms tastefully with +them. The centre-table had two or three gilt-edged books lying +carelessly about on it, and some prints and a stereoscope with +stereographs to match, chiefly groups of picnics, weddings, etc., in +which the same somewhat fatigued looking ladies of fashion and brides +received the attentions of the same unpleasant-looking young men, +easily identified under their different disguises, consisting of +fashionable raiment such as gentlemen are supposed to wear +habitually. With these, however, were some pretty English scenes,-- +pretty except for the old fellow with the hanging under-lip who +infests every one of that interesting series; and a statue or two, +especially that famous one commonly called the Lahcoon, so as to +rhyme with moon and spoon, and representing an old man with his two +sons in the embraces of two monstrous serpents. + +There is no denying that it was a very dashing achievement of the +Widow's to bring together so considerable a number of desirable +guests. She felt proud of her feat; but as to the triumph of getting +Dudley Venner to come out for a visit to Hyacinth Cottage, she was +surprised and almost frightened at her own success. So much might +depend on the impressions of that evening! + +The next thing was to be sure that everybody should be in the right +place at the tea-table, and this the Widow thought she could manage +by a few words to the older guests and a little shuffling about and +shifting when they got to the table. To settle everything the Widow +made out a diagram, which the reader should have a chance of +inspecting in an authentic copy, if these pages were allowed under +any circumstances to be the vehicle of illustrations. If, however, +he or she really wishes to see the way the pieces stood as they were +placed at the beginning of the game, (the Widow's gambit,) he or she +had better at once take a sheet of paper, draw an oval, and arrange +the characters according to the following schedule. + +At the head of the table, the Hostess, Widow Marilla Rowens. +Opposite her, at the other end, Rev. Dr. Honeywood. At the right of +the Hostess, Dudley Veneer, next him Helen Darley, next her Dr. +Kittredge, next him Mrs. Blanche Creamer, then the Reverend Doctor. +At the left of the Hostess, Bernard Langdon, next him Letty +Forrester, next Letty Mr. Richard Veneer, next him Elsie, and so to +the Reverend Doctor again. + +The company came together a little before the early hour at which it +was customary to take tea in Rockland. The Widow knew everybody, of +course: who was there in Rockland she did not know? But some of them +had to be introduced: Mr. Richard Veneer to Mr. Bernard, Mr. Bernard +to Miss Letty, Dudley Veneer to Miss Helen Darley, and so on. The +two young men looked each other straight in the eyes, both full of +youthful life, but one of frank and fearless aspect, the other with a +dangerous feline beauty alien to the New England half of his blood. + +The guests talked, turned over the prints, looked at the flowers, +opened the "Proverbial Philosophy" with gilt edges, and the volume of +Plays by W. Shakespeare, examined the horse-pictures on the walls, +and so passed away the time until tea was announced, when they paired +off for the room where it was in readiness. The Widow had managed it +well; everything was just as she wanted it. Dudley Veneer was +between herself and the poor tired-looking schoolmistress with her +faded colors. Blanche Creamer, a lax, tumble-to-pieces, Greuze-ish +looking blonde, whom the Widow hated because the men took to her, was +purgatoried between the two old Doctors, and could see all the looks +that passed between Dick Venner and his cousin. The young +schoolmaster could talk to Miss Letty: it was his business to know +how to talk to schoolgirls. Dick would amuse himself with his cousin +Elsie. The old Doctors only wanted to be well fed and they would do +well enough. + +It would be very pleasant to describe the tea-table; but in reality, +it did not pretend to offer a plethoric banquet to the guests. The +Widow had not visited the mansion-houses for nothing, and she had +learned there that an overloaded tea-table may do well enough for +farm-hands when they come in at evening from their work and sit down +unwashed in their shirtsleeves, but that for decently bred people +such an insult to the memory of a dinner not yet half-assimilated is +wholly inadmissible. Everything was delicate, and almost everything +of fair complexion: white bread and biscuits, frosted and sponge +cake, cream, honey, straw-colored butter; only a shadow here and +there, where the fire had crisped and browned the surfaces of a stack +of dry toast, or where a preserve had brought away some of the red +sunshine of the last year's summer. The Widow shall have the credit +of her well-ordered tea-table, also of her bountiful cream-pitchers; +for it is well known that city-people find cream a very scarce luxury +in a good many country-houses of more pretensions than Hyacinth +Cottage. There are no better maims for ladies who give tea-parties +than these: + +Cream is thicker than water. +Large heart never loved little cream pot. + +There is a common feeling in genteel families that the third meal of +the day is not so essential a part of the daily bread as to require +any especial acknowledgment to the Providence which bestows it. Very +devout people, who would never sit down to a breakfast or a dinner +without the grace before meat which honors the Giver of it, feel as +if they thanked Heaven enough for their tea and toast by partaking of +them cheerfully without audible petition or ascription. But the +Widow was not exactly mansion-house-bred, and so thought it necessary +to give the Reverend Doctor a peculiar look which he understood at +once as inviting his professional services. He, therefore, uttered a +few simple words of gratitude, very quietly,--much to the +satisfaction of some of the guests, who had expected one of those +elaborate effusions, with rolling up of the eyes and rhetorical +accents, so frequent with eloquent divines when they address their +Maker in genteel company. + +Everybody began talking with the person sitting next at hand. Mr. +Bernard naturally enough turned his attention first to the Widow; but +somehow or other the right side of the Widow seemed to be more wide +awake than the left side, next him, and he resigned her to the +courtesies of Mr. Dudley Venner, directing himself, not very +unwillingly, to the young girl next him on the other side. Miss +Letty Forrester, the granddaughter of the Reverend Doctor, was city- +bred, as anybody might see, and city-dressed, as any woman would know +at sight; a man might only feel the general effect of clear, well- +matched colors, of harmonious proportions, of the cut which makes +everything cling like a bather's sleeve where a natural outline is to +be kept, and ruffle itself up like the hackle of a pitted fighting- +cock where art has a right to luxuriate in silken exuberance. How +this citybred and city-dressed girl came to be in Rockland Mr. +Bernard did not know, but he knew at any rate that she was his next +neighbor and entitled to his courtesies. She was handsome, too, when +he came to look, very handsome when he came to look again,--endowed +with that city beauty which is like the beauty of wall-fruit, +something finer in certain respects than can be reared off the +pavement. + +The miserable routinists who keep repeating invidiously Cowper's + +"God made the country and man made the town," + +as if the town were a place to kill out the race in, do not know what +they are talking about. Where could they raise such Saint-Michael +pears, such Saint-Germains, such Brown-Beurres, as we had until +within a few years growing within the walls of our old city-gardens? +Is the dark and damp cavern where a ragged beggar hides himself +better than a town-mansion which fronts the sunshine and backs on its +own cool shadow, with gas and water and all appliances to suit all +needs? God made the cavern and man made the house! What then? + +There is no doubt that the pavement keeps a deal of mischief from +coming up out of the earth, and, with a dash off of it in summer, +just to cool the soles of the feet when it gets too hot, is the best +place for many constitutions, as some few practical people have +already discovered. And just so these beauties that grow and ripen +against the city-walls, these young fellows with cheeks like peaches +and young girls with cheeks like nectarines, show that the most +perfect forms of artificial life can do as much for the human product +as garden-culture for strawberries and blackberries. + +If Mr. Bernard had philosophized or prosed in this way, with so +pretty, nay, so lovely a neighbor as Miss Letty Forrester waiting for +him to speak to her, he would have to be dropped from this narrative +as a person unworthy of his good-fortune, and not deserving the kind +reader's further notice. On the contrary, he no sooner set his eyes +fairly on her than he said to himself that she was charming, and that +he wished she were one of his scholars at the Institute. So he began +talking with her in an easy way; for he knew something of young girls +by this time, and, of course, could adapt himself to a young lady who +looked as if she might be not more than fifteen or sixteen years old, +and therefore could hardly be a match in intellectual resources for +the seventeen and eighteen year-old first-class scholars of the +Apollinean Institute. But city-wall-fruit ripens early, and he soon +found that this girl's training had so sharpened her wits and stored +her memory, that he need not be at the trouble to stoop painfully in +order to come down to her level. + +The beauty of good-breeding is that it adjusts itself to all +relations without effort, true to itself always however the manners +of those around it may change. Self-respect and respect for others, +--the sensitive consciousness poises itself in these as the compass +in the ship's binnacle balances itself and maintains its true level +within the two concentric rings which suspend it on their pivots. +This thorough-bred school-girl quite enchanted Mr. Bernard. He could +not understand where she got her style, her way of dress, her +enunciation, her easy manners. The minister was a most worthy +gentleman, but this was not the Rockland native-born manner; some new +element had come in between the good, plain, worthy man and this +young girl, fit to be a Crown Prince's partner where there were a +thousand to choose from. + +He looked across to Helen Darley, for he knew she would understand +the glance of admiration with which he called her attention to the +young beauty at his side; and Helen knew what a young girl could be, +as compared with what too many a one is, as well as anybody. + +This poor, dear Helen of ours! How admirable the contrast between +her and the Widow on the other side of Dudley Venner! But, what was +very odd, that gentleman apparently thought the contrast was to the +advantage of this poor, dear Helen. At any rate, instead of devoting +himself solely to the Widow, he happened to be just at that moment +talking in a very interested and, apparently, not uninteresting way +to his right-hand neighbor, who, on her part, never looked more +charmingly,--as Mr. Bernard could not help saying to himself,--but, +to be sure, he had just been looking at the young girl next him, so +that his eyes were brimful of beauty, and may have spilled some of it +on the first comer: for you know M. Becquerel has been showing us +lately how everything is phosphorescent; that it soaks itself with +light in an instant's exposure, so that it is wet with liquid +sunbeams, or, if you will, tremulous with luminous vibrations, when +first plunged into the negative bath of darkness, and betrays itself +by the light which escapes from its surface. + +Whatever were the reason, this poor, dear Helen never looked so +sweetly. Her plainly parted brown hair, her meek, blue eyes, her +cheek just a little tinged with color, the almost sad simplicity of +her dress, and that look he knew so well,--so full of cheerful +patience, so sincere, that he had trusted her from the first moment +as the believers of the larger half of Christendom trust the Blessed +Virgin,--Mr. Bernard took this all in at a glance, and felt as +pleased as if it had been his own sister Dorothea Elizabeth that he +was looking at. As for Dudley Veneer, Mr. Bernard could not help +being struck by the animated expression of his countenance. It +certainly showed great kindness, on his part, to pay so much +attention to this quiet girl, when he had the thunder-and-lightning +Widow on the other side of him. + +Mrs. Marilla Rowens did not know what to make of it. She had made +her tea-party expressly for Mr. Dudley Veneer. She had placed him +just as she wanted, between herself and a meek, delicate woman who +dressed in gray, wore a plain breastpin with hair in it, who taught a +pack of girls up there at the school, and looked as if she were born +for a teacher,--the very best foil that she could have chosen; and +here was this man, polite enough to herself, to be sure, but turning +round to that very undistinguished young person as if he rather +preferred her conversation of the two! + +The truth was that Dudley Veneer and Helen Darley met as two +travellers might meet in the desert, wearied, both of them, with +their long journey, one having food, but no water, the other water, +but no food. Each saw that the other had been in long conflict with +some trial; for their voices were low and tender, as patiently borne +sorrow and humbly uttered prayers make every human voice. Through +these tones, more than by what they said, they came into natural +sympathetic relations with each other. Nothing could be more +unstudied. As for Dudley Venner, no beauty in all the world could +have so soothed and magnetized him as the very repose and subdued +gentleness which the Widow had thought would make the best possible +background for her own more salient and effective attractions. No +doubt, Helen, on her side, was almost too readily pleased with the +confidence this new acquaintance she was making seemed to show her +from the very first. She knew so few men of any condition! Mr. +Silas Peckham: he was her employer, and she ought to think of him as +well as she could; but every time she thought of him it was with a +shiver of disgust. Mr. Bernard Langdon: a noble young man, a true +friend, like a brother to her,--God bless him, and send him some +young heart as fresh as his own! But this gentleman produced a new +impression upon her, quite different from any to which she was +accustomed. His rich, low tones had the strangest significance to +her; she felt sure he must have lived through long experiences, +sorrowful like her own. Elsie's father! She looked into his dark +eyes, as she listened to him, to see if they had any glimmer of that +peculiar light, diamond-bright, but cold and still, which she knew so +well in Elsie's. Anything but that! Never was there more +tenderness, it seemed to her, than in the whole look and expression +of Elsie's father. She must have been a great trial to him; yet his +face was that of one who had been saddened, not soured, by his +discipline. Knowing what Elsie must be to him, how hard she must +make any parent's life, Helen could not but be struck with the +interest Mr. Dudley Venner showed in her as his daughter's +instructress. He was too kind to her; again and again she meekly +turned from him, so as to leave him free to talk to the showy lady at +his other side, who was looking all the while + + "like the night + Of cloudless realms and starry skies;" + +but still Mr. Dudley Venner, after a few courteous words, came back +to the blue eyes and brown hair; still he kept his look fixed upon +her, and his tones grew sweeter and lower as he became more +interested in talk, until this poor, dear Helen, what with surprise, +and the bashfulness natural to one who had seen little of the gay +world, and the stirring of deep, confused sympathies with this +suffering father, whose heart seemed so full of kindness, felt her +cheeks glowing with unwonted flame, and betrayed the pleasing trouble +of her situation by looking so sweetly as to arrest Mr. Bernard's eye +for a moment, when he looked away from the young beauty sitting next +him. + +Elsie meantime had been silent, with that singular, still, watchful +look which those who knew her well had learned to fear. Her head +just a little inclined on one side, perfectly motionless for whole +minutes, her eyes seeming to, grow small and bright, as always when +she was under her evil influence, she was looking obliquely at the +young girl on the other side of her cousin Dick and next to Bernard +Langdon. As for Dick himself, she seemed to be paying very little +attention to him. Sometimes her eyes would wander off to Mr. +Bernard, and their expression, as old Dr. Kittredge, who watched her +for a while pretty keenly, noticed, would change perceptibly. One +would have said that she looked with a kind of dull hatred at the +girl, but with a half-relenting reproachful anger at Mr. Bernard. + +Miss Letty Forrester, at whom Elsie had been looking from time to +time in this fixed way, was conscious meanwhile of some unusual +influence. First it was a feeling of constraint,--then, as it were, +a diminished power over the muscles, as if an invisible elastic +cobweb were spinning round her,--then a tendency to turn away from +Mr. Bernard, who was making himself very agreeable, and look straight +into those eyes which would not leave her, and which seemed to be +drawing her towards them, while at the same time they chilled the +blood in all her veins. + +Mr. Bernard saw this influence coming over her. All at once he +noticed that she sighed, and that some little points of moisture +began to glisten on her forehead. But she did not grow pale +perceptibly; she had no involuntary or hysteric movements; she still +listened to him and smiled naturally enough. Perhaps she was only +nervous at being stared at. At any rate, she was coming under some +unpleasant influence or other, and Mr. Bernard had seen enough of the +strange impression Elsie sometimes produced to wish this young girl +to be relieved from it, whatever it was. He turned toward Elsie and +looked at her in such a way as to draw her eyes upon him. Then he +looked steadily and calmly into them. It was a great effort, for +some perfectly inexplicable reason. At one instant he thought he +could not sit where he was; he must go and speak to Elsie. Then he +wanted to take his eyes away from hers; there was something +intolerable in the light that came from them. But he was determined +to look her down, and he believed he could do it, for he had seen her +countenance change more than once when he had caught her gaze +steadily fixed on him. All this took not minutes, but seconds. +Presently she changed color slightly,--lifted her head, which was +inclined a little to one side,--shut and opened her eyes two or three +times, as if they had been pained or wearied,--and turned away +baffled, and shamed, as it would seem, and shorn for the time of her +singular and formidable or at least evil-natured power of swaying the +impulses of those around her. + +It takes too long to describe these scenes where a good deal of life +is concentrated into a few silent seconds. Mr. Richard Veneer had +sat quietly through it all, although this short pantomime had taken +place literally before his face. He saw what was going on well +enough, and understood it all perfectly well. Of course the +schoolmaster had been trying to make Elsie jealous, and had +succeeded. The little schoolgirl was a decoy-duck,--that was all. +Estates like the Dudley property were not to be had every day, and no +doubt the Yankee usher was willing to take some pains to make sure of +Elsie. Does n't Elsie look savage? Dick involuntarily moved his +chair a little away from her, and thought he felt a pricking in the +small white scars on his wrist. A dare-devil fellow, but somehow or +other this girl had taken strange hold of his imagination, and he +often swore to himself, that, when he married her, he would carry a +loaded revolver with him to his bridal chamber. + +Mrs. Blanche Creamer raged inwardly at first to find herself between +the two old gentlemen of the party. It very soon gave her great +comfort, however, to see that Marilla, Rowens had just missed it in +her calculations, and she chuckled immensely to find Dudley Veneer +devoting himself chiefly to Helen Darley. If the Rowens woman should +hook Dudley, she felt as if she should gnaw all her nails off for +spite. To think of seeing her barouching about Rockland behind a +pair of long-tailed bays and a coachman with a band on his hat, while +she, Blanche Creamer, was driving herself about in a one-horse +"carriage"! Recovering her spirits by degrees, she began playing her +surfaces off at the two old Doctors, just by way of practice. First +she heaved up a glaring white shoulder, the right one, so that the +Reverend Doctor should be stunned by it, if such a thing might be. +The Reverend Doctor was human, as the Apostle was not ashamed to +confess himself. Half-devoutly and half-mischievously he repeated +inwardly, "Resist the Devil and he will flee from you." As the +Reverend Doctor did not show any lively susceptibility, she thought +she would try the left shoulder on old Dr. Kittredge. That worthy +and experienced student of science was not at all displeased with the +manoeuvre, and lifted his head so as to command the exhibition +through his glasses. "Blanche is good for half a dozen years or so, +if she is careful," the Doctor said to himself, "and then she must +take to her prayer-book." After this spasmodic failure of Mrs. +Blanche Creamer's to stir up the old Doctors, she returned again to +the pleasing task of watching the Widow in her evident discomfiture. +But dark as the Widow looked in her half-concealed pet, she was but +as a pale shadow, compared to Elsie in her silent concentration of +shame and anger. + +"Well, there is one good thing," said Mrs. Blanche Creamer; "Dick +doesn't get much out of that cousin of his this evening! Does n't he +look handsome, though?" + +So Mrs. Blanche, being now a good deal taken up with her observations +of those friends of hers and ours, began to be rather careless of her +two old Doctors, who naturally enough fell into conversation with +each other across the white surfaces of that lady, perhaps not very +politely, but, under the, circumstances, almost as a matter of +necessity. + +When a minister and a doctor get talking together, they always have a +great deal to say; and so it happened that the company left the table +just as the two Doctors were beginning to get at each other's ideas +about various interesting matters. If we follow them into the other +parlor, we can, perhaps, pick up something of their conversation. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +WHY DOCTORS DIFFER. + +The company rearranged itself with some changes after leaving the +tea-table. Dudley Veneer was very polite to the Widow; but that lady +having been called off for a few moments for some domestic +arrangement, he slid back to the side of Helen Darley, his daughter's +faithful teacher. Elsie had got away by herself, and was taken up in +studying the stereoscopic Laocoon. Dick, being thus set free, had +been seized upon by Mrs. Blanche Creamer, who had diffused herself +over three-quarters of a sofa and beckoned him to the remaining +fourth. Mr. Bernard and Miss Letty were having a snug fete-'a-fete +in the recess of a bay-window. The two Doctors had taken two arm- +chairs and sat squared off against each other. Their conversation is +perhaps as well worth reporting as that of the rest of the company, +and, as it was carried on in a louder tone, was of course more easy +to gather and put on record. + +It was a curious sight enough to see those two representatives of two +great professions brought face to face to talk over the subjects they +had been looking at all their lives from such different points of +view. Both were old; old enough to have been moulded by their habits +of thought and life; old enough to have all their beliefs "fretted +in," as vintners say,--thoroughly worked up with their characters. +Each of them looked his calling. The Reverend Doctor had lived a +good deal among books in his study; the Doctor, as we will call the +medical gentleman, had been riding about the country for between +thirty and forty years. His face looked tough and weather-worn; +while the Reverend Doctor's, hearty as it appeared, was of finer +texture. The Doctor's was the graver of the two; there was something +of grimness about it, partly owing to the northeasters he had faced +for so many years, partly to long companionship with that stern +personage who never deals in sentiment or pleasantry. His speech was +apt to be brief and peremptory; it was a way he had got by ordering +patients; but he could discourse somewhat, on occasion, as the reader +may find out. The Reverend Doctor had an open, smiling expression, a +cheery voice, a hearty laugh, and a cordial way with him which some +thought too lively for his cloth, but which children, who are good +judges of such matters, delighted in, so that he was the favorite of +all the little rogues about town. But he had the clerical art of +sobering down in a moment, when asked to say grace while somebody was +in the middle of some particularly funny story; and though his voice +was so cheery in common talk, in the pulpit, like almost all +preachers, he had a wholly different and peculiar way of speaking, +supposed to be more acceptable to the Creator than the natural +manner. In point of fact, most of our anti-papal and anti-prelatical +clergymen do really intone their prayers, without suspecting in the +least that they have fallen into such a Romish practice. + +This is the way the conversation between the Doctor of Divinity and +the Doctor of Medicine was going on at the point where these notes +take it up. + +"Obi tres medici, duo athei, you know, Doctor. Your profession has +always had the credit of being lax in doctrine,--though pretty +stringent in practice, ha! ha!" + +"Some priest said that," the Doctor answered, dryly. "They always +talked Latin when they had a bigger lie than common to get rid of." + +"Good!" said the Reverend Doctor; "I'm afraid they would lie a +little sometimes. But isn't there some truth in it, Doctor? Don't +you think your profession is apt to see 'Nature' in the place of the +God of Nature,--to lose sight of the great First Cause in their daily +study of secondary causes?" + +"I've thought about that," the Doctor answered, "and I've talked +about it and read about it, and I've come to the conclusion that +nobody believes in God and trusts in God quite so much as the +doctors; only it is n't just the sort of Deity that some of your +profession have wanted them to take up with. There was a student of +mine wrote a dissertation on the Natural Theology of Health and +Disease, and took that old lying proverb for his motto. He knew a +good deal more about books than ever I did, and had studied in other +countries. I'll tell you what he said about it. He said the old +Heathen Doctor, Galen, praised God for his handiwork in the human +body, just as if he had been a Christian, or the Psalmist himself. +He said they had this sentence set up in large letters in the great +lecture-room in Paris where he attended: I dressed his wound and God +healed him. That was an old surgeon's saying. And he gave a long +list of doctors who were not only Christians, but famous ones. I +grant you, though, ministers and doctors are very apt to see +differently in spiritual matters." + +"That's it," said the Reverend Doctor; "you are apt to see 'Nature' +where we see God, and appeal to 'Science' where we are contented with +Revelation." + +"We don't separate God and Nature, perhaps, as you do," the Doctor +answered. "When we say that God is omnipresent and omnipotent and +omniscient, we are a little more apt to mean it than your folks are. +We think, when a wound heals, that God's presence and power and +knowledge are there, healing it, just as that old surgeon did. We +think a good many theologians, working among their books, don't see +the facts of the world they live in. When we tell 'em of these +facts, they are apt to call us materialists and atheists and +infidels, and all that. We can't help seeing the facts, and we don't +think it's wicked to mention 'em." + +"Do tell me," the Reverend Doctor said, "some of these facts we are +in the habit of overlooking, and which your profession thinks it can +see and understand." + +"That's very easy," the Doctor replied. "For instance: you don't +understand or don't allow for idiosyncrasies as we learn to. We know +that food and physic act differently with different people; but you +think the same kind of truth is going to suit, or ought to suit, all +minds. We don't fight with a patient because he can't take magnesia +or opium; but you are all the time quarrelling over your beliefs, as +if belief did not depend very much on race and constitution, to say +nothing of early training." + +"Do you mean to say that every man is not absolutely free to choose +his beliefs?" + +"The men you write about in your studies are, but not the men we see +in the real world. There is some apparently congenital defect in the +Indians, for instance, that keeps them from choosing civilization and +Christianity. So with the Gypsies, very likely. Everybody knows +that Catholicism or Protestantism is a good deal a matter of race. +Constitution has more to do with belief than people think for. I +went to a Universalist church, when I was in the city one day, to +hear a famous man whom all the world knows, and I never saw such +pews-full of broad shoulders and florid faces, and substantial, +wholesome-looking persons, male and female, in all my life. Why, it +was astonishing. Either their creed made them healthy, or they chose +it because they were healthy. Your folks have never got the hang of +human nature." + +"I am afraid this would be considered a degrading and dangerous view +of human beliefs and responsibility for them," the Reverend Doctor +replied. "Prove to a man that his will is governed by something +outside of himself, and you have lost all hold on his moral and +religious nature. There is nothing bad men want to believe so much +as that they are governed by necessity. Now that which is at once +degrading and dangerous cannot be true." + +"No doubt," the Doctor replied, "all large views of mankind limit our +estimate of the absolute freedom of the will. But I don't think it +degrades or endangers us, for this reason, that, while it makes us +charitable to the rest of mankind, our own sense of freedom, whatever +it is, is never affected by argument. Conscience won't be reasoned +with. We feel that we can practically do this of that, and if we +choose the wrong, we know we are responsible; but observation teaches +us that this or that other race or individual has not the same +practical freedom of choice. I don't see how we can avoid this +conclusion in the instance of the American Indians. The science of +Ethnology has upset a good many theoretical notions about human +nature." + +"Science!" said the Reverend Doctor, "science! that was a word the +Apostle Paul did not seem to think much of, if we may judge by the +Epistle to Timothy: 'Oppositions of science falsely so called.' +I own that I am jealous of that word and the pretensions that go with +it. Science has seemed to me to be very often only the handmaid of +skepticism." + +"Doctor!" the physician said, emphatically, "science is knowledge. +Nothing that is not known properly belongs to science. Whenever +knowledge obliges us to doubt, we are always safe in doubting. +Astronomers foretell eclipses, say how long comets are to stay with +us, point out where a new planet is to be found. We see they know +what they assert, and the poor old Roman Catholic Church has at last +to knock under. So Geology proves a certain succession of events, +and the best Christian in the world must make the earth's history +square with it. Besides, I don't think you remember what great +revelations of himself the Creator has made in the minds of the men +who have built up science. You seem to me to hold his human +masterpieces very cheap. Don't you think the 'inspiration of the +Almighty' gave Newton and Cuvier 'understanding'?" + +The Reverend Doctor was not arguing for victory. In fact, what he +wanted was to call out the opinions of the old physician by a show of +opposition, being already predisposed to agree with many of them. He +was rather trying the common arguments, as one tries tricks of fence +merely to learn the way of parrying. But just here he saw a tempting +opening, and could not resist giving a home-thrust. + +"Yes; but you surely would not consider it inspiration of the same +kind as that of the writers of the Old Testament?" + +That cornered the Doctor, and he paused a moment before he replied. +Then he raised his head, so as to command the Reverend Doctor's face +through his spectacles, and said, + +"I did not say that. You are clear, I suppose, that the Omniscient +spoke through Solomon, but that Shakespeare wrote without his help?" + +The Reverend Doctor looked very grave. It was a bold, blunt way of +putting the question. He turned it aside with the remark, that +Shakespeare seemed to him at times to come as near inspiration as any +human being not included among the sacred writers. + +"Doctor," the physician began, as from a sudden suggestion, "you +won't quarrel with me, if I tell you some of my real thoughts, will +you?" + +"Say on, my dear Sir, say on," the minister answered, with his most +genial smile; "your real thoughts are just what I want to get at. A +man's real thoughts are a great rarity. If I don't agree with you, I +shall like to hear you." + +The Doctor began; and in order to give his thoughts more connectedly, +we will omit the conversational breaks, the questions and comments of +the clergyman, and all accidental interruptions. + +"When the old ecclesiastics said that where there were three doctors +there were two atheists, they lied, of course. They called everybody +who differed from them atheists, until they found out that not +believing in God was n't nearly so ugly a crime as not believing in +some particular dogma; then they called them heretics, until so many +good people had been burned under that name that it began to smell +too strong of roasting flesh,--and after that infidels, which +properly means people without faith, of whom there are not a great +many in any place or time. But then, of course, there was some +reason why doctors shouldn't think about religion exactly as +ministers did, or they never would have made that proverb. It 's +very likely that something of the same kind is true now; whether it +is so or not, I am going to tell you the reasons why it would not be +strange, if doctors should take rather different views from clergymen +about some matters of belief. I don't, of course, mean all doctors +nor all clergymen. Some doctors go as far as any old New England +divine, and some clergymen agree very well with the doctors that +think least according to rule. + +"To begin with their ideas of the Creator himself. They always see +him trying to help his creatures out of their troubles. A man no +sooner gets a cut, than the Great Physician, whose agency we often +call Nature, goes to work, first to stop the blood, and then to heal +the wound, and then to make the scar as small as possible. If a +man's pain exceeds a certain amount, he faints, and so gets relief. +If it lasts too long, habit comes in to make it tolerable. If it is +altogether too bad, he dies. That is the best thing to be done under +the circumstances. So you see, the doctor is constantly in presence +of a benevolent agency working against a settled order of things, of +which pain and disease are the accidents, so to speak. Well, no +doubt they find it harder than clergymen to believe that there can be +any world or state from which this benevolent agency is wholly +excluded. This may be very wrong; but it is not unnatural. + +"They can hardly conceive of a permanent state of being in which cuts +would never try to heal, nor habit render suffering endurable. This +is one effect of their training. + +"Then, again, their attention is very much called to human +limitations. Ministers work out the machinery of responsibility in +an abstract kind of way; they have a sort of algebra of human nature, +in which friction and strength (or weakness) of material are left +out. You see, a doctor is in the way of studying children from the +moment of birth upwards. For the first year or so he sees that they +are just as much pupils of their Maker as the young of any other +animals. Well, their Maker trains them to pure selfishness. Why? +In order that they may be sure to take care of themselves. So you +see, when a child comes to be, we will say a year and a day old, and +makes his first choice between right and wrong, he is at a +disadvantage; for he, has that vis a tergo, as we doctors call it, +that force from behind, of a whole year's life of selfishness, for +which he is no more to blame than a calf is to blame for having lived +in the same way, purely to gratify his natural appetites. Then we +see that baby grow up to a child, and, if he is fat and stout and red +and lively, we expect to find him troublesome and noisy, and, +perhaps, sometimes disobedient more or less; that's the way each new +generation breaks its egg-shell; but if he is very weak and thin, and +is one of the kind that may be expected to die early, he will very +likely sit in the house all day and read good books about other +little sharp-faced children just like himself, who died early, having +always been perfectly indifferent to all the out-door amusements of +the wicked little red-cheeked children. + +"Some of the little folks we watch grow up to be young women, and +occasionally one of them gets nervous, what we call hysterical, and +then that girl will begin to play all sorts of pranks,--to lie and +cheat, perhaps, in the most unaccountable way, so that she might seem +to a minister a good example of total depravity. We don't see her in +that light. We give her iron and valerian, and get her on horseback, +if we can, and so expect to make her will come all right again. By +and by we are called in to see an old baby, threescore years and ten +or more old. We find this old baby has never got rid of that first +year's teaching which led him to fill his stomach with all he could. +pump into it, and his hands with everything he could grab. People +call him a miser. We are sorry for him; but we can't help +remembering his first year's training, and the natural effect of +money on the great majority of those that have it. So while the +ministers say he 'shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven,' we +like to remind them that 'with God all things are possible.' + +"Once more, we see all kinds of monomania and insanity. We learn +from them to recognize all sorts of queer tendencies in minds +supposed to be sane, so that we have nothing but compassion for a +large class of persons condemned as sinners by theologians, but +considered by us as invalids. We have constant reasons for noticing +the transmission of qualities from parents to offspring, and we find +it hard to hold a child accountable in any moral point of view for +inherited bad temper or tendency to drunkenness,--as hard as we +should to blame him for inheriting gout or asthma. I suppose we are +more lenient with human nature than theologians generally are. We +know that the spirits of men and their views of the present and the +future go up and down with the barometer, and that a permanent +depression of one inch in the mercurial column would affect the whole +theology of Christendom. + +"Ministers talk about the human will as if it stood on a high look- +out, with plenty of light, and elbowroom reaching to the horizon. +Doctors are constantly noticing how it is tied up and darkened by +inferior organization, by disease, and all sorts of crowding +interferences, until they get to look upon Hottentots and Indians-- +and a good many of their own race as a kind of self-conscious blood- +clocks with very limited power of self-determination. That's the +tendency, I say, of a doctor's experience. But the people to whom +they address their statements of the results of their observation +belong to the thinking class of the highest races, and they are +conscious of a great deal of liberty of will. So in the face of the +fact that civilization with all it offers has proved a dead failure +with the aboriginal races of this country,--on the whole, I say, a +dead failure,--they talk as if they knew from their own will all +about that of a Digger Indian! We are more apt to go by observation +of the facts in the case. We are constantly seeing weakness where +you see depravity. I don't say we're right; I only tell what you +must often find to be the fact, right or wrong, in talking with +doctors. You see, too, our notions of bodily and moral disease, or +sin, are apt to go together. We used to be as hard on sickness as +you were on sin. We know better now. We don't look at sickness as +we used to, and try to poison it with everything that is offensive, +burnt toads and earth-worms and viper-broth, and worse things than +these. We know that disease has something back of it which the body +isn't to blame for, at least in most cases, and which very often it +is trying to get rid of. Just so with sin. I will agree to take a +hundred new-born babes of a certain stock and return seventy-five of +them in a dozen years true and honest, if not 'pious' children. And +I will take another hundred, of a different stock, and put them in +the hands of certain Ann-Street or Five-Points teachers, and seventy- +five of them will be thieves and liars at the end of the same dozen +years. I have heard of an old character, Colonel Jaques, I believe +it was, a famous cattle-breeder, who used to say he could breed to +pretty much any pattern he wanted to. Well, we doctors see so much +of families, how the tricks of the blood keep breaking out, just as +much in character as they do in looks, that we can't help feeling as +if a great many people hadn't a fair chance to be what is called +'good,' and that there isn't a text in the Bible better worth keeping +always in mind than that one, 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' + +"As for our getting any quarter at the hands of theologians, we don't +expect it, and have no right to. You don't give each other any +quarter. I have had two religious books sent me by friends within a +week or two. One is Mr. Brownson's; he is as fair and square as +Euclid; a real honest, strong thinker, and one that knows what he is +talking about,--for he has tried all sorts of religions, pretty much. +He tells us that the Roman Catholic Church is the one 'through which +alone we can hope for heaven.' The other is by a worthy Episcopal +rector, who appears to write as if he were in earnest, and he calls +the Papacy the 'Devil's Masterpiece,' and talks about the 'Satanic +scheme' of that very Church 'through which alone,' as Mr. Brownson +tells us, 'we can hope for heaven' + +"What's the use in our caring about hard words after this,-- +'atheists,' heretics, infidels, and the like? They're, after all, +only the cinders picked up out of those heaps of ashes round the +stumps of the old stakes where they used to burn men, women, and +children for not thinking just like other folks. They 'll 'crock' +your fingers, but they can't burn us. + +"Doctors are the best-natured people in the world, except when they +get fighting with each other. And they have some advantages over +you. You inherit your notions from a set of priests that had no +wives and no children, or none to speak of, and so let their humanity +die out of them. It did n't seem much to them to condemn a few +thousand millions of people to purgatory or worse for a mistake of +judgment. They didn't know what it was to have a child look up in +their faces and say 'Father!' It will take you a hundred or two more +years to get decently humanized, after so many centuries of de- +humanizing celibacy. + +"Besides, though our libraries are, perhaps, not commonly quite so +big as yours, God opens one book to physicians that a good many of +you don't know much about,--the Book of Life. That is none of your +dusty folios with black letters between pasteboard and leather, but +it is printed in bright red type, and the binding of it is warm and +tender to every touch. They reverence that book as one of the +Almighty's infallible revelations. They will insist on reading you +lessons out of it, whether you call them names or not. These will +always be lessons of charity. No doubt, nothing can be more +provoking to listen to. But do beg your folks to remember that the +Smithfield fires are all out, and that the cinders are very dirty and +not in the least dangerous. They'd a great deal better be civil, and +not be throwing old proverbs in the doctors' faces, when they say +that the man of the old monkish notions is one thing and the man they +watch from his cradle to his coffin is something very different." + +It has cost a good deal of trouble to work the Doctor's talk up into +this formal shape. Some of his sentences have been rounded off for +him, and the whole brought into a more rhetorical form than it could +have pretended to, if taken as it fell from his lips. But the exact +course of his remarks has been followed, and as far as possible his +expressions have been retained. Though given in the form of a +discourse, it must be remembered that this was a conversation, much +more fragmentary and colloquial than it seems as just read. + +The Reverend Doctor was very far from taking offence at the old +physician's freedom of speech. He knew him to be honest, kind, +charitable, self-denying, wherever any sorrow was to be alleviated, +always reverential, with a cheerful trust in the great Father of all +mankind. To be sure, his senior deacon, old Deacon Shearer,--who +seemed to have got his Scripture-teachings out of the "Vinegar +Bible," (the one where Vineyard is misprinted Vinegar; which a good +many people seem to have adopted as the true reading,)--his senior +deacon had called Dr. Kittredge an "infidel." But the Reverend +Doctor could not help feeling, that, unless the text, "By their +fruits ye shall know them," were an interpolation, the Doctor was the +better Christian of the two. Whatever his senior deacon might think +about it, he said to himself that he shouldn't be surprised if he met +the Doctor in heaven yet, inquiring anxiously after old Deacon +Shearer. + +He was on the point of expressing himself very frankly to the Doctor, +with that benevolent smile on his face which had sometimes come near +giving offence to the readers of the "Vinegar" edition, but he saw +that the physician's attention had been arrested by Elsie. He looked +in the same direction himself, and could not help being struck by her +attitude and expression. There was something singularly graceful in +the curves of her neck and the rest of her figure, but she was so +perfectly still that it seemed as if she were hardly breathing. Her +eyes were fixed on the young girl with whom Mr. Bernard was talking. +He had often noticed their brilliancy, but now it seemed to him that +they appeared dull, and the look on her features was as of some +passion which had missed its stroke. Mr. Bernard's companion seemed +unconscious that she was the object of this attention, and was +listening to the young master as if he had succeeded in making +himself very agreeable. + +Of course Dick Veneer had not mistaken the game that was going on. +The schoolmaster meant to make Elsie jealous,--and he had done it. +That 's it: get her savage first, and then come wheedling round her, +--a sure trick, if he isn't headed off somehow. But Dick saw well +enough that he had better let Elsie alone just now, and thought the +best way of killing the evening would be to amuse himself in a little +lively talk with Mrs. Blanche Creamer, and incidentally to show Elsie +that he could make himself acceptable to other women, if not to +herself. + +The Doctor presently went up to Elsie, determined to engage her in +conversation and get her out of her thoughts, which he saw, by her +look, were dangerous. Her father had been on the point of leaving +Helen Darley to go to her, but felt easy enough when he saw the old +Doctor at her side, and so went on talking. The Reverend Doctor, +being now left alone, engaged the Widow Rowens, who put the best face +on her vexation she could, but was devoting herself to all the +underground deities for having been such a fool as to ask that pale- +faced thing from the Institute to fill up her party. + +There is no space left to report the rest of the conversation. If +there was anything of any significance in it, it will turn up by and +by, no doubt. At ten o'clock the Reverend Doctor called Miss Letty, +who had no idea it was so late; Mr. Bernard gave his arm to Helen; +Mr. Richard saw to Mrs. Blanche Creamer; the Doctor gave Elsie a +cautioning look, and went off alone, thoughtful; Dudley Venner and +his daughter got into their carriage and were whirled away. The +Widow's gambit was played, and she had not won the game. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE WILD HUNTSMAN. + +The young master had not forgotten the old Doctor's cautions. +Without attributing any great importance to the warning he had given +him, Mr. Bernard had so far complied with his advice that he was +becoming a pretty good shot with the pistol. It was an amusement as +good as many others to practise, and he had taken a fancy to it after +the first few days. + +The popping of a pistol at odd hours in the backyard of the Institute +was a phenomenon more than sufficiently remarkable to be talked about +in Rockland. The viscous intelligence of a country-village is not +easily stirred by the winds which ripple the fluent thought of great +cities, but it holds every straw and entangles every insect that +lights upon it. It soon became rumored in the town that the young +master was a wonderful shot with the pistol. Some said he could hit +a fo'pence-ha'penny at three rod; some, that he had shot a swallow, +flying, with a single ball; some, that he snuffed a candle five times +out of six at ten paces, and that he could hit any button in a man's +coat he wanted to. In other words, as in all such cases, all the +common feats were ascribed to him, as the current jokes of the day +are laid at the door of any noted wit, however innocent he may be of +them. + +In the natural course of things, Mr. Richard Venner, who had by this +time made some acquaintances, as we have seen, among that class of +the population least likely to allow a live cinder of gossip to go +out for want of air, had heard incidentally that the master up there +at the Institute was all the time practising with a pistol, that they +say he can snuff a candle at ten rods, (that was Mrs. Blanche +Creamer's version,) and that he could hit anybody he wanted to right +in the eye, as far as he could see the white of it. + +Dick did not like the sound of all this any too well. Without +believing more than half of it, there was enough to make the Yankee +schoolmaster too unsafe to be trifled with. However, shooting at a +mark was pleasant work enough; he had no particular objection to it +himself. Only he did not care so much for those little popgun +affairs that a man carries in his pocket, and with which you could +n't shoot a fellow,--a robber, say,--without getting the muzzle under +his nose. Pistols for boys; long-range rifles for men. There was +such a gun lying in a closet with the fowling-pieces. He would go +out into the fields and see what he could do as a marksman. + +The nature of the mark which Dick chose for experimenting upon was +singular. He had found some panes of glass which had been removed +from an old sash, and he placed these successively before his target, +arranging them at different angles. He found that a bullet would go +through the glass without glancing or having its force materially +abated. It was an interesting fact in physics, and might prove of +some practical significance hereafter. Nobody knows what may turn up +to render these out-of-the-way facts useful. All this was done in a +quiet way in one of the bare spots high up the side of The Mountain. +He was very thoughtful in taking the precaution to get so far away; +rifle-bullets are apt to glance and come whizzing about people's +ears, if they are fired in the neighborhood of houses. Dick +satisfied himself that he could be tolerably sure of hitting a pane +of glass at a distance of thirty rods, more or less, and that, if +there happened to be anything behind it, the glass would not +materially alter the force or direction of the bullet. + +About this time it occurred to him also that there was an old +accomplishment of his which he would be in danger of losing for want +of practice, if he did not take some opportunity to try his hand and +regain its cunning, if it had begun to be diminished by disuse. For +his first trial, he chose an evening when the moon was shining, and +after the hour when the Rockland people were like to be stirring +abroad. He was so far established now that he could do much as he +pleased without exciting remark. + +The prairie horse he rode, the mustang of the Pampas, wild as he was, +had been trained to take part in at least one exercise. This was the +accomplishment in which Mr. Richard now proposed to try himself. For +this purpose he sought the implement of which, as it may be +remembered, he had once made an incidental use,--the lasso, or long +strip of hide with a slip-noose at the end of it. He had been +accustomed to playing with such a thong from his boyhood, and had +become expert in its use in capturing wild cattle in the course of +his adventures. Unfortunately, there were no wild bulls likely to be +met with in the neighborhood, to become the subjects of his skill. A +stray cow in the road, an ox or a horse in a pasture, must serve his +turn,--dull beasts, but moving marks to aim at, at any rate. + +Never, since he had galloped in the chase over the Pampas, had Dick +Venner felt such a sense of life and power as when he struck the long +spurs into his wild horse's flanks, and dashed along the road with +the lasso lying like a coiled snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful +hands, the silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but not +like that leaving a wound behind it,--sudden as a pistol-shot, but +without the telltale explosion,--is one of the most fearful and +mysterious weapons that arm the hand of man. The old Romans knew how +formidable, even in contest with a gladiator equipped with sword, +helmet, and shield, was the almost naked retiarius, with his net in +one hand and his three-pronged javelin in the other. Once get a net +over a man's head, or a cord round his neck, or, what is more +frequently done nowadays, bonnet him by knocking his hat down over +his eyes, and he is at the mercy of his opponent. Our soldiers who +served against the Mexicans found this out too well. Many a poor +fellow has been lassoed by the fierce riders from the plains, and +fallen an easy victim to the captor who had snared him in the fatal +noose. + +But, imposing as the sight of the wild huntsmen of the Pampas might +have been, Dick could not help laughing at the mock sublimity of his +situation, as he tried his first experiment on an unhappy milky +mother who had strayed from her herd and was wandering disconsolately +along the road, laying the dust, as slue went, with thready streams +from her swollen, swinging udders. "Here goes the Don at the +windmill!" said Dick, and tilted full speed at her, whirling the +lasso round his head as he rode. The creature swerved to one side of +the way, as the wild horse and his rider came rushing down upon her, +and presently turned and ran, as only cows and it would n't be safe +to say it--can run. Just before he passed,--at twenty or thirty feet +from her,--the lasso shot from his hand, uncoiling as it flew, and in +an instant its loop was round her horns. "Well cast!" said Dick, as +he galloped up to her side and dexterously disengaged the lasso. +"Now for a horse on the run!" + +He had the good luck to find one, presently, grazing in a pasture at +the road-side. Taking down the rails of the fence at one point, he +drove the horse into the road and gave chase. It was a lively young +animal enough, and was easily roused to a pretty fast pace. As his +gallop grew more and more rapid, Dick gave the reins to the mustang, +until the two horses stretched themselves out in their longest +strides. If the first feat looked like play, the one he was now to +attempt had a good deal the appearance of real work. He touched the +mustang with the spur, and in a few fierce leaps found himself nearly +abreast of the frightened animal he was chasing. Once more he +whirled the lasso round and round over his head, and then shot it +forth, as the rattlesnake shoots his head from the loops against +which it rests. The noose was round the horse's neck, and in another +instant was tightened so as almost to stop his breath. The prairie +horse knew the trick of the cord, and leaned away from the captive, +so as to keep the thong tensely stretched between his neck and the +peak of the saddle to which it was fastened. Struggling was of no +use with a halter round his windpipe, and he very soon began to +tremble and stagger,--blind, no doubt, and with a roaring in his ears +as of a thousand battle-trumpets,--at any rate, subdued and helpless. +That was enough. Dick loosened his lasso, wound it up again, laid it +like a pet snake in a coil at his saddle-bow, turned his horse, and +rode slowly along towards the mansion-house. + +The place had never looked more stately and beautiful to him than as +he now saw it in the moonlight. The undulations of the land,--the +grand mountain screen which sheltered the mansion from the northern +blasts, rising with all its hanging forests and parapets of naked +rock high towards the heavens,--the ancient mansion, with its square +chimneys, and bodyguard of old trees, and cincture of low walls with +marble-pillared gateways,--the fields, with their various coverings, +--the beds of flowers,--the plots of turf, one with a gray column in +its centre bearing a sundial on which the rays of the moon were idly +shining, another with a white stone and a narrow ridge of turf,--over +all these objects, harmonized with all their infinite details into +one fair whole by the moonlight, the prospective heir, as he deemed +himself, looked with admiring eyes. + +But while he looked, the thought rose up in his mind like waters from +a poisoned fountain, that there was a deep plot laid to cheat him of +the inheritance which by a double claim he meant to call his own. +Every day this ice-cold beauty, this dangerous, handsome cousin of +his, went up to that place,--that usher's girl-trap. Everyday,-- +regularly now,--it used to be different. Did she go only to get out +of his, her cousin's, reach? Was she not rather becoming more and +more involved in the toils of this plotting Yankee? + +If Mr. Bernard had shown himself at that moment a few rods in +advance, the chances are that in less than one minute he would have +found himself with a noose round his neck, at the heels of a mounted +horseman. Providence spared him for the present. Mr. Richard rode +his horse quietly round to the stable, put him up, and proceeded +towards the house. He got to his bed without disturbing the family, +but could not sleep. The idea had fully taken possession of his mind +that a deep intrigue was going on which would end by bringing Elsie +and the schoolmaster into relations fatal to all his own hopes. With +that ingenuity which always accompanies jealousy, he tortured every +circumstance of the last few weeks so as to make it square with this +belief. From this vein of thought he naturally passed to a +consideration of every possible method by which the issue he feared +might be avoided. + +Mr. Richard talked very plain language with himself in all these +inward colloquies. Supposing it came to the worst, what could be +done then? First, an accident might happen to the schoolmaster which +should put a complete and final check upon his projects and +contrivances. The particular accident which might interrupt his +career must, evidently, be determined by circumstances; but it must +be of a nature to explain itself without the necessity of any +particular person's becoming involved in the matter. It would be +unpleasant to go into particulars; but everybody knows well enough +that men sometimes get in the way of a stray bullet, and that young +persons occasionally do violence to themselves in various modes,--by +firearms, suspension, and other means,--in consequence of +disappointment in love, perhaps, oftener than from other motives. +There was still another kind of accident which might serve his +purpose. If anything should happen to Elsie, it would be the most +natural thing in the world that his uncle should adopt him, his +nephew and only near relation, as his heir. Unless, indeed, uncle +Dudley should take it into his head to marry again. In that case, +where would he, Dick, be? This was the most detestable complication +which he could conceive of. And yet he had noticed--he could not +help noticing--that his uncle had been very attentive to, and, as it +seemed, very much pleased with, that young woman from the school. +What did that mean? Was it possible that he was going to take a +fancy to her? + +It made him wild to think of all the several contingencies which +might defraud him of that good-fortune which seemed but just now +within his grasp. He glared in the darkness at imaginary faces: +sometimes at that of the handsome, treacherous schoolmaster; +sometimes at that of the meek-looking, but no doubt, scheming, lady- +teacher; sometimes at that of the dark girl whom he was ready to make +his wife; sometimes at that of his much respected uncle, who, of +course, could not be allowed to peril the fortunes of his relatives +by forming a new connection. It was a frightful perplexity in which +he found himself, because there was no one single life an accident to +which would be sufficient to insure the fitting and natural course of +descent to the great Dudley property. If it had been a simple +question of helping forward a casualty to any one person, there was +nothing in Dick's habits of thought and living to make that a serious +difficulty. He had been so much with lawless people, that a life +between his wish and his object seemed only as an obstacle to be +removed, provided the object were worth the risk and trouble. But if +there were two or three lives in the way, manifestly that altered the +case. + +His Southern blood was getting impatient. There was enough of the +New-Englander about him to make him calculate his chances before he +struck; but his plans were liable to be defeated at any moment by a +passionate impulse such as the dark-hued races of Southern Europe and +their descendants are liable to. He lay in his bed, sometimes +arranging plans to meet the various difficulties already mentioned, +sometimes getting into a paroxysm of blind rage in the perplexity of +considering what object he should select as the one most clearly in +his way. On the whole, there could be no doubt where the most +threatening of all his embarrassments lay. It was in the probable +growing relation between Elsie and the schoolmaster. If it should +prove, as it seemed likely, that there was springing up a serious +attachment tending to a union between them, he knew what he should +do, if he was not quite so sure how he should do it. + +There was one thing at least which might favor his projects, and +which, at any rate, would serve to amuse him. He could, by a little +quiet observation, find out what were the schoolmaster's habits of +life: whether he had any routine which could be calculated upon; and +under what circumstances a strictly private interview of a few +minutes with him might be reckoned on, in case it should be +desirable. He could also very probably learn some facts about Elsie. +whether the young man was in the habit of attending her on her way +home from school; whether she stayed about the schoolroom after the +other girls had gone; and any incidental matters of interest which +might present themselves. + +He was getting more and more restless for want of some excitement. A +mad gallop, a visit to Mrs. Blanche Creamer, who had taken such a +fancy to him, or a chat with the Widow Rowens, who was very lively in +her talk, for all her sombre colors, and reminded him a good deal +of same of his earlier friends, the senoritas,--all these were +distractions, to be sure, but not enough to keep his fiery spirit +from fretting itself in longings for more dangerous excitements. The +thought of getting a knowledge of all Mr. Bernard's ways, so that he +would be in his power at any moment, was a happy one. + +For some days after this he followed Elsie at a long distance behind, +to watch her until she got to the schoolhouse. One day he saw Mr. +Bernard join her: a mere accident, very probably, for it was only +once this happened. She came on her homeward way alone,--quite apart +from the groups of girls who strolled out of the schoolhouse yard in +company. Sometimes she was behind them all,--which was suggestive. +Could she have stayed to meet the schoolmaster? + +If he could have smuggled himself into the school, he would have +liked to watch her there, and see if there was not some understanding +between her and the master which betrayed itself by look or word. +But this was beyond the limits of his audacity, and he had to content +himself with such cautious observations as could be made at a +distance. With the aid of a pocket-glass he could make out persons +without the risk of being observed himself. + +Mr. Silos Peckham's corps of instructors was not expected to be off +duty or to stand at ease for any considerable length of time. +Sometimes Mr. Bernard, who had more freedom than the rest, would go +out for a ramble in the daytime, but more frequently it would be in +the evening, after the hour of "retiring," as bedtime was elegantly +termed by the young ladies of the Apollinean Institute. He would +then not unfrequently walk out alone in the common roads, or climb up +the sides of The Mountain, which seemed to be one of his favorite +resorts. Here, of course, it was impossible to follow him with the +eye at a distance. Dick had a hideous, gnawing suspicion that +somewhere in these deep shades the schoolmaster might meet Elsie, +whose evening wanderings he knew so well. But of this he was not +able to assure himself. Secrecy was necessary to his present plans, +and he could not compromise himself by over-eager curiosity. One +thing he learned with certainty. The master returned, after his walk +one evening, and entered the building where his room was situated. +Presently a light betrayed the window of his apartment. From a +wooded bank, some thirty or forty rods from this building, Dick +Venner could see the interior of the chamber, and watch the master as +he sat at his desk, the light falling strongly upon his face, intent +upon the book or manuscript before him. Dick contemplated him very +long in this attitude. The sense of watching his every motion, +himself meanwhile utterly unseen, was delicious. How little the +master was thinking what eyes were on him! + +Well,--there were two things quite certain. One was, that, if he +chose, he could meet the schoolmaster alone, either in the road or in +a more solitary place, if he preferred to watch his chance for an +evening or two. The other was, that he commanded his position, as he +sat at his desk in the evening, in such a way that there would be +very little difficulty,--so far as that went; of course, however, +silence is always preferable to noise, and there is a great +difference in the marks left by different casualties. Very likely +nothing would come of all this espionage; but, at any rate, the first +thing to be done with a man you want to have in your power is to +learn his habits. + +Since the tea-party at the Widow Rowens's, Elsie had been more fitful +and moody than ever. Dick understood all this well enough, you know. +It was the working of her jealousy against that young schoolgirl to +whom the master had devoted himself for the sake of piquing the +heiress of the Dudley mansion. Was it possible, in any way, to +exasperate her irritable nature against him, and in this way to +render her more accessible to his own advances? It was difficult to +influence her at all. She endured his company without seeming to +enjoy it. She watched him with that strange look of hers, sometimes +as if she were on her guard against him, sometimes as if she would +like to strike at him as in that fit of childish passion. She +ordered him about with a haughty indifference which reminded him of +his own way with the dark-eyed women whom he had known so well of +old. All this added a secret pleasure to the other motives he had +for worrying her with jealous suspicions. He knew she brooded +silently on any grief that poisoned her comfort,--that she fed on it, +as it were, until it ran with every drop of blood in her veins,--and +that, except in some paroxysm of rage, of which he himself was not +likely the second time to be the object, or in some deadly vengeance +wrought secretly, against which he would keep a sharp lookout, so far +as he was concerned, she had no outlet for her dangerous, smouldering +passions. + +Beware of the woman who cannot find free utterance for all her stormy +inner life either in words or song! So long as a woman can talk, +there is nothing she cannot bear. If she cannot have a companion to +listen to her woes, and has no musical utterance, vocal or +instrumental,--then, if she is of the real woman sort, and has a few +heartfuls of wild blood in her, and you have done her a wrong,-- +double-bolt the door which she may enter on noiseless slipper at +midnight,--look twice before you taste of any cup whose draught the +shadow of her hand may have darkened! + +But let her talk, and, above all, cry, or, if she is one of the +coarser-grained tribe, give her the run of all the red-hot expletives +in the language, and let her blister her lips with them until she is +tired, she will sleep like a lamb after it, and you may take a cup of +coffee from her without stirring it up to look for its sediment. + +So, if she can sing, or play on any musical instrument, all her +wickedness will run off through her throat or the tips of her +fingers. How many tragedies find their peaceful catastrophe in +fierce roulades and strenuous bravuras! How many murders are +executed in double-quick time upon the keys which stab the air with +their dagger-strokes of sound! What would our civilization be +without the piano? Are not Erard and Broadwood and Chickering the +true humanizers of our time? Therefore do I love to hear the all- +pervading tum tum jarring the walls of little parlors in houses with +double door-plates on their portals, looking out on streets and +courts which to know is to be unknown, and where to exist is not to +live, according to any true definition of living. Therefore complain +I not of modern degeneracy, when, even from the open window of the +small unlovely farmhouse, tenanted by the hard-handed man of bovine +flavors and the flat-patterned woman of broken-down countenance, +issue the same familiar sounds. For who knows that Almira, but for +these keys, which throb away her wild impulses in harmless discords +would not have been floating, dead, in the brown stream which slides +through the meadows by her father's door,--or living, with that other +current which runs beneath the gas-lights over the slimy pavement, +choking with wretched weeds that were once in spotless flower? + +Poor Elsie! She never sang nor played. She never shaped her inner +life in words: such utterance was as much denied to her nature as +common articulate speech to the deaf mute. Her only language must be +in action. Watch her well by day and by night, old Sophy! watch her +well! or the long line of her honored name may close in shame, and +the stately mansion of the Dudleys remain a hissing and a reproach +till its roof is buried in its cellar! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +ON HIS TRACKS. + +"Able!" said the old Doctor, one morning, "after you've harnessed +Caustic, come into the study a few minutes, will you?" + +Abel nodded. He was a man of few words, and he knew that the "will +you" did not require an answer, being the true New-England way of +rounding the corners of an employer's order,--a tribute to the +personal independence of an American citizen. + +The hired man came into the study in the course of a few minutes. +His face was perfectly still, and he waited to be spoken to; but the +Doctor's eye detected a certain meaning in his expression, which +looked as if he had something to communicate. + +"Well?" said the Doctor. + +"He's up to mischief o' some kind, I guess," said Abel. "I jest +happened daown by the mansion-haouse last night, 'n' he come aout o' +the gate on that queer-lookin' creator' o' his. I watched him, 'n' +he rid, very slow, all raoun' by the Institoot, 'n' acted as ef he +was spyin' abaout. He looks to me like a man that's calc'latin' to +do some kind of ill-turn to somebody. I should n't like to have him +raoun' me, 'f there wa'n't a pitchfork or an eel-spear or some sech +weep'n within reach. He may be all right; but I don't like his +looks, 'n' I don't see what he's lurkin' raoun' the Institoot for, +after folks is abed." + +"Have you watched him pretty close for the last few days?" said the +Doctor. + +"W'll, yes,--I've had my eye on him consid'ble o' the time. I haf to +be pooty shy abaout it, or he'll find aout th't I'm on his tracks. I +don' want him to get a spite ag'inst me, 'f I c'n help it; he looks +to me like one o' them kind that kerries what they call slung-shot, +'n' hits ye on the side o' th' head with 'em so suddin y' never know +what hurts ye." + +"Why," said the Doctor, sharply,--"have you ever seen him with any +such weapon about him?" + +"W'll, no,--I caan't say that I hev," Abel answered. "On'y he looks +kin' o' dangerous. Maybe he's all jest 'z he ought to be,--I caan't +say that he a'n't,--but he's aout late nights, 'n' lurkin' raonn' +jest 'z ef he was spyin' somebody, 'n' somehaow I caan't help +mistrustin' them Portagee-lookin' fellahs. I caan't keep the run o' +this chap all the time; but I've a notion that old black woman daown +'t the mansion-haouse knows 'z much abaout him 'z anybody." + +The Doctor paused a moment, after hearing this report from his +private detective, and then got into his chaise, and turned Caustic's +head in the direction of the Dudley mansion. He had been suspicious +of Dick from the first. He did not like his mixed blood, nor his +looks, nor his ways. He had formed a conjecture about his projects +early. He had made a shrewd guess as to the probable jealousy Dick +would feel of the schoolmaster, had found out something of his +movements, and had cautioned Mr. Bernard,--as we have seen. He felt +an interest in the young man,--a student of his own profession, an +intelligent and ingenuously unsuspecting young fellow, who had been +thrown by accident into the companionship or the neighborhood of two +persons, one of whom he knew to be dangerous, and the other he +believed instinctively might be capable of crime. + +The Doctor rode down to the Dudley mansion solely for the sake of +seeing old Sophy. He was lucky enough to find her alone in her +kitchen. He began taking with her as a physician; he wanted to know +how her rheumatism had been. The shrewd old woman saw through all +that with her little beady black eyes. It was something quite +different he had come for, and old Sophy answered very briefly for +her aches and ails. + +"Old folks' bones a'n't like young folks'," she said. "It's the +Lord's doin's, 'n' 't a'n't much matter. I sha'n' be long roan' this +kitchen. It's the young Missis, Doctor,--it 's our Elsie,--it 's the +baby, as we use' t' call her,--don' you remember, Doctor? Seventeen +year ago, 'n' her poor mother cryin' for her,--'Where is she? where +is she? Let me see her! '--'n' how I run up-stairs,--I could run +then,--'n' got the coral necklace 'n' put it round her little neck, +'n' then showed her to her mother,--'n' how her mother looked at her, +'n' looked, 'n' then put out her poor thin fingers 'n' lifted the +necklace,--'n' fell right back on her piller, as white as though she +was laid out to bury?" + +The Doctor answered her by silence and a look of grave assent. He +had never chosen to let old Sophy dwell upon these matters, for +obvious reasons. The girl must not grow up haunted by perpetual +fears and prophecies, if it were possible to prevent it. + +"Well, how has Elsie seemed of late?" he said, after this brief +pause. + +The old woman shook her head. Then she looked up at the Doctor so +steadily and searchingly that the diamond eyes of Elsie herself could +hardly have pierced more deeply. + +The Doctor raised his head, by his habitual movement, and met the old +woman's look with his own calm and scrutinizing gaze, sharpened by +the glasses through which he now saw her. + +Sophy spoke presently in an awed tone, as if telling a vision. + +"We shall be havin' trouble before long. The' 's somethin' comin' +from the Lord. I've had dreams, Doctor. It's many a year I've been +a-dreamin', but now they're comin' over 'n' over the same thing. +Three times I've dreamed one thing, Doctor,--one thing!" + +"And what was that?" the Doctor said, with that shade of curiosity in +his tone which a metaphysician would probably say is an index of a +certain tendency to belief in the superstition to which the question +refers. + +"I ca'n' jestly tell y' what it was, Doctor," the old woman answered, +as if bewildered and trying to clear up her recollections; "but it +was somethin' fearful, with a great noise 'n' a great cryin' o' +people,--like the Las' Day, Doctor! The Lord have mercy on my poor +chil', 'n' take care of her, if anything happens! But I's feared +she'll never live to see the Las' Day, 'f 't don' come pooty quick." + +Poor Sophy, only the third generation from cannibalism, was, not +unnaturally, somewhat confused in her theological notions. Some of +the Second-Advent preachers had been about, and circulated their +predictions among the kitchen--population of Rockland. This was the +way in which it happened that she mingled her fears in such a strange +manner with their doctrines. + +The Doctor answered solemnly, that of the day and hour we knew not, +but it became us to be always ready.--"Is there anything going on in +the household different from common?" + +Old Sophy's wrinkled face looked as full of life and intelligence, +when she turned it full upon the Doctor, as if she had slipped off +her infirmities and years like an outer garment. All those fine +instincts of observation which came straight to her from her savage +grandfather looked out of her little eyes. She had a kind of faith +that the Doctor was a mighty conjurer, who, if he would, could +bewitch any of them. She had relieved her feelings by her long talk +with the minister, but the Doctor was the immediate adviser of the +family, and had watched them through all their troubles. Perhaps he +could tell them what to do. She had but one real object of affection +in the world,--this child that she had tended from infancy to +womanhood. Troubles were gathering thick round her; how soon they +would break upon her, and blight or destroy her, no one could tell; +but there was nothing in all the catalogue of terrors which might not +come upon the household at any moment. Her own wits had sharpened +themselves in keeping watch by day and night, and her face had +forgotten its age in the excitement which gave life to its features. + +"Doctor," old Sophy said, "there's strange things goin' on here by +night and by day. I don' like that man,--that Dick,--I never liked +him. He giv' me some o' these things I' got on; I take 'em 'cos I +know it make him mad, if I no take 'em; I wear 'em, so that he need +n' feel as if I did n' like him; but, Doctor, I hate him,--jes' as +much as a member of the church has the Lord's leave to hate anybody." + +Her eyes sparkled with the old savage light, as if her ill-will to +Mr. Richard Veneer might perhaps go a little farther than the +Christian limit she had assigned. But remember that her grandfather +was in the habit of inviting his friends to dine with him upon the +last enemy he had bagged, and that her grandmother's teeth were filed +down to points, so that they were as sharp as a shark's. + +"What is that you have seen about Mr. Richard Veneer that gives you +such a spite against him, Sophy?" asked the Doctor. + +"What I' seen 'bout Dick Veneer?" she replied, fiercely. "I'll tell +y' what I' seen. Dick wan's to marry our Elsie,--that 's what he +wan's; 'n' he don' love her, Doctor,--he hates her, Doctor, as bad as +I hate him! He wan's to marry our Elsie, In' live here in the big +house, 'n' have nothin' to do but jes' lay still 'n' watch. Massa +Venner 'n' see how long 't Ill take him to die, 'n' 'f he don' die +fas' 'puff, help him some way t' die fasser !---Come close up t' me, +Doctor! I wan' t' tell you somethin' I tol' th' minister t' other +day. Th' minister, he come down 'n' prayed 'n' talked good,--he's a +good man, that Doctor Honeywood, 'n' I tol' him all 'bout our Elsie, +but he did n' tell nobody what to do to stop all what I' been +dreamin' about happenin'. Come close up to me, Doctor!" + +The Doctor drew his chair close up to that of the old woman. + +"Doctor, nobody mus'n' never marry our Elsie 's longs she lives! +Nobody mus' n' never live with Elsie but ol Sophy; 'n' ol Sophy won't +never die 's long 's Elsie 's alive to be took care of. But I's +feared, Doctor, I's greatly feared Elsie wan' to marry somebody. +The' 's a young gen'l'm'n up at that school where she go,--so some of +'em tells me, 'n' she loves t' see him 'n' talk wi' him, 'n' she +talks about him when she 's asleep sometimes. She mus 'n' never +marry nobody, Doctor! If she do, he die, certain!" + +"If she has a fancy for the young man up at the school there," the +Doctor said, "I shouldn't think there would be much danger from +Dick." + +"Doctor, nobody know nothin' 'bout Elsie but of Sophy. She no like +any other creator' th't ever drawed the bref o' life. If she ca'n' +marry one man 'cos she love him, she marry another man 'cos she hate +him." + +"Marry a man because she hates him, Sophy? No woman ever did such a +thing as that, or ever will do it." + +"Who tol' you Elsie was a woman, Doctor?" said old Sophy, with a +flash of strange intelligence in her eyes. + +The Doctor's face showed that he was startled. The old woman could +not know much about Elsie that he did not know; but what strange +superstition had got into her head, he was puzzled to guess. He had +better follow Sophy's lead and find out what she meant. + +"I should call Elsie a woman, and a very handsome one," he said. +"You don't mean that she has any mark about her, except--you know-- +under the necklace?" + +The old woman resented the thought of any deformity about her +darling. + +"I did n' say she had nothin'--but j es' that--you know. My beauty +have anything ugly? She's the beautifullest-shaped lady that ever +had a shinin' silk gown drawed over her shoulders. On'y she a'n't +like no other woman in none of her ways. She don't cry 'n' laugh +like other women. An' she ha'n' got the same kind o' feelin's as +other women.---Do you know that young gen'1'm'n up at the school, +Doctor?" + +"Yes, Sophy, I've met him sometimes. He's a very nice sort of young +man, handsome, too, and I don't much wonder Elsie takes to him. Tell +me, Sophy, what do you think would happen, if he should chance to +fall in love with Elsie, and she with him, and he should marry her?" + +"Put your ear close to my lips, Doctor, dear!" She whispered a +little to the Doctor, then added aloud, "He die,--that's all." + +"But surely, Sophy, you a'n't afraid to have Dick marry her, if she +would have him for any reason, are you? He can take care of himself, +if anybody can." + +"Doctor!" Sophy answered, "nobody can take care of hisself that live +wi' Elsie! Nobody never in all this worl' mus' live wi' Elsie but of +Sophy, I tell you. You don' think I care for Dick? What do I care, +if Dick Venner die? He wam's to marry our Elsie so 's to live in the +big house 'n' get all the money 'n' all the silver things 'n' all the +chists full o' linen 'n' beautiful clothes. That's what Dick wan's. +An' he hates Elsie 'cos she don' like him. But if he marry Elsie, +she 'll make him die some wrong way or other, 'n' they'll take her +'n' hang her, or he'll get mad with her 'n' choke her.--Oh, I know +his chokin' tricks!--he don' leave his keys roun' for nothin'" + +"What's that you say, Sophy? Tell me what you mean by all that." + +So poor Sophy had to explain certain facts not in all respects to her +credit. She had taken the opportunity of his absence to look about +his chamber, and, having found a key in one of his drawers, had +applied it to a trunk, and, finding that it opened the trunk, had +made a kind of inspection for contraband articles, and, seeing the +end of a leather thong, had followed it up until she saw that it +finished with a noose, which, from certain appearances, she inferred +to have seen service of at least doubtful nature. An unauthorized +search; but old Sophy considered that a game of life and death was +going on in the household, and that she was bound to look out for her +darling. + +The Doctor paused a moment to think over this odd piece of +information. Without sharing Sophy's belief as to the kind of use +this mischievous-looking piece of property had been put to, it was +certainly very odd that Dick should have such a thing at the bottom +of his trunk. The Doctor remembered reading or hearing something +about the lasso and the lariat and the bolas, and had an indistinct +idea that they had been sometimes used as weapons of warfare or +private revenge; but they were essentially a huntsman's implements, +after all, and it was not very strange that this young man had +brought one of them with him. Not strange, perhaps, but worth +noting. + +"Do you really think Dick means mischief to anybody, that he has such +dangerous-looking things?" the Doctor said, presently. + +"I tell you, Doctor. Dick means to have Elsie. If he ca'n' get her, +he never let nobody else have her! Oh, Dick 's a dark man, Doctor! +I know him! I 'member him when he was little boy,--he always cunin'. +I think he mean mischief to somebody. He come home late nights,-- +come in softly,--oh, I hear him! I lay awake, 'n' got sharp ears,--I +hear the cats walkin' over the roofs,--'n' I hear Dick Veneer, when +he comes up in his stockin'-feet as still as a cat. I think he mean' +mischief to somebody. I no like his looks these las' days.--Is that +a very pooty gen'l'm'n up at the schoolhouse, Doctor?" + +"I told you he was good-looking. What if he is?" + +"I should like to see him, Doctor,--I should like to see the pooty +gen'l'm'n that my poor Elsie loves. She mus 'n' never marry nobody, +--but, oh, Doctor, I should like to see him, 'n' jes' think a little +how it would ha' been, if the Lord had n' been so hard on Elsie." + +She wept and wrung her hands. The kind Doctor was touched, and left +her a moment to her thoughts. + +"And how does Mr. Dudley Veneer take all this?" he said, by way of +changing the subject a little. + +"Oh, Massa Veneer, he good man, but he don' know nothin' 'bout Elsie, +as of Sophy do. I keep close by her; I help her when she go to bed, +'n' set by her sometime when she--'sleep; I come to her in th' +mornin' 'n' help her put on her things."--Then, in a whisper;-- +"Doctor, Elsie lets of Sophy take off that necklace for her. What +you think she do, 'f anybody else tech it?" + +"I don't know, I'm sure, Sophy,--strike the person, perhaps." + +"Oh, yes, strike 'em! but not with her han's, Doctor!"--The old +woman's significant pantomime must be guessed at. + +"But you haven't told me, Sophy, what Mr. Dudley Veneer thinks of his +nephew, nor whether he has any notion that Dick wants to marry +Elsie." + +"I tell you. Massa Venner, he good man, but he no see nothin' 'bout +what goes on here in the house. He sort o' broken-hearted, you +know,--sort o' giv up,--don' know what to do wi' Elsie, 'xcep' say +'Yes, yes.' Dick always look smilin' 'n' behave well before him. +One time I thought Massa Veneer b'lieve Dick was goin' to take to +Elsie; but now he don' seem to take much notice,--he kin' o' stupid-' +like 'bout sech things. It's trouble, Doctor; 'cos Massa Veneer +bright man naterally,--'n' he's got a great heap o' books. I don' +think Massa Veneer never been jes' heself sence Elsie 's born. He +done all he know how,--but, Doctor, that wa'n' a great deal. You +men-folks don' know nothin' 'bout these young gals; 'n' 'f you knowed +all the young gals that ever lived, y' would n' know nothin' 'bout +our Elsie." + +"No,--but, Sophy, what I want to know is, whether you think Mr. +Veneer has any kind of suspicion about his nephew,--whether he has +any notion that he's a dangerous sort of fellow,--or whether he feels +safe to have him about, or has even taken a sort of fancy to him." + +"Lar' bless you, Doctor, Massa Veneer no more idee 'f any mischief +'bout Dick than he has 'bout you or me. Y' see, he very fond o' the +Cap'n,--that Dick's father,--'n' he live so long alone here, 'long +wi' us, that he kin' o' like to see mos' anybody 't 's got any o' th' +of family-blood in 'em. He ha'n't got no more suspicions 'n a baby, +--y' never see sech a man 'n y'r life. I kin' o' think he don' care +for nothin' in this world 'xcep' jes' t' do what Elsie wan's him to. +The fus' year after young Madam die he do nothin' but jes' set at the +window 'n' look out at her grave, 'n' then come up 'n' look at the +baby's neck 'n' say, 'It's fadin', Sophy, a'n't it? 'n' then go down +in the study 'n' walk 'n' walk, 'n' them kneel down 'n' pray. +Doctor, there was two places in the old carpet that was all +threadbare, where his knees had worn 'em. An' sometimes, you +remember 'bout all that,--he'd go off up into The Mountain, 'n' be +gone all day, 'n' kill all the Ugly Things he could find up there.--- +Oh, Doctor, I don' like to think o' them days!--An' by 'n' by he +grew kin' o' still, 'n' begun to read a little, 'n' 't las' he got 's +quiet's a lamb, 'n' that's the way he is now. I think he's got +religion, Doctor; but he a'n't so bright about what's goin' on, 'n' I +don' believe he never suspec' nothin' till somethin' happens; for +the' 's somethin' goin' to happen, Doctor, if the Las' Day does n' +come to stop it; 'n' you mus' tell us what to do, 'n' save my poor +Elsie, my baby that the Lord has n' took care of like all his other +childer." + +The Doctor assured the old woman that he was thinking a great deal +about them all, and that there were other eyes on Dick besides her +own. Let her watch him closely about the house, and he would keep a +look-out elsewhere. If there was anything new, she must let him know +at once. Send up one of the menservants, and he would come down at a +moment's warning. + +There was really nothing definite against this young man; but the +Doctor was sure that he was meditating some evil design or other. He +rode straight up to the Institute. There he saw Mr. Bernard, and had +a brief conversation with him, principally on matters relating to his +personal interests. + +That evening, for some unknown reason, Mr. Bernard changed the place +of his desk and drew down the shades of his windows. Late that night +Mr. Richard Venner drew the charge of a rifle, and put the gun back +among the fowling-pieces, swearing that a leather halter was worth a +dozen of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE PERILOUS HOUR. + +Up to this time Dick Venner had not decided on the particular mode +and the precise period of relieving himself from the unwarrantable +interference which threatened to defeat his plans. The luxury of +feeling that he had his man in his power was its own reward. One who +watches in the dark, outside, while his enemy, in utter +unconsciousness, is illuminating his apartment and himself so that +every movement of his head and every button on his coat can be seen +and counted, experiences a peculiar kind of pleasure, if he holds a +loaded rifle in his hand, which he naturally hates to bring to its +climax by testing his skill as a marksman upon the object of his +attention. + +Besides, Dick had two sides in his nature, almost as distinct as we +sometimes observe in those persons who are the subjects of the +condition known as double consciousness. On his New England side he +was cunning and calculating, always cautious, measuring his distance +before he risked his stroke, as nicely as if he were throwing his +lasso. But he was liable to intercurrent fits of jealousy and rage, +such as the light-hued races are hardly capable of conceiving, +blinding paroxysms of passion, which for the time overmastered him, +and which, if they found no ready outlet, transformed themselves into +the more dangerous forces that worked through the instrumentality of +his cool craftiness. + +He had failed as yet in getting any positive evidence that there was +any relation between Elsie and the schoolmaster other than such as +might exist unsuspected and unblamed between a teacher and his pupil. +A book, or a note, even, did not prove the existence of any +sentiment. At one time he would be devoured by suspicions, at +another he would try to laugh himself out of them. And in the mean +while he followed Elsie's tastes as closely as he could, determined +to make some impression upon her,--to become a habit, a convenience, +a necessity,--whatever might aid him in the attainment of the one end +which was now the aim of his life. + +It was to humor one of her tastes already known to the reader, that +he said to her one morning,--"Come, Elsie, take your castanets, and +let us have a dance." + +He had struck the right vein in the girl's fancy, for she was in the +mood for this exercise, and very willingly led the way into one of +the more empty apartments. What there was in this particular kind of +dance which excited her it might not be easy to guess; but those who +looked in with the old Doctor, on a former occasion, and saw her, +will remember that she was strangely carried away by it, and became +almost fearful in the vehemence of her passion. The sound of the +castanets seemed to make her alive all over. Dick knew well enough +what the exhibition would be, and was almost afraid of her at these +moments; for it was like the dancing mania of Eastern devotees, more +than the ordinary light amusement of joyous youth,--a convulsion of +the body and the mind, rather than a series of voluntary modulated +motions. + +Elsie rattled out the triple measure of a saraband. Her eyes began +to glitter more brilliantly, and her shape to undulate in freer +curves. Presently she noticed that Dick's look was fixed upon her +necklace. His face betrayed his curiosity; he was intent on solving +the question, why she always wore something about her neck. The +chain of mosaics she had on at that moment displaced itself at every +step, and he was peering with malignant, searching eagerness to see +if an unsunned ring of fairer hue than the rest of the surface, or +any less easily explained peculiarity, were hidden by her ornaments. + +She stopped suddenly, caught the chain of mosaics and settled it +hastily in its place, flung down her castanets, drew herself back, +and stood looking at him, with her head a little on one side, and her +eyes narrowing in the way he had known so long and well. + +"What is the matter, Cousin Elsie? What do you stop for?" he said. + +Elsie did not answer, but kept her eyes on him, full of malicious +light. The jealousy which lay covered up under his surface-thoughts +took this opportunity to break out. + +"You would n't act so, if you were dancing with Mr. Langdon,--would +you, Elsie?" he asked. + +It was with some effort that he looked steadily at her to see the +effect of his question. + +Elsie colored,--not much, but still perceptibly. Dick could not +remember that he had ever seen her show this mark of emotion before, +in all his experience of her fitful changes of mood. It had a +singular depth of significance, therefore, for him; he knew how +hardly her color came. Blushing means nothing, in some persons; in +others, it betrays a profound inward agitation,--a perturbation of +the feelings far more trying than the passions which with many easily +moved persons break forth in tears. All who have observed much are +aware that some men, who have seen a good deal of life in its less +chastened aspects and are anything but modest, will blush often and +easily, while there are delicate and sensitive women who can faint, +or go into fits, if necessary, but are very rarely seen to betray +their feelings in their cheeks, even when their expression shows that +their inmost soul is blushing scarlet. Presently she answered, +abruptly and scornfully, "Mr. Langdon is a gentleman, and would not +vex me as you do." + +"A gentleman!" Dick answered, with the most insulting accent,-- +"a gentleman! Come, Elsie, you 've got the Dudley blood in your +veins, and it does n't do for you to call this poor, sneaking +schoolmaster a gentleman!" + +He stopped short. Elsie's bosom was heaving, the faint flush on her +cheek was becoming a vivid glow. Whether it were shame or wrath, he +saw that he had reached some deep-lying centre of emotion. There was +no longer any doubt in his mind. With another girl these signs of +confusion might mean little or nothing; with her they were decisive +and final. Elsie Venner loved Bernard Langdon. + +The sudden conviction, absolute, overwhelming, which rushed upon him, +had well-nigh led to an explosion of wrath, and perhaps some terrible +scene which might have fulfilled some of old Sophy's predictions. +This, however, would never do. Dick's face whitened with his +thoughts, but he kept still until he could speak calmly. + +"I've nothing against the young fellow," he said; "only I don't think +there's anything quite good enough to keep the company of people that +have the Dudley blood in them. You a'n't as proud as I am. I can't +quite make up my mind to call a schoolmaster a gentleman, though this +one may be well enough. I 've nothing against him, at any rate." + +Elsie made no answer, but glided out of the room and slid away to her +own apartment. She bolted the door and drew her curtains close. +Then she threw herself on the floor, and fell into a dull, slow ache +of passion, without tears, without words, almost without thoughts. +So she remained, perhaps, for a half-hour, at the end of which time +it seemed that her passion had become a sullen purpose. She arose, +and, looking cautiously round, went to the hearth, which was +ornamented with curious old Dutch tiles, with pictures of Scripture +subjects. One of these represented the lifting of the brazen +serpent. She took a hair-pin from one of her braids, and, +insinuating its points under the edge of the tile, raised it from its +place. A small leaden box lay under the tile, which she opened, and, +taking from it a little white powder, which she folded in a scrap of +paper, replaced the box and the tile over it. + +Whether Dick had by any means got a knowledge of this proceeding, or +whether he only suspected some unmentionable design on her part, +there is no sufficient means of determining. At any rate, when they +met, an hour or two after these occurrences, he could not help +noticing how easily she seemed to have got over her excitement. She +was very pleasant with him,--too pleasant, Dick thought. It was not +Elsie's way to come out of a fit of anger so easily as that. She had +contrived some way of letting off her spite; that was certain. Dick +was pretty cunning, as old Sophy had said, and, whether or not he had +any means of knowing Elsie's private intentions, watched her closely, +and was on his guard against accidents. + +For the first time, he took certain precautions with reference to his +diet, such as were quite alien to his common habits. On coming to +the dinner-table, that day, he complained of headache, took but +little food, and refused the cup of coffee which Elsie offered him, +saying that it did not agree with him when he had these attacks. + +Here was a new complication. Obviously enough, he could not live in +this way, suspecting everything but plain bread and water, and hardly +feeling safe in meddling with them. Not only had this school-keeping +wretch come between him and the scheme by which he was to secure his +future fortune, but his image had so infected his cousin's mind that +she was ready to try on him some of those tricks which, as he had +heard hinted in the village, she had once before put in practice upon +a person who had become odious to her. + +Something must be done, and at once, to meet the double necessities +of this case. Every day, while the young girl was in these relations +with the young man, was only making matters worse. They could +exchange words and looks, they could arrange private interviews, they +would be stooping together over the same book, her hair touching his +cheek, her breath mingling with his, all the magnetic attractions +drawing them together with strange, invisible effluences. As her +passion for the schoolmaster increased, her dislike to him, her +cousin, would grow with it, and all his dangers would be multiplied. +It was a fearful point he had, reached. He was tempted at one moment +to give up all his plans and to disappear suddenly from the place, +leaving with the schoolmaster, who had come between him and his +object, an anonymous token of his personal sentiments which would be +remembered a good while in the history of the town of Rockland. This +was but a momentary thought; the great Dudley property could not be +given up in that way. + +Something must happen at once to break up all this order of things. +He could think of but one Providential event adequate to the +emergency,--an event foreshadowed by various recent circumstances, +but hitherto floating in his mind only as a possibility. Its +occurrence would at once change the course of Elsie's feelings, +providing her with something to think of besides mischief, and remove +the accursed obstacle which was thwarting all his own projects. +Every possible motive, then,--his interest, his jealousy, his longing +for revenge, and now his fears for his own safety,--urged him to +regard the happening of a certain casualty as a matter of simple +necessity. This was the self-destruction of Mr. Bernard Langdon. + +Such an event, though it might be surprising to many people, would +not be incredible, nor without many parallel cases. He was poor, a +miserable fag, under the control of that mean wretch up there at the +school, who looked as if he had sour buttermilk in his veins instead +of blood. He was in love with a girl above his station, rich, and of +old family, but strange in all her ways, and it was conceivable that +he should become suddenly jealous of her. Or she might have +frightened him with some display of her peculiarities which had +filled him with a sudden repugnance in the place of love. Any of +these things were credible, and would make a probable story enough,-- +so thought Dick over to himself with the New-England half of his +mind. + +Unfortunately, men will not always take themselves out of the way +when, so far as their neighbors are concerned, it would be altogether +the most appropriate and graceful and acceptable service they could +render. There was at this particular moment no special reason for +believing that the schoolmaster meditated any violence to his own +person. On the contrary, there was good evidence that he was taking +some care of himself. He was looking well and in good spirits, and +in the habit of amusing himself and exercising, as if to keep up his +standard of health, especially of taking certain evening-walks, +before referred to, at an hour when most of the Rockland people had +"retired," or, in vulgar language, "gone to bed." + +Dick Veneer settled it, however, in his own mind, that Mr. Bernard +Langdon must lay violent hands upon himself. He even went so far as +to determine the precise hour, and the method in which the "rash +act," as it would undoubtedly be called in the next issue of "The +Rockland Weekly Universe," should be committed. Time,--this evening. +Method, asphyxia, by suspension. It was, unquestionably, taking a +great liberty with a man to decide that he should become felo de se +without his own consent. Such, however, was the decision of Mr. +Richard Veneer with regard to Mr. Bernard Langdon. + +If everything went right, then, there would be a coroner's inquest +to-morrow upon what remained of that gentleman, found suspended to +the branch of a tree somewhere within a mile of the Apollinean +Institute. The "Weekly Universe" would have a startling paragraph +announcing a "SAD EVENT!!!" which had "thrown the town into an +intense state of excitement. Mr. Barnard Langden, a well-known +teacher at the Appolinian Institute, was found, etc., etc. The vital +spark was extinct. The motive to the rash act can only be +conjectured, but is supposed to be disappointed affection. The name +of an accomplished young lady of the highest respectability and great +beauty is mentioned in connection with this melancholy occurrence." + +Dick Venner was at the tea-table that evening, as usual.---No, he +would take green tea, if she pleased,--the same that her father +drank. It would suit his headache better.--Nothing,--he was much +obliged to her. He would help himself,--which he did in a little +different way from common, naturally enough, on account of his +headache. He noticed that Elsie seemed a little nervous while she +was rinsing some of the teacups before their removal. + +"There's something going on in that witch's head," he said to +himself. "I know her,--she 'd be savage now, if she had n't got some +trick in hand. Let 's see how she looks to-morrow!" + +Dick announced that he should go to bed early that evening, on +account of this confounded headache which had been troubling him so +much. In fact, he went up early, and locked his door after him, with +as much noise as he could make. He then changed some part of his +dress, so that it should be dark throughout, slipped off his boots, +drew the lasso out from the bottom of the contents of his trunk, and, +carrying that and his boots in his hand, opened his door softly, +locked it after him, and stole down the back-stairs, so as to get out +of the house unnoticed. He went straight to the stable and saddled +the mustang. He took a rope from the stable with him, mounted his +horse, and set forth in the direction of the Institute. + +Mr. Bernard, as we have seen, had not been very profoundly impressed +by the old Doctor's cautions,--enough, however, to follow out some of +his hints which were not troublesome to attend to. He laughed at the +idea of carrying a loaded pistol about with him; but still it seemed +only fair, as the old Doctor thought so much of the matter, to humor +him about it. As for not going about when and where he liked, for +fear he might have some lurking enemy, that was a thing not to be +listened to nor thought of. There was nothing to be ashamed of or +troubled about in any of his relations with the school-girls. Elsie, +no doubt, showed a kind of attraction towards him, as did perhaps +some others; but he had been perfectly discreet, and no father or +brother or lover had any just cause of quarrel with him. To be sure, +that dark young man at the Dudley mansion-house looked as if he were +his enemy, when he had met him; but certainly there was nothing in +their relations to each other, or in his own to Elsie, that would be +like to stir such malice in his mind as would lead him to play any of +his wild Southern tricks at his, Mr. Bernard's, expense. Yet he had +a vague feeling that this young man was dangerous, and he had been +given to understand that one of the risks he ran was from that +quarter. + +On this particular evening, he had a strange, unusual sense of some +impending peril. His recent interview with the Doctor, certain +remarks which had been dropped in his hearing, but above all an +unaccountable impression upon his spirits, all combined to fill his +mind with a foreboding conviction that he was very near some +overshadowing danger. It was as the chill of the ice-mountain toward +which the ship is steering under full sail. He felt a strong impulse +to see Helen Darley and talk with her. She was in the common parlor, +and, fortunately, alone. + +"Helen," he said,--for they were almost like brother and sister now, +--"I have been thinking what you would do, if I should have to leave +the school at short notice, or be taken away suddenly by any +accident." + +"Do?" she said, her cheek growing paler than its natural delicate +hue,--"why, I do not know how I could possibly consent to live here, +if you left us. Since you came, my life has been almost easy; +before, it was getting intolerable. You must not talk about going, +my dear friend; you have spoiled me for my place. Who is there here +that I can have any true society with, but you? You would not leave +us for another school, would you?" + +"No, no, my dear Helen," Mr. Bernard said, "if it depends on myself, +I shall stay out my full time, and enjoy your company and friendship. +But everything is uncertain in this world. I have been thinking that +I might be wanted elsewhere, and called when I did not think of it;-- +it was a fancy, perhaps,--but I can't keep it out of my mind this +evening. If any of my fancies should come true, Helen, there are two +or three messages I want to leave with you. I have marked a book or +two with a cross in pencil on the fly-leaf;--these are for you. +There is a little hymn-book I should like to have you give to Elsie +from me;--it may be a kind of comfort to the poor girl." + +Helen's eyes glistened as she interrupted him,-- + +"What do you mean? You must not talk so, Mr. Langdon. Why, you +never looked better in your life. Tell me now, you are not in +earnest, are you, but only trying a little sentiment on me?" + +Mr. Bernard smiled, but rather sadly. + +"About half in earnest," he said. "I have had some fancies in my +head,--superstitions, I suppose,--at any rate, it does no harm to +tell you what I should like to have done, if anything should happen, +--very likely nothing ever will. Send the rest of the books home, if +you please, and write a letter to my mother. And, Helen, you will +find one small volume in my desk enveloped and directed, you will see +to whom;--give this with your own hands; it is a keepsake." + +The tears gathered in her eyes; she could not speak at first. +Presently, "Why, Bernard, my dear friend, my brother, it cannot be +that you are in danger? Tell me what it is, and, if I can share it +with you, or counsel you in any way, it will only be paying back the +great debt I owe you. No, no,--it can't be true,--you are tired and +worried, and your spirits have got depressed. I know what that is;-- +I was sure, one winter, that I should die before spring; but I lived +to see the dandelions and buttercups go to seed. Come, tell me it +was nothing but your imagination." + +She felt a tear upon her cheek, but would not turn her face away from +him; it was the tear of a sister. + +"I am really in earnest, Helen," he said. "I don't know that there +is the least reason in the world for these fancies. If they all go +off and nothing comes of them, you may laugh at me, if you like. But +if there should be any occasion, remember my requests. You don't +believe in presentiments, do you?" + +"Oh, don't ask-me, I beg you," Helen answered. "I have had a good +many frights for every one real misfortune I have suffered. +Sometimes I have thought I was warned beforehand of coming trouble, +just as many people are of changes in the weather, by some +unaccountable feeling,--but not often, and I don't like to talk about +such things. I wouldn't think about these fancies of yours. I don't +believe you have exercised enough;--don't you think it's confinement +in the school has made you nervous?" + +"Perhaps it has; but it happens that I have thought more of exercise +lately, and have taken regular evening walks, besides playing my old +gymnastic tricks every day." + +They talked on many subjects, but through all he said Helen perceived +a pervading tone of sadness, and an expression as of a dreamy +foreboding of unknown evil. They parted at the usual hour, and went +to their several rooms. The sadness of Mr. Bernard had sunk into the +heart of Helen, and she mingled many tears with her prayers that +evening, earnestly entreating that he might be comforted in his days +of trial and protected in his hour of danger. + +Mr. Bernard stayed in his room a short time before setting out for +his evening walk. His eye fell upon the Bible his mother had given +him when he left home, and he opened it in the New Testament at a +venture. It happened that the first words he read were these,-- +"Lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping." In the state of mind +in which he was at the moment, the text startled him. It was like a +supernatural warning. He was not going to expose himself to any +particular danger this evening; a walk in a quiet village was as free +from risk as Helen Darley or his own mother could ask; yet he had an +unaccountable feeling of apprehension, without any definite object. +At this moment he remembered the old Doctor's counsel, which he had +sometimes neglected, and, blushing at the feeling which led him to do +it, he took the pistol his suspicious old friend had forced upon him, +which he had put away loaded, and, thrusting it into his pocket, set +out upon his walk. + +The moon was shining at intervals, for the night was partially +clouded. There seemed to be nobody stirring, though his attention +was unusually awake, and he could hear the whirr of the bats +overhead, and the pulsating croak of the frogs in the distant pools +and marshes. Presently he detected the sound of hoofs at some +distance, and, looking forward, saw a horseman coming in his +direction. The moon was under a cloud at the moment, and he could +only observe that the horse and his rider looked like a single dark +object, and that they were moving along at an easy pace. Mr. Bernard +was really ashamed of himself, when he found his hand on the butt of +his pistol. When the horseman was within a hundred and fifty yards +of him, the moon shone out suddenly and revealed each of them to the +other. The rider paused for a moment, as if carefully surveying the +pedestrian, then suddenly put his horse to the full gallop, and +dashed towards him, rising at the same instant in his stirrups and +swinging something round his head, what, Mr. Bernard could not make +out. It was a strange manoeuvre,--so strange and threatening in +aspect that the young man forgot his nervousness in an instant, +cocked his pistol, and waited to see what mischief all this meant. +He did not wait long. As the rider came rushing towards him, he made +a rapid motion and something leaped five-and-twenty feet through the +air, in Mr. Bernard's direction. In an instant he felt a ring, as of +a rope or thong, settle upon his shoulders. There was no time to +think, he would be lost in another second. He raised his pistol and +fired,--not at the rider, but at the horse. His aim was true; the +mustang gave one bound and fell lifeless, shot through the head. The +lasso was fastened to his saddle, and his last bound threw Mr. +Bernard violently to the earth, where he lay motionless, as if +stunned. + +In the mean time, Dick Venner, who had been dashed down with his +horse, was trying to extricate himself,--one of his legs being held +fast under the animal, the long spur on his boot having caught in the +saddle-cloth. He found, however, that he could do nothing with his +right arm, his shoulder having been in some way injured in his fall. +But his Southern blood was up, and, as he saw Mr. Bernard move as if +he were coming to his senses, he struggled violently to free himself. + +"I 'll have the dog, yet," he said,--"only let me get at him with the +knife!" + +He had just succeeded in extricating his imprisoned leg, and was +ready to spring to his feet, when he was caught firmly by the throat, +and looking up, saw a clumsy barbed weapon, commonly known as a hay +fork, within an inch of his breast. + +"Hold on there! What 'n thunder 'r' y' abaout, y' darned Portagee?" +said a voice, with a decided nasal tone in it, but sharp and +resolute. + +Dick looked from the weapon to the person who held it, and saw a +sturdy, plain man standing over him, with his teeth clinched, and his +aspect that of one all ready for mischief. + +"Lay still, naow!" said Abel Stebbins, the Doctor's man; "'f y' +don't, I'll stick ye, 'z sure 'z y' 'r' alive! I been aafter ye f'r +a week, 'n' I got y' naow! I knowed I'd ketch ye at some darned +trick or 'nother 'fore I'd done 'ith ye!" + +Dick lay perfectly still, feeling that he was crippled and helpless, +thinking all the time with the Yankee half of his mind what to do +about it. He saw Mr. Bernard lift his head and look around him. He +would get his senses again in a few minutes, very probably, and then +he, Mr. Richard Venner, would be done for. + +"Let me up! let me up!" he cried, in a low, hurried voice,--"I 'll +give you a hundred dollars in gold to let me go. The man a'n't +hurt,--don't you see him stirring? He'll come to himself in two +minutes. Let me up! I'll give you a hundred and fifty dollars in +gold, now, here on the spot,--and the watch out of my pocket; take it +yourself, with your own hands!" + +"I'll see y' darned fust! Ketch me lett'n' go!" was Abel's emphatic +answer. "Yeou lay still, 'n' wait t'll that man comes tew." + +He kept the hay-fork ready for action at the slightest sign of +resistance. + +Mr. Bernard, in the mean time, had been getting, first his senses, +and then some few of his scattered wits, a little together. + +"What is it?"--he said. "Who'shurt? What's happened?" + +"Come along here 'z quick 'z y' ken," Abel answered, "'n' haalp me +fix this fellah. Y' been hurt, y'rself, 'n' the' 's murder come +pooty nigh happenin'." + +Mr. Bernard heard the answer, but presenth stared about and asked +again, "Who's hurt? What's happened?" + +"Y' 'r' hurt, y'rself, I tell ye," said Abel; "'n' the' 's been a +murder, pooty nigh." + +Mr. Bernard felt something about his neck, and, putting his hands up, +found the loop of the lasso, which he loosened, but did not think to +slip over his head, in the confusion of his perceptions and thoughts. +It was a wonder that it had not choked him, but he had fallen forward +so as to slacken it. + +By this time he was getting some notion of what he was about, and +presently began looking round for his pistol, which had fallen. He +found it lying near him, cocked it mechanically, and walked, somewhat +unsteadily, towards the two men, who were keeping their position as +still as if they were performing in a tableau. + +"Quick, naow!" said Abel, who had heard the click of cocking the +pistol, and saw that he held it in his hand, as he came towards him. +"Gi' me that pistil, and yeou fetch that 'ere rope layin' there. I +'ll have this here fella,h fixed 'n less 'n two minutes." + +Mr. Bernard did as Abel said,--stupidly and mechanically, for he was +but half right as yet. Abel pointed the pistol at Dick's head. + +"Naow hold up y'r hands, yeou fellah," he said, "'n' keep 'em up, +while this man puts the rope mound y'r wrists." + +Dick felt himself helpless, and, rather than have his disabled arm +roughly dealt with, held up his hands. Mr. Bernard did as Abel said; +he was in a purely passive state, and obeyed orders like a child. +Abel then secured the rope in a most thorough and satisfactory +complication of twists and knots. + +"Naow get up, will ye?" he said; and the unfortunate Dick rose to +his feet. + +"Who's hurt? What's happened?" asked poor Mr. Bernard again, his +memory having been completely jarred out of him for the time. + +"Come, look here naow, yeou, don' Stan' askin' questions over 'n' +over;--'t beats all! ha'n't I tol' y' a dozen times?" + +As Abel spoke, he turned and looked at Mr. Bernard. + +"Hullo! What 'n thunder's that 'ere raoun' y'r neck? Ketched ye +'ith a slippernoose, hey? Wal, if that a'n't the craowner I Hol' on +a minute, Cap'n, 'n' I'll show ye what that 'ere halter's good for." + +Abel slipped the noose over Mr. Bernard's head, and put it round the +neck of the miserable Dick Veneer, who made no sign of resistance,-- +whether on account of the pain he was in, or from mere helplessness, +or because he was waiting for some unguarded moment to escape,--since +resistance seemed of no use. + +"I 'm go'n' to kerry y' home," said Abel; "'T' th' ol Doctor, he's got +a gre't cur'osity t' see ye. Jes' step along naow,--off that way, +will ye?--'n' I Ill hol' on t' th' bridle, f' fear y' sh'd run +away." + +He took hold of the leather thong, but found that it was fastened at +the other end to the saddle. This was too much for Abel. + +"Wal, naow, yeou be a pooty chap to hev raound! A fellah's neck in a +slippernoose at one eend of a halter, 'n' a hors on th' full spring +at t' other eend!" + +He looked at him from' head to foot as a naturalist inspects a new +specimen. His clothes had suffered in his fall, especially on the +leg which had been caught under the horse. + +"Hullo! look o' there, naow! What's that 'ere stickin' aout o' y'r +boot?" + +It was nothing but the handle of an ugly knife, which Abel instantly +relieved him of. + +The party now took up the line of march for old Doctor Kittredge's +house, Abel carrying the pistol and knife, and Mr. Bernard walking in +silence, still half-stunned, holding the hay-fork, which Abel had +thrust into his hand. It was all a dream to him as yet. He +remembered the horseman riding at him, and his firing the pistol; but +whether he was alive, and these walls around him belonged to the +village of Rockland, or whether he had passed the dark river, and was +in a suburb of the New Jerusalem, he could not as yet have told. + +They were in the street where the Doctor's house was situated. + +"I guess I'll fire off one o' these here berrils," said Abel. + +He fired. + +Presently there was a noise of opening windows, and the nocturnal +head-dresses of Rockland flowered out of them like so many +developments of the Nightblooming Cereus. White cotton caps and red +bandanna handkerchiefs were the prevailing forms of efflorescence. +The main point was that the village was waked up. The old Doctor +always waked easily, from long habit, and was the first among those +who looked out to see what had happened. + +"Why, Abel!" he called out, "what have you got there? and what 's +all this noise about?" + +"We've ketched the Portagee! "Abel answered, as laconically as the +hero of Lake Erie, in his famous dispatch. "Go in there, you +fellah!" + +The prisoner was marched into the house, and the Doctor, who had +bewitched his clothes upon him in a way that would have been +miraculous in anybody but a physician, was down in presentable form +as soon as if it had been a child in a fit that he was sent for. + +"Richard Veneer!" the Doctor exclaimed. "What is the meaning of all +this? Mr. Langdon, has anything happened to you?" + +Mr. Bernard put his hand to his head. + +"My mind is confused," he said. "I've had a fall.---Oh, yes!---wait +a minute and it will all come back to me." + +"Sit down, sit down," the Doctor said. "Abel will tell me about it. +Slight concussion of the brain. Can't remember very well for an hour +or two,--will come right by to-morrow." + +"Been stunded," Abel said. "He can't tell nothin'." + +Abel then proceeded to give a Napoleonic bulletin of the recent +combat of cavalry and infantry and its results,--none slain, one +captured. + +The Doctor looked at the prisoner through his spectacles. + +"What 's the matter with your shoulder, Venner?" + +Dick answered sullenly, that he didn't know, fell on it when his +horse came down. The Doctor examined it as carefully as he could +through his clothes. + +"Out of joint. Untie his hands, Abel" + +By this time a small alarm had spread among the neighbors, and there +was a circle around Dick, who glared about on the assembled honest +people like a hawk with a broken wing. + +When the Doctor said, "Untie his hands," the circle widened +perceptibly. + +"Isn't it a leetle rash to give him the use of his hands? I see +there's females and children standin' near." + +This was the remark of our old friend, Deacon Soper, who retired from +the front row, as he spoke, behind a respectable-looking, but +somewhat hastily dressed person of the defenceless sex, the female +help of a neighboring household, accompanied by a boy, whose +unsmoothed shock of hair looked like a last year's crow's-nest. + +But Abel untied his hands, in spite of the Deacon's considerate +remonstrance. + +"Now," said the Doctor, "the first thing is to put the joint back." + +"Stop," said Deacon Soper,--"stop a minute. Don't you think it will +be safer--for the women-folks--jest to wait till mornin', afore you +put that j'int into the socket?" + +Colonel Sprowle, who had been called by a special messenger, spoke up +at this moment. + +"Let the women-folks and the deacons go home, if they're scared, and +put the fellah's j'int in as quick as you like. I 'll resk him, +j'int in or out." + +"I want one of you to go straight down to Dudley Venner's with a +message," the Doctor said. "I will have the young man's shoulder in +quick enough." + +"Don't send that message!" said Dick, in a hoarse voice;--"do what +you like with my arm, but don't send that message! Let me go,--I can +walk, and I'll be off from this place. There's nobody hurt but +myself. Damn the shoulder!--let me go! You shall never hear of me +again!" + +Mr. Bernard came forward. + +"My friends," he said, "I am not injured,--seriously, at least. +Nobody need complain against this man, if I don't. The Doctor will +treat him like a human being, at any rate; and then, if he will go, +let him. There are too many witnesses against him here for him to +want to stay." + +The Doctor, in the mean time, without saying a word to all this, had +got a towel round the shoulder and chest and another round the arm, +and had the bone replaced in a very few minutes. + +"Abel, put Cassia into the new chaise," he said, quietly. "My +friends and neighbors, leave this young man to me." + +"Colonel Sprowle, you're a justice of the peace," said Deacon Soper, +"and you know what the law says in cases like this. It a'n't so +clear that it won't have to come afore the Grand Jury, whether we +will or no." + +"I guess we'll set that j'int to-morrow mornin'," said Colonel +Sprowle,--which made a laugh at the Deacon's expense, and virtually +settled the question. + +"Now trust this young man in my care," said the old Doctor, "and go +home and finish your naps. I knew him when he was a boy and I'll +answer for it, he won't trouble you any more. The Dudley blood makes +folks proud, I can tell you, whatever else they are." + +The good people so respected and believed in the Doctor that they +left the prisoner with him. + +Presently, Cassia, the fast Morgan mare, came up to the front-door, +with the wheels of the new, light chaise flashing behind her in the +moonlight. The Doctor drove Dick forty miles at a stretch that +night, out of the limits of the State. + +"Do you want money?" he said, before he left him. + +Dick told him the secret of his golden belt. + +"Where shall I send your trunk after you from your uncle's?" + +Dick gave him a direction to a seaport town to which he himself was +going, to take passage for a port in South America. + +"Good-bye, Richard," said the Doctor. "Try to learn something from +to-night's lesson." + +The Southern impulses in Dick's wild blood overcame him, and he +kissed the old Doctor on both cheeks, crying as only the children of +the sun can cry, after the first hours in the dewy morning of life. +So Dick Venner disappears from this story. An hour after dawn, +Cassia pointed her fine ears homeward, and struck into her square, +honest trot, as if she had not been doing anything more than her duty +during her four hours' stretch of the last night. + +Abel was not in the habit of questioning the Doctor's decisions. + +"It's all right," he said to Mr. Bernard. "The fellah 's Squire +Venner's relation, anyhaow. Don't you want to wait here, jest a +little while, till I come back? The's a consid'able nice saddle 'n' +bridle on a dead boss that's layin' daown there in the road 'n' I +guess the' a'n't no use in lettin' on 'em spite,--so I'll jest step +aout 'n' fetch 'em along. I kind o' calc'late 't won't pay to take +the cretur's shoes 'n' hide off to-night,--'n' the' won't be much +iron on that hose's huffs an haour after daylight, I'll bate ye a +quarter." + +"I'll walk along with you," said Mr. Bernard; "I feel as if I could +get along well enough now." + +So they set off together. There was a little crowd round the dead +mustang already, principally consisting of neighbors who had +adjourned from the Doctor's house to see the scene of the late +adventure. In addition to these, however, the assembly was honored +by the presence of Mr. Principal Silas Peckham, who had been called +from his slumbers by a message that Master Langdon was shot through +the head by a highway-robber, but had learned a true version of the +story by this time. His voice was at that moment heard above the +rest,--sharp, but thin, like bad cider-vinegar. + +"I take charge of that property, I say. Master Langdon 's actin' +under my orders, and I claim that hoss and all that's on him. Hiram! +jest slip off that saddle and bridle, and carry 'em up to the +Institoot, and bring down a pair of pinchers and a file,--and--stop-- +fetch a pair of shears, too; there's hosshair enough in that mane and +tail to stuff a bolster with." + +"You let that hoss alone!" spoke up Colonel Sprowle. "When a fellah +goes out huntin' and shoots a squirrel, do you think he's go'n' to +let another fellah pick him up and kerry him off? Not if he's got a +double-berril gun, and t'other berril ha'n't been fired off yet! I +should like to see the mahn that'll take off that seddle 'n' bridle, +excep' the one th't hez a fair right to the whole concern!" + +Hiram was from one of the lean streaks in New Hampshire, and, not +being overfed in Mr. Silas Peckham's kitchen, was somewhat wanting in +stamina, as well as in stomach, for so doubtful an enterprise, as +undertaking to carry out his employer's orders in the face of the +Colonel's defiance. + +Just then Mr. Bernard and Abel came up together. "Here they be," +said the Colonel. "Stan' beck, gentlemen!" + +Mr. Bernard, who was pale and still a little confused, but gradually +becoming more like himself, stood and looked in silence for a moment. + +All his thoughts seemed to be clearing themselves in this interval. +He took in the whole series of incidents: his own frightful risk; the +strange, instinctive, nay, Providential impulse, which had led him so +suddenly to do the one only thing which could possibly have saved +him; the sudden appearance of the Doctor's man, but for which he +might yet have been lost; and the discomfiture and capture of his +dangerous enemy. + +It was all past now, and a feeling of pity rose in Mr. Bernard's +heart. + +"He loved that horse, no doubt," he said,--"and no wonder. A +beautiful, wild--looking creature! Take off those things that are on +him, Abel, and have them carried to Mr. Dudley Veneer's. If he does +not want them, you may keep them yourself, for all that I have to +say. One thing more. I hope nobody will lift his hand against this +noble creature to mutilate him in any way. After you have taken off +the saddle and bridle, Abel, bury him just as he is. Under that old +beech-tree will be a good place. You'll see to it,--won't yon, +Abel?" + +Abel nodded assent, and Mr. Bernard returned to the Institute, threw +himself in his clothes on the bed, and slept like one who is heavy +with wine. + +Following Mr. Bernard's wishes, Abel at once took off the high-peaked +saddle and the richly ornamented bridle from the mustang. Then, with +the aid of two or three others, he removed him to the place +indicated. Spades and shovels were soon procured, and before the +moon had set, the wild horse of the Pampas was at rest under the turf +at the wayside, in the far village among the hills of New England. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE NEWS REACHES THE DUDLEY MANSION. + +Early the next morning Abel Stebbins made his appearance at Dudley +Veneer's, and requested to see the maan o' the haouse abaout +somethin' o' consequence. Mr. Veneer sent word that the messenger +should wait below, and presently appeared in the study, where Abel +was making himself at home, as is the wont of the republican citizen, +when he hides the purple of empire beneath the apron of domestic +service. + +"Good mornin', Squire!" said Abel, as Mr. Venner entered. "My name's +Stebbins, 'n' I'm stoppin' f'r a spell 'ith of Doctor Kittredge." + +"Well, Stebbins," said Mr. Dudley Veneer, "have you brought any +special message from the Doctor?" + +"Y' ha'n't heerd nothin' abaout it, Squire, d' ye mean t' say?" said +Abel,--beginning to suspect that he was the first to bring the news +of last evening's events. + +"About what?" asked Mr. Veneer, with some interest. + +"Dew tell, naow! Waal, that beats all! Why, that 'ere Portagee +relation o' yourn 'z been tryin' t' ketch a fellah 'n a slippernoose, +'n' got ketched himself,---that's all. Y' ha'n't heerd noth'n' +abaout it?" + +"Sit down," said Mr. Dudley Veneer, calmly, "and tell me all you have +to say." + +So Abel sat down and gave him an account of the events of the last +evening. It was a strange and terrible surprise to Dudley Veneer to +find that his nephew, who had been an inmate of his house and the +companion of his daughter, was to all intents and purposes guilty of +the gravest of crimes. But the first shock was no sooner over than +he began to think what effect the news would have on Elsie. He +imagined that there was a kind of friendly feeling between them, and +he feared some crisis would be provoked in his daughter's mental +condition by the discovery. He would wait, however, until she came +from her chamber, before disturbing her with the evil tidings. + +Abel did not forget his message with reference to the equipments of +the dead mustang. + +"The' was some things on the hoss, Squire, that the man he ketched +said he did n' care no gre't abaout; but perhaps you'd like to have +'em fetched to the mansion-haouse. Ef y' did n' care abaout 'em, +though, I should n' min' keepin' on 'em; they might come handy some +time or 'nother; they say, holt on t' anything for ten year 'n' +there 'll be some kin' o' use for 't." + +"Keep everything," said Dudley Veneer. "I don't want to see anything +belonging to that young man." + +So Abel nodded to Mr. Veneer, and left the study to find some of the +men about the stable to tell and talk over with them the events of +the last evening. He presently came upon Elbridge, chief of the +equine department, and driver of the family-coach. + +"Good mornin', Abe," said Elbridge. "What's fetched y' daown here so +all-fired airly?" + +"You're a darned pooty lot daown here, you be!" + +Abel answered. "Better keep your Portagees t' home nex' time, +ketchin' folks 'ith slippernooses raoun' their necks, 'n' kerryin' +knives 'n their boots!" + +"What 'r' you jawin' abaout?" Elbridge said, looking up to see if he +was in earnest, and what he meant. + +"Jawin' abaout? You'll find aout'z soon 'z y' go into that 'ere +stable o' yourn! Y' won't curry that 'ere long-tailed black hoss no +more; 'n' y' won't set y'r eyes on the fellah that rid him, ag'in, in +a hurry!" + +Elbridge walked straight to the stable, without saying a word, found +the door unlocked, and went in. + +"Th' critter's gone, sure enough!" he said. "Glad on 't! The +darndest, kickin'est, bitin'est beast th't ever I see, 'r ever wan' +t' see ag'in! Good reddance! Don' wan' no snappin'-turkles in my +stable! Whar's the man gone th't brought the critter?" + +"Whar he's gone? Guess y' better go 'n ask my ol man; he kerried him +off lass' night; 'n' when he comes back, mebbe he 'll tell ye whar +he's gone tew!" + +By this time Elbridge had found out that Abel was in earnest, and had +something to tell. He looked at the litter in the mustang's stall, +then at the crib. + +"Ha'n't eat b't haalf his feed. Ha'n't been daown on his straw. +Must ha' been took aout somewhere abaout ten 'r 'levee o'clock. I +know that 'ere critter's ways. The fellah's had him aout nights +afore; b't I never thought nothin' o' no mischief. He 's a kin' o' +haalf Injin. What is 't the chap's been a-doin' on? Tell 's all +abaout it." + +Abel sat down on a meal-chest, picked up a straw and put it into his +mouth. Elbridge sat down at the other end, pulled out his jack- +knife, opened the penknife-blade, and began sticking it into the lid +of the meal-chest. The Doctor's man had a story to tell, and he +meant to get all the enjoyment out of it. So he told it with every +luxury of circumstance. Mr. Veneer's man heard it all with open +mouth. No listener in the gardens of Stamboul could have found more +rapture in a tale heard amidst the perfume of roses and the voices of +birds and tinkling of fountains than Elbridge in following Abel's +narrative, as they sat there in the aromatic ammoniacal atmosphere of +the stable, the grinding of the horses' jaws keeping evenly on +through it all, with now and then the interruption of a stamping +hoof, and at intervals a ringing crow from the barn-yard. + +Elbridge stopped a minute to think, after Abel had finished. + +"Who's took care o' them things that was on the hoss? "he said, +gravely. + +"Waal, Langden, he seemed to kin 'o' think I'd ought to have 'em,-- +'n' the Squire; he did n' seem to have no 'bjection; 'n' so,--waal, I +calc'late I sh'll jes' holt on to 'em myself; they a'n't good f 'r +much, but they're cur'ous t' keep t' look at." + +Mr. Veneer's man did not appear much gratified by this arrangement, +especially as he had a shrewd suspicion that some of the ornaments of +the bridle were of precious metal, having made occasional +examinations of them with the edge of a file. But he did not see +exactly what to do about it, except to get them from Abel in the way +of bargain. + +"Waal, no,--they a'n't good for much 'xcep' to look at. 'F y' ever +rid on that seddle once, y' would n' try it ag'in, very spry,--not 'f +y' c'd haalp y'rsaalf. + +"I tried it,--darned 'f I sot daown f'r th' nex' week,--eat all my +victuals stan'in'. I sh'd like t' hev them things wal enough to heng +up 'n the stable; 'f y' want t' trade some day, fetch 'em along +daown." + +Abel rather expected that Elbridge would have laid claim to the +saddle and bridle on the strength of some promise or other +presumptive title, and thought himself lucky to get off with only +offering to think abaout tradin'. + +When Elbridge returned to the house, he found the family in a state +of great excitement. Mr. Venner had told Old Sophy, and she had +informed the other servants. Everybody knew what had happened, +excepting Elsie. Her father had charged them all to say nothing +about it to her; he would tell her, when she came down. + +He heard her step at last,--alight, gliding step,--so light that her +coming was often unheard, except by those who perceived the faint +rustle that went with it. She was paler than common this morning, as +she came into her father's study. + +After a few words of salutation, he said quietly, "Elsie, my dear, +your cousin Richard has left us." + +She grew still paler, as she asked, + +"Is he dead?" + +Dudley Venner started to see the expression with which Elsie put this +question. + +"He is living,--but dead to us from this day forward," said her +father. + +He proceeded to tell her, in a general way, the story he had just +heard from Abel. There could be no doubting it;--he remembered him +as the Doctor's man; and as Abel had seen all with his own eyes, as +Dick's chamber, when unlocked with a spare key, was found empty, and +his bed had not been slept in, he accepted the whole account as true. + +When he told of Dick's attempt on the young schoolmaster, ("You know +Mr. Langdon very well, Elsie,--a perfectly inoffensive young man, as +I understand,") Elsie turned her face away and slid along by the wall +to the window which looked out oh the little grass-plot with the +white stone standing in it. Her father could not see her face, but +he knew by her movements that her dangerous mood was on her. When +she heard the sequel of the story, the discomfiture and capture of +Dick, she turned round for an instant, with a look of contempt and of +something like triumph upon her face. Her father saw that her cousin +had become odious to her: He knew well, by every change of her +countenance, by her movements, by every varying curve of her graceful +figure, the transitions front passion to repose, from fierce +excitement to the dull languor which often succeeded her threatening +paroxysms. + +She remained looking out at the window. A group of white fan-tailed +pigeons had lighted on the green plot before it and clustered about +one of their companions who lay on his back, fluttering in a strange +way, with outspread wings and twitching feet. Elsie uttered a faint +cry; these were her special favorites and often fed from her hand. +She threw open the long window, sprang out, caught up the white +fantail, and held it to her bosom. The bird stretched himself out, +and then lay still, with open eyes, lifeless. She looked at him a +moment, and, sliding in through the open window and through the +study, sought her own apartment, where she locked herself in, and +began to sob and moan like those that weep. But the gracious solace +of tears seemed to be denied her, and her grief, like her anger, was +a dull ache, longing, like that, to finish itself with a fierce +paroxysm, but wanting its natural outlet. + +This seemingly trifling incident of the death of her favorite +appeared to change all the current of her thought. Whether it were +the sight of the dying bird, or the thought that her own agency might +have beep concerned in it, or some deeper grief, which took this +occasion to declare itself,--some dark remorse or hopeless longing,-- +whatever it might be, there was an unwonted tumult in her soul. To +whom should she go in her vague misery? Only to Him who knows all +His creatures' sorrows, and listens to the faintest human cry. She +knelt, as she had been taught to kneel from her childhood, and tried +to pray. But her thoughts refused to flow in the language of +supplication. She could not plead for herself as other women plead +in their hours of anguish. She rose like one who should stoop to +drink, and find dust in the place of water. Partly from +restlessness, partly from an attraction she hardly avowed to herself, +she followed her usual habit and strolled listlessly along to the +school. + +Of course everybody at the Institute was full of the terrible +adventure of the preceding evening. Mr. Bernard felt poorly enough; +but he had made it a point to show himself the next morning, as if +nothing had happened. Helen Darley knew nothing of it all until she +hard risen, when the gossipy matron of the establishment made her +acquainted with all its details, embellished with such additional +ornamental appendages as it had caught up in transmission from lip to +lip. She did not love to betray her sensibilities, but she was pale +and tremulous and very nearly tearful when Mr. Bernard entered the +sitting-room, showing on his features traces of the violent shock he +had received and the heavy slumber from which he had risen with +throbbing brows. What the poor girl's impulse was, on seeing him, we +need not inquire too curiously. If he had been her own brother, she +would have kissed him and cried on his neck; but something held her +back. There is no galvanism in kiss-your-brother; it is copper +against copper: but alien bloods develop strange currents, when they +flow close to each other, with only the films that cover lip and +cheek between them. Mr. Bernard, as some of us may remember, +violated the proprieties and laid himself open to reproach by his +enterprise with a bouncing village-girl, to whose rosy cheek an +honest smack was not probably an absolute novelty. He made it all up +by his discretion and good behavior now. He saw by Helen's moist eye +and trembling lip that her woman's heart was off its guard, and he +knew, by the infallible instinct of sex, that he should be forgiven, +if he thanked her for her sisterly sympathies in the most natural +way,--expressive, and at the same time economical of breath and +utterance. He would not give a false look to their friendship by any +such demonstration. Helen was a little older than himself, but the +aureole of young womanhood had not yet begun to fade from around her. +She was surrounded by that enchanted atmosphere into which the girl +walks with dreamy eyes, and out of which the woman passes with a +story written on her forehead. Some people think very little of +these refinements; they have not studied magnetism and the law of the +square of the distance. + +So Mr. Bernard thanked Helen for her interest without the aid of the +twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet,--the love labial,--the limping +consonant which it takes two to speak plain. Indeed, he scarcely let +her say a word, at first; for he saw that it was hard for her to +conceal her emotion. No wonder; he had come within a hair's-breadth +of losing his life, and he had been a very kind friend and a very +dear companion to her. + +There were some curious spiritual experiences connected with his last +evening's adventure which were working very strongly in his mind. It +was borne in upon him irresistibly that he had been dead since he had +seen Helen,--as dead as the son of the Widow of Nain before the bier +was touched and he sat up and began to speak. There was an interval +between two conscious moments which appeared to him like a temporary +annihilation, and the thoughts it suggested were worrying him with +strange perplexities. + +He remembered seeing the dark figure on horseback rise in the saddle +and something leap from its hand. He remembered the thrill he felt +as the coil settled on his shoulders, and the sudden impulse which +led him to fire as he did. With the report of the pistol all became +blank, until he found himself in a strange, bewildered state, groping +about for the weapon, which he had a vague consciousness of having +dropped. But, according to Abel's account, there must have been an +interval of some minutes between these recollections, and he could +not help asking, Where was the mind, the soul, the thinking +principle, all this time? + +A man is stunned by a blow with a stick on the head. He becomes +unconscious. Another man gets a harder blow on the head from a +bigger stick, and it kills him. Does he become unconscious, too? If +so, when does he come to his consciousness? The man who has had a +slight or moderate blow comes to himself when the immediate shock +passes off and the organs begin to work again, or when a bit of the +skull is pried up, if that happens to be broken. Suppose the blow is +hard enough to spoil the brain and stop the play of the organs, what +happens them? + +A British captain was struck by a cannon-ball on the head, just as he +was giving an order, at the Battle of the Nile. Fifteen months +afterwards he was trephined at Greenwich Hospital, having been +insensible all that time. Immediately after the operation his +consciousness returned, and he at once began carrying out the order +he was giving when the shot struck him. Suppose he had never been +trephined, when would his consciousness have returned? When his +breath ceased and his heart stopped beating? + +When Mr. Bernard said to Helen, "I have been dead since I saw you," +it startled her not a little; for his expression was that of perfect +good faith, and she feared that his mind was disordered. When he +explained, not as has been done just now, at length, but in a +hurried, imperfect way, the meaning of his strange assertion, and the +fearful Sadduceeisms which it had suggested to his mind, she looked +troubled at first, and then thoughtful. She did not feel able to +answer all the difficulties he raised, but she met them with that +faith which is the strength as well as the weakness of women,--which +makes them weak in the hands of man, but strong in the presence of +the Unseen. + +"It is a strange experience," she said; "but I once had something +like it. I fainted, and lost some five or ten minutes out of my +life, as much as if I had been dead. But when I came to myself, I +was the same person every way, in my recollections and character. So +I suppose that loss of consciousness is not death. And if I was born +out of unconsciousness into infancy with many family-traits of mind +and body, I can believe, from my own reason, even without help from +Revelation, that I shall be born again out of the unconsciousness of +death with my individual traits of mind and body. If death is, as it +should seem to be, a loss of consciousness, that does not shake my +faith; for I have been put into a body once already to fit me for +living here, and I hope to be in some way fitted after this life to +enjoy a better one. But it is all trust in God and in his Word. +These are enough for me; I hope they are for you." + +Helen was a minister's daughter, and familiar from her childhood with +this class of questions, especially with all the doubts and +perplexities which are sure to assail every thinking child bred in +any inorganic or not thoroughly vitalized faith,--as is too often the +case with the children of professional theologians. The kind of +discipline they are subjected to is like that of the Flat-Head Indian +pappooses. At five or ten or fifteen years old they put their hands +up to their foreheads and ask, What are they strapping down my brains +in this way for? So they tear off the sacred bandages of the great +Flat-Head tribe, and there follows a mighty rush of blood to the +long-compressed region. This accounts, in the most lucid manner, for +those sudden freaks with which certain children of this class +astonish their worthy parents at the period of life when they are +growing fast, and, the frontal pressure beginning to be felt as +something intolerable, they tear off the holy compresses. + +The hour for school came, and they went to the great hall for study. +It would not have occurred to Mr. Silas Peckham to ask his assistant +whether he felt well enough to attend to his duties; and Mr. Bernard +chose to be at his post. A little headache and confusion were all +that remained of his symptoms. + +Later, in the course of the forenoon, Elsie Venner came and took her +place. The girls all stared at her--naturally enough; for it was +hardly to have been expected that she would show herself, after such +an event in the household to which she belonged. Her expression was +somewhat peculiar, and, of course, was attributed to the shock her +feelings had undergone on hearing of the crime attempted by her +cousin and daily companion. When she was looking on her book, or on +any indifferent object, her countenance betrayed some inward +disturbance, which knitted her dark brows, and seemed to throw a +deeper shadow over her features. But, from time to time, she would +lift her eyes toward Mr. Bernard, and let them rest upon him, without +a thought, seemingly, that she herself was the subject of observation +or remark. Then they seemed to lose their cold glitter, and soften +into a strange, dreamy tenderness. The deep instincts of womanhood +were striving to grope their way to the surface of her being through +all the alien influences which overlaid them. She could be secret +and cunning in working out any of her dangerous impulses, but she did +not know how to mask the unwonted feeling which fixed her eyes and +her thoughts upon the only person who had ever reached the spring of +her hidden sympathies. + +The girls all looked at Elsie, whenever they could steal a glance +unperceived, and many of them were struck with this singular +expression her features wore. They had long whispered it around +among each other that she had a liking for the master; but there were +too many of them of whom something like this could be said, to make +it very remarkable. Now, however, when so many little hearts were +fluttering at the thought of the peril through which the handsome +young master had so recently passed, they were more alive than ever +to the supposed relation between him and the dark school-girl. Some +had supposed there was a mutual attachment between them; there was a +story that they were secretly betrothed, in accordance with the rumor +which had been current in the village. At any rate, some conflict +was going on in that still, remote, clouded soul, and all the girls +who looked upon her face were impressed and awed as they had never +been before by the shadows that passed over it. + +One of these girls was more strongly arrested by Elsie's look than +the others. This was a delicate, pallid creature, with a high +forehead, and wide-open pupils, which looked as if they could take in +all the shapes that flit in what, to common eyes, is darkness,--a +girl said to be clairvoyant under certain influences. In the recess, +as it was called, or interval of suspended studies in the middle of +the forenoon, this girl carried her autograph-book,--for she had one +of those indispensable appendages of the boarding-school miss of +every degree,--and asked Elsie to write her name in it. She had an +irresistible feeling, that, sooner or later, and perhaps very soon, +there would attach an unusual interest to this autograph. Elsie took +the pen and wrote, in her sharp Italian hand, + +Elsie Venner, Infelix. + +It was a remembrance, doubtless, of the forlorn queen of the +"AEneid"; but its coming to her thought in this way confirmed the +sensitive school-girl in her fears for Elsie, and she let fall a tear +upon the page before she closed it. + +Of course, the keen and practised observation of Helen Darley could +not fail to notice the change of Elsie's manner and expression. She +had long seen that she was attracted to the young master, and had +thought, as the old Doctor did, that any impression which acted upon +her affections might be the means of awakening a new life in her +singularly isolated nature. Now, however, the concentration of the +poor girl's thoughts upon the one object which had had power to reach +her deeper sensibilities was so painfully revealed in her features, +that Helen began to fear once more, lest Mr. Bernard, in escaping the +treacherous violence of an assassin, had been left to the equally +dangerous consequences of a violent, engrossing passion in the breast +of a young creature whose love it would be ruin to admit and might be +deadly to reject. She knew her own heart too well to fear that any +jealousy might mingle with her new apprehensions. It was understood +between Bernard and Helen that they were too good friends to tamper +with the silences and edging proximities of lovemaking. She knew, +too, the simply human, not masculine, interest which Mr. Bernard took +in Elsie; he had been frank with Helen, and more than satisfied her +that with all the pity and sympathy which overflowed his soul, when +he thought of the stricken girl, there mingled not one drop of such +love as a youth may feel for a maiden. + +It may help the reader to gain some understanding of the anomalous +nature of Elsie Veneer, if we look with Helen into Mr. Bernard's +opinions and feelings with reference to her, as they had shaped +themselves in his consciousness at the period of which we are +speaking. + +At first he had been impressed by her wild beauty, and the contrast +of all her looks and ways with those of the girls around her. +Presently a sense of some ill-defined personal element, which half- +attracted and half-repelled those who looked upon her, and especially +those on whom she looked, began to make itself obvious to him, as he +soon found it was painfully sensible to his more susceptible +companion, the lady-teacher. It was not merely in the cold light of +her diamond eyes, but in all her movements, in her graceful postures +as she sat, in her costume, and, he sometimes thought, even in her +speech, that this obscure and exceptional character betrayed itself. +When Helen had said, that, if they were living in times when human +beings were subject to possession, she should have thought there was +something not human about Elsie, it struck an unsuspected vein of +thought in his own mind, which he hated to put in words, but which +was continually trying to articulate itself among the dumb thoughts +which lie under the perpetual stream of mental whispers. + +Mr. Bernard's professional training had made him slow to accept +marvellous stories and many forms of superstition. Yet, as a man of +science, he well knew that just on the verge of the demonstrable +facts of physics and physiology there is a nebulous border-land which +what is called "common sense" perhaps does wisely not to enter, but +which uncommon sense, or the fine apprehension of privileged +intelligences, may cautiously explore, and in so doing find itself +behind the scenes which make up for the gazing world the show which +is called Nature. + +It was with something of this finer perception, perhaps with some +degree of imaginative exaltation, that he set himself to solving the +problem of Elsie's influence to attract and repel those around her. +His letter already submitted to the reader hints in what direction +his thoughts were disposed to turn. Here was a magnificent +organization, superb in vigorous womanhood, with a beauty such as +never comes but after generations of culture; yet through all this +rich nature there ran some alien current of influence, sinuous and +dark, as when a clouded streak seams the white marble of a perfect +statue. + +It would be needless to repeat the particular suggestions which had +come into his mind, as they must probably have come into that of the +reader who has noted the singularities of Elsie's tastes and personal +traits. The images which certain poets had dreamed of seemed to have +become a reality before his own eyes. Then came that unexplained +adventure of The Mountain,--almost like a dream in recollection, yet +assuredly real in some of its main incidents,--with all that it +revealed or hinted. This girl did not fear to visit the dreaded +region, where danger lurked in every nook and beneath every tuft of +leaves. Did the tenants of the fatal ledge recognize some mysterious +affinity which made them tributary to the cold glitter of her diamond +eyes? Was she from her birth one of those frightful children, such +as he had read about, and the Professor had told him of, who form +unnatural friendships with cold, writhing ophidians? There was no +need of so unwelcome a thought as this; she had drawn him away from +the dark opening in the rock at the moment when he seemed to be +threatened by one of its malignant denizens; that was all he could be +sure of; the counter-fascination might have been a dream, a fancy, a +coincidence. All wonderful things soon grow doubtful in our own +minds, as do even common events, if great interests prove suddenly to +attach to their truth or falsehood. + +--I, who am telling of these occurrences, saw a friend in the great +city, on the morning of a most memorable disaster, hours after the +time when the train which carried its victims to their doom had left. +I talked with him, and was for some minutes, at least, in his +company. When I reached home, I found that the story had gone before +that he was among the lost, and I alone could contradict it to his +weeping friends and relatives. I did contradict it; but, alas! I +began soon to doubt myself, penetrated by the contagion of their +solicitude; my recollection began to question itself; the order of +events became dislocated; and when I heard that he had reached home +in safety, the relief was almost as great to me as to those who had +expected to see their own brother's face no more. + +Mr. Bernard was disposed, then, not to accept the thought of any +odious personal relationship of the kind which had suggested itself +to him when he wrote the letter referred to. That the girl had +something of the feral nature, her wild, lawless rambles in forbidden +and blasted regions of The Mountain at all hours, her familiarity +with the lonely haunts where any other human foot was so rarely seen, +proved clearly enough. But the more he thought of all her strange +instincts and modes of being, the more he became convinced that +whatever alien impulse swayed her will and modulated or diverted or +displaced her affections came from some impression that reached far +back into the past, before the days when the faithful Old Sophy had +rocked her in the cradle. He believed that she had brought her +ruling tendency, whatever it was, into the world with her. + +When the school was over and the girls had all gone, Helen lingered +in the schoolroom to speak with Mr. Bernard. + +"Did you remark Elsie's ways this forenoon?" she said. + +"No, not particularly; I have not noticed anything as sharply as I +commonly do; my head has been a little queer, and I have been +thinking over what we were talking about, and how near I came to +solving the great problem which every day makes clear to such +multitudes of people. What about Elsie?" + +"Bernard, her liking for you is growing into a passion. I have +studied girls for a long while, and I know the difference between +their passing fancies and their real emotions. I told you, you +remember, that Rosa would have to leave us; we barely missed a scene, +I think, if not a whole tragedy, by her going at the right moment. +But Elsie is infinitely more dangerous to herself and others. +Women's love is fierce enough, if it once gets the mastery of them, +always; but this poor girl does not know what to do with a passion." + +Mr. Bernard had never told Helen the story of the flower in his +Virgil, or that other adventure--which he would have felt awkwardly +to refer to; but it had been perfectly understood between them that +Elsie showed in her own singular way a well-marked partiality for the +young master. + +"Why don't they take her away from the school, if she is in such a +strange, excitable state?" said Mr. Bernard. + +"I believe they are afraid of her," Helen answered. "It is just one +of those cases that are ten thousand thousand times worse than +insanity. I don't think from what I hear, that her father has ever +given up hoping that she will outgrow her peculiarities. Oh, these +peculiar children for whom parents go on hoping every morning and +despairing every night! If I could tell you half that mothers have +told me, you would feel that the worst of all diseases of the moral +sense and the will are those which all the Bedlams turn away from +their doors as not being cases of insanity!" + +"Do you think her father has treated her judiciously?" said Mr. +Bernard. + +"I think," said Helen, with a little hesitation, which Mr. Bernard +did not happen to notice,--"I think he has been very kind and +indulgent, and I do not know that he could have treated her otherwise +with a better chance of success." + +"He must of course be fond of her," Mr. Bernard said; "there is +nothing else in the world for him to love." + +Helen dropped a book she held in her hand, and, stooping to pick it +up, the blood rushed into her cheeks. + +"It is getting late," she said; "you must not stay any longer in this +close schoolroom. Pray, go and get a little fresh air before dinner- +time." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +A SOUL IN DISTRESS. + +The events told in the last two chapters had taken place toward the +close of the week. On Saturday evening the Reverend Chauncy +Fairweather received a note which was left at his door by an unknown +person who departed without saying a word. Its words were these: +"One who is in distress of mind requests the prayers of this +congregation that God would be pleased to look in mercy upon the soul +that he has afflicted." + +There was nothing to show from whom the note came, or the sex or age +or special source of spiritual discomfort or anxiety of the writer. +The handwriting was delicate and might well be a woman's. The +clergyman was not aware of any particular affliction among his +parishioners which was likely to be made the subject of a request of +this kind. Surely neither of the Venners would advertise the +attempted crime of their relative in this way. But who else was +there? The more he thought about it, the more it puzzled him, and as +he did not like to pray in the dark, without knowing for whom he was +praying, he could think of nothing better than to step into old +Doctor Kittredge's and see what he had to say about it. + +The old Doctor was sitting alone in his study when the Reverend Mr. +Fairweather was ushered in. He received his visitor very pleasantly, +expecting, as a matter of course, that he would begin with some new +grievance, dyspeptic, neuralgic, bronchitic, or other. The minister, +however, began with questioning the old Doctor about the sequel of +the other night's adventure; for he was already getting a little +Jesuitical, and kept back the object of his visit until it should +come up as if accidentally in the course of conversation. + +"It was a pretty bold thing to go off alone with that reprobate, as +you did," said the minister. + +"I don't know what there was bold about it," the Doctor answered. +"All he wanted was to get away. He was not quite a reprobate, you +see; he didn't like the thought of disgracing his family or facing +his uncle. I think he was ashamed to see his cousin, too, after what +he had done." + +"Did he talk with you on the way?" + +"Not much. For half an hour or so he did n't speak a word. Then he +asked where I was driving him. I told him, and he seemed to be +surprised into a sort of grateful feeling. Bad enough, no doubt, but +might be worse. Has some humanity left in him yet. Let him go. God +can judge him,--I can't." + +"You are too charitable, Doctor," the minister said. "I condemn him +just as if he had carried out his project, which, they say, was to +make it appear as if the schoolmaster had committed suicide. That's +what people think the rope found by him was for. He has saved his +neck,--but his soul is a lost one, I am afraid, beyond question." + +"I can't judge men's souls," the Doctor said. "I can judge their +acts, and hold them responsible for those,--but I don't know much +about their souls. If you or I had found our soul in a half-breed +body; and been turned loose to run among the Indians, we might have +been playing just such tricks as this fellow has been trying. What +if you or I had inherited all the tendencies that were born with his +cousin Elsie?" + +"Oh, that reminds me,"--the minister said, in a sudden way,--"I have +received a note, which I am requested to read from the pulpit +tomorrow. I wish you would just have the kindness to look at it and +see where you think it came from." + +The Doctor examined it carefully. It was a woman's or girl's note, +he thought. Might come from one of the school-girls who was anxious +about her spiritual condition. Handwriting was disguised; looked a +little like Elsie Veneer's, but not characteristic enough to make it +certain. It would be a new thing, if she had asked public prayers +for herself, and a very favorable indication of a change in her +singular moral nature. It was just possible Elsie might have sent +that note. Nobody could foretell her actions. It would be well to +see the girl and find out whether any unusual impression had been +produced on her mind by the recent occurrence or by any other cause. + +The Reverend Mr. Fairweather folded the note and put it into his +pocket. + +"I have been a good deal exercised in mind lately, myself," he said. + +The old Doctor looked at him through his spectacles, and said, in his +usual professional tone, + +"Put out your tongue." + +The minister obeyed him in that feeble way common with persons of +weak character,--for people differ as much in their mode of +performing this trifling act as Gideon's soldiers in their way of +drinking at the brook. The Doctor took his hand and placed a finger +mechanically on his wrist. + +"It is more spiritual, I think, than bodily," said the Reverend Mr. +Fairweather. + +"Is your appetite as good as usual?" the Doctor asked. + +"Pretty good," the minister answered; "but my sleep, my sleep, +Doctor,--I am greatly troubled at night with lying awake and thinking +of my future, I am not at ease in mind." + +He looked round at all the doors, to be sure they were shut, and +moved his chair up close to the Doctor's. + +"You do not know the mental trials I have been going through for the +last few months." + +"I think I do," the old Doctor said. "You want to get out of the new +church into the old one, don't you?" + +The minister blushed deeply; he thought he had been going on in a +very quiet way, and that nobody suspected his secret. As the old +Doctor was his counsellor in sickness, and almost everybody's +confidant in trouble, he had intended to impart cautiously to him +some hints of the change of sentiments through which he had been +passing. He was too late with his information, it appeared, and +there was nothing to be done but to throw himself on the Doctor's +good sense and kindness, which everybody knew, and get what hints he +could from him as to the practical course he should pursue. He +began, after an awkward pause, + +"You would not have me stay in a communion which I feel to be alien +to the true church, would you?" + +"Have you stay, my friend?" said the Doctor, with a pleasant, +friendly look,--"have you stay? Not a month, nor a week, nor a day, +if I could help it. You have got into the wrong pulpit, and I have +known it from the first. The sooner you go where you belong, the +better. And I'm very glad you don't mean to stop half-way. Don't +you know you've always come to me when you've been dyspeptic or sick +anyhow, and wanted to put yourself wholly into my hands, so that I +might order you like a child just what to do and what to take? That +'s exactly what you want in religion. I don't blame you for it. You +never liked to take the responsibility of your own body; I don't see +why you should want to have the charge of your own soul. But I'm +glad you're going to the Old Mother of all. You wouldn't have been +contented short of that." + +The Reverend Mr. Fairweather breathed with more freedom. The Doctor +saw into his soul through those awful spectacles of his,--into it and +beyond it, as one sees through a thin fog. But it was with a real +human kindness, after all. He felt like a child before a strong man; +but the strong man looked on him with a father's indulgence. Many +and many a time, when he had come desponding and bemoaning himself on +account of some contemptible bodily infirmity, the old Doctor had +looked at him through his spectacles, listened patiently while he +told his ailments, and then, in his large parental way, given him a +few words of wholesome advice, and cheered him up so that he went off +with a light heart, thinking that the heaven he was so much afraid of +was not so very near, after all. It was the same thing now. He +felt, as feeble natures always do in the presence of strong ones, +overmastered, circumscribed, shut in, humbled; but yet it seemed as +if the old Doctor did not despise him any more for what he considered +weakness of mind than he used to despise him when he complained of +his nerves or his digestion. + +Men who see into their neighbors are very apt to be contemptuous; but +men who see through them find something lying behind every human soul +which it is not for them to sit in judgment on, or to attempt to +sneer out of the order of God's manifold universe. + +Little as the Doctor had said out of which comfort could be +extracted, his genial manner had something grateful in it. A film of +gratitude came over the poor man's cloudy, uncertain eye, and a look +of tremulous relief and satisfaction played about his weak mouth. He +was gravitating to the majority, where he hoped to find "rest"; but +he was dreadfully sensitive to the opinions of the minority he was on +the point of leaving. + +The old Doctor saw plainly enough what was going on in his mind. + +"I sha'n't quarrel with you," he said,--"you know that very well; but +you mustn't quarrel with me, if I talk honestly with you; it isn't +everybody that will take the trouble. You flatter yourself that you +will make a good many enemies by leaving your old communion. Not so +many as you think. This is the way the common sort of people will +talk:--'You have got your ticket to the feast of life, as much as any +other man that ever lived. Protestantism says,--"Help yourself; +here's a clean plate, and a knife and fork of your own, and plenty of +fresh dishes to choose from." The Old Mother says,--"Give me your +ticket, my dear, and I'll feed you with my gold spoon off these +beautiful old wooden trenchers. Such nice bits as those good old +gentlemen have left for you!" There is no quarrelling with a man who +prefers broken victuals.' That's what the rougher sort will say; and +then, where one scolds, ten will laugh. But, mind you, I don't +either scold or laugh. I don't feel sure that you could very well +have helped doing what you will soon do. You know you were never +easy without some medicine to take when you felt ill in body. I'm +afraid I've given you trashy stuff sometimes, just to keep you quiet. +Now, let me tell you, there is just the same difference in spiritual +patients that there is in bodily ones. One set believes in wholesome +ways of living, and another must have a great list of specifics for +all the soul's complaints. You belong with the last, and got +accidentally shuffled in with the others." + +The minister smiled faintly, but did not reply. Of course, he +considered that way of talking as the result of the Doctor's +professional training. It would not have been worth while to take +offence at his plain speech, if he had been so disposed; for he might +wish to consult him the next day as to "what he should take" for his +dyspepsia or his neuralgia. + +He left the Doctor with a hollow feeling at the bottom of his soul, +as if a good piece of his manhood had been scooped out of him. His +hollow aching did not explain itself in words, but it grumbled and +worried down among the unshaped thoughts which lie beneath them. He +knew that he had been trying to reason himself out of his birthright +of reason. He knew that the inspiration which gave him understanding +was losing its throne in his intelligence, and the almighty Majority- +Vote was proclaiming itself in its stead. He knew that the great +primal truths, which each successive revelation only confirmed, were +fast becoming hidden beneath the mechanical forms of thought, which, +as with all new converts, engrossed so large a share of his +attention. The "peace," the "rest," which he had purchased were +dearly bought to one who had been trained to the arms of thought, and +whose noble privilege it might have been to live in perpetual warfare +for the advancing truth which the next generation will claim as the +legacy of the present. + +The Reverend Mr. Fairweather was getting careless about his sermons. +He must wait the fitting moment to declare himself; and in the mean +time he was preaching to heretics. It did not matter much what he +preached, under such circumstances. He pulled out two old yellow +sermons from a heap of such, and began looking over that for the +forenoon. Naturally enough, he fell asleep over it, and, sleeping, +he began to dream. + +He dreamed that he was under the high arches of an old cathedral, +amidst a throng of worshippers. The light streamed in through vast +windows, dark with the purple robes of royal saints, or blazing with +yellow glories around the heads of earthly martyrs and heavenly +messengers. The billows of the great organ roared among the +clustered columns, as the sea breaks amidst the basaltic pillars +which crowd the stormy cavern of the Hebrides. The voice of the +alternate choirs of singing boys swung back and forward, as the +silver censer swung in the hands of the whiterobed children. The +sweet cloud of incense rose in soft, fleecy mists, full of +penetrating suggestions of the East and its perfumed altars. The +knees of twenty generations had worn the pavement; their feet had +hollowed the steps; their shoulders had smoothed the columns. Dead +bishops and abbots lay under the marble of the floor in their +crumbled vestments; dead warriors, in rusted armor, were stretched +beneath their sculptured effigies. And all at once all the buried +multitudes who had ever worshipped there came thronging in through +the aisles. They choked every space, they swarmed into all the +chapels, they hung in clusters over the parapets of the galleries, +they clung to the images in every niche, and still the vast throng +kept flowing and flowing in, until the living were lost in the rush +of the returning dead who had reclaimed their own. Then, as his +dream became more fantastic, the huge cathedral itself seemed to +change into the wreck of some mighty antediluvian vertebrate; its +flying-buttresses arched round like ribs, its piers shaped themselves +into limbs, and the sound of the organ-blast changed to the wind +whistling through its thousand-jointed skeleton. + +And presently the sound lulled, and softened and softened, until it +was as the murmur of a distant swarm of bees. A procession of monks +wound along through an old street, chanting, as they walked. In his +dream he glided in among them and bore his part in the burden of +their song. He entered with the long train under a low arch, and +presently he was kneeling in a narrow cell before an image of the +Blessed Maiden holding the Divine Child in her arms, and his lips +seemed to whisper, + + Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis! + +He turned to the crucifix, and, prostrating himself before the spare, +agonizing shape of the Holy Sufferer, fell into a long passion of +tears and broken prayers. He rose and flung himself, worn-out, upon +his hard pallet, and, seeming to slumber, dreamed again within his +dream. Once more in the vast cathedral, with throngs of the living +choking its aisles, amidst jubilant peals from the cavernous depths +of the great organ, and choral melodies ringing from the fluty +throats of the singing boys. A day of great rejoicings,--for a +prelate was to be consecrated, and the bones of the mighty skeleton- +minster were shaking with anthems, as if there were life of its own +within its buttressed ribs. He looked down at his feet; the folds of +the sacred robe were flowing about them: he put his hand to his head; +it was crowned with the holy mitre. A long sigh, as of perfect +content in the consummation of all his earthly hopes, breathed +through the dreamer's lips, and shaped itself, as it escaped, into +the blissful murmur, + + Ego sum Episcopus! + +One grinning gargoyle looked in from beneath the roof through an +opening in a stained window. It was the face of a mocking fiend, +such as the old builders loved to place under the eaves to spout the +rain through their open mouths. It looked at him, as he sat in his +mitred chair, with its hideous grin growing broader and broader, +until it laughed out aloud, such a hard, stony, mocking laugh, that +he awoke out of his second dream through his first into his common +consciousness, and shivered, as he turned to the two yellow sermons +which he was to pick over and weed of the little thought they might +contain, for the next day's service. + +The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather was too much taken up with his own +bodily and spiritual condition to be deeply mindful of others. He +carried the note requesting the prayers of the congregation in his +pocket all day; and the soul in distress, which a single tender +petition might have soothed, and perhaps have saved from despair or +fatal error, found no voice in the temple to plead for it before the +Throne of Mercy! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +THE SECRET IS WHISPERED. + +The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather's congregation was not large, but +select. The lines of social cleavage run through religious creeds as +if they were of a piece with position and fortune. It is expected of +persons of a certain breeding, in some parts of New England, that +they shall be either Episcopalians or Unitarians. The mansion-house +gentry of Rockland were pretty fairly divided between the little +chapel, with the stained window and the trained rector, and the +meeting-house where the Reverend Mr. Fairweather officiated. + +It was in the latter that Dudley Venner worshipped, when he attended +service anywhere,--which depended very much on the caprice of Elsie. +He saw plainly enough that a generous and liberally cultivated nature +might find a refuge and congenial souls in either of these two +persuasions, but he objected to some points of the formal creed of +the older church, and especially to the mechanism which renders it +hard to get free from its outworn and offensive formulae,-- +remembering how Archbishop Tillotson wished in vain that it could be +"well rid of" the Athanasian Creed. This, and the fact that the +meeting-house was nearer than the chapel, determined him, when the +new rector, who was not quite up to his mark in education, was +appointed, to take a pew in the "liberal" worshippers' edifice. + +Elsie was very uncertain in her feeling about going to church. In +summer, she loved rather to stroll over The Mountain, on Sundays. +There was even a story, that she had one of the caves before +mentioned fitted up as an oratory, and that she had her own wild way +of worshipping the God whom she sought in the dark chasms of the +dreaded cliffs. Mere fables, doubtless; but they showed the common +belief, that Elsie, with all her strange and dangerous elements of +character, had yet strong religious feeling mingled with them. The +hymn-book which Dick had found, in his midnight invasion of her +chamber, opened to favorite hymns, especially some of the Methodist +and Quietist character. Many had noticed, that certain tunes, as +sung by the choir, seemed to impress her deeply; and some said, that +at such times her whole expression would change, and her stormy look +would soften so as to remind them of her poor, sweet mother. + +On the Sunday morning after the talk recorded in the last chapter, +Elsie made herself ready to go to meeting. She was dressed much as +usual, excepting that she wore a thick veil, turned aside, but ready +to conceal her features. It was natural enough that she should not +wish to be looked in the face by curious persons who would be staring +to see what effect the occurrence of the past week had had on her +spirits. Her father attended her willingly; and they took their +seats in the pew, somewhat to the surprise of many, who had hardly +expected to see them, after so humiliating a family development as +the attempted crime of their kinsman had just been furnishing for the +astonishment of the public. + +The Reverend Mr. Fairweather was now in his coldest mood. He had +passed through the period of feverish excitement which marks a change +of religious opinion. At first, when he had began to doubt his own +theological positions, he had defended them against himself with more +ingenuity and interest, perhaps, than he could have done against +another; because men rarely take the trouble to understand anybody's +difficulties in a question but their own. After this, as he began to +draw off from different points of his old belief, the cautious +disentangling of himself from one mesh after another gave sharpness +to his intellect, and the tremulous eagerness with which he seized +upon the doctrine which, piece by piece, under various pretexts and +with various disguises, he was appropriating, gave interest and +something like passion to his words. But when he had gradually +accustomed his people to his new phraseology, and was really +adjusting his sermons and his service to disguise his thoughts, he +lost at once all his intellectual acuteness and all his spiritual +fervor. + +Elsie sat quietly through the first part of the service, which was +conducted in the cold, mechanical way to be expected. Her face was +hidden by her veil; but her father knew her state of feeling, as well +by her movements and attitudes as by the expression of her features. +The hymn had been sung, the short prayer offered, the Bible read, and +the long prayer was about to begin. This was the time at which the +"notes" of any who were in affliction from loss of friends, the sick +who were doubtful of recovery, those who had cause to be grateful for +preservation of life or other signal blessing, were wont to be read. + +Just then it was that Dudley Veneer noticed that his daughter was +trembling,--a thing so rare, so unaccountable, indeed, under the +circumstances, that he watched her closely, and began to fear that +some nervous paroxysm, or other malady, might have just begun to show +itself in this way upon her. + +The minister had in his pocket two notes. One, in the handwriting of +Deacon Soper, was from a member of this congregation, returning +thanks for his preservation through a season of great peril, supposed +to be the exposure which he had shared with others, when standing in +the circle around Dick Veneer. The other was the anonymous one, in a +female hand, which he had received the evening before. He forgot +them both. His thoughts were altogether too much taken up with more +important matters. He prayed through all the frozen petitions of his +expurgated form of supplication, and not a single heart was soothed +or lifted, or reminded that its sorrows were struggling their way up +to heaven, borne on the breath from a human soul that was warm with +love. + +The people sat down as if relieved when the dreary prayer was +finished. Elsie alone remained standing until her father touched +her. Then she sat down, lifted her veil, and looked at him with a +blank, sad look, as if she had suffered some pain or wrong, but could +not give any name or expression to her vague trouble. She did not +tremble any longer, but remained ominously still, as if she had been +frozen where she sat. + +--Can a man love his own soul too well? Who, on the whole, +constitute the nobler class of human beings? those who have lived +mainly to make sure of their own personal welfare in another and +future condition of existence, or they who have worked with all their +might for their race, for their country, for the advancement of the +kingdom of God, and left all personal arrangements concerning +themselves to the sole charge of Him who made them and is responsible +to himself for their safe-keeping? Is an anchorite who has worn the +stone floor of his cell into basins with his knees bent in prayer, +more acceptable than the soldier who gives his life for the +maintenance of any sacred right or truth, without thinking what will +specially become of him in a world where there are two or three +million colonists a month, from this one planet, to be cared for? +These are grave questions, which must suggest themselves to those who +know that there are many profoundly selfish persons who are sincerely +devout and perpetually occupied with their own future, while there +are others who are perfectly ready to sacrifice themselves for any +worthy object in this world, but are really too little occupied with +their exclusive personality to think so much as many do about what is +to become of them in another. + +The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather did not, most certainly, belong to +this latter class. There are several kinds of believers, whose +history we find among the early converts to Christianity. + +There was the magistrate, whose social position was such that he +preferred a private interview in the evening with the Teacher to +following him--with the street-crowd. He had seen extraordinary +facts which had satisfied him that the young Galilean had a divine +commission. But still he cross-questioned the Teacher himself. He +was not ready to accept statements without explanation. That was the +right kind of man. See how he stood up for the legal rights of his +Master, when the people were for laying hands on him! + +And again, there was the government official, intrusted with public +money, which, in those days, implied that he was supposed to be +honest. A single look of that heavenly countenance, and two words of +gentle command, were enough for him. Neither of these men, the early +disciple, nor the evangelist, seems to have been thinking primarily +about his own personal safety. + +But now look at the poor, miserable turnkey, whose occupation shows +what he was like to be, and who had just been thrusting two +respectable strangers, taken from the hands of a mob, covered with +stripes and stripped of clothing, into the inner prison, and making +their feet fast in the stocks. His thought, in the moment of terror, +is for himself: first, suicide; then, what he shall do,--not to save +his household,--not to fulfil his duty to his office,--not to repair +the outrage he has been committing,--but to secure his own personal +safety. Truly, character shows itself as much in a man's way of +becoming a Christian as in any other! + +--Elsie sat, statue-like, through the sermon. It would not be fair +to the reader to give an abstract of that. When a man who has been +bred to free thought and free speech suddenly finds himself stepping +about, like a dancer amidst his eggs, among the old addled majority- +votes which he must not tread upon, he is a spectacle for men and +angels. Submission to intellectual precedent and authority does very +well for those who have been bred to it; we know that the underground +courses of their minds are laid in the Roman cement of tradition, and +that stately and splendid structures may be reared on such a +foundation. But to see one laying a platform over heretical +quicksands, thirty or forty or fifty years deep, and then beginning +to build upon it, is a sorry sight. A new convert from the reformed +to the ancient faith may be very strong in the arms, but he will +always have weak legs and shaky knees. He may use his hands well, +and hit hard with his fists, but he will never stand on his legs in +the way the man does who inherits his belief. + +The services were over at last, and Dudley Venner and his daughter +walked home together in silence. He always respected her moods, and +saw clearly enough that some inward trouble was weighing upon her. +There was nothing to be said in such cases, for Elsie could never +talk of her griefs. An hour, or a day, or a week of brooding, with +perhaps a sudden flash of violence: this was the way in which the +impressions which make other women weep, and tell their griefs by +word or letter, showed their effects in her mind and acts. + +She wandered off up into the remoter parts of The Mountain, that day, +after their return. No one saw just where she went,--indeed, no one +knew its forest-recesses and rocky fastnesses as she did. She was +gone until late at night; and when Old Sophy, who had watched for +her, bound up her long hair for her sleep, it was damp with the cold +dews. + +The old black woman looked at her without speaking, but questioning +her with every feature as to the sorrow that was weighing on her. + +Suddenly she turned to Old Sophy. + +"You want to know what there is troubling me;" she said. "Nobody +loves me. I cannot love anybody. What is love, Sophy?" + +"It's what poor Ol' Sophy's got for her Elsie," the old woman +answered. "Tell me, darlin',--don' you love somebody?---don' you +love? you know,--oh, tell me, darlin', don' you love to see the +gen'l'man that keeps up at the school where you go? They say he's +the pootiest gen'l'man that was ever in the town here. Don' be +'fraid of poor Ol' Sophy, darlin',--she loved a man once,--see here! +Oh, I've showed you this often enough!" + +She took from her pocket a half of one of the old Spanish silver +coins, such as were current in the earlier part of this century. The +other half of it had been lying in the deep sea-sand for more than +fifty years. + +Elsie looked her in the face, but did not answer in words. What +strange intelligence was that which passed between them through the +diamond eyes and the little beady black ones?---what subtile +intercommunication, penetrating so much deeper than articulate +speech? This was the nearest approach to sympathetic relations that +Elsie ever had: a kind of dumb intercourse of feeling, such as one +sees in the eyes of brute mothers looking on their young. But, +subtile as it was, it was narrow and individual; whereas an emotion +which can shape itself in language opens the gate for itself into the +great community of human affections; for every word we speak is the +medal of a dead thought or feeling, struck in the die of some human +experience, worn smooth by innumerable contacts, and always +transferred warm from one to another. By words we share the common +consciousness of the race, which has shaped itself in these symbols. +By music we reach those special states of consciousness which, being +without form, cannot be shaped with the mosaics of the vocabulary. +The language of the eyes runs deeper into the personal nature, but it +is purely individual, and perishes in the expression. + +If we consider them all as growing out of the consciousness as their +root, language is the leaf, music is the flower; but when the eyes +meet and search each other, it is the uncovering of the blanched stem +through which the whole life runs, but which has never taken color or +form from the sunlight. + +For three days Elsie did not return to the school. Much of the time +she was among the woods and rocks. The season was now beginning to +wane, and the forest to put on its autumnal glory. The dreamy haze +was beginning to soften the landscape, and the mast delicious days of +the year were lending their attraction to the scenery of The +Mountain. It was not very singular that Elsie should be lingering in +her old haunts, from which the change of season must soon drive her. +But Old Sophy saw clearly enough that some internal conflict was +going on, and knew very well that it must have its own way and work +itself out as it best could. As much as looks could tell Elsie had +told her. She had said in words, to be sure, that she could not +love. Something warped and thwarted the emotion which would have +been love in another, no doubt; but that such an emotion was striving +with her against all malign influences which interfered with it the +old woman had a perfect certainty in her own mind. + +Everybody who has observed the working of emotions in persons of +various temperaments knows well enough that they have periods of +incubation, which differ with the individual, and with the particular +cause and degree of excitement, yet evidently go through a strictly +self-limited series of evolutions, at the end of which, their result +--an act of violence, a paroxysm of tears, a gradual subsidence into +repose, or whatever it may be--declares itself, like the last stage +of an attack of fever and ague. No one can observe children without +noticing that there is a personal equation, to use the astronomer's +language, in their tempers, so that one sulks an hour over an offence +which makes another a fury for five minutes, and leaves him or her an +angel when it is over. + +At the end of three days, Elsie braided her long, glossy, black hair, +and shot a golden arrow through it. She dressed herself with more +than usual care, and came down in the morning superb in her stormy +beauty. The brooding paroxysm was over, or at least her passion had +changed its phase. Her father saw it with great relief; he had +always many fears for her in her hours and days of gloom, but, for +reasons before assigned, had felt that she must be trusted to +herself, without appealing to actual restraint, or any other +supervision than such as Old Sophy could exercise without offence. + +She went off at the accustomed hour to the school. All the girls had +their eyes on her. None so keen as these young misses to know an +inward movement by an outward sign of adornment: if they have not as +many signals as the ships that sail the great seas, there is not an +end of ribbon or a turn of a ringlet which is not a hieroglyphic with +a hidden meaning to these little cruisers over the ocean of +sentiment. + +The girls all looked at Elsie with a new thought; for she was more +sumptuously arrayed than perhaps ever before at the school; and they +said to themselves that she had come meaning to draw the young +master's eyes upon her. That was it; what else could it be? The +beautiful cold girl with the diamond eyes meant to dazzle the +handsome young gentleman. He would be afraid to love her; it +couldn't be true, that which some people had said in the village; she +was n't the kind of young lady to make Mr. Langdon happy. Those dark +people are never safe: so one of the young blondes said to herself. +Elsie was not literary enough for such a scholar: so thought Miss +Charlotte Ann Wood, the young poetess. She couldn't have a good +temper, with those scowling eyebrows: this was the opinion of several +broad-faced, smiling girls, who thought, each in her own snug little +mental sanctum, that, if, etc., etc., she could make him so happy! + +Elsie had none of the still, wicked light in her eyes, that morning. +She looked gentle, but dreamy; played with her books; did not trouble +herself with any of the exercises,--which in itself was not very +remarkable, as she was always allowed, under some pretext or other, +to have her own way. + +The school-hours were over at length. The girls went out, but she +lingered to the last. She then came up to Mr. Bernard, with a book +in her hand, as if to ask a question. + +"Will you walk towards my home with me today? "she said, in a very +low voice, little more than a whisper. + +Mr. Bernard was startled by the request, put in such a way. He had a +presentiment of some painful scene or other. But there was nothing +to be done but to assure her that it would give him great pleasure. + +So they walked along together on their way toward the Dudley mansion. + +"I have no friend," Elsie said, all at once. "Nothing loves me but +one old woman. I cannot love anybody. They tell me there is +something in my eyes that draws people to me and makes them faint: +Look into them, will you?" + +She turned her face toward him. It was very pale, and the diamond +eyes were glittering with a film, such as beneath other lids would +have rounded into a tear. + +"Beautiful eyes, Elsie," he said,--"sometimes very piercing,--but +soft now, and looking as if there were something beneath them that +friendship might draw out. I am your friend, Elsie. Tell me what I +can do to render your life happier." + +"Love me!" said Elsie Venner. + +What shall a man do, when a woman makes such a demand, involving such +an avowal? It was the tenderest, cruellest, humblest moment of Mr. +Bernard's life. He turned pale, he trembled almost, as if he had +been a woman listening to her lover's declaration. + +"Elsie," he said, presently, "I so long to be of some use to you, to +have your confidence and sympathy, that I must not let you say or do +anything to put us in false relations. I do love you, Elsie, as a +suffering sister with sorrows of her own,--as one whom I would save +at the risk of my happiness and life,--as one who needs a true friend +more than--any of all the young girls I have known. More than this +you would not ask me to say. You have been through excitement and +trouble lately, and it has made you feel such a need more than ever. +Give me your hand, dear Elsie, and trust me that I will be as true a +friend to you as if we were children of the same mother." + +Elsie gave him her hand mechanically. It seemed to him that a cold +aura shot from it along his arm and chilled the blood running through +his heart. He pressed it gently, looked at her with a face full of +grave kindness and sad interest, then softly relinquished it. + +It was all over with poor Elsie. They walked almost in silence the +rest of the way. Mr. Bernard left her at the gate of the mansion- +house, and returned with sad forebodings. Elsie went at once to her +own room, and did not come from it at the usual hours. At last Old +Sophy began to be alarmed about her, went to her apartment, and, +finding the door unlocked, entered cautiously. She found Elsie lying +on her bed, her brows strongly contracted, her eyes dull, her whole +look that of great suffering. Her first thought was that she had +been doing herself a harm by some deadly means or other. But Elsie, +saw her fear, and reassured her. + +"No," she said, "there is nothing wrong, such as you are thinking of; +I am not dying. You may send for the Doctor; perhaps he can take the +pain from my head. That is all I want him to do. There is no use in +the pain, that I know of; if he can stop it, let him." + +So they sent for the old Doctor. It was not long before the solid +trot of Caustic, the old bay horse, and the crashing of the gravel +under the wheels, gave notice that the physician was driving up the +avenue. + +The old Doctor was a model for visiting practitioners. He always +came into the sick-room with a quiet, cheerful look, as if he had a +consciousness that he was bringing some sure relief with him. The +way a patient snatches his first look at his doctor's face, to see +whether he is doomed, whether he is reprieved, whether he is +unconditionally pardoned, has really something terrible about it. It +is only to be met by an imperturbable mask of serenity, proof against +anything and everything in a patient's aspect. The physician whose +face reflects his patient's condition like a mirror may do well +enough to examine people for a life-insurance office, but does not +belong to the sickroom. The old Doctor did not keep people waiting +in dread suspense, while he stayed talking about the case,--the +patient all the time thinking that he and the friends are discussing +some alarming symptom or formidable operation which he himself is by- +and-by--to hear of. + +He was in Elsie's room almost before she knew he was in the house. +He came to her bedside in such a natural, quiet way, that it seemed +as if he were only a friend who had dropped in for a moment to say a +pleasant word. Yet he was very uneasy about Elsie until he had seen +her; he never knew what might happen to her or those about her, and +came prepared for the worst. + +"Sick, my child?" he said, in a very soft, low voice. + +Elsie nodded, without speaking. + +The Doctor took her hand,--whether with professional views, or only +in a friendly way, it would have been hard to tell. So he sat a few +minutes, looking at her all the time with a kind of fatherly +interest, but with it all noting how she lay, how she breathed, her +color, her expression, all that teaches the practised eye so much +without a single question being asked. He saw she was in suffering, +and said presently, + +"You have pain somewhere; where is it?" + +She put her hand to her head. + +As she was not disposed to talk, he watched her for a while, +questioned Old Sophy shrewdly a few minutes, and so made up his mind +as to the probable cause of disturbance and the proper remedies to be +used. + +Some very silly people thought the old Doctor did not believe in +medicine, because he gave less than certain poor half-taught +creatures in the smaller neighboring towns, who took advantage of +people's sickness to disgust and disturb them with all manner of ill- +smelling and ill-behaving drugs. In truth, he hated to give anything +noxious or loathsome to those who were uncomfortable enough already, +unless he was very sure it would do good,--in which case, he never +played with drugs, but gave good, honest, efficient doses. Sometimes +he lost a family of the more boorish sort, because they did not think +they got their money's worth out of him, unless they had something +more than a taste of everything he carried in his saddlebags. + +He ordered some remedies which he thought would relieve Elsie, and +left her, saying he would call the next day, hoping to find her +better. But the next day came, and the next, and still Elsie was on +her bed, feverish, restless, wakeful, silent. At night she tossed +about and wandered, and it became at length apparent that there was a +settled attack, something like what they called, formerly, a "nervous +fever." + +On the fourth day she was more restless than common. One of the +women of the house came in to help to take care of her; but she +showed an aversion to her presence. + +"Send me Helen Darley," she said, at last. + +The old Doctor told them, that, if possible, they must indulge this +fancy of hers. The caprices of sick people were never to be +despised, least of all of such persons as Elsie, when rendered +irritable and exacting by pain and weakness. + +So a message was sent to Mr. Silas Peckham at the Apollinean +Institute, to know if he could not spare Miss Helen Darley for a few +days, if required, to give her attention to a young lady who attended +his school and who was now lying ill,--no other person than the +daughter of Dudley Venner. + +A mean man never agrees to anything without deliberately turning it +over, so that he may see its dirty side, and, if he can, sweating the +coin he pays for it. If an archangel should offer to save his soul +for sixpence, he would try to find a sixpence with a hole in it. A +gentleman says yes to a great many things without stopping to think: +a shabby fellow is known by his caution in answering questions, for +fear of, compromising his pocket or himself. + +Mr. Silas Peckham looked very grave at the request. The dooties of +Miss Darley at the Institoot were important, very important. He paid +her large sums of money for her time,--more than she could expect to +get in any other institootion for the edoocation of female youth. A +deduction from her selary would be necessary, in case she should +retire from the sphere of her dooties for a season. He should be put +to extry expense, and have to perform additional labors himself. He +would consider of the matter. If any arrangement could be made, he +would send word to Squire Venner's folks. + +"Miss Darley," said Silas Peckham, "the' 's a message from Squire +Venner's that his daughter wants you down at the mansion-house to see +her. She's got a fever, so they inform me. If it's any kind of +ketchin' fever, of course you won't think of goin' near the mansion- +house. If Doctor Kittredge says it's safe, perfec'ly safe, I can't +object to your goin', on sech conditions as seem to be fair to all' +concerned. You will give up your pay for the whole time you are. +absent,--portions of days to be caounted as whole days. You will be +charged with board the same as if you eat your victuals with the +household. The victuals are of no use after they're cooked but to be +eat, and your bein' away is no savin' to our folks. I shall charge +you a reasonable compensation for the demage to the school by the +absence of a teacher. If Miss Crabs undertakes any dooties belongin' +to your department of instruction, she will look to you for sech +pecooniary considerations as you may agree upon between you. On +these conditions I am willin' to give my consent to your temporary +absence from the post of dooty. I will step down to Doctor +Kittredge's myself, and make inquiries as to the natur' of the +complaint." + +Mr. Peckham took up a rusty and very narrow-brimmed hat, which he +cocked upon one side of his head, with an air peculiar to the rural +gentry. It was the hour when the Doctor expected to be in his +office, unless he had some special call which kept him from home. + +He found the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather just taking leave of the +Doctor. His hand was on the pit of his stomach, and his countenance +was expressive of inward uneasiness. + +"Shake it before using," said the Doctor; "and the sooner you make up +your mind to speak right out, the better it will be for your +digestion." + +"Oh, Mr. Peckham! Walk in, Mr. Peckham! Nobody sick up at the +school, I hope?" + +"The haalth of the school is fust-rate," replied Mr. Peckham. "The +sitooation is uncommonly favorable to saloobrity." (These last words +were from the Annual Report of the past year.) "Providence has spared +our female youth in a remarkable measure. I've come with reference +to another consideration. Dr. Kittredge, is there any ketchin' +complaint goin' about in the village?" + +"Well, yes," said the Doctor, "I should say there was something of +that sort. Measles. Mumps. And Sin,--that's always catching." + +The old Doctor's eye twinkled; once in a while he had his little +touch of humor. + +Silas Peckham slanted his eye up suspiciously at the Doctor, as if he +was getting some kind of advantage over him. That is the way people +of his constitution are apt to take a bit of pleasantry. + +"I don't mean sech things, Doctor; I mean fevers. Is there any +ketchin' fevers--bilious, or nervous, or typus, or whatever you call +'em--now goin' round this village? That's what I want to ascertain, +if there's no impropriety." + +The old Doctor looked at Silas through his spectacles. + +"Hard and sour as a green cider-apple," he thought to himself. +"No,"; he said,--"I don't know any such cases." + +"What's the matter with Elsie Venner?" asked Silas, sharply, as if +he expected to have him this time. + +"A mild feverish attack, I should call it in anybody else; but she +has a peculiar constitution, and I never feel so safe about her as I +should about most people." + +"Anything ketchin' about it?" Silas asked, cunningly. + +"No, indeed!" said the Doctor,--"catching? no,--what put that into +your head, Mr. Peckham?" + +"Well, Doctor," the conscientious Principal answered, "I naterally +feel a graat responsibility, a very gmaaat responsibility, for the +noomerous and lovely young ladies committed to my charge. It has +been a question, whether one of my assistants should go, accordin' to +request, to stop with Miss Venner for a season. Nothin' restrains my +givin' my full and free consent to her goin' but the fear lest +contagious maladies should be introdooced among those lovely female +youth. I shall abide by your opinion,--I understan' you to say +distinc'ly, her complaint is not ketchin'?---and urge upon Miss +Darley to fulfil her dooties to a sufferin' fellow-creature at any +cost to myself and my establishment. We shall miss her very much; +but it is a good cause, and she shall go,--and I shall trust that +Providence will enable us to spare her without permanent demage to +the interests of the Institootion." + +Saying this, the excellent Principal departed, with his rusty narrow- +brimmed hat leaning over, as if it had a six-knot breeze abeam, and +its gunwale (so to speak) was dipping into his coat-collar. He +announced the result of his inquiries to Helen, who had received a +brief note in the mean time from a poor relation of Elsie's mother, +then at the mansion-house, informing her of the critical situation of +Elsie and of her urgent desire that Helen should be with her. She +could not hesitate. She blushed as she thought of the comments that +might be made; but what were such considerations in a matter of life +and death? She could not stop to make terms with Silas Peckham. She +must go. He might fleece her, if he would; she would not complain,-- +not even to Bernard, who, she knew, would bring the Principal to +terms, if she gave the least hint of his intended extortions. + +So Helen made up her bundle of clothes to be sent after her, took a +book or two with her to help her pass the time, and departed for the +Dudley mansion. It was with a great inward effort that she undertook +the sisterly task which was thus forced upon her. She had a kind of +terror of Elsie; and the thought of having charge of her, of being +alone with her, of coming under the full influence of those diamond +eyes,--if, indeed, their light were not dimmed by suffering and +weariness,--was one she shrank from. But what could she do? It +might be a turning-point in the life of the poor girl; and she must +overcome all her fears, all her repugnance, and go to her rescue. + +"Is Helen come?" said Elsie, when she heard, with her fine sense +quickened by the irritability of sickness, a light footfall on the +stair, with a cadence unlike that of any inmate of the house. + +"It's a strange woman's step," said Old Sophy, who, with her +exclusive love for Elsie, was naturally disposed to jealousy of a +new-comer. "Let Ol' Sophy set at 'th' foot o' th' bed, if th' young +missis sets by th' piller,--won' y', darlin'? The' 's nobody that's +white can love y' as th' of black woman does;--don' sen' her away, +now, there 's a dear soul!" + +Elsie motioned her to sit in the place she had pointed to, and Helen +at that moment entered the room. Dudley Venner followed her. + +"She is your patient," he said, "except while the Doctor is here. +She has been longing to have you with her, and we shall expect you to +make her well in a few days." + +So Helen Darley found herself established in the most unexpected +manner as an inmate of the Dudley mansion. She sat with Elsie most +of the time, by day and by night, soothing her, and trying to enter +into her confidence and affections, if it should prove that this +strange creature was really capable of truly sympathetic emotions. + +What was this unexplained something which came between her soul and +that of every other human being with whom she was in relations? +Helen perceived, or rather felt, that she had, folded up in the +depths of her being, a true womanly nature. Through the cloud that +darkened her aspect, now and then a ray would steal forth, which, +like the smile of stern and solemn people, was all the more +impressive from its contrast with the expression she wore habitually. +It might well be that pain and fatigue had changed her aspect; but, +at any rate, Helen looked into her eyes without that nervous +agitation which their cold glitter had produced on her when they were +full of their natural light. She felt sure that her mother must have +been a lovely, gentle woman. There were gleams of a beautiful nature +shining through some ill-defined medium which disturbed and made them +flicker and waver, as distant images do when seen through the +rippling upward currents of heated air. She loved, in her own way, +the old black woman, and seemed to keep up a kind of silent +communication with her, as if they did not require the use of speech. +She appeared to be tranquillized by the presence of Helen, and loved +to have her seated at the bedside. Yet something, whatever it was, +prevented her from opening her heart to her kind companion; and even +now there were times when she would lie looking at her, with such a +still, watchful, almost dangerous expression, that Helen would sigh, +and change her place, as persons do whose breath some cunning orator +had been sucking out of them with his spongy eloquence, so that, when +he stops, they must get some air and stir about, or they feel as if +they should be half smothered and palsied. + +It was too much to keep guessing what was the meaning of all this. +Helen determined to ask Old Sophy some questions which might probably +throw light upon her doubts. She took the opportunity one evening +when Elsie was lying asleep and they were both sitting at some +distance from her bed. + +"Tell me, Sophy," she said, "was Elsie always as shy as she seems to +be now, in talking with those to whom she is friendly?" + +"Alway jes' so, Miss Darlin', ever sense she was little chil'. When +she was five, six year old, she lisp some,--call me Thophy; that make +her kin' o' 'shamed, perhaps: after she grow up, she never lisp, but +she kin' o' got the way o' not talkin' much. Fac' is, she don' like +talkin' as common gals do, 'xcep' jes' once in a while wi' some +partic'lar folks,--'n' then not much." + +"How old is Elsie?" + +"Eighteen year this las' September." + +"How long ago did her mother die?" Helen asked, with a little +trembling in her voice. + +"Eighteen year ago this October," said Old Sophy. + +Helen was silent for a moment. Then she whispered, almost +inaudibly,--for her voice appeared to fail her, + +"What did her mother die of, Sophy?" + +The old woman's small eyes dilated until a ring of white showed round +their beady centres. She caught Helen by the hand and clung to it, +as if in fear. She looked round at Elsie, who lay sleeping, as of +she might be listening. Then she drew Helen towards her and led her +softly out of the room. + +"'Sh !---'sh!" she said, as soon as they were outside the door. +"Don' never speak in this house 'bout what Elsie's mother died of!" +she said. "Nobody never says nothin' 'bout it. Oh, God has made +Ugly Things wi' death in their mouths, Miss Darlin', an' He knows +what they're for; but my poor Elsie!---to have her blood changed in +her before--It was in July Mistress got her death, but she liv' till +three week after my poor Elsie was born." + +She could speak no more. She had said enough. Helen remembered the +stories she had heard on coming to the village, and among them one +referred to in an early chapter of this narrative. All the +unaccountable looks and tastes and ways of Elsie came back to her in +the light of an ante-natal impression which had mingled an alien +element in her nature. She knew the secret of the fascination which +looked out of her cold, glittering eyes. She knew the significance +of the strange repulsion which she felt in her own intimate +consciousness underlying the inexplicable attraction which drew her +towards the young girl in spite of this repugnance. She began to +look with new feelings on the contradictions in her moral nature,-- +the longing for sympathy, as shown by her wishing for Helen's +company, and the impossibility of passing beyond the cold circle of +isolation within which she had her being. The fearful truth of that +instinctive feeling of hers, that there was something not human +looking out of Elsie's eyes, came upon her with a sudden flash of +penetrating conviction. There were two warring principles in that +superb organization and proud soul. One made her a woman, with all a +woman's powers and longings. The other chilled all the currents of +outlet for her emotions. It made her tearless and mute, when another +woman would have wept and pleaded. And it infused into her soul +something--it was cruel now to call it malice--which was still and +watchful and dangerous, which waited its opportunity, and then shot +like an arrow from its bow out of the coil of brooding premeditation. +Even those who had never seen the white scars on Dick Venner's wrist, +or heard the half-told story of her supposed attempt to do a graver +mischief, knew well enough by looking at her that she was one of the +creatures not to be tampered with,--silent in anger and swift in +vengeance. + +Helen could not return to the bedside at once after this +communication. It was with altered eyes that she must look on the +poor girl, the victim of such an unheard-of fatality. All was +explained to her now. But it opened such depths of solemn thought in +her awakened consciousness, that it seemed as if the whole mystery of +human life were coming up again before her for trial and judgment. +"Oh," she thought, "if, while the will lies sealed in its fountain, +it may be poisoned at its very source, so that it shall flow dark and +deadly through its whole course, who are we that we should judge our +fellow-creatures by ourselves?" Then came the terrible question, how +far the elements themselves are capable of perverting the moral +nature: if valor, and justice, and truth, the strength of man and the +virtue of woman, may not be poisoned out of a race by the food of the +Australian in his forest, by the foul air and darkness of the +Christians cooped up in the "tenement-houses" close by those who live +in the palaces of the great cities? + +She walked out into the garden, lost in thought upon these dark and +deep matters. Presently she heard a step behind her, and Elsie's +father came up and joined her. Since his introduction to Helen at +the distinguished tea-party given by the Widow Rowens, and before her +coming to sit with Elsie, Mr. Dudley Venner had in the most +accidental way in the world met her on several occasions: once after +church, when she happened to be caught in a slight shower and he +insisted on holding his umbrella over her on her way home;--once at a +small party at one of the mansion-houses, where the quick-eyed lady +of the house had a wonderful knack of bringing people together who +liked to see each other;--perhaps at other times and places; but of +this there is no certain evidence. + +They naturally spoke of Elsie, her illness, and the aspect it had +taken. But Helen noticed in all that Dudley Venner said about his +daughter a morbid sensitiveness, as it seemed to her, an aversion to +saying much about her physical condition or her peculiarities, +--a wish to feel and speak as a parent should, and yet a shrinking, +as if there were something about Elsie which he could not bear to +dwell upon. She thought she saw through all this, and she could +interpret it all charitably. There were circumstances about his +daughter which recalled the great sorrow of his life; it was not +strange that this perpetual reminder should in some degree have +modified his feelings as a father. But what a life he must have been +leading for so many years, with this perpetual source of distress +which he could not name! Helen knew well enough, now, the meaning of +the sadness which had left such traces in his features and tones, and +it made her feel very kindly and compassionate towards him. + +So they walked over the crackling leaves in the garden, between the +lines of box breathing its fragrance of eternity;--for this is one of +the odors which carry us out of time into the abysses of the +unbeginning past; if we ever lived on another ball of stone than +this, it must be that there was box growing on it. So they walked, +finding their way softly to each other's sorrows and sympathies, each +matching some counterpart to the other's experience of life, and +startled to see how the different, yet parallel, lessons they had +been taught by suffering had led them step by step to the same serene +acquiescence in the orderings of that Supreme Wisdom which they both +devoutly recognized. + +Old Sophy was at the window and saw them walking up and down the +garden-alleys. She watched them as her grandfather the savage +watched the figures that moved among the trees when a hostile tribe +was lurking about his mountain. + +"There'll be a weddin' in the ol house," she said, "before there's +roses on them bushes ag'in. But it won' be my poor Elsie's weddin', +'n' ol' Sophy won' be there." + +When Helen prayed in the silence of her soul that evening, it was not +that Elsie's life might be spared. She dared not ask that as a favor +of Heaven. What could life be to her but a perpetual anguish, and to +those about her but an ever-present terror? Might she but be so +influenced by divine grace, that what in her was most truly human, +most purely woman-like, should overcome the dark, cold, unmentionable +instinct which had pervaded her being like a subtile poison that was +all she could ask, and the rest she left to a higher wisdom and +tenderer love than her own. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE WHITE ASH. + +When Helen returned to Elsie's bedside, it was with a new and still +deeper feeling of sympathy, such as the story told by Old Sophy might +well awaken. She understood, as never before, the singular +fascination and as singular repulsion which she had long felt in +Elsie's presence. It had not been without a great effort that she +had forced herself to become the almost constant attendant of the +sick girl; and now she was learning, but not for the first time, the +blessed truth which so many good women have found out for themselves, +that the hardest duty bravely performed soon becomes a habit, and +tends in due time to transform itself into a pleasure. + +The old Doctor was beginning to look graver, in spite of himself. +The fever, if such it was, went gently forward, wasting the young +girl's powers of resistance from day to day; yet she showed no +disposition to take nourishment, and seemed literally to be living on +air. It was remarkable that with all this her look was almost +natural, and her features were hardly sharpened so as to suggest that +her life was burning away. He did not like this, nor various other +unobtrusive signs of danger which his practised eye detected. A very +small matter might turn the balance which held life and death poised +against each other. He surrounded her with precautions, that Nature +might have every opportunity of cunningly shifting the weights from +the scale of death to the scale of life, as she will often do if not +rudely disturbed or interfered with. + +Little tokens of good-will and kind remembrance were constantly +coming to her from the girls in the school and the good people in the +village. Some of the mansion-house people obtained rare flowers which +they sent her, and her table was covered with fruits which tempted +her in vain. Several of the school-girls wished to make her a basket +of their own handiwork, and, filling it with autumnal flowers, to +send it as a joint offering. Mr. Bernard found out their project +accidentally, and, wishing to have his share in it, brought home from +one of his long walks some boughs full of variously tinted leaves, +such as were still clinging to the stricken trees. With these he +brought also some of the already fallen leaflets of the white ash, +remarkable for their rich olive-purple color, forming a beautiful +contrast with some of the lighter-hued leaves. It so happened that +this particular tree, the white ash, did not grow upon The Mountain, +and the leaflets were more welcome for their comparative rarity. So +the girls made their basket, and the floor of it they covered with +the rich olive-purple leaflets. Such late flowers as they could lay +their hands upon served to fill it, and with many kindly messages +they sent it to Miss Elsie Venner at the Dudley mansion-house. + +Elsie was sitting up in her bed when it came, languid, but tranquil, +and Helen was by her, as usual, holding her hand, which was strangely +cold, Helen thought, for one who was said to have some kind of fever. +The school-girls' basket was brought in with its messages of love and +hopes for speedy recovery. Old Sophy was delighted to see that it +pleased Elsie, and laid it on the bed before her. Elsie began +looking at the flowers, and taking them from the basket, that she +might see the leaves. All at once she appeared to be agitated; she +looked at the basket, then around, as if there were some fearful +presence about her which she was searching for with her eager +glances. She took out the flowers, one by one, her breathing growing +hurried, her eyes staring, her hands trembling,--till, as she came +near the bottom of the basket, she flung out all the rest with a +hasty movement, looked upon the olive-purple leaflets as if paralyzed +for a moment, shrunk up, as it were, into herself in a curdling +terror, dashed the basket from her, and fell back senseless, with a +faint cry which chilled the blood of the startled listeners at her +bedside. + +"Take it away!---take it away!---quick!" said Old Sophy, as she +hastened to her mistress's pillow. "It 's the leaves of the tree +that was always death to her,--take it away! She can't live wi' it +in the room!" + +The poor old woman began chafing Elsie's hands, and Helen to try to +rouse her with hartshorn, while a third frightened attendant gathered +up the flowers and the basket and carried them out of the apartment, +She came to herself after a time, but exhausted and then wandering. +In her delirium she talked constantly as if she were in a cave, with +such exactness of circumstance that Helen could not doubt at all that +she had some such retreat among the rocks of The Mountain, probably +fitted up in her own fantastic way, where she sometimes hid herself +from all human eyes, and of the entrance to which she alone possessed +the secret. + +All this passed away, and left her, of course, weaker than before. +But this was not the only influence the unexplained paroxysm had left +behind it. From this time forward there was a change in her whole +expression and her manner. The shadows ceased flitting over her +features, and the old woman, who watched her from day to day and from +hour to hour as a mother watches her child, saw the likeness she bore +to her mother coming forth more and more, as the cold glitter died +out of the diamond eyes, and the stormy scowl disappeared from the +dark brows and low forehead. + +With all the kindness and indulgence her father had bestowed upon +her, Elsie had never felt that he loved her. The reader knows well +enough what fatal recollections and associations had frozen up the +springs of natural affection in his breast. There was nothing in the +world he would not do for Elsie. He had sacrificed his whole life to +her. His very seeming carelessness about restraining her was all +calculated; he knew that restraint would produce nothing but utter +alienation. Just so far as she allowed him, he shared her studies, +her few pleasures, her thoughts; but she was essentially solitary and +uncommunicative. No person, as was said long ago, could judge him, +because his task was not merely difficult, but simply impracticable +to human powers. A nature like Elsie's had necessarily to be studied +by itself, and to be followed in its laws where it could not be led. + +Every day, at different hours, during the whole of his daughter's +illness, Dudley Venner had sat by her, doing all he could to soothe +and please her. Always the same thin film of some emotional non- +conductor between them; always that kind of habitual regard and +family-interest, mingled with the deepest pity on one side and a sort +of respect on the other, which never warmed into outward evidences of +affection. + +It was after this occasion, when she had been so profoundly agitated +by a seemingly insignificant cause, that her father and Old Sophy +were sitting, one at one side of her bed and one at the other. She +had fallen into a light slumber. As they were looking at her, the +same thought came into both their minds at the same moment. Old +Sophy spoke for both, as she said, in a low voice, + +"It 's her mother's look,--it 's her mother's own face right over +again,--she never look' so before, the Lord's hand is on her! His +will be done!" + +When Elsie woke and lifted her languid eyes upon her father's face, +she saw in it a tenderness, a depth of affection, such as she +remembered at rare moments of her childhood, when she had won him to +her by some unusual gleam of sunshine in her fitful temper. + +"Elsie, dear," he said, "we were thinking how much your expression +was sometimes like that of your sweet mother. If you could but have +seen her, so as to remember her!" + +The tender look and tone, the yearning of the daughter's heart for +the mother she had never seen, save only with the unfixed, +undistinguishing eyes of earliest infancy, perhaps the under-thought +that she might soon rejoin her in another state of being,--all came +upon her with a sudden overflow of feeling which broke through all +the barriers between her heart and her eyes, and Elsie wept. It +seemed to her father as if the malign influence--evil spirit it might +almost be called--which had pervaded her being, had at last been +driven forth or exorcised, and that these tears were at once the sign +and the pledge of her redeemed nature. But now she was to be +soothed, and not excited. After her tears she slept again, and the +look her face wore was peaceful as never before. + +Old Sophy met the Doctor at the door and told him all the +circumstances connected with the extraordinary attack from which +Elsie had suffered. It was the purple leaves, she said. She +remembered that Dick once brought home a branch of a tree with some +of the same leaves on it, and Elsie screamed and almost fainted then. +She, Sophy, had asked her, after she had got quiet, what it was in +the leaves that made her feel so bad. Elsie could n't tell her,--did +n't like to speak about it,--shuddered whenever Sophy mentioned it. + +This did not sound so strangely to the old Doctor as it does to some +who listen to his narrative. He had known some curious examples of +antipathies, and remembered reading of others still more singular. +He had known those who could not bear the presence of a cat, and +recollected the story, often told, of a person's hiding one in a +chest when one of these sensitive individuals came into the room, so +as not to disturb him; but he presently began to sweat and turn pale, +and cried out that there must be a cat hid somewhere. He knew people +who were poisoned by strawberries, by honey, by different meats, many +who could not endure cheese,--some who could not bear the smell of +roses. If he had known all the stories in the old books, he would +have found that some have swooned and become as dead men at the smell +of a rose,--that a stout soldier has been known to turn and run at +the sight or smell of rue,--that cassia and even olive-oil have +produced deadly faintings in certain. individuals,--in short, that +almost everything has seemed to be a poison to somebody. + +"Bring me that basket, Sophy," said the old Doctor, "if you can find +it." + +Sophy brought it to him,--for he had not yet entered Elsie's +apartment. + +"These purple leaves are from the white ash," he said. "You don't +know the notion that people commonly have about that tree, Sophy?" + +"I know they say the Ugly Things never go where the white ash grows," +Sophy answered. "Oh, Doctor dear, what I'm thinkin' of a'n't true, +is it?" + +The Doctor smiled sadly, but did not answer. He went directly to +Elsie's room. Nobody would have known by his manner that he saw any +special change in his patient. He spoke with her as usual, made some +slight alteration in his prescriptions, and left the room with a +kind, cheerful look. He met her father on the stairs. + +"Is it as I thought?" said Dudley Veneer. + +"There is everything to fear," the Doctor said, "and not much, I am +afraid, to hope. Does not her face recall to you one that you +remember, as never before?" + +"Yes," her father answered,--"oh, yes! What is the meaning of this +change which has come over her features, and her voice, her temper, +her whole being? Tell me, oh, tell me, what is it? Can it be that +the curse is passing away, and my daughter is to be restored to me,-- +such as her mother would have had her,--such as her mother was?" + +"Walk out with me into the garden," the Doctor said, "and I will tell +you all I know and all I think about this great mystery of Elsie's +life." + +They walked out together, and the Doctor began: "She has lived a +double being, as it were,--the consequence of the blight which fell +upon her in the dim period before consciousness. You can see what +she might have been but for this. You know that for these eighteen +years her whole existence has taken its character from that influence +which we need not name. But you will remember that few of the lower +forms of life last as human beings do; and thus it might have been +hoped and trusted with some show of reason, as I have always +suspected you hoped and trusted, perhaps more confidently than +myself, that the lower nature which had become engrafted on the +higher would die out and leave the real woman's life she inherited to +outlive this accidental principle which had so poisoned her childhood +and youth. I believe it is so dying out; but I am afraid,--yes, I +must say it, I fear it has involved the centres of life in its own +decay. There is hardly any pulse at Elsie's wrist; no stimulants +seem to rouse her; and it looks as if life were slowly retreating +inwards, so that by-and-by she will sleep as those who lie down in +the cold and never wake." + +Strange as it may seem, her father heard all this not without deep +sorrow, and such marks of it as his thoughtful and tranquil nature, +long schooled by suffering, claimed or permitted, but with a +resignation itself the measure of his past trials. Dear as his +daughter might become to him, all he dared to ask of Heaven was that +she might be restored to that truer self which lay beneath her false +and adventitious being. If he could once see that the icy lustre in +her eyes had become a soft, calm light,--that her soul was at peace +with all about her and with Him; above,--this crumb from the +children's table was enough for him, as it was for the Syro- +Phoenician woman who asked that the dark spirit might go out from her +daughter. + +There was little change the next day, until all at once she said in a +clear voice that she should like to see her master at the school, Mr. +Langdon. He came accordingly, and took the place of Helen at her +bedside. It seemed as if Elsie had forgotten the last scene with +him. Might it be that pride had come in, and she had sent for him +only to show how superior she had grown to the weakness which had +betrayed her into that extraordinary request, so contrary to the +instincts and usages of her sex? Or was it that the singular change +which had come over her had involved her passionate fancy for him and +swept it away with her other habits of thought and feeling? Or could +it be that she felt that all earthly interests were becoming of +little account to her, and wished to place herself right with one to +whom she had displayed a wayward movement of her unbalanced +imagination? She welcomed Mr. Bernard as quietly as she had received +Helen Darley. He colored at the recollection of that last scene, +when he came into her presence; but she smiled with perfect +tranquillity. She did not speak to him of any apprehension; but he +saw that she looked upon herself as doomed. So friendly, yet so calm +did she seem through all their interview, that Mr. Bernard could only +look back upon her manifestation of feeling towards him on their walk +from the school as a vagary of a mind laboring under some unnatural +excitement, and wholly at variance with the true character of Elsie +Venner as he saw her before him in her subdued, yet singular beauty. +He looked with almost scientific closeness of observation into the +diamond eyes; but that peculiar light which he knew so well was not +there. She was the same in one sense as on that first day when he +had seen her coiling and uncoiling her golden chain; yet how +different in every aspect which revealed her state of mind and +emotion! Something of tenderness there was, perhaps, in her tone +towards him; she would not have sent for him, had she not felt more +than an ordinary interest in him. But through the whole of his visit +she never lost her gracious self-possession. The Dudley race might +well be proud of the last of its daughters, as she lay dying, but +unconquered by the feeling of the present or the fear of the future. + +As for Mr. Bernard, he found it very hard to look upon her, and +listen to her unmoved. There was nothing that reminded him of the +stormy--browed, almost savage girl he remembered in her fierce +loveliness,--nothing of all her singularities of air and of costume. +Nothing? Yes, one thing. Weak and suffering as she was, she had +never parted with one particular ornament, such as a sick person +would naturally, as it might be supposed, get rid of at once. The +golden cord which she wore round her neck at the great party was +still there. A bracelet was lying by her pillow; she had unclasped +it from her wrist. + +Before Mr. Bernard left her, she said, + +"I shall never see you again. Some time or other, perhaps, you will +mention my name to one whom you love. Give her this from your +scholar and friend Elsie." + +He took the bracelet, raised her hand to his lips, then turned his +face away; in that moment he was the weaker of the two. + +"Good-bye," she said; "thank you for coming." + +His voice died away in his throat, as he tried to answer her. She +followed him with her eyes as he passed from her sight through the +door, and when it closed after him sobbed tremulously once or twice, +but stilled herself, and met Helen, as she entered, with a composed +countenance. + +"I have had a very pleasant visit from Mr. Langdon," Elsie said. +"Sit by me, Helen, awhile without speaking; I should like to sleep, +if I can,--and to dream." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +THE GOLDEN CORD IS LOOSED. + +The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather, hearing that his parishioner's +daughter, Elsie, was very ill, could do nothing less than come to the +mansion-house and tender such consolations as he was master of. It +was rather remarkable that the old Doctor did not exactly approve of +his visit. He thought that company of every sort might be injurious +in her weak state. He was of opinion that Mr. Fairweather, though +greatly interested in religious matters, was not the most sympathetic +person that could be found; in fact, the old Doctor thought he was +too much taken up with his own interests for eternity to give himself +quite 'so heartily to the need of other people as some persons got up +on a rather more generous scale (our good neighbor Dr. Honeywood, for +instance) could do. However, all these things had better be arranged +to suit her wants; if she would like to talk with a clergyman, she +had a great deal better see one as often as she liked, and run the +risk of the excitement, than have a hidden wish for such a visit and +perhaps find herself too weak to see him by-and-by. + +The old Doctor knew by sad experience that dreadful mistake against +which all medical practitioners should be warned. His experience may +well be a guide for others. Do not overlook the desire for spiritual +advice and consolation which patients sometimes feel, and, with the +frightful mauvaise honte peculiar to Protestantism, alone among all +human beliefs, are ashamed to tell. As a part of medical treatment, +it is the physician's business to detect the hidden longing for the +food of the soul, as much as for any form of bodily nourishment. +Especially in the higher walks of society, where this unutterably +miserable false shame of Protestantism acts in proportion to the +general acuteness of the cultivated sensibilities, let no +unwillingness to suggest the sick person's real need suffer him to +languish between his want and his morbid sensitiveness. What an +infinite advantage the Mussulmans and the Catholics have over many of +our more exclusively spiritual sects in the way they keep their +religion always by them and never blush for it! And besides this +spiritual longing, we should never forget that + + "On some fond breast the parting soul relies," + +and the minister of religion, in addition to the sympathetic nature +which we have a right to demand in him, has trained himself to the +art of entering into the feelings of others. + +The reader must pardon this digression, which introduces the visit of +the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather to Elsie Veneer. It was mentioned +to her that he would like to call and see how she was, and she +consented,--not with much apparent interest, for she had reasons of +her own for not feeling any very deep conviction of his sympathy for +persons in sorrow. But he came, and worked the conversation round to +religion, and confused her with his hybrid notions, half made up of +what he had been believing and teaching all his life, and half of the +new doctrines which he had veneered upon the surface of his old +belief. He got so far as to make a prayer with her,--a cool, well- +guarded prayer, which compromised his faith as little as possible, +and which, if devotion were a game played against Providence, might +have been considered a cautious and sagacious move. + +When he had gone, Elsie called Old Sophy to her. + +"Sophy," she said, "don't let them send that cold hearted man to me +any more. If your old minister comes--to see you, I should like to +hear him talk. He looks as if he cared for everybody, and would care +for me. And, Sophy, if I should die one of these days, I should like +to have that old minister come and say whatever is to be said over +me. It would comfort Dudley more, I know, than to have that hard man +here, when you're in trouble, for some of you will be sorry when I'm +gone,--won't you, Sophy?" + +The poor old black. woman could not stand this question. The cold +minister had frozen Elsie until she felt as if nobody cared for her +or would regret her,--and her question had betrayed this momentary +feeling. + +"Don' talk so! don' talk so, darlin'!" she cried, passionately. +"When you go, Ol' Sophy'll go; 'n' where you go, Ol' Sophy'll go: 'n' +we'll both go t' th' place where th' Lord takes care of all his +children, whether their faces are white or black. Oh, darlin', +darlin'! if th' Lord should let me die firs', you shall fin' all +ready for you when you come after me. On'y don' go 'n' leave poor +Ol' Sophy all 'lone in th' world!" + +Helen came in at this moment and quieted the old woman with a look. +Such scenes were just what were most dangerous, in the state in which +Elsie was lying: but that is one of the ways in which an affectionate +friend sometimes unconsciously wears out the life which a hired +nurse, thinking of nothing but her regular duties and her wages, +would have spared from all emotional fatigue. + +The change which had come over Elsie's disposition was itself the +cause of new excitements. How was it possible that her father could +keep away from her, now that she was coming back to the nature and +the very look of her mother, the bride of his youth? How was it +possible to refuse her, when she said to Old Sophy, that she should +like to have her minister come in and sit by her, even though his +presence might perhaps prove a new source of excitement? + +But the Reverend Doctor did come and sit by her, and spoke such +soothing words to her, words of such peace and consolation, that from +that hour she was tranquil as never before. All true hearts are +alike in the hour of need; the Catholic has a reserved fund of faith +for his fellow-creature's trying moment, and the Calvinist reveals +those springs of human brotherhood and charity in his soul which are +only covered over by the iron tables inscribed with the harder dogmas +of his creed. It was enough that the Reverend Doctor knew all +Elsie's history. He could not judge her by any formula, like those +which have been moulded by past ages out of their ignorance. He did +not talk with her as if she were an outside sinner worse than +himself. He found a bruised and languishing soul, and bound up its +wounds. A blessed office,--one which is confined to no sect or +creed, but which good men in all times, under various names and with +varying ministries, to suit the need of each age, of each race, of +each individual soul, have come forward to discharge for their +suffering fellow-creatures. + +After this there was little change in Elsie, except that her heart +beat more feebly every day,--so that the old Doctor himself, with all +his experience, could see nothing to account for the gradual failing +of the powers of life, and yet could find no remedy which seemed to +arrest its progress in the smallest degree. + +"Be very careful," he said, "that she is not allowed to make any +muscular exertion. Any such effort, when a person is so enfeebled, +may stop the heart in a moment; and if it stops, it will never move +again." + +Helen enforced this rule with the greatest care. Elsie was hardly +allowed to move her hand or to speak above a whisper. It seemed to +be mainly the question now, whether this trembling flame of life +would be blown out by some light breath of air, or whether it could +be so nursed and sheltered by the hollow of these watchful hands that +it would have a chance to kindle to its natural brightness. + +--Her father came in to sit with her in the evening. He had never +talked so freely with her as during the hour he had passed at her +bedside, telling her little circumstances of her mother's life, +living over with her all that was pleasant in the past, and trying to +encourage her with some cheerful gleams of hope for the future. A +faint smile played over her face, but she did not answer his +encouraging suggestions. The hour came for him to leave her with +those who watched by her. + +"Good-night, my dear child," he said, and stooping down, kissed her +cheek. + +Elsie rose by a sudden effort, threw her arms round his neck, kissed +him, and said, "Good-night, my dear father!" + +The suddenness of her movement had taken him by surprise, or he would +have checked so dangerous an effort. It was too late now. Her arms +slid away from him like lifeless weights,--her head fell back upon +her pillow,--along sigh breathed through her lips. + +"She is faint," said Helen, doubtfully; "bring me the hartshorn, +Sophy." + +The old woman had started from her place, and was now leaning over +her, looking in her face, and listening for the sound of her +breathing. + +"She 's dead! Elsie 's dead! My darlin 's dead!" she cried aloud, +filling the room with her utterance of anguish. + +Dudley Venner drew her away and silenced her with a voice of +authority, while Helen and an assistant plied their restoratives. It +was all in vain. + +The solemn tidings passed from the chamber of death through the +family. The daughter, the hope of that old and honored house, was +dead in the freshness of her youth, and the home of its solitary +representative was hereafter doubly desolate. + +A messenger rode hastily out of the avenue. A little after this the +people of the village and the outlying farm-houses were startled by +the sound of a bell. + +One,--two,--three,--four, + +They stopped in every house, as far as the wavering vibrations +reached, and listened + +five,--six,--seven,-- + +It was not the little child which had been lying so long at the point +of death; that could not be more than three or four years old + +eight,--nine,--ten,--and so on to fifteen, sixteen,--seventeen,-- +eighteen + +The pulsations seemed to keep on,--but it was the brain, and not the +bell, that was throbbing now. + +"Elsie 's dead!" was the exclamation at a hundred firesides. + +"Eighteen year old," said old Widow Peake, rising from her chair. +"Eighteen year ago I laid two gold eagles on her mother's eyes,--he +wouldn't have anything but gold touch her eyelids,--and now Elsie's +to be straightened,--the Lord have mercy on her poor sinful soul!" + +Dudley Venner prayed that night that he might be forgiven, if he had +failed in any act of duty or kindness to this unfortunate child of +his, now freed from all the woes born with her and so long poisoning +her soul. He thanked God for the brief interval of peace which had +been granted her, for the sweet communion they had enjoyed in these +last days, and for the hope of meeting her with that other lost +friend in a better world. + +Helen mingled a few broken thanks and petitions with her tears: +thanks that she had been permitted to share the last days and hours +of this poor sister in sorrow; petitions that the grief of +bereavement might be lightened to the lonely parent and the faithful +old servant. + +Old Sophy said almost nothing, but sat day and night by her dead +darling. But sometimes her anguish would find an outlet in strange +sounds, something between a cry and a musical note,--such as noise +had ever heard her utter before. These were old remembrances surging +up from her childish days, coming through her mother from the +cannibal chief, her grandfather,--death-wails, such as they sing in +the mountains of Western Africa, when they see the fires on distant +hill-sides and know that their own wives and children are undergoing +the fate of captives. + +The time came when Elsie was to be laid by her mother in the small +square marked by the white stone. + +It was not unwillingly that the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather had +relinquished the duty of conducting the service to the Reverend +Doctor Honeywood, in accordance with Elsie's request. He could not, +by any reasoning, reconcile his present way of thinking with a hope +for the future of his unfortunate parishioner. Any good old Roman +Catholic priest, born and bred to his faith and his business, would +have found a loophole into some kind of heaven for her, by virtue of +his doctrine of "invincible ignorance," or other special proviso; but +a recent convert cannot enter into the working conditions of his new +creed. Beliefs must be lived in for a good while, before they +accommodate themselves to the soul's wants, and wear loose enough to +be comfortable. + +The Reverend Doctor had no such scruples. Like thousands of those +who are classed nominally with the despairing believers, he had never +prayed over a departed brother or sister without feeling and +expressing a guarded hope that there was mercy in store for the poor +sinner, whom parents, wives, children, brothers and sisters could not +bear to give up to utter ruin without a word,--and would not, as he +knew full well, in virtue of that human love and sympathy which +nothing can ever extinguish. And in this poor Elsie's history he +could read nothing which the tears of the recording angel might not +wash away. As the good physician of the place knew the diseases that +assailed the bodies of men and women, so he had learned the mysteries +of the sickness of the soul. + +So many wished to look upon Elsie's face once more, that her father +would not deny them; nay, he was pleased that those who remembered +her living should see her in the still beauty of death. Helen and +those with her arrayed her for this farewell-view. All was ready for +the sad or curious eyes which were to look upon her. There 'was no +painful change to be concealed by any artifice. Even her round neck +was left uncovered, that she might be more like one who slept. Only +the golden cord was left in its place: some searching eye might +detect a trace of that birthmark which it was whispered she had +always worn a necklace to conceal. + +At the last moment, when all the preparations were completed, Old +Sophy stooped over her, and, with trembling hand, loosed the golden +cord. She looked intently; for some little space: there was no shade +nor blemish where the ring of gold had encircled her throat. She +took it gently away and laid it in the casket which held her +ornaments. + +"The Lord be praised!" the old woman cried, aloud. "He has taken +away the mark that was on her; she's fit to meet his holy angels +now!" + +So Elsie lay for hours in the great room, in a kind of state, with +flowers all about her,--her black hair braided as in life,--her brows +smooth, as if they had never known the scowl of passion,--and on her +lips the faint smile with which she had uttered her last "Good-- +night." The young girls from the school looked at her, one after +another, and passed on, sobbing, carrying in their hearts the picture +that would be with them all their days. The great people of the +place were all there with their silent sympathy. The lesser kind of +gentry, and many of the plainer folk of the village, half-pleased to +find themselves passing beneath the stately portico of the ancient +mansion-house, crowded in, until the ample rooms were overflowing. +All the friends whose acquaintance we have made were there, and many +from remoter villages and towns. + +There was a deep silence at last. The hour had come for the parting +words to be spoken over the dead. The good old minister's voice rose +out of the stillness, subdued and tremulous at first, but growing +firmer and clearer as he went on, until it reached the ears of the +visitors who were in the far, desolate chambers, looking at the +pictured hangings and the old dusty portraits. He did not tell her +story in his prayer. He only spoke of our dear departed sister as +one of many whom Providence in its wisdom has seen fit to bring under +bondage from their cradles. It was not for us to judge them by any +standard of our own. He who made the heart alone knew the +infirmities it inherited or acquired. For all that our dear sister +had presented that was interesting and attractive in her character we +were to be grateful; for whatever was dark or inexplicable we must +trust that the deep shadow which rested on the twilight dawn of her +being might render a reason before the bar of Omniscience; for the +grace which had lightened her last days we should pour out our hearts +in thankful acknowledgment. From the life and the death of this our +dear sister we should learn a lesson of patience with our fellow- +creatures in their inborn peculiarities, of charity in judging what +seem to us wilful faults of character, of hope and trust, that, by +sickness or affliction, or such inevitable discipline as life must +always bring with it, if by no gentler means, the soul which had been +left by Nature to wander into the path of error and of suffering +might be reclaimed and restored to its true aim, and so led on by +divine grace to its eternal welfare. He closed his prayer by +commending each member of the afflicted family to the divine +blessing. + +Then all at once rose the clear sound of the girls' voices, in the +sweet, sad melody of a funeral hymn,--one of those which Elsie had +marked, as if prophetically, among her own favorites. + +And so they laid her in the earth, and showered down flowers upon +her, and filled her grave, and covered it with green sods. By the +side of it was another oblong ridge, with a white stone standing at +its head. Mr. Bernard looked upon it, as he came close to the place +where Elsie was laid, and read the inscription, + + CATALINA + + WIFE TO DUDLEY VENNER + + DIED + OCTOBER 13TH 1840 + + AGED XX YEARS + +A gentle rain fell on the turf after it was laid. This was the +beginning of a long and dreary autumnal storm, a deferred +"equinoctial," as many considered it. The mountain streams were all +swollen and turbulent, and the steep declivities were furrowed in +every direction by new channels. It made the house seem doubly +desolate to hear the wind howling and the rain beating upon the +roofs. The poor relation who was staying at the house would insist +on Helen's remaining a few days: Old Sophy was in such a condition, +that it kept her in continual anxiety, and there were many cares +which Helen could take off from her. + +The old black woman's life was buried in her darling's grave. She +did nothing but moan and lament for her. At night she was restless, +and would get up and wander to Elsie's apartment and look for her and +call her by name. At other times she would lie awake and listen to +the wind and the rain,--sometimes with such a wild look upon her +face, and with such sudden starts and exclamations, that it seemed as +if she heard spirit-voices and were answering the whispers of unseen +visitants. With all this were mingled hints of her old +superstition,--forebodings of something fearful about to happen,-- +perhaps the great final catastrophe of all things, according to the +prediction current in the kitchens of Rockland. + +"Hark!" Old Sophy would say,--"don' you hear th' crackin' 'n' th' +snappin' up in Th' Mountain, 'n' th' rollin' o' th' big stones? The' +'s somethin' stirrin' among th' rocks; I hear th' soun' of it in th' +night, when th' wind has stopped blowin'. Oh, stay by me a little +while, Miss Darlin'! stay by me! for it's th' Las' Day, maybe, +that's close on us, 'n' I feel as if I could n' meet th' Lord all +alone!" + +It was curious,--but Helen did certainly recognize sounds, during the +lull of the storm, which were not of falling rain or running +streams,--short snapping sounds, as of tense cords breaking,--long +uneven sounds, as of masses rolling down steep declivities. But the +morning came as usual; and as the others said nothing of these +singular noises, Helen did not think it necessary to speak of them. +All day long she and the humble relative of Elsie's mother, who had +appeared as poor relations are wont to in the great prises of life, +were busy in arranging the disordered house, and looking over the +various objects which Elsie's singular tastes had brought together, +to dispose of them as her father might direct. They all met together +at the usual hour for tea. One of the servants came in, looking very +blank, and said to the poor relation, + +"The well is gone dry; we have nothing but rainwater." + +Dudley Venner's countenance changed; he sprang to, his feet and went +to--assure himself of the fact, and, if he could, of the reason of +it. For a well to dry up during such a rain-storm was +extraordinary,--it was ominous. + +He came back, looking very anxious. + +"Did any of you notice any remarkable sounds last night," he said,-- +"or this morning? Hark! do you hear anything now?" + +They listened in perfect silence for a few moments. Then there came +a short cracking sound, and two or three snaps, as of parting cords. + +Dudley Venner called all his household together. + +"We are in danger here, as I think, to-night," he said,--"not very +great danger, perhaps, but it is a risk I do not wish you to run. +These heavy rains have loosed some of the rocks above, and they may +come down and endanger the house. Harness the horses, Elbridge, and +take all the family away. Miss Darley will go to the Institute; the +others will pass the night at the Mountain House. I shall stay here, +myself: it is not at all likely that anything will come of these +warnings; but if there should, I choose to be there and take my +chance." + +It needs little, generally, to frighten servants, and they were all +ready enough to go. The poor relation was one of the timid sort, and +was terribly uneasy to be got out of the house. This left no +alternative, of course, for Helen, but to go also. They all urged +upon Dudley Veneer to go with them: if there was danger, why should +he remain to risk it, when he sent away the others? + +Old Sophy said nothing until the time came for her to go with the +second of Elbridge's carriage-loads. + +"Come, Sophy," said Dudley Veneer, "get your things and go. They +will take good care of you at the Mountain House; and when we have +made sure that there is no real danger, you shall come back at once." + +"No, Masse!" Sophy answered. "I've seen Elsie into th' ground, 'n' +I a'n't goin' away to come back 'n' fin' Masse Veneer buried under +th' rocks. My darlin' 's gone; 'n' now, if Masse goes, 'n' th' of +place goes, it's time for Ol' Sophy to go, too. No, Masse Veneer, +we'll both stay in th' of mansion 'n' wait for th' Lord!" + +Nothing could change the old woman's determination; and her master, +who only feared, but did not really expect the long-deferred +catastrophe, was obliged to consent to her staying. The sudden +drying of the well at such a time was the most alarming sign; for he +remembered that the same thing had been observed just before great +mountain-slides. This long rain, too, was just the kind of cause +which was likely to loosen the strata of rock piled up in the ledges; +if the dreaded event should ever come to pass, it would be at such a +time. + +He paced his chamber uneasily until long past midnight. If the +morning came without accident, he meant to have a careful examination +made of all the rents and fissures above, of their direction and +extent, and especially whether, in case of a mountain-slide, the huge +masses would be like to reach so far to the east and so low down the +declivity as the mansion. + +At two o'clock in the morning he was dozing in his chair. Old Sophy +had lain down on her bed, and was muttering in troubled dreams. + +All at once a loud crash seemed to rend the very heavens above them: +a crack as of the thunder that follows close upon the bolt,--a +rending and crashing as of a forest snapped through all its stems, +torn, twisted, splintered, dragged with all its ragged boughs into +one chaotic ruin. The ground trembled under them as in an +earthquake; the old mansion shuddered so that all its windows +chattered in their casements; the great chimney shook off its heavy +cap-stones, which came down on the roof with resounding concussions; +and the echoes of The Mountain roared and bellowed in long +reduplication, as if its whole foundations were rent, and this were +the terrible voice of its dissolution. + +Dudley Venner rose from his chair, folded his arms, and awaited his +fate. There was no knowing where to look for safety; and he +remembered too well the story of the family that was lost by rushing +out of the house, and so hurrying into the very jaws of death. + +He had stood thus but for a moment, when he heard the voice of Old +Sophy in a wild cry of terror: + +"It's th' Las' Day! It's th' Las' Day! The Lord is comin' to take +us all!" + +"Sophy!" he called; but she did not hear him or heed him, and rushed +out of the house. + +The worst danger was over. If they were to be destroyed, it would +necessarily be in a few seconds from the first thrill of the terrible +convulsion. He waited in awful suspense, but calm. Not more than +one or two minutes could have passed before the frightful tumult and +all its sounding echoes had ceased. He called Old Sophy; but she did +not answer. He went to the western window and looked forth into the +darkness. He could not distinguish the outlines of the landscape, +but the white stone was clearly visible, and by its side the new-made +mound. Nay, what was that which obscured its outline, in shape like +a human figure? He flung open the window and sprang through. It was +all that there was left of poor Old Sophy, stretched out lifeless, +upon her darling's grave. + +He had scarcely composed her limbs and drawn the sheet over her, when +the neighbors began to arrive from all directions. Each was +expecting to hear of houses overwhelmed and families destroyed; but +each came with the story that his own household was safe. It was not +until the morning dawned that the true nature and extent of the +sudden movement was ascertained. A great seam had opened above the +long cliff, and the terrible Rattlesnake Ledge, with all its +envenomed reptiles, its dark fissures and black caverns, was buried +forever beneath a mighty incumbent mass of ruin. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +MR. SILAS PECKHAM RENDERS HIS ACCOUNT. + +The morning rose clear and bright. The long storm was over, and the +calm autumnal sunshine was now to return, with all its infinite +repose and sweetness. With the earliest dawn exploring parties were +out in every direction along the southern slope of The Mountain, +tracing the ravages of the great slide and the track it had followed. +It proved to be not so much a slide as the breaking off and falling +of a vast line of cliff, including the dreaded Ledge. It had folded +over like the leaves of a half-opened book when they close, crushing +the trees below, piling its ruins in a glacis at the foot of what had +been the overhanging wall of the cliff, and filling up that deep +cavity above the mansion-house which bore the ill-omened name of Dead +Man's Hollow. This it was which had saved the Dudley mansion. The +falling masses, or huge fragments breaking off from them, would have +swept the house and all around it to destruction but for this deep +shelving dell, into which the stream of ruin was happily directed. +It was, indeed, one of Nature's conservative revolutions; for the +fallen masses made a kind oz shelf, which interposed a level break +between the inclined planes above and below it, so that the +nightmare-fancies of the dwellers in the Dudley mansion, and in many +other residences under the shadow of The Mountain, need not keep them +lying awake hereafter to listen for the snapping of roots and the +splitting of the rocks above them. + +Twenty-four hours after the falling of the cliff, it seemed as if it +had happened ages ago. The new fact had fitted itself in with all +the old predictions, forebodings, fears, and acquired the solidarity +belonging to all events which have slipped out of the fingers of Time +and dissolved in the antecedent eternity. + +Old Sophy was lying dead in the Dudley mansion. If there were tears +shed for her, they could not be bitter ones; for she had lived out +her full measure of days, and gone--who could help fondly believing +it?--to rejoin her beloved mistress. They made a place for her at +the foot of the two mounds. It was thus she would have chosen to +sleep, and not to have wronged her humble devotion in life by asking +to lie at the side of those whom she had served so long and +faithfully. There were very few present at the simple ceremony. +Helen Darley was one of these few. The old black woman had been her +companion in all the kind offices of which she had been the +ministering angel to Elsie. + +After it was all over, Helen was leaving with the rest, when Dudley +Veneer begged her to stay a little, and he would send her back: it +was a long walk; besides, he wished to say some things to her, which +he had not had the opportunity of speaking. Of course Helen could +not refuse him; there must be many thoughts coming into his mind +which he would wish to share with her who had known his daughter so +long and been with filer in her last days. + +She returned into the great parlor with the wrought cornices and the +medallion-portraits on the ceiling. + +"I am now alone in the world," Dudley Veneer said. + +Helen must have known that before he spoke. But the tone in which he +said it had so much meaning, that she could not find a word to answer +him with. They sat in silence, which the old tall clock counted out +in long seconds; but it was silence which meant more than any words +they had ever spoken. + +"Alone in the world. Helen, the freshness of my life is gone, and +there is little left of the few graces which in my younger days might +have fitted me to win the love of women. Listen to me,--kindly, if +you can; forgive me, at least. Half my life has been passed in +constant fear and anguish, without any near friend to share my +trials. My task is done now; my fears have ceased to prey upon me; +the sharpness of early sorrows has yielded something of its edge to +time. You have bound me to you by gratitude in the tender care you +have taken of my poor child. More than this. I must tell you all +now, out of the depth of this trouble through which I am passing. I +have loved you from the moment we first met; and if my life has +anything left worth accepting, it is yours. Will you take the +offered gift?" + +Helen looked in his face, surprised, bewildered. + +"This is not for me,--not for me," she said. "I am but a poor faded +flower, not worth the gathering, of such a one as you. No, no,--I +have been bred to humble toil all my days, and I could not be to you +what you ought to ask. I am accustomed to a kind of loneliness and +self-dependence. I have seen nothing, almost, of the world, such as +you were born to move in. Leave me to my obscure place and duties; I +shall at least have peace;--and you--you will surely find in due time +some one better fitted by Nature and training to make you happy." + +"No, Miss Darley! "Dudley Venner said, almost sternly. "You must +not speak to a man, who has lived through my experiences, of looking +about for a new choice after his heart has once chosen. Say that you +can never love me; say that I have lived too long to share your young +life; say that sorrow has left nothing in me for Love to find his +pleasure in; but do not mock me with the hope of a new affection for +some unknown object. The first look of yours brought me to your +side. The first tone of your voice sunk into my heart. From this +moment my life must wither out or bloom anew. My home is desolate. +Come under my roof and make it bright once more,--share my life with +me,--or I shall give the halls of the old mansion to the bats and the +owls, and wander forth alone without a hope or a friend!" + +To find herself with a man's future at the disposal of a single word +of hers!---a man like this, too, with a fascination for her against +which she had tried to shut her heart, feeling that he lived in +another sphere than hers, working as she was for her bread a poor +operative in the factory of a hard master and jealous overseer, the +salaried drudge of Mr. Silas Peckham! Why, she had thought he was +grateful to her as a friend of his daughter; she had even pleased +herself with the feeling that he liked her, in her humble place, as a +woman of some cultivation and many sympathetic points of relation +with himself; but that he loved her,--that this deep, fine nature, in +a man so far removed from her in outward circumstance, should have +found its counterpart in one whom life had treated so coldly as +herself,--that Dudley Venner should stake his happiness on a breath +of hers,--poor Helen Darley's,---it was all a surprise, a confusion, +a kind of fear not wholly fearful. Ah, me! women know what it is, +that mist over the eyes, that trembling in the limbs, that faltering +of the voice, that sweet, shame-faced, unspoken confession of +weakness which does not wish to be strong, that sudden overflow in +the soul where thoughts loose their hold on each other and swim +single and helpless in the flood of emotion,--women know what it is! + +No doubt she was a little frightened and a good deal bewildered, and +that her sympathies were warmly excited for a friend to whom she had +been brought so near, and whose loneliness she saw and pitied. She +lost that calm self-possession she had hoped to maintain. + +"If I thought that I could make you happy,--if I should speak from my +heart, and not my reason,--I am but a weak woman,--yet if I can be to +you--What can I say?" + +What more could this poor, dear Helen say? + + +"Elbridge, harness the horses and take Miss Darley back to the +school." + +What conversation had taken place since Helen's rhetorical failure is +not recorded in the minutes from which this narrative is constructed. +But when the man who had been summoned had gone to get the carriage +ready, Helen resumed something she had been speaking of. + +"Not for the world. Everything must go on just as it has gone on, +for the present. There are proprieties to be consulted. I cannot be +hard with you, that out of your very affliction has sprung this--this +well--you must name it for me,--but the world will never listen to +explanations. I am to be Helen Darley, lady assistant in Mr. Silas +Peckham's school, as long as I see fit to hold my office. And I mean +to attend to my scholars just as before; so that I shall have very +little time for visiting or seeing company. I believe, though, you +are one of the Trustees and a Member of the Examining Committee; so +that, if you should happen to visit the school, I shall try to be +civil to you." + +Every lady sees, of course, that Helen was quite right; but perhaps +here and there one will think that Dudley Venner was all wrong,--that +he was too hasty,--that he should have been too full of his recent +grief for such a confession as he has just made, and the passion from +which it sprung. Perhaps they do not understand the sudden recoil of +a strong nature long compressed. Perhaps they have not studied the +mystery of allotropism in the emotions of the human heart. Go to the +nearest chemist and ask him to show you some of the dark-red +phosphorus which will not burn without fierce heating, but at +500 deg. Fahrenheit, changes back again to the inflammable substance +we know so well. Grief seems more like ashes than like fire; but as +grief has been love once, so it may become love again. This is +emotional allotropism. + +Helen rode back to the Institute and inquired for Mr. Peckham. She +had not seen him during the brief interval between her departure from +the mansion-house and her return to Old Sophy's funeral. There were +various questions about the school she wished to ask. + +"Oh, how's your haalth, Miss Darley?" Silas began. "We've missed you +consid'able. Glad to see you back at the post of dooty. Hope the +Squire treated you hahnsomely,--liberal pecooniary compensation, +--hey? A'n't much of a loser, I guess, by acceptin' his +propositions?" + +Helen blushed at this last question, as if Silas had meant something +by it beyond asking what money she had received; but his own +double-meaning expression and her blush were too nice points for him +to have taken cognizance of. He was engaged in a mental calculation +as to the amount of the deduction he should make under the head of +"demage to the institootion,"--this depending somewhat on that of the +"pecooniary compensation" she might have received for her services as +the friend of Elsie Venner. + +So Helen slid back at once into her routine, the same faithful, +patient creature she had always been. But what was this new light +which seemed to have kindled in her eyes? What was this look of +peace, which nothing could disturb, which smiled serenely through all +the little meannesses with which the daily life of the educational +factory surrounded her, which not only made her seem resigned, but +overflowed all her features with a thoughtful, subdued happiness? Mr. +Bernard did not know,--perhaps he did not guess. The inmates of the +Dudley mansion were not scandalized by any mysterious visits of a +veiled or unveiled lady. The vibrating tongues of the "female youth" +of the Institute were not set in motion by the standing of an +equipage at the gate, waiting for their lady-teacher. The servants +at the mansion did not convey numerous letters with superscriptions +in a bold, manly hand, sealed with the arms of a well-known house, +and directed to Miss Helen Darley; nor, on the other hand, did Hiram, +the man from the lean streak in New Hampshire, carry sweet-smelling, +rose-hued, many-layered, criss-crossed, fine-stitch-lettered packages +of note-paper directed to Dudley Venner, Esq., and all too scanty to +hold that incredible expansion of the famous three words which a +woman was born to say,--that perpetual miracle which astonishes all +the go-betweens who wear their shoes out in carrying a woman's +infinite variations on the theme + +"I love you." + +But the reader must remember that there are walks in country-towns +where people are liable to meet by accident, and that the hollow of +an old tree has served the purpose of a post-office sometimes; so +that he has her choice (to divide the pronouns impartially) of +various hypotheses to account for the new glory of happiness which +seemed to have irradiated our poor Helen's features, as if her dreary +life were awakening in the dawn of a blessed future. + +With all the alleviations which have been hinted at, Mr. Dudley +Venner thought that the days and the weeks had never moved so slowly +as through the last period of the autumn that was passing. Elsie had +been a perpetual source of anxiety to him, but still she had been a +companion. He could not mourn for her; for he felt that she was +safer with her mother, in that world where there are no more sorrows +and dangers, than she could have been with him. But as he sat at his +window and looked at the three mounds, the loneliness of the great +house made it seem more like the sepulchre than these narrow +dwellings where his beloved and her daughter lay close to each other, +side by side,--Catalina, the bride of his youth, and Elsie, the child +whom he had nurtured, with poor Old Sophy, who had followed them like +a black shadow, at their feet, under the same soft turf, sprinkled +with the brown autumnal leaves. It was not good for him to be thus +alone. How should he ever live through the long months of November +and December? + +The months of November and December did, in some way or other, get +rid of themselves at last, bringing with them the usual events of +village-life and a few unusual ones. Some of the geologists had been +up to look at the great slide, of which they gave those prolix +accounts which everybody remembers who read the scientific journals +of the time. The engineers reported that there was little +probability of any further convulsion along the line of rocks which +overhung the more thickly settled part of the town. The naturalists +drew up a paper on the "Probable Extinction of the Crotalus Durissus +in the Township of Rockland." The engagement of the Widow Rowens to +a Little Millionville merchant was announced,--"Sudding 'n' +onexpected," Widow Leech said,--"waalthy, or she wouldn't ha' looked +at him,--fifty year old, if he is a day, 'n' hu'n't got a white hair +in his head." The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather had publicly +announced that he was going to join the Roman Catholic communion,-- +not so much to the surprise or consternation of the religious world +as he had supposed. Several old ladies forthwith proclaimed their +intention of following him; but, as one or two of them were deaf, and +another had been threatened with an attack of that mild, but +obstinate complaint, dementia senilis, many thought it was not so +much the force of his arguments as a kind of tendency to jump as the +bellwether jumps, well known in flocks not included in the Christian +fold. His bereaved congregation immediately began pulling candidates +on and off, like new boots, on trial. Some pinched in tender places; +some were too loose; some were too square-toed; some were too coarse, +and did n't please; some were too thin, and would n't last;--in +short, they could n't possibly find a fit. At last, people began to +drop in to hear old Doctor Honeywood. They were quite surprised to +find what a human old gentleman he was, and went back and told the +others, that, instead of being a case of confluent sectarianism, as +they supposed, the good old minister had been so well vaccinated with +charitable virus that he was now a true, open-souled Christian of the +mildest type. The end of all which was, that the liberal people went +over to the old minister almost in a body, just at the time that +Deacon Shearer and the "Vinegar-Bible" party split off, and that not +long afterwards they sold their own meeting-house to the +malecontents, so that Deacon Soper used often to remind Colonel +Sprowle of his wish that "our little man and him [the Reverend Doctor] +would swop pulpits," and tell him it had "pooty nigh come trew."--- +But this is anticipating the course of events, which were much longer +in coming about; for we have but just got through that terrible long +month, as Mr. Dudley Venner found it, of December. + +On the first of January, Mr. Silas Peckham was in the habit of +settling his quarterly accounts, and making such new arrangements as +his convenience or interest dictated. New Year was a holiday at the +Institute. No doubt this accounted for Helen's being dressed so +charmingly,--always, to be sure in, her own simple way, but yet with +such a true lady's air, that she looked fit to be the mistress of any +mansion in the land. + +She was in the parlor alone, a little before noon, when Mr. Peckham +came in. + +"I'm ready to settle my accaount with you now, Miss Darley," said +Silas. + +"As you please, Mr. Peckham," Helen answered, very graciously. + +"Before payin' you your selary," the Principal continued, "I wish to +come to an understandin' as to the futur'. I consider that I've been +payin' high, very high, for the work you do. Women's wages can't be +expected to do more than feed and clothe 'em, as a gineral thing, +with a little savin', in case of sickness, and to bury 'em, if they +break daown, as all of 'em are liable to do at any time. If I a'n't +misinformed, you not only support yourself out of my establishment, +but likewise relatives of yours, who I don't know that I'm called +upon to feed and clothe. There is a young woman, not burdened with +destitute relatives, has signified that she would be glad to take +your dooties for less pecooniary compensation, by a consid'able +amaount, than you now receive. I shall be willin', however, to +retain your services at sech redooced rate as we shall fix upon,-- +provided sech redooced rate be as low or lower than the same services +can be obtained elsewhere." + +"As you please, Mr. Peckham," Helen answered, with a smile so sweet +that the Principal (who of course had trumped up this opposition- +teacher for the occasion) said to himself she would stand being cut +down a quarter, perhaps a half, of her salary. + +"Here is your accaount, Miss Darley, and the balance doo you," said +Silas Peckham, handing her a paper and a small roll of infectious- +flavored bills wrapping six poisonous coppers of the old coinage. + +She took the paper and began looking at it. She could not quite make +up her mind to touch the feverish bills with the cankering coppers in +them, and left them airing themselves on the table. + +The document she held ran as follows: + +Silas Peckham, Esq., Principal of the Apollinean Institute, +In Account with Helen Darley, Assist. Teacher. + + Dr. Cr. + +To salary for quarter By Deduction for absence +ending Jan 1st @ $75 per 1 week 3 days ...........$10.00 +quarter ................ $75.00 + "Board, lodging, etc for + 10 days @ 75 cts per day.. 7.50 + + "Damage to Institution by + absence of teacher from + duties, say ............. 25.00 + + "Stationary furnished ..... .43 + + "Postage-stamp ............ .01 + + "Balance due Helen Darley. 32.06 + ------ -------- + $75.00 $75.00 + +ROCKLAND, Jan. 1st, 1859. + + +Now Helen had her own private reasons for wishing to receive the +small sum which was due her at this time without any unfair +deduction,--reasons which we need not inquire into too particularly, +as we may be very sure that they were right and womanly. So, when +she looked over this account of Mr. Silas Peckham's, and saw that he +had contrived to pare down her salary to something less than half its +stipulated amount, the look which her countenance wore was as near to +that of righteous indignation as her gentle features and soft blue +eyes would admit of its being. + +"Why, Mr. Peckham," she said, "do you mean this? If I am of so much +value to you that you must take off twenty-five dollars for ten days' +absence, how is it that my salary is to be cut down to less than +seventy-five dollars a quarter, if I remain here?" + +"I gave you fair notice," said Silas. "I have a minute of it I took +down immed'ately after the intervoo." + +He lugged out his large pocket-book with the strap going all round +it, and took from it a slip of paper which confirmed his statement. + +"Besides," he added, slyly, "I presoom you have received a liberal +pecooniary compensation from Squire Venner for nussin' his daughter." + +Helen was looking over the bill while he was speaking. + +"Board and lodging for ten days, Mr. Peckham,--whose board and +lodging, pray?" + +The door opened before Silas Peckham could answer, and Mr. Bernard +walked into the parlor. Helen was holding the bill in her hand, +looking as any woman ought to look who has been at once wronged and +insulted. + +"The last turn of the thumbscrew!" said Mr. Bernard to himself. + +"What is it, Helen? You look troubled." + +She handed him the account. + +He looked at the footing of it. Then he looked at the items. Then +he looked at Silas Peckham. + +At this moment Silas was sublime. He was so transcendently +unconscious of the emotions going on in Mr. Bernard's mind at the +moment, that he had only a single thought. + +"The accaount's correc'ly cast, I presoom;--if the' 's any mistake of +figgers or addin' 'em up, it'll be made all right. Everything's +accordin' to agreement. The minute written immed'ately after the +intervoo is here in my possession." + +Mr. Bernard looked at Helen. Just what would have happened to Silas +Peckham, as he stood then and there, but for the interposition of a +merciful Providence, nobody knows or ever will know; for at that +moment steps were heard upon the stairs, and Hiram threw open the +parlor-door for Mr. Dudley Venner to enter. + +He saluted them all gracefully with the good-wishes of the season, +and each of them returned his compliment,--Helen blushing fearfully, +of course, but not particularly noticed in her embarrassment by more +than one. + +Silas Peckham reckoned with perfect confidence on his Trustees, who +had always said what he told them to, and done what he wanted. It +was a good chance now to show off his power, and, by letting his +instructors know the unstable tenure of their offices, make it easier +to settle his accounts and arrange his salaries. There was nothing +very strange in Mr. Venner's calling; he was one of the Trustees, and +this was New Year's Day. But he had called just at the lucky moment +for Mr. Peckham's object. + +"I have thought some of makin' changes in the department of +instruction," he began. "Several accomplished teachers have applied +to me, who would be glad of sitooations. I understand that there +never have been so many fust-rate teachers, male and female, out of +employment as doorin' the present season. If I can make +sahtisfahctory arrangements with my present corpse of teachers, I +shall be glad to do so; otherwise I shell, with the permission of the +Trustees, make sech noo arrangements as circumstahnces compel." + +"You may make arrangements for a new assistant in my department, Mr. +Peckham," said Mr. Bernard, "at once,--this day,--this hour. I am +not safe to be trusted with your person five minutes out of this +lady's presence,--of whom I beg pardon for this strong language. Mr. +Venner, I must beg you, as one of the Trustees of this Institution, +to look at the manner in which its Principal has attempted to swindle +this faithful teacher whose toils and sacrifices and self-devotion to +the school have made it all that it is, in spite of this miserable +trader's incompetence. Will you look at the paper I hold?" + +Dudley Venner took the account and read it through, without changing +a feature. Then he turned to Silas Peckham. + +"You may make arrangements for anew assistant in the branches this +lady has taught. Miss Helen Darley is to be my wife. I had hoped to +have announced this news in a less abrupt and ungraceful manner. But +I came to tell you with my own lips what you would have learned +before evening from my friends in the village." + +Mr. Bernard went to Helen, who stood silent, with downcast eyes, and +took her hand warmly, hoping she might find all the happiness she +deserved. Then he turned to Dudley Venner, and said, +"She is a queen, but has never found it out. The world has nothing +nobler than this dear woman, whom you have discovered in the disguise +of a teacher. God bless her and you!" + +Dudley Venner returned his friendly grasp, without answering a word +in articulate speech. + +Silas remained dumb and aghast for a brief space. Coming to himself +a little, he thought there might have been some mistake about the +items,--would like to have Miss barley's bill returned,--would make +it all right,--had no idee that Squire Venner had a special int'rest +in Miss barley,--was sorry he had given offence,--if he might take +that bill and look it over-- + +"No. Mr. Peckham," said Mr. Dudley Venner, "there will be a full +meeting of the Board next week, and the bill, and such evidence with +reference to the management of the Institution and the treatment of +its instructors as Mr. Langdon sees fit to bring forward will be laid +before them." + +Miss Helen Darley became that very day the guest of Miss Arabella +Thornton, the Judge's daughter. Mr. Bernard made his appearance a +week or two later at the Lectures, where the Professor first +introduced him to the reader. + +He stayed after the class had left the room. + +"Ah, Mr. Langdon! how do you do? Very glad to see you back again. +How have you been since our correspondence on Fascination and other +curious scientific questions?" + +It was the Professor who spoke,--whom the reader will recognize as +myself, the teller of this story. + +"I have been well," Mr. Bernard answered, with a serious look which +invited a further question. + +"I hope you have had none of those painful or dangerous experiences +you seemed to be thinking of when you wrote; at any rate, you have +escaped having your obituary written." + +"I have seen some things worth remembering. Shall I call on you this +evening and tell you about them?" + +"I shall be most happy to see you." + +This was the way in which I, the Professor, became acquainted with +some of the leading events of this story. They interested me +sufficiently to lead me to avail myself of all those other +extraordinary methods of obtaining information well known to writers +of narrative. + +Mr. Langdon seemed to me to have gained in seriousness and strength +of character by his late experiences. He threw his whole energies +into his studies with an effect which distanced all his previous +efforts. Remembering my former hint, he employed his spare hours in +writing for the annual prizes, both of which he took by a unanimous +vote of the judges. Those who heard him read his Thesis at the +Medical Commencement will not soon forget the impression made by his +fine personal appearance and manners, nor the universal interest +excited in the audience, as he read, with his beautiful enunciation, +that striking paper entitled "Unresolved Nebulae in Vital Science." +It was a general remark of the Faculty,--and old Doctor Kittredge, +who had come down on purpose to hear Mr. Langdon, heartily agreed to +it,--that there had never been a diploma filled up, since the +institution which conferred upon him the degree of Doctor Medicdnce +was founded, which carried with it more of promise to the profession +than that which bore the name of + + BERNARDUS CARYL LANGDON + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +CONCLUSION. + +Mr. Bernard Langdon had no sooner taken his degree, than, in +accordance with the advice of one of his teachers whom he frequently +consulted, he took an office in the heart of the city where he had +studied. He had thought of beginning in a suburb or some remoter +district of the city proper. + +"No," said his teacher,--to wit, myself,--"don't do any such thing. +You are made for the best kind of practice; don't hamper yourself +with an outside constituency, such as belongs to a practitioner of +the second class. When a fellow like you chooses his beat, he must +look ahead a little. Take care of all the poor that apply to you, +but leave the half-pay classes to a different style of doctor,--the +people who spend one half their time in taking care of their +patients, and the other half in squeezing out their money. Go for +the swell-fronts and south-exposure houses; the folks inside are just +as good as other people, and the pleasantest, on the whole, to take +care of. They must have somebody, and they like a gentleman best. +Don't throw yourself away. You have a good presence and pleasing +manners. You wear white linen by inherited instinct. You can +pronounce the word view. You have all the elements of success; go +and take it. Be polite and generous, but don't undervalue yourself. +You will be useful, at any rate; you may just as well be happy, while +you are about it. The highest social class furnishes incomparably +the best patients, taking them by and large. Besides, when they +won't get well and bore you to death, you can send 'em off to travel. +Mind me now, and take the tops of your sparrowgrass. Somebody must +have 'em,--why shouldn't you? If you don't take your chance, you'll +get the butt-ends as a matter of course." + +Mr. Bernard talked like a young man full of noble sentiments. He +wanted to be useful to his fellow-beings. Their social differences +were nothing to him. He would never court the rich,--he would go +where he was called. He would rather save the life of a poor mother +of a family than that of half a dozen old gouty millionnaires whose +heirs had been yawning and stretching these ten years to get rid of +them. + +"Generous emotions! "I exclaimed. "Cherish 'em; cling to 'em till +you are fifty, till you are seventy, till you are ninety! But do as +I tell you,--strike for the best circle of practice, and you 'll be +sure to get it!" + +Mr. Langdon did as I told him,--took a genteel office, furnished it +neatly, dressed with a certain elegance, soon made a pleasant circle +of acquaintances, and began to work his way into the right kind of +business. I missed him, however, for some days, not long after he +had opened his office. On his return, he told me he had been up at +Rockland, by special invitation, to attend the wedding of Mr. Dudley +Venner and Miss Helen Darley. He gave me a full account of the +ceremony, which I regret that I cannot relate in full. "Helen looked +like an angel,"--that, I am sure, was one of his expressions. As for +her dress, I should like to give the details, but am afraid of +committing blunders, as men always do, when they undertake to +describe such matters. White dress, anyhow,--that I am sure of,-- +with orange-flowers, and the most wonderful lace veil that was ever +seen or heard of. The Reverend Doctor Honeywood performed the +ceremony, of course. The good people seemed to have forgotten they +ever had had any other minister, except Deacon Shearer and his set of +malcontents, who were doing a dull business in the meeting-house +lately occupied by the Reverend Mr. Fairweather. + +"Who was at the wedding?" + +"Everybody, pretty much. They wanted to keep it quiet, but it was of +no use. Married at church. Front pews, old Dr. Kittredge and all +the mansionhouse people and distinguished strangers,--Colonel Sprowle +and family, including Matilda's young gentleman, a graduate of one of +the fresh-water colleges,--Mrs. Pickins (late Widow Rowens) and +husband,--Deacon Soper and numerous parishioners. A little nearer +the door, Abel, the Doctor's man, and Elbridge, who drove them to +church in the family-coach. Father Fairweather, as they all call him +now, came in late with Father McShane." + +"And Silas Peckham?" + +"Oh, Silas had left The School and Rockland. Cut up altogether too +badly in the examination instituted by the Trustees. Had removed +over to Tamarack, and thought of renting a large house and 'farming' +the town-poor." + + +Some time after this, as I was walking with a young friend along by +the swell-fronts and south-exposures, whom should I see but Mr. +Bernard Langdon, looking remarkably happy, and keeping step by the +side of a very handsome and singularly well-dressed young lady? He +bowed and lifted his hat as we passed. + +"Who is that pretty girl my young doctor has got there?" I said to my +companion. + +"Who is that?" he answered. "You don't know? Why, that is neither +more nor less than Miss Letitia Forrester, daughter of--of--why, the +great banking firm, you know, Bilyuns Brothers & Forrester. Got +acquainted with her in the country, they say. There 's a story that +they're engaged, or like to be, if the firm consents." + +"Oh" I said. + +I did not like the look of it in the least. Too young,--too young. +Has not taken any position yet. No right to ask for the hand of +Bilyuns Brothers & Co.'s daughter. Besides, it will spoil him for +practice, if he marries a rich girl before he has formed habits of +work. + +I looked in at his office the other day. A box of white kids was +lying open on the table. A three-cornered note, directed in a very +delicate lady's-hand, was distinguishable among a heap of papers. I +was just going to call him to account for his proceedings, when he +pushed the three-cornered note aside and took up a letter with a +great corporation-seal upon it. He had received the offer of a +professor's chair in an ancient and distinguished institution. + +"Pretty well for three-and-twenty, my boy," I said. "I suppose +you'll think you must be married one of these days, if you accept +this office." + +Mr. Langdon blushed.--There had been stories about him, he knew. +His name had been mentioned in connection with that of a very +charming young lady. The current reports were not true. He had met +this young lady, and been much pleased with her, in the country, at +the house of her grandfather, the Reverend Doctor Honeywood,--you +remember Miss Letitia Forrester, whom I have mentioned repeatedly? +On coming to town, he found his country-acquaintance in a social +position which seemed to discourage his continued intimacy. He had +discovered, however; that he was a not unwelcome visitor, and had +kept up friendly relations with her. But there was no truth in the +current reports,--none at all.' + +Some months had passed, after this visit, when I happened one evening +to stroll into a box in one of the principal theatres of the city. A +small party sat on the seats before me: a middle-aged gentleman and +his lady, in front, and directly behind them my young doctor and the +same very handsome young lady I had seen him walking with on the +sidewalk before the swell-fronts and south-exposures. As Professor +Langdon seemed to be very much taken up with his companion, and both +of them looked as if they were enjoying themselves, I determined not +to make my presence known to my young friend, and to withdraw quietly +after feasting my eyes with the sight of them for a few minutes. + +"It looks as if something might come of it," I said to myself. At +that moment the young lady lifted her arm accidentally in such a way +that the light fell upon the clasp of a chain which encircled her +wrist. My eyes filled with tears as I read upon the clasp, in sharp- +cut Italic letters, E. Y. They were tears at once of sad remembrance +and of joyous anticipation; for the ornament on which I looked was +the double pledge of a dead sorrow and a living affection. It was +the golden bracelet,--the parting-gift of Elsie Venner. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext Elsie Venner, by Oliver Wendell Holmes + diff --git a/old/elsie11.zip b/old/elsie11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6715886 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/elsie11.zip |